Author's note: Thanks SO much for all the reviews! I love you all! But
please don't try and get me into some sort of debate about war and self-
defence, because it totally screws with my head, and THIS IS ONLY A STORY.
I'm not saying that any of the views in this fic are views of mine at all,
and I'm not saying that any of the characters is like me! I tried to make
Julie as different from me as possible after my friends made comments about
it.~_-
Especial thanks go to Pingu6312 who is the bestest online buddy anyone can
have! *huggles Jill*
I'm trying to improve my patience when writing since doing this chapter -
it's kind of lazy in the description department, because I couldn't be
bothered to write a load about what happened each day of travel or
anything.. So I think this is my worst chapter - but please stick with me,
coz number five's the last and the best. I'm sure it's the last, but you
can correct me on whether it's the best or not. I'd love some comments on
'Stars and Steel Guitars' though if you wouldn't mind.I'm working most on
description etc in that fic and I think I need some help -FARAMIR THEREAPY SESSION NO. 4/u
The therapist found that even after only a couple of hours' travel at a light pace the horse was not nearly as comfortable as it had been at first. She fidgeted in the saddle a little, thinking of her zippy little Smart car at home. They were just approaching Dartmoor Forest and her back was beginning to ache.
"Are we going to stop at all during the day?" she asked the silent figure in front.
Faramir turned round a little in the saddle, "Are you tired?"
The therapist pulled a face. "Hey - who's the therapist here? I was just wondering if we had to eat lunch up here and everything?"
Faramir seemed to smirk a bit, but the therapist couldn't tell for sure because his mouth was partially hidden by the bunched up hood of his cloak. "No, we'll stop for lunch. But I hope to be well into the land of Rûhn ere we pause."
The therapist nodded solemnly in time with the swaying of her bay horse. It was called Simbel and was calm enough, but she still felt unsafe as they plodded on, her looking down every so often and wishing she had the hard hat that the riding school had supplied her with.
It was midday before Faramir slowed his horse to a halt. They were on a small path in the woods, and the therapist - who liked to garden in her spare time - had noticed a very subtle and gradual change in the flora and even the temperature and the light. The Ranger turned around once more to face her. "Can you keep going for a bit longer or would you like to rest here, Miss Julie?"
The therapist, not wanting to seem weak in front of him, was about to reply in defiance that she was good for another couple of hours. However, as she drew herself up and straightened her back, it gave a series of pops and clicks that warned her to take the break when it was offered. With a sigh, she slumped again, "If it's okay to stop here I'd be glad to - my back is killing me."
With a smile and a nod, Faramir dismounted and tied his horse to a medium- sized sapling by the edge of the path. The therapist slithered off her mount with less grace and when her feet hit the earth again her knees would have surrendered her to the leafy ground but for her grip on either side of the saddle.
Lunch was not the most filling of meals, but it was welcome nonetheless. The therapist leant against a tree, splaying herself in a most ungainly position as she chewed her tuna sandwiches with satisfaction. Faramir didn't eat. He paced the area for a while, then walked along the path a little, and then explored the surrounding brush a bit. When he came to a standstill in front of the therapist - who was basking in the dappled sunlight - he looked stern, exasperated, and also slightly amused. "Are you rested?"
She smiled, and then gave a mock wince and she stretched her arms out before her. "I think I'll manage a bit more riding now, yeah."
Faramir gave her a look from under half-closed eyelids as he offered a hand to her. Gladly she took it and seemingly without any effort he hauled her to her weary feet. Within moments she found herself back on her horse, following his green-clad back along the path once more.
The wood began to thin after several hours. Spindly and graceful silver birches became the predominant tree and a delicate pink flower carpeted the ground to either side of the path. The therapist thought that they looked like a smaller, lighter type of crowfoot. When the trees came to an end the path had acquired a more compact surface. The sound of the horses' footfalls, although muffled by a fluffy green moss, reverberated a little more on the compressed earth.
