Chapter fifteen: Intelligence

From Samir of the Red Sun, by Minastor Wheeler, F.A. 1513

In the early years of the Fourth Age, few in Gondor understood the people that they dismissively called Easterlings, thus lumping together many disparate people. The ignorance is understandable. Many of these "Easterlings" had come against them in the War, marching under Sauron's banner. It was only natural that the people of Gondor should therefore see such people as inherently evil, little different from orcs or goblins, merely clad in a fairer form.

The men and women who followed Samir did not think of themselves as coming from the East. Admittedly, they classed the men of Gondor and beyond as "westerners" and looked at them with a mixture of hatred and contempt. However, to them, "an easterner" was a member of the tribes to their east, their bitter enemies for many centuries.

They had no real collective term for themselves, being loyal only to their own lord and their own clan. They followed Sauron, true, but they did not do so because they loved him. In fact, many of their lords hated him and his emissaries, as they always hated anyone who sought to dominate them - something Samir himself frequently discovered to his cost. They did his bidding because they believed that there was advantage to them in doing so. Admirable behaviour? Of course not, and perhaps even more contemptible than the behaviour of those who genuinely worshipped Sauron. However, as historians we should aim to understand, not to judge.

When Sauron fell, many of the creatures who served him fell into disarray, because they possessed no will that did not come from their dark master. In contrast, when Sauron fell, these clansmen gathered themselves together, licked their wounds - for they had suffered great losses on the Pelennor and elsewhere - and went back home to pick up the pieces of their lives.

In the early years of the Fourth Age, Elessar and his captains led many forays and campaigns against pockets of resistance in and around Mordor: followers of Sauron who wished to avenge his fall. However, when Samir and his army marched against Gondor in the summer of '12, they did not do so because they still served Sauron in their hearts.

For thousands of years, men had fought men. The Wainriders - distant ancestors, perhaps, of Samir's clansmen - came against Gondor, and this was a war between men. But behind the attacks of the Wainriders lurked the hand of Sauron. He was the gamesmaster, and armies of men were his pieces. For thousands of years, when men fought men, Sauron was behind it.

When Samir marched, he did so for many reasons - reasons which will be explored during the first few chapters of this book - but Sauron was not one of them.

Fifteen centuries have passed, and is might seem laughable to see these events as 'modern' in any way, but I contend that when Samir set out with his army, he went to wage the first war of modern times.

The fountain was an old one, fashioned in the form of a tall man who held a large jug beneath one arm, supporting its weight with the other. Water poured ceaselessly from the jug into the pool below, but the features of the man's face were almost worn away, and his clothes were pitted with water damage and green with algae. Lainor had no idea who he was, but he found himself drawn to the pool. There was fresh water to drink, to keep him from thirsting for wine, and the constant noise of the falling water helped keep the rest of the world at bay.

Would Mínir come?

He won't, Lainor thought, and it was almost a relief to think that.

He started to pace. There was a sudden gust of wind, and a cloud of water droplets struck him in the face. It was not unpleasant. He scraped them away, then raked his fingers through his damp hair.

What if he doesn't? he thought, and this time the thought filled him with something close to terror. I don't know what to do! I-

He heard something then, now that he was away from the constant noise of the fountain. A shout. The sound of a scuffle. A thud.

Nothing to do with me, he thought, but his legs started to walk him forward, almost as if they were moving him of their own accord. Another thud, and he was running, even as part of his mind whimpered, No! No! Stay away!

He pushed through a curtain of trailing green tendrils; brushed past a cluster of flowers, dislodging a cloud of pollen. It was later than he had realised, and almost dark where trees and shrubs overhung. It was there, in one of those shadows, that a man was lying. A second man crouched over him, rummaging at the fallen man's belt. "Thief!" Lainor shouted. "Stop!" Then he shouted it louder. There had to be somebody else nearby. There had to be help. "Help! Thief! Help!"

The thief looked up, and he was hooded, only the bottom half of his face visible. As he moved, Lainor saw the spreading pool of blood beneath the fallen man's head. The thief stood up, something trailing from his left hand. With his other hand, he carried a cudgel.

Lainor stopped. He froze. He almost took a step back, then forced himself to walk forward again. "Stop!" he bellowed as loudly as he could. "Thief!" And then he ran forward. He was not a small man, and he grappled the thief bodily, and almost brought him down, but then the cudgel struck him a glancing blow on his arm, and another, harder, across his shoulder.

