A/N:  This is a story about Aragorn through strangers’ eyes.  More than that, though, it’s about a family trying to retain their humanity in the face of generations of war.  This story will be largely driven by the original characters.  It’s different from anything I’ve written before, but I hope you enjoy it, nonetheless.

Huge, massive thanks to Cairistiona, an awesome sounding board and cheerleader, without whom this would never have seen the light of day.

This story is set in the Third Age, 3019 and Third Age, 2980.

A bead of sweat slowly trickles down my neck.  The White City is stifling.  No stray breeze breeches the stone walls to ameliorate my discomfort.  I take another swig from my water skin.  The goat hide bag is nearly empty.  If we are not granted an audience soon, I will have to chance leaving my fellows for a few minutes to refill it at one of Minas Tirith’s public wells.  I let out a small snort of derision.  It is ironic that I, a man born and raised under the Harad’s blazing sun, should suffer from overheating so far north in this foreign land.  I cannot help it, and neither can the other Haradrim clustered around me.  We are not used to this type of heat.  My white headdress and loose robes stand no chance of repelling the seeping, smothering warmth that envelopes us now.

Humidity.  The Westron word still sounds strange in my mind.  It has no translation—nor indeed, any comparable concept—in my dialect of Haradric.  Dakheel tried to explain it to me long ago—how in wetter lands water is even carried by the wind.  Only a boy at the time, I was convinced that this was far too wondrous to be true, and told him so.  The man merely laughed.  “Wondrous?” he said in his strange, melodious accent, “Say that after you’ve ridden in it for three straight weeks.”

As I sweat in the enclosed courtyard, I realize that, as usual, Dakheel had the right of it.  Water in Gondor is not the precious gift I remember from my homeland.  Here it is the constant invader.  It crashes over masonry, and bridges lose their firmness.  It seeps into the earth, making mud that sucks at your boots and grinds into your clothes.  It steals into the very air, turning normal, familiar heat into an oppressive blanket that slips under our robes and turns even our own sweat against us.

As always, we Haradrim bear it because we must.  I glance around at my companions with no small amount of pride.  They are mostly old gray-beards, like me.  Here and there I see the clean-shaven face of a younger son or the veiled form of a woman.  Off to one side a few Umbari stand with a delegation from Khand.  The men of Umbar sweat like pigs through their fine robes and turbans.  They clearly think themselves important men, primly ignoring any man of Harad who dares to address them.  I almost laugh.  These lordlings are as desperate as we are, or they would not be here.  What do they seek to ransom, I wonder?  That fine fleet I passed on the river? 

By now, everyone has heard the ignoble tale of Umbar’s defeat; to us, it is a darkly humorous story to offset all the tragedy we’ve experienced in this brutal war.  Traders and bards from the north have told how the grand Corsair navy was caught off guard and defeated by a mere thirty men.  To hear the Gondorim tell it, thousands of seasoned sailors and mercenaries simply turned tail and ran for fear of Gondor’s ghosts.  Though I am sure the storytellers exaggerate, I cannot help but join my fellow Haradrim in a hearty laugh at the Umbari’s expense.

Mirth at the recollection lasts only a moment.  I run my thumb over the coin pouch at my belt and sigh.  I have brought all of the coin I possess and the greater part of my wife’s jewelry, yet still the bag is light.  So light . . . it may not be enough to buy back what is most precious to me in the world:  my son.  The old customs dictate that a prisoner of war may be bought back by his family for a suitable ransom, but who knows?  The Haradrim are a defeated people.  Our grand army is scattered, our ally in Mordor utterly annihilated, and even the all-seeing Eye has been put out.  What customs can survive such an upheaval?  I have no assurance, merely the hope that this pitiful boon will be enough to spare my child a life as a captive in a foreign land.

A ragged boy drifts in my direction, his expression carefully disinterested.  His pale eyes flicker towards my purse once . . . twice . . . I casually push back my outer robe, giving the boy a good look at the long sword belted just behind the purse.  It’s a good sword, despite its age, and is probably itself Gondorian in origin.  My companions are not nearly as well armed.  A few bear cutlasses, but most are trying to pass of their tanning knives or cleavers as legitimate weapons.  The pickpocket’s eyes twitch, and he calmly saunters off to seek easier fare.

Though this courtyard is walled on three sides, the fourth side is more or less open to the street.  Gondorim of all ages and social classes pass by.  Many gray eyes dart in our direction, their expressions ranging from curiosity to apprehension to blatant loathing.  Disdainful Westron speech drifts our way.  A few of my fellows look to me for a translation, but I shake my head.  They don’t want to know what the Northerners are saying about us.

My adventure in the North is not turning out anything like I expected.  I smile a little, remembering the young boy who dreamed of great deeds in far-off lands.  Shifting under the weight of so many hostile eyes, I let my mind drift, remembering another pair of gray eyes that once gazed on me—eyes similar and yet completely different.

The sun beat down steadily on the craggy wilderness of Haradwaith.  I tipped my head back, smiling as the dry wind wicked away the sweat from my brow.  I loved this time of day—when the sting of the afternoon heat began to fade, the winds stilled, and the only sound was the soft braying of the goats.  I leaned back against a boulder.  From my vantage point, I could see most of the herd spread out over the rocky terrain.  The goats seemed possessed by the same laziness that afflicted me.  Most lay with their heads on their forelegs or paced aimlessly back and forth.  A few lipped halfheartedly at the sparse, browning foliage.  It was the hottest summer anyone could remember, and the heat affected both man and beast.

I wasn’t too worried, though; with only an hour of daylight left, it would soon be time for Father, Kalima, and I to take the goats back to the fold.  I stole a glance at my father where he stood, still as a statue, in the slight shade of a rock formation.  Usually, Father works in our fields to the west during the day, repairing and maintaining our elaborate irrigation system in preparation for sowing.  He trusts my little sister and me to safeguard the herd.  Kalima is only eight, though, and with one of our best does due to kid any day now, he chose to join us today.

I leaned my head back against the rock and laughed when an inquisitive snout began to lip at my headdress.  I reached up to bat one of the goats—a yearling buck—away.  My hand came away wet and sticky.  Startled, I retracted the arm and studied my palm.  The tanned skin was smeared with red.  Blood.  I turned to examine the goat.  The small animal shook his head irritably.  There was no sign of injury, but the buck had dark streaks of red along his muzzle.  Prying the goat’s mouth open, I looked closely for wounds.  Nothing.  The goat snorted and butted firmly against my chest.  He seemed unhurt, which could only be possible if the blood wasn’t his.

Raising my head, I surveyed the herd with a worried frown.  All of our animals were present and accounted for.  I gave the buck one last pat before climbing to my feet.  Moving cautiously, I climbed the heavy ridge at my back.  Along the way, I collected a few stones that might fit in my sling.  Where there was blood there were often predators.  I gained the summit and scanned the broken land to the north. At first I saw nothing—just cracked earth peeking up from under sun-baked rocks and sparse vegetation.  Then, a rare wisp of cloud veiled the sun’s glare, allowing me a better look at a still form I had taken for a rock a hundred yards distant.

I glanced over my shoulder.  “Father, there’s something out there!”  The wind picked up again, ruffling fabric.  “I think it’s a man!”  I jogged lightly down the far slope and trotted towards the unmoving figure.  Slowly, it resolved from a dark lump on the horizon to the silhouette of a man lying prone on the earth.  I slowed to a walk, suddenly afraid to go any closer.  Finally, I stopped just a few yards away and studied the man.

There came a clatter of rocks from behind me.  I turned to see not my father, but my little sister running towards me, her ever-awry headscarf trailing behind her.  Kalima’s skirts flapped, and curiosity sparkled in her dark eyes.  As she neared me, I reached out and caught her around the shoulders.  “Stay back, Kali,” I murmured.  She pouted.

I looked behind us.  Father was making his way down the ridge as quickly as his bow-legged gait would allow, but it would be long moments before he reached us.  The man stirred slightly.  I gave my sister a stern look of warning and then advanced slowly.  The man had apparently given up on movement; he did not stir again.  His clothes were . . . outlandish.  Instead of a goat-skin robe, he was wrapped in a dusty cloak of the same dark green as Mother’s best dress.  In place of sandals, he wore battered boots made of some type of leather and reaching almost to his knees.  What from a distance had appeared to be a black headdress was actually dark, tangled hair.  This detail alone was enough to mark him as a foreigner; all who traveled the Haradwaith knew to cover their heads against the sun’s rays.

I crouched by the man’s side.  Still, he did not move.  The skin of his hands and neck was red and blistered from the sun.  I summoned my nerve, gripped his shoulder, and carefully turned him to lie face up.  The man was at least semi-conscious; his cracked lips moved soundlessly, though his eyes were closed.  He bled sluggishly from a shallow cut on his forearm.  The sun glinted off a bright pin in the shape of a seven-pointed star at his shoulder and a gleaming sword at his belt.  There was something around his neck . . . I leaned forward for a better view, and my shadow fell briefly across his face. 

His eyelids fluttered half open and I jumped back as though scalded.  Sensing my nervousness, Kalima jumped too.  “What is it, Hakim?”  I didn’t answer immediately.  As soon as I’d moved, the foreigner’s eyes had slammed shut against the sun.  He continued to mouth soundlessly, and as my heart rate slowed, my face colored.

Father jogged up to us, panting for breath.  “What is the matter, Hakim?”

“His eyes . . . look at his eyes.”  My father approached the man and knelt at his side.  I blushed deeper.  I knew I’d overreacted, but try it sometime—looking into a pair of eyes expecting to see natural brown or black and instead . . .

“Gray eyes,” Father pried open one of the stranger’s eyelids, revealing an eye the color of storm clouds that gleamed like the brooch on his shoulder, “A sign that he’s probably from Gondor.”  Father turned to me with a knowing twinkle in his eyes.  “You have been listening to too many old wives tales, my son.”  I looked away, hoping that the flush in my face could be mistaken for a trick of the light.  It was hardly my fault!  Every child from here to the Southern Wastes is told the legend of the Silver-Eyed Man who wanders the desert after dark looking for victims.

I shook my head to clear it.  “This is . . . natural, then?”

My father leaned back.  “It’s not unheard of.  Many of the Gondorim have eyes of strange colors.  Some resemble the sky, others the grass.  A few . . .” He gestured towards the unmoving man.

“Well, I think they’re pretty,” That was Kali, of course; she never had taken the old fairy tales very seriously.  Her own nut-brown eyes were as big as walnuts.  “Is he sick, Abba?”

Father frowned.  “He’s been in the desert too long.”  He lifted a water skin from the stranger’s belt, empty of even a drop.  “He’s not equipped for it.”  My father scanned the horizon, murmuring to himself.  “Thirty-five leagues to the Harnen in the west, fifty to Khand in the east.  So he must have come south . . . from Ephel Dúath . . .” His eyes lit on the sword at the foreigner’s side.  He unbuckled it and examined the blade.  “He’s a warrior . . .” I could see the conflict played out in my father’s eyes.  On the one hand, custom demands that a traveler in need be given shelter, even be he an enemy.  But, no one has really followed that custom in years; with the war raging on our north-western front, we could not afford to trust any Northerner, much less one arrayed for combat.  A former soldier himself, Father had doubtless seen many Gondorian warriors.  I had not.  The only Gondorim now found in our lands were in the dwindling slave markets.

“Abba?  Is he going to die?”  My father looked up into Kalima’s frightened eyes and seemed to come to a decision. 

“Of course not, little one.  We’ll get some water into him and he’ll be fine.  Hakim, pass me your water skin.”  I hurried to pass him the half-full skin.  Father carefully raised it and splashed a tiny amount of water over the man’s dry, bleeding lips.  After a tense moment, the foreigner responded, licking his lips and swallowing without opening his eyes.  Father raised the skin again, and this time the other man almost leaned into it, gulping greedily.  We let out a collective breath; if a man could drink on his own, it boded well for his recovery.

Father gave him about half of the remaining contents of the skin before straightening and twisting the lid back on.  He turned to my sister.  “Listen to me, Kalima; you are to collect the herd, bring them back to the fold, and come straight home, do you understand?”

She pouted again.  “But Abba . . .”

“Kalima.  Now.”  Scowling furiously, the child turned and trudged back towards the herd.  Father waved me forward and I hesitantly knelt at the stranger’s other side.  “Help me get him up.”

I lifted his wounded arm gingerly.  “What about this?”  The man’s forearm was bound with a torn strip of cloth that was no longer sufficient to staunch the blood flow.

Father glanced at the injury.  “It will keep for the moment.  We need to move him.”

I pulled the limp arm over my shoulder and stood slowly as my father supported his other side.  I did my best not to sway under the weight; the man stood at least a head taller than Father and I, and in the clutches of delirium, he was so much dead weight.  “We’re taking him to the house?”

Father shook his head, grunting slightly as we took a few awkward steps forward.  “I don’t want him around your mother and sister.  We can find some space in the back of the storage barn.”  I swallowed sudden trepidation; the back rooms of our barn haven’t been used in decades—not since my great-grandfather sold the last of his slaves.

My ancestors were among the earliest landowners in this region, back when the villages were just scattered trading posts for the great caravans.  To hear my father tell it, his great-great-grandfather, Tamir, owned more than five hundred goats and twenty servants.  In those days, our harvests were plentiful, despite the eternal harshness of the land.  Tamir could grow eight different kinds of crops on the terraced hillside to the west, the fields fed with water carefully collected from the surrounding hilltops during the rainy season.  Our cisterns and irrigation canals were the envy of the region.  Time topples all kingdoms, though.  As the price of grain fluctuated, Tamir’s descendants had less and less to spend on maintaining the elaborate systems of clay and mortar.  As irrigation failed, the desert slowly reclaimed what it had lost, until only two fields remained arable.  My family survived by relying on the goat fleece provided by our herds.  In the past few generations, even that had become untenable.  As the land yielded less and less grain and we could feed fewer and fewer animals, my forebears were forced to sell off more and more of the estate.  Many of the outbuildings—no longer needed for the rapidly shrinking herd—fell into disrepair.  My father was just a boy when Tamir’s grandson sold his last slave and released the bondsmen.  By then, a once sprawling compound was reduced to two buildings:  the main house and the shearing barn, which now also acted as a store house for feed, fleece, and tools.  It was to this building that we took the foreigner.

We laid him down on an ancient straw pallet.  The man barely stirred.  Under the sunburn, his face was almost gray.  My father removed the stranger’s cloak and made him drink the remaining contents of the water skin before leaving to fetch my mother, who had some skill in healing.  That was almost twenty minutes ago.  I wondered what was keeping them.

A rustle reached my ears, and I glanced up quickly.  A mouse disappeared behind a sack of feed.  Our new “guest” did not stir.  Though the man was clearly no threat in his current condition, I still found myself a bit jumpy in his presence.  To calm my nerves, I cast a contemplative glance around the narrow room.  It was simple—like everything else on our estate.  When my great-grandfather had begun quartering slaves here he had hastily erected a twelve foot wooden partition to separate this area from the main barn.  The other three walls stretched up nearly twenty feet, with high, narrow windows allowing light and ventilation.  These were made of mudbrick which, while rougher than the adobe found in the house, nonetheless resisted heat quite well.  Three pallets lined the far wall where my great-grandfather’s slaves once slept.  Since my grandfather’s time, the space had been used only for occasional storage.  From my childhood explorations, I knew that a set of shackles lay hidden under a sack in the corner, but they were old and dusty—rusted almost beyond use.

I turned my attention to boring a hole through the green coconut in my lap.  The tough, fibrous hide resisted my knife.  My arm strained as I forced the blade through.  Finally, the sharp hiss of escaping gas told me I had succeeded in poking a small hole.  After twisting the knife a little to widen it, I upended the fruit and poured its juice into a simple earthen cup.  I was careful not to spill a drop; coconut water was prized as the best cure for dehydration.

The cup was full, the coconut was empty, and still there was no sign of my father.  I glanced uncertainly from the cup to the stranger and back again.  The man’s lips had dried and were cracking open once again.  They continued to move soundlessly, as though repeating a word or phrase over and over.  I stood, chiding myself for cowardice, and stepped over to his pallet.  Kneeling by his side, I used one trembling hand to lift his head while the other raised the cup to his lips.  Once again, the man gulped greedily.  I took the opportunity to study him more closely.  His skin was red and blistered from the sun, but from what I could tell his natural skin tone was far lighter than mine.  Dark hair, still damp with sweat, fell nearly to his collar—longer even than Father’s.  His lanky frame was swathed in close-fitting garments of some finely woven material, though the clothing was as dirtied and weather-beaten as the rest of him.  Over this, he wore a sleeveless leather tunic that reached only to mid-thigh, laced up the front and secured with a broad leather belt.  His left forearm was tightly bound with material of the same dark green as his cloak.  Glancing across the room at the discarded garment, I noted the frayed hemline where he’d cut strips away.

I tipped the last few drops of coconut water down the man’s throat and gently lowered his head to the pallet.  The movement shifted his tunic, and I again glimpsed a dark string around the man’s neck.  Hesitantly, I tugged at the embroidered collar, exposing a beaded bag secured around his neck by a leather thong.  Moving slowly so as not to wake the man from his delirium, I pulled the pouch free and lifted it over his head.  It was a tiny thing; the bag fit easily into the palm of my hand.  Curious, I reached for the drawstring.

Footsteps and the sound of a door being pulled open diverted my attention.  My father stood in the doorway holding a basin of water, a dark figure at his side.  I sprang to my feet.  It took a moment to recognize the veiled, black-robed figure as my mother; I had seen her cover herself on only a handful of occasions.  I offered the pouch to my father.  “He had this around his neck.”

He took it and dumped a small, silvery object onto his palm.  Father held the object up to the light and let out a low whistle.  Peering at it closely, I immediately understood the stranger’s need to keep it concealed.  The object was a large silver ring, carefully engraved and set with small precious stones.  My father’s voice was slightly awestruck.  “He must be someone important—a noble, even.  Look, are those emeralds?”

My mother was not so easily impressed.  She gave a low snort.  “Glass and gilt paint, more likely.”  She advanced on the unconscious stranger cautiously, as though he were a wild animal.  Her tone was speculative.  “Now, those clothes—they might have been worth something.  Look at the embroidery on that tunic.  Pity it’s ruined.”  When the stranger did not react to her voice, Mother’s apprehension seemed to fade.  She knelt at his side and lifted his arm, inspecting it with a critical eye.  “He must have wrapped it himself.  Well, he knows his bandaging, at least.”  Her deft, gentle fingers gave lie to the brusque tone in her voice as she carefully unwound the crude bandage.  It looked as if the stranger had simply wound the strip of cloth over his shirt, allowing the sleeve to form the first bandage layer.  Drawing a small knife, Mother carefully cut and tugged away the ruined sleeve, revealing a deep, ragged gash that reached from the outside of his elbow to mid-forearm.

“It’s not a battle wound,” Mother said at last as she steeped a clean cloth in water to clean the wound, “He most likely fell and struck it on a rock.”

I stared at a wound so deep bone showed through.  “What kind of rock leaves does that kind of damage?”

My parents exchanged a significant look.  “None found here,” my father said softly.

I looked at the stranger, hearing again childhood tales of mountain rocks edged with razor and remembering my father’s earlier words.  “Ephel Dúath?”*  I breathed.

“Perhaps.”

My mother brushed a hand across the man’s brow.  What little I could see of her brow was wrinkled in concern.  “This is not ordinary desert sickness, nor even infection.  He burns hot, then flashes cold.  And, the air is cool now, he should not still be sweating.”

My father runs a worried hand through his beard.  “I have heard of such symptoms.  They are common among those who walk in the Lord’s land without leave.”**

For long moments, my mother didn’t respond.  Under the heavy black veil, her eyes were even more difficult than usual to read.  Finally, she lifted the damp cloth and began to carefully sponge away blood.  “This wound is about three days old, but there’s no sign of swelling, so he may have escaped infection.  If he is to survive, though, we must remedy the loss of water.  Hakim, bring up three more coconuts from the cellar, then go help your sister with the milking.”  I recognized the dismissal in her voice.  With strange reluctance, I turned and trudged toward the cellar.  I never heard the conversation that followed.

“Have I angered you, Asima?”

“I would not call it anger, Azzam.  I simply cannot believe that you would put us all in danger by harboring this . . . foreigner.”

“You know the old customs, my wife; a traveler in need must be given succor.”

“I know the customs.  I also know that they were not developed with armed Gondorian warriors in mind.”

“Now, really, Asima, you speak as if you expect him to murder us all in our sleep!”

“Don’t you?  What reason does a decent man have for being so far from his homeland so armed?  For spying on the Dark Lord’s own land?  Azzam, this man is dangerous!”

“I . . . I know.”

“Then why did you bring him here?  The war has nothing to do with us, why expose us to a Gondorian warrior?”

“I couldn’t . . . I couldn’t leave him there.  Not with Kalima watching.  Perhaps I should have simply eased his passing, but . . . I could not do so in front of our daughter . . .”

“He sleeps for now.  And, he burns yet.  Perhaps the Mordor illness will yet undo your folly.”

A/N:  The Haradric culture I depict in this fic was derived from a variety of desert-dwelling societies.  They are not meant to represent any particular existing culture.  For simplicity’s sake, though, the Haradric names and a handful of Haradric words are translated into Arabic by the same magic that translates Westron into English.

*The mountain range on the southern border of Mordor.  Literally Sindarin for “outer fence” (from the Encyclopedia of Arda)

**He has the Black Breath.  Since we know that Mordor was at times defended by armies of men, it is reasonable to assume the Nazgûl have ways of shielding their allies from the malady, thus the father’s conception that it afflicts only those who trespass in Mordor.

Reviews are much appreciated!

