The Fellowship of the Fourth Age (Part 1): A New Beginning RPG

[Folwren]

Athwen and Dorran saddled their horses together. They spoke very little; they had already said what needed to be said. They both noticed the steadily rising wind and the dust swirling in small circles. Athwen patted her horse’s neck when she finished tightening the girth and took his reins. She led him over to Dorran. He turned towards her as she came near.

“You will be careful?” he asked. Athwen nodded. “Where is your sash?” Athwen’s hand went to the white cloth about her neck, tucked into the collar of her shirt. “Is your horse settled in all this wind? It will only get harder and more fierce, Athwen. . .” She nodded again and a smile came to her face.

“He’ll be fine,” she said. “He has carried me a long way as it is and I don’t think he’ll fail me now.” Dorran nodded this time. “I’m going. I don’t want to be late to my post.” There was a short pause. “Goodbye,” she whispered.

He bent and kissed her gently one last time. “Goodbye,” he replied. “You’ll do well,” he added reassuringly.

Athwen mounted her horse without further ado and set him into a trot down the slight slope. She let him pace back and forth in the open land before the camp. The wind was slowly but steadily picking up strength and speed, and her gelding seemed to sense the pending danger. She felt his energy gather beneath her. His trot became quick and stiff, excited and contained with difficulty. She reined him in slowly and made him walk.

Finally, his body seemed to relax some, his attention settled and she sighed a sigh of relief. With a final glance towards the camp, she turned her horse away from it and headed towards the clump of bushes and shrubs that Lindir had pointed out to her. She dismounted there and found her best way into them with her horse. She cleared away some of the small plants so that her horse could stand fairly comfortably. She led him in and left him standing while she went back out to make certain that it would be difficult to see him behind the screen of leaves and branches.

Satisfied, she returned back to her horse and mounted him. Her heart pump nervously and a strange, tight feeling passed through her stomach. She drew a deep breath, clenched her jaw, and stared out through the leaves in to the open plain. Soon their enemies would come and she would burst through those scraggly branches and go flying out before them. . .in peril. Yes, there would be peril. Her throat tightened briefly with fear that she might never return, that she might not see Dorran again. But a moment later, resolve hardened itself within her, and new feeling pulsed through her veins. She sat up higher in her saddle and lifted her chin a little. She would ride to make her husband, and Rider of Rohan, proud.

[Regin Hardhammer]

"I wonder what's here? Makdush isn't the only one who deserves a prize." Ishkur grinned at Gwerr and started rummaging through the objects in Imak's tent. He was disappointed not to find weapons, but almost tripped over a small chest hidden underneath a pile of blankets. It was a sturdy wooden box with a metal chain attached to a stake in the ground. Ishkur jerked on the chain but the stake didn't move. He couldn't carry away the chest without spending a lot of time digging up the stake, and he didn't want to waste time doing that. The wooden box was locked tight. He couldn't see any key, since the slavers' chief probably carried it with him. Ishkur picked up the chest and violently shook it. The box did not open but inside he could detect a pleasant jingling noise.

For a moment Ishkur sat thinking. Then he ran out to the woodpile and found what he was looking for. He came back in the tent carrying an axe that the slavers used for chopping firewood. The orc brought down the axe and the top of the box splintered into pieces. A whole hoard of coins came tumbling out. Ishkur's eyes widened in glee. He had not seen this much gold and silver for a long time. It was obviously the wages the chief paid his men plus profits the slavers had collected from the last haul they'd dragged back to the plantation.

"Well, my friend! We may not agree on everything but we can surely agree on this. We'll be doing these slavers a favor if we empty out their chest. That way they won't have such a heavy burden to lug. You and I could use this. Land up north is free but horses and other things cost money and can be bought from some of the caravans that travel south to Nurn. Now all we have to do is figure out a way to bring these coins with us but keep them hidden. I wouldn't mind sharing a coin or two with a few of the girls, but I sure wouldn't want our friend Makdush to get any idea about this." Ishkur took several swigs of ale and asked. "Alright Gwerr, any ideas?"

[Hilde Bracegirdle]

Carl

Carl was just empting the last load of dirt from the blanket, which had hauled in the past hour or so and with the help of Stumps, enough dirt to fill the large hole where the tunnel had collapsed, when word reached him. It was time for all to get in their positions. Sweating and red-faced, the farmer stood up, pausing to wipe his forehead. Fortunately, exertion had helped dissipate the embarrassment that had settled on him earlier, when stepping back to admire the trench, he had inadvertently tread on that delicate illusion of solid ground that Vrór had so cleverly engineered, disappearing from view rather rapidly, and painfully.

But by good fortune he was not seriously hurt, except that his pride had suffered a thorough bruising, and even then no one had made him feel the worse for his clumsiness, except for his own exacting conscience. The dwarf had even gone so far as to try to console him, calling it a proper, if unscheduled test that showed the tunnel would work as planned. For if the weight of a hobbit broke the earth, how much more so would that of a horse and rider. So Carl nodded thankfully at Vrór grateful for his perspective, and taking off his vest he set about fixing the problem.

