Phew! Sorry for the delay everyone, but this site was down Friday-Saturday (at least, from where I live), and I couldn't post anything any sooner.

I'm glad it's running again!

Chapter 56

August 28th, TA 3020

"Don't look down," Bara had told her, before nudging his horse towards the first arch of the never-ending bridge – or so it'd seemed to Mehreen. Like a thin rope of stone stretched between this shore and the island, it glistened with spray, the other end disappearing into a veil of mist and the shimmering of hot summer air.

Sound advice…or so it'd seemed at the time.

To look down was to stare into the hypnotic rushing of the current, its waves cresting and falling like an undulating spine, drawing the eye towards the inscrutable, silty depths. One wrong step was all it took to succumb to those inexorable waters, and lay down upon a soft bed of clay to dream the organic, ancestral dreams of those dwelling in the murky darkness.

Mehreen shivered, tearing her eyes away from the wanton rippling of the Anduin's belly. She thought she could feel the water already weighing upon her chest.

Not so sound after all.

But to look ahead was to see everything that was wrong with the bridge itself, from the crumbling edges – which looked much as though an ifrit with a penchant for granite had taken a bite, or ten, out of the roadway – to the cracks webbing the spandrel walls. And then, her mind would wander back to the beckoning of weed-green lips. Mehreen had ended up trusting Hidhúniel with following the others' lead, comforted by the thought that this time, there weren't any trees around to slap her in the face, but quickly discovered that closing her eyes hadn't made things easier…quite the contrary.

The air was alive with sounds, each one more ominous than the one before, the sensations of the mare's body beneath hers multiplied in the absence of sight. The clip-clop of hooves chimed faintly against the rumbling of water, the sloshing and slurping that echoed back to her akin to a beast lurking under the arches, its tangy breath caressing her face in a promise. Sometimes Hidhúniel would slip and skid upon the cobbled course, the scraping of metal on stone raising the hairs of Mehreen's neck. Each time, she feared they'd slid ever closer to the edge, too cowardly to open her eyes and find out.

"Afraid of water, my Lady?" Bara ended up asking as she stifled yet another whimper, her hands aching from her desperate hold on the pommel.

"Not…fond of it," Mehreen replied through clenched teeth. Which wasn't the honest truth. While Mehreen had always harbored a fascination for the sea and its unfeigned hunger, the current filled her ears with a sly, greedy murmur which muddled her thoughts and brought a petrous taste to her lips. "There aren't many rivers, in Harad."

"Don't worry, my Lady. Hidhúniel can swim."

Mehreen perked up at the thought, though not enough to take a peek. "Will she carry me to shore?"

Behind her, Buttercup let out a snicker. "If you cling to her tight enough, sure."

"Oh."

"Don't worry, my Lady," Tharn assured her in turn, his deep voice reaching through the roar of water. "This bridge has borne heavier things than us. It's withstood the Dark Host itself, and still it stands, serving its purpose."

The Dark Host.

If stone had been thus mangled in its wake, what of the men who'd opposed it?

All of a sudden, the river's overpowering clamor rose to new levels of unbearable. Unnamed voices now added their lament to the rumble, calling from the deep, whispering of death and suffering. Their skulls littered the river bed, long since picked clean by the fishes, strips of rotting flesh licked off by marids like greasy fingers being sucked on with many a smack of the lips in the wake of a feast. Lalla Laila would've called Mehreen a fool for worrying her head about it; after all, there'd been death in Middle-Earth ever since the advent of life, and chaos resided in each and every soul, striving for domination over one's appetites…which was why it was best not to tempt them in the first place. A woman role in the scheme of things was thus simple: to leave such concerns to the men while staying out of sight, and focus on maintaining a pretty lap for them to rest their heads in when they returned from their warring.

Even Mehreen understood it'd been folly to oppose a host of such immensity and strength.

When Harun had turned nine, one of their uncles – their father's youngest brother – had gifted him with a miniature army of his own: a regiment of janissaries masterfully crafted out of colored glass. Some careful hand had even painted a face upon each and every toy soldier, so that Lalla Laila had gushed over the small fortune such a present must've cost. Harun had wasted no time in assembling them in serried ranks upon the corridor tiles, before ramming forward upon his toy horse; Mehreen could still hear the crunch of glass bones under disproportionate wheels, and Harun's cry of glee as the figurines shattered upon impact, their remains scattered all over the hallway.

With her own lap yet empty of a man's head to entrust her worries with, Mehreen couldn't help but wonder: when did a victory become a slaughter, and what to make of those who took offense at being pointed out the difference?

Was Anwar such a man? And, if so, what other kinds of power, perverse and intimate, did he thrive on?

