COTTONCROW'S CRY – Chapter ten
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Alumna knew that the dwarf had been hiding something of importance from her, but never had it crossed her mind that it would be something like this.
Gimli's tale was too unreal to be true. Had it not been for the honesty on his face, the sincerity and deep emotion in his voice, as he talked about Frodo's journey to Mordor, Alumna would have thought him mad or jesting her. Beings the size of little children but old enough to drink ale and more brave than many men?
Hobbits seemed to her as believable as winged horses and Alumna feared that, somewhere along his fantastic tale, Gimli would end up mentioning one too.
He spoke of far places that she had only heard of in fairytales, of people and beasts she had never set her eyes on and some that she had never even heard of. Talking trees, and wizards, and Balrogs, and Elves fighting for Men, and Eagles coming to save the day.
The woman looked at the stranger with different eyes then. This was someone that had stood up against the Dark Lord and had, not only lived to tell his tale, but defeated him as well. The dwarf and his companions had faced perils and met foes so terrible that her mind could barely imagine. And the free folk of Middle-Earth could still call themselves free on account of what they had done.
Twice, since the day she met him, had Gimli changed her views of the world and her existence. First, when he had trusted that baby in to her arms, an innocent child, whose touch opened her eyes and made her realize all that she had truly lost. All the chances and experiences she would never be able to feel…
And now… So little of what happened beyond Cottoncrow's borders reached her ears, happenings that concerned all, their fates and lives decided by others, their freedom earned at the cost of the sweat and blood of strangers.
For a moment she felt very small and selfish, as the bigger troubles of world put her personal trials in perspective. The hard life that had been the only thing she had ever known, seemed now pointless, faced with what might have happened, had not Gimli and his friends stopped Sauron's plans.
She knew why Gimli was telling her this at this only now. He needed her aid; he had no one else to turn to. In a very cunning way, the dwarf had assured that she had no way of denying him what he wanted. How could she after listening to all that the elf, along with the others, had done for them all?
"Come, master dwarf," she said, breaking the silence that had settled between the two. "There is something I must show you."
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Gimli had been reluctant about following her. He had too much to do, even if no idea of what yet. It was wrong of him to be enjoying refreshing strolls through the woods now. He didn't even fancied woods.
The elf's time was running thin and the dreading feeling at the tip of his stomach, telling him that something had happened, would not go away. What he needed to do was to return to Cottoncrow and turn every corner upside down until he found Legolas and then… do something!
But Alumna had assured him that it was something that could help them…
On one thing Legolas had been right: they could not fight the all village, and Gimli had no time to fetch help. He was just too far from everywhere. So, his only option was to find a way to convince these people in to letting Legolas go.
Gimli shook his head. That would be as probable of ever happening as him seeing a bearded elf.
"This is the place," the woman said solemnly.
Alumna had said that something of importance was there for him to see but, try as he might, Gimli could see nothing but trees and ferns, growing everywhere and menacing to swallow the path they had been following.
The small clearing where they stood was like a game of contradictions. Light and shadow played in the wet leaves; warmth and freshness came and went at the breeze's will; the young sun, in its first hours of the day, tinted the flowers and berries with a blood-red colour of war, while the gentleness of water rushing nearby gave a sense of peace and quietness to the place.
Life bubbled around them, small animals moving from place to place, minding their own business and paying little attention to the two strangers in their midst. Alumna's voice broke the spell.
"We used to come here, to be together," she said, her eyes seeing little of the present, as she lost herself in the pleasant memories of the past. "It was our special place, where no one could meddle with us, Bomieth and I".
Gimli, whom, truth be told, wasn't paying her the due attention, got his interest spiked at the mention of a name he recognized.
"Bomieth?" The old man that rules the village?"
Alumna shook her head.
"His son," she explained. "My father was a very traditional man. When I was still very young, he chose a man for me, but the man he chose wasn't…" she paused, looking for the right word to describe the vile man who's bed she had been forced to share for five years, "… wasn't to my liking. When my husband decided that I was no longer suitable for him and expelled me from his house, I felt like fate had finally smiled upon me," she said, not daring to look at the dwarf as she told her tale.
She moved further ahead, placing a hand over the rough bark of an old, bent tree.
"Bomieth and I fell in love not long after that, but we knew that his father would never accept our union. Bomieth son was to rule Cottoncrow when his father passed on, and the woman he would chose would be the bearer of his heirs. Old Bomieth would not want a spoiled woman, another man's leftovers, to be the mother of his grandsons. So, we hide our love from all."