The therapist took a good look around the land. There wasn't a chunk of concrete in sight, nor was there any hint of skyscrapers or apartment blocks. She marvelled at the way nature was still so predominant in the land, though it was barren and deserted. A tiny stream coughed and spluttered over sharp grey rocks, leading ahead of them and over the horizon, where the therapist thought she could discern the glimmer of a huge expanse of water.
Faramir seemed sad. He turned to the therapist and said: "This is the border between Rûhn and southern Gondor. It is no more than a wasteland now but once it was full of life. The woods we have just exited are not shown on many maps of Middle-earth because they have been forgotten by most." He turned in his saddle and craned his neck to see the sky behind them. The therapist didn't turn round. She could feel a cool wind start to blow from behind them, and the light seemed to come from ahead but not from behind. She shivered. "And very glad I am that they have been forgotten," her guide murmured.
"So what happened here?" The therapist asked, hoping to turn his attention away from the clouds amassing behind them.
Faramir did turn back to her. "The mountains behind us-"
"Mountains? We just came out of a wood!"
The Ranger said nothing. He just flicked a quick glance back over the therapist's shoulder then back to her. His gaze, though still upset, now had a measure of challenge to it. She turned in the saddle slowly, glancing back once to see his expression. It remained the same, watching hers. There were no silver birches behind her. No delicate pink flowers. Not even any moss.
"Those are the southernmost peaks of the Ephel Duath. They are the Mountains of Shadow and they run south from North Ithilien before curving east to Khand. They are the walls of a fortress which has besieged these lands for centuries, millennia even."
The therapist turned back to him with a terrified expression. The sky behind them was glowing an angry red and malevolent brown clouds swirled around the peaks of the black rocks rising up from the earth. "The thing that's attacking your people.that's what's making the sky do that?" She knew the question sounded foolish, but all of a sudden she found her knuckles whitening as she gripped Simbel's reins.
"Yes," Faramir said simply. "The land before you has been ravaged by war, civil and otherwise, and is now a place where no one would dwell. All we are doing is passing through - our real troubles will not start until we reach the Harad Road. For now, though, we will follow the Harnen."
He had turned his horse and set off down the shallow slope to the plain before the therapist could respond. She assumed that the small river forming was the Harnen, for that seemed to be his destination. The sun was beginning to dip, knocking the clouds as it went and tingeing them yellow and magenta. It would have been beautiful, the therapist thought, if not for the ever-spreading twilight behind her.
They had not travelled far down the riverbanks when the light cooled from orange to blue and a bite came into the air. Faramir halted by a group of stunted gorse trees whose needles were tipped in brown, and whose flowers were withered and few. "We will camp here for the night. I am afraid we cannot risk a fire in such open country, so fruit must suffice if you are hungry."
He dismounted and led his horse to a particularly bare branch where he tethered it. The therapist, overcome with weariness, remained on her horse, relaxing as she watched his practised movements. He unsaddled the horse and propped the saddle against the short trunk of the bush. His fingers nimbly worked at the buckles on the saddlebags despite the thick gloves he wore. Soon a rough bedding had been set up on the hard ground, and he laid his bow and quiver of arrows by the saddle. Giving her a look of inquiry he unbuckled his belt and placed his sword within arms reach by the bedding. "Are you planning to sleep up there, Miss Julie?" It was dark enough that she couldn't see his expression, though his voice suggested a fair measure of amusement.
The therapist dismounted stiffly and stumbled over to a branch, her horse looking at her quizzically. She looped the reins and unbuckled the girth, all the while just wanting to lean forwards onto the animal's soft coat and fall asleep standing up.
When her own bedding was set up, she sat down heavily on the blankets, wishing the ground was as soft as she had anticipated when she collapsed. She glanced briefly at Faramir, who was sitting leant against his pack, under his covers but wide awake and studying a map by the light of a small, well-used candle. The therapist sighed and pulled her hiking boots off before squirming under the woollen blankets. She stayed awake just long enough to hear a soft, "sleep well, Miss Julie."
