Frustrated by Cutch’s escape into unconsciousness, Gilmorwen stood and hurled the bloodied blade away, sending it clattering across the cracked stone floor. With wide-eyed intent and a snarl, she snatched the pouch from her waist and dug for a stone to end him in fire.
“It is irrelevant who or where she is, Gilmorwen”, a deep and powerful voice stated from the stairs. She whirled to see an intruder in white top the last step and calmly approach, a staff clacking on stone. Behind him, a darkly clad and cloaked figure followed, identity hidden beneath a black hood. Surprised, she was silent for several moments until the intruder stood a scant pace from her, his companion behind at the head of the stairs.
Cutch awakened, stirred by the wizard’s voice. With one eye mercifully swollen shut but throbbing, and the rest of his exposed flesh raw from small, ice-hewn cuts, he drew a hissing breath and wiggled to sit slumped against a column. Through one eye, he looked about the open area atop Ost Barandor, witnessing the confrontation between Gilmorwen and the unknown staff-wielder standing confidently before her. A mysteriously clad figure stood respectfully distant near the stairs. Cutch and the cloaked and hooded one regarded each other for a few seconds, then turned their attentions back to the others’ discussion.
“Saruman. What brings you to me?” she asked, gathering herself with a regal tone.
The wizard’s gaze revealed his dissatisfaction, but he politely replied. “Why, you do, My Lady. I am here to offer assistance in what is an unfortunately trying time for you - for us, yet again.” He cast a glance at Cutch, then corrected himself. “Or, is it perhaps the same difficulty that burdens you?”
Gilmorwen glanced between the wizard and his mysterious companion, suspicion growing on her face. Before she could speak, the wizard continued. “You still seem pre-occupied with your bloodline, diverting your attention from things we need for our alliance…”
“I have taken the Wildwood, wizard, as we have agreed”, Gilmorwen interrupted. “My family business is my own to deal with as I see fit. This is MY realm.”
“Your realm?” Saruman snorted. “The Wildwood was only a means to an end, if you will recall, My Lady, a place of ancient forts to occupy and use to further our interests in all other directions. Instead, you dally here brooding over past hurts and a bloodline that has no value outside of your own tortured mind. You are queen of nothing yet, except a tangled wood dotted with unrestored ruins. You should have at least taken the Bree-lands by now.”
Through a sneer, she sweetly cajoled, “You dare criticize my progress, wizard? You who come too infrequently and only to interfere with my personal business?”
“This business”, Saruman answered, “is not only yours alone when it threatens our goals as prospective allies. It was I who saw to your completing the study of the runic stones. It was I who provided you with the underlings who obey you as my lieutenant. It was up to YOU to claim your realm. Once before I had to come here to encourage you to dispose of your cowardly son and his wife, and now here I am again when you are distracted by their whelp. And you seek an assassin from Angmar?” The wizard paused to point an accusatory claw-like finger at Cutch. “They are our competitors for these lands and you DEAL with them? Put yourself and thus ME in their debt? Most unwise, My Lady, and disqualifying behavior for one who seeks my allegiance. Your Sindarin blood, so full of passion and promise, has also drowned your judgement.”
Gilmorwen chuckled at his mis-identifying Cutch, mistaking it as proof of his lack of superiority over her. “You forget yourself, wizard. It was YOU who came to ME for an alliance. And now you dare…” Her voice trailed off as her searching hand finally found the stone she sought. She drew both hands before her, each holding a stone, and began another utterance, but before she could finish, the wizard snapped his staff forth and wordlessly slammed its end on the pavement. Suddenly, his presence was supreme atop Ost Barandor, and Gilmorwen’s hands and forearms were engulfed by the fire she had intended to hurl at the wizard.
She screamed and dropped to her knees, unable to release the stones the wizard now controlled. He called out in a voice too booming to be natural, “No, My Lady, it is you who dare folly”. The flames continued to swell, her screams raised to a horrifying pitch, and again the wizard slammed his staff against the cracked pavement. A huge unseen fist seemed to envelope Gilmorwen, crushing her screams to silence and lifting her back and up, over the precipice beyond the ruined fort and above the dizzying height to the river far below. “And now, My Lady”, he said in a calm and conversational voice,” our folly ends.” The wizard turned away from her indifferently and the fist seemed to dissolve, leaving her lifeless body to silently plummet.
The wizard faced his mysterious companion. “I trust you will be a more worthy lieutenant and ally?” he asked the hooded figure, whose attention turned slowly from the empty space where Gilmorwen had fallen, and then knelt before the wizard.
Compliant and whispering, a nondescript voice answered meekly from beneath the hood, “So do I pledge”.
Over his shoulder, the wizard said offhandedly to Cutch, “Free yourself as you can and return to your Angmar masters. Lick your wounds and await your Mortal doom, which may come sooner than you think.” Stepping then to the stairs, staff again clacking on stone, the wizard wordlessly gestured for his companion to come. The hooded one regarded Cutch for several moments, and then abruptly followed the wizard.
Cutch leaned back against the column, alone, bound, with a ruined eye and raw exposed skin. Relief ushered in exhaustion, and mercifully brought sleep. Did Vanwe perhaps stand guard to allow a few hours of uninterrupted slumber? His dreams swirled with images of Her, of Them, and of a baby girl with Her beauty filling the House with precocious laughter. Moonbeams kissed his face and he awoke, battered and sore, but grateful to still be alive and nearly whole.
With a sudden realization, he scanned the moon-lit pavement until he saw his grandmother’s blade, lying forgotten. He struggled to crawl to it and managed to roll over it until his hand found the hilt and he began the tauntingly arduous task of cutting his bonds, for which the blade was sorely suited. Thus, he worked until dawn approached and he needed to rest numbing hands.
High above he heard what could have been an eagle’s call.
