Add Story to Favourites The Weight of Power by Nefhiriel
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“Captain, Captain…” Heolstor reprimand. “The whole point of my little concoction was, first of all, to enable me to place ideas into other people’s heads, and secondly, to supply me with answers.” He was pacing persistently in front of Thorongil, who knelt with his arms tied behind his back in the middle of the tent, with the ever-present Mehdal behind him. “Now you, contrary to plans, are as yet entirely unaffected by any of my…suggestions, and compounding that, you’ve only aroused my curiosity more. Couldn’t you bring yourself to be a little less vague?”

Between the encroaching pain and confusion, Thorongil could hardly find his voice to reply with his usual sarcasm.

Heolstor seemed to read the hint of fear that lurked in his eyes, as well. “Oh yes, you talked. Not as much, or as clearly, as I’d hoped you would, but you did talk. And you’ll talk some more. Before you know it, you’ll be telling me your whole life’s story.”

Thorongil tried to keep the shivers that were wracking him from showing. He really did feel cold: inexplicably, frozen-to-the-core, cold; but he also felt the chill of fear settling into his bones, and more insidiously into his mind. He didn’t deny it. But he’d just as soon Heolstor didn’t see it. It was probably a futile action, however, since the anticipation rolling off Heolstor was nearly tangible.

The muted numbness he’d experienced some hours before had been one of the most unpleasant feelings he’d ever experienced. Why it had felt worse than actual pain was inexplicable, but it had. Maybe being utterly helpless, physically, and in a state of complete vulnerability emotionally—as apparently he had been—might not have held such terror in a different setting, in front of a different audience. Preferably someone he knew wouldn’t exploit any information he inadvertently revealed.

It wasn’t just his own secrets—for example, the fact that he was the Heir of Isildur—that he was in so much fear of making public, but also the myriad of other people’s secrets that had been entrusted to him. He didn’t dare directly think about those useful pieces of information, for fear dredging them up would bring them closer to the surface, and hence become more accessible and automatic for him to blurt out in his drugged state. All those covert conversations with Mithrandir about the wizard’s different speculations and fears for Middle Earth, not to mention the different matters he’d discussed with Elrond, or Thengel, or… Yes, far better he didn’t think about any of that right now.

The only thing more ominous than a speaking Heolstor was a silent Heolstor, as Thorongil was discovering. Heolstor hadn’t said a word to interrupt his inward speculations. Thorongil was hunched over from the steady cold gnawing at him, his head hanging forward, but at the top of his vision he could see Heolstor’s booted feet monotonously going to and fro.

“Aren’t you going to give me more?” Thorongil asked under his breath, unable to wait any longer for the inevitable.

Heolstor laughed at the question, just as he’d expected. The answer, he hadn’t anticipated however. “I see there are a few things I failed to mention about the properties of my invention. Taken in the amount I gave you, without an antidote, it is fatal. The reason you’re not dead is that you haven’t even begun to experience the side-effects.”

“So, you’re waiting to watch me experience the final…‘side-effects’?”

Heolstor gave a brief sound of condescending amusement. “Hardly the final effects. Although none of my former subjects lasted past the second stage, my guess is a man of strong mind and body might live to experience at least three. Possibly more. I really won’t know until I’ve tested my theories out on someone, will I?”

The statement struck him with all its dread at exactly the same moment a flare of pain shot through his stomach. Unfortunately for his attempts to retain face, he’d just looked up at Heolstor, giving his enemy full view of his flinch of surprised pain. Through gritted teeth, he gasped, “Three? Then I suppose I have a lot to look forward to.”

Heolstor stopped pacing to gaze down at him. “Yes, at least three different stages, all invariably worse than the one before.”

By now, Thorongil had given up trying to hide the tremors snaking down his spine at regular intervals. He couldn’t control them. The spasms hit with precision, stopping for minute, then starting again and not stopping for a good fifteen seconds. As he felt a hazy kind of semi-consciousness settle over him, he panted out between one round of pain, with more desperation then any true hope of an honest reply, “What did I say…last time?”