She was just as tired in the morning, plus her aches were doubled by the unyielding rock under her. The light was cold and blue and the sun not quite up when, as before, Faramir gave her shoulder a small squeeze. "I am sorry to rob you of your mornings sleep, Miss Julie, but it is almost dawn."
The therapist mumbled into her covers and blinked as she looked about the camp. It wasn't any different from last night, except that everything - including her - was covered in a fine mist of dew and Faramir's packs was back on his re-saddled horse. It being so early, she hadn't worked up an appetite yet, so without much fuss they were soon on their way again.
The days' travel was uneventful. The therapist occasionally walked her horse by Faramir's so that she could talk to him. At her lunch stop he showed her a map of the region.
"Why are we following the river? Wouldn't it be quicker to cut across country?" The therapist asked, having thought carefully before even daring to suggest it - she didn't want to seem without faith in her guide.
Faramir gave her the look she'd expected - one eyebrow raised, 'oh really?' "Yes, if we knew the land, and there were enough springs and streams. But it might not be suitable for riding, and we would go slower on foot. We could lose our bearings - we could lose each other, and who knows whether tribes still inhabit the wilds of these parts?"
The therapist just nodded, expecting some reaction similar to that. "So how many days' travel do you think we have left?"
He rolled up the map again. "I would estimate that we have about five days' travel to Osgilliath. There we'll join with the rest of my men, who will be pulling out of that doomed city. We will travel to Minas Tirith, the capital city of Gondor from there. It shouldn't quite take a day's travel."
"Six days, then?" He nodded. The therapist sighed as she remounted her horse, wondering what would happen to the people who had expected appointments with her during the week.
The next days passed without excitement. They talked, sometimes of the history of Gondor, sometimes of trivial matters, such as plants and pets. Faramir laughed easily for those two days, but on the fourth day of travel, as they trotted through the scrub at the sides of the Harad Road he became less talkative, and the therapist let Simbel drop back into single file with Faramir's horse. He turned once to her, a couple of hours after their midday break and whispered, "We approach the Crossings of Poros. I do not expect them to be guarded, but we must take care - soon we will leave the side of the road, for it is not safe to travel near to the path of servants of the Dark Lord."
The therapist merely nodded again, unsure of what a reply to that should sound like.
They travelled on in silence for an hour or two before Faramir halted at the edge of the thin tree cover. The Crossings consisted of one wide stone bridge spanning the river and shallow fords either side for those travelling on foot. The bridge, about eight meters in width, had once carried wains and carts journeying from South Gondor to the capital in the north and back again. It was a sturdy bridge, made for supporting heavy trading traffic.
For a few long moments Faramir assessed the area. When he nudged his horse onwards, the therapist followed in perfect trust of his abilities as a Ranger, believing that if he had seen nothing, nothing was there. The horses picked their way uneasily across the ford nearest to them and pranced just a little when they reached the slightly greener grass on the banks of South Ithilien.
It was early afternoon when Faramir led the therapist over the River Poros, and they travelled halfway into the lands of South Ithilien before it was dark. As she laid out her bedding, the therapist happened to glance up at the silhouettes of the mountains up ahead. She gave a gasp at what she saw - it was as if some terrible cold star had been trapped between two peaks, and now sat there like a malevolent lighthouse, luring weary travellers to its jagged peaks. "Faramir," she breathed, as though suddenly afraid she were being watched. "What's that?"
She didn't need to point and he didn't need to turn around to see what the therapist referred to. "It is Minas Morgul. A tower of guard - once it's guard faced inwards, now it faces outwards. Sorcery makes its abode within it now, but once it was the Tower of the Rising Moon and was kin to the tower of Minas Tirith. Do not spend to long looking upon its light, Miss Julie - it ensnares enough as it is."
He sighed and sat down by his weapons whilst the therapist pondered his words. She slept fitfully that night, her dreams filled with leering faces decayed by more than time, and everything was pierced with the blue light of Minas Morgul and the high pitched wails of its inhabitants.
