"Eldarion?" Elrohir caught his nephew under the arms and gently lowered him to the rubble-strewn ground. The boy was pale, and the usually brilliant energy of his young spirit felt greatly diminished.
"Eldarion? Sweetheart!" Arwen lowered herself clumsily to the ground beside her son's head as Elrohir tore at his pants with a knife to try and find the source of the blood. He placed the boy's ankle on his shoulder and started chanting a healing hymn, but with Vilya across the sea, it was mostly a placebo and a very old habit. Grabbing a handful of the prince's torn brocade cape, he pressed it into the deep puncture wounds on his inner thigh. Arwen looked up for a moment, still in shock, mind already racing to name a culprit. A wind was carrying the settling dust out over the city, and it picked up strands of her hair as it went. The city guard had formed a barrier in front of the gathering crowds. There were gasps of horror and screams as they parted to let Elladan through as he carried their king upon a bier with another of the guards. He had placed a loose field dressing around Aragorn's head, but he could not disguise the shocking amount of blood or the ragged sound of his breathing.
Eldarion's swoon lasted only a moment before he woke with a fit of coughing.
"Nan?" he rolled his head into his mother's thigh and felt her hand holding his head down. He cringed and tried to pull away from Elrohir's firm hold on his leg.
"Hold still, sweetheart." Arwen tried to keep the fear out of her voice. Around them, the Dwarven rescuers were still at work digging out victims and survivors. Someone was screaming. She had passed young Celiriel to one of her handmaidens a moment before the blast had shaken the market. She could hear the infant screaming, and scanning the crowd, she locked eyes with her handmaiden. "Take her back to the palace!" she ordered the girl, clutching onto Eldarion's arm, "And send word to Lord Faramir!" the girl promptly left with a detachment of royal guards, clutching the princess to her breast.
There was a great sliding of rubble, and with a shout, the Dwarven smith, who the king had been speaking to a moment before the explosion, was liberated from a fall of stone and brick. His great black beard was white with dust as he staggered out of the rubble. His once opulent clothing was torn, and his right arm was bloody.
"By the mercy of Mahal!" A very dusty and anxious-looking Gimli stepped forward to embrace him.
"How fares the king?" Tulk looked around, his worried gaze landing first on Arwen and the prince and then around at the ruin that had once been his life's work. Blinking in shock, the dwarf's eyes landed upon the now broken war hammer lying in the rubble, stained red with the blood of the prince of Gondor. He picked up the splintered haft of the weapon where the purple gem gleamed beneath a layer of dust.
"Was it the weapon of my making that caused this grievous injury?" he asked Gimli, horror mounting in his voice.
"Aye," Gimli nodded grimly. The smith stepped back, watching as Elrohir wrapped bandages tight around the boy's leg. Tulk met the queen's alien, elvish eyes, and a shudder of fear went through him. No matter how the Lord of the Glittering Caves might praise the Lady of the Golden Wood, Tulk could not shake the deep fear that these strange elven royals would hold him responsible for the works of his hands. Shock and despair swirled within him. He took a large ring from his index finger, set with rubies and the anvil of Aule, and threw it into the rubble. Later, he could not fully explain why he did what he did next, except that it seemed the only way forward in which he might maintain his honor and perhaps recoup his financial ruin.
"My lord," he fell to his knees beside the young prince, averting his eyes from the elf woman's terrible regard. "As the works of my hands have threatened your life, I, Tulk son of Haru, swear to you my service until the debt is repaid." He held out the broken haft, and the purple gem glinted in the sinking sun.
Eldarion shook his head, and, pushing his mother's hands aside, he rose up onto his elbows. His head swam and pounded as he was able to look around for the first time. The staggering dusty figures around him moved like ghosts. He noted that his father had been taken away, and his heart clenched. He saw the lines of covered bodies being dragged from the rubble and heard the cries of the grieving. It seemed to him, in his addled state, that figures of light rose from the fallen corpses to stand among the living. The market was unrecognizable from before the blast. Gone were the high pillars, and the vaulted ceiling hung with silken banners, replaced with grey hills of rubble. The scene passed before his eyes like an image on a tapestry or a play on a stage. Nothing felt real, and his ears were ringing.
