So, here I am, back again, to rock you like a hurricane! =)
As promised, this is the LAST of the devastating chapters!
Have fun! Enjoy and spread a little love by leaving a comment!
43. Blood Upon the Snow
The cold was getting to them.
By now the winds had become a wall of ice and sleet, washing against their skin in painful, little stings, soaking through their thick winter clothes. It was a wholly miserable affair. They were barely getting ahead through the wind and snow, and it became harder and harder to motivate the horses to go on further, deeper into the depths of the blizzard. The cold was getting to them too.
When they had set off from Edoras, they had sworn they wouldn't return without the queen in tow. Now it seemed as though it were a miracle if they returned at all.
At first, the search had appeared to be an easy quest, as the snow had still fallen softly then and the winds, albeit cold and biting, had not been so strong then as to cover the queen's tracks, and they had followed the path queen and horse had taken easily enough. But as the hours had worn on and on, and late morning had turned to noon, the winds had inevitably picked up and with it, the snowfall had become harder and harder, and soon enough the tracks of the one they sought were quickly lost.
And yet the pushed on; an irresistible pull forward dragging them along. It was determination, certainly; the need to see this thing through to the end a grim force innate to them, imprinted into their very nature like the seasons that rocked these lands; unchangeable and steady, stubborn even. But it was also more than that. A more poetic soul might have called it honour for one man and loyalty for the other. But they both knew it was more than either of those things.
It was regret, and shame.
Shame it was for the rider at his side. Shame for the part Déor had played in all of this. The selfish act of taking comfort from another, even though it had caused much pain and discomfort. Shame for the lives he had turned upside-down, shame for the future his actions might have inadvertently ruined. That shame was a heavy burden on his soul, and it propelled him ever forward towards a chance at redemption. But, ultimately, that shame was a simple thing, easily alleviated by a simple act. To find his queen. And then to leave.
For the king, it would not be such a simple thing, because regret was no simple emotion. His regrets were a twisted web of mistakes in deed and errors in judgement and chances forfeited, and over time he had become so entangled in that web of what-ifs that he no longer knew how to get out of it. In truth, it was a web very much of his own making (though he had not been alone in spinning those fine threads) but that truth held little comfort or wisdom now.
What if he had not reacted the way he did?
What if she had never run?
Would he have listened to her pleas for understanding in his state of blind and furious jealousy?
(For he understood most keenly now that it had indeed been jealousy that had driven him to react the way he did, but it had also been more than that. It had been just one more betrayal that his already broken heart simply could not take.)
What if he had never married her, and left her where she was, in her palace by the sea, locked away in her tower, locked away in her bitterness?
Would they be happy now, each left to their own devices, each unknowing of the other's struggles and demons and gentle kindnesses?
What if she had told it all the moment they had first met, back then in the South, when her father's offer of her hand in marriage had seemed little more than a good friend's kindness and not the calculated move of a cunning politician?
Would she have been honest with him then?
Would he have listened to her truths?
Would he have believed in the kind of person she was, the kind of person she could be, the kind of person she had made herself be?
Or would he have been blinded still by her beauty and her sadness and her strength and her grace?
If he had known what she would do to him, to the very essence of his being, how she would twist his soul and encircle his heart in her vice-like grip, leading him to question his code of honour as well as his set of morals, and have him find happiness and joy, even as she mingled it with sorrow and grief, and a loathing born out of longing – if he had known all of this, would he have loved her still?
The king had stopped his train of thought there, not ready to follow it through, not ready to find the answer to that one question deep within him, and yet, even as he sought to turn his mind to the matter at hand and to focus back on the pursuit, the echo of that answer had shimmered through. Just one word, really, and such a simple, little word it was, and yet it had shaken him to the very core of his being, and it haunted him still.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
By the time noon had come and gone, they were in the heart of the storm. The snow was now so thick that with every step their horses made, the riders could feel the animals sink into the blanket of white beneath them. It was hard enough to get ahead through this wall of snow, but the real danger lay beneath the white cover, and they knew it. All it took was a rabbit hole here or a fox hole there, and both horse and rider could fall to their inevitable doom, broken legs and broken necks and all. Normally, it would have been an easy thing to spot those dangers, even if they were hidden by snow, but they were in such a haste and desperate state of mind that they paid little attention to the ground – eyes up ahead rather than searching on the ground, and even when their gazes looked to the ground, they looked only for traces of the one they were tracking. But even that became harder and harder to do.
Already the light of the day started to fall. Darkness always came swiftly and suddenly this time of the year, and a few hours more and they would have no light at all. So, that, together with the snowstorm blowing all around them, did not exactly make this search-and-rescue mission any damn easier. Time and nature itself seemed to fight against them, or perhaps the gods themselves were playing a cruel joke on them?
'Éomer!', Déor shouted somewhere behind him, trying to get him to slow down, to take pause, and even though it was hard enough to hear anything over the howling winds and the rider was very much lagging behind, the king heard him nonetheless. And yet, the king did not react. Éomer knew what the knight wanted to say, he could read it in the exhausted tone that made the other man's voice waver, or the hopeless undercurrent in it that made it crack with barely veiled sorrow – but he was not ready to hear it just yet.
He wasn't ready to give up just yet.
Clicking his tongue, the king urged his stallion on, and even though the beast was keen enough to offer up its own complaints and critique in the form of annoyed whickering, it still followed its rider's command without question. Just like the knight somewhere further back was following him still, despite all the doubts and worries he might have carried more or less silently – as of yet still too hesitant to actually voice them, out of fear, perhaps, that they might come true. Or, perhaps, it was not fearful superstition at all that made the rider swallow the words he had not been able to say, and nor were the howling white winds around them to blame either.
Perhaps … perhaps it was pity.
