A/N: Generally, I'll probably only manage to post one chapter a week or so, but since much of chapter three is OC (though necessary in my opinion if the OCs are to be as complex and genuine as I'm aiming for), I wanted to give you chapter four at the same time, which includes more Eomer.

Lisswyn paused outside the entrance to the caves and listened. The sun was just rising in the east, and all she could hear were the morning calls of the birds in the trees. Moving as quietly as possible, she turned and started up the path that led above the cliffs. For much of her life, the sun's rising had signaled safety from orcs, who would not be out in the daylight. Saruman had changed that, and she kept to the shelter of the short, stubby trees as much as the path allowed, pausing frequently to listen for the hideous snarling noise that was all too often the last sound a warg's victim heard. And she kept her knife out, loose in her hand.

At the top of the path, she would have to leave the shelter of the trees, but would have the advantage of height. She would be able to see for a long distance.

The flowering plant, if any did still flower, would be found there -- in the shelter of the scrub trees that grew on the tops of the cliffs. The other herb would be even higher, out of the safety of the trees, growing in the crevices of the rocks. For most, they were only weeds. But if the poison on the arrow was the numbing poison, the plants would save the King's life.

Maegwen wiped the King's brow again as he shifted restlessly. The time felt as if it were passing slowly, but unless she walked out to the front of the cave, she could not guess the hour of the day, nor how long Lisswyn had been gone. Could not begin to look for her boys' return.

The King had not been conscious, though he continued to murmur occasionally.

She was now convinced that Lisswyn was correct, and the arrow had been poisoned. Despite the fever burning in him, his left arm was cold to the touch, with the coldness gradually creeping down his chest and toward his throat. If he had been awake, he would have told her that the wound no longer pained him – that where there had been agony, now there was only numbness. And the numbness would spread, eventually stealing his life. So she did what she could to keep the arm and shoulder warm, while continuing to try and cool his fever.

"Brynwyn." The little girl looked up at her, eyes wide. She had been the one to initially notice the coldness of his arm. Maegwen had not told her he was poisoned. She had not had to. "I must go after more cool water. Come sit here, so he will see you should he wake."

She moved to the spot Maegwen vacated.

"Have you been watching me wipe his face with the cloths?" At the little girl's nod, she motioned towards the bowl of water. "Continue until I return."

For all the good it was doing, she added silently as she turned and headed toward the back of the caves. One of the back rooms had a small source of very cold water in it. It barely trickled, and as such they seldom used it – getting a sufficient amount to drink was too much effort. But it was cold enough that even a little of it might be more effective in cooling his fever.

He was burning, from the inside out. But where there had been pain, excruciating pain, there was now nothing. No sensation at all. He tried to focus, to remember where he was, but the images wouldn't form. Someone was taking care of him. A soft voice, answering him out of the darkness. Eowyn? No, several different voices. And none of them belonged to his sister.

He felt a cloth wipe across his face again, and registered that it seemed less sure of itself than it had the last time he had come close to surfacing. Clumsy. He struggled, and forced his eyes to open. Candlelight. Uneven walls. And a little girl sitting next to him, who appeared startled when he opened his eyes. He knew her name. What was it? Ah. "Brynwyn."

She'd stopped wiping his face as if she wasn't sure she should continue. He appreciated the fact that she was trying to care for him, but why had they left him alone with her? Where was her sister?

Hesitantly, she dipped the cloth into the water and once again wiped his face with it, apparently not noticing when water dribbled into his eyes.

Instinctively, he tried to move his hand to brush the water away. And discovered that though he was too weak to move his right arm, he could not feel his left. Panic gave him the ability to raise his head just enough that he could look down, and relief added to the dizziness he felt. It was still there. He dropped back on the furs, felt the room spin. Fought it. He could not slip back into unconsciousness.

Brynwyn looked uncertain by his movement, and he again wondered where the adults were.

It was so hard to get the words out, to get them to form. "…sister?" It came out on a gasp. He tried again. "Where is your sister?" He managed to focus on her, noted she looked scared. Much more so than when he'd startled her with his first words.

"She has gone up to the cliffs."

He frowned, struggled to concentrate, to make sense of the words. The effort it took angered him, and he sounded harsher than he intended. "Why?"

She flinched, and he closed his eyes, summoned the strength to give her the patience she needed.

"Why …did she … go out?"

"She needs more healing plants."

He felt himself slipping back towards that black void, and fought it. "She should not… have done that," he murmured.

"You must get well." She stated it as a simple truth. "Lisswyn needs more medicine to help you."

Lisswyn. It had not occurred to him before that he did not know her sister's name. It felt wrong, somehow, that despite his injuries he had not asked.

