Chapter 10

Next chapter for you all! I'm glad people seem to like Belhadron, especially in that last chapter. He was great fun to write for that bit, and this chapter continues on from there. Plus, there is some more Eowyn, and Arwen as well! This chapter might be a bit shorter than usual, but again, it falls to how I have written the scenes.

I only have one more exam to go. I'M NEARLY FREE. I'm so close... The exam is next Wednesday, so I have a week to revise a unit that I have not even looked at for a month. It's maths, so it's fairly logical, and should be alright.

Hope that anyone who is taking exams or tests at the moment is doing well and not stressing out too much. You're all going to be brilliant!

Disclaimer: see Chapter 1.

0-o-0-o-0

"Why should I tell you?" the Easterling said back instantly. Belhadron shifted slightly, and the man's gaze fell to him. Belhadron repeated the question, and this time the Easterling's reaction was a little more visceral.

The Easterling's startled gaze shot to Belhadron. "Why do you care, filth?" he snarled, spitting on the floor at Belhadron. Belhadron merely smiled lazily, not even moving from the bars he was leaning against.

Faramir stepped forwards, his hand hovering over the hilt of his sword. "Answer the question," he said, and his voice was steel on a cold morning, sharp and sounding rather deadly. The Easterling held Faramir's gaze for a few seconds, before blinking and looking away.

"Yarban," replied the Easterling. "From the eastern reaches of Khand."

"You fought in the war," stated Faramir. "Not here, though, not outside Minas Tirith. You were fighting for Sauron outside the Black Gate." It was a guess, but an educated guess. Faramir knew that they hadn't even tried to find some of the Easterlings who had fled after the war, but there had been few men that had fought on the Pelennor who had survived it all. From the guarded and slightly surprised look in Yarban's eyes, he was right.

"You were a captain, weren't you?" asked Faramir. "Or even more. But you had command over men. You still do. Those forty or so men in Ithilien, the twenty-six here now, they answer to you, do they not?"

Yarban merely blinked and looked back at them, at least until Belhadron moved his hand ever so slightly towards the small of his back and smiled, a little too much like a wolf for comfort. "They do," he said, a sneer coming across his face. "What of it?"

Faramir glanced around as Beregond slipped back into the cell, a rolled up piece of parchment in his hand. "You have survived together for a year after the war was finished," he said. "And I imagine their loyalty to you is absolute. As is yours to them."

Faramir could see the hesitant fear creeping into Yarban's eyes as the man began to guess at what Faramir was saying.

Beregond stepped forwards, handing the parchment to Faramir. "By all rights, and the laws in Gondor, we could have your men put to death."

Faramir watched closely, and saw the slight widening of Yarban's eyes, the well masked panic that suddenly washed over the Easterling at the threat. "You have already lost some of your men, and it was because of your actions," he said, his voice soft but unyielding. "You could have returned home, and all of them would have been alive. For the sake of the Valar, the King pardoned any man who had fought against us if they promised to lay down their weapons."

Yarban merely snarled at Faramir, who sighed slightly. "If you want the rest of your men to live, then you will answer every question we have truthfully and to the best of your knowledge. Some of your men are badly wounded already. We have treated their wounds, but without our care, they will die. And that blood will be on your hands. Understood?"

Yarban held Faramir's gaze unflinchingly, but Faramir had grown good at reading men and, as he suspected, it was only a few seconds before Yarban's gaze dropped and he reluctantly nodded.

Belhadron could see both Faramir and Beregond hold back a sigh of relief, and he found himself doing the same. His attention turned to Yarban. "How many men were in Ithilien?" he asked.

Yarban growled at him, seemingly not forgetting his hatred of elves, and Belhadron smiled back at him. "I thought you understood our agreement," said Faramir softly. "Talk, or put your men's lives in danger. It's your choice."

Yarban cursed under his breath, and staunchly kept his gaze away from Belhadron as he answered. "Forty three men," he said. "Before you killed seventeen of them. They had families, you know. Wives, children, brothers and sisters. Parents, even, for the younger ones."

"We know," replied Faramir steadily. "And so did the men that your men tried to kill. So did all those men from Gondor, from Rohan, that died outside this city, those that died outside the Black Gate." His voice hardened, and he felt himself take a step forwards. "Don't try and make me feel guilty. It won't work."

Beregond stepped closer to Faramir. "We got all of the men under his command, my Lord," he murmured. "But if there are other groups of Easterlings in Ithilien then they could still know of our presence there yesterday. We have no idea if they were in contact or not."

Faramir nodded, and turned back to Yarban. "How many men are there in Ithilien, besides yours?" he asked. "And don't try and lie, say that you were the only ones. We know there are others."