But now when he finally was called to take up his bow and ready himself, the earth was marred with tell tale signs, and rough. And what is more, when he went to pull up his blanket, he found the bottom half deeply buried and much to his dismay quite immovable. The hobbit rapidly took the knife from his belt, and cut the blanket free, leaving a ragged end protruding above the ground.

After quickly tamping down the dry clods with his bare feet, and scooping up his vest and quiver, Carl led Stumps to where a young man stood waiting for him, while the other horsemen were gathering. Handing over the reigns, the hobbit committed the pony into the man’s care, bidding them both to take care of the other. Then turning his back to the faithful beast he went to station himself as planned.

[Undómë]

Zagra clapped her hand over her mouth to stifle a giggle. ‘Good thing,’ she whispered to her sister, ‘that those men have all left! Those two are loud as piggies in the garbage heap.’

Mazhg gave a soft grunt of assent and plucked at her sister’s arm, indicating she should come along. Ishkur and Gwerr were busy with something in one of the slavers’ tents. The women had watched as he ran from the tent and returned just as quickly with an axe he’d found. They heard the sound of wood splintering beneath the ax-blade as they drew near the back of the tent. And now, pressing their ears against the cloth they could hear the clinkety-clink-clink of metal.

‘Treasure!’ Mazhg whispered, close in her sister’s ear. ‘Coins they call them. You know - those round, pretty metal things the men traded back and forth for things.’ She put her finger to her lips and listened even closer. ‘They’re going to take them,’ she went on. ‘ Oooh! And not tell Makdush.....’

‘He’s big and mean,’ Zagra whispered back. ‘Let’s get away, real quick! I don’t want that one to think we’re in on it.’ Her eyes were big with fear. ‘Squash us like a bug under his thumb if he thinks we did him wrong.’

Mazhg knew her sister would start whimpering if they stayed any longer. She took Zagra’s hand and pulled her to the safety of the slaver camp perimeter. They hid behind a tree, until Zagra felt safe.

‘You know, sister-mine,’ Mazhg spoke low, her mind turning over possibilities. ‘Let’s look quick-quick in some of the other tents along the outside, here. We can find something for us; some small things we can hide in our clothes. Makdush doesn’t need to know about that either and neither do the others. Just a few small things.....as no one’ll notice are even gone....’

Zagra held tight to her sister’s hand as the two slipped quickly through the shadows once again toward the tents.

[Regin Hardhammer]

It hadn't taken very long for the slavers to cross the remaining stretch of land and arrive at the outskirts of the camp. In the meantime, the winds had picked up and darkness was beginning to descend. As Imak pulled his horse to a halt, the sands and dirt were already swirling about in small eddies that made it difficult to see more than a few feet away.

"Captain, the weather has turned bad," one of the men bellowed above the howling winds. "Urlok was right. Maybe we should turn back?"

Imak stubbornly glared over at the offending voice and snapped, "Afraid of a little bad weather? We've come this far, and I swear I'll not turn back. And just to sweeten the pot, there's double pay for every man who follows me!"

The men answered with an approving roar. The wind died down for a minute, and the outlines of the slave camp stood no more than a hundred feet away. "Forward then," Imak cried out and began urging his horse to a gallop, with everyone following close behind.

[Durelin]

It was refreshing to find that his work might indeed serve its purpose, and Vrór’s joy was genuine when he shared it with Carl rather than growing angry at the Hobbit’s clumsiness. Even the small stature and light step of a Halfling brought down that section of the tunnel. But the Dwarf knew anything he built or designed like the back of his hand, and he did not recall having additional supports in that piece when the Hobbit stepped on it. It was nearly in the middle of the tunnel, with about two and a half meters on either side of it, and he had allowed it to serve as a test, though not in the way Carl had made it.

It had been a risk to remove the simple wood structuring that he knew might be the only thing really holding the walls and ceiling up in the tunnel, but he had to test some part of it, to know whether or not he had successfully designed an easily collapsible tunnel, or simply a collapsed tunnel. That section had held up even after the supports were removed, and Vrór was tempted to take away all of the supports. But he could not bear to see his work go to waste like that, lest other parts be considerably weaker than the one Carl had fallen into. And even more so, he could not bear to see the disappointment in the faces of those he worked with: Fellowship and slaves alike.

Never had the Dwarf had to do a project such as this. About the closest thing was his more recent work in Gondor, but that was focused on his expertise of masonry. Balancing stone in arches and walls was one thing – balancing keeping a tunnel a tunnel with making sure the soil above it gave way under a step was another matter entirely. His understanding of soil only went so far, and he was glad of Carl’s help in understanding it, but neither of them were familiar with the sort of ground in Mordor. It was in every way a foreign, wild, savage landscape. Its people, though, were in many ways quite the same as those in the West.

