The Rohan Pride Trilogy

Part Three: Terms

Book Two

By: WhiteLadyOfTroy

Summary:
The doom of Middle-earth is to be decided, and Gúthwyn's own fate is tangled up with it. Reunited with her people, her thoughts now turn to the children, and she would know what has befallen them—even if her life is the cost of such knowledge.

About the Trilogy:
I have decided to do what Tolkien did with his books. The Fellowship of the Ring had two books within the text, as did The Two Towers and The Return of the King. The only change I have made is the first part in my trilogy: Alone. That was divided into three books, the first book explaining how Gúthwyn got to where The Fellowship of the Ring started. Terms will be divided into two books.

About Chapter Nineteen:
As always, I'm using a crazy blend of movie and book canon, and it may at times get confusing. Please bear with me. Let me know if anything is uncanonical, implausible, etc.

Chapter Nineteen

Legolas' heart froze in that moment, and he was scarcely able to breathe as he looked down at Gúthwyn. Her eyes were closed, the lids covered in grime along with the rest of her face. For a terrifying instant, he thought she had perished. Frantically, he reached for her bony wrist, pressed his thumb on the inside of the flesh—avoiding the Eye that had been branded onto it—and waited with bated breath for a pulse.

At last, he felt it. Faint and weak, erratically beating, but still there. Such a wave of relief crashed over him that for a time he could do nothing but hold her limp form in his arms and thank the Valar that she was not dead. Over the last month, he had come to realize that she was not simply a woman who both feared and loathed him for no apparent reason. There was more to her, and though he could only observe her happiness from a distance, it had always lightened his spirits to see that some part of her remained untouched by her past.

Yet now… She did not look as if she would last much longer than a few days in her current state. Her clothing was tattered, hanging in shreds off of her; quickly, he removed his cloak and wrapped it around her, smelling as he did so the familiar scent of blood. She did not stir at his touch, and he found himself carefully brushing the dirt away from her lips. They were parched and shriveled, desperately in need of water.

He was reaching for his canteen when he heard his name being called. Craning his neck around, he saw Aragorn striding towards him, a look of amazement on the Ranger's face. "My friend," he spoke, smiling. "A miracle—" Then his gaze fell on Gúthwyn, and he stared in shock at her body. Blinking rapidly, he knelt down beside her and said, "My eyes do not deceive me. How did she get here?"

Legolas opened his mouth to say that he did not know, yet then he suddenly recalled one of the events that he had seen during the battle. An eagle had attacked one of the Nazgûl near him, and something had fallen from the sky at their clashing. At the time, he had not known what it was, and assumed it to be a strange device of the Enemy, but now… "I think one of the Nazgûl had been carrying her," he murmured in amazement.

Aragorn glanced at him in puzzlement, though did not say anything in response. Instead, he asked, "Where is Éomer?"

Standing up, Legolas scanned the men, searching for the king of Rohan's distinguishable armor. In a few seconds he had found him, helping one of the guards to his feet. He was too far away to speak to, especially with such delicate news, and so he hastily carved a path through the men.

"Éomer," he said when he arrived. The man glanced at him, wiping some blood from his cheek. "Éomer, we have found Gúthwyn."

For a full minute, Éomer was still, a thousand vulnerable feelings displayed in his eyes. "Is she…" he trailed off, unable to speak his fears.

"She is alive," Legolas reassured him, and an expression of wonder and hope renewed spread across Éomer's face. It was so raw, unconcealed, and tender that he felt almost embarrassed for seeing it, and turned away. "Come with me," he said.

They strode swiftly to where Aragorn still held vigil over Gúthwyn. The Ranger glanced up as they came near, clearly worried. Éomer did not see this. Sinking to his knees, he gathered his sister in his arms and all but crushed her to his chest. Tears leaked from the corners of his eyes as he rocked her back and forth. "Gúthwyn…" he whispered, caring little how openly he displayed his emotion.

When Éomer looked up, he asked hoarsely, "How is she?"

Aragorn sighed. "Not well, I fear," he replied somberly. "She fell from a great height, and her heartbeat is not how it should be. One of her ankles is broken, and her ribs are out of place."

