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Éomeléo woke quite early; but still later than the woman who was also walking his path. He wondered how she managed to rise when the Sun was yet so low. He decided to head West today: it was high time he did that. He guessed that Valesseka had also chosen this way and maybe, just maybe, hoped that he could find her again.
At least the weather was kinder on this day, although the wind was still a bit of a nuisance (and Éomeléo made sure to keep a hand on his hat when it picked up). After many hours of seeing naught but birds and rabbits, Éomeléo met the Redwater. It looked a lot friendlier and safer than the Celduin, and the Gondorian sauntered upstream slightly in an attempt to find a shallow point. It was getting somewhat hazy on the banks, due to the day's build-up of heat. Éomeléo let his mind wander; he ambled along the sides of the river, among the inviting flowers of the water. Somehow finding himself caught in a bush, he forced an exit through the side of it, upsetting a bike of hornets in the process.
Pandemonium ensued. Éomeléo was assaulted on all sides by the iniquitous insects. He cried and yelped and hollered and moaned in pain, but there were none to help him. He was alone against these barbarous beasts, this unholy foe. He ran up the river side, riveted by the rack of the stings. He just had the wits about him to spy a rabbit corpse a few feet away from the bank. Abandoning all hygiene concerns, he flung himself by the cadaver, and waited. For a good few seconds nothing changed: the hornets were relentlessly bent on destroying the human, not feasting on the open flesh of the rabbit. Éomeléo realised that this solution was more suited to an assault by flies. Curses! he yelled, scrambling to his feet. Trembling, he bent over the side of the bank. Spotting that the river here was quite shallow, he took his sword and crossbow in his hands and plunged into the Redwater, holding his weapons just above the surface of the water so as to protect them. Wading in, he felt a great sense of relief: not only had the hornets let him be, but his many wounds were soothed by the healing water.
Éomeléo just stood there for over an hour.
With much splashing, and with much labour, Éomeléo managed to plot a course along the rise on the river-bed, taking him back south again, far from the belligerent bees. He was inching closer to the prize, but was only now beginning to long for his beloved, soft bed back home.
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