Pity for the king who had lost his queen.
Pity for the man who had lost his woman.
I can't lose you.
You won't lose me.
Éomer hissed under his breath as his eyes snapped shut in a motion made of pain. In his head the words from not so very long ago echoed, and he could feel now the same fear that had gripped him then – and once again his own inaction had fuelled it. Back then his hands had been tied by love, to not follow the warrior's path and rid himself of a threat he perceived with the only means he could have conceived, a sword and a quick, violent death … because it had been she who had asked it of him. Now, however, his hands had been tied by anger, and now he had followed the warrior's path and allowed his feelings of wrath to overtake his thinking … and he began to fear that the consequences of it could become unbearable.
I should have gone after her sooner.
Now a growl broke free from his lips, a sound of shameful regret clawing itself free from his breast, only to leave bloody carnage in its wake. His mind folded in on itself, trying to escape the truth his heart cried out above the howling of the white winds around him, and yet no matter how hard he tried to shut off his mind from it, he could not un-think it. He had wasted precious time; wasted it on petty acts of jealousy, wasted it on a feast of resentment, wasted it on the mask of the hard, unforgiving warrior – as though his heart had not been touched at all, as though his heart had not longed to reach out to her as much as it had loathed it, as though his heart had not been consumed by worry the moment she had fled from the stables.
I can't lose you.
You won't lose me.
He had been a fool to think the old fire of his wrath, stoked to bright flames by feelings of jealousy and betrayal, would be enough to fill the hole in his chest ripped open by his worry for her.
He had been a fool in so many ways.
I should have gone after her sooner.
I should have gone after her sooner.
I should have gone –
A sudden sound tore him out of his spiralling thoughts then, and with a jolt his eyes snapped open, searching to and fro for the source of that sound. But even as confusion and surprise spiked within him, another part of him understood instinctively what that sound was and what it meant. He had been a rider all his life and so he knew that sound well. He recognised it even through the howling of the white winds around him. He recognised it even through the wild drumming beat of his own heart. He would have recognised it anywhere.
And then, as he stared ahead, and simply waited, his horse having come to a dead stop along with his own thoughts, his premonition came true. Out of the wall of white she came, crashing upon their hopeless solitude like an omen of worse things still to come, and indeed the manner of its appearance seemed to be a bearer of bad tidings. The white spectre of a horse it was, translucent almost in its pale complexion, and they would have hardly noticed it through the snows blowing all around them, had it not been for the mane black as night shining through it in a blaze, and for the wild whickering that preceded the mare.
Éomer froze, his mind coming to a standstill.
He knew that horse, he would have recognised it anywhere.
I thought you would like her – with hair quite like you, he'd spoken when he'd offered her this gift.
We are sisters alike then, she had answered, when she had accepted the mare as hers.
However, despite the shock of its sudden appearance, it took the king only a moment to snap out of his stunned momentum and to bid his own horse to step aside – and that was a good thing too, or else both steed and rider would surely have been run down. The half-crazed mare was coming towards them, and blind in its own hysteria the animal appeared incapable of registering either man or horse.
Or perhaps it did, and that's what made it even more hysterical.
Whickering wildly, the mare seemed not to recognise the king her mistress had been queen to, and so instead of stopping and acknowledging the Horse-master before it, the beast only ran faster, rushing past both man and steed in a blur of white and black, and in the process very nearly knocked them over. But the king did not need nearly as long to recover this time, and with a voice that seemed to roar across the white plains, Éomer shouted towards his Marshall.
'STOP HER!'
Déor, for his part, heard his king's command and the sound of the beast long before he actually laid eyes on it, but if it had been the other way around, maybe, he would not have dared to put himself and his own steed so directly in the path of the crazed animal coming his way. The way things stood at that precise moment, however, the knight had neither the good sense nor the necessary information to move out of its way, and so it would seem that the same thing would happen that always happened when an immovable object was met with an unstoppable force of nature.
And yet, certain crashing catastrophe was averted – by nothing short of sheer, dumb luck.
Because no sooner had the mare crossed the distance between the rider and his horse than she already came to a sudden halt, rearing up in fright, with both of its forelegs kicking every which way to keep them at bay, and Déor had no choice but to bid his own horse move back, out of reach of its thrashing hooves. But he did not let the frightened animal pass, not even as his whole sense of self as a rider screamed at him to do so. His king had commanded him, and even more than that – his friend in need.
By the time the crazed animal had stopped its wild rearing, with both forelegs firmly on the snow-covered ground, the king had arrived at the scene – effectively boxing in the mare between two men and two horses. That realisation surely dawned on the mare quickly enough, and one could just see the panic return with a vengeance then. Chomping at the bit, throwing its head back and forth, and from side to side; eyes searching to and fro for a way out – but both the path forward and the path of retreat were blocked, leaving the poor animal trapped, and reacting appropriately so.
Whickering wildly, the mare paced forward and backward helplessly, and it was only a matter of time until the cornered beast would rear up again out of sheer desperation and panic, endangering herself and the other horses and men around it. The king could not have that. So, while Déor unsuccessfully tried to grab the horse's reins – a rather ungrateful task given the manic shaking of the horse's head – Éomer simply jumped down from his own steed.
He had no doubt whatsoever that his trusty steed Firefoot would remain where he was, a pillar of loyalty even in the face of defiance or despair or danger. So, while Déor continued to helplessly try and snatch the reins of the jittery mare, together with his stallion blocking the way forward, and king's own horse, Firefoot, cutting off any chance of a retreat backwards, it left the king to try himself at calming the panicked horse, to prove that above all else he was a Horse-lord, and in more than just the name.
