Chapter Two - Raise the Alarm
Disclaimer: I still only own Feowin and Suldal.
Author's Note: And here is the really stupid second chapter of my really stupid story. Please review. I would like the address the thing about Féowin wearing leggings, as I have gotten two corrections/complaints about it; I know that women wore dresses so I will try and fix that. And to address the problem about Swift's name, I have changed it to Suldal – meaning Wind Foot – and thank you very much to Sarahbarr17 for the name suggestions.
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Suldal charged into the courtyard, Féowin leaped from her back and ordered a stable-hand to care for Suldal, the stable-hand ran after the still galloping mare as Féowin jogged up the steps to the main building.
Féowin burst into the meeting room, interrupting a private meeting between her mother, father, Aragorn, and another man who she did not care to recognize. "Féowin!" her father shouted, "What are you doing here? This is a secret meeting, get out!"
Féowin couldn't speak, she was too out of breath, she just shook her head and gasped, "Saruman ... he's back ... back with ... uruk-hai."
"What?" roared her father, Faramir.
"Saruman is dead," Aragorn said, his voice even, "I saw him die with my own two eyes."
"Meaning no disrespect, sire," Féowin said once she had gotten her breath back, "But, I saw him no more than an hour ago. Alive."
Sudden realization dawned on Éowyn's face, "You deliberately disobeyed me, didn't you? You went to investigate what secrets the clouds held, didn't you? You thought that you would become a shield maiden if you found out what great evil lurked there, didn't you? Well you were wrong, you'll never become a shield maiden by playing hero and disobeying orders."
"But you did," Féowin knew she was being rude, but she didn't care. She had made this great discovery and she was being scolded, and yelled at for lying, and yelled at for risking her neck to do something stupid.
Éowyn was rendered speechless, Aragorn, though, wasn't, "Show us Saruman."
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A group of riders cantered across the plain. The riders consisted of Féowin, Éowyn, Faramir, Aragorn and Freda, mounted on some of the finest steeds of Rohan. Féowin was giving Suldal a break after her mad dash back to her home and was riding a fidgety, bay gelding with a hard mouth. The gelding, Rolum, stopped well over a mile away from the clouds. Féowin resignedly dismounted and followed the other riders on foot.
One by one the riders were forced to dismount from their steeds and continued up the hill on foot.
Each rider had a different way of getting themselves up the hill: Féowin muttered a mantra under her breath 'You can do this, one step, another, just another step, one more.' Freda focused her mind on something else: a particularly hard piece of saddle script that she was decoding. Faramir also recited a mantra under his breath, 'You must do this. You must see what lurks over the crest of that hill.' Éowyn didn't concentrate on what she was doing; instead she concentrated on the simple motion of putting one foot in front of the other. Aragorn managed to keep on going with the though of what would happen to middle earth if this great evil was not discovered.
Halfway up the hill Freda stopped, took out a spyglass, and stood guard.
At the top Éowyn, Faramir, Aragorn and Féowin peered over the crest of the hill. Faramir's eyes grew wide, Aragorn wrinkled his brow in concentration and Éowyn let out a barely audible gasp. Saruman was there with thousands of uruk-hai doing his bidding and there were some large shapes moving off in the distance. Féowin's spyglass was not nearly strong enough to pick up the figures so Féowin caught Freda's eye and motioned for her to come up.
A quizzical expression danced its way across Freda's face but she obeyed careful to stay silent, though, to Féowin's eye it seemed as if she was muttering something under her breath as she took step after step up the hillside. At the top of the hill, Freda spoke, though her breath was no more than a whisper the riders heard every word clearly, "What is it?"
"Your spyglass," Féowin said, "May we borrow it? There is something way over there, in that far corner of the valley. Something big, something bad."
Freda handed her silver spyglass to Aragorn who held out his hand. For a moment he examined it: the careful placement of sapphires and pearls along the rim, runes sketched in some dark color along the side. Then, he trained it on the large shapes in the distance, when he focused it, his eyes widened ever so slightly and his eyebrows twitched up. His voice was low and slightly frustrated, "He has trolls under his command. Around ten of the wretched things; ten large fighting machines doing his bidding."
Féowin fought the urge to smirk as she had been correct and no one had believed her, a lesser human would have gloated but Féowin had learned long ago that shield maidens always resisted the urge to gloat even if they had every right to do so.
"Let's go back and formulate a plan. Away from here," Faramir suggested, suppressing a shudder.
The rest of the party agreed quickly. The horses had been waiting in a small clumped herd a mile or so away from the clouds and were very eager to set off again. The horses and riders, as they were galloping away, often threw worried backwards glances at the valley and the horror that lay within it.
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When the party reached the courtyard and dismounted, Féowin volunteered to stay and care for the horses, joining everyone else once the horses were settled. Féowin spoke to the horses as she groomed them, she spoke to them about what lay beyond the hill, and while she was grooming Rolum she could have sworn she saw him shudder when she spoke of the trolls Saruman had under his command.
When each of the five horses' coats were shining and they were eating contently in their stalls, Féowin strolled into the meeting room which had, after the ride back, become filled with people peering over maps and discussing battle strategies. Féowin stood there, ignored, for a moment before Freda noticed her and motioned for her to come over to one of the maps. Faramir, Aragorn, and Éowin were around that map along with a cluster of other warriors Féowin did not bother to recognize.
"We have come up with a plan." Faramirr's finger traced the route as he spoke, "First you will make great haste and ride to Mirkwood, once there, you will alert the elves of this situation. Then, ride to Hobbiton and find Meriadoc Brandybuck and Peregrin Took. You will then escort them to Treebeard in Fangorn Forest . Once you have completed those tasks you will return here. Do I make myself clear?"
Féowin nodded and repeated what her father had just said, just to make sure.
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Author's Note: There was my second chapter; I hope you liked it (though I sincerely doubt you did), please review. Also I know it isn't the greatest idea for her to take the route I'm having her take and it is impossible for her to do it in the time I have her do it, but that plays a big role in the plot for which I have already written a good number of chapters.