"Thief!" he gasped, but he had hardly any breath left; the blows had driven the air from him. He sucked in a breath, and then another. "Thief!" he screamed. "Help!"

And then, at last, he heard answering shouts. The thief tried to pull away, but Lainor gripped him and held him with all his strength. "Thief!" he said, almost sobbing it, and the thief gave a great tug and broke free. He fled, scrambling over a wall and escaping before any help could arrive.

Lainor sank to his knees. His shoulders hurt, and his arm was screaming. He had been hurt worse than he had realised, it seemed.

But the man on the ground wasn't moving. Lainor touched him and found that he was still breathing. The man moaned at his touch, but didn't speak.

It was only when Lainor turned him over that he realised that this was Mínir.

"My lord!" Mablung gasped, when it was clear that the enemy had fallen. "Are you-"

"Hush," the king chided, but not harshly.

The man was still dying, Mablung saw. The king reached out, and the man took his hand blindly, gripping it tightly for the space of a few desperate breaths. Then his grip slackened, but it was not until the king lowered the man's hand and then released it that Mablung knew that the man was dead.

"Captain," Mablung said, although there was no longer anybody to hear him. "The knife… I saw it hit you. It was too quick. I couldn't stop it."

"It did me no harm," the king said. He stood up and walked a few paces away, and once again the cloak made him fade almost into the shadows. A minute passed, the king looking westward and Mablung unable to see his face.

"You wish I hadn't killed him," Mablung guessed. A few days before, he would never have dared speak so to his king, breaking into his solitude like that. "I'm sorry. My lord, I-"

"Nay." The king turned round again, and there was no anger in his face, no disapproval. He held his hand up, stopping Mablung from falling to his knees. "I wish it had not been necessary. It is merely that. But it was necessary. You did well."

Mablung's heart was all a-flutter. While the danger was still present, he had been calm and cool, but now… Now that it was over…! First - worst! - the thrown knife! Desperate to leap out, but knowing that he could serve the king better by staying hidden. Creeping slowly, oh so slowly up behind the man, forced to trust in his own skills at stealth, forced to trust in the cloak. Hearing the king and the man talking, and understanding barely one word in three. But you didn't need to understand the language to see that the man was readying a second knife behind his back.

He swallowed hard, his mouth suddenly dry. "He was going to…"

"I know," the king said. "You did what you had to do. You had no choice. No," he added, after a moment, "you did have a choice. You could have acted rashly and thrown off your disguise and leapt into the fray. That is what many men would have done. You chose to stay hidden until there was no choice but to reveal yourself." He smiled, and although his eyes were weary, there seemed to be genuine warmth there. "You did well."

Slowly, slowly his heartbeat was recovering. "But the knife…"

"Truly, it did me no harm," the king said. He returned to the body. "We need to cover him with a cairn and hide it under the bracken, so nobody who passes will know that we were here. A mob of carrion birds would attract attention from far away."

He began to gather rocks, and as he did so, his cloak fell open, revealing his shoulder. There was no blood. There was a rent in the fabric of his shirt, but there was no blood. Mablung wanted to ask, he needed to ask, but he had asked too many questions already. He busied himself with rocks. Soon even his hands had stopped their shaking.

"I would prefer it if nobody died," the king said, when the dead man lay half covered. Sometimes Mablung's fingers had brushed the dead man's skin. It had not quite finished cooling. "These are not orcs. They are not the servants of the enemy. They are Men."

"Men who served Sauron," Mablung dared to point out.

"Indeed," the king agreed. "And we have killed many such since the War ended, with little regret, although at times with sorrow. But these clansmen…" He laid another rock, almost gently on the man's breast. "Many of their lords agreed to follow the banners of Sauron's emissaries. They were offered glory, and a quick victory over their rival lords from other clans. They saw him as a means to an end. They had little love for their dark master. And some clans…" he said. "Some clans refused to follow Sauron at all, and suffered greatly for it. They come against us now not out of love for Sauron, and not out of a desire to rebuild his works, but…"

A crow cawed about them, gazing down at them with interest. The king stood up tall and commanding, and flapped it away. When it had gone, the end of the sentence remained unsaid.

"This is the first war of this Fourth Age of ours," the king said at last. "It is not a war of the free peoples against the servants of Sauron. It is a war of men against men. I would wish that no such war would ever come to pass."

There was nothing that Mablung could say to that; nothing that would not sound impertinent or trite. Instead, he busied himself with collecting rocks. Twilight deepened, and it started to rain again, only light drops. Soon the man was covered, and they did what they could with the bracken, hiding it from sight.