Stepping closer with the softest and slowest of steps, Éomer took his own sweet time as he approached the trapped animal, making sure not to make any sudden movements or loud noises that could have had the horse rear up in fright once more. All the while he was murmuring low phrases to have the mare calm down, to let her know that he meant no harm, and to let her know that he came as a friend. And it must have been that thought at the end that gave him the idea to try his hand at a trick he would never have thought to use a year ago.
Indeed, love had changed him, in more ways than one.
'Cwén, mellon-nîn.', the king spoke then, his tongue feeling too heavy and woollen, so unused to the delicate language of the Elves, but even though his pronunciation must have been atrocious to say the least, and his words were barely more than a whisper upon the white winds howling around them, the animal before him had heard it nonetheless and that seemed to do the trick, having it react immediately. First, its ears perked up and after another neighing sound, the mare came to a sudden standstill – as though curious, because while it had recognised the words, it seemed apprehensive still to the voice. Like a being almost that tried to withstand a spell lulling it to sleep, slowly succumbing to its comfort while cautious and surprised still at the person who had cast it.
But that moment of calm hesitation was all Éomer really needed, and with another determined move of his hands, his fingers grasped the reins, and even though the mare resisted the pull at first with another shocked whinnying sound, it gave into it quickly enough with a sense of resignation, bowing its head, at last ready to receive the gentle strokes of the Horse-master's hand. And for a moment, that was all that existed: a rapport slowly building up between a horse and a rider, both trusting each other not to hurt the other one – but the king knew it would take more than that.
I do not see why I should carry the title of Queen, and this fair beast should not, when it so obviously is the mistress and Queen of all mares.
Closing his eyes for just a moment, the king took a deep breath, trying to steady himself in the onslaught of the memories that flooded his thinking – he did not want to spook the mare again, so he had to try and remain calm, even if it was hard to do so. Truly, it was no surprise that the mare had been so taken with the language and with the lady who had first spoken it her – the faint, distant Elvish ancestry of the queen, after all, had stood out among the people of the Mark from the day she had arrived – that the animal would hardly suffer any other hand to touch it, but the king had learned more than a few things from his wife, even as it hurt now to remember it and the happy times that had come along with the memory of it.
'Béma save us!', Déor exclaimed then with an air of unbridled shock, and Éomer, though momentarily thrown, needed only a moment to understand the rider's words of outrage. Because when the two men had finally managed to have the mare before them stand still and to not rear up in panic again, once they finally got a good look at it, they saw then that she was perfectly ruined – two bolts protruding from the animal's neck and shoulder in a grotesque manner, the blood from the wounds and dripping from the mouth almost crystalline, and even entirely frozen in some places thanks to the bitter cold.
'Look at all that blood!', Déor added with no small amount of disbelief as he dismounted from his own steed, to take a closer look at the mare perhaps, because he could simply not believe his own eyes. And the king could understand that very well. Blood from the wounds had spilled everywhere and stained the white hide into an ugly colour of dark red, and even the pristine cover of snow on the ground had hardly remained untainted by the blood dripping from the animal still. In her aimless wandering around the white landscape, the hysterical mare bleeding out must have slowly but surely left her bloody footprints on the ground, red stains on white as far as the eye could see – and possibly even further than that.
Éomer froze, his mind coming to a standstill – eyes fixed upon the bloody tracks on the ground.
I can't lose you.
You won't lose me.
'Béma, look at the poor thing! There can be hardly any blood left in her!', Déor meanwhile went on to say, completely oblivious to the realisation that had shocked his lord and king to the very core. But while the rider was still transfixed by the fact that the mare had dragged herself all this way with a will to survive that almost bordered on the unnatural, the king, meanwhile, after having passed the reins over to his friend's hand, took a step away from the horses and simply stared ahead into the white nothingness before him.
There, blood upon the snow, and every drop of red on white was a flare lighting the way.
Beckoning him.
Begging to be followed.
I can't lose you.
You won't lose me.
'The blood! The blood!', Éomer cried out then; a sudden manic excitement taking hold of him, a sudden restlessness spurring him into action. But while hope had sunk its bittersweet claws in the king, the rider seemed more confused than ever before, having him look at his best friend and lord with big, sceptic eyes. But the king was undeterred by the rider's hesitation, even if his words sounded more impatient than explanatory here as he moved to get back on his own horse, 'The blood, Déor! The trail of blood on the ice! We can use it to track her down! Come on, we have to hurry!'
And just like that, a change went through the rider, even if only for a moment; his eyes lighted up, his mouth dropping open, realisation dawning on him, as though the scales had literally fallen from his eyes and now he, too, could see the blood on the ground as the beacon of hope it was. But then the moment was over and just like that the sombre nature of reality crept back to lie like a shadow upon that light of hope, darkening it to a more sobering thing.
'But what about the mare?', Déor contemplated out loud then as he regarded the poor animal with eyes full of pity while his eyebrows furrowed in deep thoughts, and one could just surmise those thoughts easily enough. The knight had been born a rider after all, and his love for horses was as much part of his culture as it was part of his beliefs – and none of it would even allow him the thought of leaving a horse to its inevitable doom, 'We can't just leave her here! In her weakened state – '
'Bind her to your saddle then. We'll take her with us!', Éomer countered curtly then, his own impatience making his voice sound harsher than he had intended to, and the king could see, as he risked a glance back at his Marshall, to see if he were springing into action to follow his command, that the rider seemed taken aback by the callousness resonating in his words. As though the king truly cared for nothing and nobody else other than finding his queen. And, Béma help him, perhaps that was even true. But who could really fault him for his impatience, for his callousness even? And how far would he truly go? How much would he truly be willing to sacrifice to find the woman he –
I can't lose you.
You won't lose me.