“As I said, nothing too specific.” Heolstor smiled, looking, in some twisted fashion, like an affectionate father promising something to a too-demanding child. “Don’t worry, Captain, after this I will give you some more details about this, and our last, conversation. Why don’t you try to relax? Just allow it to have its way, and you may just get away with a whole lot less pain.”

That, of course, just made Thorongil fight that much harder for control over his shivering body. His medically-trained mind told him that Heolstor was probably telling the truth. Relaxing probably would make the spasms less intense. But overlying the pain, he could feel more of that horrible numbness overpowering him again, so he held on to his sliding control as best as he could. Which wasn’t very well at all.

A spasm, more severe than the rest, brought him to the brink of total unconsciousness, and he found any power he’d had slipping from his command. Physically, he was slumping forward towards the welcoming ground, exhausted and wary of the next bout of spasms. He couldn’t fight it, he just…couldn’t. Alarm bells rang when he recognized the same feelings of apathy that had accompanied the first “stage” of the poison. But, as before, that too was only a muted feeling, far off, barely registering.

This was worse, though, than the first time, for although his ears were ringing, blotting out sound, and his body seemed limp and pliant, he could feel everything. The pain was anything but faint or far off.

Just as before, he was vaguely aware of what was going on around him. Heolstor was talking, his voice booming questions at him. Someone was grabbing him, dragging him upright by an iron grip on his hair and bound arms. Eru, that hurt…

He tried to focus on something other than the pain as another wrenching convulsion caught him by surprise. Either the paroxysms were growing worse, or his sensitivity to them was becoming amplified. Most likely the second, because now that he thought about it, the prickly, aching sensation on his scalp caused by the fingers tangled in his hair seemed to be hurting more than it should have. And he’d had plentyof experience being pulled upright by the roots of his hair and hauled around, courtesy of all the orcs and other evil creatures he’d had the pleasure of being captured by over the years, so he would know how it was supposed to feel…

He was definitely drifting now. Rather pathetic to be complaining about having your hair pulled while you were dying an excruciating death by poison, but not thinking about that “minor” detail was also definitely helping him cope. That was another thing he’d learned over the years, from varying captors: think about anything but the real problem at hand. In other words, don’t think about the fact that you’re probably going to be dead before the week is out.

Heolstor’s voice was still thundering somewhere close by, but Thorongil tried not to think about him at all, or the questions he might end up unconsciously answering.

***

Upon gaining the ridge no immediate reward, apart from the view, was discernable. After his instinctive awe over the beauty of the valley spreading out before him, Araedhelm’s hopes plummeted.

No camp.

No signs of man at all, save for the tracks he was following.

If he was on futile mission, these Dunlendings were certainly being thorough about hiding. Now, it wasn’t that he didn’t attribute any intelligence to the Dunlendings, but many of these coarse men from Dunland seemed to lean more towards possessing a cruel breed of craftiness—not unlike an orc’s—rather than genuine cleverness. Also, in his experience, Wild Men rarely hid at all, much less took pains to conceal their whereabouts. They seemed to prefer confrontation. Open battle. Victory by sheer force of numbers.

Perhaps that was one of the key reasons the Dunlendings had yet to take Rohan. True, there was Wulf, but his “reign” hadn’t lasted long: a grand total of one year before Fréaláf-King had retaken the throne. But they weren’t to be underestimated, or shunned as simple-minded barbarians. Dunlendings were a force to be reckoned with. They were a tribal, hardy people, a strong people…and a very angry people, at least as far as the people of Rohan and Gondor were concerned. The tension and bad blood between the Horse-lords and Wild Men was a constant reminder that volatile war could erupt again any time

At one time, the Dunlendings had inhabited some part of the very vale in front of him. Now, they were spread throughout Eriador and Gondor—and obviously there were a few in Rohan as well.

Speculation only kept bringing Araedhelm back to the same confusion. Why would a few men, from such a hot-blooded race, suddenly choose stealth? Over-cautiousness had never been a common trait of theirs.

There’s always a first time. Cultures evolve, learn from their mistakes…

No. For now he’d stay with the theory that someone else—more patient—was dictating all this. Someone who knew how to take advantage of a Dunlending’s hot temper and smoldering resentments towards the Horse-lords, and use it to his own advantage. Someone who was smart enough to enlist the aid of Crebain. Someone like Heolstor. And somewhere, at the end of the route he was on, Théoden and Thorongil were waiting to be found and rescued, and he wouldn’t let them down.

