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Chapter Nine: The Elder Brother and the Eldar Son – Part One
THE ELDER BROTHER
Southern Gondor, August 7th
It was like riding into a wall. Thick swathes of smoke smothered them, swallowing the dull thunder of hooves and caking their sweating faces in tarry soot. The dense cloak of foul air blotted any landmarks with its ever spreading stain, snagging in throats and assaulting already strained eyes. But for all the efforts of the smoke, he would not allow them to slow; they might be riding blind, but there was nothing about this land even the brightest day could reveal to him: this was his land, and these were his people, and he was damned if he would not go to their aid.
He was damned if he would not go to his brother...
He tried not to allow himself to focus on the layers of stench coming from the burning town, not wanting to admit to himself that they were probably too late, that they rode towards a funeral pyre. He did not want to think of the townsfolk being beyond their aid.
"We can't go on in this!" The blanket of smog all but strangled the words as they broke free from Graylin his lieutenant, only just reaching the ears of the intended listener.
But he would have none of it, not while there was the thinnest chance. "No, we don't stop! Ride on!"
Boromir's company of one hundred and fifty-two men was ready to ride not ten minutes after Faramir's messenger had brought the news of the attack on Thallion, an orcish arrow embedded in his shoulder and his horse near to ruin with exhaustion. Faramir and his rangers had been staying in the town as a brief stopping point before returning to Minas Tirith after a two month tour of the lower region. They never anticipated a direct attack on such a small and unimportant town, and their fight to defend its people had been fierce and long. The herald – Ren – had only just escaped the boundaries to get help.
That was two days ago.
Despite his urgency, Boromir was forced to check his horse's speed as the land shifted away from them at a sharp gradient, dipping down into the hollow in which the small town resided. The layer of smoke took on a dark glow and the stink intensified. His mount's muscles bunched under him and the animal faltered, snorting and squealing at the power of the stench assailing them. He knew his horse had caught the reek of violent death as the beast halted completely, the other mounts behind him performing in a likewise manner, stamping hooves and spooked neighing churning the thick air.
The wind shifted, sluggishly contorting the hot, smothering blanket and raising it just high enough for their eyes to penetrate its thinner lower layer and down into the hollow. Across the shallow river, Thallion blistered with heat; few buildings had withstood the assault of fire, and those not already burning merely awaited the coming of the inevitable.
And the place was entirely overrun by orcs.
They were everywhere, scuttling through the destruction like fleas on a dying dog and feeding off the misery they created. He could hear fighting over in the far quarter, the screams of terrified civilians and the dying accenting the desperate bite of Gondorian swords against the much cruder implements of the enemy.
It had to be one of the most devastating sights he had ever had the misfortune to lay eyes on. This was a quiet town, a fringe settlement that prospered as a stopping place for the weary traveller from the more southerly reaches of their borders, just as his brother had planned to use it with his men. Now there was nothing here but fire and death, and it cut him to the core to witness the fall of such a gentle and unassuming part of the world. His head could not make full sense of what his eyes were telling him.
It was only when his stare locked with one of the parasites that the spell broke: the orc emerged from a burning house, someone's home, with clear satisfaction in his stride and a crude dripping knife held loosely at his side. He paused, sniffing the air like a scavenger seeking further promise of finding something else dead on the wind. By the way the orc lurched in alarm, he clearly picked up on something unexpected, gyrating to unerringly fix oily gleaming eyes on Boromir. The mottled face – a greasy mess of soot and filth and glistening sickly with fresh blood redder than any orc's – twisted into an ugly snarl, sharp yellowed teeth bared like a vicious dog. Revulsion climaxed into pure odium, constricting Boromir's chest and turning his thoughts to little more than violent vengeance, and the hateful shriek of their enemy was drowned out by the piercing yammer of Boromir's horn as he pressed it hard to his lips.
It was like releasing a taut bowstring: rearing and squealing horses threw themselves into the charge, their riders' anger and the animal's own nervous energy making them spill down the slope in a torrent of pure power, ringing steel shimmering over battle cries in a deadly announcement of their intentions. Boromir's horse was first to come to the river. She lunged as she hit the water, the river at such a depth she was forced to bound more like a deer more than gallop. A handful of orcs armed with bows drew their weapons in panic and attempted to quell the number of Boromir's men with black rain, but their actions were too little and far too late as Boromir's prepared mounted archers took them down in a merciless volley, as the entire company surged up the far bank and fractioned out into the streets to deal death to the filth that plagued them.