Gimli cleared his throat, embarrassed.
"You said that you knew something that could help my friend," he reminded her. Hers was truly a sad story, one that he was sure was worth sharing, but at the moment, the only thing that he could focus on was the sun, unstoppable on his way towards the hills.
Alumna nodded.
"I told you that I knew Samuel better than most," she said, looking in to Gimli's eyes for the first time. "He was my husband, until trading me for Bomieth's daughter… I alone know what he is capable of."
Gimli was curious now.
"What do you know?"
"I know of what I saw… he killed Bomieth! I saw him kill my love!" She told with tears spilling from her eyes.
Gimli patiently waited for the woman to tame her emotions, as a thousand theories and possibilities struggled against each other inside his mind. If Samuel was proved as murderer, then…
"Are you sure of what you say?" He ended up asking.
Alumna sniffed, cleaning the tear tracks in her face with the back of her sleeve.
"We'd always use different paths to com and go, so that no one grew suspicious. On the day it happened, we were about to return to the village when Bomieth chanced upon Samuel. Neither saw me from where I hid, but I saw them argue. They fought…" her voice trembled and faltered. "Samuel killed Bomieth… here… and then just dragged his body out of sight…"
Her tears came anew, no longer containable.
"Sweet Erü!" Gimli hissed, trying hard not to show how much relief this information brought him.
Samuel had killed the son of the village's leader, a future leader himself. The healer was a murderer, and if the rest of Cottoncrow discovered that…
"What were they fighting about?" Gimli asked as he new suspicion rose.
"At first I thought that the reason was me, foolish as I was. But later, when I thought about it more calmly I knew I had been wrong."
"Why?"
"Little pieces of their shouted words, small things that Samuel let escape when he thought I wasn't listening… Bomieth oft told me that he didn't liked Samuel. He believed that Samuel had chosen his sister only to get closer to his father' seat at the council. I believe that was the reason why… Bomieth died because he knew of Samuel's plans."
"And with Bomieth's son out of his path and him being married to the old man's only offspring… why have you kept a secret of this?"
Alumna laughed through her tears.
"No one would have believed me," she explained. "A woman's word is of little consequence in these parts. And even if they did listened to me, they would've thought that I had lost my senses. Samuel made sure of leading every soul in to believing that his rejection had pushed me over the edge of sanity, and everyone believed him… even me, for a time."
The tears came harder to her eyes. Different tears, tears of anger and frustration, for not having been able to do justice to her lover, for never having had the strength to stand up against Samuel's cruelty.
Gimli could feel his own frustration mounting up. Samuel's manipulations seemed to surround him and suffocate every spark of hope he could muster. Even now, with such knowledge on his side, he could do nothing, for if the villagers had believed her mad then, they would think her completely out of her head now, with him as a companion. Unless…
"You saw him dragging the bod… Bomieth away?"
The woman nodded, trying to clean her wet face to the back of her wet hands.
"To where?" Gimli asked, hopping that his voice hadn't reflected the eagerness that ran in his heart. Hope was born anew there.
"That way," she said, pointing in the river's direction.
Gimli wasn't an experienced tracker like Aragorn, who could read grass like a book. Inside a mine, he could tell, in a moment's glance, which rock was safe to break and which wasn't. But dirt and branches? Those were strangers to him.
Even so, it was plain to see the marks left by something heavy being dragged away. The path seemed untouched and unwalked since that day, and Gimli couldn't be more thankful for that.
They followed the trail of broken branches and disturbed earth, occasionally loosing their track beneath the growing vegetation, only to discover it again shortly ahead. The path moved away from the river at some point, and as the sound of gushing water started to sound fainter and fainter to them, the two wondered if, mayhap, they weren't following the wrong clues. For what reason would Samuel drag a dead body this far?
When neither Gimli nor Alumna could hear the river, the marks suddenly stopped. The body, if that was what they had been following, had not been dragged further than that point. But, as far as they could see, no body was around.
The place had no particular features that could set as different from all the others they had seen so far in those woods. The same trees, the same bushes, the same animals surrounded them. It wasn't even a clearing, just a spot, guarded by some ancient looking and some scattered rocks. And yet, the place seemed… sorrowful. The leaves weren't as bright as those they had seen so far, and, on a closer look, the bushes appeared half-dead and no animal would feed on them.