Éomer quickly loosened his hold on her. She did not stir. "Has she been wounded?" he questioned fearfully.

"She is bleeding," Legolas told him, "though I do not know the cause, and the battlefield is not the best place to determine it; not with all the men around."

Indeed, some of the soldiers were coming over to their commanders, curiosity drawing them. One of the royal guards—Gamling, he believed—was the first to arrive, approaching Éomer hesitantly. "My lord, is everything—"

He stopped short at the sight of Gúthwyn's body. "By the Valar," he breathed, sinking to the ground beside Éomer. "The lady Gúthwyn!"

Aragorn stood up. "Éomer, make sure that she is given some water, and when you are in a private enough place examine her to see what the full extent of the damage is. I will find you before the day is out, though now I must deal with the men who have sued for pardon."

Éomer nodded, and then the Ranger left them. Legolas remained where he was, wondering if he should leave or stay.

"Is she going to be all right?" Gamling inquired hesitantly, looking up at his king. Legolas read in his eyes the devotion with which the Rohirrim loved Gúthwyn, much like a parent to their child.

For a long time, Éomer was silent. Legolas withdrew his canteen, offering it to him. Startled, the man accepted it, and began wetting Gúthwyn's lips with the water. Throughout his careful ministrations, she did not move an inch. It was as if she were dead, yet for some strange reason still breathing.

"My lord?" Gamling asked quietly.

"I do not know," Éomer said, his voice as heavy as his heart. "I do not know."

"I think she will live," Legolas spoke unexpectedly, his words as surprising to him as they were to the others. When Éomer glanced at him, he said, "She is strong."

"Strong of body," the son of Éomund murmured, using his sleeve to wipe the dirt from Gúthwyn's face. "But of spirit…"

None of them had an answer for that.

In the Field of Cormallen, a great expanse of green lawn within the confines of Ithilien, the Host of the West was encamped. Countless numbers of roughly-constructed tents dotted the grass, and though the evening was old torches still blazed in the night. Joyous singing wafted over the air, revelry such as been rarely matched in the dark years past. With the Dark Lord gone, there was much cause for celebration.

Yet some did not partake in the excitement. There were many things the Captains had to decide. Some issues had already been resolved. The men who had begged for pardon in Mordor had their wishes granted, and had been given the option of coming with the Host or staying in the Black Land until embassies could be sent. The fleeing Orcs had been dispatched or perished in the Dead Marshes, so that few of them could bring rumor of the event to other regions.

Messengers had been sent throughout Middle-earth, bringing word to Gondor, Rohan, and the Elvish provinces of the defeat of Sauron. Other men had gone into the northern reaches of Mordor to destroy the fortresses there and root out any remaining Orcs that they might find. The city of Minas Morgul, formerly Minas Ithil in its days of glory, was to be left alone, as the horrors there from the Nazgûl's reign would take years to diminish.

The battle itself had gone remarkably well. Only a dozen or so men had been lost, in comparison to the countless casualties of the Enemy. And perhaps most wondrous of all, Gandalf the White had rescued the Ringbearer and his companion Samwise from Mount Doom, just before the lava would have swallowed them. Both were unconscious, though the worst hurt was a missing finger—Frodo.

At the moment, the Lord Aragorn was tending to the Ringbearer. The Ranger was to become the king of Gondor, and would be crowned on the first day of May. Much work did he have before him: The Corsairs of Umbar still needed to be subdued, as well as the Haradrim and Easterlings. Treaties of peace were to be sent to all of Gondor's allies, asking them to renew their vows of allegiance; most famously, the oath that Eorl the Young had sworn to Ceorl the Steward, binding Rohan and Gondor together.

All of this and more were but on the fringes of Éomer Éadig's mind, utterly unimportant, though he was now the king of Rohan. He sat stiffly on a crude chair in his tent, his head bowed as he silently watched over his sister. Gúthwyn was still wrapped in Legolas' cloak—the Elf had refused to take it back—and she had not moved at all since Éomer had brought her here.

