Some distance to the south of where Faramir was exulting in Ithilien's beauty, another young man was having an entirely different reaction to the land surrounding him.
"Trust us to draw the most boring duty in all of Gondor!"
There was no mistaking the weary disgust in the stout young soldier's voice as he plodded on his horse down the dusty forest road. Everything about him signaled a particular lack of enthusiasm for his situation, from the slumped aspect of his shoulders beneath his Gondorian plate armor to the dissatisfied expression he bore upon his plain, slightly pock-marked face. He carried his helm in his arm, allowing the wind to ruffle through his short blond hair. His gray eyes squinted against the bright sunlight, gazing with pronounced ennui at the spare bushes, scraggly trees, and large, dust-covered rocks that comprised his environment.
His riding companion was another young warrior of Gondor, noticeably taller, thinner, and more alert, if only slightly. His face bore a longer, leaner appearance, marked by a particularly large nose, beneath which languished a closely trimmed black mustache. Long black hair trailed under the back of his helmet, and at the sound of his comrade's words, this man turned annoyed black eyes to the fellow and gave him a disapproving scowl.
"It's too hot already today to have to listen to any more of your complaining, Henvain," he warned. "Besides, this isn't so bad, and you know how important it is to patrol the southern roads coming from Harad."
Henvain snorted and rubbed his short, sharp nose. "Important it may be, Faelor, but did you notice none of the other soldiers volunteered for this duty? The captain had to assign it. To us." He sighed and huddled down in his saddle. "Typical."
"Oh, since the day you joined up you've done nothing but grouse," Faelor noted in a sour tone. "I don't mind a bit of quiet, myself, after all the ruckus I saw at the Black Gate during our final battle with the Orcs."
Henvain shot him a look of annoyance. "I asked you not to talk about that!" he snapped.
In reply, Faelor put up one hand in apology. "Oh! Sorry, sorry, Henvain. I forgot."
His comrade muttered and looked back down the road.
After a few moments of silent riding, Faelor felt brave enough to venture, "You know, you're going to have to stop being so sensitive about that. Many soldiers had to miss that battle, I'm sure, and many more probably wished they had. It was not a pleasant experience!"
Henvain scowled at him, though not as angrily as before. "I know, but..." He sighed. "Sorry, Faelor, you're a good fellow and all, but you know what it was like at my house when my brother came home from the Black Gate."
The other man nodded. "Well, I certainly recall you talking about it when you came back to the unit. It was all you could talk about, it seemed."
"Mother couldn't stop going on about him," mumbled Henvain, spurring his horse along. "For days it was Turwaith this and Turwaith that, how Turwaith saved ten men in his company and slaughtered fifteen dozen Orcs and even helped save the life of one of those little Hobbits. Turwaith the Hero, you know. I was happy he survived, of course, but you should have heard him when he found out why I didn't ride with the company to the Gate."
"That's nothing to be ashamed of," said Faelor in a reassuring tone. "Lots of soldiers get dysentery."
"Not before the biggest battle in the history of Middle-earth, they don't!" Henvain cried in exasperation, before slumping back in his saddle. "There I am, flat on my back in the Houses of Healing, that old Ioreth pouring foul-tasting remedies down my throat while my company rides out to glory. And then, having to endure Turwaith's goading on top of that." He adopted an exaggerated air. "'Oh, and Henvain would have gone too, except-well, now I don't remember why, what was it again, brother?' As if he didn't know! Does it every time Mother tells the story, I swear."
"But he did do some remarkable feats that day, you know," Faelor observed as they guided their horses around a rock in the road. "Well, I think we all did, really, but you shouldn't be so sore about missing it. Being completely surrounded by Orcs and thinking I was going to die was not the happiest thing that's happened to me in my military career."
"But you've got the story to tell your children," pressed Henvain miserably. "An' your wife, too, she can now go the rest of her life married to a hero of the great Last Battle."
One corner of Faelor's thin lips twitched. "Don't know if she was all that awed by it," he admitted. "I mean, she was glad for me to come home safe, but it's hard to be a hero to your wife when you still have to turn out the chamberpots every morning. Besides," he went on sharply, looking at Henvain, "what do you care? You don't have a wife you have to impress."
His friend grunted. "Good thing, too, because it'd be impossible for me right now," he replied. "Stuck out here on the Harad border, riding around endlessly staring at sand and rocks...and...trees...Faelor, do you see that?"
Henvain's voice had slowed in surprise, his face slackening in confusion as he stared down the road to the South. He spared a glance at his comrade, who was wearing a remarkably similar expression as he, too, gazed in wonder into the distance.
Far up the road, but growing nearer to them with every moment, was a dark group of figures, indistinguishable save for their obvious numbers. They were coming fast.
"What do you make of it?" gasped Henvain, clutching his helmet and coming to a complete stop.
"It's not a rock or a tree, that's for certain," replied Faelor with determination as he jammed his helmet onto his head.
Henvain positioned his mount beside him, doing his best to sit tall and look threatening, although his expression still denoted a distinct desire to be somewhere else.
The mysterious riders were now much closer. There appeared to be five, with one clearly leading the way, and even from a distance they could see a mass of billowing black and red cloth and the pronounced flash of weapons shining in the bright sun.
"Haradrim," breathed Henvain in a tone of weary disgust. "Oh, bugger."