They passed the Morgul Vale in their next day of travel, and though neither looked between the gap in the mountains, both felt the power there. Faramir said quietly, sadly, when they had passed it, "That was the path Frodo and Sam chose to take." When the therapist didn't reply, he looked up. "You remember, Miss Julie, the hobbits?"
"Yes, Faramir, I remember. What do you suppose happened to them?"
"I should not like to suppose," he whispered.
The road was still quiet, as were the travellers, when they came nigh to the partially ruined bridge of Osgilliath. Orc bodies littered the streets of the city on the near bank and Faramir instructed the therapist to keep her eyes focused on his back, and not to look down or sideways. She obeyed his command gladly. Faramir seemed tense, his shoulders hunching with every clip or clop of the horses' footfalls on the stone. The bridge was now in sight at the end of the street, and though it had been hit several times by catapulted stones, a meter or so on the left side was yet intact.
Here Faramir dismounted, the therapist following suit. They led their horses across the narrow path, the therapist's eyes fixed firmly on Faramir's shoulders - away from the swirling grey waters beneath the stone and away from the bodies floating in them. She wondered why the orcs didn't bury their people, but did not ask him, for fear of breaking the silence.
Faramir halted on the other side, but did not remount. The therapist brought Simbel to a halt by him and heard him whisper, "Mablung, where are you?" He sounded worried, and she felt a panic begin to writhe within her - if Faramir was scared then what hope was there for her?
He turned to her, a grim expression on his face. "We will continue on foot - if the horses' steps are heard by orcs we will hide more effectively by running on feet that do not clatter. Do not fear though, Mablung and the rest of my company will here soon, I have no doubt of that."
They began to lead their horses along the continuing street, Faramir just ahead of the therapist. There were not so many bodies on this side of the river, but the silence was deeper. When two orcs appeared ahead of them, the therapist had barely recognised their existence before they fell to Faramir's arrows. She clutched Simbel's long mane to steady herself, but she couldn't take her eyes off the bodies now as Faramir rushed forwards to check there were no more.
Faramir removed his arrows from the orc bodies before venturing a couple of steps down the road from which the ambushers had emerged. Finding nothing, he crept back to where his horse stood and turned to check that the therapist was okay.
He broke into a run, an awful feeling swelling in his lungs. His arrows felled another pair of orcs, but the damage had been done and the therapist slid to her knees, her fingers releasing Simbel's mane. Faramir caught her lightly as she wavered. He was careful to avoid the arrow in her back as he held her upright.
The therapist found that even after only a couple of hours' travel at a light pace the horse was not nearly as comfortable as it had been at first. She fidgeted in the saddle a little, thinking of her zippy little Smart car at home. They were just approaching Dartmoor Forest and her back was beginning to ache.
"Are we going to stop at all during the day?" she asked the silent figure in front.
Faramir turned round a little in the saddle, "Are you tired?"
The therapist pulled a face. "Hey - who's the therapist here? I was just wondering if we had to eat lunch up here and everything?"
Faramir seemed to smirk a bit, but the therapist couldn't tell for sure because his mouth was partially hidden by the bunched up hood of his cloak. "No, we'll stop for lunch. But I hope to be well into the land of Rûhn ere we pause."
The therapist nodded solemnly in time with the swaying of her bay horse. It was called Simbel and was calm enough, but she still felt unsafe as they plodded on, her looking down every so often and wishing she had the hard hat that the riding school had supplied her with.
It was midday before Faramir slowed his horse to a halt. They were on a small path in the woods, and the therapist - who liked to garden in her spare time - had noticed a very subtle and gradual change in the flora and even the temperature and the light. The Ranger turned around once more to face her. "Can you keep going for a bit longer or would you like to rest here, Miss Julie?"
The therapist, not wanting to seem weak in front of him, was about to reply in defiance that she was good for another couple of hours. However, as she drew herself up and straightened her back, it gave a series of pops and clicks that warned her to take the break when it was offered. With a sigh, she slumped again, "If it's okay to stop here I'd be glad to - my back is killing me."