Boromir ensured his first kill was the beast he had witnessed emerging from the house. That nauseating satisfaction as he strode out with blood dripping from his knife, the staining about his face could amount to nothing more in Boromir's sense of justice, and his sword cleaving the vile monstrosity's face and severing his link with life as he galloped past fuelled his desire to reclaim the land. Black lifeblood marred his mare's chestnut coat as he charged on beyond that first kill and deeper into Thallion's streets. Those of the enemy he and his men encountered were utterly unorganised and devoid of direction, making their assault feel more like pest control than battle.
Things were going well for them, so far as he was able to see: the odds had swung decidedly out of the orcs' favour now that mounted warriors had joined the fray. It was damningly clear that they had enjoyed the run of the town for far too long through their sheer complacency; evidently, they had never thought that Faramir's messenger would make it through and had not bothered with defending the defeated sectors.
He forced his horse to follow the twisting streets deeper into town towards where he knew his brother's men held out for their lives. The heat became more intense, and before he knew what was happening, Boromir was surrounded by burning buildings. The dirty orange of the fires threw the world into a frightening vision of abstract shapes and hues, the smoke so thick and black here that the flames were the only source of light. Disorientated, he halted his mare in the centre of a crossroads, trying to see through the thick air and concentrate despite the searing heat that pushed relentlessly at his limits of endurance. His mare wouldn't stand, too frightened by the sounds and smells and intense heat, spinning nervously with her ears flicking at the different noises that surrounded them. There was no moving air here, nothing fresh. It felt like his lungs were being scorched in his chest, and it was all he could do to issue a few short blasts on his horn as a summons to himself through spurts of choking fits.
The sound of fighting was louder here, they were close, so close ... all he had to do now was seek them out in the inferno –
The failing sentry of joined buildings to his right caved in completely to the will of the fire in an ear-splitting cacophony of sheering joists and collapsing stone, showering them with dust and shards of blisteringly hot masonry. His horse screamed in terror, rearing under him with such violence she overbalanced herself. There was absolutely nothing Boromir could do about it as they both crashed to the hot paving. By no small mercy, he was unhurt, having pulled his feet from the stirrups just in time to get his legs out of the way. On not such a good front, he was now unhorsed, and got to witness his mare rise and bolt for all she was worth through the flaming streets, swallowed from his view by the dark light of the fire. As much as he cursed her for leaving him, he couldn't help a fleeting prayer that she would be alright...
More alright than he was about to be, anyway. Winded, he rolled onto his back, staring momentarily up into the tarry air, and something wholly unwelcome filled his vision, snarling gleefully down on him, black blade gleaming foully in the harsh light –
He didn't have his sword. He threw his body away from the first strike, feeling stone chips of paving bite at the back of his neck. The orc jeered excitedly, relishing the prolonged sport. Boromir rolled again, throwing his hands out and finding his weapon, only to have his steel salvation kicked from his desperate fingers. This was not the death Boromir had envisioned for himself, lying on the ground and being hacked to death by the scum of the earth.
The weapon raised above him once more for the kill, the angular head of crudely crafted steel ready to strike like a viper, its wielder grinning down on him as death personified ... until the arrow pierced his throat. The orc gargled, showering Boromir's face in hot blood before collapsing on top of him and washing his senses with foul stench. He pushed the corpse off, revulsion snagging in his throat and making him gag in the putrid air.
"You took your time," he gasped. "I called the summons ages ago."
"Well, there's a fine thanks," Graylin grumbled, offering his commander a gloved hand. Boromir took it gratefully, righting himself and retrieving his black-stained sword from the dust. It pleased him to see the number of men still mounted who had gathered at his call, and it pleased him all the more to see that one of his soldiers had managed to catch his horse. She made mounting again as difficult as possible, her hooves clattering as she skittered nervously. Boromir took a more forceful command of her, tightening the reins to hold her head and asserting his seat in an effort to master the frightened power beneath him.
Boromir raised his blade high, a display of leadership his men appreciated and releasing the pent up energy of his horse with an authoritative kick. "To Captain Faramir!" The others lifted their own swords in salute to their cause, echoing his cry as they spurred their horses after their captain through the twisting, flaming streets.
It was not long before they found them.
