(NOT A NEW UPDATE, sorry folks. Realized that there should be a Table of Contents in the OP rather than the first chapter, because this thing is gonna be at least 20-30 chapters.)
Modig Redux
Chapter One
As the sun’s first light peeked over the horizon, the camp began to stir. I had already been up with the first birdsong, just as the last stars were fading from the night sky. Since I was the only female
sperewigend, and since everyone assumes women are the best cooks, I was in charge of the meal. Fortunately for the camp, their assumption was correct, in my case. I can cook, but I hate cooking for thirty-five.
Tent poles clattered as the nightly shelters were disassembled. I looked up from the porridge I was stirring just in time to just in time to see the
paethfindians entering the command tent, which would be the last one taken down, to report their overnight observations.
A chill slithered down my spine.
~~~
The late-autumn sun was bright, nearly blinding, overhead as we rode eastward alongside the Isen river. Isengard was just barely visible far off in the distance, and I wondered if the rumors of Uruk-Hai still wandering the plains and hills were true. Surely not.
“Bredwyn.”
The sound of my husband’s voice at my shoulder pulled my thoughts away from the Uruk-Hai and Isengard. “What?” I asked, turning to glance at his face, and the mischief in his ice blue eyes made my breath catch as it always did.
“Stop daydreaming. You’ll fall off your horse.”
“I haven’t fallen off my horse since I was a child, Éomund,” I hissed as I rolled my eyes, then urged my horse forward, though my annoyance was mostly feigned. Éomund knew it, too. I could hear him chuckling in his saddle.
Perhaps it had been a mistake to follow my husband into the Cavalry, but I’d found the concept of waiting at home while he rode into battle too nerve-wracking and tedious to deal with. And after the war with Mordor, the king and his councilors had lifted the restrictions on women being only shieldmaidens. Too many men had died, both at Helm’s Deep, and at Pellenor.
~~~
We broke for the midday meal a little later than we normally did. Eadfrid—
no, the Marshal, I reminded myself, still finding it difficult to separate my husband’s longtime friend from his military status—stepped forward to address those under his command as I and a few other
sperewigends served up hardtack, cheese, and water to our fellows.
I tried my best to listen as I worked. There was never enough time to serve food and eat it as well.
“The
paethfindians brought word this morning that several small bands of Uruk-Hai have been spotted in the Gap of Rohan, riding towards Isengard. We’ve made good timing this morning, and I think we will be able to intercept them before sundown.”
We’d been relatively fortunate, for the past several months, to have few skirmishes, and if I was honest, I’d not seen any of the battle action myself. I knew my training had been sufficient, but my nerves had not yet been tested. As I finally sat down next to Éomund with my own food, he slid closer to me and quietly set his hand on my knee. Normally his touch was soothing, but today it had little effect. The food in my hands was suddenly heavy as lead.
“Everything will be all right,” he whispered. “You’re a talented swordswoman. You just need to prove it.”
I tried to let his words wash away my worries.
~~~
The shadows were long across the plains before we drew near to the Fords of Isen. Everyone in the company fell silent. It had not even been five years yet since Théodred, son of Théoden, was slain here, and I suspected that entering this area would be a somber happening until at least the next generation was grown.
Not long after we crossed through the Fords of Isen to the western side of the river, the horses began to shift, tossing their heads and stomping their feet with nervousness. I felt another chill go down travel down my spine as my gaze shifted to the trees on the opposite bank. I thought I saw movement and the glint of reflection, but after a moment of observation, I blinked and shook my head. I was too weary. My eyes were playing tricks on me.
I dropped my head forward to stretch my neck while waiting for those around me to finish calming their horses, and felt an odd tug at the pinned-up braids on the back of my head. Less than a second later, someone moaned next to me, and then there was a shout of alarm. Twisting in my saddle, my lungs froze as I saw a black arrow embedded in the shoulder of the sperewigend to my left.
The Uruk-Hai had found us first.
If I’d been any further back in the line… I forced myself to take a deep breath in, then out, and to listen for commands.
I managed to grab the reins the wounded sperewigend had dropped, and our unit was quickly withdrawn from the range of the Uruk-Hai’s weapons. We were able to shelter in some trees on our side of the river, and by the time Éomund and another sperewigend had helped the wounded one off his horse and to the healer, the marshal was calling for attention.
“Who can swim?” he asked.
