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Old 05-23-2010, 07:10 AM   #2
piosenniel
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Eorl of Rohan's post - Ariel Silverwood:

Leaning on the windowsill, Ariel swallowed nervously as another hunter swept past the curtained window of Mir's Office. In the streets, the hunt was still on. The cruel sun beat down bright on the bristling spearheads and made them sparkle as though they were made of beaten silver. The crimson-feathered ritual arrows screamed menacingly as they arced across the ashen heavens. Hounds snarled afar as the harsh whistle of the torrential wind sliced through the thin air. The streets resounded with the wailings and death-curses of the sacrificial victims; but occasional forlorn cry, perhaps a whimper, was all that marked the passing of another one hunted. Beers bubbled in their tankards as Easterlings toasted the bountiful harvest in the warmth and safety of their home, while outside blood foamed crimson in the alleyways and the gutters.

Ariel remembered more than two score faces he had seen in the cells of the Harvest Festival Preparation Committee: wide-eyed children, mothers desperately clutching suckling babes to their breasts, weeping old women, and snarling young men. They had been thrown helter-skelter into a makeshift pen like so many cattle to await the day of the Harvest Hunt. He had hoped – unreasonably, as he well knew – that all of them would survive the hunt to meet them here, in the Barracks, just as his captain had suggested. But life was cheap in the City of Rhun, why should theirs be any different? In the end, they four were the only ones that managed to make it here unscathed.

He himself, Ariel of the Silverwood, the stern and fey Captain Regnar with a fell ringing in his voice as he spoke of the righteous prevailing, the silent Rohirrim who wouldn’t even give his name of yet, and the sensuous Suscana with an unnerving light in her eyes. These were the four members of the unlikely fellowship that they had tumbled into by no other reason than that the maia who weaves the thread of life had not seen it fit to cut theirs. What an unlikely bunch they were to survive. No weapons, enemies everywhere, the gates barred and shut. Not to mention that the only bulwark that could possibly stand between themselves and certain death was currently telling Regnar to meet him on the road to hell, his eyes dark with cynical fury and his voice as bitter as the cud.

Mir Wainrider, the Easterling lieutenant-general. No. Not anymore. Mir had been promoted to the Captain of the RhunGuards for his valour in the the Dark Lord’s War, Ariel had heard, a crowning achievement which brought an end to his colorful career as a shadowstep tracker-scout for a highly efficient slaver racket.

‘In the course of his career Mir must have reserved a place for himself in the darkest dwelling places of Mandos’, Ariel thought, ‘Yet he does not fear to invoke the halls of Mandos for himself as well as us. Is he fearless of Eru’s judgment, being a heathen, unaware of the all-devouring darkness that awaits him at his life’s end? Or does he know and not care?’

Death was so close, and everywhere. Ariel shivered, doubting whether this escape plan could be pulled off, yet ashamed that he showed his fear openly at such a critical juncture. He had lived as a pale wraith of his former self the past five years, fearing each raised hand lest it strike a blow, and now it seemed that cowardice had bred itself into his very bones. Would they die like dogs in the streets of this hostile foreign city, and their parched bones gleam white under the harsh sun for stray wolves to gnaw on? He felt bitingly the terror of death’s shadow, and welcomed the cold and clammy embrace of his mortality. Mir, too, must be merely putting up a brave face because his death was inevitable no matter what he did.

"You'll cooperate," Regnar answered quietly, but it was more of a command than a question.

Ariel shuddered at the chill in Regnar’s tone. He had heard this tone once or twice before, long ago, when he was still a youthful and overbrash Pel-Tirith recruit who served under his command. It was cold and hard, even cruel. It was obvious that Regnar was prepared to wrench whatever use he could out of Artamir even if the Easterling captain refused to lend his aid. How long did that tense silence linger? A second, or a hundred? Silverwood realized that Regnar had come out on top when Mir violently wrenched away his stare from Regnar’s grim countenance and smiled in bitter acquiescence. “Throw on the guard livery in the closet, then, I'll take you to my home." Mir said, and his voice was weary, wooden and dead. It was only then that Ariel realized how listless Mir looked. It startled Ariel, that one who held such an esteemed office and lacked for nothing, a merciless slaver who had ruined a thousand lives without losing sleep over it at night, should be haunted by sorrow like other mortal men.

He asked impulsively: "What could you have lost all these years, Easterling, that were as dear to you as the green and rolling fields of Gondor and the laughter of our family and friends that you have taken from us? What have you lost, that casts such pallor over you and dampens the angry flash in your eyes? You were not so inclined to yield back then, and neither were Captain Regnar so sa-”

Ariel choked off the last word – he had meant to say, ‘sadistic’ – and turned away to open the closet instead, ashamed of himself. Circumstances change. And people adapt to it. Perhaps it was only he who never matured. After all, he wasn’t mistreated in any way as long as he did his job, which was little different from what he would do for amusement when he was still a scout of Gondor, and there were plenty of wild game in the woods of Rhun. His master had a cruel streak that seemed common in almost all Easterlings, but it was almost never directed toward Ariel. Not as long as he retained the pleasing illusion that it was he himself that had taught Ariel how to hunt and made him such a skilled hunter. In truth, Ariel had never borne the brunt of cruelty in a way that other thralls have, although he had learned to fear it from watching how his master treated the other thralls, and it horrified him to se how it’s experience left such a visible mark on the temperament of his captain. But perhaps his captain was the wise one, and he himself a childish fool-

In the dusky recess of the armoire, the dark crimson and gold livery of the RhunGuards glittered in the sinking sun's rays which filtered in through the window. He took out the respective sizes and lightly threw them to Suscana, the Rohirrim, and last to Captain Regnar. As for himself he hesitated, seeing as there was no size that fit someone so lanky and so slightly built at the same time, and at last settled with a uniform two sizes too large and a crimson cloak to cover the unwieldiness of his livery. The cloak was embroidered intricately with the iron crown of Melkor, He who Arises in Might, of whose identity he had no idea except that he had heard him referred to by and by as the chief of the evil gods that these heathens served.

“I would advise you not to wear that,” Ariel heard Mir say in a half-amused voice, now sitting up with a hand closed over his still-bleeding neck. “Even the most thickheaded of the guards would notice something amiss if you flaunted the captain’s cloak out in the open.”

Last edited by piosenniel; 05-23-2010 at 07:26 AM.
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