Araedhelm dismounted, allowing Rynawl to graze on the sparse hillocks of grass that dotted the rocky, windswept pinnacle. The wind was at his face, cool and damp. That, and the sharpness of the breeze, had him turning his attention to the sky. The thunderheads formed a bleak backdrop to the crisp plains of the white-capped mountains. The sight didn’t look exactly promising. Actually…it looked terribly, forebodingly, disheartening. A downpour was coming, and at the rate the wind was pulling the clouds the drenching was coming soon. Not only did that mean sodden clothes and equipment, more importantly it meant no more trail to follow.

Closing his eyes, Araedhelm put a hand to his forehead and spread his fingers, thumb and index finger smoothing ever either eyebrow to rest on his temples as he hung his head wearily. After allowing himself no more than a minute to remain in the dejected position—hand firmly shadowing his brow, as if obscuring the sight of the gathering storm clouds might make them just go away—he straightened back up to examine the horizon, and found that his problems were most certainly, and most annoyingly, still there. Inevitable. Nothing in the last month had gone right, so why would the weather cooperate?

In a fine dejected sulk, he remounted and took a fortifying breath. Rynawl tossed his head back to “glare” at him, and Araedhelm let the air trickle back out of his lungs in long exhale of reciprocal frustration.

“Yes, I know. I don’t want to push on any more than you do. But they’re depending on us, and the rain won’t stop just because either of us is dead on our feet.” He only urged Rynawl with a urging touch of his heel knowing, for all the dirty looks the beast might give him, he would willingly carry him until he fell over dead before letting him down. “That’s it, now it’s down hill, old friend. Just take it slow and easy.”

Now that the decision had been made to continue without delay, it was hard to keep from throwing all caution to the wind and galloping. However, he knew a head-first tumble down the mountainside probably wouldn’t do him any good.

Although not used to such steep terrain, Rynawl was sure-footed and, even exhausted, possessed a stubborn tenacity and single-minded devotion to his master that keep him going far past exhaustion.

For Araedhelm, the change of positions was welcome. At the angle they were descending he had to lean back in the saddle, which felt wonderful after leaning forward for hours during their ascent. Of course, inevitably, his back began to ache from that position as well. The beauty of the country he was traversing was definitely wearing thin, and becoming a little less awe-inspiring, as it took its toll on his stamina.

Ah, back pain from riding—is the damp air making your bones ache too? It’s all a part of getting old… the realist in him scoffed. Old? Not old. Not old as in too-decrepit-to-survive-a-day-of straight riding old. Not that kind of old. That bit of denial brought uproarious laughter from his realistic side. Well, he wasn’t saying he was exactly young—but there was an age in-between young and old, despite the way some people acted about it. He was simply entering middle age. Right…

He straightened his back as best he could, feeling the vertebrae in his neck pop as he rotated his head from side to side. He sighed. Middle aged…and, admittedly, feeling a bit on the older side after all this riding, and with the prospect of rain looming, wearing his hope thin.

It wasn’t just the physical strain of riding, nor was it the chill in the air—although he admitted it was making a few of his old battle wounds ache. There was also more than a little emotional exhaustion mixed in. He was so tired of thinking about what Heolstor might be doing to Théoden and Thorongil. The fact that he was thinking about old age was proof enough of how desperately he didn’t want to go down that road of thought. Of course, that pathetic attempt at creating a mental subterfuge hadn’t worked because he was resorting back to worrying all the same.

When the first drops began to fall, Araedhelm pulled his hood up and gathered his cape more securely around his shoulders. He hadn’t realized he was holding onto any more optimism—until what he had left was shattered by the harshness of the rain. Apparently, in some back corner of his mind, he’d been hoping the storm might be gentle enough that the trees would be sufficient protection to keep the tracks from being obliterated.

Not quite.

The storm was sudden, and not of long duration, but it was vicious, the raindrops large and hammering. During the short time the torrents lasted visibility became so obscured he gave up, momentarily, and urged Reynawl into the relative shelter of a large fir tree.

