A/N: Sorry the last one was so short. I just figured out that I shouldn't have stopped it as it was, so if the uptake on this chapter is a but hay-wire, I'm sorry.
Can you believe it? I am typing this chapter the day after I posted the last chapter. Man, I am moving now! I am getting to the point where I don't really care about how many reviews I get. I mean don't get me wrong, I really love to read them, but I don't need a certain amount of reviews before I update again. I'm just not that kind of person.
And if you are wondering why I am updating so quickly, it is both in part of the slave driver snapping her whip above my head and we are getting into the action. I'm so excited to get into the action, but we are still in the prepping mode of it. We will get there shortly though, I promise!
Phew! That was a long one! But here is the next installment!
*~*~*
"Why do I get the idea that I am supposed to follow them, or something?" I asked myself.
Éowyn solved that problem for me, "Well, did Lord Aragorn not motion you to follow?"
I rolled my eyes up to the heavens and turned to start explaining about sarcasm when I saw Éowyn was laughing at me. She was kidding! Will these things never cease to amaze me.
I laughed and jogged over to where Gimli and Legolas were following Aragorn out the doors. I finally caught up and fell into step beside Legolas.
"Hey, Blondie. What's going on?" I breathed. I really like this thing about the Elven hearing. I just barely had to form the words and he heard me like I was shouting in his ear. It was great.
He nodded his head to where Théoden was giving orders to a guy called Gamling. He then put a finger to his lips. All right, fine, I get the point. I wasn't supposed to say anything. I can do that.
"We will need to get the women, children, and old men into the caves early enough to allow us time enough to prepare."
Okay, that riled me. But I guess I could see the sense in it, some anyway.
"I want every man and strong lad able to bear arms to be ready for battle by nightfall," he was telling Gamling.
This was too much for even me, I had to say something.
"Are you kidding? You are going to have children out there fighting those, those, those, THINGS! Are you off your rocker?"
Legolas tried to clap a hand over my mouth, but he missed and I slipped out of his reach. He couldn't reach me unless he made a lunge for it, and I doubted he would do that.
"There you are wrong, Lady Emily," he said coldly. "They will not be children, but strong boys."
"Oh, right. How could I have possibly missed that difference," I scoffed.
"I will not have a woman questioning my methods."
"Fine, I will lay off that. But, where is your medical care?"
"Medical care?"
"The place where they can patch up the gaping holes in your men?"
"We do not need it. No foe has ever breached the Deeping Wall."
"Right, but these Uruk-Hai, as you call them, are not normal foes. You need somewhere to take your men when they are hurt, you don't have enough men just to let them die on the battle field. If you have a medic unit, then the men can be patched up and sent out again. It's as simple as that."
"Aye, it is a good idea, I grant it that. But, I do not have enough men to spare for this." He started to turn away from me.
I threw my arms up in the air and took a deep breath. I was just on this side of losing whatever patience I had left. I reached over and took Théoden's arm just above the elbow, "Follow me."
I drew him over to the edge of the balcony, "Look down there. What do you see?"
"I see nothing but women and children."
"Able-bodied women and children."
"You cannot be serious! That is preposterous!"
"No, what I think is preposterous, is that you will send young boys out with swords, but you will not allow grown women the use of some water and bandages."
He was silent for a moment, "A point you have made. But who will lead these women?"
"You're looking at her."
He turned to me and raised an eyebrow, "This goes against everything I believe in, but we have little choice. You shall be the leader, they are your responsibility."
Théoden then turned away from me and continued on down the causeway. Aragorn gave me a slightly disapproving look for butting in, Legolas just sighed and rolled his eyes, but Gimli grinned and whispered, "Good for you, lassie!" They then followed in Théoden's wake.
Alrighty then, down to business. We didn't have that much time, so we had to act fast.
I pulled myself up onto the balcony wall, and grabbed onto one of the banner posts for balance. I already had some of the women's attention just for standing there, but not all of them.
"Hey ladies! If you would be so kind as to gather here, I have some news for you! Come on, come on, don't be shy! Let's go!"
