Jinan buried his face in his pillow, ignoring the sun that now peeped merrily above the mountains. The frown that had arrived yesterday at the knowledge that he was not to lead the expedition to accursed Gondor was still there and it appeared to have no intention of leaving. He drummed his fingers on the edge of his wooden cot, calculating how long he could stay in bed. With a groan he threw the covers off and immediately dressed in his uniform.
Running his fingers through his hair, he strode down the down the street, scuffing tufts of weeds now and then. He passed a group of men who were huddled about a campfire. A tarnished silver pitcher hung from a stick and he smelled an exotic, homely odour. Coffee. With a swift turn of the heel, he said, “Is the coffee ready, men?”
They glanced up at him, then eyed one another reluctantly. “Come, come gents,” Jarlyn said, with an arch of eyebrows. “I’m off to Gondor soon and don’t have time to make such a luxury. You can always make more.”
With a nod, they poured him a wooden cup of coffee. Peering into the cup with one eyebrow raised, he sniffed and then took an experimental sip. Raising his other brow, he said, with a disappointed shake of the head, “This is more like watered mud than coffee, my dear sirs. Should have taken the time to make one myself.” With a small sigh he let the ground have the rest and tossed the wooden mug into the fire. “Oh I’m sorry, mates,” he said apologetically. “One of you should have caught it before it landed in the fire.”
With a smirk, he turned away and sauntered down the path. A company of men soon came into sight, with the man who was to be his superior surveying them. Gimilzôr was with them, with that dead smile of his revealing his yellowed teeth.
Going to Lan’kâsh’s side, Jinan, eyebrows raised, mouth upturned in a smirkish grin, surveyed the motley crew for himself. They had not seen much of war and would probably run at the first sight of Gondor’s winged helmets. He snorted and kicked the dust. So this was the boasting of Harad. A pack of soldiers who dared to call themselves men.
“Then we’ll have to choose the right men to lead them. I’m sure there are some among our ranks that would be up to the challenge of putting these new rats into order,” Lan’kâsh said.
Turning to him, Jinan said, “There are few talented men among us – most them have to put up with amateur rats like these. Happily,” he added with a thin smile, “I am one of those talented officers and I am sure that I could teach them to become a true soldier of Harad…sir.”
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