Mablung decided to dare the question again. "I saw the knife hit you. It hit you point first. I saw it." The common people of Gondor might believe that their king had some magical protection against all harm, but Mablung had seen him scratched by thorns and scraped by rocks. He knew that he could be hurt.

The king was silent for a while. Then, turning to the grave, he spoke a few words in the Easterlings' tongue. Mablung did not understand them. It was only when they were walking again that he returned to the subject. "There is little mithril left in the world. Moria is the only place where it can be mined, and Moria is lost for now. But the dwarves still have some stores of it, and at times they are willing to rework old artefacts into new ones. Gimli used such mithril when he restored the Great Gate of Minas Tirith, as you know, but that was not his only gift. He brought it from Erebor as a belated wedding gift to me." He pressed his hand to his chest. "A mithril shirt. As silent and as light as cloth, but it can stop an arrow, or a knife."

Mablung let out a shuddering breath, and it was only now that he truly felt the fear slip away. "It can," he said, laughing. "It certainly can!"

Nobody pursued him. For the space of a few streets, Seregon had feared that they were, but when he had finally let himself stop running, he had heard no shouts behind him, and no pounding feet. He had forced himself to walk slowly then: just a normal citizen out for a stroll. The cudgel he had dropped in the garden before even climbing the wall. He lost the coat a few streets later, ducking into the darkened space between two houses, and leaving it puddled against the wall. The next time he passed a drinking fountain, he stopped to wash his hands. He didn't think there was any blood there, but it was best to be careful.

His hands seemed to be shaking. It was because the water was cold, he told himself. It came from great stone cisterns beneath the city, and stayed icy cold even through the hottest days of summer.

Water. He made himself think about water as he walked slowly through the city. It was a safe thing to think about. He couldn't look as if he was in a rush. He couldn't look guilty. Water. His damp hands were still trembling. It was strange to remember that years ago, when he had arrived in the city, some of the drinking fountains had not yet been repaired since the war, and some of the pipes had cracked during the years of the city's fading. They were all repaired now, of course, and everyone in the city, high or low, could access free, fresh water whenever they needed it. No lord tried to claim it, or sell it for coin, or withhold it from those who displeased them.

So long ago now. So many years of his life…

"No," he rasped. Perhaps not water. Perhaps there was nothing safe that he could think about.

He certainly couldn't think about the sound his cudgel had made as it had struck the Bloodhound's skull. He couldn't think of the other man, and how close that man had come to seizing him. He couldn't think of what would happen next, not until he was safely off the street, back in the solitude of his room in the guardhouse.

He had the token, though. He had seen the Bloodhound present it, and although everything else that day had gone terribly wrong, he had clung to the memory of that token as the one gleam of light in the growing darkness. He had known at once that he had to take it, and now he had. All that remained was to hand it over. The lord he had always dealt with had been captured, but at least one more lord remained at large. Seregon had no idea how to contact him. They trusted him so little, did these arrogant-

"No!" This time he almost growled it. Hurrying through the darkening streets, a woman looked at him in sudden fear, then relaxed when she saw the uniform of the city watch.

Careful, he chided himself. He had to keep his mind empty. It wasn't safe to let himself think of anything at all, not until he was safely home.

It was the not knowing that was the worst. Oh, he received frequent reports from Lasdir and the elves, but it seemed that his heart could not entirely accept them.

Éomer was not the sort of person who needed to see something with his own eyes in order to believe it. He could not be everywhere in his realm at once. As king, he received regular reports from his marshals. As a captain in the field, he was used to receiving reports from scouts and outriders. He accepted them, too. He trusted his men, and if they said that they saw an enemy approaching across the plain, he believed them without question.

But those were all reports made by men, using the same senses that he himself possessed. These elves claimed to see things clearly that were many leagues away. Éomer was well aware that he was just a mortal man, and that there were beings in Middle Earth who far outclassed him. But knowing it was not the same as feeling it. He accepted what they said. He acted upon their reports, but deep down, it seemed, he doubted them, and he was afraid. What if they're wrong? What if…?

No, he thought, shaking his head. He had to place his faith in their keen eyes. He had to believe that Aragorn was still safe; that everything was going according to plan. Not knowing was the worst? But he did know. He did know, and it was not the worst of his problems at all.

"We covered barely ten miles today, lord," said the young lord of Lossarnach. He offered it almost tentatively, but Éomer knew that disapproval lay behind it.

"Yes," Éomer said, "and I ordered an early halt. This I know."

