Strangers No More

I do not own the rights to Lord of the Rings

Chapter Twenty Five

End Game

Father Harold nodded to himself as the last of the people were finishing their food. He'd arranged the meal for the poor to take place in a public square not far from the barracks but it had not been much of a success. Only fifty of the estimated eight hundred poor in the city had come. Still, it was better than no one. The priest walked around the square, occasionally talking to those who had come.

...

Faramir and Beregond walked into one of the inns in the First Level. It was cramped and was not well cleaned. A smell hung in the air and most of the men sitting at the tables and around the bar paid the two new men no mind. Faramir and Beregond were wearing normal clothes to not give themselves away. According the book they got from the smith one of the men who bought lock picks was staying at an inn. After talking with the land lord of the first inn he had only stayed a few nights before going to another one. After asking numerous inn keepers they reached the latest one. They walked to the bar where a bored looking man lazily cleaned a glass with a dirty rag.

'Ale?' he asked them.

'No,' Faramir answered. 'We're looking for a man named Halon.'

'He's not here. Left this morning.'

Farmair inwardly cursed at missing him.

'Do you know where he is now?' asked Beregon.

'No.'

'Can we look in his room?' Beregond demanded from him.

'Why?'

Beregond fixed him with a glare.

'I am from the Citadel Guard. You can let us look or be arrested.'

'Room seven,' he responded quickly and pointed at the stairs in the corner of the room.

'Thank you.'

The two men moved up the stairs and they quickly walked to room seven. It was unlocked and when they went inside there wasn't much. It was a small room with a small bed pressed up against one wall and a window above it. There was also an old wardrobe in the corner and a small desk by the bed.

'Search it,' Faramir instructed and the two men quickly looked around the room.

While Faramir looked inside the wardrobe Beregond looked under the desk where he found a sheet of paper which he quickly picked up. After looking at the writing for a moment he grinned.

'Sir, you need to see this.'

...

'It's a list.'

It was early afternoon when everyone of importance in the city had gathered together in the citadel to discuss the latest piece of intelligence gathered in the investigation. The only two absentees were Father Harold and Edmund.

'What does the list show?' asked Aragorn.

'All of his targets,' answered Faramir and he held the list up to his face to read it. 'Leagwan, Ethirat, Sunniva, Etheral.'

'Whose the last planned?' Aragorn asked him.

'Queen Arwen,' he answered and everyone looked at her. 'It's as I feared.'

'More important whose next?' demanded Cyllcoth.

'A woman named Lady Calwen.'

'He'll get her soon,' said Jason. 'Your Majesty, I'll put two of our lads outside her door tonight.'

'No,' said Eowyn. 'This is the chance we've been waiting for.'

'He doesn't know we know his plans,' Aragorn guessed. 'If we put guards outside Lady Calwen's door he'll know we are onto him. We'll set a trap for the murderer,' he then turned to one of the Citadel Guards. 'Send a message to Lady Calwen. She is to come here at once.'

The soldier then left to deliver the message. As they waited for her arrival they talked about other matters.

'Captain Beregond,' said Cyllcoth, 'did you ever find out how he got in here?'

'It looks like he used lock picks on one of the doors.'

'In that case we'll put bolts on the doors from now on,' said Aragorn.

'A very wise decision Your Majesty,' Cyllcoth instantly said to him.

A while later the doors opened and two people walked in. One was a man in his fifties with slightly greying hair and the other was a woman of only twenty five years with brown hair.

'Lord Colvol and his daughter Lady Calwel,' announced one of the guards.

The two of them bowed when they reached the throne.

'Your Majesty it is an honour to be invited here,' Lord Colvol said politely. 'Is there a duty you need of us?'

'In a way yes,' Aragorn told him. 'Lord Faramir and Captain Beregond have found evidence that the murderer plans to kill Lady Calwel.'

'What?' the young woman gasped. 'Why?'

'That doesn't matter,' Aragorn told her. 'He could strike tonight for all we know so we can't waste this chance.'

'Your Majesty what do you plan to do?' Lord Colvol asked him as he held onto his daughter.

'We will set a trap for him. Lady Calwel, we cannot let him know that we aware of his plan so I must ask you to use a great amount of courage by remaining in your home tonight.'

...

