Chapter 24

A white horse, bearing a single letter, barreled into the King's encampment at Dunharrow. Armed men scattered, as he barreled towards the large white tents bearing the King's sigil, grunting curses. The camp was wreathing, movement in every corner. It was the sight of barely controlled chaos, much like a serpent's body missing its head.

The Mearas dodged gracefully around tent poles, pacing restlessly as he was unable to locate the aura of the half-elvin. Shadowfax reared and gave an almost Man-like screech. Moments later a small grizzled woman rounded a tent corner on swift legs. A key swung between her bound breasts, the strips of cloth doing little to mask her full figure. Two taller figures, younger and uncertain, followed quickly in her footsteps.

"Aye, this be the 'orse," she spoke, "tha 'orse tha wizard rode."

One of the women behind her mumbled something, gesturing to the rope hanging lightly around the Lord of All Horses neck. Shadowfax bobbed his head, pawing at the ground.

With hard eyes, the woman watched the massive stallion. As he settled, she stepped forward gingerly, her arms held skywards, "now, be calm. Aye ain't fixin' to hurt ye, nor be hurt in return."

The large horse stood, watching her approach with unreadable pools of dark amber. As she neared, the woman had to crane her neck back and stand on her toes to reach the missive. He allowed old Bertha to unstring the cord around his muscular neck and take a step back.

Bertha, her hands shaking slightly, gasped at the signet seal. "Tis from tha Prince. No doubt fer Lady Leòwyn." A heavy sigh escaped her.

Lady Leòwyn, whom she considered her charge, had been missing for half a fortnight. The members of her ragtag counsel were looking at the Mistress of Ceremonies to guide in her absence, but it was that exact absence that worried the older woman the most. All four of the Princesses guards had been found killed by the river not a few candles ride from Dunharrow. Many suspected orcs, but Bertha wasn't convinced. There had been a precise way of the killings, and what should orcs need with a hostage? No. This stank of treachery. She had not been a part of the King's household to see three generations born and not know some of treachery.

"Are ye gonna open it?" Arlene spoke over the older woman's shoulder. Her hands tangled in themselves, visualizing her nervousness. She had not stopped the annoying habit since her Mistress had disappeared.

Bertha nodded; eyes still glued to the wax stamp. "Mm, aye should."

Still she hesitated, reluctance screaming from every muscle.

Leòwyn cursed as she received another bruise from the saddle horn of her captor. He had thrown her over the front of his horse to 'keep an eye on her'. What he meant was to watch as each bump or gait change caused her pain.

'Malicious man,' she thought, her lip curling under the hood they had not removed in days. She could not see, hood or no, but sounds were also muffled under the thick black fabric.

Leòwyn had no accurate measurement of the time that had passed but they had made camp four times. So, she measured her days by breaks in riding. Each time they threw her from the horse to land on the rocky ground, she counted another day.

Her whole body had screamed at her by nightfall on the day Aescwine had killed her guards and stolen her away. It was in absolute agony now. Each breathe was a labor for her tired lungs, each muscle movement an arc of pain. When it became unbearable, she allowed herself to escape into the emptiness of her fea. Where there used to be such light and brilliance but now there was dampness and shadows.

But there was no pain. Her spirit, thin as it was, acted as a barrier between her body and her mind. Saving her some sanity and little dignity. It also left her blind, more so than just her eyes, to the waking world. Candle marks could pass, days even, and she would not notice.

Leòwyn breathed deeply, through the gut punch from the saddle, and spoke, "Where are you taking me?"

"Aye, girl. Are ye goin' to ask tha every stinkin' day?" One of the guards, not her current captor, asked. The annoyance was plain in his voice. Leòwyn felt grim satisfaction turn clench her heart.

"Err, shuttit Gorgon. Don'ut talk to tha little bitch." Aescwine, from above her, growled. He followed swiftly with a slap to the back of her covered head. A ring on his hand smacked painfully against bone. Leowyn yelped pitifully. "An' yee will keep yer mouth shut. Ain't no one answerin' yer questions."

It was but a small victory. She had another name to add to the list of men in Aescwine's crew. Gorgon. Along with Chidriff, Erohan, and Clyde. Over the days of her entrapment, Leòwyn had gathered much information about her captors; from the sound of their voices to the sympathies of each.

For Chidriff, he had lost his family in a fire that consumed his farm and planting fields. He once had three daughters, one almost Leòwyn's age. His clothing shifted every time Aescwine moved to hit her as he turned to look away. As if not looking absolved him from the guilt of harming a bound woman.

Erohan was a different character completely. He told tales of his exploits with women and men. Bedding the first and killing the second. He boasted of pitched battles but cried in his sleep every night, screaming a woman's name. And he was deathly afraid of orcs. Leòwyn could smell it through the fabric of her hood when the beasts were mentioned. Fear was a pungent smell.

