Needless to say, it's been a looong time. I did the beginning right after I posted the last chapter, but I swear, I had to rewrite the rest about seven times before I was satisfied with it. And then I read Les Misérables (yes, the abridged version), which completely shattered my confidence as an author—hard as I try, my characters just won't turn out remotely like Victor Hugo's. In comparison to his, mine are so flat that I want to crawl into a ditch and die.

The eastern sky was fading to gray, and a lark outside was letting out experimental chirps, preparing to welcome the coming sun. No one in the Hall of the Éored spoke: the prospect of their imminent departure held their minds captive and their tongues mute. Nobody knew anything except the fact that they were leaving at dawn; unsure what to do, many of the men simply packed their bedrolls and sat wordlessly against the wall. Eiliel tied her own bedding into a thin roll and looked at Khale. He shrugged—he had no more idea than the rest of them.

The light that had begun as a pale gray had given way to pink streaks by the time anything happened. Subdued conversation had broken out, but a hush fell over the men as they heard several horses approaching the Hall. There were muffled voices outside as the riders dismounted, and two sets of footsteps drew near the door. A moment later, it swung open.

Two men entered, silhouetted for a moment against the eastern sky. The first was a lean man of middle-height with a shock of white hair. He must have been over sixty, but his posture belied his age; he carried himself warily but confidently. His taut, honed body could have belonged to one half as old, and, aside from his hair, the only thing that indicated his age were the heavy wrinkles on his face, lines etched by a life that had seen both hardships and joy.

The second was taller and younger—much younger. His hands were calloused but did not bear the marks of old age, and his face was smooth and beardless. He wore a dark hood that threw his countenance into shadow, so Eiliel could not develop an idea of what he looked like. Unlike the older man, who wore only a tunic and leggings, he was fully bedecked like a soldier: a light metal breast plate, leather arm girders, a chain mail skirt that dropped to his knees, well-worn riding boots, and a long sword dangling at his waist. He hung back slightly as the other stepped forward to face the men who had drawn near him.

"I am General Moran," he said in a powerful voice, "the captain of the guard. I am responsible for all of the king's armies. My authority is second only to King Halin himself; keep that in mind as you make decisions during your time as a soldier. The first éored left late last night, and you will follow them early this morning. When you arrive, it will be your job to help them scout out a location to establish our army and, if possible, to battle the Gondorians. Is that understood?"

There was a general nod of consent, and the man continued. "This," he said, motioning his companion to step forward, "is your captain, Captain Thylian. You are under his jurisdiction until you leave the army or until you are killed."

Eiliel felt a moment of discomfort ripple through the men at General Moran's bluntness, but it was gone a moment later, swept from their minds as he spoke. "You have a responsibility towards your kingdom and, consequently, to your captain; if you are loyal to Rohan, you will obey his orders without question, no matter what you think of him or of his tactics. King Halin and I both trust his judgment, his intelligence, and his capacities unreservedly; that should be reason enough for you to do the same." His eyes swept over the men once more, then he turned to Captain Thylian, clapped him on the shoulder, whispered a farewell, and left the hall.

The captain surveyed them silently for a moment, his face turning towards each man in turn and seizing him up. It was only after a long minute of uncomfortable silence that he spoke. "Men of Rohan," he began quietly, "General Moran has already reminded you of the duty you have to respect and obey my orders. What he failed to do, however, is to remind me of the obligation I have toward you. As your captain, it is at my command that you will fight and, indeed, die for Rohan. I have a solemn responsibility to ensure that your lives are not risked in foolish or hopeless endeavors, to remember that each man among you is not just a soldier to be discarded in the best interests of the kingdom—that each of you is also a son, a brother, a husband, or a father of someone who is waiting for you to come home."

