Mersday, 4th of Wedmath, Year 1417 Shire-reckoning
Somewhere in the Land of Dunland
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| The harsh wilderness of Dunland |
We had been obliged to rest from our chase of Smuin last night on account of his evading us by passing through a nasty-looking wolf-den. With the Sun having already set, we could not hope to find or follow his trail, so we elected to resume the hunt come morning. But dawn was now well in the air and my friends were busily scouring the land in search of anything that might indicate where Smuin had gone and how long ago.
Once again I reproached myself for oversleeping. I could see Gaelira searching the tall grasses, using her staff to part the foliage and examine the earth. Lagodir was some distance off and bent nearly double as he inspected the area near the wolf-den. Drodie was close by poking and prodding among some rocks, but where was Nephyn?
"Padryc, do you happen to any some peppermint or maybe lavender -- anything for pain?" came the huntress's voice from behind me. "My everything hurts." I turned around and there she was, reclining next to an old tree-stump. She wore a brave smile, but I could tell from the way she moved she was in a good amount of pain. The memory of yesterday's battle with the Mange-rider came rushing back to me -- how she collided with that large Warg and had the wind knocked out of her -- and no doubt she was feeling the after-effects of that blow.
"Of course, of course!" I said and dove for my pack. "Good heavens, Neph, you should have woken me or gone through my pack for whatever you wanted."
"I wasn't quite sure where to look," she said with a shrug. "Besides, it would have been rude." I fished out a small pouch of mint leaves along with a vial of almond oil (as a carrier) and handed them to her.
"Much obliged," she said, then together we began crushing the mint leaves and combining them with the almond oil to make a balm which is excellent for sore muscles.
"It feels as though it's been an age since I last asked you this," she said as we worked, "But how are you faring? Are you feeling as homesick as you were back near Lhanuch? It seemed a very low time for you."
"Oh, I'm well enough, I suppose," I said with a smile. "I don't care for this place we're in much, but we've seen far worse on our travels, haven't we? Lately, I've been more concerned with keeping my eyes open on all sides of my head, if you follow me: seems we've walked into the midst of a land in turmoil and we'd all best be watching our step."
"I, too, have been trying to focus on the present," she agreed, "Rather than... other things."
"Well, there's no need to worry about me," I said as we finished applying the salve. "I would like to know how you are faring, Neph -- that was quite a knock you took yesterday."
"It was enough of a knock to have me seeing stars," she replied with a shake of her head, "And to keep me out of a fight."
"There now," I laughed with my hands on my hips in proper chiding fashion, "You just be sure to take care of yourself! For my part, I'm just interested in finding what we need in this land then getting out of it as quick as may be. That's starting to look like a tall order, though, the way things are going: no sign of Gaelira's friend Edgerin anywhere in Galtrev and our one lead gives us the slip in the night!"
"Ah, but our slippery friend may have caught his foot as he was slipping," said Lagodir as he approached. "I have something to show you which may bring us hope. Gaelira! Drodie! Over here!"
We assembled ourselves and followed him to the edge of the wolf-den. There, on one side of a wide, grey stone, was a splash of what could only have been blood.
"Ah, good eye, Lagodir!" cheered Drodie. "Here we find news of our quarry at last."
"Dear me!" I exclaimed, "You don't think the wolves got him after all? Surely Smuin wouldn't run headlong into a den of wolves just to get away from us? Do you suppose he was really that frightened by our sudden appearance?"
"It's worth pointing out there was no us," Nephyn corrected, "Just me. And I doubt very much he would put himself in danger over me."
"It is possible Smuin received news from other sources," said Gaelira, "Or perhaps he assumes that we remain a party undivided. In any case, we must decide where to search next: do we brave the wolves?"
"There may be no need," Nephyn answered her. She was shielding her eyes with one hand and peering southward. "This spot of blood probably does not indicate Smuin was overcome by the wolves, though he may have been injured by them, assuming it is his at all, of course. But look! Is that a path I see up yonder?"
It was. We had missed it in the dark the night before, but after searching among many tumbled boulders and twisting shrubs we found a well-hidden dirt track which ran west at a height of some twenty ells above the wolf-den along its southern edge. Nephyn warned us to take care so that we might not overlook any further clues, but the trail of blood droplets and fresh footprints on the earth was so plain that even I had no trouble finding them.
"See! The wretch fled this way," Lagodir exulted as we went. "Clearly he meant to come by this road all along but some brave hunter among the wolves tried to make a meal of him first. His stride tells me he was unable to run, but I would judge from the distance between the drops that he was not critically wounded. Let us make haste and overtake him!"