A/N:  Thanks to everybody who has reviewed so far!  This story will probably be about 12 chapters long when finished, and I’ll probably post about twice a week.  It’s mostly written, but I’m tweaking and polishing as I go.  I hope you enjoy!  Once again, big thanks to Cairistiona, whose advice pushed me to flesh out this chapter a lot more.

It was my nephew Tawil, Kalima’s eldest, who told me of the fate of my son.  Born only three months apart, the two boys were inseparable for most of their childhood.  They learned to walk together on the same flagstone floors, chased each other up and down the same hills, spent their days herding the same goats.  It was only natural that when Tawil enlisted in the Lord’s Grand Army at twenty-five years of age, that my Ayman would plead and cajole until I gave him leave to join as well.  I didn’t want to let him go—I didn’t want to let either of them go—but the Dark Lord had commanded that every able-bodied young man was to serve, and his eyes were everywhere.  I dared not hold onto them any longer.

I may never know how Tawil traversed the countless leagues between the Pelennor and the Haradwaith with an arrow sticking out of his side.  Eventually, he was picked up by a sympathetic caravan, and so returned to us.  After he staggered across our doorstep, we nursed him for days before he was lucid enough to tell of our family’s full tragedy.

Tawil and Ayman marched together in the same battalion under the banner of the Black Serpent.  They were among the reserve infantry in the assault on Minas Tirith.  All was going well; the Gondorians were surrounded and under siege by the time my kinsmen entered the field of battle.  The army had placed scouts and watchmen all around their perimeter, allowing the soldiers to focus their attention forward on the city.  This proved their undoing. 

Ayman’s company was changing positions—marching along the outskirts of the field—when a strange horn echoed across the plain.  A great army of horsemen—the Rohirrim—were assembled on the plain at their flank.  How thousands of riders had made their way past the sentries without detection, Tawil did not know.  Awkwardly placed at the leading edge of the new frontline, Tawil and Ayman scarcely had time to lower pikes before the riders were among them, scattering the company as the wind scatters chaff.    Miraculously, the two survived the first assault.  They rallied with a mixed company of Haradrim and Variags by the shores of the Anduin.  The army was reeling, but recovering quickly and moving to strike against the Rohirrim.  Then, by some cruel twist of fate, the battle lines shifted once more, pitting my son against another fresh assault.

The Umbari ships were supposed to bring reinforcements.  Tawil and Ayman looked to them for their salvation.  The vessels were nearly upon them before they could make out the banner of Gondor at the prow.  The Rohirrim, doubtless also expecting ships full of Southrons, rallied to meet them.  His company in complete disarray, my son was caught with the hooves and spears of the Rohirrim on one side and the armor and swords of the Gondorim on the other.

Tawil was wounded and cut off from the main army.  As the Gondorian infantry prepared for battle against the still formidable Grand Army of Sauron, they did not notice one bleeding soldier fleeing in their wake.  Tawil made it across the Anduin and into Ithilien.  His last glimpse of my son was of Ayman and three of his countrymen being forced to kneel in a ring of armored men.

I run my hand over my sweat-drenched face.  I am still somewhat in shock that this should happen to my son—to a boy whose name means “lucky and blessed.”  And yet, I ask myself:  What right does my family have to blessing?  What right indeed.

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I stepped through the door nervously, a mug of tea steaming in my hand.  Father sat on an overturned bucket at the foreigner’s side.  “How is he?”

Father ran a tired hand through his hair and accepted the tea with a quiet word of thanks.  “He sleeps for now.  He will recover from the dehydration, but as for the Mordor fever . . . only time will tell.”

A small pile of coconut shells lined the floor.  I swallowed.  Coconuts had to be purchased from traders who carted them all the way from the coastline.  Father had used almost our entire emergency supply.

I crouched at his side.  “Has he said anything?”

My father raised and lowered one shoulder.  “He rambles—sometimes in Westron, sometimes in other stranger tongues.  Who he is, where he comes from, I cannot say for sure.”

I stared at the foreigner for long moments.  Father had recovered the man’s ragged cloak and draped it over him.  The stranger continued to sweat and tremble simultaneously.  His eyes flicked and twitched under closed lids as if in fear of some unseen foe.  A worn leather pouch had fallen to the ground by his side.  I picked it up and unlaced the top.

“What’s this?”  From the pouch, I drew a few dried leaves.  I crushed a leaf and sniffed it curiously.  It gave off a subtle yet pleasant odor—like the earth after a great rainstorm.  “Some kind of herb?”  I’d half raised the crumbled leaf to my lips to taste it when Father glanced in my direction.

“Hakim!  Put that down.  Has your mother taught you nothing?”

I dropped the pouch, shamefaced as I remembered my mother’s lectures on the dangers of unknown plants.  My father continued his tirade unappeased.

“You don’t know whether he carries that weed to flavor his tea or to cure the plague or to poison his enemies!  Even medicinal herbs can kill if not properly prepared.  By the Eye, Hakim, I thought you were wiser than that.”

I hung my head.  “Was there anything else you needed, Father?”

He harrumphed.  “The tea will do for now.  Go get your sister.  You and Kalima will have to take the goats out by yourselves today.”

“Yes, Father.”  I hurried from the barn, leaving the foreigner in my father’s care.

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The doe delivered her kids that day and the excitement drove the foreigner temporarily out of my mind.  At nightfall, my sister and I returned triumphant with two new girl-kids in tow.  When I told my father, he merely grunted, his mind clearly on other things.  Then he ordered me to take a cup of tea to my mother, who was tending the injured warrior.

I entered the ramshackle quarters and saw a replay of that morning’s scene save that now it was my mother, tall and imperious in her black robe, who stood over the feverish man.  I spoke not a word, but she heard my approach.

“This cannot continue as it has.”  Her voice was strangely solemn.  She stared down at the bedridden Gondorim.  “In this state he drinks enough for three men.”  She pointed to the growing pile of drained coconuts.  “He has consumed nearly all . . .”  She paused.  “He must recover soon, or . . .”  Instead of finishing the statement, she glanced over her shoulder and seemed to see me for the first time.  I didn’t like the hard glint in her eyes.  I passed her the tea in silence, but her expression didn’t change.

“Hakim, my son, pass me that leather pouch.”

I looked where she pointed and spotted the herb packet that Father had chided me for inspecting that morning.  When I handed her the pouch, she hesitated for only an instant before loosening the ties and drawing out a leaf.  With practiced fingers, she crumbled the strange substance into the steaming tea.

I stifled a gasp, remembering Father’s warning.  Still, I held my tongue.  Mother knew more herbalism than Father and I combined.  It was possible that she recognized this weed and knew how to administer it.  Possible . . . yes, that must be it.  My mother would never use an unknown substance from a Gondorian’s pouch; not when there was a chance it might be poison.  Surely . . .

Mother approached the man tentatively.  “This cannot continue as it has,” she said again.  I swallowed.  She lifted his head, eliciting an unintelligible groan from her patient.  His lids cracked, briefly revealing those unsettling eyes.  Mother lifted the cup and splashed a bit of warm liquid over his lips.  The man’s chest stuttered up and down once, twice and then . . . the strangest scent filled the air.  Even now, I have not the words to describe it.  It was like that of the leaf I’d crushed in my fingers, but strong—a hundred fold stronger.  If the dried leaf in my hands had recalled the freshness of a rainstorm, then this held the potency of every rainy season I’d experienced in my seventeen years.

The effect on the stricken man was immediate.  His face relaxed.  His breaths grew deeper and more even.  My mother nodded at these encouraging signs.  For good measure, she tried to force about half of the tea down his throat.  Still in the clutches of delirium, the stranger struggled and flailed and spat most of the concoction back out.  After a moment, Mother relented and placed the mug on the ground beside him.

Stepping back, Mother just stood and watched the stranger.  With every breath more of the gray pallor faded from his sunburned face.  Within moments, the man lapsed from half-consciousness into a deep, restful sleep.  Mother touched his forehead and nodded.  “He will recover.”

I’m sure I imagined the touch of disappointment in her voice.

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That night we feasted on beans and bread studded with coconut shavings—a rare treat.  Mother was determined that the coconuts used to save the foreigner would not go completely to waste.

Her plate clean, Kalima looked up as a bit of bean juice dribbled down her chin.  “What’s going to happen to the foreigner with the pretty eyes?”

Mother dabbed her daughter’s face with a linen napkin.  “I told you, child; he will get better.”

Kali cocked her head.  “And then what?  Can we keep him?”

Mother sighed.  “You know better, Kalima.  One does not simply keep a Man.”  She looked to my father for support.

Father put his knife down and frowned thoughtfully.  “Normally,” he began slowly, “Your mother would be absolutely right.  That is, if he were a fellow man of Harad or was from one of the nations we have good relations with.”

Though there were beans still on my plate, I suddenly had no appetite.  I swallowed.  “But?”

Father shrugged.  “But he’s a Gondorian.”  He looked at my little sister.  “Wherever he came from, he was up to no good.  So, we can’t just let him go, but we might be able to ransom him.”

Kalima mopped up some bean juice with a piece of skillet bread.  “Ransom?”

My mother jumped in again, perhaps worried that my father’s forthrightness would carry too far.  “We send a letter to his family in Gondor and they come to get him.  Then he swears an oath saying that he will never fight against or spy on our people again.  Then his family gives us a little bit of coin to thank us for taking care of him and he goes home.”

I returned to my meal.  I knew from conversations with my father that Mother’s version was rather edited.  The oath of nonviolence was largely a formality, as neither side expected ransomed soldiers to give up their cause.  Father’s motivation likely had more to do with the not inconsiderable sums often associated with the return of prisoners—particularly officers and nobles as this man seemed to be.

Kalima looked disappointed.  She tried again.  “But what if his family doesn’t want him back?  Can he stay then?”

My father’s face tightened, but he kept his voice light.  “And why, Kali, would a family—even a Gondorian family—not want their son back?”

She stuck her chin out defensively.  “They might not.  Or . . . or he might not have a family.  And he might think that Harad is nice and want to stay, and if he does can he stay with us, please?”

Father shook his head, a bit amused at her plea.  “I’m afraid not, pet.  He is too dangerous to stay here.  He probably fought in the wars to the north, after all.”

Kali pouted.  “So?”

Mother smacked the child’s hand with the back of a wooden spoon.  “For shame, Kalima!  Your uncle died in that war.”

My sister sucked on the back of her hand, her eyes sulky but unrepentant.

Father sighed.  “If we cannot ransom him, we will have to send him away from here—away down south, maybe.”

Now it was my father who was editing for appearances sake.  Everyone knew of the traveling merchants who bought captured Gondorim and sold them for the galleys in Umbar or the mines in Mordor.

My appetite was gone again.  I put my spoon down and did not pick it back up.

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The next morning when it was time to lead the goats out, Mother went with Kalima, leaving the washing for another day.  Father told me to stay behind.  He seemed unusually edgy, and I thought I knew why.

“How is your Westron?” he asked once my mother and sister were gone.

I swallowed.  “Passable, I suppose.  I have not practiced in some time.”

“Well, you may soon have the opportunity.  Come with me, but do not speak if you can avoid it.”

Fighting my rising trepidation, I followed my father down to the barn. Yesterday the foreigner had been at death’s door.  Mother said he would recover, but surely not so quickly?

Not for the last time, the strange man confounded my expectations.  When Father unlocked the large padlock and pushed open the door to the slave quarters, the foreigner was sitting upright on his mattress with the woebegotten cloak draped over his legs.  Despite the grime that covered him, the humble surroundings, and the ashen cast of his skin, he looked for all the world like a lordling who had just woken up in his palace rather than a man just arisen from a near fatal stupor.

Father was clearly taken aback.  For a moment, we both just watched the man.  It was the stranger who finally broke the silence.

“I am in your debt, friend.”  He spoke in the Common tongue with a lilting, almost musical accent that made his words a bit hard to follow—at least to my ears.  Nonetheless, his tone was genial, though he must have noticed that his weapons were gone and he was housed in what was essentially a poor man’s prison cell.  “Without your aid I would certainly have perished in the desert.”  Still, Father did not speak.  The man paused.  “Do you speak Common?”

Father’s eyes narrowed.  “Yes,” he said finally, dragging out the word as if the stranger had forced it from him.

The man did not lose his composure.  “Then know that I greatly appreciate your intervention.  If there is any way I can repay you for your effort and expense, I will do my best.”

Father’s narrowed eyes morphed into an open scowl.  “Then answer me this:  how did you come to walk the Haradwaith?”

The foreigner’s friendly expression did not fade, but for the first time I detected the edge of wariness in his face.  “The story is not very glorious, I’m afraid.  I was hunting a wolf near the edges of Ithilien—a real beast that had been terrorizing a nearby settlement—when I was overcome by an entire pack of the brutes.  I was driven away and south and by the time I regained my bearings I was hopelessly lost.”  I sensed, even then, that this was a rehearsed tale.  I’m not sure what he hoped to accomplish by it, but Father was not fooled.

My father’s eyes were flinty.  “You are many, many leagues from Ithilien.  One does not stumble into Harad by chance.”

The stranger shrugged.  “What can I say?  I am unfamiliar with these regions and before I could find my way home I fell ill.  Who knows how far I wandered in my delirium?”

Father’s expression did not change.  “One does not simply ‘fall ill’ as you did without cause.”

The foreigner similarly retained his friendly demeanor, though the steely edge beneath it was now apparent.  “If you know some cause of that fever, please share it so that I may tell my kinsmen in Gondor.  It is a pernicious malady that has plagued us for some time.”

“Of that I have no doubt,” Father muttered under his breath.  “Very well, stranger.  I think you fell ill because you strayed where you ought not to have gone.  I think you are a soldier here to spy on Harad and . . . and our allies.  Allies that deserve your respect.”

In the face of my father’s hostility, the foreigner maintained his carefully neutral expression.  “I speak the truth when I tell you that I mean you no ill.  I am here by mere chance.  And if by ‘allies’ you refer to . . . the region to the north of here, I can assure you that the men of Gondor have not walked there since the time of Isildur.”  My father did not respond, so the man continued.  “And as you accuse me of being a soldier . . . well, in these times you would be hard pressed to find a man of Gondor who has never taken up arms.  What is it to you?”

I knew instantly that this was the wrong thing to say.  My uncle—Father’s younger brother—had perished in a border dispute with Gondor not two years past.  I saw the anger in Father’s face, but he restrained himself carefully.  This Gondorian was still an unknown quantity.  “What is your name, stranger?” he asked at last.

The man’s lips pressed into a hard line.  “Why should I tell you my name?  So you can slander my family with false accusations of spying?  My gratitude does not extend that far.”

Father and I were both slightly taken aback.  The custom of ransom had long been practiced by our people and his.  Surely he knew what Father was asking . . .

My father’s head came up.  He mimicked the stranger’s earlier tone.  “Then I am afraid you may not see your family for some time.”

The stranger’s expression barely changed, but I thought I detected resignation in the slight dip of his shoulders.  He did not seem angry at my father’s words—just regretful that his brief charade of civility was destined to crumble.  “Am I your prisoner, then?”

Father did not speak for a moment.  Then, he abruptly turned.  “Come with me.”

For once, it was the stranger who was taken aback.  He stood slowly on legs that were slightly shaky.  I hovered by the door, wondering if he needed assistance, but when my father swept out of the barn, I hurried to follow.  The stranger followed at a slower pace and emerged, squinting into the morning sun.  Father pointed away to the West.  “There is your home.  Forty leagues of empty desert lie between here and there—more distance than any man, much less a delirious one, could cover on foot.  There will be no passage West until the rainy season, and that is still three months away.  I am not your captor, stranger; the Haradwaith is.  So, however much we both may wish differently, you are stuck here for the time being and completely dependent on our charity.”

The man stood stock still for a moment, staring across the barren wastes.  He was even taller than we had guessed, standing nearly a foot above Father.  “I understand,” he said finally.

“Then understand this,” my father’s voice took on a hard edge, “You may refer to me as malik.  My son is Hakim.  You will not refuse an order by either of us or we may choose to be less charitable.  You will not speak to my wife or my daughter nor enter our home or we will find a way to further reduce our losses.”  I wondered at the strange, steely-voiced man my father had suddenly become.  Was this what he was like back when he was a soldier himself?  “Until you tell us your name, we will refer to you as ‘Dakheel.’  But, you will tell us your name and the location of your family, or traders from Umbar will make a stop here when the rains come.”

Though the man’s face didn’t change, he paled almost imperceptibly.  “I understand, malik.”  He used the title easily, even though this noble warrior must have suspected its meaning.  “I am weary from my illness.  May I return to my rest?”

Father studied him for a moment, perhaps trying to gauge whether his words were meant to convey true deference or merely common courtesy.  Finally, he nodded.  “Very well, Dakheel.”

As the Gondorian stepped back into the shadow of the barn, my father leaned towards me and addressed me in Haradric.  “Follow him,” he said, “And lock the door behind him.”

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“I don’t understand.  He wouldn’t tell you his name?  Why not?”

“Who knows, Asima?  The Gondorian seems to be quite mad.”

“But, he must know what options that leaves us.”

“I’m sure he does.  But I suspect pride binds his tongue.  He will get over it soon enough when the rainy season draws near and this time next year we will all rest comfortable on this lordling’s ransom.”

“And if he does not, as you say, ‘get over it’?  What if there is no ransom to be had?  Will you do what needs to be done?”

“You know I will, my wife.”

“And without hesitation?  Without misplaced concern for our daughter’s innocence?  Will you place this family before that stranger?”

“Trust me, Asima; that will not be a problem.”

A/N:  Thanks for reading!  Reviews and concrit are very much appreciated.

A/N:  Thanks to everyone who has read, reviewed, and followed this story so far!  Since I’ve neglected to mention this so far, I’d like to point out that I don’t own Tolkien’s world (though I’m not sure who does these days).  This was written purely for my own enjoyment and for love of the canon.  If I ever try to get a book deal out of a fanfic, please come to my house and slap some sense into me.

We are a strange and reviled attraction for the people of the city.  As word spreads of our arrival, the crowds grow.  They all make a show of having business on this street; women carry baskets of vegetables and men admire the wares of the neighboring market in loud voices.  Again and again, though, their eyes stray to us, and their muttered curses carry.

I stand still and try to let the sounds simply wash over me, like wind around a rock.  Again and again, I remind myself, that all they hurl at us is words.

Only words.

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In retrospect, I suppose it’s surprising how quickly our family fell back into its everyday rhythms.  Kalima and I took the goats out the next morning, like we always do, but instead of returning to find one man doing chores in the barnyard, we found two.  For the first few days, the foreigner was weak from his illness and could only perform easier tasks like carding fleece or repairing small tools.  Before long, though, he was laboring as long and hard as the rest of us.  At first, Father privately speculated that a professional warrior would likely be little use around the farm.  By the fifth day after the man’s recovery, he wasn’t saying anything of the sort.  I didn’t know, yet, what kind of warrior the Gondorian was, but he quickly proved himself a more than competent farm hand.  Still, it never ceased to be strange to see him fold those long legs to milk a goat or bend that regal-looking head to sharpen a trowel.

Though Father had warned the stranger to stay far away from my sister, that proved to be beyond the control of either of them.  Kalima has the stubbornness to match a whole team of donkeys, and once she decided she was going to befriend the Man, nothing could dissuade her.  Kalima spoke no Westron and the foreigner, it quickly became clear, spoke no Haradric.  This was a source of great frustration for him, but not for her.  Several times, in those first few days, I was witness to their one-sided conversations.

“Child, you should not be here.”  A voice striving for gentleness, but tinged with exasperation.

“My name is Kalima, but you can call me Kali.  Do you want to see my goats?  Well, they’re my father’s goats, but he says if I’m good I’ll get to name the next one that gets born.”

“I mean it, little one, oughtn’t you go help your mother?”  He pointed in the direction of the house.

“My parents said you’re from Gondor.  Is it true they don’t have goats in Gondor?  Hakim says they don’t, but I heard they have goats as big as camels!  That’s what my friend Nazli said, at least, and she knows a lot.”

“Off to the house with you!  Go!”

Kali was immune to both the warning in his voice and the stern set of his face.  “But, maybe Nazli was lying.  She does that sometimes.  Thinks she can get away with it ‘cause she’s a merchant’s daughter.  I’ll see her at the festivals at harvest time.  Then I’ll make her tell the truth.”

The man’s shoulders slumped a little in defeat.  “Your ada will be so pleased with me,” he muttered.

“You talk funny.  That’s a funny word, ada, but I like it ‘cause it sounds like ‘Abba.’  My abba is the best goat herder in the Haradwaith, and he’s going to let me name one of the kids.  What should I name it?”

And on and on it went.  After the fifth time Father had to scold her for sneaking down to the barn, he, too, threw up his hands in surrender and simply told the northerner that if he ever lifted his hand against her, his life would be forfeit.  And that was how our reluctant guest acquired a very talkative shadow.  As he went about, helping with evening chores, she would trot after him, chattering away in our native tongue.  His face suggested that he understood not a word but was rather amused by her antics.

If only his relationships with all my family members could have been so warm.  After the first few days, Mother no longer veiled herself in his presence, but any time he was in view she kept a watchful eye on him, like a cat skirting around a chained dog—knowing it is safe but wary nonetheless.  True to my father’s word, the warrior never entered the house.  In the mornings, Mother would pass him a bowl of millet mush out the kitchen window, and in the evenings she would fix a small plate of food for me to take down to the barn.  These meals were always paltry offerings—times were harsh, and his rations were leaner than any of ours—but were accepted with a gracious word of thanks.