Then Clyde. Quiet, with extraordinarily little input, he was the one who hunted and cooked when camp was made. He favored strong spices, foreign to Rohan, but popular in the Gondorian held south. If Leòwyn were the wagering sort, she would guess his hair to be a deep brown.

The first time Aescwine had hit her, all four men had objected and Leòwyn had begun to plot. It seemed that Aescwine had been unable to find men of his caliber of cruelty and she intended to work that to her advantage.

Her plan had developed by forcing Aescwine's hand into violence. Leòwyn had known, from their first inopportune meeting in a dank tavern, that he was a gullible and dimwitted man. However, she had not counted on how painful his punches would be nor how eagerly he delivered them. She swore her heart had skipped a beat once, after a particularly aggressive knock to the gut. She allowed herself to cry out as he struck, time and again. Not so hard of a thing when her strength waned more each passing night. But when the pain receded to a dull throb and the not so quiet grumblings of the men reached her enhanced ears, Leòwyn allowed herself to smile. For even through the hood she could feel the change in his men as the days grew longer.

An abrupt stop pulled a groan out of her, the saddle digging deeply into her bruised stomach. With a cry of malice, Aescwine threw her off the horse and it morphed into cruel laughter. The part-elf had to grit her teeth against foul words that would only cause her more pain.

The sound of his laughter faded as pain consumed her. Once more, the sharpness faded into throbbing in all but one area. Her ankle, injured in the fall yesterday, now shot stabbing pain with every breath.

She heard the men wander away to tack their horses and set up camp. Hissing through her teeth, Leòwyn pushed into a sitting position and navigated her bound hands down her leg until she felt the swollen, inflamed skin. It was broken and likely would heal crooked if not set. She cursed internally. There was no way she would be able to set it and keep it straight with bound hands.

A whisper of air above her, rustling the hair on the top of her head, caused her to freeze and without thought shrink further into a ball.

"Sshh, is a'right. Aye ain't no healer but tha leg looks bad. Less takealook." The man whispered, his hand then coming to tentatively touch her ankle. Leòwyn gasped in pain. This voice belonged to Gorgon, the newly named.

Suddenly her nose was no longer covered by the smothering weight of fabric and she breathed in the scents of moss, dewy earth, and the tang of burning wood. Without thought a smile blossomed on her face, teeth shining in the darkness like small stars. Leòwyn breathed deeply once more, and felt her aches vanish for that one moment. Tears gathered in her eyes. She heard the intake of breath and turned towards the man who had paused his administrations to her injured foot.

"Ye know, he ne'er told us who we was goin' to take. Just that there was money to be had. Imm sorry it be ye." He spoke again and Leòwyn felt his eyes finally slide off her face. It was an uncomfortable awareness; it be stared at but not able to see the other persons eyes.

Leòwyn sighed. "I do not blame any of you. Aescwine is to blame. He is the cause of all this."

Gorgon grunted, then cleared his throat. "Aye he said sum real bad things bout ye, but there ain't no honor is harmin' a lass, much less a royal un."

Leòwyn smiled again but it was humorless. "I suspect he told you that I ruined his life. That I lied and the King threw him out. That I deserve this as punishment for my misdeeds."

"Sumthin' like tha," Gorgon muttered, still keeping his voice low. Leòwyn could tell his attention had shifted to focus back on camp. Anticipating the return of the disgraced Master of Ceremonies. This was the first conversation anyone had risked with her since her captivity began, so the drunk must not be around. Even a human nose could smell him long before sight.

"What is your name?" she asked.

"Gorgon, yer ladyship." The man said and she felt him bob his head. His hands were steadily wrapping her ankle.

"Please, call me Leòwyn. I appreciate your aid this evening, Sir Gorgon." Leòwyn worked to smooth her voice and make it pleasant so he did not hear her hatred underneath.

It had been growing, for days, the hatred and anger in her heart. As much as she fought it, it was an inky blackness that stuck to every surface of her fea and would not be dislodged. She felt the corruption, remnants of the touch of the Witch-King, growing stronger as her body blossomed new bruises each day. It fed off her anger and pain. Both physical and mental pain was sweet to these last wisps of vileness.

Leòwyn found she had little strength to fight off the evil that danced across her mind, and dare she admit that the fleeting shadows promised strength in the deep of the night and she was tempted. Strength it promised - to kill her kidnappers and reclaim her freedom. Strength to return to Bertha and the camp at Dunharrow. Strength enough to see her love one last time.

But she knew these promises came at a price. She might make it back to Dunharrow, only to kill all those she loved as the darkness tainted her heart. So, she ignored the whisperings, but only just and for how much longer she could not begin to guess. Leòwyn's own stubbornness was renowned but there comes a turning of the tide in every instance between good and evil.