In an echo of Osgiliath, Thallion's market was split into two levels: the market square itself, where travelling salesmen and poorer traders sold their wares, and the upper level, where the wealthier merchants held permanent establishments for the more discerning buyer. Years ago, Boromir recalled he had visited this place with his brother and enjoyed the fervent energy of a lively and prosperous market. He didn't think he could ever reflect on it in the same light ever again.
Though the area was not taken by fire, the scene that greeted his eyes no less devastating. The cobbles were marred with as many bodies as they were smashed stalls. The attack clearly happened on a market day, there were that many dead. Men, women and children lay without distinction of age or wealth, made the same by violent death. Seething over them in dispassionate waves were teeming masses of the enemy, clamouring over themselves to deal the same fate to the defenders of the upper level.
Faramir's men had shored themselves up at the head of the two flights of stairs, a wall of shattered carts and tables and freed masonry forming a barely tenable blockade against the waves of attackers. Men struggled to hold back surges of attackers, their desperate movements showing all too clearly how tired they were, sword swings more in defence than attack. In the face of the onslaught they were suffering, the defenders were few in comparison, some twenty or so in comparison to easily a hundred or more of the enemy, an unfair lack of balance that would only result in eventual defeat and annihilation.
Except, they were alone no longer, and Boromir made it clear to them as the horn sang out once more in a burst of might that reverberated off the enclosing walls, his company surging though the stone archway into battle. He savoured the dismayed expressions of the orcs as they realised how devastatingly events were about to shift from their favour, whirling to this new threat and forgetting their original prey. Over the clamour of enraged orcish screeches, a voice Boromir had so desperately wished to hear again rallied what remained of his men for one final push. Praise the gods.
Suddenly penned from both sides and outnumbered, the orcs didn't stand a chance, not in the face of the unrestrained fury of Boromir's company. That did not mean they gave in. The fight was furious, creatures with nothing to lose throwing themselves with ardent hatred at those who dared oppose them. Several fell to their ugly weapons, joining the poor townsfolk in their fate. But they did not hold out for long, and the cries of victory bounced from the walls as the last few orcs were finished.
Slipping from his saddle, the first son of Gondor set out to locate his brother. It didn't take him long: he found Faramir passing between his men, checking on the condition of each and every one of them. Boromir couldn't recall seeing his brother in such a state before ... the leather of his jerkin was badly slashed and stained, the right hand branches of the emblem of their realm severed from the rest of the tree and marred with dark red. Now that the threat was gone, Faramir allowed himself to cradle his sword arm to his chest, sporting a particularly deep wound near the shoulder. When his eyes alighted on his older brother, Faramir's drawn face split into an open grin of relief.
"So you did get my message."
"Only just."
Faramir's grin dropped. "Is he alright?"
Boromir smiled reassuringly. "Don't worry, he'll be fine. He took an arrow, but it's not life threatening."
Faramir nodded wearily, relief clear on his dirty face. They walked together, assisting the men in carefully lifting the bodies of the fallen and gently placing them at the edge of the square. Boromir appointed a number of his men to clearing the orc corpses onto what few carts there were still whole, utilising a couple of war horses for the task of hauling. They would burn them beyond the town walls. As the two brothers worked, Boromir noted with a swell of pride the number of men saluting his sibling; a tilt of the head here, a quiet murmur of deferential greeting there. Evidently, his younger brother had proven himself during their days of struggle. "You've won their respect," he remarked out loud, feeling that Faramir needed to hear it. Faramir made no response. A glance showed Boromir a dangerously introspective expression. He chose a different angle to entice a happier response: "I'd love to know what you're bribing them with."
His distracted brother gave a snort of mirth at the jibe and he jabbed an elbow into his elder brother's side. But the grin did not remain.
"It wasn't your fault."
Faramir snorted again, the action laced with self derision. "Wasn't it? It was I who was entrusted with the safety of this region, was it not?"
"Faramir," Boromir insisted levelly, "you did everything you could. No-one could have foreseen this, and no-one can blame you for it. You certainly shouldn't blame yourself."
"I do not feel that Father will share your generous opinion."
