The Ride of The Rohirrim

This is based mostly on the movies, but also on the third book. Hope you like it.It is also written in the style of Tolkien.

Wisps of clouds danced across the blue skies over Rohan and cast shadows that seemed to flee before the thundering race of the men on horseback. Their steeds’ hooves bit into the earth and sent clumps spraying behind them. The precision with which they rode showed great military discipline. These were not ordinary equestrians, not by a long shot. These were the famous Riders of Rohan.

At their lead was a man longer of limb than most, his long golden locks mingling with the horsetail adorning his helm, and his armor glinting in the sunlight. Eomer, nephew to the king of Rohan, was in exile. With him rode those loyal to Rohan. Those willing to face penalty of death to keep the lands clear of the taint of darkness Sauron and Saruman would infest them with. Men he would trust with his life, and who trusted him with theirs. He would not let them down. For the sake of his heritage, his homeland, he could let none of them down.

The past night they had battled Orcs wearing the white hand of Saruman near Fangorn Forest. In the few hours after a red tinted dawn they had met up with an odd trio of companions on a quest to find little people the Orcs had taken. He held no hope they would be found alive. His Riders had left none to live during the battle. He was proud of his men. Only two had fallen to the enemy.

Saruman was up to no good. He was not certain what the wily wizard wanted with those little people the Man, the Elf and the Dwarf were searching for. He knew only that anything Saruman did was naught but pure evil. As it was he could no longer concern himself with the quest of the trio. His own king and kin had exiled him on penalty of death should he return to Edoras and Orcs freely crossed Rohirrim land with none to bar their way. That is until now. Grima had made a foolish mistake in not killing Eomer, son of Eomund, right away and sending him out. So long as he lived he would see that he did all he could to keep the darkness from overtaking Rohan, and perhaps someday he will be permitted to return to his home and take his rightful place in the Golden Hall.

Eomer lifted a hand and halted his men. It was not that he had seen anything, nor heard anything, to warn him that something or someone was out there. He could not pinpoint what had alerted him, but with a few motions of his hand he set his cavalry into a gallop once more, and they thundered down an incline and suddenly swooped about to surround a huddled form that had taken refuge behind an outcropping of boulders near a small trickling of water that perhaps once before had been a healthy stream.

Many long lances were lowered and aimed at the form that now sat there still beneath a brown cloak. “You trespass on Rohirrim land. Quickly, who are you and why are you here?” Eomer commanded.

The leather of saddles creaked beneath the Riders as the horses shifted and blew hard. Rohan bred the most renowned horseflesh in Middle Earth. The form did not lift its hooded head. “I seek a Man, a Ranger, who travels with several companions. We have followed his trail for many long days…”

“We,” Eomer climbed down off his steed and neared the form. “You are not alone? Where are your companions?”

“I am alone. My companion fell to an Orc sword two nights hence, and I am all that is left.”

Eomer’s keen eyes fell to a bloody piece of cloth that he spied from where the cloak gaped a little at the chest. The form had a sheathed sword by its side that it had not reached for, and a bow with an empty quiver on the other side. “You are injured.”

“I fear you caught me tending my wound.”

Reaching up Eomer removed his helm, bent on one knee and caught the cloak in his hands to spread it. The feeble attempts of the form to push his hands away he easily batted off, and his eyes narrowed as he parted the woolen material. There was a groan, but not of pain, as he bared a white bosom with the suspicious swell of female breasts barely hidden by a torn and bloody unlaced bodice.

“Avert your gazes,” he barked to his men as he shut the cloak. “Your wound needs tending.”

A hand covered in drying blood reached up, and pushed back the hood of the cloak. Long tresses the color of sunshine and flames were partly tamed into a thick plait with several strands falling in disarray about a soft and pale face. In that face were two eyes the color of bruised violets that painfully lifted to his face. “I am afraid, Master Rider, that I have become too weakened to do more than I have.”

Rising Eomer compressed his lips. “Very well.” Turning he ordered his men to rest the horses and keep a watch. He, himself, prepared to tend to her wound. “Who is this Man you seek?”

“He is a Ranger, a Dunedain, set out on a quest of great import by Elrond of the Rivendell Elves. Two of us the Dunedain set out to find him with a message of import. We had lost his trail near the Mines of Moria, and over the mountain we had to travel. The first Orcs we came across were a small band and easily dispatched.” She hissed in a breath as he used the herbs she had gathered and the water he had boiled over a small fire to soak a cloth and clean her wound.

His touch was gentle for a warrior, sure, and skilled. “You have tended wounds before?” she queried. “Your touch is skilled.”

“Small wounds and what can be tended on the field are a required skill for a warrior. Any others are tended to by the women.” He tried to keep her as modestly covered as possible as he cleaned the hole in her shoulder above her left breast. “The first band was easily dispatched?”

“Yes, and we came to Lothlorien where the Elves were gathering and preparing to leave. The Lady and Lord sheltered us for two days and three nights, and we hurried on our way to find our friend. The trail led us many days on a harried journey, and we came across a large band of Orcs who were traveling to meet up with their brethren. That is when my companion fell, and I was wounded. I barely escaped alive, and here you now find me. Though many of the Orcs we felled when we battled them a handful remained and I cannot understand why they did not hunt me. Instead they veered away and hurried off as though on some important mission they should not fail.”

He listened as he spread a thick substance over the hole, packed it tight with the clean leaves she gave him and bandaged it with cloth. “Saruman has a new breed of Orcs he has harangued my homeland with. I am not surprised to hear the ones you met did not give chase but were bent on some nefarious deed only they and Saruman could know. We have been hunting them for many days now, cleansing Rohan of their fellness.”

His sister, Eowyn, was a woman accomplished with a sword. Though he loved her dearly and would lay his life down to save hers he knew her to be odd at times. She had skills in womanly ways, and yet she persisted in the ways of the warrior. He did not feel ease at having left her without his protection at Edoras, but there was naught he could do to help it. He had been banished. She had not. But if ever he learned that Grima had lay hand upon her he would brave his countrymen to slay the evil worm who dared to do so.

“You scowl as though dark thoughts plague you,” she remarked. “Am I the cause?”

“Take a care on Rohan land, fair maiden. Saruman has hold of the land, and his worm Grima controls Edoras and King Theoden. In trying to rid my people of the plague of Saruman’s White Hand Orcs I was banished. These men are those loyal to Rohan, and would see her cleansed. While I roam endlessly my sister is beyond my aid in the Golden Hall where a worm seeks to borrow into her breast and darken her heart with a twisted form of affection for his ill person. This worries me greatly. She is skilled with the ways of the warrior, but she is alone.”

His face was tight and pale in a grimace, and his eyes dark and stormy. This golden Rider of Rohan had a strange responding tightness enclosing her chest, making breath difficult to take. “Perhaps, if you would trust in me, I could venture near Edoras, and speak a message to your kin. Do you have word you would like me to bring her?”

Only his eyes moved to pin her, and he measured her in that look. Her gaze held his, and in the violet depths he saw a sincerity that gave him hope. “Tell her that Eomer is well and keeps our borders safe. Tell her to guard against the worm and not lose hope.”

His name was Eomer. It suited him. By his bearing and dress she knew him to be a nobleman. It stood to reason his sister would not be a chambermaid or cook. “And her name?”

“Eowyn,” he replied. “That is the best I can do for your wound,” he told her. “Tonight we will camp here, and with the dawn my men and I must be off. You need rest… I do not know your name, maiden.”

“Beléniel,” she replied.