WEST WIND OVER EDORAS

Disclaimer: The characters and places here are not mine, all but a few are Tolkein's genius. If it's in LOTR, Silmarillion, Hobbit or Unfinished tales it Tolkien' s. If not it's mine.
No profit in this but the fun of writing and getting to play in Middle earth for a while.

CHAPTER 16

RIDE TO WAR

ROWANNEN:

It seems forever, that I crouch shuddering and shivering, listening to the wind howl by, but it is not yet dawn when the rain lessens. There are now but a few gusts sweeping by, the last tail flicks of Nahar. It is as if Orome has indeed ridden by, to meet the threat of the east and to go to war. My eyes are accustomed to the darkness and I lead Feannim from beneath the crag and mount again. The cold night air seeps into the dampness of my clothing as my mare picks her way downwards. When dawn lightens our paths we skirt past jagged rocks, bright yellow flowering gorse bushes and through the purple winter heather, towards the lowlands to reach open country again. The grass is sodden from the rain, and as we approach the Mering Stream, the ground is softer and marshier. Away to our left, I know the marshlands lie, where the Entwash breaks into many channels before spilling itself into the Anduin. Feannim’s hooves sink with each step and squelch as she lifts them free.

There is no sign of life, save a solitary hawk hovering high. For a moment my heart leaps and I whistle, wondering if it is my peregrine. Then I realise how far I have travelled from where I released her and how ridiculous and futile it is, to believe it could be her. We find some solid ground and I spur Feannim into a gallop again, needing the speed and purpose to drive from me my utter loneliness and rising despair. As I ride, thoughts of Legolas chase over and over through my mind. I do not wish to banish them, what else now could fill my thoughts? I try to concentrate on his hope and resolve and for some of the time, it supports me, yet whenever I relax my guard, I am assailed by nightmarish fantasies of the Paths of the Dead and the ghosts therein. Whether it is the effort of attempting to harness my wayward thought, the damp, or the lack of sleep, I feel myself growing faint and dizzy. I put pressure on the reins. “Steady, Feannim, slow. Let us walk awhile.” I pull the lembas from my bag and nibble, then drink again. The waterskin is almost empty now. I must stop to refill.

Down in a sheltered valley, I dismount. Take off my boots, fasten my skirt ribbons high and step into the cool water of a shallow pool. Feannim bends her head gratefully and drinks deeply, then wanders a little way to graze on some short new grass. A weak, late winter sun has struggled through the cloud and here and there wisps of mist are rising. The stream flows around my toes, caressing and cleansing. I fill the skin and then wash my bared arms, splash my face and neck.

Here the signs of spring are more advanced; the bright red branches of the dogwood are swelling with dark plump buds. In the water, the heart- shaped leaves of the Celadran are already pushing up from the sandy bottom towards the light. They sway with the ripple of the stream, glistening deep green and silver. Another month and their flowers will burst above the surface, such a dark purple, almost black. Velvety and streaked with bright gold at the centre in a ring. I recall being with Legolas at the pool and how he promised the resurgence of spring. I think of us on the mountain when I described the carpet of flowers that would blossom there. I try to cling to that hope of a bright future but now it seems lost. I had wanted so much to show him my land and its beauty, to travel with him, to share many things together and now he is gone. Never may we do that now. This war robs us of all hope. His confidence must be born of his immortality, his elven perspective of long ages. How can I believe in that also? I am human and my short span of years causes a finite dread to blacken my thought. I rub my hand across my eyes, my forehead. All my brave words, my pledges to him, seem like a dream, dependant on his presence and his love. I am totally abandoned and alone.

I should have listened, should have been warned by Eowyn’s unease, and attended more carefully to Aragorn and his tale of loss. It cannot be, an Elf and a mortal. Why am I doing this? Why am I riding to Minas Tirith to war? It is surely great folly. Maybe I should just turn back after all. Return to my people, salvage what I can, give help where it is needed, simply wait for fate. I step onto the bank and dry my feet, pull my boots back on, my thoughts and emotions clashing. I am fighting a war with myself. It seems as though I have this same choice to make over and over, in ever increasing intensity. How can I know which way to turn?

Then I am startled by a flurry of wings. A flock of marshflares, until now hidden and silent, as they fed on the grubs brought to the surface by the rain, suddenly take to the air. One group after another, orange tail feathers flashing, climb into the sky, their piercing shrill alarm calls, shattering the moment. I lift my head wondering what has disturbed them and turn sideways to the direction they rose.