"Yes, lord," the young lord conceded, but he stood his ground. "There is a second party of Easterling horsemen in the north, or so the scouts say."

"Yet I chose to turn us slightly to the south," Éomer said, "to avoid them. We have stayed sufficiently far away that they will see no sign of us, unless they come south again. The elves report that they do not."

"Yes, lord," the young lord agreed. There were four more captains of Gondor in their small circle, and two of Éomer's own men. Gimli completed the party, standing with his legs apart, his axe upright in front of him, his hands resting on its head. "This is hard terrain," the lord said. "It would be good to see the end of it."

"Whether we march ten miles or twenty, the end of this terrain will not come for many days," Éomer said, "and we would meet the Easterling army long before then. Had we marched at our usual pace, and had they continued at the pace they set today, we would see the first signs of each other just before nightfall tomorrow."

"Night is not a good time for a battle," said one of the other lords.

"No," Éomer agreed, "and had we marched the full seven leagues today, we would have ended the day at risk of being seen by their scouts and outriders."

"Yes, lord," said the lord of Lossarnach, bowing his proud head. His bow could not be faulted, but Éomer knew that had it been made to Aragorn, it would have been more sincerely meant.

One by one, the lords departed, until only Gimli remained. "I think they were satisfied," Gimli said.

"Perhaps," Éomer said.

He could have played the king with them. They had sworn no oaths to him, but he was still a king, lord of an ally of Gondor. Aragorn had left him in charge. Do you question my decisions? he could have demanded, and they would have been forced to let the matter drop. But this was not Éomer's way. Even if it had been in his nature to play the tyrant, it would not have been wise. Disgruntled captains made for disgruntled men. He thought the men-at-arms were still unaware that their king had left them, but he had no desire to cause them to ask questions amongst themselves.

"You told no lies," Gimli said.

"No," Éomer agreed, "but neither did I tell them the truth."

How did you survive it? Éowyn wanted to ask the queen. Arwen had stayed at home for forty years, while the man she loved went forth into danger. At times, she said, she had some faint awareness of whether he was well, but what was the use of that? What was the use of knowing, when there was nothing you could do about it?

I would have gone mad, Éowyn thought. I could not have endured it. I am not made to sit at home and meekly wait.

Waiting at Meduseld had been almost more than she could bear, but at least then there had been her uncle to care for. A thankless task, true, and a heart-breaking one, but at least she had done something. What had Arwen done for those forty years but busy herself with embroidery and meekly wait for Aragorn to win the right to have her?

Weak! she thought. She jabbed her needle into her own embroidery, almost stabbing her finger.

Here they all were: the useless ones, the ones left behind. Arwen was sewing by the unlit hearth, her expression serene. Merry was reading in the window, and Pippin was idly stroking a sleeping cat. What a picture of domesticity they all were! Quiet home life continuing, when elsewhere…

The door opened. All heads turned sharply, but it was just a servant with a tray of cakes. The hobbits perked up at that, and chattered happily, making everyone laugh. But then Éowyn happened to glance at Pippin's face and catch it in an unguarded moment, and got the sudden impression that their merriment was, at least in part, an act. Their lively chatter had cheered many a difficult evening. "At least the hobbits are undaunted," Éowyn had said to Faramir some nights before, but although Faramir had smiled, he had shaken his head slightly. He was better at reading people, was this husband of hers.

"How did you bear it?" And here she was, saying it out loud, after all. "Waiting for him," she said, "knowing that there was nothing you could do to help him."

Arwen laid down her embroidery. She did not pretend not to understand. Neither did she question the 'nothing.' She did not claim that in some inscrutable elvish way, she had helped Aragorn all along.

"I endured it," she said, "because I had to. I chose him, and that was the cost. Battles come in many forms, and it is not just warriors who are tested. He had his own test, and that was mine. To wait," she said. "To keep hope in my heart. To endure the long years of waiting, knowing that however it ended, I would face a bitter parting. To live with those who questioned my choice. I bore it because I had to, but it was not easy. Never think that it was easy."

You were weak, Éowyn had thought just moments before. Arwen had surely seen the accusation in her eyes, or she would not have answered as she did. But even before Arwen's reply, Éowyn had not really believed it. Arwen was not weak; this she knew beyond doubt. And neither were the hobbits weak, if they could cheerfully chatter about cakes in an attempt to raise the spirits of those around them.