He paused momentarily. "That said," he continued, "you need to trust that I will do whatever I judge to be best in any given circumstance. If you question whether what I ask of you is necessary or wise, we will not be able to function as an éored—or as an army—should. If you're not willing to have complete faith in me, then you can leave now." He paused as though waiting for someone to take him up on his word, but no one did. He nodded, satisfied. "Very good. Now, we need to be ready to go by the time the sun crests the horizon. Load your belongings onto your horse—if you don't have a horse, go to the stables; they can supply one for you—and put your armor on. It will be hot and uncomfortable, yes, but it's necessary. We'll be like walking targets out on the Great West Road, and we're riding towards war; there's no knowing what we'll encounter unexpectedly. We don't need you stuck full of arrows before we even reach the border. Well, what are you waiting for? Go on." He gestured towards the door, and the men jumped into motion.

Khale and Eiliel exchanged a silent glance, retrieved their bedrolls, and took them outside to put them on their horses. The chilly morning air made Eiliel grateful for her thick, leather armor. She slung the saddle over the animal's back, cinched it beneath its stomach nervously, hoping it would not bolt, and straightened up to find her brother right beside her. She looked at him quizzically, but he would not meet her gaze.

"What is it?" she muttered after a moment.

He stroked the horse's mane pensively. "I think we did wrong," he whispered so that none of the other men readying their mounts would hear.

"Did wrong?" she repeated, looking at him sharply.

"We should never have left secretly like we did, without a word to anyone. You shouldn't have come anyway—it's dishonest and dangerous to pretend to be a man. Then the horses: we stole them, Eiliel. It didn't seem so terrible when we did it, but it won't stop eating at me. Nothing can justify it, not even so noble a cause as we believe ours to be."

She felt a spark of exasperated anger flare up within her. "It's a little late to be having second thoughts, Khale," she hissed. "If you want to leave, fine. Go ahead." She turned away from him coldly, but when he did not retaliate with equal bitterness, she felt empty and hollow—guilty that she had snapped at him—but her abominable pride would not let her turn around and apologize as she heard his slow, steady footsteps hesitate for a moment and then walk back towards his horse.

Furious with herself, she turned her attention back to her few belongings, tying them onto the saddle with hands made deft and strong from years of labor on her father's farm. Khale had never been anything but gentle, quiet, and pensive, and here she was, attacking him as though they had already reached the battlefront and it was her own brother that she was supposed to be fighting.

She thrust her left foot into the stirrup and prepared to mount. Khale had always helped her to get up until now, guiding her through every step, but she was confident she could do it without him. Seizing a clump of the horse's mane, she kicked off the ground and swung her leg over its rump.

By the time she realized her mistake, it was too late. The saddle, which she had forgotten to buckle around the horse's chest, slipped; the horse reared. There was a terrifying moment when she seemed to hang in the air, and then she thudded to ground, pain exploding through her body. She gasped, trying to draw breath, but the air had been knocked from her lungs, and the oxygen would not come. Above her a dark shadow loomed—the horse, hooves kicking the air, was about to come down. She tried to cry out, tried to scream, but she could only watch in horror, unable to move, as what would surely be a deathblow swung towards her.

Strong, agile hands wrapped themselves around her torso and hauled. The horse's hooves slammed down, but they met only dust; the hands had dragged her out of harm's way. Relief flooded through her, and she felt the air rush back into her lungs. She was on her hands and knees, but she made no effort to stand; her heart was still thudding wildly, and she was sure her legs would have collapsed beneath her.

When she finally looked up, Captain Thylian was standing above her, looking down at her. "What is your name, soldier?" he asked, breathing hard.

"Radathil, sir," she muttered, forcing herself to her feet.

He jerked his head towards the horse. Khale had seized its reins and was attempting to calm it gently; the saddle was hanging halfway off of its back. "I'll thank you to double-check your saddle before you mount next time," he said coolly. "You could have been killed."

"Yes, sir," she said meekly, standing up and avoiding his penetrating gaze.

He nodded curtly and brushed past her, moving towards his own horse, but she called out, "Captain!"

