Hellrien stared at her pint, seeing nothing. She was tired and depressed. She was clutching to straws. Rúnulf was right. Dorvairse, Haschirgael, Burwod, Theawynn – they all had to be dead. And where would Ranesora, Jorgon and the rest have gone to? Maybe Fornost, or perhaps they had all scattered and went off their separate ways, disbanded. Ranesora and Jorgon in Tinnudir or Esteldin, most likely. And the others? Maybe Bree. She had heard there were a lot of work opportunities for unemployed soldier types in Bree.
And now it was evening. She had spent the whole day in Thorin’s Hall Inn, and the rows of empty tankards kept growing on the bar in front of her. Now she was feeling uprooted. She felt like she had nothing left. She was not a scout of the Sworn Brotherhood anymore, she was nothing. Just a nobody, a homeless drifter, like before. What the hell was she doing here in the Blue Mountains? She looked around her with disgust. Tomorrow she would saddle her horse and ride southeast, away from Ered Luin, away from the region that reminded her of the Brotherhood. She would settle down somewhere. Maybe get herself a farm.
You’re drunk, she mocked herself.
The musicians had stopped playing a while ago. The crowd in the Inn was rowdy and rambunctious. Suddenly she noticed she was being talked to. She turned. A dwarf stood next to her, holding his mug tightly with both hands, hairy face only and inch away from Hellrien’s.
Hellrien tried to focus her own bleary gaze upon the dwarf’s phyz. Had she met him before?
”Could you summon us a balrog tonight?” said the dwarf and belched. Reek of strong dwarven ale followed the belch. Hellrien remembered what Rúnulf had said, that her kind was not popular in Thorin’s Hall at the moment. Why in the flaming Mordor had she not ridden away before instigating a brawl!
”I have always wanted to see a balrog”, the dwarf spluttered. ”Or maybe a wraith. Let’s see it!”
Another drunken dwarf staggered towards Hellrien, hands raised, wiggling his short fingers in mock impersonation of something. A group of dwarves roared in laughter and pushed themselves closer. ”Hooo-hoooo!” he wailed. ”I’m a baaaal-roooog!” He crashed on Hellrien, who instinctively pushed him back. The reek of ale and cheap brandy almost suffocated her. The dwarf fell on the floor. Suddenly Hellrien understood – dwarves were very steady on their feet and it was virtually impossible to tip one over, no matter how drunk they were. The dwarf had tumbled down on purpose.
”She knocked down Luk!” a voice howled. A fist flew forward, hitting Hellrien on her lumbar region. Her eyes sparkled with pain. She pulled out her warhammer, but at the same moment numerous clamps grabbed her arm and pushed it down. A sturdy fist hit her on the mouth. Suddenly Hellrien felt like something ripped apart inside her. Instantly she turned into a growling beast. Her foot flew upwards like a battering ram, and two dwarves fell on the floor, bellowing with pain and shock. Hellrien threw herself forward, and her fists pounded fiercely. Punches and kicks kept raining on her body, but it didn’t matter as she couldn’t feel any pain. She snapped an elbow with a gruesome crack, broke another dwarf’s fingers like dry branches, struck her own fingers in two bloodshot eyes and kicked the fifth dwarf on the stomach. The kick sent him rolling under a table. Then Hellrien ducked like a lightning, grabbed her warhammer and began to swing it like a club.
”STOOOOOPPPP!!!” The vociferous roar seemed to make the walls tremble. Hellrien stopped. Sweat and blood was streaming down her face, and she was panting heavily.
A robust dwarf with cruel-looking face was standing in front of her. He was holding a huge battle axe, and his uniform showed he was a guard-lieutenant.
”You are under arrest, woman”, he growled slowly, stretching out his left hand. ”Your weapons…”
Hellrien gave them to him.
”This way, prisoner.”
The dwarves spat at her. A kick flew Hellrien helplessly forward. She bumped onto the guard-lieutenant. He turned with satisfaction and slapped Hellrien on the face.
”Watch your feet, damn tosspot!” he growled.
Hellrien didn’t make a sound. She knew what was coming.
The guard-lieutenant shoved Hellrien along Frerin’s Court. The patrons of Thorin’s Hall Inn followed and swarmed around them.
”Ruddy cow! Ugly mannish wench!”
”Chop her head off, Khnormur! She’s too tall!”
Threats and insults rained on Hellrien. The guard-lieutenant winked and grinned.
Somebody spat Hellrien right between her eyes. She didn’t wipe it off, she didn’t even try to raise her hands. The guard-lieutenant grinned at her. ”Well, Hellrien? Somewhat unusual, hey? Move it!”
