Chapter Ten
A/N Tag team writing! The first scene here, Faramir's POV, is Eleanor. The Garad stuff, and most of the hurt comfort! Is mine… of course! I need to tell you I hated writing this bit, but pulling punches doesn't make for the reality of what these men's lives would truly be like at war - Carolyn
The four Men guarding the prisoners died within a heart beat of each other. An arrow pinned their throat closed from making a sound, followed by Damrod's swift, sharp knife cutting their throats from ear to ear just to make certain sure the job was done.
He cut the end of the picket next, freeing the restraining rope that allowed the prisoners to lay down to sleep, but nothing more without alerting their guards to the movement.
The Man closest to the stake where the rope had been secured rolled onto his chest, straining to raise his bound wrists up from the small of his back, silently begging for his release.
Damrod obliged him, and the Man scrambled up on his hands and knees, crawling to the body of the nearest guard, pulling the dagger from the dead man's boot.
The prisoners stirred, those managing to sleep waking or being awoken. Damrod signaled fiercely for silence as the Man he had freed went first to a Woman down the line, cutting her wrists free. She, too, found a guard, looting his body for the blades he carried as the Man continued to release the able-bodied fighters first.
Damrod's command was obeyed better than Faramir could have hoped, mothers holding the noses of their children so they would not be able to cry, needing their mouths to breathe instead.
A wild hope sprang up inside Faramir as he realized these people were not cowed, were not broken, that they were ready and able to fight despite all they had endured. An ancient, fierce pride swept though him. These were his people, and he silently vowed he would die this night before they would.
Then the reality of the moment reasserted itself as torches fired on the hill above them, fires being stirred to a blaze, the better to see the spectacle of a captured Ranger. He hoped Beregond was still free, stood waiting in the darkness with his arrow at the nock, ready with a merciful death for Garad should it become absolutely necessary….
He had to shake the mental image off, ground himself firmly in the moment, turn toward the Man coming toward him in a crouching trot. Taking the hint, Faramir dropped down on his own heels, pulling his bow down crosswise in front of him to minimize its profile.
"Iorlas," the Man whispered. Faramir nodded, but didn't give his own name. Other Faramirs there might be in Gondor, but a Faramir who was also a Ranger would have a price on his head that could rebuild a village. Iorlas took it in stride, another sign he was experienced militia, familiar with the closed-mouth ways of Rangers.
"They'll send guards down to check on us, bring us back up the hill for safe-keeping," the militiaman continued, Faramir straining to hear him. "You're going after your Man?"
"Men," Faramir corrected softly, knowing that even if he was still free, Beregond wouldn't abandon Garad, or his over-riding mission to destroy the tar.
"There's forty odd of them in bunkers up there," Iorlas told him grimly. "With more on the way. They're planning to move that shipment out today, or tomorrow, depending on when their friends arrive."
'Fuck,' Faramir swore to himself, since Garad was not here to say it for him. There was no way they could have known, not until they were standing right on top of the hive.
"Get your people out of here," Faramir ordered. "Get word to the City of Osgiliath as quickly as possible. Gondor must know of this threat, in case we fail to destroy the tar."
The Man nodded. "I can spare three to help you; the rest will take my people to safety and then carry the word to the Steward."
"To Osgiliath," Faramir corrected sternly. "The Captain-General is there. It will fall to him to stop these bastards, if I cannot. Take all of your people, we stand to lose enough here."
"You'll never make it," Iorlas replied, shaking his head. "The whole mountain's hived with bear-traps. That's probably what got your Man. We dug 'em, we'll get you past 'em, Captain."
Reaching out, Faramir took Iorlas' ragged collar in his gloved hand, yanking him close, pulling him cheek to cheek, his mouth against the smaller Man's ear. "Fail to obey me, or get in my way, or even make a sound at the wrong time, and you're dead," he warned.
"Understood," Iorlas agreed, waiting for Faramir to let him go before scuttling back to the line of villagers to arrange for meeting the raiders already making their way down the hill with torches in their hands.
