Written by Angmar and Gordis.
"Wretched luck!" Griss cursed. The sound of Uffi's screams had gotten on his nerves. He looked over to where Algeirr knelt beside the wounded man, who lay writhing on the ground.
"Griss, Heggr, Kvigr, Meldun, come over here and help me! I have to take this arrow out!"
"What about old Gunni?" Meldun, his face stark white, asked. "He is lying over there dead! What are we going to do about him?"
"We are not going to stay out here and dig a hole with our hands while Uffi bleeds to death. Now let us tend to Uffi!"
Uffi looked up and cursed all of them. "Don't take off my leg! Don't take off my leg! I'll kill all of you if you do!"
"That might be a hard thing to accomplish," Algeirr laughed grimly, "seeing as how we do not even have a knife."
Griss, with Heggr right behind him, walked over and stared at Uffi. Uffi was pounding one fist up and down on the ground as his wounded leg was bleeding him to death.
"Go find a piece of wood and if any of you has a coin, give that to me!" Algeirr commanded. "Kvigr, run over to the saddle bags, get an old shirt or something that you can rip and bring me a good length of it! Hurry! Uffi was hit in his thigh, and if we don't stop the bleeding, he will soon be a corpse!"
Griss found a coin in his money pouch, and as the three other men held Uffi down, Algeirr put the coin above the wound, wrapped the strip of cloth above the injury and wound the ends of the cloth around the length of wood that Meldun had brought. Using the stick as a windlass, Algeirr tightened the cloth until the blood flow was stanched. Griss admired the outlaw leader's calm demeanor and knowledge of treating wounds. "He must have learned quite a bit in the Arthedain army," Griss thought.
"Now comes the difficult part." Algeirr smiled grimly at Kvigr, who was holding Uffi by the arm. Breaking off the feathered end of the arrow, Algeirr pushed the whole shaft through Uffi's thigh until the arrow head protruded out the other side. Uffi shrieked and thrashed in pain and the men holding him could barely keep him on the ground in his struggles. Algeirr tossed the remaining shaft and bloody arrowhead over into a pile of weeds. Wiping off his perspiring forehead, Algeirr nodded to Griss.
"Go over to the saddle bags and find some more old shirts, breeches, anything that might be there, so that I can bind up this wound to keep the dirt out of it."
Mercifully, Uffi had fainted by the time his wound was bound up. When he had revived, they hoisted him up on one of the horses while Algeirr rode behind in the saddle, keeping the weakened man from falling. Kvigr was assigned the task of walking beside the horse and attending to the tourniquet. Algeirr reminded him as they set off for Broggha's camp, "Keep the tourniquet tight. After guessing when about ten minutes have passed, let the blood run for a little while, and retighten the cloth. It is the best we can do for him."
They had barely started moving towards Broggha's camp, when Algeirr suddenly stopped the horse and slipped out of the saddle, motioning Meldun to take his place.
"I will stay here and try to find out weapons," he said. "I can't face the Jarl unarmed, like a beaten dog. You go now and bring Uffi to the healer. Don't brag about our misadventures, probably at night nobody will notice that you are weaponless."
Griss started to protest, but he saw the wisdom of Algeirr's plan. The last thing he wanted was to be ridiculed by all the camp.
"I will return tomorrow to help you, if I can," Griss ventured.
The ride seemed endless. Night had fallen, cold and dark, a thin sliver of sickle moon hanging low in the sky. Uffi had long stopped moaning and slumped in the saddle in front of Meldun.
At last, Griss took a sharp turn left, off the road. Soon they saw a welcoming blaze of torches through the trees. The camp sentries, once they recognized Griss and Heggr, seemed little inclined to question them further and let them into the wide clearing.
Late as it was, the camp was still awake, bawdy songs, muffled cries and drunken laughter resounding in the surrounding trees. It seemed there was some drunken revelry going on. Kvigr saw a large, brightly lit wooden building with sentries at the entrance. Griss told him it was Broggha's hall, and disappeared in this direction to warn the Jarl of their return and to give him an account of his mission.
Griss reappeared quite soon though, bringing the news that the Jarl had gone to bed with his wenches, and was not to be disturbed until morning. The mention of wenches brought the ache and frustration back, and the men cursed under their breath, vowing to find this bloody Tark named Taurendol again and make him pay.
"There are guests from the North in the camp today," explained Griss, pointing to a medium-sized black tent erected near Broggha's longhouse. The outlaws looked in wonder at the two somberly-clad men guarding the tent - obviously both were Tarks.
Meanwhile, Heggr returned from another direction, bringing back a squat old man in dirty leathers and furs, with a grand necklace of bear's teeth hanging around his neck. Several other charms were attached to his wrists and sleeves.
"Here is Hrani, our shaman-healer," announced Heggr proudly. "He will attend to Uffi's leg."
In Arthedain army, Kvigr had grown used to neat, efficient tark-healers, so he looked in doubt at the dirty little man who was peering at them owlishly, obviously just out of his bedroll. Moreover, the shaman was reeking of cheap ale and swaying drunkenly on his feet.
But what choice did they have? Soon Uffi, still unconscious, was lying on his back on the ground near one of the campfires, while the healer, having cut away his pants, examined his wound, prodding it with his dirty fingers.
"I think he is a goner anyway," declared the healer after the briefest examination. "But perhaps he will live, if I cut away this leg." He grinned at the assembled men, obviously happy with his own competence.