The plan was simple. Calwel lived in a luxurious block of apartments in the Second Level of the city. Her family's apartment, which she shared with her parents, was on the second floor and, perhaps more importantly, a sewer ran beneath the building's basement. A group of volunteers entered the building through the sewer to avoid any attention from the outside. They then went into Lord Colvol's home and hid themselves in there. Altogether ten volunteers went in. There were two of Prince Imrahil's nights, four men from the Citadel Guard, King Eomer himself with one of his Royal Guard and finally myself and Markus. Calwel had agreed to sleep in her own bed that night only because we promised that five of us would be on guard in her room. Unfortunately I had the bad luck of being given the job of hiding under Calwel's bed. Markus was lucky that he was in the wardrobe with one of Imrahil's men while Eomer and his guard were hiding behind the curtains. The others were hiding around the home just in case he changed his plan. We weren't wearing any heavy armour. Instead we were just wearing mail to make sure we'd be able to move easily. In the cellar below waited twenty men from the Citadel Guard commanded by Aragorn and in the building across the street was another twenty men commanded by Faramir. Their job was to stop the murderer from escaping when he attacked. Waiting with Faramir's men were also ten Fire Hands, commanded by Hannastog, using a new projectile for their hand cannons which was made from hundreds of tiny shards of metal. This projectile had been named "Hornets". They waited together for the order to go.

...

I didn't have much room in my position under the bed. I tried to ignore the stiff feelings in my back and neck and just remained still. I had been there for a few hours and so far nothing had happened. As doubts about the murderer arriving started to creep into my mind I felt something. It was a strange feeling like a warm whisper in my mind. Automatically my mind had reached to Alaric and I pulled my sword out of its sheath just an inch. Along the blade I saw a flickering orange light. Just then I heard a scratching sound coming from the window so I kept my hand gripped around my sword. After a few moments the scratching stopped and I heard the window open followed by footsteps on the floor, slowly coming towards the bed. The silence was deafening and I waited for the order. The footsteps stopped by the bed and I heard the sound of a knife being pulled from a sheath.

'NOW!' I heard Eomer shout, followed by Calwel screaming.

Calwel rolled out of bed and hit the floor, allowing me to quickly throw up the bed and I jumped up. Standing before me, surrounded by the other volunteers, was a tall man wearing a black cloak and holding a long knife in one hand. He looked at each of us, trying to find a way out. Markus and one of Imrahil's knights were blocking the door while Eomer and his guard were blocking the window. He was trapped at last. Sitting in a corner of the room was Calwel.

'Drop your weapon,' Eomer ordered.

The murdered ignored him and studied each of us. He took a long look at my flickering blade before deciding on a plan of action. He charged at the Royal Guard and threw himself into the man, sinking his blade into the soldiers neck before using his momentum to jump through the window. We all ran behind him and we looked into the street as the murdered landed on the street at a crouch just as Faramir's men rushed out of there hiding places.

'Let's get down there,' Eomer said and we rushed out of the bedroom.

...

The murderer expertly used his long knife to parry the blows from the Citadel Guard. He quickly killed two of them with quick slashed from his blade but he was still surrounded. When one guard swung his sword at him the murderer dodged the blow and stabbed the man in his sword arm before moving in for the kill and cutting his neck. Just as all of us inside, including Aragorn and his men, charged out of the building ready for the fight, the murdered jumped into the air and kicked his foot onto the helmet of a guardsman, throwing him through the air further. He did this a few times and made it to the edge of the troops encircling him. Unfortunately, his path led him straight to the waiting Fire Hands.

'Fire!' Hannastog ordered and, as one, they unleashed a swarm of metal at him.

The cloud of metal shards engulfed the murder and he staggered backwards, stunned by the attack. Blood leaked out of his wounds and his shirt was shredded. Faramir and two of the guards grappled the murderer to the ground and pulled his knife away from him. He was captured. I, Markus and Eomer stood by Aragorn as Faramir's men dragged the murder to the king.

'Let's see your face,' the king said and grabbed the killers mask before pulling it off. What we saw made us all gasp. He was shaved bald and his skin was slightly pale. However, the most shocking fact about him was his ears. They were pointed.

'Avari,' Faramir gasped.

AN: Well he's caught at last. Sorry about taking so long to update. I was going to last week but watching the present political mess in the UK right now distracted me. I hope you liked this chapter and I liked writing it.

Review Responses:

ATP: Well I think that the Hornets are a fairly large development for the weapons in Middle Earth.

KiyaNamiel: Yeah my aim was to make their relationship believable and not make it a really clumsy one which makes no sense in the context of their character *coughcoughattackoftheclonescoughcough*

I guess you feel relief at the guy being caught right?

MP: Thanks for your review. I know what you mean about the characters using words like thee and thou but I decided to not do that as in many films set in that era characters speak like we do today. In the end this was done as a choice to make it easier to write.