"And so the trolls groaned and the chains rattled and the Black Gate was pulled open, and all our company marched out. And there they stood, a small glaring brightness—blinding white—in the distance. We could hear them screaming: Death! Death! shouted the Horsemen, We ride to wrath and ruin and death! And the Men of Gondor howled like Wraiths, and their wizard shone like the hot sun."

"Were you not afraid?" Gaelen asked, wide-eyed and breathless.

"No, little one, I did not care for life or death as I do now. For me it was only winning. And I would have been put to death for failing, so I am very glad my Master is gone. I wouldn't be here with you now, if he existed still."

"And what happened then? How were you defeated?"

Rakhan grinned. "I still don't know. Their king gave a great speech and his horse danced, and he held his great sword to the sky. The brilliant host charged us, as if they had given themselves up for dead already and sought only glory. I signaled my fellow commander across the field and we circled round them, and we had our trolls with us, as big as any tree and mad too. The earth shook under our feet, and once we were around them we closed in, trapping them. They fought all the more vicious for it, but we were defeating them. And then my Master—a terror and a great magician—burst from within and lit in flames, and his great tower fell, and a mighty wind blew against us. The ground opened beneath our feet and we ran, but the Men stood on firm land, and so the King of Gondor won the day, and the war."

"But what magic did he have, to defeat your Master so?"

"I told you, I don't know. It is a great mystery, but I am glad for it."

"Don't you miss your fellow soldiers? Did they die?"

Rakhan leaned back on his hands, considering it. "Some parts of my life, some soldiers, I miss, if that means I enjoyed them. Training, learning a new skill constantly: that is something I'd like to keep doing. And there was an armorer who was decent, he'd fix you up for free sometimes, if you had no meat to bring. He was an old Orc, probably my father, and he told good stories of long ago battles. I suppose I miss him, but I wouldn't want him around you or your mother."

"I will be a warrior," Gaelen decided. "I will kill bad Men who come to hurt beautiful Women like my mother, and protect the Forest. Will you teach me, Rakhan?"

Rakhan glanced at Eolina with a half-grimace of apology.

"Boys are all the same everywhere," she declared, smiling and laying down in the thick furs. He felt a wave of relief that she wasn't upset, or cold.

"Please?" Gaelen asked.

"I will make you a wooden sword, and teach you what to do with it. But only so you can protect your mother, and the Forest. Agreed?"

Gaelen stood up and flung his arms around Rakhan, and the Uruk-hai froze. He slowly pat the boy on the back. Rakhan had learned that physical affection was harder for him than mental understanding. An Uruk-hai might laugh with another, or avenge a fallen comrade's death; maybe, he would smack another warrior's shield, or crack shields, but never embrace or even shake hands. Rakhan's only contact with others had come from battle.

"You'll have to practice hard, and I won't make it easy for you," Rakhan added, and the boy backed away and nodded obediently. He lay down and stared into the fire, dreaming of trolls and swords.

Rakhan looked at Eolina. "Do you want to sword fight too?"

"I know how, a little. My brother and I used to play. He would be fourteen this year, I think. Probably joining the Riders. He will do well."

"What is a brother?" Gaelen asked, looking up to his mother.

"A brother is another child in the family, the mother's other child. I had one brother, Beolynd, and we would play and fight and look out for each other." Eolina turned to Rakhan and said, "You would be surprised how good two children of the Mark can be with their toy swords."

"I am warned," Rakhan joked easily.

"I want a brother," Gaelen said, pulling on Eolina's long sleeve.

Rakhan held his breath, and waited for it: that dull clouding of her eyes that happened when thought about what happened to her. She worked her lips a little, and then closed her eyes entirely for a moment. And then she got ahold of herself, so quickly, and leaned over to kiss her son on the brow. "You sleep now, my love. It is late."

Eolina stood up and fetched herself a cup of water. She stood before the fire with her hand on her hip and her back to Rakhan. Rakhan waited until the boy drifted to sleep, and then he said, "He'll forget he asked."

"No, no he won't. And really, what does he have? No family, nowhere to belong in the world… And no one to spend his days with, once I am gone. I would have had a big family, you know. Maybe five children, and a husband, and then grandchildren, all around my hearth. Gaelen has the deer and the birds."

Rakhan remained silent; he didn't trust his voice. He didn't trust his breath.

She turned around, eyes shining with tears. And then she smiled. "But we are happy enough here. I am wrong to complain, when it could have been so much worse for me and Gaelen. And… He is happy with you here, Rakhan. I have to say, you have been good to him. I am grateful."

Rakhan shook his head; she had nothing to be grateful for! "He's a smart, strong boy. I'm glad to know him, and I'll teach him anything you'll let me. He will be the Lord of Fangorn in truth one day."

Eolina smiled, but the sorrow was heavy in her eyes. Rakhan took a deep breath and then asked, "You want many children?"

Startled that he brough the unpleasant subject back, Eolina said abruptly, "That was a dream of another life. That's lost to me, and I have accepted it. I couldn't— It doesn't matter anymore."

She sat down beside him and pushed around the flaming coals of her fire. "We are both in a place we'd never thought to be. We have to make the best of things, and not feel sorry for ourselves."

"I don't," Rakhan said quietly. He stared at the fire, willing the courage that had once seemed as plentiful as air to him. "I think it is a good life here, away from the world. I think it is beautiful. And I think—I think that if you want another child... We have all we need here, we are happy, and there is room in this life for another boy, a boy like Gaelen."

Rakhan held his breath as Eolina sat perfectly still, almost frozen. Then she pressed her hands over her mouth and ran out of the cave. Rakhan knew she hadn't gone far, she was too fearful for that at night. In fact, he could hear her breathing just outside. Rakhan wondered how long it would be before she told him to go—what had he been thinking? He looked over Gaelen's sleeping form and shut his eyes tight, wondering why he had destroyed his only chance at happiness.

A moment later she appeared in the mouth of the cave, her arms clutched over her chest. He looked up at her warily, and she met his gaze steadily, and then nodded her head. "I think you're right. I think we should. I think—for some reason known only to Eru—that you came to me here for a reason. You are my only chance to live again."

A night earlier in a poor village nearest the forest, one just spared burning by Helmsgaard's vigilance, Lathga the One-Eyed had decided he had had enough of his wife's nagging mouth. She did nothing but eat and scold, and now it was put around the village that Lathga's slow-witted son might not be his at all, but the son of that fat-lipped butcher down the row. Whatever consolation that might have brought was wiped out by the insult to his manhood, and so when he returned from the tavern that night, with the mid-summer festivals still raging loud and merry, he methodically beat his wife to death.

But murder was a hanging offense in the Mark, wife or not. And his wife had lots of kin, big strapping men who had gone off to war and returned swaggering and boasting of glorious deeds. So Lathga spent the following day gloating over his wife's bloated corpse, and then, once dark fell, he wrapped her body in a blanket, loaded it into his cart, and drove to the edge of Fangorn Forest.

Eomer's patrols had begun, and no villager could fail to notice the golden-helmed Riders doing their diligence. Rumors of Uruk-hai spread like a barnfire through the outlying villages, and though the patrols turned up nothing everyone was sure that it was only a matter of time before the beasts showed themselves again.

Lathga figured they could make an appearance tonight. He rolled his wife's body out of the cart and dumped it into a ditch at the edge of the Forest, for Lathga was too scared to enter its blackness. For good measure he picked up his wife's skirts, because that's what real Uruks would do.

And then he went home and scrubbed his house by moonlight, and lay down in bed, preparing his story for the morning.