Ah, yes. Their father. Boromir tried not to consider what their parent's reaction would be to the news of what happened here. He loathed that Denethor resented his younger son, dismissing his efforts as next to worthless, and he hated all the more the fact that he was always the one whose own successes were constantly used to gouge at Faramir's pride. Boromir was the favourite since the moment of his birth, and there was nothing of note Faramir could do to gain their father's approval, no matter how hard he strove. Indeed, Boromir did not like the measures his brother was currently taking to try and win Denethor's recognition. The missions were becoming more risky, the stints in the Wilds and patrols of the tenuously defended Ithilien becoming more prolonged and dangerous. He didn't want to lose his gentle brother to such meaninglessness. A word from Denethor was all it would take to make it end, and yet he would not give it...
They worked in silence for a stretch, their efforts aided by the some of the few surviving townsfolk Faramir and his men had managed to defend on the upper level. There was little talk amongst them, and may faces wet with grief, warriors and citizens alike. But for Boromir, the worst moment was when his brother suddenly shot from his side to a large collapsed stall. He dropped to his knees, digging with feverish abandon through the jagged wood. "Help me!" It was only then that Boromir realised the source of his brother's desperate behaviour as his eyes lighted upon the very small upturned hand just visible under the wreckage. Boromir joined Faramir's side in a heartbeat, bracing his shoulder against the broken frame and lifting its immense weight just enough for Faramir to drag the trapped little girl from its pinning grasp. When both man and child were clear, he dropped the load down, gasping from the effort and feeling the strain contorting his muscles.
The triumphant grin he wore melted when he turned his face to his brother.
Faramir sat amidst the destruction, rocking back and forth and sobbing openly into a mass of curly dark hair. She had to have been of only three or four at most, the little body he cradled with the tenderness of a bereaved father. To Boromir, it made his heart feel as though it had been severed from the rest of his body. She's just a baby. There was nothing crueller. Boromir gripped his brother's shoulder in a vain effort to comfort him, fighting his own pain at such an awful thing. "This isn't forever," he toned softly. "We will win this. I swear to you, Faramir, we will win this. For her."
Faramir lifted reddened eyes to his brother's face, pain etched so deeply into them Boromir feared its mark would never be erased. "Will we?" he challenged, open despair brimming in his voice made husky with grief. "Such dreams are madness, Brother, and we have no right to them."
Boromir tightened his hold. "If a means presents itself to me to save our people, I will take it with both hands, Faramir. I swear it to you."
I swear it.
-(())-
"You really should take something, Mister Frodo. Even just a bite would do you good."
Frodo cast Sam's offering a sideways glance. Lembas again. He wasn't hungry for lembas. "I'm alright, Sam. I just want some sleep."
Sam sat back against the log they shared, his worry clear on his face. But Frodo could not bring himself to placate his friend by taking the mouthful of food, his very real fears pushing such needs to the back of his mind.
"I'll take some lembas, if it's going."
Both hobbits cast Boromir neutral looks across the meagre fire the man had managed to kindle from what little dry wood he had found. Despite their open resentment of him, he tried for an easy and disarming smile. Sam silently handed a fraction of waybread over, not responding to the smile in the positive way the Gondorian had hoped for. Boromir looked down at his food, no longer wanting to acknowledge the stairs he was being given. The piece of lembas twisted through his fingers, tiny crumbs coating his gloved fingers. "I'm not a bad man," he said, trying to break the barrier down. "I know you resent what I've done, and I know you think me selfish, but I have my reasons. Believe me when I say they go far beyond me. If you had only seen the things I have seen..." He stopped himself, shaking his head at the assault of memories.
Neither of them said anything to his offered explanation, and Boromir knew then that there were no words he could say that would invoke any true understanding in them, and he fell into silence, more completely alone than he had ever felt in all his life.
-(())-
At some point in the night, the storm had decided it had had enough of its rampage and finally blown itself into silence. It rained still, but not with any real conviction; were they not already drenched through, it would have proven only a paltry annoyance. Light leaked into the night sky with such reluctance it was as though it feared to look upon the devastation of the land below, almost guilty that it had dropped its guard and allowed such damage to pass. Its grey tendrils brought a cold glow to the deep bellies of the clouds, and it was another hour before their greed was sated enough that they allowed light to touch the weary band struggling after their leader.
