View Single Post
Old 08-25-2008, 03:30 PM   #138
Durelin
Estelo dagnir, Melo ring
 
Durelin's Avatar
 
Join Date: Oct 2002
Posts: 3,121
Durelin is battling Black Riders on Weathertop.Durelin is battling Black Riders on Weathertop.
Blood Run

Mayor Hershman absent-mindedly shuffled parchment around on his desk. Perhaps he had started out looking for something, but he would pass by it numerous times before he remembered he was looking for it. His eyes burned and begged for sleep, but his mind was wide awake, filled to the brim and getting ahead of itself more and more with every thought. The world was beginning to become a bluish-grey, giving away the sun’s presence somewhere beneath the horizon, and he had not slept that night beyond nodding off for a few moments and forgetting where he was and why he was still there.

He was awaiting word from the “Defenders of Breeland”, a group he had thrown together to do…something. Anything. Because that was his job, as far as he knew it – to have something done when something needed to be. As if he knew what to do about mysterious attacks on farms! Of course sending the “Defenders” out had removed a few people from off his back, but all evening he’d had people in and out to ask if there was any news.

The last news Hershman had heard was that the Defenders were seen heading out toward the Chetwood, and so he could not sleep.

It was only long after all other curious and worried folk had retreated to their houses for the night that the knock came, and Erling was welcomed in along with a dwarf – though not the dwarf who had originally set out with the party. At the end of one of his arms was a bloody stump. It took a moment before he found himself able to say or do a thing, but then the mayor was quick to act.

Eventually a story was told, after wounds and much worse were tended to. Mayor Hershman felt surprisingly calm as long as he was busy telling people where to go and what to do, even when three bodies were brought in. But as soon as he allowed himself to sit and listen to Erling and Gorin, shock hit him hard. A young man severely wounded, a dwarf missing a hand, and three dead…dead! Toby and Parkun, a most admirable citizen and the son of the innkeeper… There had been a battle and much bloodshed…here, in Breeland! He felt hopeless and heavy in heart and mind.

Mayor Hershman never would have believed there was such evil left in Middle-earth, other than the evil men could cause themselves. Wargs were something akin to legends as far as the Mayor had been concerned. Certainly they existed at some point, somewhere, even not long ago, but…

The mayor was shut up in his office with Erling and Gorin for over an hour – though he never learned the circumstances of Parkun’s death – and when the young man and dwarf left to get much needed rest, he remained seated at his desk for some time. What could he do? What could he say? There was so much that needed to be said, particularly to the Mugworts and the Felderths, but who was he to say it? He had a title and an office, but he was just an old man who sent others out to die…

No, he thought, with sudden clarity, they did not risk their lives at your bidding. And they certainly did not die for you.

Mayor Hershman paged through a stack of parchment on his desk, as if he hoped to find answers written out for him. He did not register much of anything he read until a certain word caught his eye.

“Wolf”…“Wolf Run”, the heading to a historical record from the Third Age.

The mayor began to read of the “Heroes of Breeland” with tear-filled eyes. Heroes

Last edited by Durelin; 08-27-2008 at 08:17 PM.
Durelin is offline