((Adaptation of RP between Laarke and the dwarf, Frekial.))
"Now jus' give the dwarf here like a good lass and we'll give ye no trouble," the leader of the three ruffians drawled, quiet voice sounding loud in the otherwise silent streets of Bree. He took a confident step forward, showing off the naked blade in his hand, and the two men flanking him followed suit.
Laarke eyes darted briefly to the dwarf in question, whose shoulder she now gripped firmly. She knew nothing about him, other than that he’d a foreign accent, and that he’d started a fist fight in the Inn while she’d been eating a late-night stew. He’d been rather resistant to her attempts to calm the resulting brawl, and she’d reached the conclusion that he needed to sleep off his aggression somewhere… A cell being the only place she could think of to restrain him, since he wouldn’t return to his own room peacefully.
He’d resisted that too, of course; so she’d taken his weapon – a two-handed war axe, of all things – tied his hands in front of him, and dragged him out of the Inn. They’d been on their way to the jailhouse when these three men had approached, demanding that she free the dwarf.
Now, watching the three men carefully, she considered.
The streets were empty, the entire town asleep. The only movement - excepting the three men advancing upon her and her dwarven charge - came from the lazy tendrils of smoke that wafted from Bree-town's many chimneys into the chilly night sky. There was no help in sight, and it would be four against one if she refused to hand him over. She wasn’t equipped to handle this fight, and a hot-headed dwarf and his friends weren’t worth a beating.
But something in the way the dwarf stood gave her pause. Something in the way he’d reacted.
He doesn’t know these men, she realized.
She’d already explained in her woefully accented Westron that she was a Militiawoman, that this dwarf was her responsibility until delivered to a cell. She’d already told the men that by barring her from doing so, they were 'disturbing the peace.'
It was clear that they cared not a hoot whether they were 'disturbers of the peace', and that they intended to “liberate” by force the dwarf whose arm she currently grasped. She was outnumbered. Outsized. But she couldn’t in good conscience hand one of her charges over to a group of thugs that might mean him harm.
These thoughts all came and went in the blink of an eye, and there was nary a pause in her response.
"I can't let you do that," she said. Her voice was calm, but she felt anything but as she craned her neck back to lock eyes with the ruffian who’d spoken.
He chuckled, looking down his slender nose at her, and again his men followed suit. Then he lunged forward with his shortsword, aiming a forceful slash toward her chest. Spitting out a curse in her native tongue, she leapt backward, narrowly avoiding the attack and losing her grip on the dwarf's arm. Somewhere, a dog barked.
"Oi, lass I'll just let you deal with them" the dwarf said, stepping back to watch the fight. "Maybe if you hadn't tied me up, I could be of help" he added acerbically.
Don’t call me ‘lass,’ she thought vaguely, but she didn’t bother to respond. Instead, she dropped into a crouch, discarding the axe she’d been holding from the dwarf, reaching down to pull out her boot knife. As she did so, the man to her left lunged with his cudgel... And missed, losing his balance and stumbling past her. Now her back was vulnerable, and she knew it. But she couldn’t turn, for there were yet two men before her.
"Hah! You lot couldn't even take down a baby if ye wanted to!" the dwarf laughed from behind her. "Oi lass, what do you think that little blade is going to do? Untie me and I'll show ye how to properly fight."
The dwarf talks a lot, she thought.
"Busy," she responded curtly as she feinted with the 'little blade.' Light from the torch in her off-hand glinted off it menacingly, drawing the eyes of the man who’d done the talking. She was ready and swung the torch itself, catching him in the side of the face. He went down, knocked out cold.
As her eyes momentarily followed his fall, she noticed a flicker of movement at the corner of her eye. The dwarf, she realized, a twinge of worry bothering her. What if that thug-..
Distracted as she was, she didn’t notice the incoming attack until it was too late to do anything but hastily turn away. Her shoulder took the club instead of her face, but she still failed to hold in the quiet grunt of pain that accompanied the blow. She whirled away, swinging her torch in response; but her aim, hampered by blossoming pain, was off. She missed.