Hellrien’s eyes glared him with cold anger. Her time would come. They had reached the doors of Thorin’s Hall. The guard-lieutenant stood there for a while, allowing many more punches and kicks hit Hellrien before he finally raised his voice:
”Go back to your business, everyone! Go back to the Inn! The show’s over!”
Guard-captain Unnarr raised his axe when the guard-lieutenant flew Hellrien towards the cell with a kick to her lumbar region.
”You have been our guest here, Hellrien”, said the guard-captain calmly. ”You should not have started causing trouble.”
”Cut the crap and get straight to it”, replied Hellrien coldly. ”Let’s get this charade over with.”
Unnarr opened the cell door. ”Get her inside, Khnormur.”
The guard-lieutenant grimaced and obeyed.
The guard-captain’s battle axe pointed at Hellrien. ”Hold her against the bars.”
Khnormur locked Hellrien’s arms in a powerful grip behind her back and shoved her against the bars.
”Here we go”, said Unnarr slowly and raised his battle axe. He struck Hellrien on her forehead with the pommel. The skin tore and blood gushed out.
Hellrien stared the guard-captain’s eyes. Unnarr smiled at her. Suddenly Unnarr lowered his battle axe and struck the pommel into Hellrien’s stomach with full force. Hellrien hadn’t managed to tighten her abs all the way. It felt like her body was torn in two. She folded and slid down against the bars towards the floor – until Unnarr’s hard knee struck between her eyes. Khnormur released her hands and allowed Hellrien to fall down and curl up on the floor, almost blinded with pain and blood. Unnarr stepped inside the cell. Hellrien registered the kicks barraging her body. She could hear the dwarves laughing over her. The sounds came so far away – far away – far away…
Guard-captain Unnarr panted heavily and stared at the unconscious mannish female.
”Go to the stable to fetch her horse, Khnormur. Tie her on it’s back and walk the horse out of the gates. Try not to draw too much attention. All her things should be on the stable. Tie them up on the horse as well.”
”Alright.” Khnormur disappeared.
Unnarr stared at Hellrien’s motionless body on the cell floor with contentment. Finally he had managed to vent some of the resentment he had always felt towards the mannish garrison in the Blue Mountains. Now he was done. And there was nothing Hellrien could do about it. If she returned to Thorin’s Hall, she would receive even more severe beating next time.
Unnarr smoked as he waited. Suddenly Hellrien groaned and rolled over. Her blood had stained the stony floor beneath her.
Unnarr spat on her.
Khnormur returned. ”Her horse is outside. With all her things.”
”Alright, take her away.”
The guard-lieutenant dragged Hellrien out. She left a stain of blood on the floor beneath her. Unnarr followed them outside as well. Hellrien hung on the saddle.
The guard-lieutenant weighed Hellrien’s warhammer, spear and bow in his hands.
”What will I do with these?”
Unnarr thought about it. It was fair to let Hellrien keep her weapons.
”Tie them on the horseback with the rest of her stuff, Khnormur.”
The guard-lieutenant strapped the bow and the spear on the horse. He attached he hammer on Hellrien’s belt before he took the reins of the horse.
”Take the straightest route out the gates and make it quick, Khnormur”, said Unnarr.
”Alright.”
Khnormur walked the horse behind him. Hellrien lied like a corpse against it’s neck. The guard of the inner gate talked to him.
”Hey, Khnormur! What’s going on?”
”A drunken troublemaker”, Khnormur replied indifferently. ”I’m just taking her out of the gates.”
Khnormur walked along. They were in a mountain pass between the inner and outer gates of Thorin’s Gate. The road sloped gently downwards. The guard-lieutenant couldn’t forget the fine handle and balance of the mannish woman’s warhammer. He decided to take it for himself. If it ever came up, he could always say Hellrien must have lost it. He just had to make sure Unnarr never saw the weapon. Unnarr, like most dwarves, hated thieves with a passion. But it was only that one hammer he wanted, Khnormur reasoned to himself. She would still get to keep all her other weapons and things. She wouldn’t miss one hammer.
They arrived outside of the gates. Khnormur walked along the road until he couldn’t see the guards anymore. Stony ridges rose towards the moon behind him. Khnormur stretched out his hand and groped at Hellrien’s belt.
Everything happened lightning fast from that point on.