"She told me she would be careful." Her voice had gone quieter, the fear more apparent. "She told me she would return." She reached out and wiped his face again, and he felt her small hand tremble. "She told me Maegwen would take care of me if she does not."

He damned himself that he could do nothing to ease her fear. The dark was closing in again, and he could no longer fight it off. "She is very brave," was all the encouragement he could think of as the cave and frightened little girl faded.

Lisswyn paused in front of a large boulder that was blocking the path. She had come up here often during the first few weeks they'd lived in the caves, trying to get a better sense of their situation. But it had been several months since she'd made the journey to the top, and she was finding it much harder going than she remembered.

Muttering something she would not have wanted Brynwyn to overhear, she climbed up and over the large rock, wincing as a jagged edge dug into her palm. Her arms were scratched and bleeding, something else she didn't remember from her casual spring climbs. But back then she had not been rushing, convinced that a man's life, the King's life, depended on her speed. She turned a sharp corner in the path, and realized she was at the top.

She paused for a moment, listening. It was quiet, but the birds were continuing to sing, undisturbed. She turned off the path into the bushes, and began searching for the flowering plant.

It took longer than she had hoped, but she finally found a patch of the little yellow flower. And as she had feared, there were very few flowers still open. She harvested what she could, then moved back out to the path, continued up a little farther, until she reached the edge of the trees.

When they gave way to rocks, she paused, listened. This was where she would be most vulnerable, visible for miles around should anyone care to look. But she heard nothing out of the ordinary, and after a moment, started forward again.

At this point there was no path, and she scrambled around on the rocks, trying not to look over the edge of the cliffs while she searched for the plant that grew in the crevices.

As with the flowering plant, it took much longer than she'd anticipated. She found what she was looking for, but there was so little of it, and it seemed she had to dig forever for very small amounts. And perhaps worst of all, she didn't know how much she would need. She could stay up here until she'd harvested all that was available, only to find the King dead when she returned to the caves. Or she could take what she had now, and discover it wasn't enough to kill the poison. Again, she cursed herself for not paying more attention to her mother's lectures.

Intent on digging out one of the larger specimens, she didn't notice the stillness at first. It was only when the roots came free that she felt a prickle on the back of her neck.

Bringing the knife up, she looked anxiously around her, but she saw nothing. Heard nothing – which was the problem. The birds had gone quiet. They feared the orcs and were often the best warning available.

And then she heard the sound she had been dreading. The snarls of wargs, the squeals of orcs.

It was not near her. She registered that with a nearly sick sense of relief. Not on the cliffs. But if she could hear them, they were far too close. She stuffed the plant into her pouch, and crept forward, peered down between two rocks.

And despite her position of relative safety, her stomach jumped. The orcs were below her, fighting amongst themselves while the wargs fought over the body of one of the orcs already dead. She shuddered.

Easing back, she looked around. The orcs were at the bottom of the cliffs, in an area where the ground cut back sharply, providing a protected area. She was quite high up, and probably not at great risk of being detected, particularly if they were distracted by their feuding. But she would have to be careful.

She glanced around, glanced down to the left of where the orcs were. And knew a moment of sheer terror as she saw Maegwen's boys, still quite a ways away, but creeping toward the orcs and wargs.

It was clear that for whatever reason, they could not yet hear the snarls and screeches.

She could not risk them getting any closer.

She moved back, relied on rocks to hide her. Not as good as trees, but at least it was better than being out in the open. Crouching, but going as quickly as she dared, she ran along the top of the cliffs toward the boys. She had to warn them.

If she remembered correctly, there was another path down to the valley floor, or what might serve as one, near by. If she could find it, and if she could make her way down it, she might intercept the boys before they got too close to the orcs. As plans went, it was much too uncertain and contingent on too many ifs and mights to be reassuring. But it was all she could come up with.

She found the trail, and her heart sank. On a warm spring day with nothing more to do than go for a ramble, she might enjoy the challenge of figuring out how to pick her way to the bottom. But when speed was essential, this path was going to be a nightmare to navigate. It was rocky, with large boulders to maneuver around, and smaller rocks it would be all too easy to trip over while in a hurry. They all looked as sharp as knives.

And all the while, she'd be visible to anyone who happened to look up. No, this was not going to be easy.

She started down, and to her relief, was able to move quickly at first. It almost seemed as if someone had deliberately created a path. Then she reached a point where the trail simply vanished, and she spent precious minutes trying to find the best way down. But there was a line of large boulders she could not go over or around.

Eventually, she settled for climbing on top of the smallest one, then jumping down to the largest rock below. If she missed, it seemed likely she'd be impaled on one of the jagged rocks next to the one she was aiming for.

