[Thenamir]

Thenamir was sore, in more ways than one.

The battle had marred and bruised him, his leg ached where the warg had tried to wrench it off, his chest still felt like the other warg was sitting on it, and in his extreme fatigue he had neglected to clear the smaller stones from where he fell to sleep exhausted, and they now felt like boulders in his back.

He rolled to a more comfortable position as the morning light waxed pale in the east, and tried again to think. The horses had been killed in the night, and he was sore about that too. And his mind drifted back to other hurts inflicted on him by Saruman and his band of barbaric Dunlendings...his wife and child...his best friend...now his faithful and beloved Windwight.

All the legends and stories said that Saruman was a good wizard, Saruman the White, who had helped defeat the Necromancer and drive him out of Mirkwood a few years ago. And yet he was responsible for all this carnage, all this destruction, all this sadness. Was it possible that Thenamir and those who followed him were attempting to thwart the good plans of a good wizard, who surely knew more than they?

Thenamir shook his head to clear some of the cobwebs. The light was growing stronger, and with it, the conviction that Saruman, if he was good, had turned aside from his path into evil or madness...or both. If an evil wizard might be the equal of the Dark Lord, surely a mad one was worse. "Subtle and quick to anger," someone had once said about the wizards. Good, evil, or mad, his means could not be justified by any ends he could imagine. How he could hope to combat the purposes of a wizard, he had no idea, but fight him he would. It was time to move.

The sky was brightening as Thenamir began to rouse the others. Much to Thenamir's surprise, Dwarin's horse appeared at the end of the clearing, tied and getting an early start on breakfast. The Bonfire was still going, and Guthrin was wide awake though slumped against the tree he was tied to. Guthrin! His matter had to be disposed of before they could move on.

After a hastily prepared breakfast consisting chiefly of roast warg (tough and stringy meat, but alright in a pinch), Taradan called those who remained of the Rohirrim to the Circle, formed around the tree: Taradan himself, Gurthden, Baranthôl, Kalohern, Leoden and Flandhere. Once that was underway, Thenamir, Ulfwine, Dwarin, Elwood, and the mysterious girl walked apart, so as to leave the Rohirrim to their task. Thenamir used the time to discuss matters with the others.

Elwood had returned in the night, with news that Kalohern's horse Telefax had managed to escape northwestward. "The hoofprints that horse left are so deeply set in the hard earth where I last saw his tracks...the horse is moving with a speed I have never seen, and in the direction we wished to go. If he was not otheriwse hindered, he may well be beyond Ost-In-Edhil." Thenamir thought in wonder anout the unsightly horse Kalohern rode, and wondered if Elwood might have followed the wrong trail. He certainly hoped not.

Thenamir then turned to the mystery girl from the night before. "What is your story, lass? Why were the Wargs chasing you?"

[ February 27, 2002: Message edited by: Thenamir ]