'Éomer, she is already half-dead!', Déor protested then, his words no more than a shout across the white howling winds, but they were enough to pull the king out of his ever spiralling thoughts – the king who was unyielding now in his determination to push on, no matter the consequences. And thus, even though the knight seemed unwilling to do so, and his very sense as a rider seemed reluctant to do it, the other man obeyed and tied the poor mare to his saddle – perhaps, he, too, sensed the urgency in his king's mood. But even so, he did not hold anything back, pointing out with unveiled clarity that he thought his friend and king was making a mistake here, 'She's not gonna make it!'
'She has to.', Éomer countered then under his breath, fear making his voice waver ever so slightly (or was that only the chill from the cold winds picking up?), and he was not sure anymore who exactly he was talking about here – the mare or her mistress? But unwilling to allow his mind to go to a dark place he would not come out of again, the king simply cued his stallion to get moving – to hopefully leave behind the worries already gnawing at him and to run towards the only hope he had left at this point.
I can't lose you.
You won't lose me.
Behind him he could hear Déor calling after him, but whether to further question his decision or to simply ask him to slow down, and wait for him to come after him, he could not say. The winds were swallowing the words whole, and even if they hadn't, he would not have heeded them. Éomer would not stop again, would not wait any more, would not waste any more time. With his eyes fixed upon the ground, he followed the tracks of blood on the white ice to its inevitable destination, and neither winds nor warning nor the fear beating in his heart what he might find there could stop him now.
I can't lose you.
You won't lose me.
It wasn't long after that, that they came upon the scene of event. Out of the white chaos all around him, a spot of blackness suddenly appeared, but only once Éomer came closer, and the spot grew bigger, did he realise that it was the form of a person lying on the ground. The king slowed down as he drew near, his heart hammering in his chest, and the moment he arrived at last, before his horse had even come to a complete halt, he was already jumping down.
Then, there was a moment of hesitation, a second of fear holding him back, holding him so tightly in its vice-like grip that he could barely breathe. The hand that still held the reins of his stallion felt clammy, though whether from the cold or from the anxiety that had wrecked his courage so completely he could not say. But then he pushed past the fear, the need to know simply too great, and with that determination he dared to take a closer look at what he'd stumbled upon.
I can't lose you.
You won't lose me.
The body on the ground was partially covered in snow, but even the blanket of white on it could not hide the blood staining it in a garish red. When Éomer knelt down to brush away at least some of the snow, he realised two things. First, the blood spilled on the ground stemmed from a wound on the body's forehead, a case of blunt force trauma – and by the look of it, the kick of a wild and frantic mare's hooves – that had nearly cracked the skull in half. Secondly, it was not the body of his queen lying dead before him, but that of a man's in his late thirties.
I can't lose you.
You won't lose me.
The breath he didn't know he had been holding escaped the king in a sound somewhere between a sigh and a sob, and for a moment all he could do was cry in silence, his sense of pride still compelling him to stifle his sobs even as tears of relief streamed down his bearded cheeks. Never before in his life had he felt so relieved to chance upon a dead man's body before, and the irony of it was not lost upon him, but soon enough that almost manic sense of gladness was tempered with a cold slap of reality – so cold in fact that it had the tears of relief freeze on his cheeks. There was blood on the ground here that did not belong to the dead man before him, nor, as it would seem, to the wounded mare either; and not far off from where he knelt – maybe a few dozen yards away – two more bodies lay dead on the white ground. Hope, after all, was a fair but fickle mistress, her smiles kind but often insincere and her embraces tight but ultimately hollow in nature.
I can't lose you.
You won't lose me.
'Béma save us! What the fuck happened here?!'
The voice of Déor cut like a knife through the howling winds, invading like an intruder almost into the private horrors that shook his lord and king. Éomer, for his part, startled as he might have been by the rider's sudden appearance – he must have been so caught up in his own shock that he hadn't noticed the other man approach him with both horses in tow – needed only a moment, however, to regain his composure. Rising slowly, the king made sure to keep his back towards the other man until he had covered up his momentary show of weakness and wiped away the last traces of his tears, and only then did he turn around.
By then Déor had long dismounted from his own horse and bafflement was clearly visible on his face as he shook his head and took in the whole scene that was presented to them. Three bodies were strewn across the ground, like little, torn pieces of a larger, bloodier puzzle. There was the body closest to them, the one that lay before them; flat on its back, all limbs stretched out as if caught in a spell of some kind in its last moments before death. And then there were the other two bodies further away, barely visible through the white winds and the snows that covered them – but still, just visible enough.
'What the fuck does it look like, Déor?! There was a fight.', Éomer answered matter-of-factly, impatient to march over to the other two bodies farther away, ready to leave the one closest to them to the knight at his side, to let the other man come to his own conclusions. The king, after all, had already surveyed the body with a quick glance, surmising quickly enough what had happened to it; his mind now racing to move on to the next body to see if it held any more answers, and at the same time dreading and hoping to find the answer to his most burning question.
I can't lose you.
You won't lose me.
'A botched robbery, perhaps?', Déor contemplated out loud then as he stepped closer – once again sidetracking him – as his warrior mind was reverting back to that of a hunter, always sniffing out clues, following tracks, tracing mysteries back to their roots. Back in their éored days, before Éomer had been a king and Déor had been made Marshall, before both men had been forced out of their positions in the field, ripped out of the camaraderie found there, and thrust into a world of politics and burdens – back then, before all that, the two of them had often gone hunting together, revelling in the exciting and at the same relaxing nature of stalking their quarry for days. Éomer felt those very same instincts awaken in him now, though he was unsure what exactly they were hunting for now.