He stared numbly at her face, so pale and peaceful that it was as if she had already succumbed to death. Yet her chest was rising and falling steadily, giving the faint hope that she would awake soon. His gaze traveled over her lips, utterly dry though he had given her water but a minute ago. He had seen them shriveling before his very eyes when he had put away the canteen.

So much loss… so much his family had been forced to endure. His mother and father had died within the same year. Both he and Éowyn had been tormented with grief, but three-year-old Gúthwyn, always in his mind the baby of the family, had barely understood what was going on. She had been the first to recover; her smiles and gurgling laughter had helped to heal them. Now, their childhood days were but memories of the past, and none of them had the same carefree innocence that had been theirs so long ago.

"Éomer?" A quiet, subdued voice sounded from outside the tent. He gave no answer, though eventually the tent flap opened. He glanced up to see Legolas stepping in. "How is she?" the Elf asked concernedly.

The words would not come to him. Éomer was afraid, terribly afraid, that Gúthwyn would never wake up, that her body would just get colder and colder until one day it was frozen in the endless sleep of death. And if she perished, he would never forgive himself. If only he had looked for her when Éowyn had been found; his sister had been placed in capable hands, yet he still had been reluctant to leave her. If he had only searched, he would have been able to stop Gúthwyn in time.

"Éomer?"

Startled out of his thoughts, he looked at Legolas, and saw a pair of anxious eyes focused on him. "Are you all right?"

Sardonic laughter, surprising even him, poured from his mouth. "All right?" he echoed, snorting bitterly. "Do I look all right?"

Legolas bowed his head. "I am sorry," he replied, and moved closer to Gúthwyn. Ordinarily, Éomer would have shot him a warning glare, but he could not muster up the energy to. "Is there anything I can do to help?" He knelt beside the cot, arranging Gúthwyn more comfortably on her back. Éomer realized with a surge of guilt that he had been so absorbed in his dark musings that he had not even examined his sister to see all of her injuries.

As if reading his thoughts, Legolas asked, "Is she still bleeding?"

"I…" Why could he not speak? What was wrong with him? Why was his mind failing when his beloved sister needed help the most?

Legolas looked at him with pity, though at that moment the tent flap opened again. Aragorn strode inside, carrying with him his bag of healing supplies.

Standing up, the Elven prince queried, "How is Frodo doing?"

"He is fine," Aragorn answered, wiping his brow. "Samwise told me that his finger was bitten off by the creature Gollum, though that was the worst hurt."

Éomer barely processed what the Ranger was saying, though Legolas' eyebrows rose.

"How is she?" Aragorn asked somberly, kneeling down next to the cot. He opened his pack as he spoke, causing an assortment of herbs to spill out onto the blanket. Most of them Éomer had never seen before.

"She… She has not stirred," Éomer muttered, defeat slumping his shoulders.

Aragorn's brow was creased as he took out a rag. Legolas swiftly retrieved a bucket of water from the corner of the tent and handed it to him. Dragging his chair closer to the cot, Éomer watched as the Ranger dipped the rag in the water, squeezing the excess liquid out before dabbing at Gúthwyn's forehead. He had ground some herbs beforehand, and a sweet smell drifted into their noses.

"You said she fell," Éomer spoke suddenly, glancing at the man. "How? From where?"

"During the battle," Legolas replied, "I saw something drop from the steed of the Nazgûl. Then I did not know what it was, but now it seems to me not unlikely that it was her."

"But why?" Éomer asked in bafflement, staring at the lifeless body. "Why would they be carrying her?"

"Perhaps when she awakes, she can answer your questions," Aragorn told him, lowering the rag onto the bed. He reached out for Legolas' cloak, seeking to unwrap it. Yet Éomer's sudden, fierce glare halted him. "I need to see her injuries," the Ranger explained simply.

"Do you want me to leave?" Legolas inquired, his hands pausing inside the bucket where he had dipped a rag.

Éomer looked back and forth between the two of them, and sighed. He was overreacting. Legolas had already seen Gúthwyn without the cloak, as it had been he who covered her. And Aragorn was a healer, whose heart belonged to another and had been proven trustworthy. "My apologies," he said gruffly, taking a deep breath.

