Gurzab Kurv

It took three days for the fever to break. In that time, she remained inside the home of Beorn and Hrefna, sharpening her daggers and wandering through her memories. She listened to the Steward’s son crying out for his mother, fighting past battles, and cursing his father.

When she slept, the nightmares took her, but it was not the first time she had been a guest in this home. She was slumped over in the chair when he woke from the fever dreams. Blinking in confusion, he stared up into the face of a man he didn’t recognize.

“I...where am I.”

“Awake then, are you, lad? Good. My wife will be glad to know all her effort hasn’t been wasted. I am Beorn, son of Bethel. You are in my home. In Edoras.”

He took this in, slowly. As he tried to sit up, a stabbing pain in his chest brought memories flooding back. “The girl...”

“Is here, safe, although she’ll likely be suffering from a sore neck and back when she wakes up,” the big man nodded at the chair and passed him a cup.

Boromir took the cup and shook his head, disbelieving. “She carried me all the way here?”

“Dragged, carried, or bitched you into it, one way or the other you’re here, and you’re healing and that’s all that matters. Those friends of yours have been sighted riding into the city. I’ve sent word to the palace. We should hear word of them soon.”

“They’re here? In Edoras?”

“A man, an elf, and a dwarf together. Traveling with the StormCrow.”

Storm Crow? That was what the Rohorrim called... “Gandalf? That’s impossible. Gandalf’s dead. I saw him die...” But even as he said it, he realized that it wasn’t true. None of them had seen him die. They had seen him fall, but...

His head spun from the effort and a renewed wave of pain. The cup fell from his hand.

“Easy there, son,” the big man said, reaching down to pick up the cup. “I’m sure it will all make sense in the end. Sure enough, I’ll wager the wizard has come to set things straight. He came in riding on Shadowfax, and that’s a sign in itself. No mistaking that horse.”

Trust a Rohorrim to rest the fate of his nation on the judgement of a horse. Boromir groaned and collapsed back into the blankets. He glanced again at the figure in the chair.

“The girl. How do you know her?”

The big man hesitated, glanced over at the sleeping figure. He took a slow breath before continuing, “Now, son, most of that isn’t my story to tell. There’s things people have a right to keep to themselves. I will say this much. You’re not the first person to owe her your life, and you won’t be the last. My brother and I, both of us, she snatched us out of an orc camp three years ago.”

“She did what?”

“Right out from under their ugly snouts. They had us both roped up to poles. Took the whole eored by surprise. We were two left out of two dozen who were captured. They were keeping us alive for sport and food. Fresh meat. And we had just about given ourselves up for dead. Then here comes this little slip of a girl, creeping through the tents and cuts us loose.”

“We three ran for our lives. Three days we ran, naked as the day we were born, no water but what we could find while we ran. No food. Three days in, she stops, gets this look in her eye. She tells us to go. Run on, but we couldn’t do that. Couldn’t just leave her. Crazy little girl decides she’s going to turn the tables around. She takes a couple of rocks and the same knife she used to cut us loose, and picks them off one by one. The whole Hand. One at a time.

“Chased the bastards all the way to the Black Gate. She killed the last one right outside their front door.”

“In Mordor? How did you ever make it back through the Gap?”

“She took us straight through, by roads I didn’t know existed. Wretched journey, but we survived. She brought us all the way back to Edoras. My brother tried to get her to stay. Even tried to talk her into marrying him. She turned him down flat. Stayed about two weeks, then disappeared. She’s been killing them ever since. One at a time. Wherever she finds them.”

“Why was she in the camp in the first place?” he asked, knowing he didn’t really want the answer.

A quiet voice answered from the corner of the room. “I lived in the camps most of my life. I belonged to a Haradrim whipmaster named Dag’redan.”

He wanted to say something but the words died on his tongue. He knew little of the Haradrim other than how they fought, but he had heard stories. If even a fraction of what made it into the stories was true...

“I’m sorry.”

“I don’t need your pity,” she said coldly, rising from the chair somewhat stiffly. “I need to walk. If your friends are here, Theodan and his lackey will be too busy to worry with me.”

She’d been awake long enough to hear that. He ground his teeth in frustration as she stalked out the door.

Beorn watched her go. “I may have told you too much.”

“And yet much remains unspoken,” Boromir said, not really realizing he had spoken aloud.

The big man regarded him intently for a moment. “Tread carefully with her, son of Gondor. We spend our lives building walls around our souls. Breach the wall once, and the whole thing may come crashing down.”

“I understand.”

“No, son. You don’t understand. You can’t even begin to understand.”