"But not too quickly!" called Drodie from where he had fallen well behind the rest of us. "I certainly desire to find the coward also, for it's thanks to him I still have this bad leg. But spare me the swiftness of the hunt or I fear I shall truly injure myself, and then I will be no use at all."
We lessened our pace for the Dwarf, slowed as he was by the heavily bandaged ankle he had turned in yesterday's battle, but we kept doggedly on the trail. The high path descended and we soon found ourselves back on the main road by which we had approached Galtrev the day before. It ran north-south, but Smuin's trail continued due west. This we followed, but it quickly became quite difficult to find: we had journeyed beneath the eaves of Pren Gywdh, the wild woods of Dunland, and the undergrowth there was very dense. We spread out to cover more ground and our advance slowed to a crawl for fear of missing some sign which might show Smuin had veered off in one direction or another, but overall the trail continued on its westerly course.
We crossed some rolling, rocky hills under the trees until we suddenly found ourselves on the outskirts of a small Dunlending village. The women and children fled from us while the men came forward with weapons, but we held up our hands in token of peace and they did not attack us. We found a few among them who spoke the Common Tongue and explained that we were merely seeking another duvodiad (that is, "Outsider") like ourselves, and we had reason to believe he was hiding among them. The idea of a foreigner lurking unwanted in their midst alarmed the villagers, and they turned their efforts to routing out the interloper. The five of us remained at a respectful distance from their homes and allowed them to do the work of searching their own village themselves. Nearly an hour passed in this manner and I was just about the suggest that Smuin must have bypassed the village when a great to-do erupted from somewhere within the little hamlet.
We heard the cries of several women and the laughter of boys. The men went running to investigate, and soon there were many harsh shouts. I craned my neck and stood on my toes to try and see what was happening, but the low thatched roofs of the Dunlendings' houses obscured my view. A few minutes later, however, the entire population of the small village came round from behind one of the huts. They were led by a wiry and toothless old crone who was dragging another Dunlending female by the ear and shouting at her. The men, too, seemed outraged by the maiden and were obviously threatening to beat her. I wondered if we might have to intervene to prevent them from harming the cowed woman, no matter what offense she might have committed. Just then, the old hag hurled the accused one to the ground at our feet. It was then I noticed she had a wounded leg. And a beard.
"Smuin!" I shouted, and he it was! Enro Smuin lay before us clad in a tattered old dress with a rug to pass for a woman's hair. Apparently he had entered the village some time during the night, assembled his disguise, and was just trying to slip out again unnoticed by tagging along with the women's daily washing troupe. The women, however, knew their own number and found him out easily. The Dunlending males wished to kill him for his intrusion, but we pleaded that they would give him to us and that we would enact justice upon him. This seemed to placate their desire for revenge, and we were allowed to depart with Smuin in tow while the villagers went back to their lives shaking their heads and muttering about the "effrontery of Outlanders these days."
But we were not about to deal with our captive openly in plain sight of so many: we bound his hands and feet (none too gently), then hoisted him upon Lagodir's shoulders. Galtrev was only a short distance to the south-east, and we could not think of any better place to go. Smuin grunted and whined most appreciably as we back-tracked across the rough, uneven terrain.
"What the devil are you all -- oof! -- chasing me for?! I have done nothing -- ow! -- wrong!" he wailed.
"Then why run?" asked Lagodir as he jolted the unhappy Man with every chance the land presented. "We merely wished to have a little chat."
"Ow! Do you always truss and kidnap every poor soul with whom you -- ouch! -- wish to 'have a chat?'" Smuin retorted. "Put me -- oomph! -- down at once!!"
"So you can try to give us the slip again?" laughed Nephyn. "I don't think so. We're going somewhere nice and quiet first where your back will be up against a wall, both literally and figuratively."
"Come to your -- ow! -- senses, you stupid girl," Enro snapped back. "Can't you see that I am wounded? How far could I possibly -- hey! -- get on this leg of mine? I barely got outside Galtrev's walls before getting set upon by wolves in the dark in this wretched, miserable -- ow! -- backwater of a country!"
There was a good deal more of this kind of talk, but none of it was very productive. Eventually we returned to the main road and followed it south, back toward Galtrev. Once we were just within sight of its gates, we set our prisoner down and allowed him to recline against a tumbled old section of stone wall. He kept complaining about his leg and I agreed to take a look at it: we had no desire to hurt the Man and no right to do so anyway, so it would have been unjust if we allowed his wound to become infected and cause him real, lasting harm. But the interrogation began the moment I had set to my work.
"All right, Enro, it's time to talk," said Nephyn with her arms crossed in front of her. "What's the story behind the bounty posters?"
