Disclaimer: Enterprise and related characters belong to Paramount Pictures;
Lord of the Rings and related characters belong to J.R.R. Tolkien. I am
merely borrowing them.
Author's Note: As it says in the first chapter, I'm not using either the books or the movie exclusively. It's a little of both, although it probably leans more towards the movie in terms of plot. But elements of both will be incorporated (including, eventually, a chance for Faramir, captain of Gondor, to show his quality....).
**********************
THE SHADOW RIDERS
Chapter 3: The Rohirrim Ride Away
As before Legolas was first afoot, if indeed he had ever slept. "Awake! Awake!" he cried. "It is a red dawn. Strange things await us by the eave of the forest. Good or evil, I do not know; but we are called! Awake!"
~J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings
**********************
The monster was coming.... The huge spiked club swung this way, and that, and his legs would not move quickly enough to dodge the blows. He fell under a rain of battering hits, drowning in the mud....
Malcolm woke up slowly, his tongue dry in his mouth and his leg and chest throbbing with a dull, persistent pain. He could not open his eyes; every time he tried, they simply flopped back down again, as if someone had tied lead weights to his eyelashes. His breath sounded loud in his own ears, rasping a little and sending little flickers of fire through his ribs. Broken ribs, he amended himself, knowing more than he wanted about what that felt like. Surely, though, Phlox was buzzing around here somewhere with a hypospray and a tissue regenerator and he'd be feeling much better soon.
But as he managed, finally, to get his eyes open and staying that way, he realized that unless Sickbay had somehow turned into a medieval feudal estate, he was probably not on Enterprise. He gazed at the low-beamed ceiling, baffled, until his stuffy brain reminded him that he wasn't supposed to be on Enterprise anyway. This was his shore leave.
That thought hung around for a while---he was on shore leave, how nice--- until he remembered that he and Hoshi had gone hiking with the intent of exploring some ruins on the now-unpopulated planet and found some curious artifacts....
Now he remembered everything, from digging up the box to taking on whatever that hideous creature had been. Thinking back, he even had some hazy thoughts of waking up here once or twice before. Hoshi had been there; he seemed to remember other women too, old and young, moving around the room. Golden hair and blue, solemn eyes popped into his head, and a thought of cool water on his tongue.
"Hello?" he croaked, hoping someone would bring him some. Carefully he eased himself up onto his eyes, gasping at the movement in stiff muscles. Obviously he had been here for a while, judging by how his arms protested at their use. "Does anyone...water, please?" His parched tongue betrayed him, refusing to shape the words properly.
"Malcolm!" cried a familiar voice, and a flurry of movement raced across the room, black hair flying. Hoshi pushed him back down onto his back (his arms cheered) and fumbled with a cup of water, spilling some over his shoulders before she got it to his mouth. Reed didn't care; he drained the cup, thirstier than he could ever remember being in his life. No I.V.s , he told himself. No hypos. Dehydration probably set in quickly around here.
"You're awake!" said Hoshi, feeling his forehead. "I was so worried, it's been almost three days since the last time you woke up."
"How long---how long have we been here?" Reed stuttered, forcing his throat to behave normally.
"Seven days now," Hoshi told him. "Your fever went down, too. I think your scrapes got infected. Êowyn said those orcs are not ever very clean, and you were in the mud a while too."
"Orc," repeated Reed. So that was what it was. An orc. "What's an orc?" he asked, reaching for the water cup again.
"Éowyn said they used to be Elves," Hoshi replied, gently putting it into his still-shaky hand. "But I guess something horrible happened to make them turn into orcs. She says Elves are the complete opposite but she didn't know how to really explain them to me. Elves are immortal and more beautiful than any human, but they're sailing away to the west, I guess to that smaller continent that the captain thought was too dangerous for shore leave."
Reed, slightly surprised at Hoshi's steady stream of talk, realized that she was merely relieved. He had missed the undertone of worry in her babble. Gently he laid his hand on her arm, squeezing comfortingly. "It's all right, Hoshi," he said. She blushed and took his hand.
"You can't imagine how worried I've been," she said, tears welling up in her eyes. "I thought you would die and I would be trapped here alone with no one to tell that I wasn't crazy for believing you could fly through the stars."
"Where is here, exactly?" said Malcolm, not trusting himself to respond at all coherently to her last sentence in any other way. Maddie used to do that, too, completely disarm all his protests and mental faculties in general with one little tear streaking down her cheek.