Fresh air had woken up Hellrien. She had been leaning against the saddlebow, mustering her strength. She thought Khnormur was going to kill her and hide her corpse outside Thorin’s Gate. And when she felt the guard-lieutenant’s hand, she exploded into desperate action. She threw herself aside to get her right foot free from the stirrup. She kicked as hard as she could. The tip of her moccasin hit the guard-lieutenant’s face. Khnormur reeled backwards. Hellrien slid on the ground and fumbled after him. She heard his moaning, crouched towards the sound and pulled the dwarf halfway up. Hellrien began to pound his head with her palm and the back of her hand, his head swinging back and forth in the bluish moonlight. Eventually the dwarf sank down on the ground, unconscious, and Hellrien let him fall. She staggered towards her horse, grabbed the saddle and held herself up by it, almost hanging against the horse’s warm flank. She threw up violently. The horse fidgeted nervously.
A little later Hellrien pushed herself on the saddle and just sat up there, furled against the horse’s neck. It started walking along the road, and Hellrien allowed it to go where it pleased.
Closer to the morning they had reached the river, sparkling in the moonlight. Hellrien noticed the thick shrubs growing under the bridge.
Hellrien staggered down the river and knelt to it. Water beneath her turned red. Later she took her package off the horseback, wrapped herself in blankets and crawled into the bushes under the bridge like a wounded animal. The horse began to chew whatever sparse nourishment it could find on the barren land by the riverbank. Hellrien lied down and stared at the starry sky through the bushes with swollen, blurry eyes. Gradually the nausea dissipated. Finally she could sleep.
When she woke up it was evening. She waded into the river to wash her wounds. In her stomach there was an almost black spot where Unnarr had struck her with the pommel of his battle axe. Her ribs were sore, and it was difficult to move. She worried about maybe having broken them again, but at least she wasn’t coughing up blood. Now she saw her warhammer still hanging from her belt. She took it out and examined it in the moonlight. Maybe they hadn’t intended to kill her after all, only drive her out of the Blue Mountains. She examined her luggage. Everything was there, including the hunting bow and the thrusting spear. She equipped them and decided to keep riding. She rode as long as the moon shined, and when it finally dawned, she could hear rapids rushing somewhere. She felt better now and bought some food from a dwarven fortress city called Gondamon. The vendor looked at her curiously.
”You need a healer, woman”, said the vendor in a friendly tone.
”Is there such a thing here?” Hellrien could feel pounding pain in her forehead, where the pommel of the battleaxe had torn a deep gash in her scalp. It had to be sown shut.
”Sure we do”, said the vendor. ”Do you see that balding fellow with red beard leaning on the wall in that lodge over there?”
Hellrien turned her head and looked where the vendor’s finger was pointing at.
”I do.”
”That’s him.”
”Thanks.” Hellrien paid for her purchases and turned her back to the vendor. The provisions she stuffed in her saddlebags amongst a small frying pan, a kettle and other small items like salt, sugar, flint and steel, a few precious hobbit-made matches, flour and syrup.
She walked the horse across the huge courtyard. The vendors had opened their businesses already but otherwise there wasn’t much life on the court yet. A couple of adolescent dwarves were running around with wooden axes. They wailed and screamed. Hellrien didn’t go close them, knowing how protective dwarves were of their womenfolk and children.
Suddenly she realized she was in a very bad shape. She was burning hot. No, not hot – cold!
It took a moment before she noticed that she was staring right into two brown, radiant eyes.
”A healer”, said Hellrien hoarsely. ”I need a healer.”
”I’m the healer in Gondamon, woman. Let’s get your horse in the stable and yourself in my house before you fall down. You’re not riding anywhere soon.”
Hellrien stared at the dwarf, trying to smile. Suddenly his eyes appeared to be farther away from each other. She grabbed his shoulders in order to stay upright. The dwarf was strong enough to hold her up.
”Try to walk”, said the healer calmly. ”Like that, one step at a time…”
Hellrien got immensely vexed by the dwarf’s custodial voice.
”How else would I be walking, by Sauron’s shriveled balls!” she huffed.
”Language!” said the dwarf sharply. ”Or you’re going to be sorry.”
”I’m sorry already.” After they had gotten Hellrien’s horse in the stable the healer walked her up the stairs and through a low door, setting her down on a short bed next to the door. Hellrien’s legs hung over the bedside. She cursed quietly through her teeth and felt exceptionally ill. She hated healers. She stared at the dwarf as he washed his hands in a bowl of water. Then he began digging up bottles, gauze, scissors and a box of needles.
”I don’t need bandages, mister”, said Hellrien, ”I just have a wound on my head that needs to be sown.”
The dwarf turned around to look at her, examining the many wounds and bruises on Hellrien’s face, as well as the older scar on her cheek.
”Really now?” asked the healer sarcastically.
Hellrien got irritated by his tone again.
”Whatever you say, mister”, she scoffed.
