A/N Chapter 1 has some formatting difficulties – no more asterisks for me. Apologies for the trouble until I correct it.
Chapter 2: Emyn Arnen
"Why did you bypass Minas Tirith and come straight here?" Faramir asked his young nephew. The Steward's hands were scrubbing worriedly at his face. "I would have heard if you had stopped and given this news to the King."
"Yes, you would have," Elfwine agreed. "My instructions were to go to the King with you, having all the information possible."
"You were supposed to find out whether Haradrim had been slipping into Ithilien from the desert?" Eowyn guessed.
"We did not want to go to the King with 'Haradrim are on our borders!' only to have him say the same thing," Elfwine admitted. "But mainly I was sent to ask my uncle to attend me to Minas Tirith, so that we could consult with the King together. My father would not leave Edoras at this time."
"Nor should he," said Faramir. "We will go to the White City tomorrow. But there is something you are leaving out, Elfwine. I do not think your father sent you all the way from Edoras with only six Riders and Legolas, hoping you would happen to pick up two Gondorian escorts along the way."
"No, he did not." Elfwine glanced at Eoric, and the other man continued the explanation.
"My lord, we came with my uncle's eored. Eomer King sent them in case there was trouble here with Harad, not wanting to send an emissary with any smaller escort. We left them but two hours ago, encamped between here and Osgiliath. Your patrol would have come upon them this afternoon if we had not come here first."
Eowyn and Faramir exchanged heavy looks – they knew, if perhaps their children did not fully grasp, that for Eomer to have sent an entire eored out of the borders of Rohan meant he was taking a very serious view of things. "Who is your uncle?" Eowyn asked of Eoric.
"Geirdur, my lady. Of the Westfold."
"I remember him," she said. "He fought at the Pelennor, did he not? A very young man then, with a wife and small son at home." Eoric nodded his agreement.
When the council has been concluded for the time being and their guests had been taken off to rest, Elboron and Ethuniel took the opportunity for one of their accustomed talks away from their parents.
"Mother looked almost ill," Ethuniel said fretfully as they wandered down through the streets of Emyn Arnen.
"Well, she worries for Uncle Eomer – it is to be expected."
"Father did not look much better."
"Do not worry about it, I'm certain it will turn out to be nothing."
"Elboron!" At her scolding tone he stopped to look at his sister. "Have you suddenly decided that I am a simpleton?" she demanded. "I was sitting beside you in that room, you will recall. Kindly do not think that I cannot handle the reality of the situation. Elfwine is right – if Harad intends to attack Rohan, it will be a full assault, and they will have their eyes on Gondor next. And we live on Gondor's nearest border to Harad. King Elessar will send men to Rohan, but if they are unsuccessful the fight will likely come here. And furthermore, the King is like to send you to Rohan to fight, since your training is long completed and you know the country. Do you think you could have kept that from me for long?"
Elboron sighed. "I had thought of the same eventuality," he admitted.
"Were you planning to write me long letters about the beauty of Lorien, pretend you were on a pleasure trip?"
"Ethuniel." His scold was gentler than hers, but mostly out of weariness. "Of course I would not attempt to keep anything from you. If – if I am asked to go away I will go willingly, to help my uncle and to defend Gondor. But we need not think of that yet – I only meant –" He sighed again. "Our guests came early this morning; there are several hours of daylight left. Shall we not ride out?"
"You will not make me forget this," she warned.
"I did not think I could. Think of it this way – we may not have many days of peace left in which to ride together."
Ethuniel's face softened, and she agreed to walk with him toward the stables.
In the stalls they walked past the stabled horses of their Rohirric guests – Legolas appeared to have borrowed a mount from them – to their own horses, which had been bred from their uncle's stock. Ethuniel's mare Brecca gave her a slightly irritated nudge to express, Ethuniel guessed, her displeasure that they had not ridden together in some days. "You were exercised, you know," she grumbled as the mare shook her ears. "But I know, it's not the same thing."
Elboron's Godric made a fuss as they led their horses from the stables, bucking a bit once and snorting repeatedly. He seemed to calm down once Elboron had mounted, and Ethuniel forgot the horse's strange behavior as she and her brother left the gates of the city – waving to the guards as they went – and galloped comfortably for the open plains to the north. They rode in easy companionship, putting some of the tension of the day behind them at last. Ethuniel challenged her brother to a race she knew he would win, which he did, pulling Godric around to wait for her at the top of the predetermined rise. It was then that Godric flattened his ears and snorted in a distinctly unfriendly manner.
"Godric!" Elboron reproved. "What's gotten into you? You can't be cross at Brecca now, we won after all."
Ethuniel felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. "Elboron," she said quietly, "listen."
