Chapter 5

Darkness. Silence. Cold.

Éowyn came to with a start. It was so quiet. And dark. There was no light whatsoever, and not a sound to be heard. And when did it get so cold? She shivered.

She was suddenly aware of a pain in her head and another in her legs. They seemed to be numb, for she could hardly feel them at all. Groaning, she touched her forehead gingerly and tried to sit up. Her legs still didn't respond, and she became aware of a heavy weight on them.

Where am I? she wondered, trying to look around, but seeing only darkness as a result.

She was lying on dirt. Hard dirt. It seemed to be solid rock underneath a layer or so of sand and…was that hay? Hay! Of course! The secret passage in the stables that had been being used by the horse-thieves. Éowyn could've fainted in relief, except that she'd only just come to and was rather happy to remain awake.

All her senses spiked with alarm as she felt something touch her hand. She let out a little scream, and heard another person yelp. The thing jerked back. It had been warm. She was so cold.

"Who's there?" she asked, the brave part of her annoyed that her voice was trembling.

"Amrothos," the voice replied. "Where is Faramir?"

Relief flooded her veins. Taking a deep breath, Éowyn reached down to see what was weighing down her legs and met a warm mass. Cautiously she explored the thing, and then giggled nervously.

"Here he is. Help me get him off my legs."

She heard the boy called Amrothos move closer. His hand grabbed her arm, as if he was trying to get his bearings.

"Where? Is he unconscious?"

"I think so," Éowyn whispered. "He's this way." She grabbed his hand and pointed him in the right direction. "And keep your voice down. The thieves may be down here."

Amrothos grunted, and she felt the weight ease off her legs. Pain shot through them, but it was a good kind of pain. As the blood began circulating again, she sat up and rubbed her head with a moan.

"Are you all right?" came Amrothos' voice again.

"I think so," she replied edging toward him. "My head hurts. What about your cousin?"

For a moment he was silent, but then she heard him say, "I don't know. He isn't waking up." There was a pause. "I'm all right too."

There was a slightly annoyed note in his tone, and she blushed, realizing she hadn't asked as to whether he was injured or not.

"Sorry."

"For what? Doing what everyone else does?" He sounded bitter, but must've realized it, for he immediately followed the comment up with, "Never mind. Where are we, anyway? I can't see the door."

"We must've fallen through—maybe to some deeper level or something," Éowyn replied, feeling around with her hands for the walls. She hit solid rock on her left in one wild lunge. "Or maybe someone closed the trapdoor and hid it again."

"That was jolly nice of them," Amrothos muttered.

Éowyn grinned. She felt around again, and this time her hands closed on something hard, but not heavy. It didn't feel like rock. As she picked it up, she could feel that it was no longer than a sword, and not half as heavy. Perhaps a torch?

"Don't suppose you'd happen to have a tinderbox with you?" she asked quickly.

Amrothos fumbled around for a few seconds, and at last she heard the sound of two stones striking each other. A spark of light appeared, and Éowyn saw, in that spark, the wild-looking face of Faramir's cousin. She handed him the torch, and after a few tries, he got it lit.

Both of their faces looked pale in the torchlight. Amrothos gave her a look of concern and touched her forehead. Éowyn flinched and drew back.

"You're bleeding," the boy explained gently. "Are you sure you're all right?"

Éowyn touched the wound again, feeling the stickiness of blood with a grimace, and nodded.

"If I'm not, I will be. Where's Faramir?"

Amrothos watched her for another moment, but at last turned to the lifeless form of his cousin. Éowyn crawled over to the young man and looked him over carefully.

"He's still breathing. I don't think any of his bones are broken. It's hard to tell."

"He cushioned my fall," Amrothos said quietly. "And now he won't wake up."

Éowyn shook Faramir gently by the shoulder, but to no end. There was no moving him or shaking him harder for fear he was hurt in some grievous way, so at last Amrothos—who was still holding the torch—stood.

"Let him be. While he sleeps perhaps we can find the way out."

Éowyn stood as well, though her head spun so that she had to grab the wall to keep from falling, and stared into the darkness with wide, frightened eyes.

"Do you think there is a way out?"

"Of course there is," Amrothos replied hastily—perhaps too hastily. "How else would the horse-thieves get the horses out except through an exit?"

Shivering, Éowyn crept a little closer to the torchlight. The silence of the place was unnerving, and there was absolute blackness on all sides of them. Amrothos found himself creeping a little closer to her, for two in the blackness is better than one alone.

They began walking forward slowly, holding hands simply because it seemed the only way to keep from being separated. Amrothos hardly felt a thrill in holding the hand of the princess of Rohan, and Éowyn, who would've been either disgusted or enamored by the connection, barely noticed at all. Both held their other hand out in front, feeling for a wall or something solid to keep from running into it.

They continued forward thus for several yards, but then Amrothos stopped abruptly.

"What?" Éowyn asked, tensing up and wondering if he'd heard something.

"What if we get lost and can't find Faramir again?" Amrothos whispered slowly. "He might be dying, and if we just leave him…"

Not only was this good sense, but it also occurred to both of them at once that three in the dark are even better than two, especially when the third in question is both older and wiser than the two younger. Beside that, neither of them really cared to poke about in the mysterious darkness, even by the light of the torch. Who knew what manner of frightening beasts might be laying in wait for them?