If my father shared his wife’s fear of the Gondorian warrior, he gave no sign.  Still, though he spent more time with the foreigner than any of us, he seemed to understand him no better than I did.  A tense sort of peace seemed to develop between them as they labored side by side to repair and maintain our cistern.  In the other man’s presence, my father’s eyes began to flash rather than twinkle.  He took to giving orders, his voice curt but carefully restrained, like it was taking all his energy to avoid being rude.  The stranger always responded with a soft “Of course, malik,” accompanied by a nod—a respectful dip of the head that was always slightly more than polite without ever suggesting subservience.  I sensed, rather than saw, the developing battle of wills between them.  In my presence, they both maintained a show of mutual respect.  Several times, though, I came upon them unawares only to find the two men locked in a heated but hushed debate.  Father would punctuate his arguments by gesticulating wildly—even poking the Northerner in the chest with an accusatory finger.  The other man would simply fold his arms and shake his head, his face resolute.  Father’s anger always boiled closer to the surface after these encounters.  Though I never heard the words they exchanged, the subject was not difficult to guess:  the stranger still refused to tell us his name, and Father’s hopes for a hefty ransom were beginning to wane.  We continued to refer to him as dakheel—the foreigner—and the name seemed to stick.

Dakheel had an almost preternatural ability to escape notice when he wished.  It wasn’t that he hid himself or snuck around like a thief; rather, he would go about his work quietly and with a focused determination and before long you might forget he was there.  When he had first awoken in our barn, he had a strange sort of energy about him—an aura, my superstitious aunts might have called it.  It was that inner light that made him seem so lordly.  In the beaten dust of the barnyard, though, that light was carefully hidden, like a lantern shuttered against the wind.  I knew it still burned, though; twice while my father was haranguing Dakheel, I saw him finally lose his patience and draw himself up to his full and impressive height.  His eyes flashed with that unmistakable authority, and though I never heard what he told my father, I imagined his voice becoming as hard and stern as his face.  At those times, my father quailed and stormed off in a put-on show of exasperation.

For the most part, though, Dakheel remained the picture of civility and restraint.  Perhaps that is why none of us saw the conflict coming.  His simmering battle of wills with Father was bound to explode, but none of us realized it until it was too late.

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The conflict came to a head on the day of rest, almost three weeks after we found Dakheel.  Like always, my family assembled in front of the house at first light.  My father and I had scrubbed our faces and wore our cleanest tunics.  Mother was elegant in her green dress and trailing scarf.  For once, even Kalima was not a ragged jumble of flapping clothes and wild curls; she transformed into a “proper young lady” for the Morning Service, her hair tucked carefully under a headscarf, her hands folded primly in front of her unrumpled skirts.

We waited in silence as Father erected the Offertory Sieve.  The sieve was simple enough—just a black clay pan riddled with holes and suspended by a short tripod.  Its only decoration was a rough etching:  a narrow diamond within a circle surrounded by a triangle—the Great Eye.

One by one, we each poured clear water from a stone jug into our earthen cups.  Father recited the ritual prayers with the ease of long practice.  I have no idea what was said in the invocations; they are spoken in a strange tongue that sounds a bit like Westron, but somehow harsher and sharper.

When I was a child, barely older than Kali, my mother told me the history of our Offerings.  Long ago, she told me—in hushed tones lest my father overhear—my ancestors used sieves and altars to offer sacrifices to the sun.  Clean water and fine wine were poured into the earth while grain and carefully selected livestock were burned, sending their smoke and fragrance up to the sky to thank the shining, golden “Eye” which is both creator and destroyer of all our bounty.  Then, not so long ago, a great darkness suddenly fell over Ephel Dúath to the north.  Rumor grew of a fiery, all-seeing eye in Mordor, come to be our lord and to raise our people over all other Men.  The priests on their traveling circuits began to proclaim that the Eye of Mordor was in fact a manifestation of the Eye we had long worshipped as provider.  While the holy men preached and frothed, the lords and provincial governors nodded their heads solemnly, and offered extravagant burnt offerings to “the All-Seeing Eye.”  Commoners like my family quickly saw which way the wind was blowing.  New etchings were made on altars and sieves from here to Khand, changing the simple circle that represented the sun into an ominous lidless eye with a cat-like pupil.  Ask a Man of Harad today, and he will tell you that we have always worshipped the Lord Sauron.  Those who know better are too fearful to speak.

Kalima, of course, does not know better.  All she knows is that Offering is important to Mother and Father and that it’s fun to dress up once a week and put on a solemn face.  At my father’s beckoning, she stepped up to the sieve, her face the picture of dignity as she slowly upended her cup.  Water flowed forth, clear and sparkling, splashing into the clay pan which scattered it to fall to the sand in a gentle rain.  The earth soaked up the precious offering, and in moments there was only damp soil where her sacrifice had been.

As Kali turned away, her eyes lit on a figure around by the side of the house.  I followed her gaze and saw Dakheel leaning against the wall, his curiosity written across his face.  I shrugged mentally.  As none of us worked on the day of rest, Dakheel was free to go where he would.  Father considered himself quite magnanimous for not locking the Northerner in the barn for the length of the day, but in truth there was nowhere to go, and probably nothing more interesting than a family’s religious rites to hold his attention.  Seeing her newfound friend, Kali’s face suddenly brightened, the solemn mask slipping away.  As Father recited the next line of the ceremony, she trotted over to the stone jug, refilled her cup, and strolled towards the Northerner.  On my other side, I could almost feel Mother roll her eyes.

Father beckoned to me, then.  I stepped up to cast my offering, but watched Kali and Dakheel out of the corner of my eye.  Reaching the Northerner, Kalima held out the cup.  The man took it, his face inquisitive.  He swirled it and sniffed its contents.  After a moment, he lifted it to his lips as if to sip it, but Kali jumped up and caught his wrist before he could commit such a faux pas.  Tugging on his sleeve and pointing, she ushered him towards the Offertory Sieve.

Apprehension began to cloud the man’s face, but he followed Kali all the same.  He managed to catch my father’s eye and shrugged helplessly.  Father scowled, but jerked his head in assent.  As he drew closer, Father took up the chant again in that strange tongue.  Perhaps it was not so strange to Dakheel; his face suddenly darkened.  Still, he did not react further until he came close enough to see the etching on the sieve and suddenly stopped short.  Mother was just stepping forward to pour out her cup.  For a moment, the only sound was the splash and trickle of Mother’s offering.  Then came a soft thud. 

I looked back at Dakheel and my eyes suddenly widened.  His cup was lying in the dirt, having fallen from nerveless fingers.  The man took no note of it; he was staring at the simple etching with an intensity I’d never seen.  And the water—the precious sacred water that Kalima had drawn for him—it was sinking into the sandy soil, a rapidly growing brown stain.  In an instant every eye was on him, wide and horrified.  Kali actually clapped her hand over her mouth.  We had both been taught almost since infancy that it was sacrilege to spill the Offertory water on unconsecrated ground.  Our parents had warned us in stern voices that to spill even one drop outside of the sieve was to invoke the wrath of the Eye, and His judgment would be terrible.

Dakheel couldn’t have known it, but to cast a full cup of sacred water onto profane soil was the worst kind of insult.

Yet, if he noticed our scandalized looks, Dakheel gave no sign.  His gaze was fixed on the sieve until, quite suddenly, he spun and strode away towards the barn.

For a moment, the four of us just stood frozen.  My breath sounded loud in my ears.  I glanced instinctively at Father’s face.  His expression of shock was quickly fading.  It was replaced by rage.

“That fool,” he said, his voice dangerously quiet, “He would bring the Eye’s wrath on us all.  That arrogant, ungrateful Tark.”

I winced.  Tark was an ugly word—an orcish pejorative for the Men of Gondor and Rohan.  Slavers used that word.  Soldiers used it at times.  I had never heard my father use it.

Dakheel had almost reached the barn.  Kali quietly picked up the dropped cup.  For just a moment, I thought we would continue on as if nothing had happened.  Then, Father’s face set, and he carefully handed his cup to my mother.  He stepped away from the sieve slowly and respectfully, but then broke into a run, racing after Dakheel.  Kali’s eyes widened.  “Abba?  Abba!”  She made to follow him, but Mother caught her with a firm hand on her shoulder.  She didn’t stop me, though, and I stumbled after my father on legs that might as well have been made of wood.

My father caught up with Dakheel when he was only a few paces from the barn door.  Grabbing the stranger by the back of his tunic, Father spun him around and gave him a shove, trying to knock him off balance.  Dakheel was ready for it, though, and sprang back lightly.  I was still too far away to hear clearly, but suddenly I didn’t want to come any closer.  Father strode up to the foreigner, his face red, his voice raised.  He shoved an accusing finger right in Dakheel’s face.  The other man’s face hardened.  He stood tall and that elusive spark shone from his eyes, brighter than I had ever seen it.  His answer was far too quiet for me to hear, but my father stiffened.

For a split second, I saw Father waver.  Every instinct in his body told him to retreat before this ragged, grim-eyed lord and make peace.  But, his fear of Mordor was greater.

Father has always carried his tanning knife at his belt.  It is long and sharp, but clearly a farmer’s tool and not a weapon.  So, when he drew the blade and pressed its tip none-too-gently into the middle of the Northerner’s chest, I jumped about a foot.

Dakheel froze.  For a moment, only his eyes moved.  I saw them dart from the knife to Father’s face.  They wandered to alight on me, Mother and Kali, our humble house, before snapping back to focus on my father’s eyes.  And in that terrible moment, I knew what he had probably known from the start:  he could kill my father.  He could do it easily.  Knife or no knife, a gray-bearded goat herder stood no chance against this hard-eyed warrior.  I wanted to run towards them, but my legs felt rooted to the spot.  Dakheel was searching my father’s face, his fierce expression fading into one that seemed troubled and conflicted.  The dagger shook in my father’s hand.

Then Dakheel made his decision.  Quite suddenly, he seemed almost to fold in on himself, his shoulders losing their military straightness, his head bowing ever so slightly.  I could almost see the shutters sliding closed, that spark dwindling until it was no more than a memory of hidden fire.  A moment later, Father faced only a dark-haired man in a torn tunic wearing a controlled, resigned expression.  Dakheel said something far too soft for me to hear, and for an instant, the knife trembled violently in Father’s hand.  Then, he sheathed it with a sudden, decisive motion.  Dakheel spoke again without meeting Father’s gaze.  Father hesitated for just one moment more.  He threw a glance over his shoulder, his face angry and fearful and resolute all at once.  Then, he planted his hand on Dakheel’s chest and shoved him backwards.  Casting a longing glance of his own at the empty desert beyond, Dakheel let himself be shoved into the comparative darkness of the barn.  The door slammed shut behind them.

My legs trembling, I made my way forward and stopped, staring at the closed door.  I knew I could not go in.  Instead, I knelt beside the barn and pressed an ear against the cool mudbrick.

The first thing I heard was my father’s angry voice.  He was releasing a steady stream of recrimination and invective, but since he spoke now in Haradric, the specifics were probably lost on Dakheel.  But, there was no mistaking the dull thud of a fist striking flesh, nor the stifled groan that followed it.  I jerked my head away and stared at the wall as if it had burned me.  I wanted to leave.  I knew I couldn’t.  Slowly, as if compelled, I pressed my ear against the wall once more.

Father’s stream of curses had only intensified.  Another thud rang out.  Then another.  And another.  With each strike, the accompanying grunt of pain grew louder, but Dakheel said nothing.  I wanted to pull away, but somehow I knew I had to stay.  I had to witness this, if only indirectly.  I didn’t understand.  Couldn’t understand.  Wouldn’t understand.  I knew that wealthy landowners sometimes beat their slaves and bondsmen, but Dakheel wasn’t a slave, was he?  As for my father, I’d never seen him strike a person in my life.  He’d never even raised his hand to me or Kali. 

I waited for Dakheel to act.  Any moment, I was sure, he would grow tired of such treatment.  That strange light would burst forth, perhaps bright enough to shine right through the walls, and it would be my father cowering in fear.

I waited for Dakheel to act.  He never did.

Instead, after what seemed like an eternity, but was probably only a few minutes, the sound of blows slowed and then stopped.  Father’s stream of invective trailed off until the only sound was harsh breathing.  After long moments, Father spoke in Westron at last.  “Such is the punishment,” he intoned, trying for stern solemnity and failing horribly, “For those who disrespect the Dark Lord.”

“So be it,” Dakheel responded, his voice strong and very cold.

From within the barn, I heard a door slam.  I pictured Father throwing the deadbolt, locking Dakheel into his small corner of the structure.  Remembering myself, I stood quickly and scrambled around the side of the barn, out of sight as Father stumbled out the front.  I needn’t have bothered; Father scarcely seemed to know where he was.  For long moments, he just stood there, staring at nothing, his face stricken.

Something dripped from his hands onto the sand.

Then, he seemed to shake himself.  With a slow but purposeful stride, he made his way back to the sieve.  Mother had long since spirited Kali back into the house, but the stone jar still stood where she had left it.  Reaching the sacred place, he raised his hands over the sieve and cried out a prayer in a harsh, croaking voice that was almost a scream.  Then, he did something very strange.  Taking a ladle of consecrated water from the jar, he poured it over his outstretched hand and into the sieve.  A moment later, he repeated the motion, bathing the other hand.  Water tinged with red trickled down to the earth.

And then, I remembered.

Father had once told me, in hushed nervous tones, that there was one offering that would always mollify the Great Eye.

The blood of an enemy.

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After supper that night, Mother held me back with a hand on my elbow. 

“Hakim.  A moment, my son.”  She waited until my father had stepped outside to check on the fold.  Once he was out of sight, she pulled out a simple wooden tray and piled it high with skillet bread and smoked goat.  “Take this to the Gondorian,” she said, handing me the tray and turning to pour juice into a wooden cup.  I suppressed mild surprise.  This was much more food than she’d ever given Dakheel before—more, indeed, than I had on my own plate for all but the most special occasions.  Before I could do anything foolish, like comment on her sudden generosity, she added the cup to the tray and waved me off with a shooing motion, like I was a chicken hovering near her ankles.  “Off with you.  And not a word to your father.”

I chewed on my lip.  “Yes ma’am.”  But, as I turned to go, a thin hand on my shoulder stopped me again.  Mother wordlessly added a few damp cloths and two small dates to the tray and shooed me out the door.

As she’d no doubt expected, Father was already out of sight around the other side of the house.  I made my way down to the barn with no small amount of trepidation.  Father had been so angry—irrationally angry.  He had come back to the house, his hands torn and cut at the knuckles, and refused to speak to anyone.  I had never seen him like that before.  A small, scared part of me wondered if the barn door would open on Dakheel’s corpse.

All was silent in the outer barn.  Dust swirled in the slight breeze.  I hesitantly made my way to the back partition and struggled to unlock the door while balancing the tray on my knee.  Finally, I released the bolt, and the door swung open with barely a whisper; someone had greased the hinges, and recently.

Dakheel was sitting on his battered pallet, the side of his face leaning against the wall behind him.  He turned at my approach and I swallowed a gasp.  I realized immediately why he sat so awkwardly to press his face against the cool mudbrick.  His left eye was swollen almost completely shut.  Livid red bruises were rising around the eye and across his cheekbone.  Sticky, half-dried blood trickled from a cut above his eyebrow down towards his jaw.  When he saw me, he stood, and I did not miss the slight wince that flashed across his features, nor the way his left arm curled protectively over his abdomen.

I cleared my throat.  “I brought you some food,” I said slowly, stumbling just a little over the Westron pronunciations, “And . . . and cloths.”  The little tray, even overflowing as it was, suddenly seemed a very poor offering of recompense in light of what my father had done.

But Dakheel managed a slight smile.  His voice, far from betraying the pain of his wounds, was as light and refined as ever.  “I thank you, Hakim.”  He took the tray, but when he looked down, his brow furrowed slightly.  “I cannot take this from you; it is too much.”

I shrugged awkwardly.  “My mother sent it.  I suppose she realized you haven’t had enough in weeks.  I find it simpler not to argue with her.”

Another smile flashed across his face, this one motivated by pure amusement rather than polite gratitude.  Still, he hesitated.  “Come eat with me,” he said at last.  He glanced at my face and added, “I couldn’t possibly finish this alone.”

I shuffled my feet.  “’Tis not necessary,” I muttered, trying to look anywhere but at the two ripe dates on Dakheel’s tray, “I have already had my night’s meal.”

“Come,” he said once more, and I sensed a note almost of command in his voice, “I would be glad of the company.”  He strode toward one of the side walls, where the light coming in from the high windows was a little stronger, and fashioned a table and two chairs out of a barrel and some overturned crates.  He sat slowly, as if his bruised body resisted such a contortion.  I followed suit with some trepidation.

For a moment, I just watched him.  The man took a long drink from the juice and then lifted one of the damp rags to his battered eye.  He scrubbed lightly at the dried blood, and mostly concealed a wince.  His hands, I noticed, bore none of the scrapes and bruises that I’d noticed on Father’s knuckles, though they were very dirty from the omnipresent dust.  I couldn’t ponder that for long, though, because my gaze was drawn, quite against my will, down to the two dates.

The faintest smile tugged at the uninjured side of Dakheel’s face.  Setting the cloth aside, he picked up the fruits and popped one in his mouth before offering the other to me.  I accepted it and mumbled a half-remembered Westron word for gratitude.

As I savored the date, I noted with mild surprise and no small amount of relief that Dakheel’s courtly mannerisms did not extend to table manners.  The wet cloth had left rivulets of moisture tracking through the grime on his fingers, but he took no note of it as he shredded skillet bread and ripped off chunks of goat meat with his teeth.  I could hardly imagine some great noble eating like that, so, reassured that I was probably not dining with the High Lord of Grand Castle Something-Or-Other, I took a piece of bread and ate a few bites.

“Can I ask something?” I said as I watched him dip his bread in juice to soften it.  He made a vague noise of assent, his mouth full.  I took another bite myself and collected my thoughts.  “I’ve seen you work,” I said at last, “You’re stronger than my father by far.”  He glanced at my face, but waited politely for the question.  I chewed slowly.  “You’re a soldier—you said so yourself.  My father says a soldier in the field is . . . well, that there’s nothing tougher.”  He made an indistinct hemming noise around a mouthful of goat.  “So . . . I guess I was just wondering why . . . you know, why . . .”  I trailed off, suddenly realizing how insensitive my question must seem.

He swallowed with some difficulty.  “You are wondering why I look as beaten as an old carpet?” he suggested drily.

I flushed and ducked my head.  “That’s not . . . I only meant . . .”  I glanced left and right at the blank walls and lowered my voice.  “It wasn’t fair,” I said, feeling like a horrible son but at the same time sensing the rightness of my words, “Even Mother knows it wasn’t.  Father’s not even that religious—he only started doing the old rituals because it’s expected.  I only mean . . . If you’d stopped him, everyone would have understood.”

“I suspect your father wouldn’t,” he said with the same dryness.  He took a smaller bite of bread and chewed thoughtfully.  “But, alright, I have your blessing to turn the tables on your father and beat him senseless if necessary.  Is that the right of it?”  Hesitantly, I nodded.  He took another bite.  “Very well.  And then?”

I blinked.  “’And then’ what?”

“You tell me.”  He took a sip from the simple cup.  “What happens after I have won my glorious victory?  Do I kill your father?  Ransack the house and vanish into the Haradwaith?  Ought I to take you and your entire family hostage until the rainy season comes?”

I recoiled.  “I . . . no, I mean . . . I guess I hadn’t thought about it.”

“A common folly of the young,” he said in a gentler tone, “Or so a friend often reminds me.  Remember, though, that when you lift your hand against another, there is always an ‘and then.’  ‘And then you kill’ or ‘and then you die’ or ‘and then you start a war.’  Retaliation creates enemies, no matter how justified it feels.”  The cut above his eye had reopened.  A new trickle of blood crept down his face.

I nibbled again at my bread.  “It just seems a high price to pay,” I said, “Just to placate Father.”

He nodded absently.  “Not so high as you might think, for one such as I.”  I suspected he’d seen much worse injuries in his lifetime, but though I longed to ask, I felt I’d used up my allotment of impertinent questions.  “Your father saved my life,” Dakheel reminded me, “He took me in and has not handed me over to my Enemy.  I suspect this is costing him more than he lets on; his fear of Mordor runs deep.”  He chewed a bit of goat meat, a thoughtful expression crossing his bloodied face.  “It was fear that drove his hand,” he added, “And anger, certainly, and wounded pride, but only fear can make a man rise to violence so quickly.  He is deeply afraid of something.  I simply wish I knew what it was.”

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When I finally left Dakheel to his rest, I found myself still utterly restless.  Not yet ready to face the confines of the house, I wandered aimlessly, thinking on Dakheel’s words.  I didn’t realize I’d set a course for the fold until I was nearly upon it and the sight of a crumpled figure by the entrance snapped me out of my reverie.

I would have expected him to return to the house long ago, but my father sat slumped against the stone wall in the gathering dusk.  A mostly empty bottle of brandy sat beside him and he was tossing his tanning knife from hand to hand and muttering to himself.  The dog who guards our herd by night sat at attention a few yards away.  When she saw me, the pup wagged her tail and whined.  She glanced from my face to my father’s, almost human in her anxiety.  I hesitated.  “Abba?” I called out tentatively.  His only response was to mutter a little louder and toss the knife a little higher.  I approached and crouched beside him.  “Maybe you should put the knife down, Abba,” I murmured in Haradric.  I could smell the liquor on his breath even from several feet away.  He scowled viciously and sent the knife through a hair-raising, spinning arc.  Slowly, I stood and turned, thinking to go get Mother.

“’You can put the knife down.’”  I stopped, equally startled by the harshness of his voice and the Westron words.  “’You can put the knife down, malik, there is no need for it.’  I was sure he would try to gut me with it.”  I turned back to face him.  He dropped the knife in the dirt and picked up the bottle.  “He didn’t though.  He just stood there.”  He took a long drink.  “I just don’t understand why he would just stand there.”