'Yeah, perhaps.', Éomer answered absent-mindedly, his thoughts racing back to the splatters of blood that had belonged neither to the mare nor to the dead body at his feet, and backed by the queasy feeling in his stomach and the wild beating in his heart, a voice in the back of his mind already doubted the rider's theory of what had happened here. Things seemed too precise, too persistent, too brutal for a simple band of thieves looking for an easy victim – all of this felt more like a pack of predators pouncing on a long-stalked prey.
The sound of the rider wolf-whistling told Éomer that Déor must have taken a closer look at the first body at last; he was sure the large crack in the dead man's skull and bits of brain spilt out, frozen, had to have been a dead give-away for the knight too, to know what had killed the man. Déor was a rider, too, after all, and he had spent his whole life around horses, and as much as he admired and even worshipped them, he also carried an awe in his heart rooted as much in respect as it was in fear. Because like every man, woman and child of the Rohirrim, he, too, knew very well what a horse in wrath or panic was capable of. The kick of a wildly prancing steed could rival the blow of the meanest mace.
'Do you reckon they were after horse-meat?', Déor mused out loud then, and it sounded as though the very question were leaving a bad taste in his mouth afterwards – and who could blame him for that? The Rohirrim had been ever faithful to their god and patron Béma, blessed as they were by him in skill and with their steeds, and as such, horses – their god's favoured animals – had always been considered sacred to them, sacrosanct even. To intentionally harm a horse, to slay it, or to consume its flesh – that was an evil thing and a great sin. Any self-respecting soul of the Mark would rather starve than stoop so low – but hunger and despair had a way of overwriting even the most ingrained beliefs or morals.
'Doubtful. If they had been after horse-meat, they would have just killed it, and be done with it. Instead … ', Éomer trailed off, not needing to say the words, not wanting to say the words. The scene before them was vivid enough to speak for itself, there was no point in putting it into words. The horror of death was terrifying enough without having to breathe life back into it by giving words to it. Or, perhaps, these were not the kind of horrors he feared to breathe into reality by speaking them out loud?
I can't lose you.
You won't lose me.
The king's stomach turned as he moved his gaze back towards the other two bodies.
So, then, instead of further putting off the inevitable, Éomer pulled his sword from its scabbard and rammed it unceremoniously into the icy ground, to be used as a pole to tie their horses to – they wouldn't want them to run off in this storm and to leave their masters stranded in the cold wasteland. And as he tied Firefoot to the hilt of his sword, the king mused that he had no more excuses left, no more things to do … other than to walk those final yards and face there whatever awaited him. With a glance at Déor, out of the corners of his eyes, he wondered whether or not the rider would come after him, but then he heard the knight whisper quiet, sad praises to the mare, petting its side absent-mindedly, lost in his own thoughts, coming to his own inevitable, depressing conclusions.
So, for the moment, the rider seemed distracted enough.
Good, the king thought, he needed no witnesses to the moment when he would inevitably find –
I can't lose you.
You won't lose me.
Éomer knew it would only be a matter of time until the rider would turn to him to try and speak the words that would dash all hopes with the sombre wisdom of reality – but he wasn't ready to hear it yet, wasn't ready to accept the possibility yet. Not yet. Not yet. So, while Déor was still busying himself with tying the other two horses to the sword in the ice as well – so as to find the right time to address his lord and king with the right words – Éomer had already turned his back on him and started to march over to the rest of the scene of crime.
'Éomer!', Déor called out to him then, as he noticed his lord and king leaving at last, but even as the other man hurried to try and run after him – to try and stop him from stumbling upon a sight too much to handle for a man with an already broken heart? – Éomer would not stop. He wasn't ready to listen to anything the knight had to say right now; he didn't want to hear it, couldn't hear it. He had to focus, he couldn't break now. Not yet. Not yet. And so, instead, he took in the scene that awaited him at the end of his long walk.
Two bodies lay on the ground, close to each other. One body was curled in on itself, blood all over, frozen hard by the snow and the ice, a crossbow still in one of its hands. The other body seemed the picture of a warrior even in death, hand still holding on to its sword, even if the corpse would never lift it again. It was a gruesome sight, but one that held strange hope for him. And yet, he couldn't help but feel a certain modicum of desperate disappointment along with the relief to find that she was not here, that her body was not among the dead … but also nowhere else to be found.
I can't lose you.
You won't lose me.
But even as he wanted to turn around, crestfallen and frustrated as he was, and to let the rider know that there was nothing to be found here, and that they should leave this site of death well behind them, his eyes were suddenly caught by the gleam of something bright and sharp, and as he knelt down, his hands plunging into the snow, they caught hold of an instrument of death. The dagger was beautifully crafted, with a hilt enriched with colourful gemstones and the blade as thin as it was sharp, a faint silver shine spoke of the quality of steel used, though the rust of the red blood on it had tinged its shine somewhat.
Éomer knew that dagger.
He would have known it anywhere.
Éomer was still kneeling next to the body clutching the crossbow, bolt still ready to be fired, and he was still regarding the dagger in his hands with a quiet intensity, lost in his thoughts, when Déor caught up to him at last, out of breath from running after him, or perhaps that breathlessness was due to something else entirely? Éomer didn't care; it was all the same to him – and as long as the rider couldn't breathe, then he wouldn't talk either. Or perhaps that had been simply too much to hope for?
'Did you find – '
'No. She's not here.', the king barked back then, cutting the rider off before he could have even finished asking his cautious question. He was simply not ready yet to acknowledge what the knight had really tried to ask, and instead kept on staring at the dagger in his hands, turning it over and over in his hands. And that, at last, caught the rider's attention and shifted it away from asking insensitive questions about delicate matters.
'Is that – '
'A dagger, yes. Her dagger.'