"What do ye think yer doin' dwarf?" barked a voice from behind her, and heavy footsteps – the dwarf’s – ran away from her. "What kind o' dwarf are ye te run away?” the voice barked again, with a menacing laugh. A second set of running steps followed the first. “Coward!”
That thug talks a lot, too, she thought as she searched for an opening in her own adversary’s defenses. She’d have to take him down quickly, if she was to help the dwarf.
"Coward you say?" the dwarf’s voice. Grim. The scrape of metal on cobblestone. A scream, and the unmistakable sound of an axe cleaving muscle and bone. The thud of a body hitting the ground.
"Oh look! We're the same height now," someone boldly laughed. The dwarf.
Shit.
The man facing her gaped at whatever it was that had occurred over her shoulder, and she took advantage of his distraction to clock him on the chin with the butt of her dagger. But she didn’t wait to watch him hit the ground. Instead, she turned toward what she assumed would be an insane dwarf and a dead body.
He’s still alive, she realized, darting toward the man, who was now missing his legs. Both of them.
"Haven't you ever heard of non-lethal force?" she snapped at the dwarf as she crouched beside the moaning man, boot grazing the pool of blood that was rapidly forming beneath him.
The dwarf stood over them, his hands freed somehow of the rope that had bound them. He gripped his own battle axe, the one she’d taken from him, with a deadly confidence.
I dropped it to get at my dagger, she remembered, uncertain whether to feel relief or chagrin.
"Where I come from, non-lethal force is a luxury, lass," he retorted. He took a step back from the bloody mess, and for a moment the street was again strangely silent despite the frantic commotion they had caused.
"Well I appreciate the help,” he spoke up again, “but I'll just take my leave if ye don’t mind." There was something in his accent that she couldn’t quite place. It was strangely familiar. In a bad way.
But she refused to show her discomfort as she looked up from the injured man. "I mind," she said simply, using her dagger to cut strips of fabric free of her cloak. "I need your help with this." She bent to tourniquet one of the man's legs, keeping a watchful eye on the dwarf. She wasn’t sure yet whether he was friend or foe.
"Do you see how pointless this is? He's as good as dead! Leave him be, he's a goner. If you really feel pity for the man, let me finish him off then." He hovered over the bleeding man. "Why do you want me so bad? Who sent you?!” he demanded of him. “If you don't want to lose both arms ye better start talking before my baby does it for me." He adjusted his grip on his axe.
Laarke continued to tourniquet the man's legs. "I've seen men survive worse," she commented, keeping her expression neutral. "But you'd better answer his question,” she jerked her head toward the dwarf. “He looks angry." And insane.
The man stared up at the dwarf. "You fool,” he laughed, “you didn't really think we were after you for your money did you?”
No, he didn’t, she thought sardonically. He asked who sent you. She tied off the first tourniquet, and the flow of blood slowed; but the man dissolved into a fit of wet coughs.
He fell too hard, she realized. Damage in his lungs. He was likely a lost cause, but she turned to tourniqueting the second leg as she mentally located the nearest healer.
“Taking you in alive would reap more wealth than what you ever had!" the man continued, gasping for air.
"What do you mean? Like I said, who sent you?!" the dwarf raised his axe over the man's neck, impatiently. "Tell me what you know, or die," he threatened.
Shit.
She put the man’s leg down.
"Ha, you think I'll just tell you?" the man’s coughs began to produce blood. "You're better off killing me, dwarf. I have nothing else to say to you."
~~~
The dwarf beheaded him. Laarke blinked. Her mind rushed, reeled, fell into a memory.
Sunlight, refusal; men in a line. They stand tall. She stretches to see; Mama covers her eyes.
"I told you it was pointless to save him. He was a dead man anyways.” His voice pulled her back.