He noted with approval that the militiaman was coiling up the long rope that lay on the ground, hiding it under him as he lay down so nothing would be amiss to alert the approaching raiders. They would take that rope with them, and see if a trap of their own might not be contrived.
The light of the torches was close enough to be revealing now, and Faramir drew back into the shadows and the clumps of tall grass, getting the range he would need to silently dispatch those coming to check on the prisoners. In front of him, the freed captives were reassembling themselves into their line of "sleepers", except for those who now wore the cloaks of the dead guards, whose looted bodies were now filling up the gaps in the line of the prisoners.
He took an arrow from his quiver, set it point first in the ground in front of him, following it with another, and then a third and fourth, ready for quick shooting. In the darkness across from him, he knew Damrod was doing the same. They must be careful of their shots, make sure they hit true through flesh, and not break their tips on bones. They would need every arrow they could command on the height.
'Hang on,' he thought to the friends left to the mercy of their enemies. 'We're coming for you.'
One way or the other, he wouldn't leave Garad and Beregond in the hands of the captors one more minute more than he had to.
SCENE BREAK
The brute grunted and stood to go toward Beregond. Garad stared in disbelief. He himself was a big man, but this Man was bigger, wider, hunched shouldered, as if half-Orc.
Memory returned: They were captives, and both had seen the remains and heard nightmarish reports of what raiders did to prisoners.
"Bear?" Garad murmured, and turned his head toward where he'd heard his friend's voice.
Beregond lay on his back just out of reach, his arms bound before him, and his ankles tied together. At least they had only bound Garad's hands. The reason was evident in the agony of what could only be a broken leg, the pain so severe that it soured Garad's stomach. The rough treatment had resulted in a tourniquet being tied tight above his knee. His leg was not only broken, but had also been sliced as it was impaled on a stake set in the pit.
Suddenly, there was more light amid the rancid, sharp smell of burning tar fouling the clean night air. There was a glug-glugging sound and a heavier smell of tar as it was poured, then flames, close by, leaping higher from a small shallow pit.
Dazed, sick, Garad tried to focus, his vision swimming in and out, capturing Beregond's fear-white and bruised face. Their gazes met and locked for the briefest moment, scared, but determined. Bear gave him a faint smile.
'We can make it through this,' Garad thought as hard as he could at Bear, knowing the other Man was probably thinking the same thing at him. 'Faramir and Damrod are on their way.'
Beregond responded with the slightest tilt of his head toward the slope they had climbed. Had he already heard something, or was he merely saying that's the only way in and it's full of traps?
Garad stifled a groan. That was true, if their friends tried anything….
Beregond, still holding his gaze, tilted his head the other way, craning a little to indicate something else. To the left, beyond the fire, was a low wall of mud bricks about a tunnel mouth. More Men appeared from it, shaking themselves from sleep and called out by the others to come join the fun with the captives.
It was a second shift. They had badly underestimated the numbers of the enemy, and could not have known so many more lay in hiding, sleeping through the day, buried in underground caverns. This was a major base and had probably been used for some years, an ugly nest of hornets that threatened both Rohan and Gondor. It was imperative this intelligence was carried back to Osgiliath. Faramir and Damrod's priority would lie there, not in rescuing them, nor even with the enslaved villagers. They were on their own.
Suddenly, Beregond was hauled roughly to his feet, drawing a muted gasp of pain as the giant raider pulled him up by his bound arms. That left him standing precariously balanced on bare feet, his ankles so tightly bound that he struggled to keep his balance.
'They took his boots? And they've lit a tar pit. Fuck!' Garad thought, trying not to show his captor how frantic he felt.
The guard was big, taller than Garad by at least a head, muscle rippling over bare arms and chest. Its flesh was dark, and thick as light armour plate. Its mouth showed animal's teeth, the grimace all sharp fangs...
What kind of abomination had Mordor invented now?