Leòwyn knew. She did not know how she knew but call it a feeling. She knew the Witch King had finally been slain. The day she had awoken, she had known with certainty.

How something so ancient, with terrible power beyond her ability to reckon it, had been vanquished was only a guess. But while destroyed from this land, the last tendrils of its corruption clung to Leòwyn like a second shadow.

The man before her grumbled, his hands falling away from her person, and he quickly heaved himself up. "Ain't no sir miss. Let me carry ye to tha fire. May aye can ask Aescwine for sum more bread an' share with ya."

Leòwyn gave a small smile and nodded, "That would be lovely, thank you. But please, replace the hood. I do not wish for you to get in trouble."

The man sighed heavily and swore under his breath, lightly enough that one without her ears might not have caught it. In that moment, Leòwyn knew she had a budding ally.

The One Ring was destroyed. The Battle of Morannon, widely coming to be known as the Battle of the Black Gate, had been won. The War for Middle Earth was ended.

By the bravery of two small Hobbits.

Théodred shook his head. Not even he would have bet on such creatures, halflings, to triumph over the devilry that Sauron had commanded. Many of Dark Lord's allies were now fleeing across the Gondorian countryside to find places to hide, to fester in the forgotten holes of the world like a sickness needing to be cleansed. Men would have to search them out and destroy them, but all in good time. The spirits of the soldiers of Gondor and Rohan deserved a short respite from the horrors of death and war. The broken bodies of Men, horse, and orc alike haunted even the grisliest of warriors.

The Armies of men, those of Rohan and Gondor, had finally begun the journey back to the White City. For many days, they had camped outside the sundered gates of Mordor, nursing their wounded, and deciding the resting place for the bodies of the dead. While the widows of all of the Rohirric soldiers would never be able to bury the bodies of their loved ones themselves, the Ranger turned King thought it fitting to bury them on the hillside they had swept down – destroying the hordes of Sauron and releasing the White City from the cruel grip of doom. Once arrangements had been made, the stumbling army formed and marched back from whence they came.

The two soon to be Kings rode at the front of the column, giving strength to the weary men who followed them. In short order followed Lord Aragorn's unusual companions and Eothain, Théodred's second.

Those too wounded to walk or ride had been quartered in a healing camp, a few miles from the ruins of the Plains of Gorgoroth. They would be safer there, close to the heart of evil now deceased, than traveling with the weakened forces of men which had been subject to attacks by bands of orcs and goblins everyday since the destruction of order in Mordor.

Théodred wondered if this chaos, hordes of vile creatures scattered and terrorizing the helpless towns in their path, was the last malicious act of a being that had once held such power; the eye. Sauron, now rid of, was still affecting the world he so recently thought to dominate.

Théodred smiled in fevered victory over a most loathed foe before sobering once more. While the world had been saved, so much would soon change. He would take up his father's mantle, as King of Rohan. Théodred had been born for this day, bred for this very purpose, and yet it sat like a rock in his stomach. The loss of his father was still very near to the surface, an open wound he had not had the time to clean and dress.

Thinking about the new path his fate had taken, she could not help but cross his mind. His mood soured further, a scowl forming on his scruffy face. He had had no word from the camp of his people at Dunharrow, no word of his betrothed. He could still, vaguely, feel the pulse of life along their connection but the pain and disassociation had not ceased.

"What it is, that bothers your mind so?" The former Ranger beside him asked.

Théodred grunted, "I suspect it is the same problem that plagues you, my friend. You hide it well but I have heard you mention her."

A smile parted the lips of his friend, small but genuine. "Ah yes, a woman."

The scowl deepened, "There should be word by now, from Dunharrow."

"Perhaps there will be once we return to Minas Tirith. Do not give in to sorrow yet."

Théodred did not reply, his silence telling enough about his thoughts. Aragorn hummed, and spoke again. "Have I ever told you about she who holds my heart?"

The Rohirric Prince perked up slightly. He was soon in rapt attention as the usually stoic Dunedain spoke on his elvish bride, his smile stretching thin lips. Théodred could not help but compare the qualities his friend spoke of that sounded so familiar yet so different from his own lady love.

Leòwyn, dozing fitfully on the back of Gorgon's horse and her head lolling painfully against his back, first registered the noise of whispered voices in her blank dream state. She no longer wore that dreadful hood, its smelly fabric rubbing the tip of her nose raw. Aescwine, the cow, had even entertained Grogon's plea to carry the woman he now referred to as 'princess'. Even in the face of Aescwine's rage at the title, he had refused to use any other to name her and soon the other brigands followed suit, even to her surprise Erohan whose vile actions against women made him the hardest for Leòwyn to befriend. This left the disgraced Master with the disposition of a raging bull but none of the men seemed to care.