Laarke held in the confused anger that swept through her as the memory faded away. She lifted an eyebrow and rose to her feet, looking down at the dwarf blankly. "Well, he is certainly dead now,” she said dryly, allowing a touch of accusation to colour her voice. “Might not have been if you'd helped me and not finished the job. And he might have spoken after a few weeks in custody.” She sighed. “Which leaves me the question of what to do with you.” Now the dwarf had killed a man.
"I don't have a few weeks to wait, lass, to figure out what he just kept with him to his grave. As I see it, I did just help you so why not call it even and let me go?" he suggested, meticulously searching the dead man’s pockets. There was a sense of familiarity to the action, as though he’d done it before.
It’s been a while since I was a ‘lass,’ dwarf, she thought.
Aloud, she chuckled dryly. "I didn't need your help, nor did I have to fight in the first place. I could have handed you over," she pointed out. "You just killed a man that didn't need to die.”
Something in the set of his shoulders shifted, and in an instant, the pieces clicked together in her mind. The dwarf’s accent, unlike those of other dwarves she’d met; strangely familiar yet not quite the same as any she could identify. The quality of his violence. The fact that he hadn’t tried to kill her yet.
“We're in Bree, not some land stricken by the Shadow," she continued casually.
"You don't understand," he responded with frustration. "Soon everything will be consumed by the Shadow. The sooner you know it, the better!" He straightened up, holding what looked to be a folded letter.
The woman watched the dwarf stare at the blood-stained parchment in his hands, her hypothesis supported. And in a certain sense, he was right. The Shadow in the east, which she herself had fled years ago, very likely would spread to consume everything. But there were some, still, that fought against it, and despair didn’t justify pointless killing.
"That's the first sensible thing you've said," she murmured aloud. "But just because you've given up doesn't mean you have to walk around killing people."
"Oi, does this handwriting look familiar to you?" he asked, ignoring what she’d said and handing her the letter. Her shoulder throbbed painfully as she reached for it, but she managed to suppress the wince of discomfort.
He stepped away to search the pockets of an unconscious man, recovering a few coppers.
She decided to let the looting slide and turned her attention to the letter in her hands. Bring me the dwarf residing in Bree, it read, seen frequently in the Prancing Pony. Make sure he is kept alive. He is needed for- Blood stained the parchment, obscuring the rest of the words.
"No," Laarke answered his question simply. She didn’t recognize the writer’s hand. "There are at least four dwarves that are frequently seen in the Inn,” she continued. “Did they get the right one?" Her shoulder throbbed again as she lowered the letter.
“Gah!” the dwarf blurted out, squinting at his axe, ignoring her once again. She restrained a frustrated sigh. “My baby is all coated in blood! I need to clean her before it ruins the blade.” He stared at her for a moment. “Hey,” a thought struck him, “mind if I use your cloak to clean my axe?”
Excuse me?
She raised a brow again. "Use your own clothes," she said, "or something of his," she pointed to the dead man. "Leave those two alone," she added, jerking her head toward the unconscious men.
He grumbled under his breath and tore a piece of cloth from the dead man's tunic. It had been lightly stained with blood, but it would passably clean his axe. “Now,” he drawled, “I can see that you have your hands full with these other two, and it seems like I’m the least of your worries.” He smirked brashly at her. “Seeing how your shoulder is in bad shape, how about I help you take them in, in exchange for a drink in the Prancing Pony,” he suggested.
He must have seen the blow land, she thought. She doubted that her pain showed otherwise.
"I've fared worse," she shrugged, schooling her face through the sharp pang that followed. She stepped over to one of the unconscious men, looking him over. "If I let you go free, I'm like to be hearing about more deaths in the streets," she observed. "Some of them avoidable."
“Oi, I don’t go around lobbing people’s legs and heads off for fun!” he protested. “This was purely self-defense.”
She looked at him skeptically. "I took two men down without maiming either of them."
The dwarf let out a sigh “Listen, lass. I don’t know why they wanted me but what I do know is that I am not going to sit around a jail for days on end. I’m here for a reason, and I'd rather not spend most of my time listening to some guard chat away about his pathetic life!”