She didn't miss, but as she landed she looked back up in despair, knowing that if she succeeded in intercepting the boys, they were going to have to go back up this way as well. She could only hope that in the return climb, they would find unexpected toe-holds to help them.

The next section was more even, and she was able to move at a fairly fast pace. Slipping through a narrow opening between two large boulders, she looked down and discovered the angle gave her a view of the boys. They were much closer to the bottom of the path than she had thought they would be. She had spent too much time trying to figure out a way past the boulders above her. If she was not to miss them, she would have to go faster.

She began taking chances she had been reluctant to take when closer to the top, jumping a few feet when she would normally have been more cautious about finding a way to climb down. And at first was gratified to discover it was possible to move with more speed through the rocks.

She went around another sharp turn and realized she was nearly at the bottom, and a quick view to the left showed that the boys had not passed this point yet. She would intercept them and all three of them could start back up, safely above the orcs. She turned once more to the path.

And then her foot slipped.

What she had believed to be a large rock imbedded in the side of the hill turned out to be a much smaller stone resting on pebbles. As she began to slide, she grabbed whatever she could to hold onto. Mindful of the orcs, she suppressed a cry of pain as she felt a sharp rock tear into the skin along the underside of her left arm even while smaller rocks were scraping up the right side of her body.

It seemed as if she was sliding and falling forever, but she finally landed with enough force to knock the wind out of her. Small stones and pebbles dislodged by her fall continued to pelt over her on their way to the bottom, and one hit the side of her head, just above her ear, with enough force to make her glad that it seemed to be only small stones that were still in movement.

She could not catch her breath, was afraid to try very hard. How much noise had her tumble caused? It had felt loud to her…would the orcs have heard it? Their hearing was acute, but if they were still engaged in their own feud, they might not have noticed. She could only pray.

In a moment, she would have to try and stand, to get the rest of the way down to where the boys would be. She was afraid to think about what would happen if she couldn't stand, if she had really injured herself. Cautiously, she tried to take an inventory. She could still feel all of her limbs, and though there was pain, slow movement did not result in the sharp agony she would have associated with broken bones.

Slowly, she forced herself to sit up, and winced as a thousand bruises made themselves known. Knowing she was fortunate to have broken no bones did not alleviate the pain of abused muscles and skin complaining about their rough treatment. She bowed her head for a moment, discovered it was not altogether easy to breath. Bruised ribs, perhaps. Her arms were a mess. The right one was bruised and scratched from wrist to shoulder, scraped nearly raw in places. And the left had a nasty looking but shallow cut alongside the bottom, near her elbow. It was not bleeding much, and that was a relief. The wargs could smell blood.

Then, through the fog of pain and weariness, she wondered just how much time she had spent trying to get to the bottom of the hill. With a surge of fear, she realized she had not even considered the King when she started down to intercept the boys. Would this delay cost him his life?

Full of grief and guilt, she forced herself to her feet, breathed as deeply as her ribs would allow and waited for the world to stop spinning around her.

In one sense, it didn't matter. Not even for the King could she have let the boys walk into a nest of orcs and wargs. It had been one thing to send them out knowing they might die. To have watched them do so…no. There had been no other choice, even for the King. If he died, she would pay the price every day for the rest of her life. But she could not have chosen differently. Could not have gone back to the caves knowing she was leaving the boys to walk directly into the path of the orcs. Could not have faced Maegwen. But it shamed her that she had not at least considered the King. However unfortunate for him, he was in her charge, her care. And she owed him, owed the Riddermark, more than to simply forget him when faced by a new crisis.

She could only pray, could only beg, that he would live.

Lisswyn looked up, and saw the boys coming toward her. She was still a few feet above them, so they did not yet see her. She was gratified that they seemed to be trying to be cautious, stopping every few feet to listen and look around. And she realized that for whatever reason, something about this area seemed to block sounds. She could no longer hear the orcs, which could also mean they had moved on. Regardless, there was hope that they had not heard the noise from her fall.

She put out a hand to steady herself, and started down the path, wincing. It was time to get back to the King. If there were still a King to return to.

Lisswyn was waiting when the boys crept around a boulder immediately to the left of the bottom of the path. They stopped, startled, and she saw Eoden's eyes go flat.

"You did not need to come after us. We have seen neither orcs nor the King's men." At this confession, his shoulders slumped.

Was there anything more volatile than a boy's pride? Putting a finger to her lips to indicate the need for quiet, she softly said, "I did not come after you. I am in search of healing plants to counter a poison that runs through the King's veins." Both boys looked startled, and Eoden looked ashamed.