He halted.

"Thank you for pulling me away, sir."

He turned. Their eyes locked for a moment, his fierce and hers penitent, and then he muttered, "It was nothing," and turned away.

Eiliel watched him go, unable to tear her mind away from those eyes. Captain Thylian certainly looked young, but his eyes, storm-colored and unfathomable, seemed ancient, as though behind them tossed a tempestuous sea of experience.

"The captain's right, you could have been killed—"

Eiliel shook herself and turned to face Khale, who was berating her for not checking the saddle. He handed her the reins of her horse. "Just be careful, alright?" he admonished, turning towards his own mount. She let out a long breath, checked the saddle three times, and lifted herself into it. Only then did she allow herself to think.

It had been close—too close. If her helmet had been thrown off or if Captain Thylian been more attentive, she might have been recognized as a woman. That aside, she had almost been crushed beneath the horse's hooves. Khale was right; she needed to be more careful.

By the time the pink sunrise had been augmented by brilliant oranges and yellows, they were ready to leave. Captain Thylian raised his sword in the air, and his soldiers nudged their horses after him as he broke into a trot towards the Gates of Édoras.

For the first few leagues, everything was silent except for the sweeping wind in the grasses and the steady clopping of the horses' hooves. The uneasy tension between the soldiers mounted until midday, when they angled off of the Great West Road and stopped beside the Anduin for a meal and a brief rest. The food seemed to loosen their tongues, and by the time they took to the road again, tales were being swapped and laughter and conversation exchanged.

"So, where're you from?"

Eiliel, startled from her reverie, glanced in surprise at the soldier riding beside her. "Aldburg," she muttered after a moment, looking determinedly at her hands.

"Do you have family there?"

"Yes, sir."

He scoffed. "Don't call me 'sir', man, that's for kings and captains, not for the likes of me. My name is Macen, son of Myren."

She inclined her head politely, but she did not offer her own name until he laughed at her reticence and asked, "Will you tell me yours, or shall I simply leave you to your solitude and try to find someone who makes a rather more willing talker?"

Flushing, she answered, "Radathil, son of Dilvraen." She glanced at him again. He was perhaps around forty, burly and muscular, with a full beard and hair that had a redder sheen than many of the Rohirrim. His eyes were small and jovial, and they reminded her of a painting she had once seen at the marketplace in Aldburg, one of a ruddy dwarf with an axe slung over his shoulder.

"How old are you?"

"Seventeen," she lied.

He laughed again, but this time it had a tinge of bitterness to it. "What, are they snatching them right out of the cradles now?"

"I'm not a child," she said defensively.

He let out a long breath. "You are not quite an adult, either. Go home, lad—find a maid and raise a family.Only after you have experienced life should you consider throwing it away for your kingdom."

"I can't go," she said. "I need the money."

He snorted. "And how long do you think the king can keep paying ten lisy'i a week to every soldier in his army?"

She looked sharply at him. "What do you mean?"

"Halin might be rich, but there is not enough gold in all of Rohan to pay what he is promising. It won't be two months before the payments stop coming to your families. The soldiers will begin deserting or losing hope, and before you know it, it will be two thousand Rohirrim against Gondor's ten."

Eiliel could feel her heart thumping painfully in her chest. Payments stopping? How would Mama continue paying for a doctor for Quenne and Papa? If this wasn't good enough, what else could they do?

It seemed that Macen noticed the effect his prediction was having on her, and he shook his head. "Don't listen to me, lad. Fate turned me into a bitter pessimist years ago. It won't do you any good to worry."

"What if the payments do stop coming?" she asked quietly.

He reached over and clapped her on the back. "Have faith. Every once in a while, everything turns out all right."