"You mean to say you drove me from town, chased me across a forest, got my leg all tore up, and hauled my back here like a Yuletide turkey just to ask me a question I've already answered?!" Smuin cried. "I told you already: someone wants your heads, I merely help them get what they want. It's business! How many times must I say it? Dumb wench."
Lagodir's mailed fist back-handed Smuin squarely on the jaw. Blood and spittle flew from his lip as I scurried out of the way in fear.
"Take a more civil tone, vermin," the Gondorian said icily. There was a condescension in his voice I hadn't heard before. Smuin spat more blood onto the ground, then raised his head and smiled. His teeth were smeared in crimson, giving his lean face a downright ghoulish look.
"Or you'll what?" he asked quietly. "Murder me? Right here under the trees? Hardly seems the best way to go about collecting information, don't it? Or do you always think with your muscles, you bulky git?" Lagodir drew his sword.
"Your leg is injured," he said, pointing to the wolf-bite with the point of his blade. "Perhaps you should loosen your tongue before I decide to spare Padryc the effort of tending it by lopping it off here and now." Smuin looked genuinely distressed.
"You wouldn't!" But it was Smuin and Nephyn speaking at once.
"If that's what it takes," Lagodir replied, his eyes never wavering from Smuin's. Gaelira moved to place a hand on Lagodir's sword-arm.
"There is no need for this," she said. Lagodir relented, and the Elf turned her keen gaze upon our captive. "Simply tell us what we want to know and we will set you free." She signed that I should resume work on Smuin's injured leg and I did so.
"Fine, whatever you want," the Man growled as he spat more blood on the ground. "What, you wanna know who is after your heads, is that it?" He laughed at us. "Why didn't you just ask? It makes no difference to me if you know that or not: his name is Iargandir. He's supposed to be sorcerer -- a death-wizard or some such, if you actually believe that sort of garbage -- makes his home in the old barrows north of here."
"The Lich Bluffs?" asked Gaelira. "Those hills have a dark history. This Iargandir: is he a Man from out of Angmar?"
"Maybe, maybe not," said Smuin. "How should I know? I couldn't care less who's side anyone is on -- I'm just in it for the money. But that's where he is, or was, so if you want to know why he wants your pretty little heads on pikes then you really oughta go and ask him. And leave me out of it."
"We will be going to pay your friend a visit," said Nephyn as she bent down to look Smuin square in his beady little eyes. "And we will return."
"He's no friend of mine," came Smuin's response, "He's a client; just like anyone else."
"There, I've finished binding your leg," I said as I stood up from my task. "You should stay off it for a few days at least, you know, to help it heal."
"Thank you," said Smuin, and I think he meant it. "Now, are we finished here? Because I've been chased by you lot, mauled by wolves, accosted by a bunch of angry villagers who all smell of pig, and trucked across most of Dunland like a sack full of cabbages on the back of a bad-tempered monkey -- so I'd really like to lie down for a while."
"Like as not it is far better than you deserve," Lagodir snorted. "But you have my leave to depart, ere the bad-tempered monkey becomes especially irked." Smuin shrank away from him and prepared to go.
"Wait," said Nephyn as she presented the Man with a small satchel. It was the loot we had recovered from the Mange-rider's lair.
"What's this?" Smuin asked.
"We had made a deal," Nephyn explained. "Even though you tried to get out of it: you were going to tell us all about the posters if we slew the Mange-rider and retrieved whatever he had stolen. Well, here is what we found. I don't know what the going rates are in Dunland, but I suspect there's at least five gold pieces worth of goods in this. I don't know what you think about us, Smuin, but we are not your enemies. I assume I don't need to point out that your leg wouldn't look like that if you had simply accepted my offer from yesterday and kept your end of the bargain. Also, I would be much obliged if you might consider taking down any posters and not distributing new ones." Smuin accepted the satchel.
"I'll do that," he said quietly. He made to go, then turned to face us again. "Say..."
"Yes?"
"Well, it's just that you should watch yourselves in the Lich Bluffs," Smuin said finally. "They're supposed to be haunted, you know. Not that I go in for all the superstitious nonsense, of course, but that's what I hear tell. Anyway, if you don't mind I think I'll drag myself back into town and visit the tavern where I can find a more effective analgesic than whatever this hobbit is carrying on his back." And with that he left us.
The five of us stood there and watched him go as the Sun sank behind the western hills. It was a bit surreal, seeing that lanky figure we had known from Ost Forod in the far north limping his way behind the wooden palisades of Galtrev in Dunland, but such was the strange path our feet had trod.
"Personally, I think Lagodir should have taken his leg off," said Drodie.
"Oh, stop it!" Nephyn cried. "Let's just go."