I waited a few moments to let the women gather. I was amazed at the numbers that appeared. There were easily as many women as there were men in the fort.
"And Théoden was going to lock them in the caves," I muttered to myself.
I snapped out of my thoughts and took a deep breath, "All right, ladies. Are we all here? Okay, good. Well I was just talking to your king and I had some incite into what is going to happen tonight. It seems that we are all going to be locked down in the caves to await our fate, while the men and boys fight for us. Sound good to you?"
Immediately there were shouts of outrage at the thought of having their young sons fighting.
"Right. I thought not. Well, as it seems, there is nothing we can do about the men and boys fighting, but we certainly can help them!"
A woman below me called out, "How can we help them? We are only women!" There was a chorus of agreement.
"Ah, but there you are wrong! Yes, we are women, but did you all hear what I did to that scum-sucker Les-Wormtongue?"
There was another great shout and many applause. I bowed formally and continued on with my speech, "But, I thought I was only a woman?"
Immediately there was laughter and applause again.
"Now, here is my plan. I believe that we are all able-bodied women, and the ones that are no longer in the prime of life, could easily take care of the younger children. Am I right here?" Applause. "Since you almost all have lived on a farm, you all have had to take care of your men-folk when they have been injured. Right?" There were loud shouts of agreement. "So, I can safely say that all of you have had some type of run in with medical attention. I have spoken with King Théoden and he has informed me that there is to be no medical attention tonight. I propose that we should be the medical attention!"
There were less enthusiastic replies, but they were still listening.
"I can hear that you are not excited at this prospect. But, did you know that if your husband, son, brother, father, you get the idea, falls in battle, that is it. No more, he will be left there to die."
There were mutterings in the crowd and a great amount of stirring. Ah, so I did reach them.
"I know we can do this, if we only take the chance."
Another woman called out, "How do you know this?"
Suddenly another voice answered the question, another voice that was right beside me. I looked over and there was Éowyn standing on the wall beside me.
"It shall work because both Emily and I believe it will. If you are not with us, we still will do this. It shall only be more difficult then it would be with your assistance."
"Well you heard the lady," I called out. "If you are not with us, we will still do it. So you can help or sit in the caves wondering if you will ever see your men-folk again!" I paused and then launched my question.
"Are you with us?! Will you help?!"
There were some shouts of agreement, but not enough.
"What? I can't hear you! Are you going to sit and wait or help?!"
"HELP!"
"All right!" I pumped my fist in the air. "Now that we got this figured out, you need to peel off into groups. All of the older women in one group, the middle aged in one, the young women in another, the older girls in one more, and the young children in another. Éowyn and I will be down in a moment to inform you of your duties. Let's move people, we don't have that much time!"
I turned from the women and jumped down from the wall, Éowyn was right behind me. I brushed the light sheen of sweat off from my forehead and took a deep breath. I looked over to where the guys were following the King around and saw them all staring at me. I waved and turned away, but I still hear Gimli's shout, "That's the stuff, lassie!"
I offered my arm to Éowyn, "Shall we?"
She laughed and nodded.
*~*~*
"All right, did we get all of them?" I asked Éowyn.
She thought a moment, and then started to rattle off the duties that we had assigned. "The old women will take the children over to that section of the courtyard and keep them entertained until it is time to go to the caves. The middle aged women shall be in charge of the actual medicine and the stitching. The young women shall take care of the men that are not badly hurt, but only need, how did you say it, patching up. And the older girls shall be the 'go fors' and get the others anything they might require."
I mulled this over for a moment and then nodded, "Good, really good. I believe this will go smoothly. But, I think we need to get them moving now; I don't think we have that much time and it will begin."
"Aye."
I walked over to an empty wagon and leapt up into the box of it. I let out a piercing whistle and started to clap and shout. Finally I had all of the women's attention.
"Alrighty then, do you all have your duties? Do you all understand them?" There was a loud 'Aye!' "Good, now, since we do not have that much time until the battle will begin, I propose we all start to prepare now. All of the older girls and young women should start hauling water, blankets, bandages, everything you can think of down into the caves. All you older women, take the children down into the caves and start building up some fires, but leave the doors open other wise you will be smoked out. We are going to need a ton of boiling water tonight to sterilize everything! And I mean a lot! You guys can all be off, I need to speak to the women in charge of the medicine though."