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

They camped that night beside the Anduin, half a mile from the road. Leaving their horses at the water's edge, they removed their packs and gathered in a circle around a meager fire, where they passed around a few loaves of bread and some dried fruit. Eiliel was unperturbed by this less-than-luxurious meal, never having had a wide selection of food at home, but she noticed that some of the men cast a critical eye over their own portions. They were the richer ones, no doubt—those who had joined the éored not for the small salary, but for some abstract ideal like honor or glory. She felt an inexplicable bitter spark of resentment flare within her;she did not know why, but she detested these men who, having a choice in the matter, thought it was more honorable to ride off to war, leaving their homes and families behind, than to live a good life in peace. Eiliel hadn't left Aldburg three days ago, and her heart already longed to see Mama and Papa and Quenne again. She would give almost anything to be back with them, and it was only by constantly reminding herself that they needed the money that she forced herself to stay. She could not fathom why they would leave all they loved to go to battle.

Pushing her mind away from these thoughts, she returned to her food. For a while, all that could be heard was the rushing river a few hundred feet away from their fire. The men sat in silence, chewing slowly and gazing pensively into the flickering flames. Eiliel let her eyes wander over the group of soldiers, strangers to each other, that fate had unified into an éored. There were twenty-nine including her: some tall, some stocky, some young or old or haggard or fair or somewhere in between, each with his own life and his own troubles, his own experiences and his own fears. All united in a common cause, though, they did not seem so different.

The sound of a bird calling through the night, near enough to be heard over the Anduin, caught her ears. After a few moments, someone asked, "What kind of bird is that?"

There was silence for a moment, and then Macen, the man who had spoken to Eiliel earlier, answered. "It's a sanglærke, a meadow-dwelling bird."

"There's a legend about the sanglærke," a man directly across from Eiliel spoke up eagerly. He was quite young—she guessed even younger than herself—still full of the radiant enthusiasm of boyhood. When he realized that everyone's attention had focused on him, he flushed and fell silent.

"Tell us," someone prompted, but the man shook his head and mumbled, "It's an old wives' tale, a silly story that's for washerwomen, not for soldiers…"

Further prodding from his neighbors could not make him recount the tale, and the éored seemed doomed to silence once more when Macen rejoined, "I know the legend."

There was a murmur of interest from those who were listening.

"Before the oldest trees of Fangorn were as tall as a man, the stars were not so distant as they are now. The eagles, great, majestic, powerful, were strong enough to fly among them. Every night, they would soar among the stars, sovereigns of their world, unmatched in magnificence or in beauty.

"There was one, though, who was not like the others: he was born with a deformed wing that rendered flight impossible. He watched every night as the others took off from their perches in cliffs and trees and launched towards the black canopy that formed the sky, alighting on distant stars. He dreamed of joining his companions, but never could. He never left the crag of the cliff that was his home.

"One evening, as he watched the other eagles wistfully, wanting no more than to join them, the wind spoke to him. 'If you could have anything in the world,' it asked him, 'what would it be?' The little eagle answered instantly: 'I want to join my comrades in the sky.' 'Alas,' answered the wind sadly, 'it was never meant for you to soar with your friends. But maybe I can help nonetheless.' It enfolded the eagle in its arms and bore him down to the meadow below, placing him gently among the grasses. No, the wind could not give the little eagle a new wing, but he did give him one thing: it gave him a love for the ground. Since then, the sanglærke, content to make his nest in the grass, has never strayed far from the meadow, and the dreams of soaring among the stars are left for the eagles."

Macen lapsed into silence, and no one spoke for a long moment.

"You would have done well to listen to the lad," said a stern voice from outside the circle. "Legends are foolish tales for washerwomen, and they have no place during times of war. Soldiers who live in dreams do not live very long."

Captain Thylian, unnoticed by all, had emerged out of the darkness to stand silently behind them. Ever observant, he had surveyed them all as they listened to Macen's story. Their faces, while not believing, had nonetheless been entranced until hearing the captain's reprimand.

"We're starting two hours before dawn tomorrow," he said after a moment. "I suggest you retire."