'Are you – '
'Yes, I'm sure.', Éomer snarled gruffly then, feeling his own patience with the rider and his stupid inquisitiveness slowly but surely running out. But even if he felt a pang of guilt afterwards, that he might have been too harsh with the knight just now, he just couldn't bring himself to even acknowledge it – too much weighed down on his mind, too many memories that came rushing in like a flood and have him drown in it.
Yes, indeed, he was sure that the dagger was hers. He remembered it like yesterday, her telling him about it. Or him taking the dagger one afternoon, hoping to show her some defensive tricks with it. And he also remembered her laughing it off, remarking with a smile that had his heart melt right then and there that such lessons would be wasted on her. What need would she ever have of daggers and training, with her valiant warrior at her side?
I can't lose you.
You won't lose me.
'She fought them. Brave woman.', Déor remarked then as he snivelled, and the sound seemed to break off another piece of the king's heart, even as he thought to hide it from the other man. Because he knew quite well what the rider thought looking at all of this, the inevitable and bleak conclusions he undoubtedly had come to, because, surely, what lady could hope to stand her ground in a fight against three armed men, an untrained lady at that, armed with nothing more than a small dagger and a panicking, fatally wounded mare? What lady could face all that and hope to live?
I can't lose you.
You won't lose me.
'I never thought she could be so brave.', the knight added then, his voice laden with something between pity and melancholy, and Éomer hated it, hated that it sounded so much like a farewell already, like a soliloquy for a weak and meek woman, a designated victim in all but the name who had ultimately lost a fight she could never have hoped to win in the first place.
I never thought she could be so brave.
Éomer did though, he had always known she could be brave, and strong. Ever since she had stood her ground with him during their many discussions about the peace treaty, or the day she had gone toe to toe with him over her two-timing game she had been forced to play with him. Ever since she had confronted him about his bastard son and asserted herself with him. Ever since she had chosen to confront her fears and her trauma and jumped back on that horse – ever since she had welcomed him into her arms, her body, her heart. Ever since she had commanded a whole room full of spiteful, cantankerous councilmen with the power of her words alone. Ever since she had told him of the things she had seen and experienced, that fateful, frightful day in the Greatest City of Men. Ever since she had witnessed his nightmares and chose to chase them away rather than to run. Ever since she had taken his hand in hers and spoken his name with that sweet tongue of hers. Ever since she had walked down that aisle on the day of their wedding, looked into his eyes and agreed to accept his hand in marriage – knowing full well what it would mean for her.
I can't lose you.
You won't lose me.
'Éomer … ', the rider spoke then into the silence between them, and even though he had spoken softly, it was a jarring enough contrast to the deafening silence from before, and so the king was more or less torn out of his ever spiralling thoughts. Thus, he should have been grateful that the rider had chosen to break the silence, and yet, the king was anything but grateful. The knight's voice had been unmistakable in its awkward attempt at a comfort the king was not yet ready to accept, as he was not yet ready to accept the picture the evidence was painting for him here.
I can't lose you.
You won't lose me.
Instead, the king took a closer look at the corpse he knelt next to. At this point he would have chosen anything to distract him from the words the knight at his side could perhaps not quite bring himself to speak just yet but that hung between them nonetheless – like a cloud throwing shades of even more rain and thunder to come – and the dead body at his feet was as good of an opportunity as anything else.
Déor, meanwhile, seemed to have taken the hint at last, and shut up for now (for once). For the moment he seemed compassionate enough to leave his lord and king, his best friend, to process things in his own time and on his own. And even though the king might have angrily dismissed it as pity perhaps – as he surely would have done before he had been taught the difference through the gentle strength of his wife and queen – he chose not to comment on it. Instead, he more or less dispassionately allowed the other man to help him search the body for clues.
'She's got this one good.', Déor said slowly then, sadness still a stronger emotion than anger as he wrenched the hunched corpse on its back, but at his eyes took in the wounds cut by the sharp blade of a sharp little dagger, a grim respect was darkening the tone of his voice as he added then, nay, spat out almost with righteous wrath, 'Fucker must have bled out within minutes.'
Perhaps he said that to make himself feel better, perhaps to make his best friend and king feel better, but Éomer wasn't ready to hear it, and he wasn't ready to pretend otherwise, so instead of saying anything, he simply said nothing. Déor, as it would seem, for now, gave up on his attempts to console him in this manner, accepting that his best friend was not in the mood for that form of consolation either.
It would seem then that both men were determined to keep to their own thoughts and feelings, barely acknowledging each other, barely acknowledging the task at hand. But then, as the hood of the cloak – until this point pulled low – was pushed back and a mop of shaggy blonde hair was revealed, the interest of both men was piqued and questions with uncomfortable answers darkened both their eyes as their gazes met across the body between them. When they went back to investigating the corpse at their feet then, Déor immediately went for the sword at the dead man's hip – an easy piece of evidence; the king searched the pockets instead, and soon enough his fingers found treasure – he had learned painfully well to look for secrets.
And, as it would seem, there were many things to be found and secrets to be uncovered here.
'Éomer, this is good steel.', Déor said then, after pulling the sword from its sheath and studying it with the eye of a seasoned warrior, and as he held up the blade for the king to see he made sure to point out the familiar engravings on the ricasso part of the blade, just below the guard of the hilt. And when he spoke this time, he made sure to emphasise the gravity of the discovery, 'This is our steel.'
'And yet here is Southern coin.', the king countered darkly as he held up a pouch he had fished from the pockets of the dead men lying at his feet. He did not need to open the little sack to recognise the clinking-clear sound of silver coins, remembering it well enough from his visits to the South and the spendthrift ways in which they were wont to throw money around. Coins were a rare thing in the North, as their economical system relied on bartering and other means more than money itself. But in the South, well … silver squander and sinister smirks were all sides of the same coin.