Right away, all of the women began to move off to fulfill their orders. It was amazing really how the women immediately took to me like they did. I thought I would have to fight them to get them to go against what they were taught. Women's Rights movements here we come!
I jumped off the wagon so I could speak face to face with the women. "Okay, ladies, I know I dumped a lot of responsibility on you guys, but I don't think it can really be helped." They all nodded in agreement. "One last thing and I believe you can get down to the prepping, okay? Anyway, I need to know if you guys have any herbs of plants that you use for medicine and what the stock level is. If we are low, there is a slim chance that we might be able to get more, but I think we will just have to work around it. This way, we will realize what we are missing early enough so you can think of ways to get around that. Other wise, we could have a matter of life and death on our hands and one of you might not be sure what to use. Got it?"
A slightly older women stepped forth and said, "Back home, I was the one that grew the healing herbs for the surgeon, Ramir. He never really told me what they were for, but you could always inquire as to it now. He is right over there, shinning his sword." She pointed to a grizzled man, sitting on the bottom step.
I couldn't believe it, Théoden had a surgeon and he was making him fight! He should be doing what he did best! Sewing body parts back on, not removing them from Orcs!
I sighed and rubbed my eyes, "Right-o, why don't you guys go get started with the preparations. I will come and check on you shortly. I need to have a word with your king."
With this, they all moved off to get ready for the battle. I motioned Éowyn over to me, "Why don't you make sure everything is moving smoothly? I need to go have a chat with Théoden."
She nodded, "I believe the last time I saw him, he was walking the walls over there." She pointed over to my left.
"Thanks!" With that, I jogged off.
*~*~*
"Um, excuse me, King Théoden, but can I have a word with you?"
"Can it not wait, Emily?"
"Nope, I have a lot of stuff that I have to do in a very short time. I gotta talk to you now!"
"I shall be with you shortly, Gamling. Continue without me."
We both walked a little ways away, "Okay. Just a few minutes ago, one of the women informed me that you have the surgeon, Ramir here, but you have him fighting. Don't you think that is kinda, well, stupid, no offense to you of course."
"I take no offense. I was not informed that he was with us. I thought he was killed with the Wargs. Apparently I was mistaken. You are here to inquire about his services?"
"Yeah, I mean I'm not a surgeon by any means and I don't think any of the women are trained as such. If he was to help us, it would be a great help. What do you say? Can he give us a hand instead of fighting?"
"Aye, if you must. But you shall not steal any more of my men away from the walls, is that clear. You have your women, you must deal with that."
"My, aren't you a bright ray of sunshine. But yeah, thanks bunches."
"You are welcome, Emily. I must return to more pressing matters." He bowed his head at me and walked away.
"Okay, down to business," I muttered.
*~*~*
"So, I hear you are a surgeon?"
The man looked up from his sword and the looked back down again. "Aye, you heard correctly. You are the one in charge of the women?"
"Yep, that's me. So anyway, since you are a surgeon, I thought you might be better off helping us instead of lobbing off heads. What do you say to that?"
"You are implying that I should abandon my post to work with a gaggle of women?"
"Yeah, that's about it. Oh! And before I forget, Théoden agrees with my logic, so you are stuck doing this whether you like it or not, so let's not make this difficult, 'kay?"
He sighed, "If it is my king's wish, I shall grant it."
"Glad to hear it!" I slapped him on the back.
"You are a very strange woman. You bloody a man, with no qualms, but then you are worried about our welfare. I do not understand you, and I have never seen a woman with a bruised face like yours."
I laughed at this and fingered my fading shiner, "Well, buddy, I would worry if you did understand me. Since it's settled, if you would be so kind as to come down to the caves you can check it out and make sure that we have everything that you would need for tonight. Like I told the women, if there is something else you need, there is a slim chance that we could get it for you, but you should be prepared to work around it just in case. So come on already!"
With that we were headed towards the caves.