Aragorn nodded at him, and the Elf resumed his task. Under Éomer's shrewd eye, the Ranger undid the clasp of the cloak, and allowed it to fall from Gúthwyn's shoulders. They were bare, and the king of Rohan winced, but neither of the others showed the slightest change in their expression. The cloak was gradually removed from her, and to Éomer's relief her shirt had not been torn as badly as he had feared.

"Has she broken her ribs before?" Aragorn questioned, rolling Gúthwyn's tunic up slightly to examine them. Nearly all of the bones appeared to be somewhat displaced, and they were alarmingly sharp against her thin stomach.

Éomer searched through his memories of all that Haldor had done to her, though he came up with nothing of the sort. Yet it was not he who answered, but Legolas. "Yes," the Elf responded, and Éomer's head swiveled around to look at him keenly.

"How do you know of this?" he demanded, his voice harsher than he intended.

Was it his imagination, or did Legolas' eyes become guarded? "She mentioned it in passing," was his brief response.

"Stitches…" Aragorn murmured, gently touching Gúthwyn's stomach. "These are fresh."

"Perhaps she was wounded at the Pelennor Fields?" Éomer suggested, leaning closer to see better. His eyes fell upon a neat, perfectly even row of stitches, and he blinked: Gúthwyn had been absolutely abysmal at needlework, achieving the near-impossible feat of being worse than Éowyn.

Aragorn made an indistinct noise in the back of his throat, and then said, "Well, she will know from experience that she is to keep off of her feet for at least a month. Preferably more, if she can stand it. Remind her to take deep breaths, even if it pains her."

Éomer nodded, storing all of the information away in his mind and praying that Gúthwyn would be awake for him to give the instructions.

"Now, for her back…" Aragorn murmured, frowning.

"What do you mean?" Éomer asked, his heart racing as he thought of the gruesome tales Gúthwyn had told him about what Haldor used to do with his knife. He himself had not seen the scars, though he could only imagine how horrible they looked.

"That is where the bleeding was coming from," Aragorn told him, standing up. "Legolas, will you help me turn her over? Take care not to jostle her ribs, for it is bad enough having to put her weight on them."

The Elf nodded, and together the two of them lifted Gúthwyn and placed her on her stomach. Éomer prayed for something, even a grimace of pain, from his sister, but he had no such luck.

"She is as light as a child," Legolas marveled, though his eyes were worried. "Surely that is not natural?"

"I doubt she was fed properly in her captivity," Aragorn said, taking a soaked rag from the bucket.

Éomer gritted his teeth in frustration, eliciting a sympathetic look from Legolas. To see his sister so frail, so weak, and being unable to do anything about it was driving him mad. Now he thought he had an inkling of how Éowyn must have felt, waiting in the Golden Hall for tidings to return to her regarding her brother's expeditions and forays against the Orcs: Utterly powerless and useless.

"I need to remove her shirt," Aragorn spoke then, asking for permission without raising the question. Éomer hesitated, and at length nodded. With a professional efficiency that made him slightly embarrassed of his own reaction, Aragorn raised Gúthwyn's arms and slipped the tunic over them. Three pairs of eyes widened: Her back was so covered in dried blood that hardly any of the flesh could be seen.

Both Aragorn and Legolas set to work, the Elf cleaning soiled rags and handing them to the Ranger to be used again. Aragorn cleaned away all the blood, careful not to scour too deeply. His face grew steadily paler as he did the task, and when the last fluids had been washed off Éomer saw the source of his worry. A gasp flew from his mouth, sharp and unrestrained.

All over his sister's back were horrific welts and wounds, most of them only half healed. The flesh was pitted and scarred, in some places a faint green color. Haldor's craftsmanship had been brutal and merciless. The lacerations stretched from the patch of skin between Gúthwyn's shoulder blades and went all the way down to her lower back, where they were as a line of angry red ants against her skin.

The others' shocked and disgusted eyes met Éomer's. He stood up from his chair, hearing it fall to the ground with a clattering noise behind him. "E-Excuse me," he managed, and left the tent.