They could see the lead rider plainly now. He was a tall man clad in the traditional black and red garb of his people, his head hidden in a mass of carefully wrapped back cloth. As he neared, they could see the glint of gold on his fingers and at his neck, enough to denote a personage of importance. Of his face, only the eyes were visible, and against his swarthy skin they looked very sharp, black and hard.
Beside and behind this man rode four heavily armed Harad warriors, each carrying a large spear, elaborate swords hanging from their sides. Despite Henvain's nervousness, the swords remained sheathed, and instead of moving to attack as they came within twenty feet, the new arrivals slowed down, coming to a full stop not ten feet away.
The two groups eyed each other very carefully for a moment. Overhead somewhere, a hawk screamed.
At length, Faelor cleared his throat. "I am Captain Faelor, of the Army of King Elessar," he said in as loud and authoritative a voice as he could manage. "State your business in Gondor."
The lead Haradrim peered at him, the black eyes looking much sharper now. "Some of us say that it is you who are in our land, Gondorian," he replied, in a deep, smooth voice heavy with the accent of the South and muffled by the wrapping.
Faelor blinked, looked quickly over at Henvain, slightly thrown. Henvain simply shrugged, eyes wide. Perhaps there would be a fight after all.
Faelor paused, then turned back to the Haradrim, resolutely pursing his lips. His heart was hammering, but he knew his duty.
"I should warn you," he said as firmly as he could, "that as soldiers of our King, we are sworn to defend this road to the...last." He hefted his sword and did his best to look determined. Beside him, Henvain did the same, watching the Haradrim warriors closely for any sign of attack.
The Haradrim's dark eyes shifted back and forth between them. "I am certain you are both brave warriors," he said, and Faelor thought it sounded an awful lot like he was smirking beneath that black covering. "But it is your swiftness, rather than your courage, that you will need this day."
With those words, he reached into a large leather pouch hanging at his side. Both Gondorian soldiers immediately sat up, gripping their swords, prepared for the worst.
The Haradrim looked up, appearing to eye them as cautiously as they were studying him, and very slowly removed something flat and rectangular from the pouch. It was wrapped tightly in long strips of dark blue cloth and bound in the middle with a golden cord, the knot fastened with a red wax seal.
"My name is Jadim. I bear a message from the leader of my tribe to your King of Gondor," he proclaimed, holding the small package aloft. "If you are true lovers of your land, you will deliver this to him. In one week's time I will be here to receive his answer."
He held out the parcel and waited.
Faelor stared at the object warily, then moved his suspicious glance up to its bearer. "How do I know you won't attack me as soon as I come over there?" he inquired slowly in a voice deep with suspicion. "You get off your horse and bring it over here, if you please."
The Haradrim's eyes flashed. "And what proof do I have that I will survive such an action unharmed?" he replied sharply. "There may be many more of you Gondorians hiding in the trees, waiting to trap us. It is a favored trick of your people."
Faelor frowned, an insulted retort on his lips, when Henvain coughed and sat straighter in his saddle.
"Well, now," said Henvain, a confident smile now appearing on his pale face, "that's something you really can't be sure of, now can you? So you'd best do as my friend here says, unless you want to take on maybe half a troop of us."
Jadim's eyes scowled at him, and the other four soldiers shifted their spears in their hands, clearly irritated.
They sat silent for a few moments, each side glaring at the other, unwilling to move.
Finally one of the Haradrim soldiers spoke something in their own tongue. The lead rider glanced back at him, then looked back at the two Gondor soldiers, and gently tossed the mysterious package into the duty road. It landed squarely between the two groups with a gritty thud.
"If you would rather retrieve it from the dust than my hand, so be it, men of Gondor," the Haradrim announced, his brow dark with anger. "In one week's time, I shall await the answer here."
He barked out a loud order in the words of Harad, and all five men whirled and tore back up the road towards their kingdom in a cloud of dust, flowing robes, and the clattering of arms. Within moments, they were lost from sight.
Faelor and Henvain watched them go, bewildered, until the Haradrim warriors were gone.
"Whew!" breathed Henvain finally. "They were an odd crew, weren't they?"
"I've never spoken to a Haradrim before," his comrade breathed. "We were always too busy killing 'em. How do you suppose he knew the common tongue?"
Henvain shot him an annoyed look. "Who cares? Probably forced some poor captive Gondorian to teach it to him, so's he could spy on our troops." His eyes drifted down to the package, now lying half-covered with dust in the road. "Do you...do you think it's safe to pick it up now?"
In response, Faelor slid from his mount. "Unless they've got someone who can throw a spear or shoot an arrow half a mile, it is," he said, walking over to the object.
Henvain's lip twitched. "You never know," he said, casting a careful eye up the road. "I've heard those Haradrim are full of tricks and magic. Turwaith says you can't trust 'em unless they're dead."
"Listening to your brother all of a sudden, are you?" muttered Faelor, picking up the package and brushing it off before quickly returning to his horse.
"You're in luck, Henvain," Faelor said as he remounted and hurriedly tucked the message into his saddlebag. "Since we'd best get this message to the King as quickly as possible, it would seem you will no longer suffer from boredom, at least on this day."
"Hmph," the other man sniffed as they wheeled their horses around, his expression unconvinced. "Something's telling me I'm goin' to wish I'd stayed with the boredom."
Faelor laughed, and soon the two men left the dusty road to Harad far behind them as they quickly sped their horses, themselves, and the mysterious message back to Minas Tirith.