"There are others," said Yarban reluctantly, his loyalty to those men at war with the need to protect his own. "Others, in Ithilien."

"Where?" asked Belhadron, straightening from his position against the wall. "How many?"

"I don't answer to you, filth," spat Yarban at Belhadron, and it seemed that his anger got the better of him, because he lunged forwards, aiming at Belhadron. He didn't manage one step before there were three swords pointed at him.

Belhadron stepped forwards, his dark brown eyes darkening as the blade of his sword came to rest on Yarban's throat. "Step. Back." The point of the sword pressed into the man's skin, a drop of blood beading on his throat, before rolling slowly down his neck.

"Now." Yarban slowly raised his hands and stepped backwards. Belhadron lowered his sword, shortly followed by Faramir and Beregond, and as the elf stepped back to where he had been leaning against the cell bars, Faramir caught a glimpse of his face. It felt like the temperature had dropped.

Never before had Faramir realised just how old elves were, just how much elves like Belhadron, who had been fighting their bloody war far, far longer than himself, had seen, just how much they had done. At that moment, Belhadron was something ancient, something terrifying.

And then Belhadron relaxed, sheathing his sword, and the image disappeared. Faramir turned his attention back to Yarban, trying to shake the feeling that Belhadron, a few moments ago, would have gladly killed the man in front of them.

"Don't try that again," Faramir said. "Or you might lose a lot more than a drop of blood. Or perhaps your men will lose it instead. Now let's try again. How many more men are in Ithilien?"

Yarban was silent for a good few moments before opening his mouth. Faramir could tell he was recognising the hopelessness of this battle. One way or another, they were going to get the information, and Yarban's loyalty to his men, to those who had been under his care for so long, left him with really only one option. "Three more groups, thirty to forty men in each," he said sullenly. "They're spread out. We kept moving. You won't find them."

"I think we will," said Faramir. He unrolled the piece of parchment in his hands to reveal a map. "On this map, you are going to point out the areas you used to camp, where you found food and water, anywhere you came into contact with men from any other groups."

"If we think you are lying, or withholding any information," said Beregond. "We will prevent any healer from entering here, or anyone from tending to the wounds your men have. Or Belhadron here will remain behind when we leave." The elf in question grinned from where he was once again leaning against the bars of the cell.

Faramir held the map out. He stepped forwards. "Talk."

0-o-0-o-0

"I think we have as much as we are going to get."

Faramir glanced at Beregond, who had murmured the words in his ear. "You think so?" he asked.

"Yarban said it himself," replied Beregond. "The groups move around, though luckily none of them have moved north." Northern Ithilien was more ravaged than the southern parts of the woods, the woods below the road running from Minas Tirith to Minas Morgul. If men wanted to survive in the forests, on their own, they would have been hard pressed to do so in the north.

"Besides," said Beregond. "It has been the half hour that King Elessar gave us."

Faramir nodded. "This will probably be enough information," he said, glancing at the map in his hands. "Will you quickly write down some of the key details? There should be some parchment and ink in here, and I don't want anything to be forgotten by accident."

Beregond nodded. "Of course, my Lord," he said, and ducked out of the cell. Faramir followed and made his way outside.

Belhadron was leaning against the stone wall outside, almost completely still. His eyes flickered over to Faramir as he came out. "We have enough?" he asked quietly.

"I believe so," replied Faramir. Belhadron nodded, his gaze moving past Faramir to the door of the prison. As his head turned, Faramir caught a glimpse of the healing gash on his temple, the shadowy purple bruising surrounding it. "How is your head?" he asked.

Belhadron smiled wryly. "It will heal," he replied. "I have-"

"Had worse?" asked Faramir with a smile of his own. Belhadron paused, and then chuckled.

"Yes," he replied. "I have had worse." He briefly closed his eyes. His head hurt a little, but seeing that the flat of a blade had slammed into it about a day ago, that really wasn't very surprising. The ache would go in an hour or two, and in a few days, the wound would be mostly healed. The same was true with his arm. He had already pulled out the stitches, and the wound would soon heal. Neither injury were going to affect him in a fight.

"Would you have killed him?"

The question sprang from Faramir's mouth without him quite knowing how, and he internally winced as Belhadron fixed his gaze upon him. "Yarban," he clarified. "When he tried to attack you. Did you want to kill him?"

"No."

The answer was swift and firm, and Faramir couldn't help but feel relieved at hearing it. Belhadron frowned slightly, watching Faramir as if to try and gauge his reaction to what he had just said.