Gimli got on his knees, searching the ground around the place where the track ended. Maybe Samuel had tried to erase it, maybe they had missed something. He moved away the pebbles and dead leafs, but still nothing seemed out of place to him.
It was Alumna who saw it.
"Master dwarf, to your left."
Gimli turned around and saw it too. A piece of tore clothing, hidden by a long dead bush. He got up and raced to collect it, not really looking to where he was going. The guttural sound, one that only earth and rocks could do when they moved, was a late warning to the dwarf, punctuating his mistake. He dared not take a step further, knowing what would happen if he did.
"Bollocks!"
Before he could finish swearing, the dirty beneath Gimli's feet gave away under his weight, swallowing the dwarf before Alumna's eyes.
"Gimli!" She shouted, running to where he had last stood. A cloud of dirt surrounded the place and the woman coughed out as she kneeled at the edge of the newly formed hole. "Gimli! Are you alright?"
She heard another cough in reply. And then the muffled voice of the dwarf reached her.
"Aye," Gimli said, struggling to get to his feet. "The fall was smaller than what I'd feared."
Alumna smiled in relief.
"Do you see a way out?"
The dwarf waited until his eyes had grown accustomed to the darkness, and looked around. It was a natural cave whose roof was made of the large roots of the trees above, as if earth was their food and that space had been eaten away. The surrounding walls where like grotesque statues of unworldly creatures, sculptured in mineral rock that glowed in the dark. It smelled of old, decayed matter and the sound of running water echoed in the stiff air.
From the far right, a thin, feeble spring leaked from the wall, giving birth to the course of water than ran at Gimli's feet. It spread and grew in that cave, disappearing in the left dark corner, beneath the rock formation, into a hole too small for even a hobbit to pass.
The decaying smell, that filled the dwarf's nose since he had arrived in that place, grew stronger as the dust begun settling. Decay became down right rotten, in such way that made Gimli gag. It wasn't long before he came about the source of such smell.
It was lying over the spring, rags of his clothes floating in the waters like tentacles. It had been a man once, Gimli could tell that by the general shape of the body, but little it resembled one now, half consumed by maggots and time as it was.
After all he had witnessed, the warrior neared the body gingerly, half expecting it to rise from its death and attack him. He didn't like dead people; especially those that refused to behave like dead people.
Gimli touched him with the tip of his boot, turning him around when he was sure that that dead man was going nowhere. The face that greeted him, even without its nose or eyes was, as Gimli had expected, unknown to him. He could, however, make a good guess of whom this man had been.
"Gimli?" Alumna call out, concerned about his delay. "Answer me, I'm growing worried!"
He forced his eyes away from the empty orbs of the murdered man and looked up, towards the light. He wasn't much of a climber; in fact anything taller than a good bed was not a welcomed sport to Gimli. However, staying in there to keep company to that corpse was not an option, and poor as they might have been, his skills as a monkey had improved greatly in Legolas' company. "Aye, I can see a way out."
Gimli had no idea of what to do with the body he had discovered. There was no doubt in his mind that he was Bomieth son, Alumna's lover, murdered by Samuel. Taking it out of that cave was a near impossible task, plus he didn't thought it wise for the poor woman to see what had become of her loved one. However, he needed a prove, something that identified the man without question, so that Samuel could be properly accused. He needed something he could take back to Cottoncrow and show to old Bomieth. The grieving father would finally have his closure, and, as Gimli hoped, would act against the healer.
Reluctant to touch the man's spongy remains, Gimli dragged him away from the water and searched him for anything that could suite his proposes. The dwarf's eyes lighted up when he found the ring in the man's right pointing finger. Silently apologizing for the necessity driven robbery, Gimli pulled it off.
The whole finger came away with the ring.
Gimli shivered and gag, quickly ridding himself of the macabre appendix. Before his stomach lost its fight with the gross sight, he washed it in the running water.
And then the obvious hit him with force of a rockslide. Gimli looked from his wet hands to the direction the watercourse ran. He figured that the village stood to the west, taking in account the direction they had travel and the location of the surface river, but in that gloomy place, in the middle of the forest, with his heart pounding as it was, he wasn't very sure about his sense of direction.
"What's the direction of the village?" He asked, eager to prove his idea, afraid to see his castle of theories crumble under the woman's next words.