The thought of rest was not one Aragorn had entertained. He pursued the agitated run of the river with a dogged determination that weariness could not touch. If he were to stop, the same pain that relentlessly drove him now would consume him, and the promise of the dismal light only served to double his pace now that he could better see where he took them. Aragorn sent his charges into the relative shelter of the trees in an effort to obscure them should unfriendly eyes spot them across the bank; though he was sure the Nazgûl would no longer harry them knowing Frodo and the Ring were across the water, an orc attack was the last thing they needed. Halflings would be what they hunted, and their losses were too great already. Aragorn himself, however, stayed in the open, his silver eyes never leaving the water's edge. I will find you if I have to trace these banks for the rest of my life. I swear it.
But while his will bent so strongly to his silent vow, his sense knew that what he did was most likely a futile effort, that finding Legolas' body at the banks of a river so swollen was a fool's hope. But he couldn't let go, not yet. Not until he had proof that his resilient and dependable friend was truly gone.
But as keen as his loyalty to Legolas was, Aragorn knew that if he encountered an opportunity to cross the water, he was obliged to take it, because his sense of duty would not allow him to betray his oath to Frodo. Boromir's deceit, while foul in its own way, did not mean that he meant harm to the hobbits he had with him ... indeed, the warrior had always exhibited a great fondness for the halflings. But Boromir's drive to save his own people, as Legolas had pointed out so astutely, was greater than any bond with the Fellowship and their cause, and Aragorn did not doubt that he would be taking Frodo and the Ring to Minas Tirith. It was up to him, as leader of their ever-depleting company, to find the right path and regain control. If the Ring entered the boundaries of the citadel and fell into the hands of the Steward, it could spell ruin for all -
"Aragorn!"
The ranger started at the distant hail, his feet coming to a stop for the first time in hours. He turned to see his stout companion jogging to reach him. The hang of the dwarf's head as he ran, the throwing motion of his legs, and the heavy pounding of his feet on the earth brought Gimli's weariness sharply to Aragorn's attention. The still bleak light made him look all the worse, and Aragorn was suddenly sorry he had not considered rest before. By the time the dwarf came to his side, he was panting quite heavily. "'Strider'," he puffed, "is an apt name for you."
Aragorn gave his stout friend an apologetic smile. "Sorry, my friend. It is the curse of long legs and a distracted head."
Gimli straightened himself, hands on hips and his face impassive behind his beard, trying – and failing – to hide his own fatigue. "Well of course, we Dwarves are creatures of endurance and can keep up with the lankiest of rangers," he said with a sturdy tone of indomitable conviction, "but they can't."
Within the forest's edge, Aragorn could just make out the pair. Having seen that their leader had come to a halt, both hobbits had taken the opportunity for a rest, sitting in the leaf litter with their backs pressed against the hulk of a decaying log. It shamed Aragorn to see the exhaustion that so clearly marked their usually chipper faces. He couldn't help one final glance at the river before he abandoned his pursuit temporarily, retracing his steps to join them and being mindful to check his stride. "You're right," the ranger conceded, offering Gimli a tight smile. "I'm sorry, my friend. I didn't think."
Gimli made a gruff sound in the back of his throat. "T'is fine, lad; you've much on your mind."
"That is not an excuse."
The hobbits were so worn they did not notice him approach, both starting to their feet when they realised he was stood before them. That is dangerous in itself...
He lead them to a point a little way back where he had noticed a rocky outcrop just within the tree line. Through some measure of incredibly good fortune, its hollowed formation had remained surprisingly dry in the storm, the beech leaves within its embrace still crisp. Merry and Pippin sank gratefully into its shallow shelter, wrapping their cloaks about themselves and nestling together.
"I will take watch, Aragorn: you need the rest."
Aragorn shook his head. "Thank you, my friend, but it is you who needs the rest more, I feel."
Gimli's eyes softened with pained understanding, that pity Aragorn found so unbearable all too clear, and the ranger turned away from it, leaving the dwarf to his own devices and taking himself to the crest of a role in the land, that he might have a clearer view of the surrounding area. It was not long before the quiet of the woodland became punctuated with the snores of the dwarf, and Aragorn knew himself to be completely alone. Aside from the guttural snores, the forest was entirely too quiet, the air hanging with a weighted silence. The river, ever in the background, relentlessly reminded him of what he had lost with a roaring laugh.
He rubbed his wind-burned face with calloused hands, as though such an action could scrub the awful truth of what had happened away. The Ring was gone, that damned band of golden evil had played a magnificent hand in ensuring their downfall through one of their own. He should have known, and he had failed, completely and utterly, on every level conceivable. The Fellowship was not so much broken as ripped to its very quick. If they did not locate the others, what were they, the remaining four? Little more than a band of different peoples merged together through unhappy circumstances, their one main purpose stripped from them in one night of violence...