*~*~*
"Okay, so this is the list of everything that we don't have?"
"Aye, most of that we can do without, but there are two that we shall need, I can feel it. The ones that look like little purple flowers and the mint root."
"Right, can you show me what they look like?"
He dug around in some pouches and extracted a small clump of purple wilted flowers and a few leaves of the mint root.
"And that is all we have?"
"Aye."
"Man, we are screwed."
"I do not know of your term, 'screwed', but if it means that difficulties are short in coming, I agree with you."
Suddenly the soldiers started to herd the old women and children down into the caves with us. Since we were already almost completely prepped for the upcoming battle it wasn't a big deal, but if just meant that we had that much less time.
One of the soldiers shouted at the women, "The men must all report to the armory. Say your good-byes now!"
*~*~*
I had gone to find the guys while all the emotions were running rampant down in the caves. I'm an emotional person, so if I see someone crying, I'm not long to follow them.
"Hey, guys, what's shaking?"
Aragorn was inspecting a beaten up old sword, he stared at it in disgust and threw it back into the pile of others.
"Farmer, farriers, stable boys. These are no soldiers." He motioned to the men and boys that were surrounding us. Yeah, it didn't look very good.
"Most have seen too many winters," Gimli stated.
"Or too few," added Legolas.
"I'm getting the feeling that everyone is thinking that the glass is half empty. By the way, the reason I am here needs to be answered. That didn't make any sense, but just go with it," I said to their puzzled looks. "I need to know how long until we are getting dosed in Orc blood-and I need to know now."
(A/N: Once again I am going out on a limb and using hours for time.)
Aragorn looked at me with narrowed eyes, "What is the reason?"
"Call it curiosity."
"I would say two to three hours; and that is with much hope."
"All right, I gotta go now then," I muttered to myself.
"What was that?" asked Legolas.
I ignored him and just walked away still deep in thought. Even though I did ignore them, they still followed me. I stopped when I got outside again and started to look into the distance.
"Ah, okay, that's where he said I could find the plants," I was looking off in the distance to a small copse of trees. It was risky; the Orc army wasn't that far from it.
Aragorn clapped a hand on my shoulder, "You shall not go."
I looked at him and raised an eyebrow, "Wanna bet?"
*~*~*
After I had finally talked Aragorn and Gimli to release their death hold on me, I then had to deal with Legolas giving me the evil eye. At least he didn't resort to bodily force, yet.
"I'm going whether you like it or not. I was lucky twice now when it comes to Orcs, I can do it again. Like they saw, three is charm!"
"I still do not like it."
"It's not your guys' decision to make. I am going and the longer we argue, the more time we waste and the more riskier it becomes. By the way, can I use your knife, Aragorn? I'm going to need it.
He sighed and took the knife out of his boot and handed it to me.
"Thanks."
With that I turned and gave a piercing whistle. Sure enough here came Babes.
'You rang?'
"Ready to play hero again?"
I could see that she had been pampered beyond belief by the guys in the stables.
'I think I can handle it.'
I walked over and swung up onto her back. "See ya in a few," I said to the guys.
"Be careful, lassie."
"You know I will, Gimli."
I looked over to where the gates were; there were two guards just looking at me.
"Put it this way guys, I am going out those gates whether you like it or not. Now open them for me so I don't have to waste the time of breaking them open."
Immediately they complied but I heard one of them say to the other, "She is either very courageous or quite mad."
I laughed and as Babes walked by them, I said, "It's amazing how often those two go hand-in hand."
*~*~*
A/N: Uh oh! We have hero Emily again! Can you tell I'm having fun with the whole macho bit? I know it can get a bit old, but I promise after the battle, she will go back to being her normal sarcastic self. It's the whole excitement of the battle that is making me think all heroic like.
I just made up the purple flowers and the mint root. I have no idea if they even exist or if they have any medical value. Just remember, this is pure fiction!
Okay, all my readers, I need some help here! In the next one of two chapters, I am going to need a bunch of moral boosting songs. I know what you all are thinking, but it's not going to be the whole song. I would appreciate if you guys could just send me the best snippet of the song and the name of it and author. That way I can have a lot of songs, but not take about ten pages to do them all.