'They were men of the Mark, and yet they intentionally harmed that mare. They were men of the Mark, and yet they carried Southern coin.', Déor summarised, a haunted tone in his voice as he shook his head in disbelief, slowly but surely putting all the pieces of the puzzle together. The mare. The weapons. The trademark engravings. The trademark hair. The Southern coin. When the rider spoke up once more then, his voice had hardened with realisation, 'This was no mere robbery, it was – '
' – an assassination attempt, yes.', the king finished with a dark look upon his face then, and his voice had darkened as well as he spoke, knowing full well the kind of men that would do such a thing to a woman they must have thought unarmed and an easy prey; desperate men with desperate lives and desperate losses, seeking desperate ways of regaining what had once been theirs before war and hunger had taken it all from them, 'Greed is the bastard son of loss. And men who have nothing else to lose, are willing to do just about anything for a little trinket of wealth and status … and hope.'
I can't lose you.
You won't lose me.
'Éomer.', Déor spoke up once more then, once more with that look of pity from before, the tone of his voice showing clearly what conclusions the rider had come to, but the king would hear none of it. There had been no sign of her body, so there was no evidence for her death. The wild, desperate thought seemed more comforting than all the words of consolation the knight at his side could have spoken. So, instead of listening to the friend at his side, the king moved over to the last body, his eyes having caught a detail so far unappreciated, and with his curiosity piqued like that, he barely registered the rider's words.
I can't lose you.
You won't lose me.
'Éomer, if this is true, then – '
'She didn't kill this one.', the king surmised then with the observant eye of a warrior, and as he regarded the large gash in the dead man's torso with a closer look, he felt his initial assumption confirmed. No, indeed, no dagger that small, not even if it had been used to gut the man like quarry hung and skinned after the hunt, could have left a wound like that. However, while the king drew new hope and new theories from that detail, the rider – who he had effectively been cut off before he could have finished his fatal sentence earlier – seemed less than convinced.
'A fourth assassin then. He killed this once to collect the blood money.', Déor advocated with something akin to rationality then, but rationality wasn't what the king was interested in at the moment, and he sure as hell wasn't interested in the other man's pity or words of hollow consolation. He couldn't, he wouldn't give up just yet.
I can't lose you.
You won't lose me.
'And then left the coin to drag along a dead woman's body? I don't think so, no.', Éomer countered sharply then, his words barely more than a snarl, angry and spiteful. However, when he continued then, fixing the knight opposite him with a fervent look, there was an undertone in his words that made his voice shake with the desperate hope he still clung to, 'She's alive, Déor.'
'You can't know that. You can't be sure of that. If she is alive, then where the hell is she? ', the rider protested softly then, slowly shaking his head from side to side, only to add with a much quieter voice, barely above a whisper, 'There's blood on the ground here that does not belong to either man or horse. If she's been wounded, then – '
Déor stopped there, stopped short of speaking it out loud, but the words hung between both men nonetheless. It became clear, to say the least, that in this the knight did not share the same hopes as his king. When he looked at him, with those dull, green eyes, so full of pity, the rider seemed only to see an already broken man, desperately clinging to the last straws of hope in an attempt to not face the facts of reality.
It was safe to say that Éomer had little patience for that. He had never had much patience for pity to begin with (even if he had come to learn through his wife that there was indeed a difference between pity and compassion, but, often enough, he still mistook one for the other out of pride or frustration even), and now especially, in this moment, everything in him revolted against the pity he believed to read in the other man's eyes.
As though he truly were some wretched man to be pitied.
As though all hope were already lost.
As though his wife and queen were already lost to him forever.
No, Éomer thought with an almost violent amount of passion, everything in him baulking against the fatalistic idea that all was lost already. And so he quickly moved to stand up, his eyes already looking ahead into the white nothingness stretching out before him – searching, always searching, for a sign of where his love could be, for a sign that told him that she yet lived.
But no sign came.
No vision of black hair and blue eyes appeared out of the white storm before him.
No voice of familiar softness and strength calling out to him for help.
No more bloodiest tracks burned into the snow to show him the way back to her.
Wherever she had gone, and wherever she was, it was a place he could not follow her.
I can't lose you.
You won't lose me.
'Éomer, where are you going?!', Déor called out to him then, and even though the rider's voice was barely strong enough to reach out to him over the loud wailing of the white winds around them, it was enough for the king to snap out of his spiralling thoughts. And as he looked back then, confused by the knight's questioning, he became aware that he must have actually been pacing around aimlessly for a while now; his steps increasingly frantic, like those of a mad mad, a lost man – and, in fact, he had already staggered away so far from the scene of the crime that the neighing of their horses was but a faint echo in the background, barely able to penetrate through the thick and thunderous ice winds.
I can't lose you.
You won't lose me.
'I've got to find her, I've got to – ', Éomer countered wildly then, panic and frustration making his voice shake so much that he was nigh on stumbling over the words as they rushed out of his mouth.
'And how will you find her?!', Déor protested then, his voice sounding more concerned than impatient here, though he had cut off his king all the same. And it was with that same air of worry that the knight stepped up to him then, slow and cautious, because this was still a warrior that he knew to be capable of great violence and prone to overreaction, and because right now before him stood not his lord and king but only his best friend in pain. And so it was with the utmost care that the knight took the other man's arm, meaning only to make him see reason, to ground him in the reality of facts, 'The storm is getting worse. The tracks are all ruined by snow already – if there ever were any more tracks to begin with – '
I can't lose you.
You won't lose me.
'I don't care, I have to find her, I have to – ', the warrior-king spat back then, ripping his arm free as he stepped out of reach of comfort and reason and words he could not bear to hear. But as high as the waves of his frustration rose there, they were only fuelled by the current of hopeless truth pulling him down, ever down, into depths he would not resurface from. He turned away, shaken by fear that his rider spoke truth; denial warring with anger over the unfairness of it all.