If he hadn’t been worried out of his mind with anxiety over the possible ruin of his country, or of his Prince being held hostage at an impossible price, or of the likely death one of his best friends, and the general pressure of all three problems concurrently weighing almost entirely on his shoulders—if it weren’t for those small distractions—he might have actually appreciated the after-rain effect.

The air was even colder now, but there was a sweet, earthy smell in the air, clean and invigorating as well as distinctly pine-scented. And, looking up at the soaring Ered Nimras, the tree-covered slopes looked more beautiful than ever. The fact that they were partially concealed by thin wisps of misty clouds added an enigmatic quality to them that arrested the imagination.

Or would have, if he’d been in an imaginative mood. Which he was certainly not.

On a normal basis, Araedhelm didn’t exactly consider ‘imagination’ among his everyday attributes, although he wasn’t above having lapses into “deep thought” where the beauty of nature was concerned. However, there was something about having an entire day’s work obliterated in the space of ten minutes that was aggravating. It was maddening. If yelling at the elements would have done any good, he might have given it a go. Who cared if it was childish? But he restrained himself for several reasons. Firstly, he might, by some beneficent act of the gods be within hearing range of Heolstor’s camp. Secondly, he knew his time would be much better spent looking for any remnants of a trail the rain might have been thoughtful enough to leave alone.

As it turned out, the rain hadn’t been thoughtful enough to leave a single footprint behind. Someone, however, seemed to have finally taken some mercy on his plight.

He had already descended far enough into the valley that things were beginning to level out, more or less, but there still was a bit of a ridge separating him from reaching the actual bottom of the gorge. As he rode along the small drop-off, hidden by thick foliage, he began to hear the immeasurably encouraging sound of voices. Hopefully they weren’t just in his head.

Dismounting, he led Rynawl by the reigns, stopping occasionally to listen. He’d doubted his own ears at first, thinking it might have been a river, swollen from the brief but heavy storm, but as he got closer to the source he knew his first impression hadn’t been wrong.

The sounds were unmistakably coming from somewhere below, to the right. He’d found them. He’d found Heolstor’s camp. Thorongil, Théoden… Don’t get excited yet. Finding the camp and rescuing them are two very different things. But he was ecstatic nonetheless.

That level of excitement was given a severe reality check when he finally saw the camp. Instinctively, he crept to the edge of the ridge with as little noise as possible, but it would’ve probably taken a bit more than a few pebbles kicked down the side of the overhang to alert the rabble below. It was so much more than he’d expected. So much…bigger. Knowing Heolstor, he should have expected something like this. Instead of a couple dozen Dunlendings it looked like there were hundreds. Calm down, count, estimateHe took a couple of concentrated breaths and began to scan the camp for a second time, looking more carefully for details, using his practiced eye to estimate the numbers below. He tried to take it all in with a more detached mind-set.

There were four pavilions in all. The largest one was most likely being used by Heolstor. Then there were the three smaller ones, probably being used for storage. Other than that, the inhabitants of the camp were spread out over a large clearing, most of them gathered around the dozens of fire pits that dotted the area. Some of the pits had meat-skewered spits over them. The rain had put many of the fires out, and impatient-looking Dunlendings were attempting to reignite the wet wood by various means.

He turned his attention on the actual men, trying to approximate their number. Well, maybe he’d overreacted at first. There probably weren’t quite hundreds, but from what he could tell there were well over one hundred. Maybe one-hundred-fifty?

Most of them were Dunlendings, but gathered around the fire most directly under him he could see a group of perhaps two dozen who looked distinctly different. More of the mercenaries who’d first attacked Thorongil on the road, and then committed suicide by poison? Whoever they were, they kept themselves quite apart from the Dunlendings, acting almost as if the loud horde around them didn’t exist. One of them was patiently goading an ember back to life with single-minded attention. No doubt these were Heolstor’s hand-picked men.