I opened my mouth, perhaps to say something about retaliation and enemies, but closed it again, still silent.  Could I really pretend to understand Dakheel’s actions?  I couldn’t even understand my father’s.

He took another drink.  “Doesn’t matter, I suppose,” he muttered, “So long as the Eye is pleased.”

I blinked, genuinely surprised.  “You think He was watching what happened with Dakheel?”

Father gave me a twisted sort of smile.  “The Eye sees all.”

A/N:  A few words on languages:  Azzam and Hakim are nearly bilingual in Haradric and Westron (though Hakim often doubts his language abilities).  Kalima speaks no Westron, and Asima speaks only a few words.  Aragorn, of course, speaks quite a few languages, but none of them are Haradric.  Unless otherwise specified, my Haradric OCs can be assumed to be speaking in Haradric when talking to each other, while Azzam and Hakim speak Westron to Aragorn.  Whenever this is relevant to the plot, I will strive to make it clear in narration, but please point it out to me if it becomes unclear.

The next chapter should be posted before the end of the week.  Reviews and concrit are very much appreciated.

The nobles of Harad sent a delegation to treat with the new Gondorian king.  More accurately, they sent seven delegations, as the nobles of each region suddenly found themselves cut off from allies and in desperate need of surrender.  Our own king—the one who first unified warring tribes some centuries ago—has been dead since before my birth.  Sauron kept each region isolated—the north from the south, the east from the west.  Only within his Grand Army did all Haradrim work as one. 

So, now, a double handful of Haradric nobles is cloistered in Minas Tirith’s Citadel, deep in talks with the king and his advisers.  From the snatches of news I overhear, I gather that the Gondorians are becoming quite frustrated with our so-called leaders.  The Haradrim—they say—are jealous and puffed-up, proud without cause.  They beg the king’s mercy and then waste his time by bickering among themselves over petty grievances.  The king is very near to losing all patience.  I hope that when he does, he will deign to hear the supplications of the common people, rather than simply dismissing us all from the city.

I wonder, in a vague, uncaring sort of way, if Harad will even continue as a unified nation.  For too long, we were united only by Sauron.  He was our lord and he was our god, and without his direction we are lost.  Yes, his commands were cruel, but so long as our lives revolved around pleasing him, our lives had purpose and value of a sort.  Who, now, will buy my grain and goat fleece, if trade routes to the south and east are allowed to fall to ruin?  Who will enforce the laws—any laws—and protect us from jealous neighbors?

I glance at the men and women around me, noting again the demarcations of caste and clan.  Across the way stand the aged fathers of southern mûmakil riders, distinctive with their coal-black skin and bare chests.  Not far from them, stand a group of men from the region that borders the far east, their faces heavily decorated with piercings and tattoos.  Are these also my people?  Have we enough common culture to justify our continued unity?  What will become of us if we do not?

One of the older southern men pulls away from his fellows, his shoulders hunched under his ragged vest.  The others take no notice of him as he steps away and turns to press his forehead against the wall, but I watch him.  I watch as his thin frame begins to tremble silently.  I see his shoulders rise and fall.

I think of Ayman.

And in that moment, I know, suddenly and irrevocably, that this stranger and I are kinsmen.

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Caravans to our land always start out as tiny wisps of dust against the eastern horizon.  Our well is one of the last sources of water in the northern Haradwaith, so we’ve played host to more than a few over the years, coming in from the village four leagues distant and making for Gondor or Ephel Dúath.  When I spotted such a wisp one evening as I returned from the fold with two pails of goat milk in my hands, I thought nothing of it.  More often than not, such a cloud merely suggests a distant gust of wind whipping up the sand half a league away.  Father, though, looked up from his tools with a frown.  Leaving the loose fencepost for another day, he stood slowly and shielded his eyes from the stinging wind to get a better look.

What he saw did not please him.  For a moment, he fingered the sword at his belt—Dakheel’s sword.  Father had worn it every day since his confrontation with the man two weeks before.  It was an unspoken threat.  Now, he began to fumble with his belt, tugging free the ties that held the scabbard in place.  “Kalima!” he called out.  My sister tottered into view, hauling a pail of milk with both hands.  “Run to the house and tell your mother we’ve company for dinner.  We’ll need food for at least six men.  No, leave the milk.  It will keep.”  As she trotted off, Father turned and grasped my shoulder.  “Hakim, go quickly.  Dakheel is patching the roof of the storage barn.  Fetch him and hide him in the root cellar behind the barn.”

“What is it, Father?  Who’s coming?”

His face was grim.  “Slavers,” he said shortly, “On their way to the Dark Lord’s lands.”  He fixed me with a hard look.  “You know what they’ll do if they find the Gondorian.”

I nodded and took off at a run, leaving my buckets with Kali’s.  As I rounded the house, the distant smudge on the horizon drew closer.  I could see, now, that Father was right; the disturbance was caused by a handful of men on camelback leading a long line of men stumbling on foot behind the pack animals.  I reached the barn as Dakheel was climbing down a ladder on the far side with a few broken clay tiles tucked under his arm.  I swallowed hard.  From this angle, the side of the barn and the tilt of the roof might have hidden him from sight.  Might.

“Come on,” I all but yelled, “Quick!”

His sharp eyes caught mine.  “What is the matter?”

“Slavers,” I gasped, panting, “Passing through.  They’ll make us quarter them for the night—they’ve done it before.”

His head came up.  “These men have slaves with them now?”

“Yes, come on, they’ll be here any minute and if they see you . . .”

His jaw tightened.  For just a moment, I saw him freeze with indecision, his sharp eyes scanning the house, the approaching dust cloud, and even the barren wastes to the north.  Two weeks had been enough time for the bruises on his face to fade to just a few smudges of yellow.  The color stood out, now, against his half-shadowed visage. 

His eyes met mine.  “Lead the way.”

“The cellar.”  I trotted across the barnyard and cleared a few sacks away, revealing a door set into the earth.  “It runs under the foundation of the barn, but if you’re quiet, they shouldn’t know you’re here.”  The hinges were badly corroded, but together, Dakheel and I managed to wrench the door up.  It opened onto a series of rough stairs cut into the earth, leading down to a low, dusty room, empty except for a few bags of millet and a dwindling pile of yams.  A few rays of evening light illuminated the space, but I knew that once the door closed it would be all but pitch-black within.  Dakheel hesitated for just an instant more before bounding down the steps.  By now I could hear the hoof beats of approaching camels and donkeys.  I slammed the door shut and heard the latch catch.  I had to swallow against the sudden tightness in my throat; in my haste I’d forgotten to explain that the cellar couldn’t be opened from the inside.  I could only pray that Dakheel wouldn’t panic when he realized he was locked in and draw our new guests’ attention.

Pushing sweaty hair away from my eyes, I tried for a casual stroll as I rounded the barn.  The column was drawing near.  I could make out eight men on camels and perhaps two dozen chained slaves.  I would have known they were slaves even without the chains by the way they walked in a ragged line behind the pack animals, where they were sure to find filth and stink at every step.  In the small courtyard in front of our home, Mother waited, again in her black veils.  She clutched Kalima’s hand, having somehow convinced Kali’s rebellious hair to stay put beneath a head shawl.  Father had straightened his tunic and poured water over his face.  Dakheel’s sword was nowhere to be seen; our visitors would not take kindly to a farmer who bore arms in their presence.  He grabbed my arm as I approached.  “You are fourteen, Hakim,” he told me with a strange urgency, “You understand?  Fourteen!”

I blinked.  “Why lie about something like that?”

“Don’t ask questions now!  Just promise me you’ll tell them.”

I nodded reluctantly.  “I will tell them I’m fourteen.  If they ask.  Which would be strange.”

I had no more time, though, to wonder why it was so important that I pretend to be three years younger.  The rag-tag column was filing past the half-wall that marks the edge of our estate and Father was striding forward with a broad, if slightly fixed, smile on his face.

“Ho, there, friends,” he called out the customary greeting, “How fares the road?”

The leader of the company, a broad man in a headdress that fell to the middle of his back, trotted his camel forward and gave the usual response.  “Fair and winding as ever, but we would be glad of a hearth.”

Father gave a half-bow.  “Servants of the Eye are most welcome here.  Do me the honor of resting the night in my humble dwelling.”

The slaver waved his hand.  “You are most generous, good sir.”  As though my father had a choice; everyone knows what happens to families who refuse to quarter men in service to the Eye.  The formalized pleasantries over, the men were climbing down from their camels and brushing the dust out of their robes.  Their leader clapped my father on the shoulder with a brash laugh.  “Today’s road was long indeed.  I am called Rashid.  I do hope that wife of yours is a good cook!”

A muscle twitched in my father’s jaw, though his smile never wavered.  In our part of Harad, doubting the host’s abilities is tantamount to insult.  His voice was carefully restrained, though, as he replied.  “Azzam at your service.  Will you also require provisions for them?”  With his chin, he indicated the forlorn line of ragged men.

Rashid grinned, wide and careless.  “Nay, we’ve fodder enough for the stock.  Wouldn’t want to impose on your generous hospitality.”

“’Tis no trouble,” Father said woodenly, but I knew he was breathing a private sigh of relief that we would not have to further deplete our larders.  I stared at the slaves, many of them rail-thin and dressed in rags, and wondered what Rashid’s idea of ‘fodder’ might be.

“Come,” Rashid said, clapping my father on the back in what he clearly thought was a jovial manner, “I grow weary of the smell of camels and Tarks.  My men will see to settling them in the barn.  And we can see to food, eh?”

“Of course.  My son can show them in.”

I wasn’t eager to get any closer to Rashid’s men, but leading them down to the barn gave me an opportunity to study their captives more closely.  I’d seen slaves before, of course—there was a market in town with a small auction business, and we’d quartered men like Rashid before.  I’d never taken much notice, though.  Even now, my newfound interest was something I didn’t understand and didn’t want to examine too closely.

Under their sunburns and weeks’ worth of grime, the slaves were all pale-faced men like Dakheel.  I saw no silver eyes, but of the few gazes I glimpsed, most were a grayish shade of blue, which was just as shocking in its own right.  Most wore ragged versions of simple desert robes, but a handful sported the strange tunics and breeches that Dakheel favored, those these were far more torn and dirtied.  These men, it seemed to me, were also the most bloodied and battered of the woebegotten lot.

One of Rashid’s men pulled a bit of waybread from a pouch at his hip, took a bite, and immediately spat it back out with a grimace.  “It’s gone maggoty already,” he complained to one of his fellows.

“Toss it in with the Tarks’ fodder,” the other responded in a disinterested tone, “And have done with your bellyaching.”

It seemed one of my questions, at least, had been answered.

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Supper that night was an uncomfortable affair.  Rashid and five of his men crowded into our small dining area, filling it with raucous voices and the smell of unwashed travelers.  My mother’s goat stew, which had been so carefully simmering all day, had to be bulked up at the last moment with chunks of yam and the beans that were meant to be tomorrow’s meal.  We ate it over skillet bread and had to endure countless humorous anecdotes from the men about substandard cooking fed to them by peasants in one backwater or another.  By the end of the meal, Father had developed a persistent twitch in his left eye as he struggled to hold his peace.

Strangely, that tic began during one of the few moments that did not involve backhanded snipes at my mother’s hospitality.  Rather, the twitch first appeared when Rashid turned to me, gave me his trademark slap on the arm and said, “Well, here’s a fine young man!  Tell me, boy, are you looking to join the army in your time?”

I swallowed a mouthful of bread.  “I suppose . . .”

Father cleared his throat sharply.  “That will be a while off, yet.  My son is only fourteen; he is too young.”

Rashid’s eyebrows shot up.  “Fourteen?  Rarely have I seen such height in one so young!  You look to be a giant when you’re a man, it seems.”

I shrugged uncomfortably.

“Oh, well,” Rashid continued, giving my arm another borderline-painful smack, “I’m sure there will still be Tarks to slay when you’ve put on all those extra inches!”  To my relief, he turned back to my father.  “Now, my friend, tomorrow is a day for sacrifices, as I’m sure you know!  Tell me, does your family tribute a drink offering or a burnt offering?”

“Drink,” my father grunted.  It was a bit of an overstatement.  In actuality, we hadn’t offered tribute to the Eye since that disastrous encounter between my father and Dakheel.  Rashid needn’t know that, though.

“Of course, of course.  What say you if on the morrow we erect our pyre beside your sieve?”

“That would be lovely,” Mother interjected, her tone carrying a note of warning for Father.

“Yes,” he ground out, “Lovely.”

When finally the plates were clean, I tried to slip away with the excuse of evening chores, but Mother waylaid me with two more bowls of stew.  “They’ve left two men on watch in the barn,” she told me, in a quiet voice that suggested I ignored her at my own peril, “You will take these to them.”

I pitched my own voice low.  “What about—“

“Hakim,” she cut me off firmly, “Rashid’s men.  Deliver these and come straight back.”

So, there was nothing to do but pick my way down to the barn, trying not to think about the two dozen men eating nothing but rotting bread or the one below them who would be going without entirely.

When I slipped through the front door of the barn, it took the slavers a moment to notice me.  I opened my mouth to speak, but a quiet, pleading voice stopped me.

“Please, please malik, he only needs a bit more water.  He won’t last another day without it.”

“Shove your ‘please’s, you lazy Tark,” a slaver snapped, “You think when we get where we’re going that the orcs will give half a hump for your ‘please’?”

I pulled my head up and cleared my throat.  Any reply the slave might have made died on his lips.  I set my jaw and marched straight towards the slaver who’d spoken.  This one had an especially mean look about him.  A puckered scar, likely from a knife fight, slashed right across his eye and down towards his chin.  I looked him straight in his sightless, ruined eye, paused a moment, then handed him the bowl of stew.  “There is ample water,” I told him in Haradric, “Our well has never run dry.”

His face twitched, a brief spasm that was gone almost before it began.  The look could have been irritation at my impudence.  It could have been contempt.

It could have been self-loathing.

But, all he did was take the bowl with a curt nod.

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“I won’t!” Kalima all but wailed.  She pulled her arm from my grasp and beat her tiny fists against her pillow.  “I won’t, I won’t I won’t!  You can’t make me!”

“Come on, Kali!” I said, trying to be patient and failing miserably, “If you don’t put your scarf on, we’ll be late for Offering!”

“I’m not going!”  She buried her head in the pillow and her dark hair fell down to cover her face as effectively as any veil.  “You can go make the stupid offering with stupid Rashid.  I hate Offering!”

“Since when?” I nearly cried, trying to contain my exasperation.  Kali merely let out a wordless howl of temper. 

The hinges creaked on the heavy door behind me.  I spun, but anxiety turned to relief as the door swung open on my mother.  She was already dressed for the sacrifice in her flowing green gown and a translucent veil.  “What’s all this?”

I threw up my hands in defeat.  “She won’t put her headscarf on.  Says she’s not going to the Offering and I can’t make her.”

Slowly and deliberately, Mother closed the door.  She turned her imperious gaze on my sister’s diminutive form.  “Kalima, my child?  What’s all this about?”

Kali sat up and pushed her tangled hair back from her face.  I was surprised to see that her eyes were red-rimmed and brimming with tears.  Her mouth was set mulishly, though, and she spitted Mother with a glare I would never dare to copy.  “I’m not going.  I hate Offering.  It’s stupid and boring and Abba will yell again and he’ll hurt . . . people.”

For a moment, my mother stood stock still.  Then she sighed and lifted a hand to lower her veil.  Ghosting on silent footsteps, she made her way to Kalima’s pallet, sat down, and put an arm around her daughter.  Kali resisted for a moment, but then sank into her mother’s side with a loud sniff.  I studied my sandals.  Mother was so often brisk and detached—almost cold—that these moments of unexpected tenderness never ceased to surprise me.  She stroked Kali’s hair.  “What happened between your father and Dakheel was not your fault,” she told her quietly.

“It was,” Kali insisted urgently, but quietly, “If I hadn’t of given him that cup, Abba would’ve never wanted him to Offer it and—“

“Hush, child,” Mother cut her off softly, “There is no time.  Tell me, why do you think we’re having Offering today?”

Kalima screwed up her face with distaste.  “’The Great Eye is the source of all the bounty we possess,’” she recited woodenly, “’We please Him when we offer back a portion of—‘”

“No,” Mother said firmly, “We make an Offering today because the slavers are here, and if we do not they will go to the Dark Lord’s lands and tell him how disloyal Azzam the goat herder of the Haradwaith is.”

Kali stopped crying all at once.  Her eyes grew very wide.  “But if they knew about Dakheel . . .”

Mother pulled her close.  “You must be very brave, my daughter, and very clever.  They must not know that anything is different.  If they find out about the Gondorian . . .”

Kali wiped her eyes on her sleeve.  “I know, Mother.  They’d hurt him.”

“They’d hurt all of us,” Mother corrected, “But, Dakheel most of all.”

With another brave sniff, Kalima reached for her headscarf.

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Perfectly groomed and appropriately solemn, we gathered before the Offertory Sieve in the courtyard.  As promised, Rashid’s men constructed a small wooden pyre beside the sieve on which they laid a simple desert hare.  Instead of the usual cups of water, the four of us held jars of palm wine—a sacrifice that might seem more appropriate to our uncouth guests.  After saying the ritual words, we stepped forward one by one to pour out the wine while Rashid lit the pyre.  Soon, his offering was burning nicely, and ours was seeping into the ground.  The smell of wine mingled with that of roasting meat and made my mouth water.

“It’s a rather poor showing from us,” Rashid commented to my father as we watched the blaze grow, “But what can you do in these wastelands?  Now, a week ago we had a Tark to offer.  That was a true sacrifice.”

Kalima swallowed hard and stared at the ground.  “Don’t fret, child,” Rashid said to her in what he probably thought was a comforting tone, “He didn’t feel a thing.  It’s like slaughtering pigs, you see; the trick is to cut the throat right quick.”

Mother gripped Kali’s hand more tightly and shot Rashid a look that could have frozen the sun.

“Had to be done, at any rate,” he muttered, taking little note, “He was a bad seed, that one.  Disobedient.”

Mother cleared her throat sharply.  “Your offering is made.  I am sure its smoke will be pleasing to the Eye.  You must away, then.  Far be it from us to delay you from your master’s work.”

They had little choice, then, but to pack up their animals and set out towards the distant mountains.  Mother was able to escape back to the house with Kali, but Father and I were forced to walk with Rashid, putting on the same show of civility.  He thanked us for our hospitality ‘such as it was.’  “No matter, though,” the slaver added as he stretched languidly, “This is our last shipment north for a good while, I’d wager.  All money is in caravans to the south at the moment.”

Father arched an eyebrow.  “Is there less need in the Dark Lord’s lands?”

“No, no.  We’ll fulfill our obligations to the Great Eye, as is fitting.  It’s just that there is great demand for Tark laborers in Umbar in recent weeks.  You’ve heard, of course, about the storm?”

We hadn’t, so Rashid took great delight in educating us.

“’Twas scarcely a month ago.  They say a great storm rose on the bay—a mighty tempest, of the sort that might strike once in a generation.  It broke upon Umbar and sank nearly every ship in the harbor.  They’ve much need of material to rebuild, and of more Tarks, of course.  We shall take just a few days to deliver the last of the slaves promised to the Dark Lord, and then we make for Umbar to lend our aid.”

“How patriotic of you,” Father muttered, but Rashid did not hear; he had turned to settle some small dispute between his men and took no more notice of us.

One long hour later, they were gone at last.  In the bustle of their departure, I didn’t realize that only twenty-three slaves left in chains.  Nor did I take much notice when one of the men slipped father a copper piece and an apology for “the mess in the barn.”

It was only when the barn door opened on a limp and ragged form that I realized what he’d meant.

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It was nearly midday before the dust from their passage had disappeared into the distance and I dared approach the root cellar.  I bore with me a large gourd full to the brim with water; while it is a bit cooler in the cellar than under the sun, Dakheel had been more than half a day without water, and I knew he was the worse for it.  I hesitated with my hand on the cellar door, suddenly, inexplicably nervous.  How had the foreigner whiled away the long hours?  Did he fear we had locked him in a windowless prison only to hand him over to the slavers?

Slowly, chiding myself for my foolishness, I pried the door open, but did not descend the stairs.  The noonday sun cast flat bars of light at my feet, but left most of the cellar shrouded in sharp shadows.  “Dakheel?”  I called out, “It’s only me.”

Slowly, he stepped into the patch of bright sunlight at the base of the stairs.  He looked haggard and worn and somehow paler than ever.  He ascended the stairs with steps that dragged.  Wordlessly, I held out the drinking gourd.  He likewise accepted it without a word, but did not drink at first.  Instead, he brushed past me and strode out, past the clutter of the barnyard, to stop at the edge of the wastes.  He gazed out, squinting against the harsh light, over cracked red earth and scraggly trees and distant dunes, staring north, towards the jagged, black peaks.

I stepped to his side.  “Are you alright?”  I asked quietly.

For a moment, he didn’t respond.  “I could hear them,” he said at last, “through the floors.  Through the cracks where the foundation is splitting.  I could hear the cries . . . the pleas . . . the whip . . .”

There was nothing I could say to that.  I finally settled on “I’m sorry.”

His only response was to lift the gourd to his lips and take a long, slow drink.  When he finally lowered it, he met my gaze with hard eyes.  “Where is the body?”

I swallowed.  “In . . . in the barn.”

He handed me the half-full gourd and strode away.  I hastened to follow.

Already, flies were gathering on the slave’s corpse.  Kneeling beside the pitiful figure, Dakheel took no note of them.  With slow, deliberate movements, he straightened the dead man’s limbs, brushed the wild strands of hair and beard away from his face, tugged his torn clothes to better cover him.  “He’s still wearing his own gear.”  The detachment in Dakheel’s voice surprised me.  He turned back the collar of the man’s stained tunic, revealing a small device like a leafless tree embroidered in white thread.  “This was no miner.  He was an officer of Gondor, recently captured.  They must have been taking him to Mordor for questioning.”

