[Envinyatar]

Fen Shepherdspurse

The smell of death was unbearable. Fen bent his back to the shovel and buried the dead as he was bidden, grumbling all the while to himself that the coins he’d received could not cover the labor he felt forced to do. Finally finished, he threw the shovel down, wiping the greasy grime from his brow with an already stained shirtsleeve.

Fen left the Elves to their talk of further tasks, saying he would see to the horses. Gathering them from the oak tree where they’d been tethered, he took the horses as far as he could from the grisly scene, as much wanting to be away from it himself as to get them away from the lingering, disquieting stench. The two Elven mounts eyed him with a certain sense of superiority, or so he surmised, as he tied them to another tree’s branch on the far perimeter of the farm. ‘It’s not that I’ve no feelings,’ he rasped at them. ‘And my hand had no doing in the killings.’ One of them snorted at him, shaking his great head as if to disagree. Fen wiped his hands, grimy from grave digging, against his vest and backed away from the beasts. ‘Man’s got to look out for himself,’ he mumbled leading his rag-tag grey away from the tree.

Looking back toward the farm, he noted the two Elves had disappeared from view. ‘Investigating,’ he snorted at his own mount. ‘Fat lot of good that’ll do,’ he laughed quietly, wondering if those Elven ears heard as good as he’d been told. ‘Investigate all they want,’ he wheezed, pulling himself up onto the back of his mount. ‘The Boss and his boys’ll take care of ‘em - same’s they took care of old Whittleworth and his get.’

He kicked his horse lightly in the flanks, heading north east to where the Orcs could be found. He’d stuck around long enough to hear when the parties planned to meet at Weathertop. The Boss would want to know . . .