I can't lose you.
You won't lose me.
And then – a thought like a knife in his heart.
We have waited too long.
'Éomer, please, don't do this, don't just walk off like that, don't lose your head like that!', Déor pleaded then, following his best friend and king even as he was turning from him again, and the threat of tears was no longer just audible in the knight's voice, although it was unclear whom he was shedding those tears for: the queen he seemed to be mourning already, or the brother he feared to lose in the process of it?
'Please, Éomer, please, I would never forgive myself, if I lost my king … as well as my queen.', the rider begged even more desperately then, and by now he was no more than a breath away from falling to his knees, to plead with his king, to appeal to his common sense, to shake his friend out of the manic drive that seemed to push him him ever forward, further and further, past the point of no return, over the brink of sanity itself. And indeed, this time the rider's words seemed to reach through to the warrior-king at last – though, perhaps, not in the way the knight might have expected.
Whirling around in one swift motion, Éomer lunged for the other man, grabbing him by the collar of his cloak and very nearly lifting him off the ground. It had all happened very quickly, too quickly in fact for Déor to even begin to be able to process it; the movements of his king precise and furious, so unlike the frantic, desperate movements from before. From one moment to the next the rider was in his king's grasp, hard and unyielding, with eyes full of fire boring themselves into him. But it were not the rapid movements nor the hateful gaze either that truly shocked the knight into speechlessness then; it was the look of desperate denial underneath that undid the other man.
'SHE'S NOT DEAD!', the warrior-king bellowed, and even through the howling of the white winds the words carried far enough for the horses to shriek in fright. But even though the king's cry had pierced the other man's marrow and bone, the knight did not cower in fear. Instead, the rider's eyes softened in compassion and understanding, seeing the wet streaks on his best friend's cheeks and knowing they had not come from the sleet showering down on them. And so, the knight did not push away his lord and king, did not even try to pry his hands off of him; instead, he placed his hands on the warrior's wrists, and empathy was in his touch and in his words as he spoke.
'Éomer … ', the rider started then, unsure of what it was he wanted to say, his voice sounding as broken as his own heart, with tears of his own blurring the syllables into a mesh of unintelligible sorrow – and it was not just the sorrow for the queen that was now lost to both of them, but sorrow, as well, for the king that was losing himself in his own grief, and his delusion and denial poisoning him further still. For the king would not hear anything the rider had to say, could not bear to hear it, could not bear to allow the words the other man wanted to say to pierce the walls of delusion and denial he had built around himself.
He had always been a warrior, death a threat that could never frighten him.
But this, the inevitability of loss, this was a weapon he had no defences against.
How dangerous it was to love something that death could touch.
I can't lose you.
You won't lose me.
But, in the end, she had not kept her promise.
In the end, he had lost her.
He had denied that possibility, had even raged against it. And, apparently, he was not above begging either, bargaining for a chance that the truth screaming at him from all sides was not true at all, bargaining for a chance that the lack of any sign of life was not an evidence for the totality of death.
And who would have thought to see the proud king on his knees, back bent in supplication, or to see the proud warrior raise a white flag in defeat, begging for mercy? But, as he had come to learn, in love there was no room for pride; and even though he knew that death, as hard and unyielding and indiscriminate as it was, was not to be bargained with – because death was just what it was – he did it anyway: hoping against hope for the woman he loved to be spared.
I can't lose you.
You won't lose me.
'She's not dead, do you hear me?! She's not dead, she's not dead, she's not dead. She can't be – she promised – she … ', Éomer hissed through clenched teeth then, and each word, spoken with such desperation, seemed like a knife repeatedly plunged into his heart, because despite the fervour of his words, it became clearer and clearer that even he himself did not believe them anymore.
All it had taken was that little slither of doubt to crawl in, and then the damn broke.
Acceptance came upon him like a depressing cloud of shade, weighing him down, ever down, until his very knees seemed to give out under him. But even as he sank down to the floor, all strength drained from him, he held on to the other man – as though he were still clinging to the desperate illusion of hope – and Déor, whether out of concern for his friend or out of exhaustion as well, allowed himself to be pulled down along with his king.
And there they were; a mass of huddled limbs, clinging to each other out of desperation and grief. Both men were crying now, tears freezing on their cheeks as a reminder of the cruel and cold indifference of nature itself. Around them the white winds howled ever more strongly, as though to chime in with their mourning with its thunderous wailing. And further off, the wild shrieking of horses, as though they too shared the pain and cried out in sorrow with them.
There, in the middle of a snow storm, besieged on all sides by the wrathful forces of nature in winter, overpowered by doubt, with no body – alive or dead – to ease their minds with certainty, and with no more tracks to follow – to give them hope – Éomer king was forced to accept the possibility that his queen, his wife, the only woman he had ever loved … was dead.
I can't lose you.
You won't lose me.
A promise given – a promise broken.
A sudden and lone scream echoed through the white walls around them, sounding even above the howling winds blowing angrily against them, a sound of such anguish and loss that it could be barely called human anymore … until that sound died too.
FUN FACT #1: The idea of Éomer and Déor in their Sherlock Holmes and Watson seemed badass ... until the feels hit me hard again. Sorry for that. I hope the sleuthing part is believable enough.
FUN FACT #2: Okay, after finishing this chapter, I realised that, so far, I've written 643 pages in 43 chapters. *screeches in disbelief* So, my question is this: what's your TOP 3 chapters? Tell me yours, and I shall tell you mine!
FUN FACT #3: Alright, next month next chapter, and then we will finally, at long fucking last, get some slither of fluff and bitter-sweetness! I know, we're all thirsting for it, and I shall deliver!