"Aye, we stop 'ere for tha night," Aescwine snarled, his anger rolling like waves against a shore. He had been as belligerent as a defensive pit viper. "An' tie tha bitch up. Donun't want 'er wanderin' now. 'Tis dangerous in these parts."

His ugly laugh, tinged with cruel delight, cracked through the still night. As if he found it funny that other creatures might be lurking in the dark, daring to attack his crew. He believed none to be stupid enough, but Leòwyn had heard the whispers and knew something lay out there, waiting. She could only hope that whatever it be, it was sympathetic to her plight.

She did not resist when Gorgon loosely tied her wrists to the bonds around her ankles, forcing her to sit cross legged. "Imma sorry Mistress," he spoke as he worked.

Leòwyn allowed a small gasp as he moved one of the ropes around her wrist. Each noise she made elicited a response from the men. Foul words and empty thrown liquor bottles from Aescwine should he hear it and sympathy from the others.

"I understand Gorgon. Would you possibly be able to loosen the ropes enough to allow me to push them up my forearms? I am afraid my wrists are quite raw and painful."

The man did so without hesitating, her sad yelp as he touched her red and blistered skin enough to draw curses from his lips once more. "Better, ma lady?" he asked.

Leòwyn nodded, "Thank you, my friend."

She felt the man in front of her freeze, in surprise or pleasure she was unsure of, but she knew it was good from the way he sniffed.

"Ain't never had a friend before," he said lowly and for a split moment Leòwyn felt ashamed. "But aye ain't much of a friend of yers ma lady. Aye helped nab you and killed yer guards."

"Yet you have helped me on this journey when none other have. You have made up for your past indiscretions against me Grogon," Leòwyn spoke, her voice wavering. She allowed the man to think it was with a friendly emotion however she knew differently.

Her voice wavered not from friendship but from hate. Leòwyn could practically feel it seeping out through her pores, but the poor man knew no difference. She would kill even him, given the chance, and some part of her healer's mind was horrified.

Gorgon stood, after loosening her bonds even more, and bowed to her. She knew from the creaking of his leather belt against his chainmail. "Am honored, ma lady."

She made no sound nor movement as he walked away for as he was turning a voice whispered, "Lady Leòwyn, Daughter of Lilithien and betrothed of Prince Theodred of Rohan? Lean forward if I am speaking to she."

It was too quiet for human ears to hear and Leowyn breathed a sigh of relief. The watchers were Elves. Leòwyn drifted her upper body forward, making it look natural should any around the fire be watching.

"I am Elladan, son of Lord Elrond of Rivendell. I bring tidings and freedom. This shall be over quickly for this scum," the voice spoke again.

Leòwyn felt a lump in her throat catch, forcing her to cough. "Please, spare the man that I rode with, the man who tended to my bonds this eve. He has been kind, if misguided in life."

The part-elf grimaced as soon as the words left her tongue. She had contemplated killing Gorgon, like the rest, as recent as midday. How could she now feel guilty when he had not in kidnapping her? And allowing Aescwine to treat her as if she were his person punching bag?

Perhaps he reminded her of the hollowness that now controlled her fea. He was guideless, left adrift in a cruel world, and done no favors. Perhaps he could, given the chance, redeem himself. He was certainly no Aescwine.

Bows twanged in the darkness and screams rent the air before being quickly silenced by fleet footed elves. One sword clashed on another and a jagged roar that died in a gurgle met her ears.

"Ye pointy ear bastards," a voice slurred.

Leòwyn smirked openly at the sound of drunk Aescwine. Sober Aescwine would have no chance against an immortal warrior. A drunk one was merely a fly to swat away, a life to snub out. Not that it was much of a life but Leòwyn felt contempt and hatred flash in her aura anyway. He deserved a much worse fate but a clean death from an elvish blade would have to do. A humane way to die for such an evil man.

Leòwyn hissed as her bonds were cut, and her wrists free from the constant chafe of rope. The fresh air stung but in a pleasant way. Her eyes, kept closed out of habit for how much Aescwine would hit her for their ugliness, opened as a glowing spirit approached her.

"My Lady, I am Glorfindel. And you are gravely injured."

She frowned, "These are but blisters and scrapes, my Lord. Nothing a poultice and a good cleaning will not solve."

"That is not the injury I speak of, dear cousin. Your fea is shattered and tainted by a demon of Morgoth. You do not have much time."

Leòwyn froze and knew he had sensed it. The hate she had been feeling, trying to keep hidden, while knowing she could not defeat it. She had not the strength on her own and no Man could help her in the ways of the spirit. She did not know if even an elf could help her now. Dread crept steadily into her heart.

Sorry this took MONTHS :( I blame Covid for everything!