Death was not a natural occurrence to the elves, but they could fall like any man to a fell blade, and he had learned long ago the traditions of the elves when they honoured their fallen. The very idea of having to make a respectful tribute to Legolas hurt deeply, but there was nothing to be done for it...
Aragorn felt more than saw the light at first, that feathery touch of a sensation just outside of his powers of description. He did not realise that he had closed his eyes until that point, prising them open to gaze down on his hand in mild disbelief. Liquid gold caught on his ring and coloured his skin a rich amber. Through a crack in the black of the clouds, the sun blistered into a brilliant furnace of light and banished the wolves of night away. Droplets of water, streaking from the canopy in great flashes, captured the vitality of the new sun and made themselves in one moment more beautiful than any precious stone ever mined by Gimli's folk, and there was nothing in the world that greater encapsulated simple beauty in that moment; a true marvel to behold, the greatest miracle of all that something so wonderful could possibly follow a night of such overwhelming evil.
Aragorn started as the ghost of a memory long forgotten brushed against his awareness: a mission with his brothers and a small detachment from Mirkwood under Legolas' command, monitoring orc movements many years ago in the Misty Mountains. It had been an unforgiving night of heavy snow and winds so cold they were near paralysing. And yet he had found Legolas the morning after at the edge of camp, sitting with his legs crossed on a boulder dripping with icicles and all the wonder of a child lighting his eyes as he watched the sunrise, despite the fact that he must have seen many thousands before it. "This happens every day, Aragorn. Every day. No matter what happens, the sun still rises. Isn't that wonderful?"
"Ask me that question when I have not slept in the open on a mountaintop, and I might offer you a more favourable answer," was his half-amused and half-irritable reply.
Right now, Aragorn finally understood what Legolas had really seen that morning, and every morning thereafter. There was no other time of day or any other condition of weather that would suit his lament more, and he cradled the memory as something delicate and perishable. That was the image of Legolas he wished to keep at the forefront during his lament, not the pain of his end.
"Ú-reniathachi amar galen i reniad lín..."
Only the first few words ever made it from him. He couldn't do it, he couldn't suppress the caustic vision of the night before, and he found himself swallowed in grief so intense he collapsed to the sodden earth and cried openly for what was lost.
-(())-
Two leagues and across the river from where Aragorn had finally chosen to rest, the new day bleached another band emerging from the night. Unlike the broken Fellowship, they had not fled for their lives through the ire of the storm, but had sat it out in the shelter of a cave. The pale touch of the light gave their hooded faces the cold illumination of old bone. Like most predatory creatures, they preferred the shelter of the shadow-light.
There were three in total. The unwanted twists in the bottom of the basket, offcuts that did not fit with the rest of society's weave. All of them had pasts darker than any civilised society would ever accept; thieves and cutthroats who had had the presence of mind to leave their townships before they were caught and hanged for their crimes. They had no loyalties to any king or lord, and what little family they had passed them off as dead to their fellows years before. Though they travelled as a troupe, each man was entirely for himself, and no element of fellowship or brotherhood existed between them; just the animalistic instinct to be with others of their own type.
Dal had come to lead them through circumstances manufactured by his own hand. His ambitious and overbearing personality placed the then-leader ill at ease, and he had watched Dal with a hawk-like eye. But even the most wary of hawks sleep, and that was his undoing. Being at the top of their sorry troupe gave Dal the sense of power that he had always aspired to, and as such he ensured that he had the very finest of their gains: his clothes were better, his boots had no holes, and his belly was fullest. He did not fear a knife in the dark as he had given old Galph, because the men he surrounded himself with were too weak to consider overthrowing him. Dal was a king amongst rats, and it suited him.
Storms of the magnitude the world had quailed under the night before were well known to Dal and his company as massive opportunities; having roamed the land for longer than any of them cared to remember, they knew well the routes the unwitting traveller was most likely to take, and they were equally aware of just how many fell foul of such dangerous weather changes. As there were only three of them, they were a smaller band than most that patrolled the wilds in search of such pickings ... but they were every bit as dangerous to the unprepared and naive.