Life, how it conspires to heap burden after burden upon us when we are least able to bear them. Accustomed to solitude on this ride, for an instant I am stunned at the intrusion, then horror spurs me into action. There is no time to retrieve the waterskin. I race across the turf, reaching wildly for Feannim’s reins. Her head flies up and she neighs in surprise.

Pounding across the valley side toward us, are three wildmen. Once we may have traded and lived in some unspoken truce with these vagrants, but lately they are an enemy. I can see that their clothes are ragged and torn and bloodstained from some recent battle. No doubt, having burnt a village and killed its innocent occupants along with bands of marauding orcs. I must be swift. The tales told by the Westfold refugees in Helm’s Deep, convince me they will show me no mercy. Visions of repeated and tortuous rape, flow across my mind fast as light, followed by knife thrusts to my belly and finally when they have watched me writhe in agony long enough for their amusement, a slice to the throat and I will be left as carrion for wild beasts and birds. No it cannot be so. Even if I never see Legolas again I will not let that end befall me for him to hear of if he lives, or my people to bemoan in sad stanzas of epic poetry.

One flying leap and I am in the saddle and pulling my mare around, to splash through the stream, but they are fast and almost upon us. Evil intent gives them speed and before we can leap free, one of the men has gripped Feannim’s long black tail and is tugging. She screams in anger and with a nudge from my heel, kicks out backwards. I hear the satisfying crunch of a broken bone and the aggressor is lying on the bankside, howling and gripping his thigh. My breathing is ragged. The second man is upon us instantly and grasps my leg above the ankle. His eyes dark and bloodshot, staring madly with the remnants of battle lust against his own kind, from a filth encrusted face. The stench of his breath wafts upward to me and I want to vomit. I swear I can see maggots crawling in his beard. I want to urge Feannim to fly, to make our escape, but I cannot, for his fingers have gripped me like a vice and should Feannim take off now, he will drag me from her back and I will be done for. I rein her in and with a feral howl; I pull my sword from the sheath fastened to the pommel of the saddle and raise its shining length in an arc. His free hand stabs toward us, thick fingers clutching a short rusted knife. He aims for Feannim; even his dull wits comprehend that my horse is my strength and advantage.

“Saruman’s slave! See what use he will have for you shortly,” I manage to scream. With a great heavy slash downward, using all the strength I can muster and all the power of my fear and anger, I bring down the blade, swinging backward at first one arm then the other. The man makes no sound, just falls away and lands in a heavy heap on the bank, disbelief and a strange pallor coating his features. The blood spurts like a fountain from the exposed arteries and his severed hands and wrists, now nerveless, lose their grip on me and drop into the water. A thick ribbon of red runs into the flow.

Breathless I wheel Feannim around. My talisman swings around my neck, loosened from under my jerkin by such frantic activity. I grip the arrow in my fingers, clutch the pared rowan wood, feel the fine mithril points. I must not lose it. I must survive. The third man now is upon us. He hesitates as he glances at his companions writhing and bloody, but he is determined to seek revenge. I see his eyes narrow. He dodges in front of me, cutting off a means of escape. Whichever way I turn he leaps into our path, an ugly leer on his countenance.

“Think you are a match for us? You are nothing but a slip of a girl. I’ll bind you and make you watch us eat your horse before putting you out of a misery that you will beg to escape.”

I think not. I would dismount and let her free with a command to gallop away before I relinquished Feannim to their clutches. I glare back. Had they not taken the element of surprise, been bolstered by orc aggression and butchered women who were concerned only to protect their children, scum like this could never have overcome the Westfold. These vagrants have no skill with equines. I am not one to claim superiority unmerited, but I have been born and bred with the horses of Rohan, who are from yearlings schooled for war as well as peace. Now is the moment to test that skill. With the lightest of touches on leather rein I guide my mare sideways, then backwards. The man follows, sensing a retreat. He is relying on my fear. He judges me incapable of repulsing him, thinks me close to surrender. He flashes his dagger toward Feannim’s raised neck and I turn her swiftly. His arm flails as he stumbles on the slippery rocks at the edge of the pool and the blade swings short. I know Feannim is fearful but even in the heat of battle and death a Rohirrim steed will obey its rider. I judge his speed and planned movement, then imperceptibly I tighten the rein and bend my toes inward. A short, simultaneous jab with each boot forward and my toes send a learned message into the tender skin between Feannim’s legs and belly. She rears to order, as high as she can without unseating me. Her soft belly is exposed to his knife. I feel her terror almost overriding her acquiescence to my will, but she holds firm. I grip tightly and watching the direction of the man’s dodge, whisper a command and slap my palm against her neck. Obediently she falls suddenly, hooves flailing, seemingly at random, but no, at the touch of my hand she lurches downward and her hooves connect with a resounding slam on the temples of our enemy. I hear the sickening thud of a skull breaking and crushing. The man falls away from me in an arc, his dagger slicing the surface of the water almost silently, unlike his body, which creates a shocking splash. Despite the relative shallowness here, his back disappears below the surface, his filthy shirt billows, then his head lolls to one side and his face is submerged.