The shaman took out a long knife and started cutting the flesh just below the makeshift tourniquet. Uffi sprang back to consciousness, screaming and trashing. Heggr quickly found a splinter of wood and pushed it into Uffi's mouth, lest he bit off his own tongue. The others now firmly held Uffi's legs and arms, while Kvigr applied his weight to the man's shoulders.
Soon the healer put away his knife and pulled out of his bag a small saw. Kvigr watched in horror how the old rusty saw bit into the bleeding flesh, cutting the white bone with a sickening sound. Uffi cried for the last time and swooned again.
Kvigr felt the bile rising in his throat and turned his head to look away. He suddenly noticed a very tall, richly clad Tark standing nearby and watching the gruesome scene with morbid fascination, a faint smile playing on his thin lips. To Kvigr's surprise, the Tark somehow felt the youth's intense gaze, and turning abruptly he made his way to the black tent near Broggha's quarters.
"A man from the North," thought Kvigr, shivering, cold dread creeping over him. He heard many tales about the northern sorcerers told at night around campfires. It was said the witches of the North could charm you with their gaze like a serpent charms a mouse; he heard they could disappear and reappear out of nothing; some said they could even fly... A brief look at the man's face somehow made such tales seem all too real.
At this moment Uffi started to scream again, a high tortured wail. Kvigr smelled the reek of burning flesh, and saw that the stump had just been cauterized. It seemed they used the blade of a broad battle axe, heated in the flames of the nearby campfire. At this moment, Kvigr's guts suddenly convulsed and he rushed to the nearby bushes to vomit.
---
Balling his hand into a fist, Heggr pressed it firmly against his abdomen and belched loudly. Griss ignored the sound and concentrated on the piece of stringy venison that he was chewing. He could not help feeling sorry for the other man whose bad teeth pained him, often giving him so much trouble that when he ate, he settled for a bowl of stew. Both men had been concerned that there would be nothing left to fill their stomachs in the camp, but they had been pleasantly surprised that there was a great amount of food left over.
Across the campfire from them, Uffi was beyond the point of knowing or caring that he had lost his leg. Occasionally the man moaned and twitched in his slumber.
"Ought to put the poor devil out of his misery," Heggr mumbled as he stuck a finger in his mouth and tried to work loose a piece of vegetable that had gotten caught in one of the decaying holes in a tooth.
"He won't last long. He'll either get fever or some raging infection." Griss finished the piece of venison and wiped his hands off on his filthy leathers.
Heggr's mind was soon on something more pleasant. "You know I'm going to miss that woman. She was a pretty little thing," he said mournfully.
"You're not going to miss her half as much as I will. She doesn't have anything much left that I didn't explore," Griss chuckled proudly.
Heggr shot him a dirty glance. "I didn't get to do much exploring at all! You always get the best of everything!"
"No point in talking about her! No point in even thinking about her! We'll never see that pretty little morsel again."
"I have quit thinking about her! I am consoling myself by reflecting upon all the pretty little wenches in Cameth Brin who will be falling all over themselves just for the chance to be with Broggha's men."
"We'll have our pick there!" Griss agreed enthusiastically.
Heggr yawned. "I don't know about you but I'm tired and my teeth are bothering me. I'm going over to our lean-to and try to get a little sleep before we have to get up."
Griss grunted a "good night" to him and looked over the fire at Uffi. He could see by the light that Uffi's eye sockets were bathed in shadow, but his face looked a ghastly ashen color. Griss wondered if the man would live through the night. He shrugged his shoulders and spat in the fire. "Nothing to me if he lives or dies."
Griss amused himself for a while by thinking about the wenches of Cameth Brin and how he would have his fill of them, but then he looked over to the Jarl's longhouse. One of those Northern men had just come out of the tent near the cabin. "Must be taking a nighttime stroll," he thought. Griss looked back into the fire, but he had the sensation that eyes were upon him, eyes which could almost bore into the soul. Feeling uncomfortable, he resolved to study the fire and not look up. However, he sensed something compelling him to gaze at the tent. What was worse was that he felt himself rising to his feet, walking through the assembled gathering around the fire and making his way towards the tent.
As he had feared, it was one of those Tark men from the North. A chill ran down his spine. "Must be the coolness of the night," he concluded, not wanting to admit to himself that the Tark made him unreasonably afraid.
"Let us walk," the tall, richly dressed man said pleasantly as he moved away from the tent. Like a lapdog, Griss followed him into the woods until the man stopped near a large tree.
"Your name is Griss."
"Yes," Griss replied almost mechanically.
"That youth - Kvigr I believe is his name - is weak and not to be trusted. Do you want a man like that around Jarl Broggha?"
"No, certainly not."
"You want to keep the Jarl safe, do you not?"
"I would die for him!" Griss exclaimed.
"I do not think that will be necessary, but I am confident that should the occasion demand, you would lay down your life for him. You are extremely loyal, Griss, and the Jarl is proud of you, more than any of his other men."
Feeling proud at the compliments, Griss began to relax. "Surely this man is no enemy, though some in camp are terrified of him," he thought, proud to have been singled out.
"Weak men are dangerous, treacherous... When you have the opportunity, Griss, eliminate Kvigr quietly so that his friends will never know what happened to him. I know you can be trusted to do it efficiently."
"It would be my great pleasure," Griss answered, inclining his head towards the man and beginning to feel a growing loyalty to him.
"You will be successful. Come now, let us go back to the camp." The man turned and beckoned to Griss.
Griss felt an almost euphoric feeling as he walked back with the man. It was though he could see into the future. He was dressed much like the Northern man in fine clothing, and he was sitting in a great hall on Broggha's right side. Griss smiled to himself.