Thanks bunches!
~A~
Can you believe it? I am typing this chapter the day after I posted the last chapter. Man, I am moving now! I am getting to the point where I don't really care about how many reviews I get. I mean don't get me wrong, I really love to read them, but I don't need a certain amount of reviews before I update again. I'm just not that kind of person.
And if you are wondering why I am updating so quickly, it is both in part of the slave driver snapping her whip above my head and we are getting into the action. I'm so excited to get into the action, but we are still in the prepping mode of it. We will get there shortly though, I promise!
Phew! That was a long one! But here is the next installment!
*~*~*
"Why do I get the idea that I am supposed to follow them, or something?" I asked myself.
Éowyn solved that problem for me, "Well, did Lord Aragorn not motion you to follow?"
I rolled my eyes up to the heavens and turned to start explaining about sarcasm when I saw Éowyn was laughing at me. She was kidding! Will these things never cease to amaze me.
I laughed and jogged over to where Gimli and Legolas were following Aragorn out the doors. I finally caught up and fell into step beside Legolas.
"Hey, Blondie. What's going on?" I breathed. I really like this thing about the Elven hearing. I just barely had to form the words and he heard me like I was shouting in his ear. It was great.
He nodded his head to where Théoden was giving orders to a guy called Gamling. He then put a finger to his lips. All right, fine, I get the point. I wasn't supposed to say anything. I can do that.
"We will need to get the women, children, and old men into the caves early enough to allow us time enough to prepare."
Okay, that riled me. But I guess I could see the sense in it, some anyway.
"I want every man and strong lad able to bear arms to be ready for battle by nightfall," he was telling Gamling.
This was too much for even me, I had to say something.
"Are you kidding? You are going to have children out there fighting those, those, those, THINGS! Are you off your rocker?"
Legolas tried to clap a hand over my mouth, but he missed and I slipped out of his reach. He couldn't reach me unless he made a lunge for it, and I doubted he would do that.
"There you are wrong, Lady Emily," he said coldly. "They will not be children, but strong boys."
"Oh, right. How could I have possibly missed that difference," I scoffed.
"I will not have a woman questioning my methods."
"Fine, I will lay off that. But, where is your medical care?"
"Medical care?"
"The place where they can patch up the gaping holes in your men?"
"We do not need it. No foe has ever breached the Deeping Wall."
"Right, but these Uruk-Hai, as you call them, are not normal foes. You need somewhere to take your men when they are hurt, you don't have enough men just to let them die on the battle field. If you have a medic unit, then the men can be patched up and sent out again. It's as simple as that."
"Aye, it is a good idea, I grant it that. But, I do not have enough men to spare for this." He started to turn away from me.
I threw my arms up in the air and took a deep breath. I was just on this side of losing whatever patience I had left. I reached over and took Théoden's arm just above the elbow, "Follow me."
I drew him over to the edge of the balcony, "Look down there. What do you see?"
"I see nothing but women and children."
"Able-bodied women and children."
"You cannot be serious! That is preposterous!"
"No, what I think is preposterous, is that you will send young boys out with swords, but you will not allow grown women the use of some water and bandages."
He was silent for a moment, "A point you have made. But who will lead these women?"
"You're looking at her."
He turned to me and raised an eyebrow, "This goes against everything I believe in, but we have little choice. You shall be the leader, they are your responsibility."
Théoden then turned away from me and continued on down the causeway. Aragorn gave me a slightly disapproving look for butting in, Legolas just sighed and rolled his eyes, but Gimli grinned and whispered, "Good for you, lassie!" They then followed in Théoden's wake.
Alrighty then, down to business. We didn't have that much time, so we had to act fast.
I pulled myself up onto the balcony wall, and grabbed onto one of the banner posts for balance. I already had some of the women's attention just for standing there, but not all of them.
"Hey ladies! If you would be so kind as to gather here, I have some news for you! Come on, come on, don't be shy! Let's go!"
I waited a few moments to let the women gather. I was amazed at the numbers that appeared. There were easily as many women as there were men in the fort.