Hoshi laughed softly and wiped her eyes. "Middle Earth. Where in the great wide galaxy that's supposed to be, I don't know. We're in the country of Rohan, which is a nation of humans. Or Men, as they say. I guess there are others too to the south and far north. I can't remember the names. But there are other things besides humans. Éowyn's told me about Elves, of course, but there are Orcs and Trolls and Dwarves and things like that, too. It's like we walked into a fairytale."
Reed closed his eyes. "I think I must still be dreaming," he said. "Are we crazy?"
"Maybe," said Hoshi, her voice shaky. "I've been looking at the stars every night, Malcolm, trying to see if there's one that could be Enterprise. You know, moving strangely, like satellites around Earth you can tell aren't stars." She sighed wistfully. "Maybe I'm just not looking hard enough."
"They'll find us," said Malcolm firmly. He opened his eyes and smiled weakly at Hoshi, who gave him a grin back.
"I'm so glad you're actually talking this time," said Hoshi. "Well, lucidly, at least. You were a little delirious for a while. I thought we were going to lose you." She held his hand, gripping so tightly that the bones crunched together, but Reed didn't let go. He knew well enough when someone needed reassurance; despite his appearance of being antisocial, he was a good judge of people and mood. And truth to tell, though he hardly admitted it even in his own mind, he needed some himself.
A soft voice behind the two startled both of them. Malcolm raised his eyes to behold a golden vision of curly hair and pale eyes---the woman he remembered in fits and snatches---and probably the Éowyn Hoshi spoke of. She spoke to Hoshi briefly and smiled at Reed.
"She says you should try and drink a little more, and then sleep again," Hoshi repeated as Éowyn glided away. Reed watched her go and wondered anew at this strange place they had come to.
Hoshi smacked him on the shoulder. "Stop that!" she cried angrily.
"Ow! What? Stop what?"
"You're such a MAN sometimes," she said in exasperation.
"Well, yes," Malcolm replied, definitely not letting that one pass. "Last time I checked I was." He grinned as widely as he could manage.
She smacked him again and shook her head.
"When did you turn into my sister?"
"When you decided to take on an Orc and get your ribs smashed to bits, that's when," said Hoshi, handing him the cup of water. He drank deeply again, his throat still feeling a little scratchy. "Someone has to look after you."
He smiled at her and settled back down into the pillow, eyes already drooping a bit. "Thank you, Hoshi," he said before he drifted off, so softly that he wasn't sure if she heard. He hoped she did.
**********************
It was two days before Éowyn would allow him out of bed at all, and then he could only limp across the sickroom and back. The other recuperating patients in the room gave him lessons in their language, pointing out objects and pantomiming actions, and laughing hugely when he tried to pronounce the more difficult words. But he was slow to learn it, not having Hoshi's gift of tongues. She herself spoke the Common Speech, as she called it, quite fluently by then, but refused to translate anything for him unless it was absolutely essential.
"You have to learn the language, Malcolm," she said firmly. "You're not going to do that having me translate everything for you. We're surrounded by people speaking the Common Speech. It'll come soon enough."
"I'm going to forget proper English," he grumbled. "I'll never be able to show my face in England again."
"We'll get you a Universal Translator," Hoshi snapped. "Set to London Standard or Dorset Speech or whatever the hell you want. So I don't see why it should be a problem. Go try the verbs again."
Another week passed before he could get around well enough to leave the Hall of Meduseld and go out into the city of Edoras. He stood on the top of the steps of the Golden Hall and looked out at the white stream rushing down from the snows of the mountains, flowing away east to a wide reed- choked river. The land was slowly turning greener, feeling the approach of spring: in the wet meads and along the grassy borders of the stream grew many willow trees. Already in this southern land they were blushing red at their fingertips.
The wind blew unceasingly here in Rohan, whipping across the walls of the city and flattening the grasses on the plain. Though Éowyn told him (with a little help from Hoshi in translating) that this land was much warmer than the far countries of the north, he could stand it for only a little while before shivering and retreating back into the warm hall. Living on a climate-controlled starship did little to help one's appreciation for the tricks of the weather.
He wandered about the city when he was well enough, lingering long at the smithies and the armory, full of bright shining swords and helms, mail- coats and shields, all the gear of the Rohirrim. In his own way he was a warrior, but not compared to these broad-shouldered riders who wielded swords that he could barely pick up with the ease of a child swinging a wooden stick.