He barely made it three feet before he was vomiting. A hardened warrior was the son of Éomund, and he had seen—received, as well—many grisly injuries, yet the sight of them on his own sister was too much. He could not believe that any one being could be so heartless, so callous, and torture another with such ghastly techniques. Picturing a faceless Elf standing above Gúthwyn, carving the blade down her back as she screamed in agony, he retched even more.

When he returned to the tent, wiping his mouth on his sleeve, Legolas was sketching something on a scrap of paper. Hoping to take his mind and eyes off of the painful reminders of Gúthwyn's past, Éomer questioned, "What are you drawing?"

Legolas held up the paper, and Éomer looked at it in confusion. It was a stick figure of a small child, an arrow stuck through his head, with a diagonal slash across the entire thing. "What is that?" he asked in mild revulsion, wondering what on earth had possessed the Elf to do this.

The response of the prince was to point at Gúthwyn's back. Éomer followed his gaze and nearly threw up again. He had been so appalled to see the wounds on his sister that he had not seen what the welts and cuts had formed. It was the very thing that Legolas had drawn, though far rougher. Yet it was unmistakable.

He recalled Gúthwyn telling him about the symbol; Haldor had used it as a warning to her, saying that if she did not go to Ithilien as she had been instructed, he would kill one of the children. Éomer's eyes flashed, and he could hardly speak for fury. When he was able to choke out a few words, they were drenched in a bitter hatred. "That whoreson!" he snarled, clenching his fists so tightly that his nails drew blood from his palms.

Legolas appeared as if he were about to be sick. "Haldor?" he asked, inhaling sharply. Aragorn glanced quickly at the two of them, his grey eyes wide as he connected the Elf Gúthwyn had slain to the creator of her scars.

Éomer could only nod, and for a long moment none of them said anything. Legolas' head was bowed.

At length, Aragorn said, "The wounds are recovering. They are not too old, yet neither are they new."

It was a small consolation, and could not make up for all that Haldor had done, but Éomer breathed a little easier afterwards. Aragorn bandaged up Gúthwyn's entire torso, giving the cloth some slack so that her ribs were not hurt but keeping it taut enough in order to soak up any blood that might come forth.

"For as long as you can manage it, keep her from walking," Aragorn cautioned, putting the tunic back on Gúthwyn. He gestured at her right ankle, which was bent in a strange way. "This is broken."

Legolas handed the Ranger more bandages. Aragorn began crafting a makeshift splint for the woman, wrapping it tightly around her ankle. Soon it was completed, and Gúthwyn was turned over so that her ribs no longer bore the brunt of her weight, meager though it was. Taking his cloak, Legolas spread it gently over her, and in one of the few displays of emotion Éomer had ever seen from him he smoothed Gúthwyn's hair away from her face.

"Aragorn," Éomer began as the man and the Elf started standing up. "Is she going to be all right? Will she wake?" He could not keep the fear from his voice as he said this, just as he could not stop his nails from gouging into his hands.

For a long time, Aragorn did not respond. When he finally did, his words were slow and cautious. "She has not perished from her injuries," he replied, "and that is hope in itself. Yet the Black Breath lay heavily upon her, which I have tried to heal with the athelas, though it is a paltry cure against so strong a disease. Furthermore, it seems to me that she has suffered a great deal, the least of which was physical harm, and if she does not desire to awake then she may very well not. But I would also say that she loves you and Éowyn, and her people—such love, I deem, will not loosen its grip on her so easily."

"Thank you so much," Éomer murmured, moving closer to Gúthwyn and kneeling at her side. "You have healed both of my sisters, and I am greatly in your debt."

"Think naught of it, my friend," Aragorn told him sincerely. "I have wished Éowyn and Gúthwyn well since I knew their minds." He inclined his head, and without another word he departed from the tent.

Legolas lingered for a moment. "I hope she recovers," he said quietly, his hand on the tent flap. "I look forward to seeing her healthy."

The Elf left then, and long after all had fallen silent Éomer sat beside his sister's bed. By the flickering candlelight he could see the lines of Legolas' drawing, and shivered. With a shaking hand, he swatted it off of the cot, letting it fall to the ground. He did not want it on Gúthwyn's cot.

Please bring her back, he prayed to the Valar. Please bring my sister back.