A long, cold shudder crept its slimy fingers up her spine. Wanting nothing more but to quell her rising suspicions, Mehreen raked her mind for something – anything! – to take her thoughts off the bleakness of her future. "Bara?" she called out in a small voice, uncertain whether he was still around. Belatedly, she wondered whether she ought've added a title, but if the ranger had one, she was still to hear it. The men didn't seem too bothered with using them, anyhow, forgetting propriety when it came to addressing her every other time, so perhaps would her unvoluntary slight go unnoticed.

"Hmm?"

"What will you do?" She hesitated, remembering the Captain's words about a well-deserved rest. "After, I mean?"

"After what?"

There was a hint of amusement to his voice, and Mehreen could well imagine him smiling at her artless attempt at conversation, a dimple creasing his cheek beyond the well-groomed goatee. She motioned to their surroundings, only relinquishing her grasp on the saddle long enough for a vague wave towards where she thought the island to be. "This. Will you retire as well?"

Bara laughed. "Not before a few more decades." And added, with a hint of rue: "I've pledged myself to the crown for a lifetime of service. Only those who've served long enough are to be released from their vows."

"But the war is over," Mehreen heard herself protest. "Don't you yearn for something else?" Beside a life of killing, that is?

"I've mouths to feed, my Lady. A mother and three sisters. Not all of us get to marry a Sultan." Bara might've as well slapped her, for the sting and the heat his words had brought to Mehreen's face. He must've noticed. "Not that I'd refuse a shapely Queen," he hastened to add, his tone deceptively light; from Buttercup's strangled chortle, Mehreen guessed he'd outlined said shapes with his hands, "though I'm still waiting for one to notice your humble servant."

"You're welcome to take my place," Mehreen muttered sullenly, while biting the inside of her cheek as a cheerless laugh bubbled in her throat upon trying, and failing, to imagine lithe, bearded Bara swathed in silken veils.

A silence fell between them. "You really don't want to marry him, then?" the ranger then asked, so quietly that Mehreen strained to overhear.

"I never had a say in the matter. But," she conceded demurely, "I suppose that being responsible for supporting a mother and three sisters does rob one of many a choice as well."

Buttercup cleared his throat. "I used to fancy becoming a healer," he wistfully declared, his gruff voice startlingly loud as the echoes of their progression died against the packed earth on the other side of the bridge.

The sudden absence of the ever-present noise came as a shock, as though Mehreen had been immersed into a well filled to the brim with tepid water. If not for the muffled thumping of hooves that rose from beneath, she might've believed the One had pierced her tympans for having dared question her fate.

Cracking an eye open, Mehreen avidly took in the landscape stretching out before her.

The road was a golden ribbon meandering between tufts of creeping thyme, the tiny purple blooms filling the air with a scent she'd come to associate with the herbed butter sometimes slathered over freshly baked buns, back in Bar-Lasbelin. A statue stood at a crossroads some paces off; it'd been beheaded – no doubt in the same attack that'd damaged the bridge – and the head now faced the sky, empty eyes staring dreamingly beneath an egg-like helm. On the opposite shore lay rolling hills akin to overlapping veils of green and gold, from which groves of poplars burst like filling through the seams of a cushion, casting their shadows upon fields dotted with sheaves. Pale against the blues and pinks of the mountains stretching Northward to fade into a smoky haze, the upper circles of Minas Tirith glimmered in the setting sun.

So close! The end of what would undoubtedly be termed 'her little Gondorian escapade' was nigh, and Mehreen suddenly wished to that time would hold its breath, suspended, until she came to terms with everything she'd found and just as quickly lost.

"You? A healer?" Bara scoffed. "Is this why you've been shoving soup down our throats at the slightest scrape?"

"Worked out fine for you, didn't it?" Buttercup groused, hunching his shoulders so that his scruffy hair obscured his eyes, but not before Mehreen caught him staring at one of his large, rugged hands with an air of regret.

"It's never too late to do something extraordinary. Didn't the brave Master slay the dragon Smaug, despite being older and more weary than the other men of Laketown?" Undeterred by the odd looks she was given, Mehreen pressed on, driven by a sudden urge to believe that grizzly Buttercup yet had a bright and happy future ahead of him. "If he found it in him to save his people, then what's stopping you from learning to do as much?"

She punctuated her tirade with a defiant lift of her chin…only to be met with stunned silence.

"My Lady," the Sha'ir began in a cautious tone, his freckled cheeks growing red with embarrassment on her behalf, "I don't know where you've heard this tale of yours from, but let me tell you…"

"…It's a splendid one." Bear pulled on the reins, slowing his steed to shoot the younger ranger a teasing grin.

"But…." The Sha'ir frowned.

"No buts. I, for one, like this version better." He eyed Mehreen with reluctant appreciation. "I say, enough with the stories of kingsblood and elf-kin, where the young pups get the glory, and old men die trying. Where are the lays, the ballads we truly yearn to hear? Where's the tales of warriors who need to stretch their back after a fight, and get up twice a night to take a piss? Oh come, Inwion," he called out as the Sha'ir spurred his horse forward, "you know I'm right. Now, write me such a song, and I swear on my honor you'll never hear me mock your warbling again."

