Woohoo! I have reviews! *Does review dance* Well, actually, I have...a few...reviews. Heh. *looks appealing* So help me improve that count, people, and review! And if you already did, well... keep reviewing, cuz I have a feeling this story isn't going to attract that many readers. ^.^;; Thank you also for assuring me Saali is not a Mary Sue, hehehe...

And Melime, I just realized that it IS kind of like Eowyn's story now, but it'll stop being so Eowyn-ish a bit in this chapter and a LOT in the next.

Anyway, I think I fixed the last chappie, it was yet another computer error (I DO know how to write in paragraphs! I swear!!!) I hate my comp. I have to type it all up a certain way, or it comes out all screwed up, as demonstrated by the last chapter. *Kills computer violently and gorily*

Wait! DUDE! NOW THAT LAST CHAPPIE'S EVEN MORE SCREWED THAN BEFORE! *dies* X.X

ANYWAY

I hope this one works, and i hope you can all read around the crap on that last one... :/

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Chapter Three: In Which First Impressions Are Deceiving

 "Hoy there! What do you all think you are doing?" The rough voice of the captain, when shouting, was even more painful to hear than when he spoke normally.

Saali glanced up innocently from where she had stopped walking.

"You are in the army! We MARCH!" the captain ordered.

There was a chorus of "yessir" 's from the men. Saali kept her scarf-covered mouth firmly closed.

"Right then! Right! Left! Right! Left!" The soldiers marched, perfectly in step, from the Burnt District. The impostor soldier flinched as the hot desert wind hit her face, and was grateful for the scarf that protected both her identity and her face from the sand.

That thought lasted only a moment, however, because she put her foot down wrong in the slippery sand, and ended up face down in the sand.

The soldier beside her gave a hearty laugh. "You all right?" he inquired, and offered her a hand. He was tall, with a blacksmith's muscular build and long hair worn in the same braids as Saali's.

Saali nodded furiously, but before she could accept his hand, the captain was standing menacingly beside her. "Soldier."

Saali nodded again, realizing that was what she would have to do a lot if she intended not to speak at all.

"You do not nod when your commanding officer addresses you!" he rasped. "You say 'Yessir!'"

"Yessir!" Saali yelped, just barely managing to make her voice lower than usual. The man who had offered his hand stood by in irritation, tapping a foot.

Then the captain did something that surprised her. "All right, we have left the city, you do not have to march now," he called to the rest of the soldiers. "Now then. Soldier, do you intend to be of any use fighting?"

"Yessir!"

"Do you intend to protect your country and your pride?"

"Yessir!"

"Then DO NOT BE CLUMSY! DO I MAKE MYSELF CLEAR!" The captain spat in her face as he leaned forward to shriek this at her.

"Yessir!" Her voice raised to its normal octave on that "yessir".

"Leave him alone, sir, for Fate's sake, sir," the soldier beside her said loudly, grinning. "He's new, sir, sir, yessir, he is, sir."

Sir turned sharply to face the soldier. "I do not appreciate cheek! I have my eye on you, Private Kentai, one false move and I could -"

"Yessir, I know, sir," said the man whose name seemed to be Kentai, grinning even more broadly.

Quite surprisingly to Saali, the captain stalked off to lead the troops again, muttering about incompetent, fresh-mouthed soldiers.

"You all right?" Kentai grinned, grabbing Saali's arm and pulling her up from where she still lay in the sand with surprising strength.

Saali hastily yanked her arm away. I hope the Fate-curse thing is false, or now he shall die within the day, for touching me, she thought ruefully. She nodded yet again in response to his question.

"Come on now, I know you can talk. You just said 'yessir' about ten times," the tall man said laughingly as they began to walk again. They were now at the very back of the troop, but that didn't stop the men from staring at them, and Saali squirmed under their eyes.

The young widow wanted to clear her throat, but resisted. "Yes, I can talk," she said, the frog in her throat making her sound more like a man.

"Good!" Kentai exclaimed agreeably. "Do not worry your head about Sir. He is just a bit grouchy in the morning, is all," he added lightly.

"Does...Sir... have a name?" Saali wanted to know.

"No, not really," Kentai answered bluntly. "I suppose he does, but we do not know it, and it makes things all the easier when he is commanding."

Saali didn't see how not knowing his name could make things easier, but she refrained from saying so. "And... and why did he not kill you on the spot just now?" It was taking all her willpower not to clear her throat.