"It's just..." Éowyn said, and now she sounded like the weak one, unable to find the words. She was worried about Éomer and Aragorn, but at least they were far away, and there was nothing she could do for them. Faramir was in the same building, and at times he still slept in the same bed. A few days before, she had felt so strong, so useful, advising him on his dilemma over whether to close the gates. She had stood with her sword in hand, and thought that there was nothing that she could not face.

But the prisoner was still not talking. Faramir could get no answers. The people hoped that it was over, but Faramir feared that it was not. Éowyn could hold him in the night, but what was the use of that? She longed to be more to him than just a brief sanctuary of domesticity: soft words, an embrace, an escape. She didn't want to be a balm. She wanted to be the cure.

"Do you know how they are?" Pippin spoke up suddenly, his words directed to the queen. Éowyn had never felt more grateful to him. It kept people from looking at her. It allowed her to blink away the tears before anyone could see them. "Aragorn, I mean? Éomer and the others?"

Arwen closed her eyes, and half turned her face away. "Very little is clear to me, but I sense…"

She did not finish it. Pippin got up and walked to her chair. Unasked, he took her hand. "Tell us, please. Don't spare us." He smiled. "We might be small, but we're old enough to take it."

Arwen smiled at him: a warm smile, although her eyes were troubled. "Tomorrow," she said. "Tomorrow morning will be very dangerous for him."

Éowyn closed her eyes. What was truly worse? To have your husband close at hand, and be unable to find a way to help him? Or to know that your husband was in danger hundreds of miles away, when all you could do was wait and hope?

Aragorn took the first watch. When Mablung was sleeping, Aragorn quietly stood up and walked a dozen paces, then settled down to wait beneath the wind-bent tree.

Thin cloud covered the sky, but here and there, small patches of stars showed through. Even if the sky had been clear, there was barely any moon, only a thin sliver, not enough to give light. Although the night was dark, it was not enough to stop the night-time creatures who moved about in the distance: owls and bats, and other things, louder and further away.

It was not enough to stop Legolas.

"That was close today," Legolas said, appearing at his side over an hour earlier than Aragorn had expected. Aragorn had had only a few moments' warning of his approach, and that was only because he had been raised by elves, and his foster brothers had indulged him with childish games of hide-and-seek. Most men, he knew, would have seen Legolas not at all, not until he had chosen to speak.

"Yes," Aragorn said with a grimace. "I delayed too long listening for him. I should have tried harder to evade him."

"Some ill fortune dogged your steps today," Legolas said, "and caused him to choose the same path as you. What was it that drew his attention? That I could not see."

"A moth," Aragorn said. "It settled on me."

"Ah," said Legolas.

It would have been better in a way if Aragorn could have brought Legolas along with him instead of Mablung. It was not just his keen sight and sharpened senses. Legolas and Aragorn had come to understand each other over the years. Legolas would have come through his own free choice, or if he had come because of a sense of obligation, it was the obligation of friendship, freely given. Mablung was a loyal man of Gondor whose services had been requested by his king, and the spectre of rank could never go away. If Aragorn made an unwise choice, Legolas would tell him, but Mablung would not. Chances were, he would continue to believe that it could not possibly be a bad choice - that his king was incapable of making a bad choice - even as the consequences of that choice rose up and killed them both.

But Legolas was an elf, and it was impossible to disguise that. When Aragorn reached his destination, he could not do so with an elf at his side.

"How is Éomer and the army?" Aragorn asked.

"On course and well," Legolas said, "or so Lasdir reports." It was not a direct report, of course. There were parties of elves strung out across the bleak lands between the two armies, sending a chain of messages to each other with hand signals and waves. They were different from the signals used by the elves of Rivendell. Aragorn had dutifully learnt those as a young man, but he had lacked the keen vision that allowed him to see them.

"And the army of the clans?" Aragorn asked.

"That is why I came early," Legolas said, his voice turning grave. "They moved more swiftly today than they have moved for several days, and marched almost until dark. I believe that they were riven by some dispute, but it has been resolved now. There was an execution this morning, and today they marched quickly. When they camped for the night, they were a dozen miles closer to you than we expected them to be."

Aragorn nodded, but said nothing. It matched the sounds he had heard through the earth.

"If they continue at the same pace," said Legolas, "and if you do not change your course, they will be upon you by noon tomorrow: the outriders first, and then the whole army. If you head due south for ten miles, and then continue east, they will miss you."

"And we will be behind them," said Aragorn, "with no warriors between us and the homes they have left behind them." He smiled grimly as he said it. Many of his captains of Gondor, and perhaps even Gimli and Éomer themselves, would have looked favourably upon the opportunities offered by that.