They turned back at once. Neither felt cowardly for doing so, even though Éowyn wanted to say something to make sure Amrothos knew she wasn't going back because she was afraid of going on. She didn't, though. A childish worry, she realized after she'd opened her mouth. She was sixteen; quite old enough to not have to explain her every action to whomever she was with.

Faramir had not moved when they reached him. Somehow Amrothos had been expecting to find him gone or moved in some way when they returned, but that was the result of his overly active imagination. His brothers and cousins were always chiding him for imagining the worst of situations and expecting them to be that way. He couldn't see that it was such a bad thing, for if Faramir had been gone, he would not have been half surprised.

Amrothos crouched down in the dirt next to his cousin and tried shaking him gently again. No response. Éowyn sat down close to him and shivered. The darkness felt like it was closing in around her.

"It's so cold in here."

There is nothing so nice as hearing another human voice when you've had a bad scare and are in a dark, scary place and your cousin is unconscious. Amrothos gave her a reassuring smile, seeing in the torchlight for a split-second the eyes of his younger sister.

"Aye. I suppose we're underground."

It was an absurdly obvious statement. He regretted it as soon as it was out of his mouth, but Éowyn giggled after a moment and he knew the slip had not been utterly useless.

"How observant you are," she said with a grin, feeling the momentary panic relax.

Amrothos shrugged and gave a sigh.

"No one ever said I was the brains of the family. That's Erchirion's department. And Elphir is Father's heir, so he doesn't need brains or good looks."

Éowyn grinned.

"I think I must've got the brains of my family."

"I think you must've gotten both," Amrothos replied cheekily.

There was a moment of silence as Éowyn tried to think up a fitting retort in her surprise and Amrothos realized that he'd said it aloud instead of just thinking about it. But the voice that spoke next belonged to neither of them.

"And I think you must've gotten neither, Ro."

The two younger people looked down in astonishment, and both let out an exclamation that involved the speaker's name and a hurried questioning where they asked about his condition and wanted to know if he had any bones broken or internal injuries or anything of that sort. Faramir watched his cousin and Éowyn with an amused look, rubbing his head where it had knocked against a rock and trying to make sense of their babbling.

At last he managed to derive from their rapid and somewhat confusing remarks that he'd been unconscious for ever so long and they'd been worried about him and there seemed to be no way out.

He tried to sit up, but as he moved pain shot through his head like an arrow and he let out a low moan. He put out his arm to steady himself and felt a jarring pain in it as well, as if he'd been stabbed by a knife. His right arm. His sword arm.

"I think it's broken," he said through gritted teeth, falling back and feeling it carefully with his fingers. "Must've hit it when I fell."

"What should we do?" Éowyn whispered anxiously. "I don't know a thing about broken bones. I mean, I had one once, but it's all a fog in my memory and the healers did everything."

"You broke your arm?" Amrothos asked in a tone that fairly rang with astonishment. He could never imagine his sister doing anything so dangerous as that she might break a bone. Well, not easily, anyway.

"Fell off my horse," Éowyn explained with a ghost of a smile. "I was nine."

"I think," said Faramir abruptly, "that a sling would do the trick."

Fortunately Éowyn was wearing a sash (made of soft but sturdy material) and they fashioned a sort of sling out of that. It did nothing to cure the arm, of course, but it prevented Faramir's every movement from jarring it and causing it to ache all over again. This done, the two others helped him to his feet, and all three stared into the darkness with determined and apprehensive expressions on their faces.

Faramir leaned back against the wall for a long moment, hoping to still the spinning in his head. There was no wound that he could find, but he must've hit it on something during the fall, for there was a buzzing in his ears like that of bees. Éowyn gave him a concerned look, but he gave her a slight smile that was meant to be reassuring.

"I suppose we'd better start looking for the way out," Amrothos said, feeling that the silence was growing unbearable.

"Or should we wait here, do you think?" Éowyn asked suddenly. "Uncle and the others will notice that we're gone eventually. Should we wait here in case they come looking for us?"

"And of course they'll think to look down here," retorted Amrothos in a caustic tone. "The odds of being rescued are—are impossibly against us. And these walls—" here he thumped on one of them, sending little grains of soil raining to the floor, "they're far to deep to shout through for help."

Éowyn looked slightly offended.

"Your people in Gondor might not be capable of finding a secret passageway, but Rohan is different."

"Are you suggesting," Amrothos returned with a flush of surprised anger, "that my father's men are inferior to your uncle's?"

"Well if they can't find something as mundane as a secret passage way they've got to be," Éowyn snapped back.

"Quiet," Faramir said suddenly. He was listening carefully to the silence, for a strange new noise, like that of scampering feet, had sent an uneasy thrill down his spine.

Amrothos and Éowyn both fixed him with startled, angry looks.

"Are you just going to let her insult Father's men?" Amrothos asked loudly.

The silly argument ended quite abruptly when a new voice, grating and gritty like the soil beneath their feet, spoke from the dark recesses of the cavern behind them.

"Heh heh…is they lost, my love? Many many's are lost, losted in the darkness. Never again will they see the pretty moon and sun. For all is the dark…yes, all is the dark, my love…"

TBC...