"He was just a man," said Belhadron eventually, after a brief silence. He searched for the right words in Westron. "He was…in the wrong army. He does not…need death."

"He does not deserve it," said Faramir softly, and Belhadron nodded.

"Deserve," he murmured. "That is the word. No, he does not deserve death." He may have seemed of a different opinion in the cell, but the thought had always been in his mind. It was just that action on that thought would not have helped them at that time. The point of him being there had been to antagonise that man, and so he had played his part.

There was a lot more to it, though, more that he could not articulate without using Legolas as his translator, for his grasp of Westron was nowhere near good enough.

The man, Yarban, had had parents who had raised him. He had had a childhood, had friends that he had played with. He had been taught to fight by someone, but he had probably also been taught how to ride, how to cook out in the wild, maybe even how to read. Most living things in this world deserved some mercy, because almost nothing was born evil.

Men like Yarban, like those who had fought for Sauron, were still men, at the end of the day. They still had lives beyond who they killed for, and they were still deserving of some compassion. If, in the end, it came down to their life or the life of someone Belhadron was fighting beside, then it was no choice. But whilst there was a choice, he would prefer not to see them dead. There had already been too much killing in this bloody war, and most living things deserved at least some mercy.

Apart from spiders. Those Belhadron would happily kill without another thought, the vile creatures.

Faramir watched the sun, beginning to sink into the shadowed rocks of the mountains behind Minas Tirith. It would be a few hours still before dusk, but it was still past midday, and the shadows on the street were beginning to lengthen.

Belhadron was leant against the wall again, and Faramir noticed that his gaze had fixed onto the small tree growing at the side of the street, one of the few that was planted in the city and had survived the war. Faramir supposed that it made sense, a wood elf seeking out the living things in a city of stone. His gaze flickered away from the elf and back to the door of the prisons, and he wondered.

"What is it?" Belhadron's voice was soft, and his gaze had turned towards Faramir. Faramir paused for a second as the door behind him swung open and Beregond came out, pieces of parchment in his hand.

"Those men…" said Faramir as they turned and began to walk up the streets, heading for the citadel. "Yarban was willing to possibly risk his life just to get a chance to attack you. Mablung mentioned how you and Legolas drew far more attention when those men ambushed you." He paused, trying to find the right words, and Belhadron smiled.

"You want to know why they hate us?" he asked, tripping just a little over the Westron words. Faramir smiled slightly, and nodded. Belhadron seemed to pause, sorting out the words in his head. When he next spoke, his voice was tinged with something part grief, part weary resignation, and possibly a small amount of guilt.

"Because we are the bad tales they tell children at night."

0-o-0-o-0

Over the next few hours, a plan finally began to coalesce into some sort of form. The largest map of Ithilien was spread over the table, weighted down with random items that Aragorn found in his study. A silver candlestick sat on the table opposite an old wooden carving of a horse.

The sun was truly beginning to sink behind the mountains in the west when, eventually, Aragorn nodded in agreement with Faramir. The maps were rolled up, the pieces of parchment now littering the table gathered and piled in the middle. After a brief conversation between Legolas, Belhadron and Aragorn in Sindarin, Belhadron agreed to join Faramir in Ithilien. The captains, having been given orders to issue, bowed and left.

Faramir lingered behind, and as the door swung shut behind the other captains, he turned back to Aragorn. "My Lord," he said. "I think we should tell the people what we are about to do. All of it."

Aragorn looked up. "The last thing I want to do is make people think we are starting a war, Faramir."

"I know," replied Faramir. "But people always talk, and the fewer facts given means only more speculation. If we lose men in Ithilien, if we bring back more dead soldiers when people didn't know there was such a chance in the first place, then we would have a problem."

Aragorn still hesitated, and Legolas spoke up. "You have a point," he said to Faramir. "Aragorn, you have seen what speculation leads to before." He didn't say the unspoken words, that back then Aragorn had not been a part, had only been a mere Ranger watching from the side. Not the King of a people sending their sons and husbands and brothers off to fight again.

"The people are resilient," said Faramir softly. "Tell them that we must fight once again for our peace, and they will bear the extra weight. Do not tell them, and we must face the fires if bodies are brought home."

Aragorn was silent for a moment, before nodding. "You are right." He sighed, and grimaced slightly. "Tell them, then," he said. "Make this official, Faramir, because if it is kept quiet, and some of our men die because of the decisions we have made here, then I do not wish to risk those consequences."

Faramir nodded. "I will," he said. He bowed slightly and left.

Within minutes, soldiers were moving swiftly through the streets, at that speed that definitely did not mean they were rushing, but was still, technically, rushing. Other than those men, the streets were slowly quieting. People were falling back into the weary acceptance of before that was still recent enough to not be strange.