"Well, we need all the men we can get, nowadays," Kentai sighed. "He is not going to kill a soldier for no good reason. And," he added, dark eyes twinkling, "I think he likes my sass. Keeps all the power from going to his head."

Saali giggled, then gulped and realized giggling wasn't very manly. Kentai gave her a strange look, but that was all. That was good, because she had decided she liked this man.

"Anyhow, what do you call yourself, newbie?" Kentai asked jovially. Saali was beginning to wonder if the grin ever left his face.

"Moroke," she said quickly, as she had planned. Taking her father's name could not be very bad luck, although taking anyone's name would supposedly affect Fate for the worse.

"Pleased. Kentai, but you can call me Tai," he said, and gave as much of a traditional bow as he could while trudging through the sand. "And I hope you come to a better end than the man you are replacing."

They fell silent right about then, for it had reached the hottest hour of the day. Sweat rolled down Saali's forehead and nose and gathered on the rim of the scarf; her underclothes quickly became soaked. She could not blot the sweat off, because her arms and body were covered with sand. She stumbled many a time. In fact, the entire troop of soldiers was a stumbling, sweaty red-black-and-gold mass.

"I think," Kentai commented, "this is as... close to the Punishment Realms... as it gets... in Middle Earth." He took breaks to pant between words.

Sometime in the afternoon, a man came around and handed out canteens. "Use them wisely," he advised the men as he passed the heavy water bottles around, "for this is all you get for the voyage."

Saali and Tai groaned in unison.
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The evening was much cooler - cool enough to make Saali wish her undergarments were not so sweat-soaked. The men stopped in their tracks and began to set up camp for the night. The same man handed out tents. "Don't rip 'em," he advised in an uplifting sort of way, "for-"

"Yeah, yeah, they are all we get for the voyage," Tai grinned. Although, somehow, this was a more bitter grin. Saali was discovering he had different grins for different occasions.

"Wait - he did not give me a tent," Saali protested as the errand man moved on.

"Of course not. We are tenties," Kentai said, as if it were obvious.

"Tenties?"

"We share a tent, of course," he explained as if she were stupid.

"But -" Saali shuddered and gulped. Sharing a room - or, most likely, a tent - with a man when you were was supposed to be certain condemnation for him by Fate. But she could not let him know who she was. She would just have to sleep in many layers of clothing. "All right," she squeaked.

"Do not snore, Moroke," Tai said cheerfully, and they pitched the tent.
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When they were finished, Tai collected both their dinners, consisting of overly spiced dried beef and flat bread, from the supply tent. All over, men sat down outside their tents to eat.

The man she had seen earlier holding the mumaks, short and lean but taut-muscled with a gentle face, came over and sat wordlessly on the sand beside Tai.

"Oh. Hello there. Moroke, this is Emreni. Reni, Moroke," Tai introduced him. Reni nodded in acknowledgment, but still did not speak.

"Er - hello," Saali said awkwardly. "How... do you do?"

"He is not going to answer you," Kentai announced. "He is mute."

Reni looked very miffed. Pulling out a pen and a piece of paper, he scribbled with the ease of practice:

NOT MUTE. VOW OF SILENCE.

"Why?" Saali wanted to know.

WAR IS STUPID. VOW OF SILENCE
UNTIL WAR ENDS.

"But you are a soldier," Saali pointed out.

NOT SOLDIER. MUMAK-MAN. DO NOT
KILL ANYONE. WANT PEACE FOR MUMAKS.

He wrote so quickly, his fingers were a blur. "Oh," Saali said lamely. They finished their tasteless (except for the spice) dinner in, quite appropriately, silence.

Later, "Moroke" and Kentai returned to their tent to sleep. "I - I am just going to change clothes. Could you... wait outside?"

"Why?" Tai looked genuinely amused and befuddled at the same time.

"Just do it," she commanded.

"Well, all right," Kentai agreed, but Saali should have known that look in his amused dark eyes meant trouble.

Once inside, Saali furiously threw off her shirt and pulled on a clean one. "Hurry up!" Tai's deep voice boomed from outside the tent. "The bugs are biting!"

"Hurrying!" she squeaked and changed her breeches. Her clothes were so disgusting; she had to change before she slept...

"I am coming in!" Tai announced.

"NO! DO NOT COME IN!" Saali threw herself against the tent flaps. She had her helm off and only her breeches and undershirt on, leaving her widow's lock and what feminine form she had for all to see.

"I am!" Tai shouted, and crashed into her. She went flying onto her sleeping mat, and Tai dashed in, laughing.

And stopped in his tracks, and stared.