"Too heavy for you?" Beregond managed to keep his voice steady through the taunt. He looked up and up to give the creature a contemptuous sneer that made Garad want to cheer.
"Forget any heroics," another more cultured voice, slurred with the accent of Southron put in, making Garad jump a little as he appeared from the other side of the barrel wall.
The newcomer squatted at Garad's other side, between him and the stack of tar barrels that cut the worst of the cold night air sweeping up the slope from the river. Garad turned away from Beregond to find a definitely foreign face looking down at him with mild curiosity. The Man's dark hair was mostly hidden under a rust-colored scarf wrapped about his head, his skin color swarthy and his eyes a bright hazel brown. Intelligence, cunning and cruel humor lay beneath the sharp gaze directed at Garad then up to Beregond.
This Man had to be the commander of the raiders. More Men were arriving to watch the show, gathering about them in a loose circle. Further off, others worked to light campfires set about the ridge top, no doubt obeying their commander's orders. These were armed with bows as well as swords. If Faramir or Damrod so much as showed their faces, they'd get an arrow for their trouble.
Now Garad knew why the other Ranger teams had disappeared without so much as a trace. Their friends had probably tried to rescue them, too, or they had all been taken by the traps….
"Your friend will pay for any foolishness." The chief raider brandished a wickedly curved dagger and placed its point, surprisingly gently, against Garad's broken leg. "What are your orders? How many of you—?"
"Fuck off," Garad interrupted, his tone conversational.
Even more surprisingly, the dagger point did not move in retaliation. The Man merely nodded to his giant companion. There was a loud ripping sound and Garad looked quickly back to see the giant had torn off Beregond's tunic.
The onlookers snickered, their eager eyes flicking from Beregond's bare flesh to the hungry flames licking above the burning tar. The pit was not more than a foot deep, its edges lined with thick green grass where the earth had been repeatedly gouged as slave labor dragged the heavy barrels up the slope. The deeper part was filled with glowing, red-hot chunks of peat suspended in the raw tar, and it was about the width of a Man's chest.
"Gonna roast you nice and slow, like a fucking pig at Yule," the giant snarled.
Garad bit back a groan of utter despair. The other Men jeered and laughed. Another carefully tipped the open barrel with his boot so a little more tar dripped into the pit to make the flames dance. The giant pulled Beregond's bound arms up over his head, and someone else threw a loop of rusty iron chain about Beregond's chest, pulling it tight just beneath the armpits. It was secured at his back where it continued on in a long loop, a halter lead, a lever for torture.
Iron would not burn through, like rope.
Garad's stomach heaved, the nausea immediately engulfed in a wave of icy hatred. 'I'll kill these bastards! By all the Valar, I swear it!'
They spun the half-naked Beregond about to face him and the younger Man blinked, startled and pleased as he caught Garad's murderous glare burning through the giant's back. Beregond's terror eased a fraction into surprise and pleasure to find his friend, broken, yes, but ready to fight. A proud, if tremulous smile flickered at the corners of his mouth, then settled into a sad, grim line that matched the look in his eyes as he met Garad's gaze.
'I'm dead. Forget me. Farewell, my friend.'
The thoughts were all there in Beregond's eyes and it made Garad want to weep and fight their captors like a madman. But he couldn't move without risk of passing out. Then, it came to him, as if in answer to his plea, a sure knowing, and the beginnings of a plan.
"Nothing is surer than this," Garad said, very calm and certain, his tone eerie even to his own hearing. Foreboding shivered through him along with the beginning tendrils of fever, but Garad held the dark gaze of his captor, dug deep and hard, letting the fever reveal the full weight of the vision. "Hurt him and you will die, slow and ugly."
The Southron laughed, but it was hollow and nervous. Somehow, Garad was sure the Man was rarely shaken as he was now.
"You are injured, my friend, and confused," Southron told him with sardonic sympathy, a snort of genuine amusement chasing the momentary uncertainty from his expression. "It is he," the Southron said, pointing his dagger tip at Beregond, "who is about to die slow and ugly."