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Old 05-13-2007, 04:31 PM   #391
Durelin
Estelo dagnir, Melo ring
 
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Join Date: Oct 2002
Posts: 3,121
Durelin is battling Black Riders on Weathertop.Durelin is battling Black Riders on Weathertop.
Khamir

Khamir knew he was wrong to interrupt Athwen, but he could not and would not feel what he had said was wrong. And certainly just words couldn't be wrong in that way. He was right, justified in his anger. And orcs were creatures. They were not like Men or even the Elves, Dwarves, and Hobbits who were strange to him. They did not have the same sort of heart or soul, if they had one at all. He knew this from what he had observed with his own two eyes, and the pain he had received at the hands of monsters.

He had thought of the slavers as monsters, too. They were men, like him, just from the East... No, that was different, he told himself, forcing away the exception that might break his rule.

Khamir worried that Athwen would have some stern words for him, but he was surprised that instead the girl spoke up again.

"They were asleep," Azhar began, her voice stronger than he expected from such a young child - particularly a girl. "What would you have us do? Run them through without a second thought? Lindir hopes to get them to talk. Perhaps to find out whether there are other troops nearby. But surely you would not kill someone, even an orc, in his sleep!"

Anger boiled up again in the Southron. This girl dared to judge him, dared to give him some kind of lesson in what was fair and right and just. He had heard it all before: all this nonsense of not attacking a man when his back was turned, not touching those who are innocent, using only what force was necessary. Rules like that were nice in a game, when fairness was a part of what kept it fun, but life was not a game. And life in...this land...this dark place...there was nothing fair to it. Herd animals left behind the weakest, and predators attacked the weakest of the herd...the creatures of Mordor of all types behaved in this way, and men who lived by any other way were the weakest left behind.

Khamir opened his mouth without words prepared, and without any concern for whether or not he might regret what would emerge, but then he caught Athwen's disapproving glance. It was like the look his mother had given him on countless occasions when he would return home late, usually battered and bloody, and sometimes with a new possession in his hands that did not really belong to him...and, even now, it was enough to quiet him, though he was unable to listen to what the woman said as his mind was plagued with hatred. Khamir left in silence to inform Adnan and Vrór of the news, and help them and others prepare to leave.
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