Alumna looked at the hole with concern, thinking that perhaps the dwarf had hit his head with more seriousness that what he thought.
"West," she said cautiously. "Are you sure you are not hurt?"
Gimli never answered her. He was too excited to hear any of her questions, deaf to all but one sweet sound.
West. The exact direction of the underground river's course.
A series of images came unbidden to the dwarf's mind. Legolas' reaction to the water the villager's drank. Drunken youngsters taking water out of a large well in the village. The rotten body submerged in the water that ran to the village, turning it in to some sort of corpse soup. A soup all had unknowingly been ingesting, ever since this man had been killed. A soup he himself had drunk.
Gimli gag again.
It was no wonder that the entire village was sick and dying.
He remembered the faces of all the sick ones he had seen, pain filled and feverish, taking glass after glass of water to their lips, adding more of the very thing that was killing them.
He shivered, imagining what would have happened to the entire village's people if he hadn't chanced upon that hole.
Above the cave where truth was revealing herself to Gimli, Alumna was growing impatient.
"Gimli, I sense that something is not right… I should go to you…"
"No!" Gimli said quickly enough to prove that the woman had guessed right. "I'm climbing already," he added with less urgency.
In the excitement of his discovers Gimli had forgotten who that man had been and that he would have to tell everything to Alumna. He clenched the stolen ring in his palm and started his way up.
Alumna was waiting for him, to help him out. As she grabbed his hand, she felt the cold piece of metal between their hands.
Gimli left the ring in her hand, knowing that the woman would take her own conclusions. Her pain filled gasp, followed by a frail deep breath was enough for him to know that she had indeed recognized the ring.
He hadn't been wrong about the man's identity.
"You've found him?" She murmured, her eyes captured by the white ring and its brown stone in her hand. Silent tears coursed down well-known paths.
"Aye," Gimli confirmed, feeling poorly with the knowledge that they had no the time to allow her proper grieving, or else they would be grieving for two before the day ended. "And he was not all that I have found."
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It was dark and he had an odd taste of dust and copper in his mouth, things that made little sense to Legolas until he realize that his eyes were closed and that he was lying on the ground.
The pain of the impact of crossbow bolt was still too fresh in his mind for the elf to have forgotten what had happen, as was the frustration of having failed to escape once more.
Someone was watching him. He could feel unfriendly eyes traveling over his body. The gentle breeze whispered him that it was Samuel, but Legolas already knew that.
The elven warrior had experienced the bitterness of wounds before, so he knew how much it would hurt to move at this point, even if Samuel's presence bothered him. He could feel the sun at his back, caring and warm as a father's touch, and the lull of unconsciousness called to him, waiting to reclaim his awareness. The healer could wait for him to wake up all day long, if he chose so… Legolas couldn't care less.
Samuel, however, was not willing to wait anymore.
"Bronco and his friends have truly excelled themselves this time," he said with a praising look, pulling Legolas' hair back to have a better look.
The elf's first reaction was to swat the man's hand away, but as he quickly realized, he couldn't. His hands were once again bound.
"Have you reached so low that you've resorted in to sending children to do your dirty work?" Legolas hissed, opening his eyes and glaring at the crouching man.
Samuel would have laughed, but thought better of it, as the pull of his mouth on his bruised face was too painful.
"So haven't died after all!" The man said, facing the angry glare. "Bronco and his friends are well know for the troubles they create… I send them to do no one's dirty work, I assure you."
Legolas sighed, knowing perfectly well who was responsible for the boys ill behavior with him. However, the large bruise in the healer's eye and the memory of Gimli's angry expletives the night before were enough to bring a smile to his lips.
"Were I a healer as good as yourself," he said with his voice laced in sarcasm, " I would say that you've been touched by the Bruisenbite… that, or the heavy hand of one of Aüle's sons"
The anger that rose red in Samuel's face became one of life' small pleasures, and Legolas was enjoying it greatly.
"Mighty bold words from the damned mouth's leave" Samuel spat, his pride more bruised than his face, knowing all the talk that would happen behind his back, on account of the beating he had taken at the hands of the dwarf. He, a dwarf friend.
"Your friend talked too much as well," Samuel said, his double-meaning words intended to play games with the elf's mind. The dwarf had not been harmed after his insult and aggression because he had other plans for him. That, however, was something the elf had no need of knowing.
