[Durelin]

Khamir

Khamir had great respect for Shae, but the strength of that respect was tested whenever he was reminded that she was a Gondorian. And even though she had been a slave most of her life, she still held on to this idea of allegiance. It was pathetic to him, almost pitiable. But he saw it as a weakness. If only she could break free of those memories that tied her down to that nation. That nation that had abandoned them, had abandoned her. Sure she was a Gondorian. But to Elessar, the mighty King hundreds of miles away on his throne, that hardly mattered. She was a slave. She had been and she always would be. Mordor was her home now. Her home and her prison.

The one-armed knew it was the same for him. But he did not bind himself to any land. Mordor was home only because he lived there, at this moment. And if that ever changed, so be it. If it never did…

There was a way they could get out of this prison. And that did not necessarily mean leaving the land.

Khamir had always been about defiance, and there were scars all over his body to prove it, in addition to a missing limb. As a slave, he had exerted his freedom as a sentient being at every chance he got, and, once free, he exerted it in a way that he saw as fitting. He had been showing those who had once imprisoned him just how free he was over and over through the raids he and his gang performed regularly. To him, they were not so much about survival through stealing as they were about proving something. And he had never hesitated in killing anyone not a slave on those plantations, especially not Orcs.

For years before his escape, he planned it. But his plans did not center around escape; that was a later addition. They began as plans of revenge, to take the life of the creature that had taken away Khamir’s freedom beyond the chains of slavery. The Orc had taken his arm off in a rage, and the Southron later took the monster’s life because of it. He had almost died because of his lost limb, infection almost took him, and the master of the plantation was almost prepared to kill him, as an ineffective slave. Luckily for Khamir, he couldn’t afford it. What could be repaid the master was taken out of the Orc’s hide, but again, the master couldn’t afford getting rid of him either.

So Khamir did for him, and solved both problems.

“I’ve got the boys all picked out,” Beloan suddenly spoke from beside the Haradrim man.

Khamir grunted in response, still bothered by Shae’s defense of Gondor.

“I’ll point them out to you the next time we stop.”

Again the only response came in a wordless form.

“There’s one of ‘em right up there,” Beloan continued, ignoring Khamir’s seeming disinterest, and lowering his voice a bit, “that one.” He pointed to young man with dark hair ahead of them who was talking with a young woman, another one of the escapees.

“You really trust that fresh-faced boy with a weapon?” Khamir asked, finally voicing a thought. Beloan laughed knowingly as if he had been expecting those very words, and indeed he had.

“How many of us weren’t fresh-faced the first time you or anyone else handed us one, or found one, or even made one for our own?”

Khamir was silent for a moment, and Beloan waited patiently for a response. “How good is he?”

“First time on the hunt, as a hunter, and he bagged a kill. The only one, out of a party of four. He’s got a good head on his shoulders. It was his trap that caught the 41 birds.”

The Southron raised his eyebrow at the man walking beside him. “You got a spare blade?”

Beloan laughed again: Khamir had seen through him. The former had made sure he had a spare long-knife on him before he said a word to the gang leader. He had grown fond of the boy, and couldn’t help but have confidence in him. And he knew Khamir wouldn’t be able to argue with him. They weren’t in the position to be choosy about who was capable of being among the group’s defenders. Those in the gang were the ones with the weapons, so they decided who could bear their own. But even they knew that they would need all the help they could get if there was any kind of attack. Even a small unfriendly band could do a great deal of damage if the large group was caught unaware. And Khamir was not the only one who expected that to be when any attack would come.

Beloan handed Khamir the knife in a rough sheath that had to be tied around the blade because it was too big for it, and the Southron asked for the boy’s name. He smirked at the idea of the boy’s nickname being ‘Apples,’ but only called out to this Hadith.

“Here,” Khamir said once the boy – who seemed to be of southern heritage, though there was something odd about him – had turned around, and the one-armed man tossed him the knife.