They were both silent as he looked around into the quiet, visibly concentrating. "I don't hear anything."
"Ssh," she whispered back, drawing her horse nearer to his. "Don't you?"
A quiet roar, almost undetectable, but Brecca's ears were now laid flat as well. "Hoofbeats," Elboron said, his voice dropping to a whisper to match his sister's.
They stood together not moving as the roar appeared to grow slowly nearer. Then they heard the unfamiliar shouts.
"It is not the eored," Elboron whispered, horror beginning to dawn on his face.
"No," Ethuniel replied.
"Not many men," he added.
"But enough . . ." She trailed off. Enough for one man and his barely-armed sister.
"From the east." Elboron stared off into the distance, at the hills from which the mounted figures would surely soon emerge. She could almost see him calculating – how far had they come exactly? Near to Geirdur's encampment? Far enough to have put too much distance between themselves and Minas Tirith to the west? It would be a race in any event . . .
"It was foolish of me to think it was still safe – when it must have taken Legolas and Elfwine days to get here, even at their fastest . . ." Elboron looked helplessly at his sister.
"We might still make home if we hurry," she said. "Whoever it may be, they have no reason to expect us out here."
"No," he replied, deciding on the spot. "We've ridden a bit more than an hour, I'd guess. I'll ride for home and try to give warning of unidentified riders. You – ride for the eored. Shelter with them – they'll protect their King's niece."
"Elboron," she protested, her fear beginning to mount.
"Go!" he insisted. "Straight north, that way. When you reach the top of the next rise you should be able to see where they're encamped. Whoever these riders are, they might even miss you entirely."
"Come with me, then."
"Someone has to go back."
"Elboron . . ."
"Go!" When she reluctantly turned Brecca to the north, he said as farewell, "Ride hard, sister."
That, she did not need to be told.
With only one look back to see her brother galloping off in the other direction, Ethuniel bent low to Brecca's back and urged her horse forward with all the speed she could command. The sound of Brecca's charging drowned out the other hoofbeats, but it seemed to Ethuniel that the shouts might be growing nearer. And then, after she had ridden for what seemed like an impossibly long time, there was a lot more shouting. Not all of it sounded like the kind they had heard earlier, on the ridge.
Her heart pounding, she mounted the next rise and looked down into the valley, horrified yet somehow not surprised at what she saw. In the distance, a hastily mounted band of Rohirric Riders were being set upon by a party of exotic-looking men with curved swords and foreign painted designs on their saddles. Haradrim.
There were not many of them, but enough to outnumber the eored. And now she was too far from Emyn Arnen to risk riding back there alone, not knowing how many more might be out there.
Her options seemed few. In a moment the Haradrim would spot her, if they had not already. She could not retreat safely back down the ridge when there might be more of them at her back. She did not want to ride any closer to the fight, but it seemed clear that battle or no, she would be safer with the eored than on her own. With a silent prayer for Elboron's safety, she urged Brecca into motion and rode for the besieged encampment, drawing her light sword (worn more to appease her parents' concerns for her safety than because she had any intention of using it) as she rode.
Her saddlecloths would mark her as being of Ithilien, and she did not worry that any of the Rohirrim would see her as a threat. She counted herself also fortunate to be wearing one of her plainer dresses, and nothing ridiculous such as a circlet on her hair. If she were very, very lucky, perhaps the Haradrim would assume her to be a camp follower and nothing more, and leave her alone. With her light brown hair pulling free of its sloppy braids and her fair skin and light eyes, she could pass easily for a commoner of Rohan.
As she rode into what seemed to be the rear of the fight, her first concerns were answered when one of the eored greeted her, in heavily accented Westron, with, "Lady, it is not your lucky day!"
"It would appear not!" she replied effortlessly in what she knew to be perfect Rohirric. The man did not have time to be surprised that a common slip of a girl from Ithilien knew his language; they both had other things to worry about.
Ethuniel was in fact not very lucky, because the Haradrim did not seem inclined to leave her alone. Of course, she had come charging down the hill on a Rohirric warhorse. One of the Southern men came at her immediately on foot, sword waving menacingly. She slipped off of Brecca and smacked the horse's flank hard, saying, "Go! Follow your companions, girl." Brecca needed no more encouragement to join a small cluster of the eored's riderless horses who appeared ready to bolt. Ethuniel found herself on the ground with her back to a tall Rider and the man from Harad still coming. She lifted her sword with another silent prayer and held it ready.
"Are you any good with that?"
It was the Rider behind her, calling over his shoulder as the man he was fighting tried to land a blow on his heavy leather breastplate. Ethuniel kept a wary eye on the enemy who was now only a few strides away as she muttered, "Sort of."
