He was looking at the stars and fiddling with a blade of grass in his fingers. He barely heard the steps approaching and only turned his head at the last moment. He was shocked to see who the two men coming up were.
“I trusted you!” he stammered, unbelieving. “I trusted you! I thought you were...”
“A Faithful?” one of the King’s Men offered. The man just gaped at him. “Trust is a valuable thing, you would have learned. You do not give it easily.” The man was still staring silently with his mouth half open.
“But... but you are my
friend!” he finally said. “You would never!”
“Ah, the things I do for love! I love my life, do you not know?” the King’s Man smiled. “Do you love yours?” he added, somewhat sharply. The man was still not over his shock, and remained silent.
“If you love your life you will come with us tonight. And tomorrow, when they begin to ask probing questions again, you will deflect their suspicion so that it falls on someone else – one of them,” the King’s Man continued, ignoring the man’s silence. “Moreover, right now you will tell us who be the last of the line of the Lords of Andunie. We have finished two of them, and we will have the other two as well. In addition to that...”
The man could not finish. As he talked, he did not notice how the man’s face changed as he spoke. All of a sudden, with a cry “Never!”, the man was on him, punching him, tearing at his long white beard, ignoring his fragility as they rolled on the ground. And it was over just as quickly: the other King’s Man came up from behind and struck the Faithful man’s head with a rock.
The old man stood up and shook the dust off his clothes. He looked at the man sprawled on the ground. “Well?” he said. “You may still live if you do what I told you. Make your choice!”
“You and your cause are damned by the Valar! Their thoughts will be with...” But the man was dead before he could finish his response. The King’s Man’s stone struck too hard.
And who was he? Was he just a plain man?
No. He was of Amandil’s line.
Just like two times before, a pale mist rose above the body and drifted to the West alongside the hopes and prayers of five Faithful men.
ALIVE:
Morsul
Inzil
Lottie
Manwe
The Phantom
Steve
Brin
DEAD:
G55, the hesitant King’s Man (modess) – stabbed on Night1
Eomer (ordo) – stoned on Day1
Boro (gifted) – drowned on Night2
Pom (ordo) – decapitated on Day2
Shasta (gifted) – throttled on Night3
Nerwen (KM) – hung on Day3
Sally (gifted) – struck by a stone and died of hemorrhage on Night 4
Ok, slightly more than 2 minutes. Gee, I'm running out of creative ways of killing people off!