With a smile and a nod, Faramir dismounted and tied his horse to a medium- sized sapling by the edge of the path. The therapist slithered off her mount with less grace and when her feet hit the earth again her knees would have surrendered her to the leafy ground but for her grip on either side of the saddle.
Lunch was not the most filling of meals, but it was welcome nonetheless. The therapist leant against a tree, splaying herself in a most ungainly position as she chewed her tuna sandwiches with satisfaction. Faramir didn't eat. He paced the area for a while, then walked along the path a little, and then explored the surrounding brush a bit. When he came to a standstill in front of the therapist - who was basking in the dappled sunlight - he looked stern, exasperated, and also slightly amused. "Are you rested?"
She smiled, and then gave a mock wince and she stretched her arms out before her. "I think I'll manage a bit more riding now, yeah."
Faramir gave her a look from under half-closed eyelids as he offered a hand to her. Gladly she took it and seemingly without any effort he hauled her to her weary feet. Within moments she found herself back on her horse, following his green-clad back along the path once more.
The wood began to thin after several hours. Spindly and graceful silver birches became the predominant tree and a delicate pink flower carpeted the ground to either side of the path. The therapist thought that they looked like a smaller, lighter type of crowfoot. When the trees came to an end the path had acquired a more compact surface. The sound of the horses' footfalls, although muffled by a fluffy green moss, reverberated a little more on the compressed earth.
The therapist took a good look around the land. There wasn't a chunk of concrete in sight, nor was there any hint of skyscrapers or apartment blocks. She marvelled at the way nature was still so predominant in the land, though it was barren and deserted. A tiny stream coughed and spluttered over sharp grey rocks, leading ahead of them and over the horizon, where the therapist thought she could discern the glimmer of a huge expanse of water.
Faramir seemed sad. He turned to the therapist and said: "This is the border between Rûhn and southern Gondor. It is no more than a wasteland now but once it was full of life. The woods we have just exited are not shown on many maps of Middle-earth because they have been forgotten by most." He turned in his saddle and craned his neck to see the sky behind them. The therapist didn't turn round. She could feel a cool wind start to blow from behind them, and the light seemed to come from ahead but not from behind. She shivered. "And very glad I am that they have been forgotten," her guide murmured.
"So what happened here?" The therapist asked, hoping to turn his attention away from the clouds amassing behind them.
Faramir did turn back to her. "The mountains behind us-"
"Mountains? We just came out of a wood!"
The Ranger said nothing. He just flicked a quick glance back over the therapist's shoulder then back to her. His gaze, though still upset, now had a measure of challenge to it. She turned in the saddle slowly, glancing back once to see his expression. It remained the same, watching hers. There were no silver birches behind her. No delicate pink flowers. Not even any moss.
"Those are the southernmost peaks of the Ephel Duath. They are the Mountains of Shadow and they run south from North Ithilien before curving east to Khand. They are the walls of a fortress which has besieged these lands for centuries, millennia even."
The therapist turned back to him with a terrified expression. The sky behind them was glowing an angry red and malevolent brown clouds swirled around the peaks of the black rocks rising up from the earth. "The thing that's attacking your people.that's what's making the sky do that?" She knew the question sounded foolish, but all of a sudden she found her knuckles whitening as she gripped Simbel's reins.
"Yes," Faramir said simply. "The land before you has been ravaged by war, civil and otherwise, and is now a place where no one would dwell. All we are doing is passing through - our real troubles will not start until we reach the Harad Road. For now, though, we will follow the Harnen."
He had turned his horse and set off down the shallow slope to the plain before the therapist could respond. She assumed that the small river forming was the Harnen, for that seemed to be his destination. The sun was beginning to dip, knocking the clouds as it went and tingeing them yellow and magenta. It would have been beautiful, the therapist thought, if not for the ever-spreading twilight behind her.
