It was the women, he could see her now, her hair flaxen in the moonlight and her face lit with inner beauty. Her eyes narrowed on him. He beheld pale and worn eyes, a light of which had never been shown to him before. He suddenly fell under their command. They directed his every move for if they did not, he would become limp and sink into the earth never to rise again. They contrived the inner workings of his every need and intention, as though they could hear every thought he issued into his head.
"You need not my help."
"Oh, but I do," her lips did not move. Her eyes were blackened now, colorless with solid pools of unlit fire. There was no way in words to describe the way Gwain preserved her. He felt nothing, no threat but yet, no knowing could he procure in his imagination; only a dull and monotonous task which he idolized and came upon no conclusion.
"Then it shall be done." He needed no argument for argument was naught the obligation. Argument was a waste of ages that would never turn to his favor. Though he knew not the reason or will, and though he was no longer retaining his dignity to his tribe of the Uruk-Hai, he felt his presence was needed by this women more desperately than any service he could abide by in arms. He agreed and by that morning, before the suns first ray hit the Ephel Duath, they began their journey. In the open sun they traveled. It weakened the orcs instinct though the women became more cunning by day and more seductive by night.
"Lady," he asked to her before their march, "I know not your name, nor any of your standings. I've no need to hide in shadowy corner though for long years I fear to be open. Tell me now, how is it you live?"
"Much will be revealed in time. Much else will be lost in time. I know not the answers to most of your questions but those I do will mean nothing to you. I am Sasha, Elven lore tells of my family in a line; The road upon the walking dead, brings little comfort to the soul, though many trod upon it now, time will come when no one will tell, whether stick nor bird nor fowl thing, dots the land ahead, for those who come, wither some, and those who stay, may bend or sway, those who mark their homes upon lands south, will bring comfort to all, beyond the Anduin's mouth."
It was a vast and desolate place as far as the eye could see. Over yonder lay the ashen mountains where fire still brewed. The lands were black and barren save the southern part of the region, though it still felt the wrath of the great malice and held true to little else. It grew long grass, plain and ghastly in its nature, and grew nothing else. Over the mountains of the shadowy precipice was a land less black, rolling fields still lurked in the midst of the desolate area. Then came the forests and trees and brooks, unpolluted by the fowl air of the east. The water that ran through the foreboding mountains however, was poisoned by the fowl air and would forever be a victim of his evil malice.
A head hung low upon a string, the body had been weathered and atrophied. Hardly recognizable to the figure that looked upon it without words. He gazed mournfully at the man though did not know how this man had came to his fate. He did not try to feel that string upon his throat. It was a memory, an account of his life he would not like to face, whether it became true or not. Upon heading the presence of the living man, the head looked up and into its eyes did the glaze and mourn fall.
"You need not pity yourself, you need not look too far into this future, it has not been bound to your fate as it has mine. Do not fear. But do not fall." The face went lifeless yet again and to the living man's horror, it withered away till only the skull was upon the slackened line. It stared up again into his, those eye sockets that had once been filled with that glaze that horrified him no longer existed. He would meet them again, reincarnated in another day when the timing had come and the place was not right.
"Awake," she cried, "arise Gwain.
Trouble brews, trouble's here, hot upon our trail.
Hide, hide, hide, under bushel, under grove,
Trend not on troubled waters,
Lightly under day, Swiftly by moon's light,
Hurry on untrodden path, Evil comes up that path as well,
Hurry, hide, hasten your pace,
Evil brews, Evil thrives,
Under dark, depth, delightful demise, it breathes and boils,
And curls into shapeless hate."