As Bear pulled on the reins, throwing his roan against Buttercup's sorrel to loop an over-friendly arm around his shoulders, a subtle cough sounded from the head of the column, in what could well be the first time Mehreen heard the Lieutenant laugh.

oOoOoOo

What had started as a dry hacking, born from the discomfort of a parched throat and easily quelled by a gulp of water, had turned into a worrisome rasp by the time they'd ventured deep into the valley that cleaved the island from North to South.

"We should turn back," Mehreen caught the rangers muttering, too low for their Captain to overhear. "At this rate, Arthagar won't last the day."

If she had heard her men, she chose to ignore their worry, riding ahead with a stiff back, her white-knuckled hand tight over the pommel of her sword.

Another fit had the Lieutenant bending over the neck of his horse, struggling to suck in a wheezing breath; the wet, sputtering sound reverberated through the shallow ravine, pulling at Mehreen's breastbone, as if someone had reached into her chest and was trying to turn her inside out. But still he refused any offer of help with a wave of his hand, despite the men succeeding each other in offering him their waterskins.

"Why not return to the healers' settlement?" the Sha'ir asked Bear in a low voice.

They were riding side by side behind the Lieutenant – Arthagar – and Tharn, followed closely by Mehreen and Bara, with Buttercup closing the march. No-one had sung, that afternoon, and no longer did Bara entertain Mehreen during their journey. Arthagar's plight hung over the group like a heavy blanket, as oppressive as the sun that reached deep into the valley, under the sparse shadows of firs and junipers suspended to the pale ridges overhead. The road was a dirt path, bare and dusty, the clouds their horses' hooves raised settling like dregs inside Mehreen's mouth.

"Too long," Bear ground out, not bothering with a full sentence. He stooped atop his mount, shaking his head from time to time as if to chase away a swarm of invisible flies. "Too late."

The words remained suspended between them. Mehreen breathed them in, let them coil around her lungs. There was no denying Arthagar was suffering – if not by her fault, then in her name. That without her, none of them would've been here, even though not one of them had said as much. Arthagar would've returned to Minas Tirith long ago, where his children eagerly awaited his return. He was a good father – something he was prouder of than any battle feat. Bear would've rejoined his estranged daughter in Dale, to try and mend the wrongs he'd confessed to around yestereve's fire. Bara had a mother and a gaggle of sisters in Pelargir; Tharn, a number of smitten wives, if Buttercup was to be believed. They were all awaited, even hoped for.

No-one hoped for Mehreen's return. It was expected, like a stray goat being ushered back into the pen. Hardly a quest worth dying for.

"Look at him," the Sha'ir murmured as yet another long, raspy rattle shook Arthagar's once-robust form. "I never thought to see him so diminished since the Black Breath."

"Black Breath, White Ague…." Bear hawked and leaned to the side in an attempt to spit into the dirt. "I would've given Sauron my Brown Boot, had the halflings not fixed him for us."

Mehreen, who'd been taught that the Black Breath only smote the unrighteous, pricked her ears while keeping her mouth shut as she wondered if on this, too, she'd been misled. Arthagar had been nothing but courteous to her. What could he have possibly done to deserve a punishment?

"What's the White Ague?" she couldn't help but ask.

Bara sighed, and ran a shaky hand through his short, black hair. "Sauron's curse from beyond the Void, it's said. A new plague, like the one that'd decimated half of Rhovanion and Eriador 'bout three hundred years past."

A new plague.

Saineth's words of warning echoed in Mehreen's mind, making her ears ring. What was it that she'd said, exactly?

Of course, it would've been easier, had Mehreen been able to remember what she was told on the first try…!

"It's got people turning white with fever," Bara continued while rubbing his chest absent-mindedly, oblivious of her trouble. "Only, by the time they do, it's too late."

Mehreen bit her tongue before she could point out how pale his own tanned complexion had grown.

Sunstroke. That must be it, she told herself firmly; nothing some rest and a lot of water couldn't cure. Once, she'd snuck upon a group of children huddled around a palace window, giggling like mice in the absence of a cat, shoving each other in their eagerness to catch a glimpse beyond the latticed panes. The reason for their fear-tinged fascination was a man sagging against the alley wall, his face red and white in turn. Yet, when she'd come to check upon him in the evening – no matter how her fingers smarted following Lalla Nafiyah's punishment for having shown her bare face to the crowd – she'd not seen him down there, so he'd gotten better.

He must have.

Ahead, Tharn cursed as he caught his neighbor's slumping form by the elbow. "Captain…have mercy."