Boring and pathetic are not the same thing, she thought.
But instead of speaking, Laarke nodded and crouched down beside the man at her feet. After tucking her dagger back into her boot, she pulled one of his arms across her shoulders, trying to ignore the pain that accompanied the action. The dwarf was right. She needed the help to get these men to the jailhouse; and while his killing of the thug didn’t sit right with her, there was some sense in which it had been self-defense.
The dwarf fought to kill, that much was clear. And was accustomed to needless acts of violence. As much as she feared what he might do if set free, she knew that a jail cell wasn’t the answer. In any case, it seemed the dwarf didn’t need to ‘sleep off his aggression’ any longer, and if he were to be involved in further trouble, it would be because that trouble had come to him. Which wasn’t necessarily his fault. She knew what it was like to be a ‘lure for trouble.’
"Grab the other one, then," she said, hoisting the man to his unconscious feet.
With a relieved sigh, the dwarf lifted the other man up over his shoulder and indicated that he was ready to follow. “So how are you going to explain this one to the guards?”
She blew a lock of dark hair out of her eyes. "I'll figure something out," she said calmly, feeling anything but. She started walking, her burden’s boots dragging along the ground. "The gruesome death makes it harder, but I'm a small woman." They won’t think I did it, at least…
"Well,” he said, “as long as I'm not imprisoned, I shall follow your lead."
~~~
They walked a while, and the streets stayed empty. "People are scared," she commented.
"Scared of what?” he asked, looking confused. “I see no threat here. Perhaps the food, maybe... But I've had worse.”
Used to random violence, she thought, again.
"The fight," she explained, briefly. "Not like they couldn't hear it."
"Ha, if that was enough to scare them, the places I've been to would scare them to death!"
"And which places are those?" she asked calmly as they reached the jailhouse.
"Mordor, lass," he said darkly, before changing the subject. "We're already here, so what now?"
She nodded slightly, the last piece clicking into place. She hadn’t expected ‘Mordor’ itself to be the answer… But something like it. Someplace like her own homeland, that which the Gondorians called ‘Harad.’
"You best not be so open about that," she murmured, before setting the issue aside to consider his question. "Might be best if you leave the man here at the door and make yourself scarce. Don't want them staring at that axe of yours."
"Fair enough. I'll be heading back to the Prancing Pony then. If these two wake up and say anything about today, I would like to know. I am staying at the Inn in the meantime," he said wearily. "Oi, also: be careful, lass. I haven't the faintest idea what they wanted from me. It may be possible that whoever is behind this will send another group, but larger this time,” he cautioned.
"Not the Pony," she said quickly, beckoning with her torch. "You just started a fight in there. Do you know the Comb and Wattle?"
"I unfortunately do not, but all my belongings are in my room at the Inn, without them I have no money to speak of."
"Don't expect Old Barley will be that happy to see you back so soon," she lifted a brow, "nor the fellow you were throwing fists at. If you want to risk it, go ahead. Just keep that axe sheathed. The Comb and Wattle's next town over, in Combe, if you change your mind. Ale's only a few coppers." She'd seen the dwarf loot as much from the two men in their care.
"Aye, I will go and gather my belongings and will enjoy myself a nice ale indeed. After tonight… I need it. As for you, lass, why don't you stop by once you're done and we can have a drink together!" he chuckled cheerfully.
Laarke turned away with a nod of acknowledgement, but not one of commitment. "It will be a while before I'm done cleaning up," she said, holding her voice neutral. "Don't hold your breath."
"I consider that as an agreement! Don't keep me waiting long, woman!" he laughed, setting off to the Prancing Pony to retrieve his items.
‘Woman’ is better than ‘lass,’ she thought, allowing a sliver of a smile. … I think.
The man on her shoulder began to stir as she pushed open the jailhouse door. "A little help?" she called to whomever might be within. The door swung shut behind her.
She still didn't know the dwarf's name.
((Next: Frekial))