"Yes," said Gaelira quietly, "If we must turn aside from our course and head north, then let us at least put a few miles behind us before we completely lose the light."
We returned to the road and trudged northward for about another two hours. Our progress was slow, but I think there was more to it than simple weariness. It was a relief when Gaelira finally called a halt and we made camp behind a screen of trees and boulders just west of the road. I was eager to sleep and forget the day's struggles.
"Normally I fear the night hours out here in the Wild," I said as I plopped myself down near Drodie's campfire, "But tonight I will be asleep too quickly to care. And I can't say I mind the arrangements: I prefer spending the night out here than inside the walls of Galtrev. So foreign! That place made me nervous." I had no idea what my last remark was about to unleash.
"But foreign isn't always bad, is it?" Nephyn asked me. "I kind of like this land."
"No, of course not," I back-tracked. "Not bad in of itself, no; just very different."
"It is that," she agreed, "Although I hope we find the majority of people are more of the Stag-clan's mindset than that of the Dragons."
"I would not count on that, Nephyn." It was Lagodir, and he was looking downcast and sullen.
"Why not?" the huntress pressed him. "The Dragon-clan seem to be the more numerous, I grant you, but we are only a few days into Dunland after all. The Stags we have met seem pleasant enough."
"That is only because they are the weakest among the clans," Lagodir responded. "But they all share the same dream. I heard a Stag speaking to a member of the Ox-clan yesterday in the Galtrev marketplace. They still aspire to see the many clans of Dunland united under a single banner."
"What's wrong with that?" asked Nephyn. "So long as it's not a Dragon-banner I don't see why it should be a problem."
"The Dragons appear to be the strongest of the clans," Lagodir answered her, "And so any united Dunland almost certainly would march under their banner. Nor do I think it matters much: all the clans once followed the leadership of a man named Wulf who overran Edoras and sat in the Golden Hall of Medusheld. The Dunlendings still long for those days -- they would storm across the Isen and slaughter the men and women of the Mark given the first chance."
"You don't know that!" Nephyn cried, clearly upset.
"So has it ever been," Lagodir said, "Since Cirion gifted the province of Calenardhon to Eorl the Young and the Eotheod. The Rohirrim populated it by the will of the Steward while the Dunlendings were driven northward and have remained hostile to our allies -- jealous of Gondor's favour and always desirous to possess that which they deem to still be theirs."
"But -- but you just admitted it was theirs!" she exclaimed.
"No, it was Gondor's. The Dunlendings merely lived on the land by the leave of the Steward; it was Gondor's to give and it was given to the Rohirrim."
"But you can't simply decree that an entire people vanish!" Nephyn countered. "What right does Gondor have to displace a whole civilization, no matter how backward and insignificant it may seem to you?"
"It was Gondor's will that the ownership of the province pass to the Rohirrim," said Lagodir sternly. "The manner in which the Rohirrim ordered their affairs or dealt with the Wild Men was not Cirion's concern, so long as it did not endanger the interests of Gondor."
Nephyn's cheeks flushed and tears started in her eyes. She suddenly stood and walked off, disappearing behind a row of trees. Lagodir sighed and shook his head.
"One day she will see the truth of my words concerning the people of this land," he said. "I cannot understand her sympathies for them, but she will learn. And so will the rest of you." Then he stood and walked off in the other direction.
Gaelira, Drodie, and I sat there, dumbfounded. It was the most awkward moment in our Company I could remember since I had found Luean's message to me hidden in the hills of the North Downs many months ago.
"Shouldn't -- is it safe for those two to be walking around alone in the dark?" I wondered aloud, but I don't think any of us were of a mind to go after them at that time, despite the danger.
"I think it best if we let them be," said Gaelira. "I will keep an eye on them, Padryc, but you should get some sleep while you can: tomorrow is going to be a hard march, for we have much ground to cover and we will be moving away from one goal to seek another. I hope we do not come to regret this detour."
And with that our eventful day finally came to its end. I did not see Gaelira, Nephyn, or Lagodir again all night as I sat writing in my journal by the light of the fire while Drodie absent-mindedly poked at it with a stick. I remember Nephyn's fond hopes that coming to Dunland would bring her some answers about her own heritage, but so far we have found little of comfort. Moreover, I am still sworn to secrecy regarding what I know about her ties to the people of this place, and so I am unable to offer Lagodir or the others any explanation as to her interest in it. I am not sure how much the others might know or guess, but it is not my place to speak of it. Still, the irony is not lost on me that she came to Dunland hoping to learn more about her family, but instead Dunland has exposed a rift within our family, and I feel as though there is nothing I can do about it.
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