At times Hoshi wandered along with him, giving him language lessons and making sure he did not tire himself out. "Because," she told him, "I know that when you say, I'm fine, you really mean, I'm bloody well tired as all get out." But more often she helped Éowyn with the duties of running Meduseld and, indeed, most of the city, since the King, Théoden, was barely capable of ruling any longer, and the heir to the throne, Prince Théodred, was too often away trying to defend his country from the vicious raids of the wizard Saruman.
Reed did not know what a king was supposed to look like, or act like, since his Earth had long ago abandoned that type of rule, but he did not think the huddled mass of furs that sat dreaming on the throne was anything like it.
He watched Éomer, the Third Marshal of the Mark, ride out with a company of Rohirrim to the villages on the Westfold one rainy day, wrapped snugly in a gray-brown wool cloak as he stood in the watchtower. It was two days later-- -their twenty-second day in the city---when the company came back, wet and dripping from the spring rains, carrying wounded across their horses with grim faces.
Reed followed Éowyn and Hoshi to the doors of Meduseld as Éomer rushed up the steps with a sodden, limp form clasped in his arms. "Cousin!" cried Éowyn as she recognized the shallowly breathing figure and rushed down the steps. Her brother gave Hoshi and Malcolm a grim look and let himself be herded towards the sickrooms, still carrying his cousin in his arms.
"What happened to them?" whispered Malcolm in English. For once Hoshi didn't give him a stern look for not trying to speak in the language of Middle Earth, and simply sighed.
"Orcs again, probably," she said. "Like we've been hearing about these three weeks. Always orcs. And Éowyn and Éomer are worried because the king does nothing, yet somehow Grimá Wormtongue always manages to supersede their authority with a signed proclamation whenever they try to do anything."
Reed shook his head. He had had a short encounter with the pale greasy advisor to the king and disliked the man immensely, going out of his way to avoid him after that. Hoshi had told him of the man's obvious desire for the lovely Éowyn, and Malcolm hoped for her sake Éowyn did not return the feelings. Such a man should never be allowed near a woman, much less one so beautiful as the king's niece.
"He thinks we are spies from Gondor, whatever that is," said Reed, still speaking in English. "I think he is a traitor. I think he is in league with this wizard fellow, the one with the white hand."
"And what are we loitering about here for, spies?" said an oily voice in Common Speech behind them. Both Hoshi and Malcolm started, not having heard the slimy little advisor come up. "Collecting information to bring down an invasion upon us?"
"No," said Hoshi coldly. "We are not spies, how many times do I have to tell you, worm?"
"Watch your tongue, wench," said Grimá. "I have the king's ear and you do not, and it is but for his kindness that you stay here in this hall. Some will leave today. Perhaps you should go with them?"
Neither of them replied; they merely stared back at the man with icy glares. "I thought not," he said, twisting his lips into the semblance of a smile, and strode past them into the hall with a billow of his cloak.
"We should go," said Hoshi at last in the Common Speech, after a long silence in which only the howling ever-present wind screamed in their ears. "Stop speaking in English. You'll never learn otherwise."
"Yes, Queen Hoshi," muttered Malcolm in the same language. "How do you say 'tyrant'?"
Neither of them thought any more on the strange words that Grimá Wormtongue had threatened them with outside the doors of the Golden Hall. Only when the call to muster was sounded did they go outside, drawn by the surprised shouts of the people in the city and the clang of armor and steel. The company of Rohirrim were mounted and ready to leave, lead by a red-faced and furious Éomer, his hand drawn tight around his sword Gúthwinë and the other on the reins of his horse. He spotted Hoshi and Malcolm standing near the doors to the lower levels of Meduseld and nodded, face still grim.
They pushed past the people in the crowd as the Rohirrim began to ride out. Éomer checked his horse until Hoshi and Malcolm drew close enough to hear him, and then shouted something at them, speaking too quickly for Malcolm to catch. Then he turned and spurred on the horse, galloping down the hill after the riders of the Mark
"What did he say?" asked Malcolm when they could no longer see the riders and the dejected people of Edoras had begun to trickle back to their homes.
Hoshi looked over her shoulder into the distance, where the Rohirrim had disappeared into the shadowy hills to the north. For a long moment she did not answer, gazing at the horizon with sorrow written on her features.
"He said, 'If he touches my sister, kill him for me'," she said, looking straight at Malcolm. "He was talking to you."