"And Théoden was going to lock them in the caves," I muttered to myself.
I snapped out of my thoughts and took a deep breath, "All right, ladies. Are we all here? Okay, good. Well I was just talking to your king and I had some incite into what is going to happen tonight. It seems that we are all going to be locked down in the caves to await our fate, while the men and boys fight for us. Sound good to you?"
Immediately there were shouts of outrage at the thought of having their young sons fighting.
"Right. I thought not. Well, as it seems, there is nothing we can do about the men and boys fighting, but we certainly can help them!"
A woman below me called out, "How can we help them? We are only women!" There was a chorus of agreement.
"Ah, but there you are wrong! Yes, we are women, but did you all hear what I did to that scum-sucker Les-Wormtongue?"
There was another great shout and many applause. I bowed formally and continued on with my speech, "But, I thought I was only a woman?"
Immediately there was laughter and applause again.
"Now, here is my plan. I believe that we are all able-bodied women, and the ones that are no longer in the prime of life, could easily take care of the younger children. Am I right here?" Applause. "Since you almost all have lived on a farm, you all have had to take care of your men-folk when they have been injured. Right?" There were loud shouts of agreement. "So, I can safely say that all of you have had some type of run in with medical attention. I have spoken with King Théoden and he has informed me that there is to be no medical attention tonight. I propose that we should be the medical attention!"
There were less enthusiastic replies, but they were still listening.
"I can hear that you are not excited at this prospect. But, did you know that if your husband, son, brother, father, you get the idea, falls in battle, that is it. No more, he will be left there to die."
There were mutterings in the crowd and a great amount of stirring. Ah, so I did reach them.
"I know we can do this, if we only take the chance."
Another woman called out, "How do you know this?"
Suddenly another voice answered the question, another voice that was right beside me. I looked over and there was Éowyn standing on the wall beside me.
"It shall work because both Emily and I believe it will. If you are not with us, we still will do this. It shall only be more difficult then it would be with your assistance."
"Well you heard the lady," I called out. "If you are not with us, we will still do it. So you can help or sit in the caves wondering if you will ever see your men-folk again!" I paused and then launched my question.
"Are you with us?! Will you help?!"
There were some shouts of agreement, but not enough.
"What? I can't hear you! Are you going to sit and wait or help?!"
"HELP!"
"All right!" I pumped my fist in the air. "Now that we got this figured out, you need to peel off into groups. All of the older women in one group, the middle aged in one, the young women in another, the older girls in one more, and the young children in another. Éowyn and I will be down in a moment to inform you of your duties. Let's move people, we don't have that much time!"
I turned from the women and jumped down from the wall, Éowyn was right behind me. I brushed the light sheen of sweat off from my forehead and took a deep breath. I looked over to where the guys were following the King around and saw them all staring at me. I waved and turned away, but I still hear Gimli's shout, "That's the stuff, lassie!"
I offered my arm to Éowyn, "Shall we?"
She laughed and nodded.
*~*~*
"All right, did we get all of them?" I asked Éowyn.
She thought a moment, and then started to rattle off the duties that we had assigned. "The old women will take the children over to that section of the courtyard and keep them entertained until it is time to go to the caves. The middle aged women shall be in charge of the actual medicine and the stitching. The young women shall take care of the men that are not badly hurt, but only need, how did you say it, patching up. And the older girls shall be the 'go fors' and get the others anything they might require."
I mulled this over for a moment and then nodded, "Good, really good. I believe this will go smoothly. But, I think we need to get them moving now; I don't think we have that much time and it will begin."
"Aye."
I walked over to an empty wagon and leapt up into the box of it. I let out a piercing whistle and started to clap and shout. Finally I had all of the women's attention.
"Alrighty then, do you all have your duties? Do you all understand them?" There was a loud 'Aye!' "Good, now, since we do not have that much time until the battle will begin, I propose we all start to prepare now. All of the older girls and young women should start hauling water, blankets, bandages, everything you can think of down into the caves. All you older women, take the children down into the caves and start building up some fires, but leave the doors open other wise you will be smoked out. We are going to need a ton of boiling water tonight to sterilize everything! And I mean a lot! You guys can all be off, I need to speak to the women in charge of the medicine though."