I stay long enough to register that the air bubbles have ceased to issue from his mouth. I see the flow of red and the fatal pallor of his companion, and then wheel away from the crawling form of the first assailant who is edging nearer, revenge and lust still on his features despite his mangled leg. Does he still think he can overpower us? My instinct is to fly and put as much distance as I can between myself and my mare and this confrontation as possible, but I have absorbed legends and stories enough to know what battle honour requires. Forcing myself to turn one last time, I urge Feannim to keep stamping her hooves to prevent him grabbing for her legs and to shower water into his eyes, obscuring his vision. Then I lean from the saddle and slash as strongly as I am able with my sword. He falls forward, his arms flail, his eyes bulge unseeing and he falls, neck half severed. It is done. I whistle a command and Feannim leaps, light and strong as a stag from the centre of the stream and we are away. A great spray of water splatters over the corpses from her hooves and my fingers twine into her mane as she leaps the far bank of the pool and gallops as if a host of wargs were snapping at her haunches.

It is many miles before we slow, both breathing harshly. It feels as if we have been riding for months rather than hours. I bring Feannim to a halt below the marshes, way out on the plain where all danger can be seen from afar. The Anduin a shining ribbon ahead. Feannim is trembling. She lowers her head and blows, the sweat foaming on her neck. I have never been this far before. This is the edge of my land of Rohan and the full force of the course I have chosen these last days hammers into me at last. I have lost the safety of my family, my friends, those who love me, my heritage, all I have known and relied on, to ride into a war zone alone, with only a dream to sustain me. I want to turn and look back at all I have left behind. I may never see my country again.

Unbidden a vivid memory of Hama overtakes me. I was so much smaller then, that he appears very large and solid in my mind. He is carrying me from my home to the chambers he shared with his new wife Crirawen. Behind me, I know that a guard of the Riddermark is setting a torch to the only dwelling I have known in my life. The bodies of Mother and Father are already removed to the burial mounds, but the fear of the spread of disease is so keen still, that our place of residence must be destroyed. I remember wriggling in his arms to see the flames but he caught my chin and strode onward his rich voice close to my ear.

“No, Rowannen. There is no looking back. You know the story of Folca the stallion who led his mares from their mountain glen?” I nodded. A scary tale but still a thrilling bedtime favourite. “The cold was following them, glaciers advancing, locking the living in a grip of steel. All but one of his mares turned their heads for a last view, sorrowful of the heights they left behind and so the cold overtook them and they turned to ice. They became frozen sculptures of what they once were. The stallion kept his course resolutely, refusing to be swayed. When he reached the safety of Anorien, Folca was saddened to see that only Hildar, his youngest mare remained with him but knew he had done what was right. He lowered his head over her mane and breathed deeply and together they walked on. Do not look back Rowannen, there is nothing to be gained.” I recall clutching my brother tightly, my eyes screwed shut.

Now here I do the same. In place of Hama, now dead also, I clutch the arrow that lies around my neck, feel the strong silk of Legolas’s hair binding the softness of sacred feathers. For a moment that feels like eternity, remembering so much loss, again there is nothing but blackness behind my eyelids. From somewhere far away I hear a voice again. “Blackness is a lie of the enemy. Pass through it, ride on and see what lies ahead.” I have overcome my first foes, killed those of my own kind in self-defence. I must cross the divide, from childhood to womanhood. When Feannim recovers, I ride on, leaving all but the very essence of myself behind.


LEGOLAS:

We have ridden ceaselessly throughout this dark day. Onward through abandoned villages, all the inhabitants gone to war, the women and children fled to far cities for safety. It is well we see few, for the host of dead who ride behind us strike dread into mortal souls. The Dunedain though brave beyond measure and Gimli also, are hard pressed to quell their shaking, even though they know that this is what is decreed and what is required. I feel their unease. Mortal souls quail greatly at knowledge of death.