"Mercy?" The Captain tensed at his words, her neck as rigid and unmoving as though her head had been impaled upon a stake, just like the gruesome form of execution the Khandi favored – or so Lalla Ishtar had once said. Leather squeaked as she tightened her grip upon the reins. "Do you think the Serpent's men will show us mercy," she bristled, "if they trap us in this gullet like flies inside a jar? That they'll have mercy on her?"

In the silence that ensued, prickly with covert, calculative looks, Mehreen swallowed. This she couldn't have known, but now remembered. She remembered the scars, the missing ears for having failed to obey, and the severed fingers for having dared raised a hand against a man in defense. If nothing else, the Houses had taught her as much. A true Aadilim wouldn't have trembled before such a fate, if it meant standing up for what was just…but Mehreen was weak.

The Captain snapped her reins against her mount's neck as it attempted to sidle up to a nearby rosemary shrub, which filled the dell with its pungent aroma. "Arthagar knows this better than any of you."

"Don't you worry, Captain," Arthagar croaked through clenched teeth, "I can take it. I swear I can."

A stiff nod. "We make for the fort."

As Mehreen tried to meet Bara's gaze, her eyes stinging with the sweat that trickled down her brow, she found him looking straight ahead, to where Arthagar's shoulders shook with a dolorous tremor.

They pressed on, spurring their horses into as quick a pace as Arthagar's state and Mehreen's unsteadiness allowed. She pressed her thighs together, her fingers growing numb around the pommel. Blood pounded behind her temples, heralding a headache, but still she held on, gritting her teeth in her determination not to let a single word of complaint escape her lips.

As the sky turned a brick shade of orange, hemming the purple clouds with gold, a dark shape loomed ahead of them, perched atop the stony eminence at the Northernmost tip of the island. A gust of wind rushed in from the river, scattering volutes of dust, and Mehreen perceived the shape of gutted vaults and misshapen turrets over a talus wall belting the old fort and cutting it off from the valley. The crenellations towered above them, merlons as jagged as broken teeth.

"Welcome to Nemgairost," Buttercup called out from behind, not without some bitterness to his voice.

No banners flew from the lonely spires. The portcullis was raised, so that the gate yawned at them as they hurried beneath the spiked lattice to emerge into a bailey strewn with rubble, the clatter of hooves a lonely, hollow sound.

"Help him down," the Captain commanded in a strained voice, throwing the words over her shoulder like a bothersome cape tail.

She forced her horse to a sharp stop around between the narrow walls, tugging at the reins with a hand of steel; Mehreen noticed how her fingers had remained closed around the pommel, as if the heat had molten them around its shape.

The Sha'ir slid from his saddle, frowning as if the impact had stunned him, and staggered upon receiving Arthagar's weight into his arms. "You're heavy, dammit," he grunted.

"Grown fat on Buttercup's cooking," Bear butt in as dismounted in time to sling one of Arthagar's arms around his shoulder, ignoring his protests. "No more second helpings for you, old friend."

Arthagar wheezed something akin to a laugh. Though the shadows welling in the courtyard seemed to have done him good, he relied heavily on his comrades; still, the men's relief for having reached the fort was palpable, like the sweetness of water after a crossing of a perilous desert.

Buttercup rolled his shoulders with a groan of exhaustion, and threw the reins over his horse's head, but the quarterstaff slung across his back hindered his movement. The reins caught between the sorrel's ears. Uttering a low, tired curse Buttercup wiped his eyes, hissing as the sweat stung his eyes, before reaching out to finish what he'd started. Beside him, Tharn and Bara did the same, forgetting Mehreen for an instant, and leaving her stranded atop her mare.

"We made it," Bara muttered, with a disbelief better fitting a bloodied, sore survivor of some epic battle than a man in a dusty, but otherwise untouched, hauberk of lamellar leather. A slow grin of relief spread across his youthful face; a grin he shared with Tharn. "We made it. Eru, I thought that bridge would cave under our weight. I thought I'd crumble into a pile of bone dust, under that heat. I thought…."

Tharn clasped a hand onto his shoulder. "A day may come when our luck lets us down, my friend, but today's not that day. Tonight, we'll have a well-deserved rest. This fortress has seen scarier things that the Serpent and his snakelets, and nothing…."

A thud reverberated through the ward.

All turned their heads to see the Captain's motionless form sprawled out between the legs of her horse, which shied away in fear with a plaintive whicker. Even in the failing daylight, her face was a-shine with sweat, as pallid and sickly as that of a ghoul, the blue of her lips contrasting with the blood that'd beaded where she'd bit them.

A.N.: a few clarifying notes regarding this chapter:

- An ifrit is a type of demon in Arabic mythology, often described as tall and immensely strong. A marid is a type of jinn associated with water.

- Nemgairost is a Sindarin name meaning 'prow fortress' (from 'nem' = nose, 'cair' = ship and 'ost' = fortress).