Right away, all of the women began to move off to fulfill their orders. It was amazing really how the women immediately took to me like they did. I thought I would have to fight them to get them to go against what they were taught. Women's Rights movements here we come!
I jumped off the wagon so I could speak face to face with the women. "Okay, ladies, I know I dumped a lot of responsibility on you guys, but I don't think it can really be helped." They all nodded in agreement. "One last thing and I believe you can get down to the prepping, okay? Anyway, I need to know if you guys have any herbs of plants that you use for medicine and what the stock level is. If we are low, there is a slim chance that we might be able to get more, but I think we will just have to work around it. This way, we will realize what we are missing early enough so you can think of ways to get around that. Other wise, we could have a matter of life and death on our hands and one of you might not be sure what to use. Got it?"
A slightly older women stepped forth and said, "Back home, I was the one that grew the healing herbs for the surgeon, Ramir. He never really told me what they were for, but you could always inquire as to it now. He is right over there, shinning his sword." She pointed to a grizzled man, sitting on the bottom step.
I couldn't believe it, Théoden had a surgeon and he was making him fight! He should be doing what he did best! Sewing body parts back on, not removing them from Orcs!
I sighed and rubbed my eyes, "Right-o, why don't you guys go get started with the preparations. I will come and check on you shortly. I need to have a word with your king."
With this, they all moved off to get ready for the battle. I motioned Éowyn over to me, "Why don't you make sure everything is moving smoothly? I need to go have a chat with Théoden."
She nodded, "I believe the last time I saw him, he was walking the walls over there." She pointed over to my left.
"Thanks!" With that, I jogged off.
*~*~*
"Um, excuse me, King Théoden, but can I have a word with you?"
"Can it not wait, Emily?"
"Nope, I have a lot of stuff that I have to do in a very short time. I gotta talk to you now!"
"I shall be with you shortly, Gamling. Continue without me."
We both walked a little ways away, "Okay. Just a few minutes ago, one of the women informed me that you have the surgeon, Ramir here, but you have him fighting. Don't you think that is kinda, well, stupid, no offense to you of course."
"I take no offense. I was not informed that he was with us. I thought he was killed with the Wargs. Apparently I was mistaken. You are here to inquire about his services?"
"Yeah, I mean I'm not a surgeon by any means and I don't think any of the women are trained as such. If he was to help us, it would be a great help. What do you say? Can he give us a hand instead of fighting?"
"Aye, if you must. But you shall not steal any more of my men away from the walls, is that clear. You have your women, you must deal with that."
"My, aren't you a bright ray of sunshine. But yeah, thanks bunches."
"You are welcome, Emily. I must return to more pressing matters." He bowed his head at me and walked away.
"Okay, down to business," I muttered.
*~*~*
"So, I hear you are a surgeon?"
The man looked up from his sword and the looked back down again. "Aye, you heard correctly. You are the one in charge of the women?"
"Yep, that's me. So anyway, since you are a surgeon, I thought you might be better off helping us instead of lobbing off heads. What do you say to that?"
"You are implying that I should abandon my post to work with a gaggle of women?"
"Yeah, that's about it. Oh! And before I forget, Théoden agrees with my logic, so you are stuck doing this whether you like it or not, so let's not make this difficult, 'kay?"
He sighed, "If it is my king's wish, I shall grant it."
"Glad to hear it!" I slapped him on the back.
"You are a very strange woman. You bloody a man, with no qualms, but then you are worried about our welfare. I do not understand you, and I have never seen a woman with a bruised face like yours."
I laughed at this and fingered my fading shiner, "Well, buddy, I would worry if you did understand me. Since it's settled, if you would be so kind as to come down to the caves you can check it out and make sure that we have everything that you would need for tonight. Like I told the women, if there is something else you need, there is a slim chance that we could get it for you, but you should be prepared to work around it just in case. So come on already!"
With that we were headed towards the caves.
*~*~*
"Okay, so this is the list of everything that we don't have?"