In the West, though, Vrór had not had to face death or destruction in a long time. He had grown quite used to peace, though the idea that Sauron’s shadow could no longer haunt any part of Middle-earth was still a little difficult to comprehend, particularly when he stood on dry earth in the middle of Mordor staring at the Ephel Dûath. His heart was filled with sorrow and pity for this land and its people, through the fear and dread and hatred he could not fully suppress after the darkness of the Eye, and he could not stand to think that he might fail them. Failure to help and protect these people was a failure in fully defeating Sauron and his legacy. This land, and its people, had suffered long enough.

He could imagine what it felt like to stand as one of the few who marched from Gondor with Elessar on that day Sauron was destroyed, not knowing if it would be they who were destroyed or the Dark Lord: he thought he might be feeling quite similar at that moment. Vrór pictured the slavers riding toward him, cruel gleaming gold, and but two-dozen were transformed into an army of thousands. A few of their mounts fell, and they with them, into the trench, and he waited for more to fall, but they kept coming. He could feel the ground shaking beneath his feet.

He just did not know for sure if it would work. The Dwarf had been afraid of any danger befalling those working on the excavation, and so he had not been reserved in giving the walls and ceiling of the tunnel as much support as possible. Surely the strength of horses hooves would force the ground out beneath them, and splinter even some of the thicker planks they salvaged. Surely...and yet he could not be sure. Vrór had always been extremely particular in his work. Nothing was to be declared finished or usable or even allowed to be touched by anyone other than those working on it until he had double-checked and triple-checked that there was no fault to it that might prove dangerous even after decades of hard use. And never had he not been present to see his creation used for the first time: whether it was a door being opened and shut, a millstone being ground, or an archway being walked under for the very first time. This tunnel had only to work once, but it had to, and that made it all the more important.

Vrór knew quite well that, had he told anyone his plan, they would have told him it was senseless. If any part of it would collapse easily under the foot of a Hobbit, with or without supports, it would not stand up to a horse bearing a full grown, armoured man. But with only fifteen feet of a chance for them to cross it at all, there was no way the Dwarf could simply wait and see.

Perhaps he was a little obsessive.

As the winds picked up, Vrór could not help but feel the slavers were nearing. He thought it foolish to think that he would base this assumption on an old man’s prediction and promise, but he shook with fear and anticipation down to his very bones as soon as the sand started whipping up into his face. Wrapping two kerchiefs around the upper and lower parts of his face to cover as much as possible, he left enough so that he could see, and make his way quickly and quietly towards the entrance to the tunnel – which was turned in the opposite direction from which the slavers would be approaching the camp – keeping so low that he practically crawled.

Once inside the tunnel, he cursed himself for not being better prepared, as he had not remembered any sort of light. The brightness of the sky had already decreased as the windstorm prepared itself to really blow, and it would only get worse. Carefully, painfully, he removed one of the first wooden slats that had been placed to keep the tunnel up, holding in his breath. Nothing. He pulled out another, and another, moving down the tunnel. He left a few he saw to be particularly well-placed in, saving them, possibly, for on his way back, for he knew he would hit a wall soon. Then he would have to make his way down the other side.

His lungs stressed and his heart almost sore from all its pounding, Vrór stole his way into the other side of the tunnel, and did as he had on the former. He worked his way down, forcing himself to move only as quickly as he could without becoming careless. All seemed quite well until he found that pulling at a plank, originally a part of a small cart, caused dust and dirt to fall from above him, and then all his fears came rushing back. Perhaps he could just leave it?

The Dwarf frantically tried to come to terms with one of his options, and after wasting several moments, he remembered what the howling outside the tunnel meant. He pressed his ear, frozen, and blocked out the strange whipping and whistling sounds the wind made blowing across the tunnel opening with his hand against his other ear. Vrór waited for a few seconds to hear or sense vibrations in the earth, a sign of the horses drawing near. He could not move until he was sure that he did or did not hear them, and that he practically mistook the pounding of his heart for the pounding of hooves did not help. When he thought he heard something beating at a very different pace from the thing in his chest, he spent a moment in disbelief before rushing into action.

The beating was growing louder in his ears, though he was now no longer sure what to attribute any sound to. Just a few more feet to the spot Carl had filled in, and then back, removing the final pieces as he went... Forced to feel his way now, it was slower work then did him well. He should have left the final board, the one that he had spent too long deliberating over already, and he had his mind made up to...until he passed it once again. Vrór found himself stopping before it and slowly inching it out. It was just a few more feet till he would be able to crawl out and run to safety, anyway. But inch-by-inch soon became centimeter by centimeter. The pounding grew louder. Finally, he gave up and wrenched it away before scuttling as fast as he could toward the entrance.

It worked! he thought as everything grew completely dark and he found himself unable to move. Perfectly...