The dwarf shook a bottle. His face grew dark with anger. ”My name is Pall – and you can spare that tone and watch your mouth with me. Are you ready? This is really going to hurt.”
Hellrien didn’t respond. The dwarf came closer. ”Take off your jacket and your shirt.”
Hellrien tapped her head lightly. ”This is my head, healer!”
”Do as I say, or you will have to ride off to the next town. There should be a healer in Thorin’s Hall – I think!”
Hellrien stripped. She was fighting against dizziness and nausea. Fever was burning up behind her sore eyelids.
Pall looked at Hellrien. From the first moment he saw her he had felt loathing towards this mannish female, as he had always loathed those dirty, primitive individuals who as sure as the sun rose kept coming to his father during those long years he had lived and practiced his trade in Gondamon. Only few mannish folk ever wandered as far west as Ered Luin from their natural habitat. And those who did were all the same – confident, braggarts, eager to demonstrate their fierceness and courage when he had been there assisting his father. The mannish folk who came to Gondamon belonged to one of two categories – hunters or adventurers. Or both. They had their weapons designed to kill living things as efficiently as possible, they had their piercing, suspicious eyes and a voice full of emptiness, coldness and contempt for life in all it’s forms. Pall thought about those happy years he had spent in Thorin’s Hall, learning further knowledge in his trade as a healer. What a tremendous difference! Up there he had been a healer, a respected expert with respectable patients, ailed by respectable ailments! And what had his father been here in Gondamon? A quack! A veterinarian! He had treated constipation, horse colic, cuts or bruises. Period! And now it was his work! When his father had gotten sick and asked him to carry on his practice, he could not have declined. It was the dwarven way – sons will carry on after their fathers, that was the order of things. And now he had been working eight years in Gondamon. Treating injuries from drunken brawls, helping with childbirths, curing indigestion and ordering bed rest for a cure to month-long drinking binges.
And here he had another specimen of those mannish folk – a victim of a brutal, primitive brawl, possibly waged with pints or bottles. Drunken brawl, obviously. Pall took it for granted that no-one, no matter their race, exposed themselves into this kind of danger when they were sober, in their normal state. Every rational being had to realize how fine and delicate machines their bodies were if they were thinking straight.
He sighed and looked closer at Hellrien’s bared upper body. What a beautiful, well-proportioned animal, surely a prime specimen of her own race, flashed through his mind. Deep scars and big bruises were clearly defined against her almond skin. And on the stomach…!
He pressed the purple spot with his index finger.
”What caused this?”
”A pommel of a battleaxe.”
”Lie down. By the way, wait a minute – what’s your name?”
”Hellrien.”
”Is that your whole name?”
”Yes. There’s nothing else to it.”
”All right then. Lie down. Relax.” Experienced fingers felt Hellrien’s stomach. Her powerful muscles trembled.
”Does it hurt?”
”No. A little.”
”How about this?”
”A little.”
”Have you had blood in your stools, miss Hellrien? No, lie still!”
”The wound is on my head, healer!
”On your head?” The dwarf gave a laugh. ”Miss Hellrien, you have a dangerously high temperature, probably a concussion and possibly a fractured skull in addition to a couple of broken ribs and potentially internal bleeding. Are you pleased with yourself?”
He examined the wound on Hellrien’s forehead. Blood had clotted into a thick layer over it.
”This is really going to hurt”, he said quietly.
”You said that already”, Hellrien replied lifelessly.
The dwarf removed the clotted blood. Blood and flesh gushed from the wound. It was deep. Very deep.
”I cannot sow it as long as it’s inflamed, he said. ”I can only wash it and put on a thin bandage.”
Hellrien didn’t respond. Her ears were rushing. The dwarf’s pink tunic was spinning around. She clasped tightly to the edge of the bed. The dwarf noticed it. ”It’ll be over soon. You can have this bed until you are fit to leave.”
”No”, said Hellrien hoarsely. ”I need to get going, I…”
”No you don’t. Not if you actually want to get anywhere.”
”But I can’t…”
”Here, drink this!”
It tasted bitter.
”More! Empty the bottle!”
Hellrien obeyed.
The dwarf wrapped the shirt on Hellrien’s shoulders. She looked down. The healer had rubbed something in the deeper wounds.
”Lie down”, said the dwarf.
”Thank you… healer”, Hellrien spluttered. ”I am…”
Pall looked at the woman – her intense blue eyes, now blurred with fever, and hard, strong face. She was weak, but her will was strong as steel. Pall could feel her powerful personality almost physically. An extraordinary specimen, he thought again.
”Just shout if you need anything”, he said, closing the door behind him.
