The snow was falling mercilessly now; thick flakes of white streaming down from the skies, and covering the world in inches of icy cold. Silence surrounded him, for the world it seemed was touched by the echo of nothing, and every sound that once in a while came was swallowed by it immediately. The Lone Lands, became even more lonely, with even fewer animals and people about than had already been. It did not bother Harugrim much that he was alone. After all, he had stayed away from the roads for as much as possible, avoiding any contact with anyone. And now he was in a hurry.
He had not known where he was supposed to go, and so a few days back his choice had been between returning to Bree, or travel east. While he knew that he might find valuable information in the town, he knew that by the time he went there, found what he sought, and set out again, the man or woman he was looking for might have disappeared into the world already. And so he had taken the risk, and had followed his instinct. After all, the person was from the south, so more likely he or she would follow that road, instead of the north, where allies might be few.
He had travelled quickly, only stopping when the darkness of night grew too large for him to find his way, and so after merely two days of marching, he had come to the hills surrounding the tower of old, that he remembered from when him and Lyfrid first crossed these lands on their way to Bree. As night was creeping on to him, he decided to climb the tower, rest for the night, and in the morning use the tower for what it had been intended for hundreds of years ago – watch.
He was breathing heavily as he was climbing up the slopes. All over a sudden, the air changed. A smell of horse and wood came to his mind. It was merely a faint idea of a smell, but Harugrim was alarmed. He held his spear with two hands and slowly crept forward.
As he finally reached the top, he hid behind the old stone walls, lurking, watching, seeing.
In the middle of the old tower, he saw about a dozen to twenty men, a few horses and what seemed to be a prisoner by the looks of the hood above the head. The men were southerners, and anger grew in Harugrim, yet seeing how outnumbered he was, he knew he could not do anything rash.
Suddenly, one of the men pulled the hood away from the prisoner, and below came visible the face of a beautiful young woman, beaten and bloodied. With an empty gaze she stared at her captor who seemed to say something to her. Suddenly he grabbed her, held her above the abyss and within another instant, she fell.
It all went so quick, Harugrim didn’t see how and why she fell, but according to the chaos that followed, it had not been the intention of the man, who obviously was their leader and bellowed words Harugrim did not understand. Four men were sent down the slope to hurry after the girl, obviously to bring her back in case she was still alive. The rest hurried to pack up camp.
This was his chance. Harugrim let the sent out men pass him, and followed slowly. They were talking all the time while they went down, in loud enraged voices, obviously afraid of the consequences of what had happened, and angered by the situation. It made it easier for Harugrim to follow him as they could not hear him, but he could hear them.
As they had climbed down the hill, they stopped, obviously trying to find the direction in which the girl must have fallen, for running in circles around the hill, they had lost the orientation of where they were.
Harugrim prepared himself. Surprise was on his side as his spear flew through the dusk between the shoulders of one of the men, who dropped dead without a scream. Before the other men knew what was happening, Harugrim was upon them. With his axe in the right and a dagger in his left hand, he worked his way through the men, hacking at one, slicing at another, until finally, two other men were lying on the ground, and his dagger at throat of the last of the four, who was breathing heavily and had Harugrim’s axe sunken in his right leg.
Harugrim was kneeling on him. While he was slowly calming from the bloodrage, he asked the man in his angry voice “Do you speak my language?”
The man was whimpering of the pain, and so Harugrim touched the axe’s handle just slightly moving the blade, and sending another wave of pain through his opponents body, who groaned as Harugrim repeated his question. “Answer me, or I swear by my mother’s grave you will regret every last minute of your miserable life”
The man slowly moved his head in a nod.
“Then tell me, did you burn the inn?”, Harugrim demanded keeping the dagger at the man’s throat. It seemed to become a habit of his to threaten people this way.
The man looked wide eyed at Harugrim, and shook his head, but from the eyes he did not seem surprised or questioning Harugrim’s words. So he knew.
“Who did it? Where is he?”
The man shook his head.
“Where is he?”, Harugrim snarled, again pushing the axe ever so deeper into the man’s flesh.
Sweat was running down the man’s face, yet still he shook his head.
Harugrim was losing his patience. The rest of the men could come down any second now, and he had no intention of dying tonight, and so he continued the torture of the man with growing viciousness asking him over and over again where he was, who he was.
Finally, the dying man whispered Bree in voice of pure agony.
“Bree”, Harugrim thought and cursed. So after all he had gone the wrong way.
He pulled his axe out of the man’s flesh and begun running into the hills to the west. He thought of the girl, yet the others would surely come down the hill soon. She probably had died of the fall anyway, and he could not lose any more time. And so he ran as swiftly as he could to bring distance between himself and the enemies.
As he finally found a ditch he could rest in, snow had begun falling for the first time. He did not dare make a fire and instead curled up in his cloak, pushed his body against the ground, and tried to sleep.
The next day, he continued his journey back to where he came from. Snow was falling heavy now, and he was shivering of the cold. But he now had found the track. And he would not stop now. He would hurry, and finish off what he had set out to do.