They had not travelled far down the riverbanks when the light cooled from orange to blue and a bite came into the air. Faramir halted by a group of stunted gorse trees whose needles were tipped in brown, and whose flowers were withered and few. "We will camp here for the night. I am afraid we cannot risk a fire in such open country, so fruit must suffice if you are hungry."
He dismounted and led his horse to a particularly bare branch where he tethered it. The therapist, overcome with weariness, remained on her horse, relaxing as she watched his practised movements. He unsaddled the horse and propped the saddle against the short trunk of the bush. His fingers nimbly worked at the buckles on the saddlebags despite the thick gloves he wore. Soon a rough bedding had been set up on the hard ground, and he laid his bow and quiver of arrows by the saddle. Giving her a look of inquiry he unbuckled his belt and placed his sword within arms reach by the bedding. "Are you planning to sleep up there, Miss Julie?" It was dark enough that she couldn't see his expression, though his voice suggested a fair measure of amusement.
The therapist dismounted stiffly and stumbled over to a branch, her horse looking at her quizzically. She looped the reins and unbuckled the girth, all the while just wanting to lean forwards onto the animal's soft coat and fall asleep standing up.
When her own bedding was set up, she sat down heavily on the blankets, wishing the ground was as soft as she had anticipated when she collapsed. She glanced briefly at Faramir, who was sitting leant against his pack, under his covers but wide awake and studying a map by the light of a small, well-used candle. The therapist sighed and pulled her hiking boots off before squirming under the woollen blankets. She stayed awake just long enough to hear a soft, "sleep well, Miss Julie."
She was just as tired in the morning, plus her aches were doubled by the unyielding rock under her. The light was cold and blue and the sun not quite up when, as before, Faramir gave her shoulder a small squeeze. "I am sorry to rob you of your mornings sleep, Miss Julie, but it is almost dawn."
The therapist mumbled into her covers and blinked as she looked about the camp. It wasn't any different from last night, except that everything - including her - was covered in a fine mist of dew and Faramir's packs was back on his re-saddled horse. It being so early, she hadn't worked up an appetite yet, so without much fuss they were soon on their way again.
The days' travel was uneventful. The therapist occasionally walked her horse by Faramir's so that she could talk to him. At her lunch stop he showed her a map of the region.
"Why are we following the river? Wouldn't it be quicker to cut across country?" The therapist asked, having thought carefully before even daring to suggest it - she didn't want to seem without faith in her guide.
Faramir gave her the look she'd expected - one eyebrow raised, 'oh really?' "Yes, if we knew the land, and there were enough springs and streams. But it might not be suitable for riding, and we would go slower on foot. We could lose our bearings - we could lose each other, and who knows whether tribes still inhabit the wilds of these parts?"
The therapist just nodded, expecting some reaction similar to that. "So how many days' travel do you think we have left?"
He rolled up the map again. "I would estimate that we have about five days' travel to Osgilliath. There we'll join with the rest of my men, who will be pulling out of that doomed city. We will travel to Minas Tirith, the capital city of Gondor from there. It shouldn't quite take a day's travel."
"Six days, then?" He nodded. The therapist sighed as she remounted her horse, wondering what would happen to the people who had expected appointments with her during the week.
The next days passed without excitement. They talked, sometimes of the history of Gondor, sometimes of trivial matters, such as plants and pets. Faramir laughed easily for those two days, but on the fourth day of travel, as they trotted through the scrub at the sides of the Harad Road he became less talkative, and the therapist let Simbel drop back into single file with Faramir's horse. He turned once to her, a couple of hours after their midday break and whispered, "We approach the Crossings of Poros. I do not expect them to be guarded, but we must take care - soon we will leave the side of the road, for it is not safe to travel near to the path of servants of the Dark Lord."
The therapist merely nodded again, unsure of what a reply to that should sound like.
They travelled on in silence for an hour or two before Faramir halted at the edge of the thin tree cover. The Crossings consisted of one wide stone bridge spanning the river and shallow fords either side for those travelling on foot. The bridge, about eight meters in width, had once carried wains and carts journeying from South Gondor to the capital in the north and back again. It was a sturdy bridge, made for supporting heavy trading traffic.