True to his nature, Dal had ensured that they were out of their shelter good and early, before the light could help orientate any lost in the forest or along the river. Past experience told him that the bewildered would make for the river in an attempt to find themselves. Still, his pale green eyes gave the swollen waters a wary look as he picked his way along the rugged stone bank. The river was a fury of white peaks and murky brown silt in the strengthening sunrise, a perilous and violent torrent compared to its normally passive and fordable tranquillity, and if his footing betrayed him, it would prove his end. Here, the terrain was all rock at the river edge, a course and cutting stone platform sharply defining the run of the water. Planes of stone offered a perilous grip to the unsuspecting boot, slick with a film of water that was more than willing to betray the unwary. The river came down into the lowlands over a series of step-like waterfalls before it met finally with the Anduin little more than a league away. The passage of the water was punctuated by stalwart juts of stone interrupting its flow, rising like defiant fists above the torrent.
His belly ached for sustenance, and there was nothing like a good storm to make the river their provider; finding drowned deer was not unheard of, and if such bounty would wash up anywhere, it would be here...
So when he saw the weak sunlight catching in the mass of dirty blond hair of the dead figure stranded by the water, a slow grin angled his lips and brought the cruel light in his eyes to a dark glimmer.
Heavy storms offered the opportunist excellent scrounging at the riverside, but to find a body was an unexpected bounty indeed, and Dal completely forgot the growling of his gut as he picked his way through the boulders ahead of his men, his head in an excited cloud over what he would potentially find.
Dal gave the corpse an appraising look. From what he could see, the body appeared to be that of a formerly healthy and lithe young man of roughly his own age. The river had clearly become bored of its plaything and flung the corpse pitilessly against a large and unyielding step of rock, the body presenting his back to Dal and his feet still in the water. The battered face was only just discernable under its fair caking of dirt and blood, facing the uncaring plane of the boulder as though he attempted to hide from his damning fate. His clothing was sodden and filthy, but the cloak that was twisted about his shoulders and trapped beneath him was oddly dry and clean. Dal wrinkled his nose in distaste at the heavy metallic odour lacing the air, noting with distaste the discoloured water pooled in the natural bowl the body was over. Whomever he had been, he had gotten on the wrong end of someone's sword, and it had apparently proven his end. But Dal cared little for what had brought what had clearly been a healthy character to so cruel a death.
He cared even less when a glint of pale gold caught the rising sun...
A rather fine – though empty - leather quiver adorned his prize's back, intricately decorated but somewhat scarred by its owner's harsh journey through such a rocky river. Yet it was not the quiver that caught his eye: two filigreed hilts of highest-quality bone entangled in matted blond hair presented themselves to him like an offering from the gods. The clear high value of them staggered him for a moment, and he almost salivated with desire to own them. If the hilts were so beautiful, the blades themselves could at worst only be equal to their majesty; his mind reeled at the thought of how stunning the entire weapon must surely be...
Slightly shaking hands stretched out, their fingers spidering about the hilts, adjusting to the cold bone and drawing the blades. They were longer than he expected, and more stunning than he could ever have imagined. Identical to the very tip, the knives were a spectacular example of the finest craftsmanship, intricate tendrils of patterning running most of the way down the planes to taper off with an elegant flourish and compliment the subtle curving of the blade ends. He had never seen anything so wonderfully crafted in all his life.
And they were his.
"Drop them, Dal!"
Dal jumped at the panicked shout, spinning round and snatching his hands back so fast he nearly sliced himself, immediately becoming angered by his display of weakness. He had not heard the other two approach, but it satisfied him to see Thindor blanch at the furious snarl he shot at him. "And why would I do that?" he sneered. "Fancy them yourself, do you?"
"That's an elf; can't you see his ear?"
Dal looked again at the body, and, sure enough, the one ear he could see was peaked. An elf. Of course. He should have guessed by the finery of the weapons and quiver: only the elves made such things. "And?"
"They're cursed."
Dal blinked with slow disdain at his subordinate. But something tilted in his memory towards Thindor's manner of thinking, a shadow from a life long ago that he did not often admit to having lived. The wench he had once called his mother had told him of the elves and their dangerous magic. She had warned him that elves carried curses like lepers carried disease. "You're a stupid cur, Thindor." But for his conviction, he did not touch the body again. He cared not what other riches the corpse might conceal: he had his prize, and, despite the threat of curses, he did not lay the knives down. Offering the dead elf a sneering bow of thanks, he turned back up river, resuming the hunt with a distinct lightness to his step.
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