Before I could think of a response, the barn door was flung open and my father entered with a handful of empty sacks thrown over his shoulder, muttering and cursing to himself.

“Lazy bastards, can’t even clean up their own mess . . .”

Dakheel’s back was to my father, so only I saw the way the Gondorian’s jaw clenched and his eyes flashed with anger.  In a moment, though, the look was gone, and I wondered if I’d imagined it.  “Malik,” he said with the same detached courtesy he always showed my father.  “Have you a shovel?  I would like to give this fellow a proper burial.”

Father nodded curtly.  “In the back corner.  Perform your rites, but stay a good distance from the well and leave no marker.”  He dropped a few empty millet sacks at Dakheel’s feet.  “You’ll need a shroud.”

I tore my eyes away from the lifeless face.  “I’ll go with you.”

“You have goats to tend,” Father said sternly, “Leave the Gondorian to his work.”

That evening as I gathered the goats, my gaze was drawn again and again to a lonely figure who stood out in the wastes, gazing west into the dying sun.

A/N:  Thanks for reading!  Reviews and concrit are much appreciated.

Across the street, a splash of color catches my eye.  In the front window of a tall house of stone, someone has built a box, filled it with soil, and planted flowers within.  The bright red and green stand out, incongruously cheerful among all the solemn white and gray stone.

As I watch, a little girl steps out of the house, a kerchief over her hair and a clay vessel in her hands.  Humming to herself, she tiptoes over to a barrel by the door and dips her little cup, filling it with water.  Still humming tunelessly, dodging deftly around the adults hurrying about their business, she steps close to the flower box and shakes her cup gently.  Water splashes out, dripping over her hand and over the flowers.  The child giggles as a particularly large drop lands on the upturned face of a flower and splashes everywhere.  A moment later, the cup is empty, the plants are dripping, and the girl is dancing away, her skirts twirling.

I can only stare.  It was such a casual thing, to the Gondorian girl.  A cup of water as payment, a bright patch of color as reward.  She has no idea that her small chore is a miracle in my eyes.

I think of my own daughter at that age—always in motion, always seeming to dance to some music only she could hear.  She twirled around our crumbling land, always searching for beauty.  And finding it.  The flowers of Harad bloom for only a brief season, but my daughter managed to find plenty of other treasures to delight her:  stones cut through with glittering veins, strange fossils like sea shells, bits of old metal worn smooth.  Time after time, she ran to me with her pockets full, wanting to know what each trinket might have been.

Time after time, I held scraps of metal in my hands and told her that they were arrowheads—the bones of wars long past.

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I sighted carefully down the arrow.  My right arm nearly trembled from the weight of the string, but I refused to let that distract me.  I breathed slowly—in and out, in and out, release.  My hand flew open.  The arrow leapt from the string and arced away . . . only to imbed itself in the scruffy grass with a soft phith. 

The unharmed scarecrow stared back at me from twenty paces away, its drawn-on grin seeming to mock me.

With a growl of frustration, I drew another arrow from the quiver at my feet and set it to the string.  I had always been hopeless at archery, but this evening’s practice was going especially poorly.  My arrows fell to the grass beside the target or blew past it to drive into the hillock behind it.  A few were even caught by the wind such that they flew over the ridge that separated my practice range from the house, likely landing in the barnyard beyond.

I drew once more, but both arms were shaking now.  I knew even as I released that the arrow would miss by several feet, and I was right.  I muttered a curse.

“A recurve can be a tricky weapon.”

I started and spun.  Though I had heard no one approach, a man stood behind me, his arms loosely folded, his expression thoughtful.  How he’d gotten behind me when the barnyard lay in the opposite direction, I’m not sure.

“Dakheel, I . . . what are you doing here?”

He held up a blunt-tipped arrow with a twinkle in his eyes.  “You made quite an impressive shot, if your intent was to send it through the upper rafters.  The mice were quite alarmed, and for a moment, I thought we were under attack.”

I flushed red with humiliation.  “I’m sorry.  It’s . . . I lost control of the string for a moment.”

“Peace, Hakim, it happens.  The path to mastery is littered with missed shots.”  He stepped close and dropped the arrow back in the quiver.  “Still, let us find you a safer range, lest we frighten the mice any more than we already have.”

I trailed behind him as he approached my pathetically undamaged target.  While Dakheel rotated the scarecrow a quarter turn around its post, I scurried back and forth, pulling arrows out of the dirt.  Dakheel finished his task long before I finished mine.  He helped me pull free the last few arrows free and led the way to a spot parallel to the hill, at right angles with my original position.  With a mumbled word of thanks, I put another arrow to the string.  A moment later, it dug a new hole in the side of the hill.  I suppressed frustration as best I could.

Dakheel smiled slightly.  “Here,” he came up behind me and rested his large hands lightly on my shoulders, “Adjust your stance just a bit.  Your feet should be even with one another.”  I shifted my feet.  “Good, now raise the bow and extend your shoulder a bit more.  No, don’t let your wrist turn in; the bow should be held straight and true as a tree.”  I stretched my arm a bit further.  “Now draw.  Keep your head high.  Bring the string to your chin, not your chin to the string.  And release.”  The empty bowstring twanged.  Dakheel nodded.  “Now, try it with an arrow, keeping everything just the same.”

I nocked an arrow and drew, trying to remember everything he had just told me.  Taking a deep breath, I released.  The arrow just grazed the side of the scarecrow—a miss, but a closer miss than I’d managed all day.  Dakheel clapped me on the back.  “Better.  That is your mark.  Release the next, changing nothing save where the very tip of the arrow points.”  I sighted up a little and to the side.  My next shot was a definite hit.  Dakheel smiled.  “Good.  Keep practicing.”

Dakheel stood back as I drew another arrow.  My eyes were focused on the target, but I could feel him watching me.  “That isn’t the sort of bow one uses to hunt game,” he said conversationally.

My next shot grazed the scarecrow’s thigh, scattering straw in the light breeze.  “It was my father’s.”  I shook the aches out of my fingers.  “He used it when he was in the army.”

“Ah.”  Dakheel lowered himself to sit on the hillside, long arms wrapped around his knees.  “I’m surprised he is not here to assist you.”

I shuffled my feet guiltily before remembering that I wasn’t supposed to change my stance.

“Unless, of course, he does not know you are here,” the man suggested shrewdly.

My next shot went wide.  “You’re not going to tell him, are you?”  I asked, trying to hide my concern and failing.

I could hear the smile in his voice.  “There’s no need for that, I think.  In the house where I grew up, there was an underground store room.  There, I slayed many an imaginary foe with my brothers’ blades.”

I scowled.  “It’s not like that.”  My arrow sliced into the scarecrow’s neck, a shot that would have been more impressive had I not been aiming for its chest.  “I need to be able to shoot for when I join the army.”

Dakheel sighed softly.  “The army, then,” he paused pensively, “And what does your father think of this ambition of yours?”

I shrugged one shoulder.  “Everyone joins eventually.  My father did.  Most of the boys my age from the village have already gone.”

“That’s not what I asked; I asked for your father’s opinion.”

My scowl deepened and my next shot missed by several feet.  “He doesn’t understand.”

“If he was a soldier himself, then perhaps he understands better than you think.”

“He just wants me around to herd his goats for the rest of my life,” I said scornfully, “I want to see the world.”  I cast a Dakheel a sideways look.  “Like you did.”

He smiled a bit wryly.  “Yes, I saw the world.  And now I sleep in a barn and eat the scraps from another man’s table.”  He didn’t sound self-pitying—just matter-of-fact.

“How old were you when you learned to shoot a bow?”

“Young,” he conceded, “I had little choice in the matter.  My home was constantly under attack, it seemed.”  He nodded in the direction of the house.  “You have a life of peace here.  Such things are easily taken for granted.”

For long moments, I cursed my foolishness in bringing up the army.  For a moment, I had forgotten that Dakheel’s people were at war with mine.  At last, I spoke.  “My mother lived in Harondor as a child.”  I wasn’t sure why I was telling him this.  Perhaps I just needed to defend myself.  “Her parents had a farm there until Gondor drove the settlers out.”  I released another arrow and lowered the bow, rolling my arms to rid them of aches.  “She told me the land there was so fertile that they could grow two hay crops a year.  She said they didn’t even need to irrigate—just cast seeds on the ground and let the rains take care of the rest.”  I looked around at the barren hills, the rocks still baking with heat although the sun was skimming the horizon.  “The Dark Lord promises us territories—maybe not all the earth, but enough to feed many a family.  There is much my people would do for that kind of prosperity.”

Behind me, Dakheel stood.  He removed the headdress I’d loaned him and ran a hand through sweat streaked hair.  After a moment, he pointed north.  “You see those mountains?”

The Mountains of Shadow were forbidding, even from such a distance.  I nodded apprehensively.

“I thought that the land beyond would be nothing but ash and stone, like in the tales my people tell, but I was wrong.”  The setting sun cast harsh shadows across his face as he stared out at the distant peaks.  “The air clears as the land sinks away from Orodruín.  Then come hills thick with sheep and cattle, sinking down to a green country, with field upon field of wheat and barley bordering a great inland sea.”  He looked at me at last, and his eyes seemed haunted.  “But the villages are thick with orcs.  Everywhere, their whips ring out and Men are broken to their will.  And when the wretches who tend the crops finally fall, their bodies are hewn to fertilize the fields and feed the overseers.”

I recoiled physically.  He’s lying, I tried to tell myself, everyone knows the Gondorim lie.  But, it took only one glance at his shadowed face to realize that he wasn’t.

He stepped close to me, his face grim as he placed a hand on my shoulder.  “That is the sort of prosperity Sauron would bring to the Haradrim.”  He turned and strode off in the direction of the barnyard.  Just before he rounded the hill, he looked back at me.  “When you fire that bow, keep your elbow up.  And take a moment to ask yourself why you need it.”

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After the evening meal, I headed down to the barn with a steaming bowl of stew in my hands, like always.  My heart was heavy, though, and my feet dragged.  I paused at the door for far too long, cursing myself for the sudden timidity that had crept back over me.  At last, I pushed the door open and stepped through.  The door to Dakheel’s quarters stood open, as usual, but when I stepped within, the gloomy space was empty.  I hesitated, wondering just how badly I’d offended him. 

“Dakheel?”  The word came out as scarcely a whisper.  I cleared my throat and tried again.  “Dakheel?”

For a moment, only silence answered me.  Then came a voice from somewhere behind me.  “I am here.”

I spun and scanned the shadows of the main barn, trying not to seem too startled.  Nothing.  I was about to reach for a candle when I happened to look up and spot a silhouette in the hayloft.  Dakheel had settled himself on a bale of hay near the main entrance, where the side of the barn stood open to the sky.  Balancing the bowl carefully, I clambered up the ladder to join him. 

He accepted the stew with an absent nod and offered me half of the bread, as he had every night since I had shared that first meal with him.  I nibbled on a crust and lowered myself to sit, somewhat anxiously, at his side.

“Those stars on the horizon,” his voice was distant and he stared out to the south, “I do not recognize the constellations.”

I followed his gaze.  I saw nothing out of the ordinary in the night sky—just a tiny sickle of a moon and the familiar spangling of stars.  His eyes, though, were trained on a handful of constellations hovering low over the southern horizon.  I pointed to the brightest such cluster.  “That one is called ‘The Keel.’  Or maybe ‘The Sail;’ I can’t remember Westron boat terms very well.  It rises for a brief season—never very high—and sets after only a few weeks.”  I settled back against the hay and allowed myself to relax a hair.  “Traders say that it rises higher and travels longer the further south you go.  They say that there are even more constellations beyond.”

He shook his head in incredulity.  “Even the stars . . . who would have thought . . .”  His voice was a murmur.  I suspected he hadn’t meant to speak aloud.

As I picked at my bread crust, I watched him out of the corner of my eye, but Dakheel did not speak again.  “I’m sorry about before,” I said with some caution.

He shook his head dismissively.  “It is I who should apologize.  Of course you wish to learn arms.  Every boy your age does.

I rolled a shoulder awkwardly.  “Still, I shouldn’t have gone on about Harondor like that.”

He held out his bowl and I eagerly dipped a hunk of bread in the spicy stew.  “It’s been hard for your family, hasn’t it?”  His tone was gently probing, like fingers around a wound.  “For a few years now, at least, you’ve . . . not had enough?”

I stared fixedly out the open window, trying to give the impression that my only concerns at the moment were astronomy and the bread crust.  “We manage.”  My voice was not quite as casual as I’d hoped.  Dakheel did not respond, but after a moment, I swallowed hard.  “It’s just that our grain yields are decreasing.  Father can’t really keep up the cisterns on his own, so we lose crops to the desert.  Some years, we barely have enough feed to get the goats through to the next harvest.  He has been . . . frustrated that he cannot provide for his family as his forefathers did.”

Dakheel sighed.  “I feared as much.  Hunger can be difficult to see in an adult, but it leaves its mark on children, if you know what to look for.”

“I could change all that if I joined the army.  Soldiers earn decent wages, even when we’re not at war.  I could make enough to . . . help them.”

Dakheel glanced at me, his eyes sympathetic and entirely too knowing.  “And if you died?  How then would you help them?”

I looked away, feeling a trace of the old surliness returning.  After a moment, Dakheel broke the tension by taking a larger-than-mannerly bite of stew.  “It may yet be your fate to bear arms, though it grieves me.”  He stared pensively out at the stars.  “Perhaps I’ve seen too much of war.”  He sounded so weary in that moment.  I wondered if he was older than we’d suspected.

I looked down, thinking about my pitiful attempts at archery.  “Did you want to go to war?” I asked quietly, “When you were young?”

His eyebrows lifted.  “Oh, yes,” he said drily, “I was going to be the hero who reshaped the world, or so I told myself when I was little older than you.”  Though his eyes were still fixed on the stars, I suspected he was seeing something visible only to him.  “For years I fought the fell creatures that infest the North.  Orcs and trolls.  Beasts and . . . worse.  Those lands are rarely threatened by armies of Men.  I thought I knew battle.”  He shook his head slowly.  “But war, it turned out, was another matter altogether.”

He went silent, then, staring off into space like Father used to when I would press him for old war stories.  Still, something about that statement was bothering me . . . “The north?”  I prompted.  “Gondor is a northern country as we reckon it, but Gondorians don’t seem to agree.”  Dakheel didn’t respond, but I felt as though pieces of a puzzle were finally clicking together.  His unusual garb, his strange accent, his inexplicable reluctance to give his name and parentage . . . “You’re not from Gondor, are you?”

Dakheel’s eyes flicked to mine.  He opened his mouth as if to speak, but closed it just as quickly and looked away with a rueful smile.  “I’ll make you a deal, Hakim,” his voice was edged with false levity, “I’ll not tell your father of your adventures with his bow . . . so long as you do not tell him that I’ve no family on this side of the Misty Mountains.”

Though I’d half-suspected what he might say, my mouth fell open a little.  I vaguely remembered learning to recognize the Misty Mountains on an old map.  They were leagues and leagues away and supposedly impassable save for a few, treacherous paths.  “What drove you to journey so far?”  I asked when I could remember how to speak.

His smile widened a little, though it held no mirth.  “I wanted to see the world,” he said with all his earlier dryness.  “I suppose I did well enough.  The King of Rohan took me on as a sword-thain in his service.  The Steward of Gondor, too, welcomed me in time.  I learned much of the wars between Men—the nuances of politics and economics.  Of philosophy.  But, it was not enough.  It was not understanding.”

He stared fixedly at the southern sky.  “And then . . .”

He fell silent once more.  Though his face had grown quite bronze from long days under a punishing sun, at that moment he seemed quite pale.  Perhaps it was only a trick of the light.  “Ephel Dúath,” I supplied softly.  His eyes darted to me, as if he’d forgotten I was there.  After a moment, he nodded jerkily.

“It was folly to test my will against that . . . place.”  His jaw clenched.  Without seeming aware of it, he leaned forward, as if to hunker down against the dark peaks leagues behind our backs.  “It was folly to think I was ready.  But, the need was great.  Is great.”

I stared down at my interlocked hands, noting how the knuckles were turning white.  Nothing—not my curiosity about Dakheel or my usual hunger for war stories—could make me press him for details now.  Not when he used that voice, with its undercurrent of barely-concealed fear.

Instead, I changed the subject.  “He’ll find out sooner or later.  My father.  Or he’ll just give up on trying to find out who you are.  He’s already starting to suspect that there’s no one you can turn to for ransom.

He seemed to shake himself.  A moment later, he met my gaze easily.  “I’ve no doubt.  But suspecting is different from knowing.  So long as he thinks there might be a chance of reward, I have time.”

“Time for what?”

“To find another way.”  He took a sip of water and passed me the skin.  “Your family has been kind to me, Hakim.  I would repay you if I can.  But, you cannot reach my family, and no one in Gondor or Rohan will come forward.”

“What about the rulers?  The King, the Steward . . . they ransom Men in their service at times.”

He shook his head regretfully.  “Those bridges are felled.  I left King Thengel’s service years ago.  Ecthelion might aid me, but when I left Gondor, age was beginning to take its toll on him.  He confided in me, that he’d soon be forced to let his son take over much of his duties, and his heir bears little love for me.”

“And you can’t send word across the mountains?”

“Not soon enough to satisfy your father, to be certain.  I could direct a messenger to my homeland, but if any but I approached, they would find only empty wastes and abandoned cottages.”

I knew I ought to be worried about Dakheel and the likelihood of another clash between him and my father, but I couldn’t keep my eyes from glinting when he mentioned his mysterious homeland.  “They can just disappear?  How do they do that?”

He laughed warmly.  “Less dramatically than you’re picturing, I’m sure.  But, come, I’ve said more than I ought about my adventures.  Tell me something of your people.  It’s a beautiful night for storytelling.”

I was reluctant, but with some prodding, he convinced me to repeat the tale of Shahnaz, the great warlord who first brought several tribes together to settle this land centuries ago.  When I finished, he repaid me by telling how his forbearers had fled great evil in the far North to settle in wild lands thick with trees.  When that tale was told, he drew from me a story of the old lords of Umbar and responded with a story of Men and Elves and an invasion of Orcs.  The night was growing late when I at last remembered myself and returned to the silent house.

This was the first of many nights spent trading stories with Dakheel.  He told me much of the history of western Men, mixed in with stranger tales, many of which seemed far too fantastical to be true.  The story of evil spirits in ancient burial mounds made my hair stand on end.  I made a mental note to retell that one when my cousins came to stay in a year’s time; the boy closest to me in age had always loved a good ghost story.  The story of thirteen dwarves, three trolls, and a wizard, on the other hand, was far too ridiculous for any but small children.  I related it to Kali with some embellishments.  Night after night, he told of glorious battles, but nearly as often the tales were tragedies of Men or Elves rising against their kinsmen.  I wasn’t sure what to think of those, but I hung on to every word. 

I treasured those stories for the vivid images they painted of great deeds and distant lands.  In return, I freely shared the history and mythology of my own people.  It was only years later that I finally saw those evenings for what they were:  a series of exceptionally polite interrogations.  Plied with grand epics and lyrical love tales, I was only too eager to respond with every half-remembered story I’d heard told by the fireside.  From these, Dakheel gently teased out details of Haradric history and culture, of our systems of rule from tribal leaders to distant lords, of our relationships with Khand and with Mordor.

Even decades later, I still wonder; had I realized then that his curiosity was not merely casual, would I have been more closed-lipped?

Somehow, I don’t think so.

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I leaned against the wall of the house, whetstone in hand as the evening breeze cooled my neck.  The goats were settled for the night, and dinner was still an hour off, giving us a rare moment of leisure.  The sun was low in the sky and the day was so pleasant that none of us wanted to be inside just yet.  I sharpened my dagger with lazy strokes.  In the garden behind me, Mother puttered around, tending her herbs.  Father wandered the grounds, looking for something to repair.

A few yards away, Kalima was showing Dakheel how to dig for witchety grubs.  His face was confused as he helped her unearth the roots of a particular kind of bush, and that confusion only grew when she began to pluck the slimy, white larvae from the damp root and collect them in a corner of her shawl.  When Kali picked up a fat grub and popped it in her mouth with delight, Dakheel turned slightly green.  I laughed softly.  Foreigners had such strange ideas about food.

“I don’t like it.”

I started.  I hadn’t heard Father come up beside me.

“I did not want her around him to begin with.”

I frowned.  “You think he’ll harm her?”

He snorted.  “Not if he values his own life.  But, that’s not what I meant.  She’s getting altogether too attached to the Gondorian.”  He glanced at me.  “And she’s not the only one.”

Kali was now generously offering her grubs to Dakheel, who politely resisted as best he could.

“I don’t think he means any harm.  If he were going to hurt us or steal from us, he’s had ample opportunity already.”  I stole a glance at my father.  “You should give him a chance.”

“Hakim, have you even been listening to me?”  He sounded exasperated.  “My own feelings do not enter into it.  Kali might imagine that he can stay here forever, but you should know better.”

I looked away.  “It’s like you said; sooner or later, he’ll tell us who his family is.  He goes home and we get rich, what could be simpler?”

“We’re running short of ‘laters.’  If he will not help himself, Rashid’s ilk may be our only alternative.”

I bit my lip.  “He’s terrified of Mordor,” I said quietly, knowing that Dakheel was too proud ever plead for himself, “Surely you can see that.”

“I have seen that.  And that should tell you something about his character.”

I thought of dark glances and dark tales.  “Perhaps it does,” I muttered.