"Aye, most of that we can do without, but there are two that we shall need, I can feel it. The ones that look like little purple flowers and the mint root."
"Right, can you show me what they look like?"
He dug around in some pouches and extracted a small clump of purple wilted flowers and a few leaves of the mint root.
"And that is all we have?"
"Aye."
"Man, we are screwed."
"I do not know of your term, 'screwed', but if it means that difficulties are short in coming, I agree with you."
Suddenly the soldiers started to herd the old women and children down into the caves with us. Since we were already almost completely prepped for the upcoming battle it wasn't a big deal, but if just meant that we had that much less time.
One of the soldiers shouted at the women, "The men must all report to the armory. Say your good-byes now!"
*~*~*
I had gone to find the guys while all the emotions were running rampant down in the caves. I'm an emotional person, so if I see someone crying, I'm not long to follow them.
"Hey, guys, what's shaking?"
Aragorn was inspecting a beaten up old sword, he stared at it in disgust and threw it back into the pile of others.
"Farmer, farriers, stable boys. These are no soldiers." He motioned to the men and boys that were surrounding us. Yeah, it didn't look very good.
"Most have seen too many winters," Gimli stated.
"Or too few," added Legolas.
"I'm getting the feeling that everyone is thinking that the glass is half empty. By the way, the reason I am here needs to be answered. That didn't make any sense, but just go with it," I said to their puzzled looks. "I need to know how long until we are getting dosed in Orc blood-and I need to know now."
(A/N: Once again I am going out on a limb and using hours for time.)
Aragorn looked at me with narrowed eyes, "What is the reason?"
"Call it curiosity."
"I would say two to three hours; and that is with much hope."
"All right, I gotta go now then," I muttered to myself.
"What was that?" asked Legolas.
I ignored him and just walked away still deep in thought. Even though I did ignore them, they still followed me. I stopped when I got outside again and started to look into the distance.
"Ah, okay, that's where he said I could find the plants," I was looking off in the distance to a small copse of trees. It was risky; the Orc army wasn't that far from it.
Aragorn clapped a hand on my shoulder, "You shall not go."
I looked at him and raised an eyebrow, "Wanna bet?"
*~*~*
After I had finally talked Aragorn and Gimli to release their death hold on me, I then had to deal with Legolas giving me the evil eye. At least he didn't resort to bodily force, yet.
"I'm going whether you like it or not. I was lucky twice now when it comes to Orcs, I can do it again. Like they saw, three is charm!"
"I still do not like it."
"It's not your guys' decision to make. I am going and the longer we argue, the more time we waste and the more riskier it becomes. By the way, can I use your knife, Aragorn? I'm going to need it.
He sighed and took the knife out of his boot and handed it to me.
"Thanks."
With that I turned and gave a piercing whistle. Sure enough here came Babes.
'You rang?'
"Ready to play hero again?"
I could see that she had been pampered beyond belief by the guys in the stables.
'I think I can handle it.'
I walked over and swung up onto her back. "See ya in a few," I said to the guys.
"Be careful, lassie."
"You know I will, Gimli."
I looked over to where the gates were; there were two guards just looking at me.
"Put it this way guys, I am going out those gates whether you like it or not. Now open them for me so I don't have to waste the time of breaking them open."
Immediately they complied but I heard one of them say to the other, "She is either very courageous or quite mad."
I laughed and as Babes walked by them, I said, "It's amazing how often those two go hand-in hand."
*~*~*
A/N: Uh oh! We have hero Emily again! Can you tell I'm having fun with the whole macho bit? I know it can get a bit old, but I promise after the battle, she will go back to being her normal sarcastic self. It's the whole excitement of the battle that is making me think all heroic like.
I just made up the purple flowers and the mint root. I have no idea if they even exist or if they have any medical value. Just remember, this is pure fiction!
Okay, all my readers, I need some help here! In the next one of two chapters, I am going to need a bunch of moral boosting songs. I know what you all are thinking, but it's not going to be the whole song. I would appreciate if you guys could just send me the best snippet of the song and the name of it and author. That way I can have a lot of songs, but not take about ten pages to do them all.
Thanks bunches!
~A~