For a few long moments Faramir assessed the area. When he nudged his horse onwards, the therapist followed in perfect trust of his abilities as a Ranger, believing that if he had seen nothing, nothing was there. The horses picked their way uneasily across the ford nearest to them and pranced just a little when they reached the slightly greener grass on the banks of South Ithilien.
It was early afternoon when Faramir led the therapist over the River Poros, and they travelled halfway into the lands of South Ithilien before it was dark. As she laid out her bedding, the therapist happened to glance up at the silhouettes of the mountains up ahead. She gave a gasp at what she saw - it was as if some terrible cold star had been trapped between two peaks, and now sat there like a malevolent lighthouse, luring weary travellers to its jagged peaks. "Faramir," she breathed, as though suddenly afraid she were being watched. "What's that?"
She didn't need to point and he didn't need to turn around to see what the therapist referred to. "It is Minas Morgul. A tower of guard - once it's guard faced inwards, now it faces outwards. Sorcery makes its abode within it now, but once it was the Tower of the Rising Moon and was kin to the tower of Minas Tirith. Do not spend to long looking upon its light, Miss Julie - it ensnares enough as it is."
He sighed and sat down by his weapons whilst the therapist pondered his words. She slept fitfully that night, her dreams filled with leering faces decayed by more than time, and everything was pierced with the blue light of Minas Morgul and the high pitched wails of its inhabitants.
They passed the Morgul Vale in their next day of travel, and though neither looked between the gap in the mountains, both felt the power there. Faramir said quietly, sadly, when they had passed it, "That was the path Frodo and Sam chose to take." When the therapist didn't reply, he looked up. "You remember, Miss Julie, the hobbits?"
"Yes, Faramir, I remember. What do you suppose happened to them?"
"I should not like to suppose," he whispered.
The road was still quiet, as were the travellers, when they came nigh to the partially ruined bridge of Osgilliath. Orc bodies littered the streets of the city on the near bank and Faramir instructed the therapist to keep her eyes focused on his back, and not to look down or sideways. She obeyed his command gladly. Faramir seemed tense, his shoulders hunching with every clip or clop of the horses' footfalls on the stone. The bridge was now in sight at the end of the street, and though it had been hit several times by catapulted stones, a meter or so on the left side was yet intact.
Here Faramir dismounted, the therapist following suit. They led their horses across the narrow path, the therapist's eyes fixed firmly on Faramir's shoulders - away from the swirling grey waters beneath the stone and away from the bodies floating in them. She wondered why the orcs didn't bury their people, but did not ask him, for fear of breaking the silence.
Faramir halted on the other side, but did not remount. The therapist brought Simbel to a halt by him and heard him whisper, "Mablung, where are you?" He sounded worried, and she felt a panic begin to writhe within her - if Faramir was scared then what hope was there for her?
He turned to her, a grim expression on his face. "We will continue on foot - if the horses' steps are heard by orcs we will hide more effectively by running on feet that do not clatter. Do not fear though, Mablung and the rest of my company will here soon, I have no doubt of that."
They began to lead their horses along the continuing street, Faramir just ahead of the therapist. There were not so many bodies on this side of the river, but the silence was deeper. When two orcs appeared ahead of them, the therapist had barely recognised their existence before they fell to Faramir's arrows. She clutched Simbel's long mane to steady herself, but she couldn't take her eyes off the bodies now as Faramir rushed forwards to check there were no more.
Faramir removed his arrows from the orc bodies before venturing a couple of steps down the road from which the ambushers had emerged. Finding nothing, he crept back to where his horse stood and turned to check that the therapist was okay.
He broke into a run, an awful feeling swelling in his lungs. His arrows felled another pair of orcs, but the damage had been done and the therapist slid to her knees, her fingers releasing Simbel's mane. Faramir caught her lightly as she wavered. He was careful to avoid the arrow in her back as he held her upright.