Kali had finally cajoled the foreigner into trying a grub.  As he bit down on the worm, he made a valiant effort to conceal a grimace as my sister erupted in giggles.  Dakheel managed a smile.  He made faces at Kali until she relented and passed him a water skin.  All the while, he had no idea that my father and I were quietly discussing his doom.

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But, perhaps Dakheel was not quite as oblivious as he’d seemed.  As we ate together that night, his gaze was distant.  “The slavers spoke of Umbar,” he said in a measured tone of voice, “They’ve been taking many of my kind there?”  I nodded, a little reluctant even to discuss it.  “More lately?” He prompted, “More than usual?”

Again, I nodded and wetted my lips.  “They suffered some sort of disaster.”

“And they’re rebuilding,” he said, almost to himself.  “Have you heard what sort of disaster?”

I shrugged.  “Rashid said something about a storm—a ‘mighty tempest,’ he called it.  Supposedly, it sank all the ships in harbor.  Must have been some storm; that’s supposed to be the safest harbor in the world.”

He snorted.  “Some storm, indeed,” he murmured.  “And they’re taking slaves there . . . what, as shipwrights?”

I nodded.  “And to replace what they’ve lost.”  He stared at me, uncomprehending.  “The Corsair ships were galleys,” I explained, “With fifty oars apiece.”  Still, his face was blank.  I looked away.  “They were rowed by galley slaves,” I said at last, “They have to live on the ships.  Not all of the time, but the captains keep at least a skeleton crew.  Chained in the hold.  If the ships sank . . .”

He recoiled suddenly, as if I had struck him.  “They would be trapped,” he finished for me.  All color seemed to drain out of his face in an instant.  He set his plate aside and stared at his hands, his jaw clenched.  “The rowers were slaves?  You’re sure of this?”  His voice was harsh and strained.

I blinked.  While I could certainly understand Dakheel’s concern, this reaction seemed extreme for a man who claimed to have seen the interior of Mordor and lived to tell the tale.  “That’s what people say, at least.”

He sat frozen, like a graven statue.  Only his hands moved, slowly curling into fists. 

“I’m sure it won’t come to that for you,” I lied, trying not to dwell on the conversation with my father, “Like you said the other night, you have time to find another way.  My father will be reasonable.”

He glanced up, startled, as if he’d completely forgotten my presence in those few seconds of silent tension.  After a moment, he nodded and waved a hand absently, as if my half-hearted reassurances were utterly trivial.

But, he would say no more that night.

A/N:  Aragorn’s archery tips are taken from a college phys ed class on recurve bows.  Viggo and Orlando manage to violate each and every one of them over the course of the Peter Jackson movies.

Harondor, or “South Gondor,” is a semi-arid land between the river Poros and the river Harnen.  Though historically part of Gondor, it was the site of numerous border disputes between Gondor and Harad (aided and abetted by the Corsairs).

At the time of this story, Bilbo Baggins still lived, relatively quietly, in the Shire.  It is therefore likely that Aragorn heard the story of trolls attacking Thorin’s company not from Bilbo but from Gandalf.  Out of respect for the secrecy of the Shire, Aragorn has edited the hobbit out of this tale, a fact that certainly would not have pleased Bilbo.

The stories of Harad are of my own invention.

A full account of the disaster at Umbar can be found in Appendix A of RotK in a section detailing the ruling stewards of Gondor.

Reviews and concrit are much appreciated!

Kalima was dead set against my undertaking this journey.  The years have not managed to rob her of the fierce will that so frustrated me when we were children.  After my wife died in her second birthing bed, my sister made it her mission to save me from myself.  She told me that she was moving back to our ruined estate—she did not ask.  She brought with along her growing brood and her husband, who was fleeing the shambles of an ill-conceived tailoring business in town.  She came for Ayman, who was then only five years old, and for my daughter, whom the midwife pulled alive from my wife’s lifeless body.

Mostly, though, she came for me.  It was Kali who named the baby Ayishah—“alive.”  It was Kali who stubbornly refused to let me sink into despair.

She got her way.  She usually does.

But, when her son fell, bleeding, into his father’s arms, a fear awoke in Kali where before she had seemed immune to such failings.  For days, she sat by Tawil’s bedside while I tended his arrow wound.  When he, at last, began to mend, her fear did not dissipate.  Rather, it fluttered like a homeless bird, looking for a new place to alight.

She loves Ayman like her own, but she would not have had me follow him to Gondor—too great is her fear for me.

She covered it with other words.  She said that Tawil’s condition was too grave for me to leave, though we both knew that he was recovering and that my eldest niece now knows nearly as much healing as I.  She said it was too great a risk for me, the landowner, to leave the estate.  That, too, was folly; Mordor has fallen.  No one is now coming to inspect our herds, collect our taxes, and ensure our loyalty.  In the end, I would not be gainsaid.  Not when there was a chance my son still lived.

In desperation, she tried to send my brother-in-law with me.  He, at least, had served briefly in the Grand Army as a youth, and had been part of a raiding party in Ithilien—he knew the land better than I.

Still, I refused.  This is something I must do alone.

A parent’s love, I’ve found, is a powerful, fearsome thing.  Still, I fear that it, like my empty purse, may not be enough.

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“Sand,” Kali said, scuffing her sandal on the loose ground demonstratively.  “Sa-and.”

“Sand,” Dakheel repeated dutifully, his tongue barely stumbling over the Haradric vowel.  “Lith,” he added, almost as an afterthought.

“Liss?”

“Li-th,” he exaggerated the final sound.

“Li-thuh.”

The half-smile tugging at Dakheel’s lips grew by inches.  “Near enough,” he murmured in Westron.

At least one of us was amused.  Kalima was indefatigable as always, and as the three of us were checking the perimeter of our grazing lands together, there was little to do but listen to her prattle.  She had not given up on her quest to “educate” the Gondorian, and Dakheel was responding with good grace, gamely repeating the simple words for “sun,” “rock,” and “sandal” and teaching her a few new ones in some strange tongue.  I’d worried, at first, about him teaching her Westron in violation of Father’s wishes—while I, as his heir, was expected to learn “the enemy tongue,” my parents considered that kind of education improper for a young lady—but I recognized none of the words he was telling her.  Rusty as my Westron is, even I can remember the word for “sand.”  This tongue was clearly different.  So, I simply warned Kali that this was to be our secret language and she could never ever teach it to Father or Mother.  My sister is remarkably good at keeping secrets, for one so talkative.

“Cave,” Kali said, pointing to a small hillock that, I knew from experience, concealed an abandoned wolf den.

“Cave,” Dakheel repeated absently, “Tund.”

Kali made only a cursory attempt to repeat the foreign word before skipping off to inspect the den, no doubt hoping to find old fossils or animal tracks within.  “Sorry about her,” I said to Dakheel quietly, “I can make her stop if you want.  Or,” I hesitated, “I can try.”

Dakheel’s eyes crinkled.  “It is no hardship, truly.  It has been a long time since I’ve enjoyed the company of one so . . . enthused.”  He looked away, his sharp eyes scanning the herd as they grazed nearby.  “That goat is ill,” he remarked, pointing at a doe that stood a bit apart from the rest, her head low, her muzzle dotted with scabs.

“Yes,” I agreed, privately surprised that he had noticed, “She has a common ailment.  We call it . . . “sore-mouth” I guess would be the word.  It will resolve soon.”

“Nevertheless, we should keep a close eye.  A sick animal is oftentimes a target for predators.”

I wondered how a man who carries a sword and a silver ring had learned so much about herding.  I opened my mouth to ask . . . and shut it again, still silent.  The stray thought had reminded me that I was relying on Dakheel’s good grace for more than just patience with my sister.

My parents had left that morning, making for the markets of a town four leagues away.  There, they would purchase a few necessities, try to extend our credit line with a wealthy merchant, and arrange to lease a team of donkeys or camels to haul our seed crop when planting season came.  They would likely not be back until tomorrow ‘round midday, and the two were in firm agreement that Dakheel could not be allowed the run of the house and grounds while they were gone.  I’m not sure what they expected him to do—raid Mother’s jewelry box and disappear into the Haradwaith?  commit random acts of arson?—but Father insisted that if I had to watch the herds, Dakheel would watch them with me.

I wouldn’t have minded in the slightest—herding can be lonely work, and one of Dakheel’s stories can liven up the most dull of days—but Father also insisted that, in the name of “security,” I carry Dakheel’s own sword on my belt.

This was not how I’d imagined taking up arms.  I felt ridiculous.  The weapon was almost too heavy for my simple belt.  It kept bumping against the ground as I walked, and it was so long I doubted I’d even be able to draw it.  I couldn’t look Dakheel in the eyes—couldn’t enjoy the easy camaraderie we usually shared.  The tacit insult of wearing his sword made me cringe with shame.  It was like I was holding something over him.

Power.  The word drifted through my mind, like a whisper in Westron accented in Dakheel’s bemused tones.  That was ridiculous, of course—sword or no sword, I held no illusions as to who would win if Dakheel and I ever came to blows—but, there it was all the same.  I felt a guilty kind of gratitude that Dakheel had not commented on the sword.  I thought I saw him half-arch an eyebrow when he saw me bearing it, but he treated me just as he always had.

I tried to push dark thoughts from my mind by watching Kalima play a rough game of tag with one of the goats.  The kid had waylaid her on her way to the little cave, and now she was leading it on a merry chase, laughing as it trotted after her and tried to lip at the edge of her robe, and squealing with delight.  The pair rounded the little hill and disappeared from sight.

I looked out over the herd, trying to think about anything besides the sword on my hip.  There wasn’t much to see—just a few dead trees and skinny goats wandering across the browning grass.

When Kalima’s delighted cries turned to screams of panic, it took me a moment to realize what was happening.  An instant later, Kali came tearing around the side of the hill, the kid a few paces behind her, both of them fleeing the abandoned den as fast as their feet would carry them.

Because it wasn’t abandoned anymore.

Barreling after my sister came three wild dogs—vicious brutes, all dust-colored and rail-thin with inch-long teeth.  In the space of two heartbeats, the nearest caught up with the kid, seized it by the back of the neck, and began to shake the young animal as it brayed at the top of its lungs.

And my sister—my fierce, kind-hearted, fool of a sister—heard the goat’s cries and turned around.  Snatching a little stick off the ground, she brandished it wildly at the dogs.  The creatures fell back a half-step, more out of confusion than any real fear.  A mere second later, one of the beasts gathered itself and sprang, bowling Kali over like she was made of twigs.

I had frozen at the first sound of screams.  Dakheel had not.  He bounded towards Kali like an antelope, his long legs eating up the ground.  Even as I struggled to remember how to make my feet work, he snatched up a rock and sent it sailing with pinpoint accuracy to catch the beast on the side of the head.  It yowled and fell back even as a second rock connected with its hindquarters.  In the next moment, the dog was running.

But, it was not enough.

Even as Kali struggled to her feet, the third beast—the largest and fiercest of the three—fell upon her, seizing her leg and shaking it, with a sickening ripping sound.  She screamed and fell once more.  I didn’t remember moving, but suddenly I was stumbling towards them, struggling to keep my feet under me and tug the sword free of its scabbard.  Dakheel hurled another stone, but carefully for fear of hitting Kalima.  It sailed a foot over the largest dog’s back and struck the lower leg of the one that still held the goat.  The creature yelped and dropped the kid which galloped away in search of its mother, and a fourth rock sent the dog fleeing in the opposite direction.

That left only the largest beast . . . but having tasted my sister’s blood, it would be no easy prey.  As Dakheel drew near, it released her leg and stepped forward to plant itself, snarling, between the man and the girl.  Kali seemed to have run out of screams, but I could still hear her whimpering weakly.  I forced more speed out of legs that trembled with fear.  Dakheel dropped into a half crouch, a particularly large rock held before him like a cudgel.  As the dog advanced, he feinted an attack and then dropped back two steps, drawing the beast away . . . a step nearer to Dakheel . . . two steps farther from Kalima . . . The dog snarled and I half-expected the man to snarl back; he seemed almost feral in his intensity.

With a vicious yank, I finally pulled the sword all the way free of its sheath, and the weight of it nearly caused me to pitch forward.  Dakheel never looked behind him as I drew near, but I could tell he sensed my approach.  He retreated a half-step in my direction . . . another . . . Though I’d been half-expecting the movement, the suddenness of it caught me off-guard; one moment Dakheel was two paces ahead of me, still swinging the heavy rock, the next he was beside me, his left arm wrapping around my right and whisking the sword out of my hand before my nerveless fingers knew what was happening.  In the same moment, the dog leaped, panic in its yellowing eyes.  Dakheel swung his sword in a hard, left-handed arc that caught the dog mid-leap and sent it sprawling in a heap of fur, blood, and spittle.  The creature was back on its feet, quick as a flash, but Dakheel was quicker.  His sword flashed one more time, and then it was all over.

As the dog collapsed, blood gushing from the slash across its throat, Dakheel sprinted to the top of the hillock and scanned the horizon, no doubt making sure that the remaining beasts were still fleeing and that no more would follow.  I went straight to Kalima’s side.  Her face was as pale as chalk and her lips moved soundlessly, no longer able even to whimper.  A dark, sticky puddle was spreading under her, the blood sinking quickly into the thirsty ground.  I hitched up her over robe, pushed aside her shift, and stifled a gasp.  Blood was pouring, in a steady torrent from a series of ugly wounds

Before I could comprehend the damage or even feel my own helplessness, Dakheel was beside me, muttering angrily under his breath.  “Gathrod, not tund, addle-minded fool!  Valar, how could I be so stupid?”

His face softened, though, when he saw my sister’s wounds.  Without hesitation, he set the sword aside and knelt beside me, murmuring gently to Kalima in what I’d called their secret language.  She made a small noise in the back of her throat and swallowed weakly.  Keeping up a steady stream of what I imagined were reassurances in that strange, musical tongue, Dakheel lifted her leg, turning it carefully to locate the jagged holes along the side of her knee.

“We need to stop the bleeding,” he said, with just the smallest note of tension in his voice.  He lifted her leg to place her ankle on his shoulder and used his large hands to press down on the worst of the wounds.  “Your knife, Hakim,” he said quietly, “Take it and cut strips from my cloak—the cleanest part you can find.”

I drew my small knife, but looked doubtfully at Dakheel’s weather-beaten cloak.  “My robe might be better.”

“So long as it’s done quickly.”

Willing my hands not to fumble, I turned up the hem of my robe and wedged the blade in the seam where the outer robe met the soft inner lining.  As quickly as I could, I cut a large, ragged strip from the fabric.  Dakheel accepted it with a nod of thanks and the command “More.”  As I cut another strip with hands that were beginning to tremble, he balled up the first and pressed it against the largest wound.  I tried not to look as the undyed fabric quickly turned red.

“Talk to her,” Dakheel ordered, once the front of my robe was in tatters and he had a half-dozen decent sized cloths, “Try to get her to talk back.”

I bit my lip.  “Kalima?  Kali, can you hear me?”  Her eyelids, which had drifted shut, fluttered.  She groaned.  “Say something, Kali!”

“Hurts.”

The small word from the tiny voice broke my heart, but I pushed that aside.  “I know, Kali, but you have to keep talking.”

Dakheel was pressing cloths against as many wounds as he could reach and still murmuring in that strange tongue.  Kalima’s jaw clenched.  Sweat darkened the dust that streaked her face.  “He talks funny.”

I swallowed hard.  “Yes, yes he does.  And he wants you to know that the word for ‘cave’ is ‘gathrod,’ not ‘tund.’  Say it with me, Kali:  gathrod.”

She closed her eyes.  “Gass . . . gass-odd.”

“Ga-throd.  Say it:  the dogs were in the gathrod.”

“The . . . dogs . . . the dogs . . .”  Her head lolled to the side and she said no more.

“Kali!”  I turned to Dakheel, my face stricken.  “Is she dying?”

He slowly pulled a rag away from a wound.  It bled still, but the flow had slowed to a trickle.  He shook his head.  “It is not so bad as it appears.  I do not think she is in mortal danger.  She likely fainted from the pain.”  He replaced the rag and wrapped a longer piece of cloth around and around her leg, holding the makeshift bandages in place.  “This must be tended quickly, though; bite wounds tend to fester, and the infection can be far more dangerous than the blood loss.”  He scooped my sister up as though she weighed no more than a babe.  “These wounds must be cleaned.  You must take the herd back to the fold and then meet me at the house.”

“You want me to leave her?”

Kali stirred weakly.  Dakheel settled her more carefully in his arms.  “Hakim, you must do this.  You know your family cannot afford to lose those animals.”

He did not wait to debate the issue.  Without another word, he turned and bounded toward the house, too fast for me to follow, despite his burden.

For a moment, I simply stood there, fuming and shaking.  Then I growled a curse and turned to snatch up the abandoned sword and return it, awkwardly, to its sheath.  I gathered the goats as quickly as I could.  Seconds felt like hours as I herded them back into the fold and roused our guard dog.  By the time I arrived, panting and sweating, back at the house, Dakheel had settled Kali on the long counter that bisected the kitchen.  Already, she had a pillow under her head and a blanket covering her.  A kettle on the hearth was just beginning to steam, and Dakheel had laid out a number of basins and ladles.  How he’d found it all so quickly, having never been inside the kitchen before, I’m not sure.

As I entered, he looked up from the bowl in which he was meticulously scrubbing his hands and greeted me with a nod.  “Does your mother keep a healer’s kit?”

I managed a nod, bending over to catch my breath.  “In . . . in her room.”

“Bring it to me.”  His voice was brisk, but not sharp.  He sounded so calm that for a moment I forgot to be afraid.  I trotted off to fetch the box of herbs and bandages from Mother’s bower.  When I returned, it seemed there were a thousand things yet to do—more water to be drawn and set to boil while the first kettle cooled, shutters to be opened and lanterns lit.  At long last, Dakheel told me to wash my own hands.  As I complied, he folded the blanket back and carefully unwound the makeshift bandage.  Still only half conscious, Kali winced slightly.  Her brows furrowed and she moaned softly.  Dakheel laid a cool cloth over her forehead and murmured something too soft to hear.  He looked up at me.  “Stand on her other side.  I need you to hold her leg still while I scrub it.”

Willing my legs not to shake, I stepped to the other side of the table and leaned over my sister to place my hands—one above and one below her knee.  Dakheel moistened a cloth from a basin that had only just stopped steaming.  Gently but without hesitation, he began to scrub away the half-dried blood.  Kali whimpered.  The muscles of her leg began to tense and twitch under my hand, but I held it still.  Dakheel shot me a reassuring smile.  “You’re doing well.  Talk to her, but do not try to rouse her fully.  It will be best if she is not fully aware for this part.”

So, I spoke to Kalima softly, muttering nonsense and humming half-remembered lullabies.  But, my sister, ever the contrary one, was rousing quickly to full alertness.  When Dakheel touched a particularly ugly wound, her eyes fluttered open and she cried out.  Dakheel began to sing softly in that strange, lilting language.  His voice was clear and deep—far superior to mine.  Slowly, the distress faded from Kali’s face.  She blinked half-lidded eyes, caught at the boundary of sleep and wakefulness.

I breathed a little easier.

Dakheel kept up the song as he set the cloth aside and poured ladle after ladle of water over the wounds.  The simple tune filled the small space and seemed to expand beyond it.  Though I understood not a word, the lyrics created images in my mind’s eye—flowing water and flowering trees, dappled moonlight and dancing stars.  I let it envelop me as my heart slowed and my own eyelids began to flutter.  My hands slipped . . . and then I stumbled and had to catch myself against the counter.  Dakheel stopped singing abruptly and watched me with concerned eyes.

“Sorry.”  I flushed red.  “It was just . . . that song.  It was like magic.  Like you were casting a spell.”

He smiled as he set the ladle back in its basin.  “It is part of an Elvish lay.  Such songs can have strange effects on those who’ve not heard them before.”  He opened the pouch that held Mother’s herbs and fell silent.  A dozen different types of leaf, root, and stem were wrapped individually in crinkled paper.  Dakheel opened the little pouches one by one and inspected their contents closely, rolling them between his fingers and lifting them to sniff.  A frown creased his brow.  “These herbs are unfamiliar to me,” he said slowly.

I bit my lip.  “Mother gets them shipped from the cities in the south.  She never told me what they do.”

“They do not grow in my homeland.”

I closed my eyes and thought of the dried leaves that released such a potent scent.  “What about the herbs you brought with you?  Could those help?”

He shook his head.  “I’ve run out of all but athelas, and that is for the gravely ill.  We can only hope that Kalima does not grow weak enough that it would aid her.”

For a moment, we were both silent.  Kalima’s leg did not look nearly so bad, now that the dirt and blood had been rinsed away.  The skin around her knee was reddened, but the gashes were neither as large nor as deep as I had first feared.  “Do you have any honey?” Dakheel asked at last, “It may aid in preventing infection.”

I hesitated for only a half-second.  Honey was a precious commodity, and one of the few indulgences we permitted ourselves.  The jars had to be carried overland in long caravans all the way from Khand.  Father grumbled about the expense, but he liked a small honey cake on his name day, the same as all of us did.  I raced to the pantry and got the jar down, carefully, from an upper shelf.

Accepting the jar with a quick word of thanks, Dakheel twisted the lid off and drizzled a liberal amount of honey directly over the wounds.  Wiping the excess away, he covered the knee with a clean cloth and carefully wrapped a bandage around it.  “We have done all we can, for now.  The wound must be kept very clean, and the dressing changed frequently.”

“Aren’t you going to stitch it?”

He shook his head.  “There is less chance that it will fester if left open.”

Kali was stirring once more.  Dakheel lifted her head and raised a cup of cool water to her lips, gently coaxing her to drink it all.  “Abba?” she whispered, her eyes still closed.  He shushed her and gathered her up in his arms.  Her hand found the ragged collar of his tunic and clutched it tight.  “Dakheel . . .”