***********************
YAY!!!! New chapter!!! I love writing this story. It's so much fun. Thanks for all the reviews! Suggestions, comments, concerns always welcome.
Author's Note: As it says in the first chapter, I'm not using either the books or the movie exclusively. It's a little of both, although it probably leans more towards the movie in terms of plot. But elements of both will be incorporated (including, eventually, a chance for Faramir, captain of Gondor, to show his quality....).
**********************
THE SHADOW RIDERS
Chapter 3: The Rohirrim Ride Away
As before Legolas was first afoot, if indeed he had ever slept. "Awake! Awake!" he cried. "It is a red dawn. Strange things await us by the eave of the forest. Good or evil, I do not know; but we are called! Awake!"
~J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings
**********************
The monster was coming.... The huge spiked club swung this way, and that, and his legs would not move quickly enough to dodge the blows. He fell under a rain of battering hits, drowning in the mud....
Malcolm woke up slowly, his tongue dry in his mouth and his leg and chest throbbing with a dull, persistent pain. He could not open his eyes; every time he tried, they simply flopped back down again, as if someone had tied lead weights to his eyelashes. His breath sounded loud in his own ears, rasping a little and sending little flickers of fire through his ribs. Broken ribs, he amended himself, knowing more than he wanted about what that felt like. Surely, though, Phlox was buzzing around here somewhere with a hypospray and a tissue regenerator and he'd be feeling much better soon.
But as he managed, finally, to get his eyes open and staying that way, he realized that unless Sickbay had somehow turned into a medieval feudal estate, he was probably not on Enterprise. He gazed at the low-beamed ceiling, baffled, until his stuffy brain reminded him that he wasn't supposed to be on Enterprise anyway. This was his shore leave.
That thought hung around for a while---he was on shore leave, how nice--- until he remembered that he and Hoshi had gone hiking with the intent of exploring some ruins on the now-unpopulated planet and found some curious artifacts....
Now he remembered everything, from digging up the box to taking on whatever that hideous creature had been. Thinking back, he even had some hazy thoughts of waking up here once or twice before. Hoshi had been there; he seemed to remember other women too, old and young, moving around the room. Golden hair and blue, solemn eyes popped into his head, and a thought of cool water on his tongue.
"Hello?" he croaked, hoping someone would bring him some. Carefully he eased himself up onto his eyes, gasping at the movement in stiff muscles. Obviously he had been here for a while, judging by how his arms protested at their use. "Does anyone...water, please?" His parched tongue betrayed him, refusing to shape the words properly.
"Malcolm!" cried a familiar voice, and a flurry of movement raced across the room, black hair flying. Hoshi pushed him back down onto his back (his arms cheered) and fumbled with a cup of water, spilling some over his shoulders before she got it to his mouth. Reed didn't care; he drained the cup, thirstier than he could ever remember being in his life. No I.V.s , he told himself. No hypos. Dehydration probably set in quickly around here.
"You're awake!" said Hoshi, feeling his forehead. "I was so worried, it's been almost three days since the last time you woke up."
"How long---how long have we been here?" Reed stuttered, forcing his throat to behave normally.
"Seven days now," Hoshi told him. "Your fever went down, too. I think your scrapes got infected. Êowyn said those orcs are not ever very clean, and you were in the mud a while too."
"Orc," repeated Reed. So that was what it was. An orc. "What's an orc?" he asked, reaching for the water cup again.
"Éowyn said they used to be Elves," Hoshi replied, gently putting it into his still-shaky hand. "But I guess something horrible happened to make them turn into orcs. She says Elves are the complete opposite but she didn't know how to really explain them to me. Elves are immortal and more beautiful than any human, but they're sailing away to the west, I guess to that smaller continent that the captain thought was too dangerous for shore leave."
Reed, slightly surprised at Hoshi's steady stream of talk, realized that she was merely relieved. He had missed the undertone of worry in her babble. Gently he laid his hand on her arm, squeezing comfortingly. "It's all right, Hoshi," he said. She blushed and took his hand.
"You can't imagine how worried I've been," she said, tears welling up in her eyes. "I thought you would die and I would be trapped here alone with no one to tell that I wasn't crazy for believing you could fly through the stars."
"Where is here, exactly?" said Malcolm, not trusting himself to respond at all coherently to her last sentence in any other way. Maddie used to do that, too, completely disarm all his protests and mental faculties in general with one little tear streaking down her cheek.
