Top of Form 1

Bottom of Form 1

Author's Notes:

More detailed, stuff in this, could be rated higher. Hope you enjoy this and I'm sorry to cut you off like this.
Tell me what you really think.

Chapter 2

"You have the choice to make, Naruveil, to die and take the lives of your remaining family with you. Or you can chose life. Serve me as a bandit catcher and let your family live in Minas Tirith."

"Live as hostages!"

"Yes," Aragorn agreed, not being abel to lie to the proud lass that stood so valiantly before him. "They would be that at first. until you prove loyal to me. Your choice?"

Thoughts swirled through her head and Naru thought quickly. She might be labled whelp of a traitor but she would be alive and so would her family, Her cousin would be abel to train as a knight, grandmother being abel to watch over him. Naru would be on probation until such was the time that Aragorn king was abel to trust her. He would sick her on the trails of outlaws like one would a hound... But she, they, would be alive...

"Your choice?" Aragorn demanded again.

"I'll serve you, king."

Naru rode on the horse as if she had been born on it, one hand resting on her thigh the other lightly holding the reins. Thoughts swirled through her head as she rode behind the king of Gondor. Her back was straight, her shoulders back, all the muscles loose in her body, making her presence ooze arrogance just by the look of it. She saw in her mind the images of her cousin and her grandmother that she had fixed in her mind. She could never come back from this first mission...

Stop that, Naru told herself, thinking like that will get you killed and where would that get them? Though Naru was pretty sure that this king would nont go back on his word, she knew you could never know the truth about a man. And she wasn't positive that her dieing didn't give him leave to beggar her family. This wasn't only about saving her own skin, but two other lives depended on the success of this venture.

The king halted his horse in the woods and motioned for Naru to come beside him. when she was he said "I know that you are nervous over this and that it is your first mission, but I would ask that you try to get it done as soon as possible." he paused then reached into his shirt and Naru tensed up, then he pulled out a pendant that seemed made of glass. He held it out to her and Naru gently took it from him deliberatly relaxing her shoulders into their easy, arrogant set. "I was givin this once by someone who believed in me." Naru looked at him sharply. "I too was wrried over the journey that was ahead of me, and what changes it would bring. The person who gave it told me that we are of our ancestors blood, not our ancestors themselves" Naru did not move to return it or don it, she simply held it and looked at the king in silence. "I hope it brings you luck. Also there is this." He handed her a cloth bag. When he said nothing, Naru opened it. Inside was a folded square of cloth a dull silver ring set with a dark jewel. "If you run into any patrols and they hassel you show then the cloth, it has the white tree of gondor on it and they will know you ride for me. I have a few lone knights out doing similar jobs and if they don't accept the cloth, show them the ring. They will know what it means."

The king turned his horse. "You will be hunting a man that buned a village more than once, don't let pity stay your hand."

Naru didn't know what the king ment by that and she wasn't all that sure she wanted to. Slwly Aragorn drew his sword, "I give you my blessing, Naruviel Hunter. May the Valor favor your foot steps." He breifly touched the sword point to each of her shoulders and Nary felt a moment of envy over his blade. 'Twas a magnificent weapon, with a long hilt and elvish words etched deep in the blade. The sun glinted off it as Aragorn king sheathed it and saluted Naru before spurring his horse into a gallop. Within minutes Naru was left completly alone in the barren, sad, grey plain.

Well, she thought to herself, this isn't going to be easy but nothing ever is...

The fire crackled solidly and a spark popped in to the night above Naru. She sat beofre her fire, her horse , Grem, was loose and grazing, his silhouette on the rise to her left. The sky was scattered to its fullest with stars that seemed to burn brighter for some reason.

Branyon Bain's son, was in sore need of killing in Naru's opinion. He was a piece of filth that had burned four villages to the ground in the prime of his villanous career and was now fleeing Gondor as fast as his yellow feet would carry him. Several arrows had hit home during his time on the run, making him limp badly on his left leg and a patch worn over one eye where an arrow had been burried in the socket. But out of all his crimes, the fact that he had left only four people alive, women beaten and raped, one in each village, to tell of his crimes, made Naru the angriest. He was a braggart with a fat head even in his defeat, a murderer and rapest, a destoyer of all innocence that one could feel...

Realizing what she was thinking, Naru leanded back and reached out to her saddle and bags for some anchor forn her mind. That was not a safe path to think down, not safe at all. But that just made Naru more determined to kill the theiving bastard before he did anything else to another innocent woman.

"Hmmmm..." she thought and stowed away the maps and such in the correct comparments in her two sets of saddlebags and began to roll out her bedding. "I wonder if Master Branyon is staying at the inn." She needed to find a way to creep up on him and find out about where he was staying. If he was at the inn in the village where he had been reported seen, that would make things more difficult that easier for Naru. She would prefer that she kill men away from anyones view. She had thought over it and come to the conclusion that killing a man seemed too...intiment for anyone to see. She knew it sounded foolish, but that was her thoughts and she prayed that no one would come along and see her kill him. The king had said that not all of her assiugnments would be solitary and not all of them would be asassinations, but he had thought this the simpleist of them all so he had given her this one first. Naru hoped that it was.

Taking off her encumbant outer clothes and lether armor Naru tucked herself into her blankits and fell asleep with the hilt of her sword resting in her palm, though it would be no protection against her nightmares.

Lashing pain burst through her back as her scanty shirt was torn furthur off when she hit the rough stone floor of the chamber. She nearly cried aloud at the onslot of rawness that she felt but kept the sound back as Lard Hitherd fel on top of her. His hands easily captured her own but not beofre there were several scratches on his arms and a trio of bloody lines going down one side of his cruelly handsome face. His mouth curled into a sneer as he unbutttoned the first two buttons on her shirt and then seemed to lose what little patience he had and grabed a fist full of fabric and pulled. When his mouth reached towards her s she tossed her head to the side, already feeling limpness set into her bones, from exhoustion.

Fervently his hand slid down her side and Naru felt like screaming when his mouth touched her face and after she evaded it a few times finally painfully set onto hers. It wa s cruel and punishing. Naru nearly vomitted when his cold hand rested on her naked skin, he made a gutteral sound and on last time naru tried to fight him off.

At her struggles he just laughed and smacked her hard across the face and Naru could do nothing as he freeely began to disrobe himself and her, more fully. Panic ripped through her as his hand mopved down her thigh removing all cloth barriers. He made a deep sound that rumbled through him and Naru felt dirty as he reared back and looked his fill at her.

Panic rushed through her blood and abruptly Naru twisted her hips and managed to free one of her legs. She kneed Hitherd in the groin and he yelled, hitting her again, this time with his fist. He hit her over and over and as Naru fell into darkness she felt his man's part brush against her leg...

Naru sat bolt upright, her sword yanked out of its sheath in the process. Sweat poured over her body and a felling of unbearable disgust washed through her. Dropping her weapon, Naru werstled with her bed clothes and stumbled away. Hitting her knees after tripping over her extinct fire naru emtied her belly of what seemed like ecery meal she had ever eaten. As she retched she could feel hitherd's hands on her and she shivered. Panting, Naru looked up at the horizen. stained orange and red, with what seemd like the blood that owuld be spilt this day.

The sooner Branyon died the sooner Naru mgiht get used to her new life as a kings bandit cather and not the indulged daughter of one.