When the blow came, she was ready for it. Her shoulders soon protested – she had not practiced in some time – but her training came back to her quickly and, while she did not manage to injure her opponent in any way, she at least held him off until one of the Riders kindly finished him from behind for her. "Not bad, lady – keep on your feet," the Rider called in the common tongue as he turned to meet a new foe.
Ethuniel soon found herself distracted as well, although she considered her goal in this fight was not so much to be aggressive and attack the enemy as to remain alive until the fight were over. The Haradrim were unwilling to ignore even a girl with an untried blade and she was hard pressed to defend herself from each attacker long enough for one of the Rohirrim to intercede. Any shame she might have felt at needing to be "rescued" paled in comparison to her danger. She was not a warrior, and despite her training had never harbored any desire to see battle.
Out of instinct more than memory of her lessons, she consciously kept that same Rider to her back. It seemed she was right – three opponents later, during a sort of lull, the man clapped her heavily on the shoulder and said, "You're doing fine, stay to my back and they can't surprise you."
Opponent five was her first real hit. She did not kill him, but she cut him badly twice – the first hit made him sloppy long enough for her to land the second. He dropped his sword, and a notably tall Rider finished him.
She was still working on opponent six (the mental count kept her from panicking, somehow) when a heavier sword from her left slashed down on his arm and quickly disarmed him. The Rider who had spent the battle at her back pulled her away from her fallen enemy, toward the cluster of tents that marked the edge of the fight. "Look," he said hastily, before she could object, "there are only a few left."
Indeed there were, and they were being ably handled by the rest of the eored. Another Rider, with heavily scarred hands and coppery hair showing under his helmet, joined them to the side and asked in Rohirric, "Any dead of ours?"
"I don't think so," replied the Rider who was still holding her arm. "I saw Aethelgar take a wound that will need care, but otherwise . . ." He looked down as if suddenly remembering her. "I'm sorry," he said in Westron. "I –"
"It's all right, I speak Rohirric," she replied in that language.
"Of course you do," he said, with a tone that evidenced a willingness to accept anything. "How did you come to be here?"
Ethuniel felt her face grow warm. "My brother and I were out riding – we heard the Haradrim approaching and he rode back to Emyn Arnen to get help. He told me to find the eored, as you were closer than home – even once I saw the battle, I thought I had to be safer in it than on my own." Now that the danger had passed, she felt like an errant child. She probably looked the part as well, not carrying a great deal of authority in her face or figure at the best of times.
"You handle a sword fairly well." The Rider's words were spoken without irony, and they helped to cool her shame a very little. He pulled his helmet off, as many of his fellows were doing, revealing a quantity of fair hair and a face that would probably have been nice when it was not covered in dirt, sweat, blood, and several days' growth of beard.
"Indeed she does." The red-haired Rider had removed his helmet as well and was smiling at her with friendly eyes. "Most lasses would have panicked to find themselves in such a quandary."
Ethuniel refrained from pointing out that her decision to ride to the eored, even when they were in the thick of battle, had been very near to a display of panic. "Did I –" she asked hesitatingly, "did I – hinder you too badly? I mean . . ." Did anyone get hurt because I slowed them down?
"No," the red-haired man replied simply, and she heard the truth of his answer. "Even if you had, you were right to come to us."
The fair Rider leaned on his sword and studied her face. "Shouldn't we figure out a way to get you home?" he asked. "Your brother went for help? Are you from Emyn Arnen itself?"
"Yes," she replied hesitantly.
"Oh – sorry," the man said, misunderstanding her reluctance. "My name is Bardur, son of Geirdur. This is my cousin Almgeir –" the red-haired man.
Geirdur. So this Rider's father was the leader of the eored. That was convenient, as she imagined she would have some things to explain to him. She gave them a hesitant smile and said, "I am Ethuniel, Faramir's daughter of Ithilien."
The stunned silence lasted several moments. Bardur was the first to recover. "Your – brother went for help? That would be your brother . . ."
"Elboron," she said simply.
"Right." The two men exchanged looks. "To be perfectly clear," Bardur said, "you are Ethuniel, Eowyn's daughter, sister-daughter to Eomer King?"
Her face was growing hot again. "Yes."
"I don't know whether to be horrified or pleased," Bardur said, staring at her. "What could have happened . . . I tried to look out for you, but if I had known whose uncle and cousin would be lining up to murder me if anything had happened to you . . . I mean – I thought you were just a girl unlucky enough to have . . ."
Ethuniel imagined that her face had to rival her mother's ripe apples in color. "That is, essentially, what I am," she pointed out.
Bardur opened his mouth, but seemed to have some trouble deciding what to say. Finally he settled on, "I think you'd better come and see my father."
To be continued in Chapter 3!