I looked around, trying to see who else would respond, as I slowly lifted my own hand into the air.
The marshal spoke again. “How far can you shoot an arrow and still hit the center of the target?”
“Twenty yards, sir,” I answered as I lowered my hand. No one else had responded to the inquiry about swimming, so I hoped my archery skills would be sufficient for whatever he was planning.
The marshal nodded and waved me forward to where the other commanders stood.
~~~
Every muscle in my body threatened to revolt as I slipped into the Isen. Though the water still held a touch of summer’s warmth on the surface, underneath it held the biting chill that signaled the soon arrival of winter. I had removed my armor and wore just a simple tunic and breeches, with a bow and quiver strapped to my back. They did little to hold any warmth.
The bowstring hung in a waterproof pouch around my neck.
The rest of the company was already headed back down the river, the same way we had come, to draw the Uruk-Hai’s attention away from me.
I hadn’t had a chance to tell Éomund what I was doing. Hopefully, he wouldn’t be too upset later. So long as I survived.
After a deep breath, I sank beneath the water and began to swim across and upstream. The current wasn’t overpowering since the river was long past its spring peak. Once I’d made it to the opposite shore, I cautiously came up for air and listened for the sounds of the Uruk-Hai. As well as I could hear over the river, at least. After a few moments without hearing them raise an alarm, I ducked back under the water and swam upstream a bit further, just to be certain.
After crawling up the bank on my belly, and into the nearby trees, I worked as quickly as I could with chilled fingers to restring the bow, then restrapped the bow to my back. By the time I was finished, my fingers were no longer cold.
I wished I’d trained under one of the
paethfindians as I did my best to sneak back downstream toward the Uruk-Hai, using the trees for as much cover as I could. Fortunately, they were not bothering to be quiet, and so I had time to swing up into the lower limbs of a tree when I heard their characteristic grunts and hard breathing. I climbed as high as I dared, trying not to shake any of the dying leaves from the tree boughs. The presence of the Uruk-Hai had, fortunately, already frightened away any birds.
“Cowards,” I heard one grunt. “Do the horse-men really think that going back down the river will save them?”
The Uruk-Hai were, clearly, not prone to much comprehension of strategy, and I was grateful. They had been designed to be expendable. To obey orders without too much question. Sentient killing machines.
Time was of the essence, though. They would not linger to watch my companions across the river for very long, and I would have to move quickly once I began to act.
Find their archers, Eadfrid had instructed.
There shouldn’t be very many. Kill them off, then kill off their commander when the horn sounds and we begin to cross the river.
My eyes scanned over the group. There. Among the trees closest to the riverbank. Those were the archers, six of them, and they still had far too many of those nasty black arrows. And the commander… I spotted him at the far edge of the group. The archers were well within my range, but I would need to lure the commander closer.
Slowly, so as not to shake the tree limb I was perched on, I unstrapped my bow and reached for an arrow from my quiver. Just as I nocked the arrow against the bowstring and prepared to draw, I heard the horn.
Breathe in. Draw the bowstring. Breathe out. Release the arrow. The motion had been ingrained in all the Cavalry recruits long before they finished training, and I fell into the rhythm easily.
Breathe in, draw, breathe out, release. Once. Twice. Thrice. Thrice more. That was all the archers, at least that I could see. As I was shooting them down, many of the Uruk-Hai had charged out of the trees, and I could now hear the shouts and cries of battle outside the trees.
I lowered the bow and sought out the commander’s position again. A crude oath fell from my lips when I realized the commander had vanished.
Less than a dozen Uruk-Hai remained in my sight. I had no way to know if the commander had joined the fight against my brethren, or if he’d slunk of elsewhere into the trees. I’d hoped to pick all of them off from my perch, safe out of reach—Uruk-Hai were not limber enough to climb trees—but as I continued to search every shadow and nook within my sight, it was evident that I would have to descend.
As I strapped the bow on my back once more, my limbs began to feel heavy and leaden, dread suffusing me. So many scenarios raced through my mind, but I didn’t have the time to dwell on them, and instead forced my mind to calm and then carefully dropped down to the next limb, and then the ground.
I straightened just in time to see the Uruk-Hai commander break through the trees ahead of me.
~~~
To be continued...
). I DO remember Bredwyn's name though! I'm hoping more memories will snap back once I keep reading, but the nice thing is that I don't have to rely on nostalgia to enjoy. <3