For a long, long time all Araedhelm could do was hunch behind his cover and stare. There was no sign of either Thorongil or Théoden, but this had to be it. The tracks had indeed led him to where he wanted to go. But now that he was where he wanted to go, he wasn’t quite so clear on what he wanted to do. Oh you know what you want to do. He wanted to get Théoden and Thorongil as far away from here as possible, that’s what he wanted to do. He wanted to storm down there, kill anyone who got in his way, and search those tents until he found them. He’d like to put his sword through Heolstor’s treacherous heart. That’s what he wanted to do. But, as usual, duty and desires, although closely related in this case, each demanded very different courses of action. He already knew what want was dictating. The question was, what was duty demanding he do? What were common sense and sanity demanding he do?

Wait. Wait and watch.

Where had that boring idea come from?

That would be your sanity trying to get to you.

Of course. The laws of sanity were tedious and dull. If he knew duty, it was probably telling him to do the same thing. Wait, and watch, and generally sit around and do nobody any good. A perfect plan. Just the thing to do. Gods, now that I’ve found it, all I can do is wait—that’s the absolute best I can come up with? Well…yes, as of now, that appears to be Lieutenant Araedhelm’s brilliant stratagem. Brilliant. This all you can come up with after all these years of battle? Of course, it is this kind of heroics that gets you moved up in rank.

His cynicism was in full sway now. If he was at home, by this point Cwén would have told him to go to the inn and get an ale and not come back until he’d gotten rid of this “charming version” of her husband. And she would have been right. Sulking was going to get him even less than waiting was. Waiting had its merits. At the moment, he could certainly use a reminder of what those merits were.

He wasn’t feeling patient, but he was feeling tired, and for a couple of hours that was enough to keep him from flying off on a rash impulse. He was too tired to do anything heroic, keeping his eyes open was hard enough. If he didn’t think about Théoden or Thorongil, he did just fine. He let Rynawl graze nearby, and allowed himself to fall into a semi-aware slumber that many years of sleeping during dangerous situations had made second nature. This state was much easier to keep alert in, but at the same time wander mentally into trivial matters.

Somewhere, he’d heard tales about the elves, and how they could sleep, if sleep it could be called, “…resting their minds in the strange paths of elvish dreams, even as they walked open-eyed in the light of the world.” That seemed to be how he remembered the storyteller phrasing it. What he was doing never seemed quite so…poetic, but he was able to reach a point where any movement in his vision might register, even while consciousness faded into the background.

In this case, he’d set his concentration to the four tents, his eyes dividing his attention systematically between them, though pausing for longer moments at a time on the largest of them. It was on one such pause that his efforts were paid off. The flaps of the entrance to the largest tent opened, and a familiar form was none-too-gently hauled out between two men. Araedhelm’s reaction was to jolt up from his hunched position, self-preservation vaporizing at the sight.

“Thorongil, my friend, what have they done to you…?”

At least he had the preservation to utter the words in a tight undertone rather than shouting it, along with a few choice expletives, to the entire camp. He gripped the slender trunk of a nearby birch tree, nails digging into the soft white bark as he forced himself to watch his captain dragged unceremoniously across the camp towards one of the smaller tents Araedhelm had assumed were for storage. Well, he’d been right, more or less. They were using it for storage, of a kind. He wondered if they were keeping Théoden in the same tent.

From where he was he couldn’t make out details, but Araedhelm strained to look for any injuries on his captain. There weren’t any that he could see. Thorongil’s head hung forward limply, his dark, shoulder-length hair obscuring his face, so Araedhelm couldn’t tell if a head wound was the cause of his unconsciousness.

Somehow, the fact that no injuries were visible didn’t comfort Araedhelm like it might have—his unconsciousness was concerning enough. He had to be unconscious, and not the more drastic alternative. Araedhelm was quite firmly convinced, or so he convinced himself. After all, if he wasn’t just unconscious than he would surely have been…disposed of. Now that he thought of it, though, they could just be dumping him in the storage tent until they could dig a shallow grave and… I am not going there.

After that short foray into morbid brooding, Araedhelm reigned himself in again. His attention remained snagged on the tent long after Thorongil had disappeared into its shadowy interior. Nothing happened, except the reappearance of the two men who’d hauled his captain in there, and after a time his eyes automatically resumed their drifting attention to all four tents. Every time his gaze lingered on the largest one, he felt a stronger desire to march down there and have a little “talk” with Heolstor. Easy, Araedhelm, you can’t go there either. Yet.

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