Hoshi laughed softly and wiped her eyes. "Middle Earth. Where in the great wide galaxy that's supposed to be, I don't know. We're in the country of Rohan, which is a nation of humans. Or Men, as they say. I guess there are others too to the south and far north. I can't remember the names. But there are other things besides humans. Éowyn's told me about Elves, of course, but there are Orcs and Trolls and Dwarves and things like that, too. It's like we walked into a fairytale."
Reed closed his eyes. "I think I must still be dreaming," he said. "Are we crazy?"
"Maybe," said Hoshi, her voice shaky. "I've been looking at the stars every night, Malcolm, trying to see if there's one that could be Enterprise. You know, moving strangely, like satellites around Earth you can tell aren't stars." She sighed wistfully. "Maybe I'm just not looking hard enough."
"They'll find us," said Malcolm firmly. He opened his eyes and smiled weakly at Hoshi, who gave him a grin back.
"I'm so glad you're actually talking this time," said Hoshi. "Well, lucidly, at least. You were a little delirious for a while. I thought we were going to lose you." She held his hand, gripping so tightly that the bones crunched together, but Reed didn't let go. He knew well enough when someone needed reassurance; despite his appearance of being antisocial, he was a good judge of people and mood. And truth to tell, though he hardly admitted it even in his own mind, he needed some himself.
A soft voice behind the two startled both of them. Malcolm raised his eyes to behold a golden vision of curly hair and pale eyes---the woman he remembered in fits and snatches---and probably the Éowyn Hoshi spoke of. She spoke to Hoshi briefly and smiled at Reed.
"She says you should try and drink a little more, and then sleep again," Hoshi repeated as Éowyn glided away. Reed watched her go and wondered anew at this strange place they had come to.
Hoshi smacked him on the shoulder. "Stop that!" she cried angrily.
"Ow! What? Stop what?"
"You're such a MAN sometimes," she said in exasperation.
"Well, yes," Malcolm replied, definitely not letting that one pass. "Last time I checked I was." He grinned as widely as he could manage.
She smacked him again and shook her head.
"When did you turn into my sister?"
"When you decided to take on an Orc and get your ribs smashed to bits, that's when," said Hoshi, handing him the cup of water. He drank deeply again, his throat still feeling a little scratchy. "Someone has to look after you."
He smiled at her and settled back down into the pillow, eyes already drooping a bit. "Thank you, Hoshi," he said before he drifted off, so softly that he wasn't sure if she heard. He hoped she did.
**********************
It was two days before Éowyn would allow him out of bed at all, and then he could only limp across the sickroom and back. The other recuperating patients in the room gave him lessons in their language, pointing out objects and pantomiming actions, and laughing hugely when he tried to pronounce the more difficult words. But he was slow to learn it, not having Hoshi's gift of tongues. She herself spoke the Common Speech, as she called it, quite fluently by then, but refused to translate anything for him unless it was absolutely essential.
"You have to learn the language, Malcolm," she said firmly. "You're not going to do that having me translate everything for you. We're surrounded by people speaking the Common Speech. It'll come soon enough."
"I'm going to forget proper English," he grumbled. "I'll never be able to show my face in England again."
"We'll get you a Universal Translator," Hoshi snapped. "Set to London Standard or Dorset Speech or whatever the hell you want. So I don't see why it should be a problem. Go try the verbs again."
Another week passed before he could get around well enough to leave the Hall of Meduseld and go out into the city of Edoras. He stood on the top of the steps of the Golden Hall and looked out at the white stream rushing down from the snows of the mountains, flowing away east to a wide reed- choked river. The land was slowly turning greener, feeling the approach of spring: in the wet meads and along the grassy borders of the stream grew many willow trees. Already in this southern land they were blushing red at their fingertips.
The wind blew unceasingly here in Rohan, whipping across the walls of the city and flattening the grasses on the plain. Though Éowyn told him (with a little help from Hoshi in translating) that this land was much warmer than the far countries of the north, he could stand it for only a little while before shivering and retreating back into the warm hall. Living on a climate-controlled starship did little to help one's appreciation for the tricks of the weather.
He wandered about the city when he was well enough, lingering long at the smithies and the armory, full of bright shining swords and helms, mail- coats and shields, all the gear of the Rohirrim. In his own way he was a warrior, but not compared to these broad-shouldered riders who wielded swords that he could barely pick up with the ease of a child swinging a wooden stick.