"Their marching order is fluid," Legolas said, "as this lord and that lord vie with each other for precedence, but this Samir of yours is always at the centre."

"He is not mine," Aragorn said. "I have never met Samir." The palantír had shown him glimpses of him. Scouts had told him more.

"I forget." Legolas smiled. "It is the other one. Men are all the same." He chuckled softly, then turned serious again. No merry elf this, but a warrior giving a report. "But this Samir of theirs… He leads from the front, but when they camp for the night, he sleeps apart from the others."

"Afraid of assassins?" Aragorn suggested.

"Perhaps." Legolas shrugged: a man-like gesture, doubtless picked up from the company he had been keeping. "But although his camp is guarded, it is not heavily so."

"It is a matter of pride for him." On this part, at least, Aragorn was sure. The clans had followed Sauron for over forty years, but their way of life had survived. These were still the same people he had travelled amongst sixty years ago. "He claims the rank of lord of lords, but he has to maintain it with his own strength and the strength of his will and his oratory. If he surrounds himself ten deep with bodyguards, he had already lost."

But what did it matter? What did it matter what the reason for it was? Aragorn was just delaying the inevitable with this talk. It was time to decide. He had planned a late start and a slow walk, and one more night before the moment came.

"If we walk through the night…?" he began.

"You will be there in time," Legolas said, "but the night is dark."

It was Aragorn's turn to chuckle softly. Mablung stirred in his sleep, but not did wake. "We are not as blind as all that, my friend, even though we lack the keen sight of the elves. We are both Rangers. We will find our way."

"I will guide you," Legolas offered.

"For a while," Aragorn conceded, "but not all the way. Not to the end of it."

Legolas nodded reluctantly, and Aragorn went to wake Mablung and tell him that the time had come. "Tomorrow," he had to say. "It will be tomorrow, at the first light of dawn."

Éomer dreamt of galloping horses. Horses with empty saddles circled him in the wilderness, but of their riders, there was no sign. His own mount was gone. On foot, he stood at the centre of the circle and turned this way and that, trying to find anyone else alive. He started to walk. The horses parted a little, letting him. There was smoke in the distance. "My lord," someone was calling, but he couldn't see where they were. "My lord!"

He woke up and blinked fiercely, hoping that nobody had seen how fast his heart was racing. Cenred was beside his bed, his face lit by the flickering lantern. Éomer blinked again. By the height of the candle behind the glass, it was less than an hour since he had settled down to sleep, and less than that since sleep had taken him.

"What is it?" he asked. "What has happened?"

"The elf wishes to speak with you, lord," said Cenred. "Shall I-?"

"Let him in." Éomer threw off the thin blanket that covered him. As he did so, his hand brushed against the scabbard of his sword, which he had slept beside ever since they had left Ithilien. Aragorn's sword was more carefully hidden.

Cenred left the tent, and Lasdir entered, bowing his head with polite respect to a king who was many thousand years younger than him, little more than a child. "Is it time?" Éomer said. "You said we'd have another day."

"It is time," Lasdir said.

Kabil was sleeping fitfully. Even when he thought that he was still awake, Hasad stalked his dreams. "You are weak," Hasad told him. "You shouldn't have let yourself get captured."

"You shouldn't have let yourself die!" Kabil screamed back at him.

"You dare to reproach me?" Hasad shouted. "You dare? I am your lord!"

"Were," Kabil whispered. "Were. And now you're dead." He raised his head, his cheeks cold with tears. "And you were my brother before you were my lord."

Hasad struck him, and the sharp shock of it jolted him awake again, and once again he had to learn the reality that was worse than any dream. He had ropes around his wrists. He was tethered to a post like a beast. His fellow prisoners lay all around him, some sleeping restlessly, some awake, their eyes glinting in the firelight. Too many of them were dreaming, moaning in their sleep.

They should have killed us, Kabil thought. Why didn't they kill us?

He rolled over. He had a blanket, and the night was far from cold. It had rained earlier, but the fire was near enough to give some warmth. It was far from the least comfortable night he had endured.

His wrists were tied. Of all the nights he had endured, this was the worst.

Sleep took him again: Hasad screaming at him.

This time when he awoke, he did so because someone was shaking his shoulder: a man who spoke to him low and quick in his own tongue.

end of chapter fifteen

Note: I intend to post two chapters back-to-back tomorrow. The second one follows on directly from the first one, and I'm reluctant to separate them. I'll probably post two on Sunday, too, since I'll have more editing time over the weekend.