[piosenniel]

Osse's post - Carthor: taken in by the Lossoth


The old man reached a brown hand out from the rippled folds of fur. King Arvedui poured the contents of a ragged cloth pouch onto the man’s wrinkled palm. The old man’s round face peered at the glossy surface of the sapphire as he held it up to the light. Muttering something to the man standing by his side in his own tongue, he looked back at the men in front of him. He sniffed at the great stone, before thrusting it roughly back into the still outstretched hand of the king. He shook his tightly cloaked head.

“Ice men no want cold stone.” His deep, guttural voice was surprising in such a wizened frame.
“Ice men cannot eat cold stone.”

“And Dunedain cannot eat ice! Cannot you spare even a morsel, o’ Chief?” Replied Arvedui.

The journey had almost broken the king, and he could not keep the desperation from filling his eyes and his voice.

“If you cannot aid us Chief, if we cannot find sanctuary with the Men of the Snow, then we are lost. We shall go out into the ice to perish. I only pray the wind freezes our breath before starvation does.”

The king made to turn and depart, but with a single deft movement, the old ice-chief was standing, his broad brown hand spread gently over the ragged fabric of the king’s cloaked shoulder.

The old man’s glance darted from the king’s desperate grey eyes to his cold hand as it lay on his sword hilt.

He looked up.

“Tall men stay.” His voice, once as cold as the winds of his home, had warmed.
“We give you what little we can.”

The king stepped forward, with his hand outstretched in sign of the agreement. The Ice-chief hesitated, his black eyes examining the Dunedain’s poised hand for a brief moment, before reaching out and clasping it firmly. Carthor, standing behind the king, could see his whole body relax as a wave of relief rushed through it.

The chief’s warriors, all clad in their thick fur wrappings, of what animal Carthor could not guess in the ruddy fire light of the ice-house, stepped forward. Each bore a thick brown blanket, and draping them tightly over the white-cold frames of the Dunedain, they ushered them all into a warm alcove. Carthor sipped gratefully at the hot fish-broth one of them provided for him in a shallow wooden bowl. The steaming liquid coursed through his stomach, extinguishing the hollow pain that his weeks of hunger had brought him.

Carthor looked grimly around the alcove, his blue eyes landing heavily on the faces of his companions. Seven times he paused; seven times he looked into lost and wearied eyes. The seven men around him were all that remained of the king’s guard that had ridden out from the mountains.