Belhadron and Faramir readied themselves, Faramir going back to the clothes he had worn as a Ranger: a thick leather jerkin and deep green cloak. The silver emblem of the tree of Gondor had been blacked out, along with any buckles, and he carried both his sword and a quiver, with a bow hooked over the back.

Belhadron was dressed in similar greens and browns to Legolas, though the edge of fine mail could be seen under the thick green tunic he wore. His fingers were drumming slightly on the hilt of his sword.

The companies rode off as the sun was setting. Aragorn and Legolas watched them ride out from the courtyard, before returning to the citadel on horseback. People had gathered on the walls of the lower levels of the city to watch the soldiers ride off. There had been some fighting in Ithilien since the War, some conflict when Faramir and Aragorn had led men to cleanse the Morgul Vale, but nothing on this scale for months, and too many people had thought it was over.

And one person stood up at the edge of the courtyard in the citadel, watching the soldiers leave as the dying sun cast their long shadows across the Pelennor.

Eowyn turned her head as she heard soft footfalls behind her, and a small smile flitted across her lips. "My Lady," she said in greetings.

"Eowyn," said Arwen warmly, coming to stand beside her. The wind picked up ever so slightly, and Eowyn pulled the deep blue mantle that Faramir had given her, just after the War, closer around her shoulders.

"You are worried," said Arwen softly, her gaze not turning from the shadows of the men on the Pelennor. Eowyn nodded.

"I do not wish to watch anyone else ride off to battle," she murmured. "And yet I cannot look away."

Arwen paused. "Do you wish to be there with him?" she asked softly. "The Valar know there were many times when I wished I could accompany Aragorn on his journeys." A smile quirked her lips. "Even if I would have only been a hindrance to him."

Eowyn considered saying yes for a moment. It was an attracting idea, riding out with Faramir, knowing where he was, whether he was safe. But as soon as the idea came into her head she realised that it was only that- an idea that she could not follow. Not because she would be such a hindrance, although she probably would, but because she realised that she just didn't want to.

"No," she said after a moment's pause. "I do not wish to go with him. That is no longer who I want to be. I don't need to fight to prove my worth anymore."

Arwen nodded. "Sometimes, I wish so hard that it would just all be over, that we could all be content. Sometimes I catch myself wishing none of it had ever happened in the first place." She sighed softly. "And then I remember that without all of this, I would never have come all this way."

"We lost so much," murmured Eowyn. "It makes it easy to forget what we won."

"I know," said Arwen. The two women found company in each other, and over the past year had become allies in court, and then friends. And as Eowyn watched her husband ride off again into Ithilien, she felt Arwen's hand slip into hers, and she squeezed back gently.

"It is a strange thing," she said softly. "That the certainty of a battle is less worrying than only the possibility of one." She knew that Faramir might not even end up fighting, that the clearing of southern Ithilien could end up being no more than that, a simple cleaning. But she didn't know. She didn't know.

"I will not say that he will return unharmed," said Arwen, still clasping Eowyn's hand. "Because others have offered me such words, and I know that they can become very little very easily. And I will not say do not worry, because you should. But remember, Eowyn, that we are also daughters of the great and strong. And just like them, we have our own minds and worth. " The smile softened on her face. "Even if it is hard to believe at some times."

Eowyn shook her head. "No, you are right," she said. They were iron. She had fought and faced death, had bled and been broken and still was standing. They were both still here, and though they knew it was at the expense of other's lives, and though they both felt the guilt that weighed from that, there was a measure of pride as well.

They had survived. Eowyn felt a measure of pride in what she had done, though it was mixed with a fair part of guilt. She had not bowed down. She had sunken her roots into the rocks and faced whatever the wind had blown at her. And though she had so much more to lose now, it made those things all the more precious.

She gently squeezed Arwen's hand, her gaze moving away from the fast-disappearing shadows on the Pelennor. They had lived in a world of steel, in a world of swords and battles, victories and defeats, shadowy hope that could creep up and strangle them at a moment's notice. That world of steel still lingered. But in it they were, they always had been, iron.

To Be Continued...

Next chapter will be up on Friday :)

In case I didn't say it loudly enough in previous chapters, I love Eowyn. And Arwen. :) The end line comes from a quote that I found on tumblr that I think is just so right for Eowyn, and Arwen as well. I cannot find the original source of this quote, and take no credit for it.

'You think women are weak? Women are forged of iron. My body, it has bled and blazed and broken, and yet it beats on. I am iron. A little rusted, perhaps, but still I endure.'