At times Hoshi wandered along with him, giving him language lessons and making sure he did not tire himself out. "Because," she told him, "I know that when you say, I'm fine, you really mean, I'm bloody well tired as all get out." But more often she helped Éowyn with the duties of running Meduseld and, indeed, most of the city, since the King, Théoden, was barely capable of ruling any longer, and the heir to the throne, Prince Théodred, was too often away trying to defend his country from the vicious raids of the wizard Saruman.
Reed did not know what a king was supposed to look like, or act like, since his Earth had long ago abandoned that type of rule, but he did not think the huddled mass of furs that sat dreaming on the throne was anything like it.
He watched Éomer, the Third Marshal of the Mark, ride out with a company of Rohirrim to the villages on the Westfold one rainy day, wrapped snugly in a gray-brown wool cloak as he stood in the watchtower. It was two days later-- -their twenty-second day in the city---when the company came back, wet and dripping from the spring rains, carrying wounded across their horses with grim faces.
Reed followed Éowyn and Hoshi to the doors of Meduseld as Éomer rushed up the steps with a sodden, limp form clasped in his arms. "Cousin!" cried Éowyn as she recognized the shallowly breathing figure and rushed down the steps. Her brother gave Hoshi and Malcolm a grim look and let himself be herded towards the sickrooms, still carrying his cousin in his arms.
"What happened to them?" whispered Malcolm in English. For once Hoshi didn't give him a stern look for not trying to speak in the language of Middle Earth, and simply sighed.
"Orcs again, probably," she said. "Like we've been hearing about these three weeks. Always orcs. And Éowyn and Éomer are worried because the king does nothing, yet somehow Grimá Wormtongue always manages to supersede their authority with a signed proclamation whenever they try to do anything."
Reed shook his head. He had had a short encounter with the pale greasy advisor to the king and disliked the man immensely, going out of his way to avoid him after that. Hoshi had told him of the man's obvious desire for the lovely Éowyn, and Malcolm hoped for her sake Éowyn did not return the feelings. Such a man should never be allowed near a woman, much less one so beautiful as the king's niece.
"He thinks we are spies from Gondor, whatever that is," said Reed, still speaking in English. "I think he is a traitor. I think he is in league with this wizard fellow, the one with the white hand."
"And what are we loitering about here for, spies?" said an oily voice in Common Speech behind them. Both Hoshi and Malcolm started, not having heard the slimy little advisor come up. "Collecting information to bring down an invasion upon us?"
"No," said Hoshi coldly. "We are not spies, how many times do I have to tell you, worm?"
"Watch your tongue, wench," said Grimá. "I have the king's ear and you do not, and it is but for his kindness that you stay here in this hall. Some will leave today. Perhaps you should go with them?"
Neither of them replied; they merely stared back at the man with icy glares. "I thought not," he said, twisting his lips into the semblance of a smile, and strode past them into the hall with a billow of his cloak.
"We should go," said Hoshi at last in the Common Speech, after a long silence in which only the howling ever-present wind screamed in their ears. "Stop speaking in English. You'll never learn otherwise."
"Yes, Queen Hoshi," muttered Malcolm in the same language. "How do you say 'tyrant'?"
Neither of them thought any more on the strange words that Grimá Wormtongue had threatened them with outside the doors of the Golden Hall. Only when the call to muster was sounded did they go outside, drawn by the surprised shouts of the people in the city and the clang of armor and steel. The company of Rohirrim were mounted and ready to leave, lead by a red-faced and furious Éomer, his hand drawn tight around his sword Gúthwinë and the other on the reins of his horse. He spotted Hoshi and Malcolm standing near the doors to the lower levels of Meduseld and nodded, face still grim.
They pushed past the people in the crowd as the Rohirrim began to ride out. Éomer checked his horse until Hoshi and Malcolm drew close enough to hear him, and then shouted something at them, speaking too quickly for Malcolm to catch. Then he turned and spurred on the horse, galloping down the hill after the riders of the Mark
"What did he say?" asked Malcolm when they could no longer see the riders and the dejected people of Edoras had begun to trickle back to their homes.
Hoshi looked over her shoulder into the distance, where the Rohirrim had disappeared into the shadowy hills to the north. For a long moment she did not answer, gazing at the horizon with sorrow written on her features.
"He said, 'If he touches my sister, kill him for me'," she said, looking straight at Malcolm. "He was talking to you."
***********************
YAY!!!! New chapter!!! I love writing this story. It's so much fun. Thanks for all the reviews! Suggestions, comments, concerns always welcome.