I am glad of the company of Elladan and Elrohir. Three of us together can form some immortal succour; can erect a wall of strength against this terror that rides with us. Yet we are not without our own demons. Much as we often avoid it, death touches us still. The knowledge of those of Lothlorien who fell at Helm’s Deep gives me cause for prayer as we ride and as a result of this, memories of my mother assail me. I try to banish to distant thought, the cruelty and horror of death at the hand of orcs for an incomparable elven queen; something I have had to practice for centuries past, yet still it returns to attack me. I bow my head with remembered grief as I ride. The twins flank me; send me thoughts of power to overcome this assault. They are not without grief for Celebrian themselves, and Elladan and Elrohir, both committed as I am, if not more, to support Estel; still interwoven with their love, I feel the sadness for their sister Arwen and the choice she must make.

My own choice too, of Rowannen, I have not yet thought this through to the end. There has been no time, and courage as I have in battle, fearing not my fate, in this I dare not yet pursue logic and knowledge to its conclusion. In answer to my prayer, I am told to trust, keep to the path of love. That is what I will do. I bow my head and ride on.

So dark has been the day that we scarcely notice the passage of time, but as we crest a rise and the road falls down towards the coast the cloud breaks and gleaming orange sunbeams flare from the sky. Before me I see trees, and a landscape of grasses and farmland dropping away, yet it is not this that halts the breath in my lungs. Stretched out as far as elf eyes see, is a shimmering vista of silvered movement reflecting the colours of the sky. Ripples of its life running ever inward to the shore and breaking there. The foam promising everything you could ever dream of, before retreating and pulling back tantalisingly into the vastness. From afar this magic draws my eyes and then the tang of salt and a fresh, far off scent I have never before encountered sweeps into my nostrils. I lift my head to see soaring wheeling birds, sharp wings accustomed to the flow of the wind and my ears too are held by a new sound as they call loudly to each other above the soft song of the surf. They are speaking of fishing, of resting easy on the swell and then harsh and raucous, voicing of storms far out in the ocean. My mind is taken. It sweeps out across the water. I hear the song of Ulmo and appreciate fully the magic of the Valar. Gandalf’s words to me when he imparted Galadriel’s message are fully realised.

“Legolas Greenleaf long under tree, in joy has thou lived. Beware of the sea!
If thou hearest the cry of the gull on the shore, Thy heart shall then rest in the forest no more.”

Now I see waters pattern. I see why the rain on Mirkwood Mountains runs laughing down to the forest river. I see how it rejoices in its oneness in the long lake. How it gathers together and pursues its purpose down the Anduin, hurls itself breaking into wild spray over the Falls of Ruaros, where we gave Boromir to its power. How it irresistibly flows onward to the sea. The Sea. This is my first sight of it. I see the continuous flow of waters power here in Arda and also the compulsion to sail across its ultimate vastness, over that far horizon, to a new world that has been granted to elven kind.

A sylvan elf from deep within an inland forest, I think I understand for the first time why my father has kept our people so isolated. It is not just as I thought from my history lessons, his bitterness and pride over the carnage of the second age, but also because of his great love of the earth and our homeland. A desire to keep the magic of elvendom alive in Arda and protect his people from the desire to flee to Valinor. The contradiction sweeps over me now and a great longing delves the depths of my heart as I think of sailing into that sunset over the horizon, away from the cares and responsibilities of the ages here and into a better land, where the Eldar live in total harmony with the Valar infinitely. I am vaguely aware of the dead passing around me, of life leaving me behind. Then a tall form pulls his mount around and draws alongside me.

‘Legolas.’ Elrohir’s voice is gentle yet stern in my mind. ‘Dan and I know how you feel. We travelled to the Grey Havens to say goodbye to our mother. We have felt the call of the sea also. I understand it is strong and unlooked for in your Sylvan race, much more so than to myself, a peredhil from Imladris, but Legolas this is not the time for you, as it was not the time for us then. Turn your thought away I beseech you.’

I close my eyes and my hand strays to the clasp over my heart. My fingertips stroke her thick hair woven over the curled metal and brush the softness of heron feather. I take a deep breath and ride onward. In the harbour below are the black corsair ships and as we approach, the mind of a warrior rises uppermost within me. We must take these ships and sail back up the Anduin to the defence of Minas Tirith. A task we are well equipped for, given our courage and mission and the dread army we now command, but it not just this that forms my resolve to continue, nor even my loyalty to Estel and the quest of the third age. It is my memory of Rowannen, our love and our pledge that pulls my gaze from the promise of Valinor beyond that shimmering horizon.