Legolas tried to mask the true impact of those words in his heart, but his body was weary and his mind too troubled to be playing games. What had he done to Gimli, he wanted to scream… but didn't.
He had heard the dwarf's shouts and angry words the past night, so he knew that part of what Samuel said was the truth. But how to know if Gimli had reached safety after that? The doubt ate at the elf' spirit, stilling his strength further away and building up his despair.
"Why are you doing this?" Legolas whispered, closing his eyes to black out the images around. They were spinning too fast, making him grow dizzy.
Samuel leaned forward, his next words meant for Legolas' ears only.
"Because I can," he murmured. "You and the dwarf were the best that could have happened to me," he added with a smile.
'Yes, the best that could have happened' Samuel thought. His plans had been set in to motion a long time ago, but only now, with the timely arrival of these two strangers, could he risk completing them.
"People will turn against you when they realize that my death has solved nothing."
Samuel just laughed, even thought he knew that the elf was right.
"It won't matter then," he said, mysteriously.
Legolas felt the anger rising inside his chest. His suspicions that a situation as strange as this one could only be born out of chaos or someone's planning were no longer mere suspicions. Samuel was manipulating them all; everyone serving as pawns in this devious game he was playing alone. Him, Gimli, the villagers… all caught in the healer' spider web, twisting and twirling to escape invisible threads that they were not aware of even being there.
Scrapping the bottom of his energy reserve, Legolas let his anger boil and took his chance on Samuel.
For an elf's usual agility and grace, having his hands tied up and a wound in his side, made Legolas lack severely on both. Still, he had the experience of many years on his side. In a quick, even if awkward, movement, Legolas squeezed his legs trough the hoop formed by his tied hands, effectively bringing them to the front and use them to punch Samuel out of balance.
Samuel was too late in realizing the elf's actions, and soon found himself on the ground, with the rope that restrained Legolas' hands around his neck.
"Someone older and wiser than me once told that one should not be too eager to deal out death in judgment… but I feel highly tempted to ignore his words this time," Legolas hissed in to the man's ears. He could feel the other trembling under his hold, the breathing faster but pointless as the rope squeezed tighter around the neck, the hands groping at the rope but unable of prying it away.
A certain degree of dark satisfaction filled the elven warrior at the sight of the man's lips darkening and getting a bluish tinge. Samuel was no longer in control, in fact, control had slipped so far from his reach that Legolas felt with disgust the wet and warm sensation that ran down the man's tights as he wet himself.
Samuel was scared, afraid for his life and cursing his foolishness for having underestimated the resilience of the elf.
"What have you done to Gimli?" Legolas asked in a tone of voice that had many times frozen his enemies in fear.
The man struggled against his hold in despair, mouthing the word 'nothing' in hopes of being released. The soundless word was enough for the elf's ears.
The world started to run around again, like a nonsense leaf caught in the wind, and Legolas knew that he wouldn't be able to keep his leverage much longer. While processing Samuel's words, judging if they were truthful or just a survival trick, Legolas searched the square for a safe escape path. His blurring vision however, much to his fury, showed him nothing but shimmering images and the shadows of those standing around them watching, waiting for a false movement on his part to act.
Samuel wasn't fairing much better. He gagged for air that failed to enter in sufficient amounts and panic rose as he realized that he couldn't breath. Panic made his heart rush inside his chest, spending fast what little air he had left inside of him, bringing him closer and closer to the end.
In his desperate movements to free himself, just as consciousness was fleeing him, one of Samuel's hands moved away from the rope and grabbed on to the first thing it felt.
Legolas screamed as he had ever screamed before when Samuel's fingers, curled around the arrow's shaft and pulled, bringing arrow and flesh out in the same movement.
Two bodies fell down, as Legolas legs refused to hold him upright any longer and Samuel's semiconscious form was dragged after him.
For a few seconds of stunned surprise no one thought about moving or taking any action, the confused bystanders struggling to understand what had just happen. Healer and prisoner were both on their knees, struggling to catch their breath for separate reasons, fat drops of sweat running down both their faces.
Legolas was fighting an inglorious battle with darkness, closing blacker and blacker around him. Far too much blood poured, hot and sticky, down his side, soaking his leggings and pooling around his knees. By the time the first guard remembered to move, Samuel had regained his breath and the elf had embraced the pain free oblivion.
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Tada!!
Et voilá, chapter 10, the real thing!
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