"The blast came not from your stall." Eldarion objected bluntly when his grey eyes fell on the dwarf. He felt concussed, fearful, and heartsick and did not have patience for these theatrics, "you bear no guilt…" but the smith did not react in relief, but to the prince's surprise, seemed to sink into despair, tears welling in his eyes. He had just lost his life's work, his business, and (although Eldarion did not understand the significance) his honor as a smith. Glancing at his mother in panic, the young prince changed his approach, "I will gladly accept your service, master dwarf." Eldarion reached out and took the broken haft from him, "Your first order is to see the healers." He nodded at Tulk's bloodied arm. Eldarion fell back heavily as the dwarf lowered his head and stood. Eldarion felt Arwen catch him in a protective embrace under his arms. For a long moment, she just clutched her son's body, pressing her face into his dusty shoulder. He relaxed back into her pregnant belly, taking comfort in her touch as if he was still a small child.
"How is Ada?" Eldarion noticed that she was weeping. He raised one hand to wipe the tears from her porcelain cheek. He looked at Elrohir. He could feel his uncle's firm hand over the thick bandages around his thigh. His whole body was tense with rage as he watched his sister's heart break.
"He has been taken to the palace infirmary," Elrohir answered tightly. Looking up, he took a stretcher from one of the army of healers who had begun swarming the site of the attack, "which is exactly where you will go."
"I can walk!" Eldarion said. He suddenly understood what his father had been talking about when he had insisted that they appear together in public and that he brush his hair and stand straight. At the thought of his father's voice, he felt a great swell of emotion which he swallowed hard. He would not want the people to see his son scared and bleeding.
"You will not." Elrohir ordered, scooping up his other leg, and, with a look at his sister, they shifted him together onto the stretcher, "You will keep your head down and this leg absolutely still if you don't want to bleed out." His uncle snapped, and Eldarion shrank back against the stiff canvas. He clutched the splintered handle in his hand like a lifeline.
"Pardon me, my lady," a gruff voice said. Tulk had a bandage around his forearm, and his sleeve had been cut away. With a polite bow, he took Arwen's place, grasping the two handles near the prince's head, and looked to Elrohir, waiting for orders.
"You were serious?" the Peredhil shook his head in wonder at the dwarf, "you would swear fealty to this half-elven prince?"
"Aye, my lord." Tulk nodded, "If word of what has happened today reaches the Mountain," he cringed to admit what he knew would be true, "they will say my works are cursed, my lord, that they thirst for the blood of kings." He did not say that he worried for his beloved wife and daughter, who would be destitute without him.
Elrohir frowned in sympathy. "Do you know who might have the skill to create such a weapon as this?" he looked at the dwarf evenly.
"The armies of Isengard used such devices at the Battle of the Hornburg!" Gimli reminded them, stepping close and giving the queen a reverent nod. "And my people sometimes use such powders for the splitting of stones, but it is not our preferred method. Rather, it was an art that we learned in ages past from our Noldorin allies." He carefully avoided implying the guilt of all elves. "The same who taught the White Wizards the art, my lady."
"You don't think a dwarf made this bomb?" Elrohir deduced.
"No, my lord," Tulk shook his head, agreeing with the Son of Gloin. He reached to the ground where a small piece of dark metal shrapnel had embedded itself into the stone and tapped it with one finger. "This is the work of the people of lord Curufinwë." He made the declaration with absolute certainty. Elrohir and Arwen shared a look of dread.
"When lord Faramir arrives, I want you to tell him everything you know," Arwen ordered forcefully. She placed a hand on their new ally's shoulder and felt him recoil in discomfort before she withdrew it.
"Of course, my lady." Tulk nodded, "For now, grant me the honor of bearing my Lord Prince to the healers." Arwen frowned at him but saw no deception in the Naugrim's dark eyes. He looked beaten and still deep in shock.
"Very well." Arwen nodded. She got up heavily, leaning on Elrohir for support.
Eldarion threw his arm across his eyes to block out the curious looks as Tulk and Gimli easily carried him away from the ruined market. He suddenly felt very small and very scared, and he wanted his father desperately. The crowd parted, and they exited into a place where the road came even with the next level of the city. The sun was sinking, and through a veil of tears, he could see the red of the sunset drawing long purple shadows across the Pelennor.