Ten minutes later, she was slumbering in her bed.  I only wished peace would come so easily to me.

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That evening was one long trial.  Kali napped for only a few short hours before waking.  Fortunately, she could wiggle her toes and flex her ankle.  Unfortunately, she was cranky and in pain and more than willing to share that pain with the world. 

First she was hot and didn’t want to stay in bed. 

Dakheel insisted.

Then, evening came and she didn’t want to eat even a bite of the food Mother had left. 

Dakheel insisted.

Her bandage came loose from constant fidgeting, and she didn’t want it changed.

Dakheel insisted.

He did a lot of insisting, his expression still calm and implacable long after I had lost all patience.  Beneath the collected façade, though, I could tell that he was frustrated—not at Kali, but at his own inability to do more.  He was able to ease her pain slightly by rubbing her leg above the wound, but she continued to suffer, and he dared not treat her with unfamiliar herbs

At last, my sister fell into a fretful sleep.  I would have stayed up with her, but Dakheel bid me rest as well.  “I will keep watch,” he assured me.

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It seemed I had just barely begun to doze, when I was awakened by a crash and a high-pitched scream.  In an instant, I was sitting bolt upright, struggling to push back the blankets that entangled me.  I scrambled to my feet and cast around my room.  Lawless nomads occasionally passed through these parts and had been known to prey on homesteads.  Where had I put that cursed sword?

Voices were echoing down the hallway—male and female, harsh with anger and fear.  Giving up on finding the sword, I grabbed my belt knife and raced from the room.  In the hallway, I was better able to pinpoint the source of the commotion.  I swallowed hard.  Kali’s room.

I shouldered through her open door, knife held out in a shaking grip.  The small chamber within was lit by a single candle.  A brass lantern lay smoking near the door.  The crash I’d heard had been the lantern falling to the floorboards, its shutters breaking, its flame guttering out.

The intruders were my parents.  Both still wore their dusty traveling robes.  They must have walked through half the night to arrive home so soon.  Mother’s eyes were wide.  Father’s face was red.  In a trembling hand, he held the Gondorian sword, its edge appearing black in the low light.  He’d backed Dakheel up against the wall, the tip of the sword held just inches from the taller man’s throat.  Dakheel’s face was tight with tension, but still far calmer than either of my parents’.  He was lifting his hands in a placating gesture, trying to reason with the other man.  Father scarcely seemed to hear.  His eyes were bulging as he shouted a stream of questions and accusations in a garbled mix of Haradric and Westron.

My knife clattered to the floor, as the pieces came together in my mind, making an awful kind of sense.  I’d left the sword by the entryway.  Full of concern for Kali, I hadn’t even taken the time to clean it, leaving the dog’s blood to congeal and crust.  My parents, arriving home earlier than expected, had been greeted by a silent house and a bloodied sword.

And then they’d found Dakheel, keeping watch in their daughter’s bedchamber in the dead of night.

I raced forward and grabbed Father’s free arm, but let go when he started in surprise.  Dakheel had to jerk his head quickly to the side to avoid being skewered by Father’s reflexive twitch.  “Father, no!  You don’t understand, he didn’t hurt Kali.  It was the dogs . . .”

My father’s only response was to shove me behind him with his free arm, his eyes still fixed on Dakheel as the story poured out of me, scrambled and nonsensical from my haste.  Haradric answers overlapped with Westron questions, Westron explanations with Haradric accusations.  Neither my father nor I was calm enough to keep the languages straight.  Neither of us noticed when Kali opened her bleary eyes, her face screwed up with pain and confusion.  Nor did we take much note when Mother crossed the room quickly to kneel beside her, questioning her daughter in a low, urgent voice.  All of us froze, though, when Mother’s voice, sharp as a whip, cracked through the room.

“Enough!”

We turned as one to look at Mother.  She had her arms around Kali, who seemed near tears.  Mother’s face was grave, but collected as she locked gazes with her husband.

“Let him go.”

Father’s face clouded in confusion.  He opened his mouth, but she cut him off.  “Azzam.  Let the Gondorian go.”

Slowly, as if against his will, Father’s sword arm retracted a few inches.  Even more slowly, Dakheel lifted his hand to push the sword aside, the back of his hand against the flat of the blade as he knocked it out of alignment with his neck.  Dakheel’s sharp eyes darted from face to face before coming to rest on my mother.  She swallowed hard and gave him a slight nod.  “Just go,” she said in thickly accented Westron.

Returning her nod, Dakheel stepped around my father—cautiously, as if to avoid spooking him.  He clasped my shoulder briefly as he brushed past and slipped from the room.  A moment later, we heard the front door creak open and thud shut.

A heavy silence lay over the four of us, punctuated by Kali’s occasional sniffles.  In the wake of Dakheel’s departure, the color drained out of my father’s face, leaving it pale and blotchy.  His arm dropped slowly, until the tip of the bloodied sword was pointed at the floor.

His whole body was trembling.

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It took some time to get my father calmed down enough for me to explain the day’s events in full.  While he paced and stewed, fighting the after-effects of fear-inspired rage, Mother lit a few more candles and lifted Kalima’s bandages to check her wounds.  Once she was sure Father would not fly off on a murderous rampage, Mother sent me for her healer’s kit and then banished both Father and me from the room.  He retreated to his study, alone with his fears.  I went out in search of Dakheel.

The barn was empty and silent as were the surrounding grounds.  At last, I found the foreigner in the fold.  He sat with his back against the brick wall, a young goat held in his lap.  I recognized it as the same kid that Kali had risked her life to save.  Dakheel was gently washing out the wounds on its back with a damp handkerchief and murmuring to it.  The kid seemed entranced.  Both the nanny goat and the watch dog, on the other hand, hovered nearby, their faces pictures of animal suspicion.

Dakheel greeted me with a small smile as I knelt beside him.  For a moment, we both were silent.  I had to force myself to speak.  “I suppose it’s my lot to forever be making my father’s apologies.”

He flashed another smile—quick and reassuring.  “Do not trouble yourself, Hakim.  Your father was frightened.  He was not himself.”

“He could have killed you.”

“You underestimate his heart, I think.  And you overestimate his arm.”

I bit my lip.  As usual, this conversation with Dakheel wasn’t turning out anything like I’d expected.

He met my gaze.  “Believe it or not, that reaction was quite familiar to me.  Even in his own lands, a healer who asks for no payment is often the subject of suspicion.  Especially if he has my look.”  I suspected that the light self-deprecation in his tone masked many a painful experience.

I looked away.  “Still, I am sorry.”  I stared at my knees.  “I should have been more vigilant.  Had I waited up with you, I could have explained things before he ever got into such a state.”

“You had no reason to expect them.  No more than I did.”

“Still, my father . . .” I muttered before running out of words.

Dakheel released the little goat.  It butted its head once against his chest then trotted off to its mother.  The nanny goat nuzzled it all over, as if to reassure herself that her little one was all in one piece.  Dakheel watched, his gaze slightly pointed.  “’Tis natural,” he said, “Your father believed his child was in danger.”

We fell into a companionable silence as we watched the goats mill and doze.  When Dakheel finally spoke again, I started slightly.

“You did well today, Hakim.”  His voice was distant.  “You have the heart of a healer.  Do not be troubled by things you cannot control.”

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When I returned to the house, I edged quietly past my father’s study, but paused before Kalima’s room.  Through a crack in her door, I saw Mother still kneeling at her side and heard the murmur of low voices.  I pushed the door open hesitantly.  “Can I come in?”

Mother glanced back and nodded absently.  “Just take care that you do not rouse her.”

I stepped close and knelt beside Mother at the edge of the low pallet.  Kali lay still.  Her eyes were bleary and half-lidded.  I resisted the urge to cover her thin hand with my own.  An empty cup sat on the floor beside her.  Lifting it and taking a sniff, I discovered that Mother had anesthetized her, at least in part, with a strong dose of Father’s brandy.  It worked, apparently; Kali did not stir, even when Mother poked a needle through her skin and tugged a length of silk thread through the wound.

“Dakheel said that ought to be left open.”

Mother harrumphed softly and continued to stitch the puncture wound.  “He did well to tend her—for a warrior.  I admit, there are not many who know of the benefits of honey.  But, these wounds will scar badly if they’re not stitched.”  She tied off a stitch.  Taking a bottle of fragrant oil from her kit, she added a few drops to a dab of honey and slathered the mixture over the wound.  She left unsaid what we both knew—that it was far more difficult to find suitors for a young woman who was scarred or maimed in any way.

“We owe the Gondorian,”  Her voice was low and unhappy.  “You remember what that means, my son?”

I nodded.  In my youth, my mother had taken care to teach me the commandments of the old gods.  The requirements of gratitude were clear and unambiguous; for saving a helpless member of our family, Dakheel should have become “as dear as family” himself.  Of course, those strictures were based on a lost way of life—a remnant of a time when our people lived together in tightly-knit tribes, and clan membership could be offered as a reward for service.  In these days, we could hardly name a Gondorian an honorary son of Azzam, nor would such a title offer him much benefit.

“Father won’t see it that way,” I said quietly, “He’ll say Dakheel was merely repaying his debt to us for saving him from the desert.”

Mother’s jaw clenched.  “Nevertheless.”

I waited for her to continue, but she said nothing.  “What will become of him?”  I asked at last.

Mother covered her neat stitches with a pad of clean linen.  “I wish I knew.”

Author’s Notes:

Dakheel and Kali’s secret language is, of course, Sindarin.  All terms are taken from Hiswelókё’s online Sindarin dictionary.  I am by no means an expert.

Lith—sand (or dust, or ash)

Tund—hill or mound

Gathrod—cave

Any and all feedback is welcome and appreciated!

Author’s Note:  This chapter is a continuation of the previous one and contains more details about wounds, infections, and general medical stuff.  It is potentially skippable if that sort of thing squicks you.  I would, however, recommend reading the opening scene.

As the afternoon begins to wane, there is movement at last.  A Gondorian man enters the courtyard, carrying scrolls, quills, and a large pot of ink.  He is accompanied by two soldiers who bear a small table between them.  Wordlessly, they set up the table in an open corner of the courtyard and step back to allow the scribe to arrange his papers.  The small man clears his throat importantly, and my people fall silent.

“People of Harad,” he intones, “I have come to collect information from you regarding your kinsmen who took up arms against us and to release what details we possess about those who surrendered to King Elessar.  He will pass judgment shortly on those who laid down arms.  I can offer you no assurances of mercy—only the promise that our king’s judgments are just.  Step forward, now, and learn the fate of your sons.”

A ringing silence follows his pronouncement.  I see many blank looks exchanged; the Gondorim have not bothered to bring a translator.

My father, of course, had always thought his children better than our humble upbringing suggested.  He insisted that his son would be educated, and that included an education in Westron, the language of our foes.  As I step forward to translate, as I have a thousand times before, I wonder for the first time whether that education is blessing or curse.  Once I’ve explained the man’s purpose, my countrymen silently file into a ragged line.  One by one, they step forward and repeat their kinsman’s name and company information.  Again and again, the scribe shuffles through his papers, looking for record of that particular soldier.  Far too many times, I have to direct the hopeful family member to a trench grave along the Pelennor.  Even worse, to my mind, are the times when the scribe has no record of a particular man.  The families of these men may never know their sons’ fates.

Slowly—so slowly—the line dwindles.  At last, the scribe and I are standing alone, while my fellows either return to their anxious vigil or step out into the street, their heads bowed in grief.

I feel the scribe’s eyes on me.  After a moment, he clears his throat impatiently.

I swallow past a lump in my throat.  “Ayman, son of Hakim,” I say quietly, “enlisted under threat of conscription to the third company of the Black Serpent’s battalion.”

The man rifles through his papers one last time.  “Yes,” he says at last, “He surrendered to the Grey Company upon the fields.  The king will hear your supplications in due time.”  He starts to gather his papers, but before he can tuck them all away, I lean over his shoulder and catch a glimpse of my son’s name.  Most likely, the Gondorian will never suspect that I can read his language as well as speak it.

There it is in clear, block letters:  “Name:  Ayman, son of Hakim; Position:  Infantry; Company:  3^rd under the Black Serpent Banner; Status:  Surrendered, awaiting judgment in the second camp; Wounds:  None.”

My heart beats a little stronger.  For a moment, I feel almost lightheaded.  My son is alive.  He is not maimed.  There is hope, yet, if the king will be lenient.

I almost don’t notice the small symbol written in the margin next to Ayman’s name.  It is a simple thing—perhaps a letter from an alphabet I am not familiar with.  I see nothing like it next to any of the other names.

But, before I can puzzle out its meaning, the scribe rolls up his scroll and departs, leaving me alone with my fears once more.

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The morning after Kali’s injury, she was awake, alert, and grumpy from the pain but anxious to get out of bed.  Mother had to hover over her all day, lest she move too fast and rip her stitches.

The day after, when Mother told Kali that she must again spend the day abed, the girl pouted for a few seconds, then rolled over and went back to sleep.

On the third day, Kali did not even try to rise.  Her forehead burned and her eyes, when she opened them, were hazy.  Her leg was far more painful.  She screamed at the slightest touch.  Mother abandoned all her housework to spend the day by her daughter’s side, laying cool cloths on her brow and trying to get her to drink a bit of broth and herbal tea. 

I returned from the fields early to find my mother kneeling at Kalima’s side, holding a steaming cup to her lips.  Kali tried weakly to turn her head away.  She coughed and spat out what little tea made it past her lips, moaning quietly all the while.

Mother’s hands trembled.  When she saw me, she stilled them through force of will.

Quietly, I knelt beside her and touched my sister’s hand.  It felt far too hot.  “The wound has gone bad?”

Mother nodded, her face pale and drawn.  “I could control the fever up ‘til now . . . but she’ll no longer take any herbs.  It is getting worse.”

I lifted the blanket away from her leg and nearly recoiled at the sudden stench.  Pus dripped past the neat rows of stitches.  The skin looked red and tight.

Abruptly, Mother seemed to compose herself.  “Fetch a taper, Hakim, and light three sticks of incense.  We must keep the bugs away from her wound.”  As I hurried to do as she’d asked, she wetted a cloth from a fresh basin of water and sponged it over Kali’s leg, over and over.  As I returned, she was grinding herbs with a steady hand.  I lit the incense quickly, and soon the fragrant smoke filled the room.  Mother handed me the herbs and gestured to the dwindling honey pot.  “Add the geranium to a bit of honey and drip it over the worst of the wounds.”

While I mixed the herbs and slathered more honey over the weeping wounds, Mother added a leaf to the tea she’d fixed and resumed trying to get Kali to drink it.  We were both so absorbed in the work that we scarcely noticed as evening fell and the sky outside darkened.  I watched my sister closely.  Her skin, it seemed to me, was far too dry, no matter how many damp cloths we laid over it.  Her eyes were half-lidded and bleary.  They barely flickered when Mother tried to rouse her.  Her gaze was nearly fixed, her lips cracked and dry.  Such stillness was altogether unnatural on her usually vibrant face.  It frightened me more than anything else had.

“What is wrong?”

I started at Father’s voice; I’d been so absorbed in tending my sister that I hadn’t heard him approach.  His voice was tight.  It betrayed the same fear that was beginning to overwhelm me.

“The wound is beginning to fester.”  Mother’s tone was terse and clipped.

“I don’t understand.  She was doing well.  She was getting better.”

“It happens, at times.”

“But, she will be alright?”  I was not used to hearing father sound so unsure.

“She has had nothing to drink today.  Her fever burns hot, and then she sweats herself cool again.  Illness is drying her out faster than the desert ever could.”

“But, you can heal her?”

“I’m trying, husband!”  Mother clenched her jaw tight against the outburst.  She drew a deep breath to regain her composure.  “Hakim,” she said at last, “Fetch me a basin of clean water and some more linen.”

I hurried to comply, which meant I caught only snatches of the outbursts that followed.  Still, as I returned with my arms laden, Father’s harsh voice crying “What do you mean there’s nothing more you can do?!” echoed down the hallway.  I eased the door open, and he immediately composed himself.  Mother, too, fell silent, and for long moments, the three of us just stared down at Kalima.  No one suggested running for a healer; there was no one with more knowledge than my mother within two days walk.

Except, perhaps . . .

Mother met my gaze as she lifted the basin from my hands.  Whatever she saw there seemed to harden her resolve.

Kali’s eyes drifted shut.  Her breaths came shallow and quick.  Mother bowed her head briefly, whispering a forbidden prayer under her breath.  Then, her head came up and she turned to spit my father with a hard look.  “Azzam.  Get Dakheel.  Bring him here.”

Father hesitated.  His face paled a shade.  “Surely, you don’t mean to trust that—“

“Azzam!  Bring the foreigner.  Now.”

Father wisely chose not to argue.

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Despite my growing fear, I felt my heart lighten as Dakheel entered the sickroom, a step behind Father.  More than ever before, he seemed to carry with him a sense of unflappable calm.  His face was still, his voice low but not at all tentative.

“When did the fever start?”

Mother’s rudimentary Westron was not up to the task of answering his many questions, so I sat between them, translating.  As we talked, Dakheel examined Kali.  Quickly but gently, he touched her brow, felt her pulses, and lifted an eyelid to check her pupil.  She scarcely seemed aware of him, but when he probed lightly around her wounded leg, her back arched and she let out a hoarse cry.  My father and I flinched and something in Mother seemed to break.  Trembling, she sat back on her heels and lifted her scarf to cover her face.  “I never should have stitched the wounds.”  I could not see her eyes, but her voice held tears enough.  “Scars be damned, I never should have stitched them!”

I looked away, and offered no translation.  Dakheel seemed to understand, all the same.  “Tell your mother it was not her fault,” he said softly, “Wounds go bad, at times, even with the most skilled healer’s care.”  But, even as I translated, he selected a small metal hook from the instruments Mother had brought and began to pick out the stitches, one at a time.  As he worked, the bite wounds opened a little, but neither blood nor fluid leaked from them.  I wondered whether that was a good sign or a bad one.

Slowly, Mother seemed to collect herself.  I heard her breath blow out in one slow sigh, and she used the corner of her headscarf to wipe her face.  Lowering the makeshift veil, she swallowed hard and stared at the wounds.  “It festers,” she said in a voice that was only slightly tremulous, “But, I can find no nidus of swelling under the skin—no pocket of infection.”

I struggled a bit with that translation, but Dakheel seemed to understand better than I.  He placed a hand on either side of the wounds and pressed down gently.  Kalima cried out and he nodded, his face grim.  “I believe there is such a pocket, nonetheless,” he said, “Perhaps lying between the planes of muscle.”  He hesitated.  His mouth tightened.  “I have need of a knife,” he said at last.

“You need what?!”  My father’s outburst came before I could translate the request for Mother.  Dakheel remained impassive.

“Infection is collecting deep within her leg, poisoning her blood.  The pocket must be opened so that air can dispel it.”

I reached past Mother, fumbling for the blades, but she stopped me with a hand on my wrist.  Deftly, she selected two small knives—a lancet and a shorter, single-edged blade—and passed them to Dakheel.  He drew a basin of water to him, along with the still-lit taper, and began to pass the smaller blade through the flames.

“What are you doing?”  There was now a definite note of panic in Father’s voice.

“Cleaning the blade.”  Dakheel’s voice was unperturbed.

“No!  You’ll burn her!”

“Malik, your daughter is very ill.  I will do what I can, but I haven’t the time to explain every step.”  Kali stirred slightly.  Dakheel stilled her with a soft word and a hand on her ankle.

“No . . .” The tension in Father’s voice was nearing its peak.  Had I turned, I would have seen him running a finger over the hilt of his belt knife.  “NO!”

My eyes widened at the sudden sound of steel scraping leather, but before I could so much as turn my head, Dakheel twisted.  Dropping the small knife, he caught my father’s dagger on crossed wrists.  “Drop the knife.”  His voice was suddenly sharp, though still almost impossibly calm.  Rather than wait for my father to comply, he sprang up from his half crouch, still trapping Father’s wrist in a grip that twisted.  After a moment, Father had no choice, and the blade fell to the flagstones with a clatter.

Dakheel’s face hadn’t changed.  Apparently, it took more than attempted murder to rattle him.  “Wait outside, Azzam,” he ordered in a tone that brooked no argument.  It was the first time I’d ever heard him use my father’s name.  Once again, he didn’t give Father the chance to even consider disobedience.  Keeping a firm grip on his wrist, he spun the man, marched him out the door, and shoved him down to sit, with little ceremony, on a low stool that sat in the hallway.  Turning from the stunned man, Dakheel returned to us, closed the door, and propped a chair under the knob to wedge it shut.

Mother watched silently as Dakheel kicked the dagger aside and knelt to pick up the small knife once more.  With a wet cloth and steady hands, he wiped the blade clean and passed it through the candle’s flame once more.  After a moment, he withdrew it and dipped it into the basin, where it hissed slightly.  “Hold her leg,” he said, his voice slightly terse for the first time, as he lifted the blade and checked for heat by tapping with a finger.  I moved to obey, but Mother got there first.  Her face set, she gripped her daughter’s leg with one hand above and one below the knee.

Kali’s face screwed up and she made a weak sound in the back of her throat as Dakheel pressed lightly around her wounds, feeling for something.  I held my breath as he lifted the blade to her unmarked skin.  She cried out at the touch of the knife, but Dakheel worked quickly, making a small cut—perhaps an inch long—in the skin just below the largest wound.  The cut bled sluggishly, and Dakheel gestured for me to staunch it with a rag.  As I did so, he picked up the pointed lancet and began to clean it as he had the smaller blade.

From behind us came a sudden pounding on the door and an angry voice crying “Dakheel!”

He did not look away from his instruments.  “Hold the door, Hakim,” he said quietly, “Do not let him in.”