He stepped into the ring of men and tossed a fagot of wood onto the fire, and his proximity to the flame suddenly threw his whole body into sharp relief.

He was not three seconds in the light before he stepped out again into the obscurity of darkness, but three seconds was enough. The men stared at him, aghast, in silence that made even the pounding of the Anduin seem muted in their ears. Eiliel wasn't sure at first that it was not a trick of the light, but the expressions on the others' faces quickly convinced her that her eyes had not lied.

Within the few seconds that it had taken Captain Thylian to drop the wood on the fire, every man realized—their captain was not of the Mark.

She suddenly noticed that she had not yet seen him with his hood off. He could almost have been Rohirric: the shape of his angular, chiseled face, though more common among Gondorians, was not unheard of in Rohan. He wore nothing that distinguished him from the rest; his only adornment was a thin, gold chain whose ornament rested unseen behind his tunic. It was his hair that betrayed him. No man native to Rohan had dark hair like his.

He gave no outward indication that he noticed his soldiers' stares, but Eiliel saw his eyes flash with mirthless humor, like a man who laughs bitterly at the cruel irony of his own desperate situation.

It was possible that Captain Thylian was one of the Rangers of the North, but it was unlikely. The Rangers were almost more of a myth than they were a people, and she, for one, had never seen one. She doubted that any had come this far south since Aragorn, son of Arathorn, the first king of Gondor in the fourth age. No, it was far more likely that he was a man of Gondor. He spoke with no accent and bore a Rohirric name, but that was hardly solid evidence that he had lived there all his life. Beyond that, Eiliel could draw no conclusions about his history, but she could guess at his character. Most Rohirrim would be honored to lead an éored to battle against Rohan's enemies, but Captain Thylian was a different matter: the enemies he was going to battle—to kill—were his own people.

Two burning emotions accosted her suddenly: curiosity and suspicion. This was a man whom they were supposed to trust to lead them into battle, plunge their lives into peril at his whim, obey blindly and without question. Yet he was not open with them; he was as enigmatic as the stormy sea that seemed to toss behind his eyes. She wanted to know his story—who this man was—before she handed her life to him.

She looked around her; many of the men had lowered their heads so that she could not see their faces, but some had kept them raised, and she was surprised by their expressions: most of them glared in open hostility at Captain Thylian as he turned his back and walked towards his tent. The prospect of a Gondorian leading them to war against the Gondorians was not one they embraced.

Turning her own face towards her hands, Eiliel tried to force away her own suspicion. He had done nothing to suggest that he was not loyal to the Mark, and the Captain of the Guard, Moran, had seemed to trust him well enough. Hadn't he even admonished them to take his and the king's confidence as reason enough to obey the captain? That should be good enough for you, she reprimanded herself firmly. You are subject to the king, and it is by his hand that Thylian was appointed captain.

That night, sleep was long in coming. She heard Khale's uneven breathing beside her and knew that he, too, lay awake. She guessed that they were not the only ones.

As the moon passed overhead, rising, reaching its zenith, and then sinking once more, Eiliel let her mind wander, but it kept coming back to Captain Thylian. She could not quell a fervent desire to know his story—somehow, she felt it would give her insight into who he was.

"Khale?" she whispered.

"Mmm?" he muttered sleepily.

"What do you think…"

Her voice trailed off into silence, but he did not need to hear the rest of the question. He drew a deep breath and rolled over to face her.

"Eiliel," he whispered. "A man cannot help where heis born or how he looks. Those are not the qualities that define him. Thus far, he has given me no reason to believe that he is unworthy of our trust and loyalty, and it is that by which I will judge him. It is your choice—you can decide for yourself whether or not to accept him. But as for me, my fealty lies with my king, and therefore, with my captain."

Silenced by his conviction and slightly ashamed that she had asked in the first place, she turned her face towards the stars, and, sinking into a deeply pensive reverie, she eventually slipped off to sleep.