While he appreciated the concern of Ihwesta and the others, Reynion couldn't help but resent it too. He knew why they were making such slow time; Ihwesta was all too clearly trying to go easy on him. He also knew that he needed it, which was as galling, if not more so. Reyn had never depended on anyone in his long life, and he didn't want to start now. Unfortunately, he didn't have much of a choice.
The empty place where his leg used to be felt very strange, it was almost like he could still feel the missing limb, which was nonsense of course. If he looked down, which he avoided doing as much as possible, he saw the ragged edges where the leg of his trews had been ripped off. Protruding from that was a white-wrapped stub that ended about a foot above where his knee had been. No more black bandages, this was white so Taurëwen could make certain that the wound hadn't reopened. He dreaded when she examined the end of his leg; he didn't dare look at her face for fear of what he would see in her eyes.
While he was thinking, he wasn't paying attention to what he was doing with his sad excuses for crutches. One of them caught in a hole, causing him to stumble and almost fall, though Gilbereth caught him before he went very far. Reyn couldn't help thinking that the young elf had grown up a great deal since the beginning of the mission, especially after he lost his hand. It was one of the few things that lent the two of them a kinship...
"Dear Eru, Ceros," breathed Ihwesta. "What do we do?"
Reyn hobbled forward to see, and immediately wished that he hadn't. The sight of those beasts and what they had done to the beautiful forest, even without the ominous tower, would have been enough to drive him into an incoherent rage and send him storming down, heedless of any danger, before he had lost his leg. As it was, he had to swallow several times before he regained his composure.
He could hardly believe that this was the same forest in which he'd spent his life. It was enough to make him forget his depression in his utter fury. Had eyes the power, the entire valley, orcs, trolls, tower, and all, would have been powdery ash in moments. He didn't know it, but he stood a little straighter, held his head a little higher, and looked better than he had for several days, since the spider had wounded him in fact.
“We will scout the area,” he heard Ceros say.
Good, he thought. Maybe I can ki--oh. Never mind. I can't do much at all...
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