She continued, still as quietly as possible. "But I have also seen the orcs." Afraid Eoden would unintentionally speak louder than was wise, she covered his mouth with her hand as she explained what she had seen.

Both boys looked up at the hill, and their eyes widened. For the first time, Eoden seemed to take in her appearance.

He pulled back from her hand, but kept his voice quiet. "You are injured."

She shook her head. "Nothing but scratches." And bruised ribs, and a head that ached like a troll was squeezing it. "I will be fine. And going up will be easier than coming down. But we must go, and go quietly."

Glancing up at the hill, she added, "I will go first because I have been on the path." She turned, addressed the younger of the two brothers. Solemn, serious, he seldom spoke. "Andric, you come next," her gaze moved to Eoden, "and you follow."

They nodded, and she turned back to the hill, and wishing she could get just one deep breath, started back up the path.

It was easier than coming down, because it was easier to plan where to step, where to grab for handholds. But it took much longer than coming down had, and with every step, she fretted about the amount of time she had been a way from the King. The sun was high in the sky now, and her fear grew that he had not survived the morning. Or that she would arrive back in the cave to discover he still lived, but had slipped into a sleep from which he would never wake.

Maegwen wiped the King down again with the cold water. It seemed to be helping, and she regretted that they had not thought of it earlier. Or perhaps it was not that the colder water was making a difference to the fever. Maybe the poison was simply spreading.

Brynwyn had reported his comments while she had been out of the room, but he had not been completely awake since then, though he occasionally still muttered and murmured. Twice she had caught him calling for his sister. All of the Riddermark knew of the bond between them, and she grieved for him, that the Lady Eowyn was now so far away, unknowing of his need for her.

She dipped the cloth in the water and started the circle – brow, face, throat, chest – again. And tried not to think about how long Lisswyn had been gone. Or to wonder where her boys were, and if they still lived.

Lisswyn collapsed when they made it to the top of the path. They were sheltered by some of the big boulders, but even if they were not, she needed a few moments to rest. The climb uphill had taxed her aching body more than she would have believed possible.

"Lisswyn?" Eoden's voice was full of anxiety.

"I am fine, Eoden. I just need to catch my breath." The words did not seem to reassure him as much as she had hoped, and with effort, she pulled herself up. She really could not afford the time anyway. Or at least the King could not. "You go ahead, but be quiet, and be careful. There is danger of being seen until we are in the trees."

He planted his feet. "We will not leave you."

Oh, yes. Rohirrim male.

She nodded, and they began to pick their way toward the trees. Lisswyn wasn't sure how or when it had happened, but found she was no longer in charge. Eoden walked a few feet ahead, looking cautiously around them, while Andric walked next to her, or behind her if the path became too narrow.

They got the place where she had first seen the orcs, and they took time to peer over the edge.

They saw many bodies of both orcs and wargs, but the orcs themselves had moved on. It startled her to see just how many carcasses there were. She hadn't paid much attention to the numbers when she'd first seen them, but now it was hard to miss. She didn't know how many men the King had had with him, but they had been up against a formidable enemy.

She motioned them back, toward the trees.

They did not pause again. Her fear for the King was growing, as was uneasiness about where the orcs might have gone. She wanted to get the boys safely back to the caves.

The sun was well in the west when the path curved around to the entrance to the cave. Lisswyn did pause then, to look down the path below the caves. To listen. To her relief, she heard nothing out of the ordinary.

They entered the cave to find two of the younger children sitting on the floor, next to the King's horse. The boys both stopped to greet the horse, and Lisswyn shook her head as she continued to the back room. Greeting the horse before their mother. Oh, yes. Definitely Rohirrim males.

"Lisswyn!" Brynwyn launched herself at her, and Lisswyn managed not to cry out in pain as her sister's body met hers.

Maegwen came to her more slowly. "You're injured."

Lisswyn shook her head. "Just scraped up. I took a shortcut." She glanced up, saw the worry in the other woman's eyes. "I'll be fine." Then she smiled. It was nice to have some good news to impart. "The boys are with me. They're in the outer cave." She saw relief pass over the other's woman's face.

"How is the King?"

"Not well. It has been some time since he spoke."

Lisswyn nodded. "I am going to wash my hands, then will see what I can do for him."

She washed more than just her hands, taking the time to wash the cut on her arm. She would be ineffective as a healer if she developed an infection herself. Hilde entered while she was doing so and quietly laid one of her own loose-fitting dresses next to Lisswyn. Lisswyn eased into the older dress, grateful for its clean softness on her abused skin. If she ever acquired a spinning wheel and loom, she would repay her friend with something particularly lovely and in the brighter colors Hilde favored.