Resettling the Lost Kingdom

[Arvedui III]

Dawn crept quietly over the landscape of Arnor, reflecting in the glassy blue lake as though it were a mirror to second world, seamless and unobstructed as the still water. Yet the sunrise reflected also in twin black eyes, pools as cold, glassy, and keen as the lake they watched in the early morning.

Knife had been right. They had appeared, and it didn't look like they would go away.

Fletch crept down to a lower rock and cursed as one of the circle of gray figures turned his way. Fletch tensed behind his hiding place, straining to descry the spy he had aroused and be invisible at the same time. But, it was only a passing glance; Relaxing his small frame, he returned the little shaft he'd pulled from a pouch around his neck gingerly. Now his watery eyes swept the camp around the lake, full of tents, horses, untended firepits, dirty pots from the night before.The outlanders were starting to stir, children starting to come out of tents and play, and noise such as Fletch had never heard before began echoing through the hills.

The whole scale of the invaders disrespect and sheer -there was no other word for it- defilement of their land, his land, made his blood seethe.

But Wolf would drive them away, Fletch soundly believed that. The night willing, they would drive the Southmen away, and he had every intention of helping anyway he could. It would start this morning, Fletch thought as he made no sound heading back to report. Now that the sun was rising, he would help it start.