Forcing myself not to tremble, I scrambled to my feet and turned away, but not before I saw Dakheel lift the tip of the lancet to the new wound he had made and adjust the angle slightly.  I swallowed hard and pressed my shoulder against the door.  Not a moment too soon, it turned out; no sooner had I set myself than I glimpsed Dakheel’s hand move in one quick motion.  Kalima screamed, the cry holding more strength than I’d thought she had left.  Mother made a strangled, croaking sound of distress.  The pounding and cries from beyond the door redoubled.

Slowly, Kali’s high pitched wail subsided into a pained whimper.  I risked a glance over my shoulder.  Dakheel had set the lancet aside.  Pus, white and putrid, trickled from the new wound.  Dakheel was probing her leg, trying to squeeze out more and more of the foul substance.  My stomach rolled, but I locked my jaw.  Though Dakheel kept pressing against the surrounding skin, as the trickle of pus slowed, so did Kali’s cries.  I’m not sure whether relieving the pressure eased her pain, or if she had simply screamed herself out.  After what felt like an eternity, Dakheel lifted a wet rag and began to scrub out the wounds once more.

“I shall need salt.”

His voice was quiet, and for a moment I forgot that he needed me to translate.  When I remembered myself, Mother’s face clouded with sudden doubt; brine might be an effective treatment for some wounds, but everyone knew it was also among the most painful.  Dakheel met her gaze and smiled reassuringly.  “Do not fear.  It will not cause her more pain.  I require only a tiny amount.”

Something in his face must have convinced her; before I could even translate his words, she was reaching into her kit and pulling out a small box of salt.  He took it with a word of thanks.

On the other side of the door, Father had fallen silent.  I stepped back cautiously and turned to watch Dakheel.  He was carefully tipping a bit of salt onto his hand.  After a moment, he brushed the fine grains into an empty bowl, picked up a pitcher, and poured water after it, his face intent as if he was carefully measuring.  As I squatted cautiously at his side, he picked up the bowl and swirled it to mix the salt.  When no grains floated at the bottom of the clay bowl, he touched a finger to the surface and raised it to his lips to taste.  Seeming satisfied, he dipped a pad of linen in the mixture, soaking it before wringing it out.

As he’d promised, Kali let out no cry of pain when he pressed the damp bandage against her leg.  Her face stayed relaxed—though tear-streaked and drenched in sweat—even as he wrapped dry linen around her leg, holding the bandage in place.  “This dressing must be changed frequently,” he said, “As it dries, it will draw the sickness from the wound.”  He sat back and felt for something along the inside of her wrist.  Whatever he felt seemed to trouble him.  “She will not drink?”  Once I had translated, Mother shook her head.  Dakheel frowned.  “The leg, I think, will mend,” he said slowly, “But the blood poisoning is far more serious.  She has weakened and has not the strength to fight it.  That can be remedied.  Perhaps.”

He dragged his hand slowly across his face.  Then, he reached for the leather pouch at his belt.  “Water,” he instructed, “As hot as you can get it.”  I drew a few ladles from the large kettle Mother had brought, though it had stopped steaming.  He seemed not altogether pleased, but after a moment he nodded.  “It will suffice.”

Gently, Dakheel placed Kali’s hand in both of Mother’s, and then moved to sit by her head.  Taking the fresh basin of water and a clean cloth, he sponged her face, wiping the sweat and tears away.  For long moments, he just sat there staring down at her, his lips moving silently, as if in prayer.  Mother and I exchanged an uncomfortable look.  Witch-doctors were common among our people, though Mother despised them.  Had we placed all our trust in Dakheel only to be treated to foreign superstitions?

But, then he reached into his pouch and drew out a dried leaf—one identical to the leaf Mother had crumbled into his tea so many weeks ago.  My breath caught as I remembered how quickly that herb had dispelled his Mordor-fever.  But, I also remembered his words from only days ago:  “I’ve run out of all but athelas . . . We can only hope that Kalima does not grow weak enough that it would aid her.”

His lips still moving soundlessly, he lifted the leaf to his mouth in cupped hands and breathed on it.  Slowly and solemnly, he stretched his hand out over the bowl and crumbled the leaf between his fingers.  It fell, in tiny flakes of dark green, to float on the surface of the warm water.

And then I smelled it again:  that incredible freshness, like rain on the thirsty ground.  Somehow, the scent seemed stronger than it had when Dakheel lay delirious.  For one wild moment, it struck me that this must be because he was stronger.  I shook off the foolish thought; even young and untrained as I was then, I knew that herbalism didn’t work like that.

But, there was no denying that the scent was strong.  It filled the room, seeming to dispel even the pungent scent of the incense that still smoked in the corners.  I could see the smoke well enough, as it danced in the candlelight and wrapped around Kali, keeping insects at bay, but even it seemed infused with the wet scent of rain and life.

Dakheel dipped a rag in the fragrant water and laid it over Kali’s forehead.  “Kalima . . .” he called softly, “Kalima . . .”  His face was drawn in concentration.

Her eyes opened.  It happened so suddenly, I nearly missed it.  One moment, I was marveling at how Kali’s breath was evening and deepening, wondering if she would sleep, and the next I glanced at her face and saw bright eyes staring up at Dakheel, much clearer than they had been before.  He murmured something to her and lifted her head to raise a cup of cool water to her lips.  She drank thirstily, and when the cup was empty, I hurried to refill it.  A remarkable sense of peace had descended over the room, making the fear and confusion of the past hour seem like no more than a dark dream.

When the cup was emptied a second time, Dakheel gently lowered Kali’s head to the pillow.  Her face was relaxed.  As she drifted off to sleep, I saw her fingers tighten ever so slightly around Mother’s hand.

My mother and I were left in bafflement and in wonder.

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Kalima began to sweat not much later.  Dakheel stayed with her—waking her occasionally to drink more water—until her fever broke fully.  When she drifted at last into a deep and untroubled sleep, he sat back slowly and rubbed his eyes.  The night had grown late indeed.  Mother still sat by Kali’s side, with her daughter’s hand in hers—still as a statue and just as immovable.  The man stood, his joints creaking as he rose and then creaking some more as he stooped to pick up Father’s discarded dagger.  I hovered near the door, unsure of where to go or what to do.  Dakheel offered me a quick clasp on the shoulder as he stepped past.

In the corridor outside, Father sat slumped against the wall, the stool overturned and apparently forgotten.  He looked up with empty eyes as Dakheel approached and knelt at his side.  For long moments, the two men studied each other in silence.  Then, Dakheel reached out.  With one hand, he clasped my father’s shoulder.  With the other, he pressed the hilt of the dagger back into his hands.

“Her fever has broken,” Dakheel said.  Soft as his voice was, I could not help overhearing—the room was too small and they were too near.  “She will wake in the morning.  She will want to see you then.”

Father stared at the foreigner.  His voice was a whisper—almost a plea.  “She’s my only daughter.”

Dakheel squeezed his shoulder gently.  “She is strong.  I believe she will live.”

And, no more was said between them.

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Dakheel’s prophesies held true; Kalima’s fever did not return.  In the morning, she awoke and would cling to anyone who came near enough.  By the end of the week, she was back on her feet and only a little shaken by the experience.

The same could not be said of my parents.  Nearly losing their daughter to a simple animal attack had apparently awoken the long-dormant disciplinarians in them.  They resolved, at last, to do something to curb her impulsiveness.  So, as soon as Mother and Dakheel agreed that she was strong enough to walk, Father took her outside and made her practice with her sling until she could hit a target no larger than her hand from twenty paces away.  While she practiced, he delivered the first of many lectures on how not to deal with dangerous beasts.

As her strength returned, she took to ranting at me about these lessons.  “’Don’t approach a predator,’ ‘Don’t go into a cave,’ ‘Stay away from the sick goats,’ ‘Stay away from the kids,’ ‘Don’t forget your sling,’ ‘No, don’t provoke a predator.’  They won’t be happy unless I just sit there and knit all day!”

“Yes, they’re clearly overreacting,” I responded dryly, “After all, all you did was charge three wild dogs and practically get yourself killed.”

At that, she stormed off in a huff, searching for more sympathetic ears.  But, even Dakheel, who understood only a few words of Haradric, knew what she meant when she came to him with that whining note in her voice.  He simply gave her a cool look until she despaired of him, too.  In her wake, he caught my eye and smiled.

Outwardly, Dakheel’s position in our household did not seem to change.  As soon as Kalima was out of danger, he returned to his pallet in the barn and slept for nearly a day.  When he woke, he went back to work with Father as though nothing had happened.

Father, though, put the sword away in a storage room and never wore it again.  When he spoke to Dakheel, his voice held true respect, rather than just its imitation.  Ever after, Dakheel addressed my father by name, abandoning the honorific “malik.”

Kalima’s wounds closed, leaving dark scabs that eventually peeled away to reveal lighter scars.  For years thereafter, whenever the wind caught her dress or she scrambled up a tree, our eyes would alight on those scars—a reminder.

Author’s (copious medical) Notes:

Honey has antiseptic properties that make it a good wound dressing.  Rose geranium, a plant native to Africa, has antiseptic and anti-inflammatory properties.  Both, however, are better at preventing an infection than treating one.

Abscesses (“pockets of infection”) are often found under the skin after trauma, but can also occur within or between muscles or even within bones.  Today, deep abscesses are usually located by CT scan and drained with the patient under anesthesia.  Aragorn is relying on luck and his knowledge of anatomy to predict where one was most likely to form.  Don’t try this at home.

Aragorn’s trick with the salt resembles a real life technique called wet-to-dry bandaging wherein a dressing is soaked in saline and placed against an infected wound.  As the water evaporates, the salt draws moisture out of the wound, leaving an environment that’s less favorable for bacterial growth.

Actually, “don’t try this at home” is good advice for any medical content that appears in my stories.

Thanks for reading!  Reviews and concrit make the author very happy.

Author’s Note:  Huge thanks to Cairistiona for her help as beta!

The click of marching feet on cobblestones startles me out of my reverie.  Our escort has come at last, in the form of a dozen Gondorian soldiers.  Though they are far from fluent, these men have clearly been chosen for their grasp of the Haradric language.  They move among us, their faces impassive as they divided us into groups based on region of origin.  It seems the first audience will be granted to the people of Near Harad.

How fortunate for us. 

As much as I’ve waited and prepared for this moment, I feel my heart begin to pound as the time for our audience draws near.  My nerves dance, and my mouth is dry—a strange feeling in this lush and humid land.

I follow the soldiers’ garbled instructions silently, clutching my purse tight, but keeping my hands carefully away from the hilt of my sword.  Under their direction, we trudge through the streets of Minas Tirith in a ragged procession.  Age has not yet dimmed my sight, but I know not whether that is a blessing or a curse.  I keep my face turned low towards the pavement, but I cannot keep my gaze from wandering.  Over the long hours, I have become accustomed to unfriendly faces.  My gaze is drawn instead to the great marvels of the city—the tall columns and sweeping arches of intricately worked stone, the bright mail and gleaming helms of the soldiers, the occasional gardens and flower beds with their riots of red, blue, and more green than seems possible.

Such are the wonders of the world beyond Harad—wonders a foolish young boy would have killed to see.

Wonders that thousands of our youth have killed to see.

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“Come, good masters, have a look.  As you can see, the fleece is particularly strong this year.”

The buck in my arms bleated his displeasure with the proceedings, nearly drowning out my father’s voice.  I gripped the goat’s horns more firmly, holding him still so that the fleece merchants could run their appraising fingers through his coat.  Privately, though, I shared the buck’s discomfort.  This final inspection, when our buyers evaluated the animals one last time and set their prices, was always a tense time.  In a harsh year like this, when we could expect few profits and many expenses, it was even more critical.  I hated the obsequious tone of voice my father adopted when addressing these merchants.  Still, I understood that our very survival might depend on his ability to convince them of the quality of our dubious wares.

Today, they did not seem convinced.  “Strong?  A bit coarse, maybe.”  The elder of the two withdrew his hand and wiped it, not at all discretely, on the side of his rich robes.  His name, I thought, was Ghassan.

“And sparse,” his fellow agreed.  That was Nadir, or maybe Namir.  No matter if I couldn’t remember their names; Father had made it clear I was not to speak to these men directly.  Nadir-or-Namir lacked his companion’s pointed goatee, but was dressed much the same in flowing robes and turban dyed in rich colors.  “’Tis understandable, given this year’s weather . . . but unfortunate.”

And the sad reality was that they were right.  In good years, the thick fleece shaved from our goats could be spun into a fine thread, softer and stronger than wool and much prized by upscale fabric merchants.  In a year such as this, though, when it was all we could do to keep the animals from starving to death, the fleece was rough and weak—suited only for rough-spun garments like the ones Father and I wore.

My father’s mouth tightened almost imperceptibly.  “It’s true, this drought has been harsh on many a herd.  Fortunately for your contractors, this herd is of superior breeding and especially resistant to privation.  You can let that one go, Hakim, so long as the good masters have finished their inspection?”

They nodded, so I released the buck with a sigh of relief.  He butted my hip in retaliation before racing back to the flock.  As my father and the merchants began to circle the fold, I drifted after them, half-listening as Father continued to try to sell the merits of our animals to men who seemed less impressed by the moment.

“We’ll be ready to shear a week after the last doe kids.  We’ve three still holding out on us.  Kidding has been very successful this season—we’ve scarcely lost any of the young despite the difficult conditions.  We will be in an excellent position for next year’s contracts.”

“Be that as it may,” Ghassan said mildly, “The kids will not benefit you for this year’s returns.”

Whatever answer my father might have given died on his lips as we rounded a corner.  One of the does lay on her side, trembling.  She’d obviously just kidded.  Dakheel and Kalima knelt by her side, the man holding a wet, slimy newborn kid while the girl wiped its nostrils clean with a rag.  Dakheel’s hands were filthy up to the wrists; he’d obviously had to pull the kid himself.

For a moment, no one spoke except the doe, who bleated as she struggled to her feet.  Father had been very clear that I should not so much as mention Dakheel’s existence to the merchants; they were well known for trying to take control of every “asset” a farmer had.  A healthy Gondorian captive was a windfall for them.

“Dakheel,” my father said at last, “I thought I ordered you to stay in your quarters?”  I glanced at him in surprise.  The Westron words were harsh, holding none of the deference he showed to Dakheel since Kali’s recovery.  It was as if . . . as if he was a slave already.

Handing the kid to Kalima, Dakheel stood slowly and wiped his hands on a rag.  I could see him drawing in on himself, even as his sharp eyes took in our companions.  “Malik,” he said, bowing low.  I fought to keep surprise off my face.  This subservient gesture was far from his usual attitude of polite respect.  He’s playing along, I realized.  “I beg your understanding.  I was summoned by the young mistress.”  He indicated Kali, who tugged self-consciously at her headscarf.  “She realized the doe was in distress and asked for my aid.  It was nearly a breech delivery, but the kid seems strong enough.”  Confirming his words, the newborn let out a loud squawk and its mother stepped close to nuzzle it.

Father’s face was expressionless.  “Very well, Dakheel.  Leave us.”

With another bow, the foreigner stepped away and headed back towards the barn.  Watching his departing back, I realized he was walking strangely—almost dragging one leg behind him.  Had he been injured?  Or was this another layer of the servile act he was putting on for the merchants?

“So,” Nadir mused, “You’ve taken on a servant, I see.”

Father forced a laugh.  “Not much of one.  Just a wounded Tark who doesn’t know a plow from a pillow, but he has his uses.  Hakim, don’t you have chores to attend to?”  I nodded, grateful for the dismissal.  Muttering a few mindless pleasantries for the merchants, I turned and trotted towards the barn.

Once I cleared the ridge, it took me only a moment to spot Dakheel once more.  He had abandoned his affected limp and was now bounding towards the barnyard where the merchants’ camels stood tethered.  When he glanced over his shoulder and saw me, he paused.  He shot me a warning look and lifted a single finger to his lips.  Quiet.  I froze, my face clouding in confusion.

Reaching the camels, he stepped close and began rummaging through their saddlebags, quickly and efficiently.  My eyes widened.  I looked behind me.  Father and the merchants were still milling through the herd, talking business.  The ridge currently hid the barnyard from sight, but if they returned and found the foreigner tampering with the merchants’ belongings, Dakheel would be lucky to escape with his skin intact.  I tried to catch his eye and shake my head, but he merely moved more quickly, flipping through ledgers, checking the contents of pouches, running his fingers along the seams of the saddles feeling for gods knew what.

I glanced around me and spotted a loose fencepost near the top of the ridge.  Crossing to it, I knelt and made a great show of fiddling with the wires, trying to tighten it.  All the while, though, I kept one eye on the men wandering through the fold and one on the man working furtively in the barnyard.  When Dakheel finished with the first camel, he carefully tucked all the merchant’s belongings back into the saddle bags and turned his attention to the next beast.

Behind me, Father and the merchants were returning.  I tried to catch Dakheel’s eye to warn him, but he was intent on his task.  Now, they were near enough that I could make out what they were saying.

“ . . . terribly sorry, good master, but we simply cannot offer more for wares in that condition.  In a better year, perhaps, but the market simply isn’t there for fleece.”

“With the price you’ve named, I’ll scarce be able to cover my own expenses.  How am I to feed my animals?  How am I to produce any fleece next year?”

“Could you not levy a loan against the worth of your land?”

“Done.  Last year and the year before that when my buyers swore the market would be back by this year.  I’ve nothing left to mortgage.”

“No need to be so hostile with us, friend.  The vagaries of the fleece market are hardly our doing.”

“I wonder though, good Master Azzam, if there is some other way you might like to recoup capital?”

“What are you asking, Master Nadir?”

“Well, my sister’s husband runs a thriving trade in labor for the Dark Lord’s lands.  He can get you a very fair price for a Tark with a few years left in him—even a cripple like your fellow.”  Nadir’s voice was calculated to sound casual.

My father paused for long moments.  Through gritted teeth, he replied, “I will consider your generous offer, but we’d sooner not part with him just yet.  The Tark’s been a great help around the farm.”

The trio was drawing near.  I tried one more time to catch Dakheel’s eye, but failed.  Ghassan cleared his throat.  “Well, if you won’t part with the Tark, perhaps you could lend us your son for a time?  Oh, do not glare at me so, good master.  I merely meant that my uncle works to recruit likely young men for the Lord’s Grand Army.  Your Hakim could serve his homeland, win great honor, and earn a steady purse.”

Dakheel was only halfway through the last saddlebag, and the merchants had nearly reached me.  Father was scowling.  “We are honored by your interest, but Hakim is too young for the army.  He is—“

“I’m seventeen.”

I couldn’t remember deciding to speak, but the words burst out of me as the men drew close.  Hesitantly, I stood and ducked my head.  “I’m sorry, Father, for speaking out of turn.  But, I would like to hear about service in the Grand Army.”

Father would have my head, but my gambit seemed to be working.  All three men stopped, and the traders eyed me speculatively.  Then, Ghassan grinned broadly and stepped forward to clasp my arm.  “Of course, young man, of course.  Seventeen is a perfectly respectable age to enter the Lord’s service.”

I tried to edge around him without the man noticing, drawing him so that his back was to the ridge and the barnyard beyond.  “I could earn a salary by enlisting?”

“Indeed, my friend.  A small one, to start with.  Perhaps one gold bar a month.”

Despite his anger with me, Father was taken aback.  That sort of salary was not “small” by our reckoning.

“Of course, that’s only for new recruits,” Nadir injected smoothly, “And a bright young lad like yourself could quickly become a raid leader or even an officer.”

“That’s so,” Ghassan agreed, his eyes taking on an eager cast, “But, the true benefit comes in spoils.  I tell you true, young friend, march on one sustained campaign through Gondor or Rohan, and your portion of the profits will be enough to turn this farm around.  Gold, gems, animals, servants . . . you’ve not enough labor to maintain these lands?  You could bring home ten Tarks the equal of your Dakheel to tend your crops and herds.”

Somehow, I very much doubted that, but I held my tongue.

“And of course, wealth is only a portion of the rewards,” Nadir added.  “We’ve long sent little more than raiding parties to harass our enemies’ borders, but those days will not last forever.  And when the Dark Lord marshals his armies, he will honor those who’ve volunteered their service far above those he must conscript.”

I swallowed hard.  Father’s glare was drilling holes into me from behind the merchants’ backs.  “I’ll have to think about it and discuss it with my parents,” I mumbled.

The men looked a bit irritated at my sudden loss of enthusiasm, but they covered it well.  Ghassan clapped my shoulder genially.  “Yes, you do that, young man.  They’ll see.  There is no greater glory to be had, after all.  But, now we must away.  You think well on our offers, Master Hakim, Master Azzam.”  And with identical oily smiles, Ghassan and Nadir strode over the ridge and back towards the barn.  I braced myself, but there was no sudden cry of outrage.  I followed, trying to affect nonchalance. 

The barnyard was empty save for two camels lipping listlessly at the water trough.

I breathed a sigh, but my relief was short-lived.  As the men walked away, I heard Ghassan speak in a stage whisper—his words meant to carry while masquerading as private conversation.  “Perhaps we should send word to my good friend the inspector,” he told Nadir, “Someone ought to investigate that Tark’s origins.”

“Indeed, my friend,” Nadir responded in kind, “Though it would be such a shame if the upstanding Master Azzam were found to be supporting the black market slave trade.”

“It would, but our great Lord regulates such matters for a reason.  Think of the welfare of the Tarks involved.”

“Not to mention the taxes Master Azzam owes to Mordor if he bought that one illegally.”

“Yes, if he means to keep this Dakheel, I fear we must investigate further.  ‘Tis our civic duty, after all.”

Father and I exchanged a stricken look.

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I fidgeted through dinner.  My parents did not seem to notice.  In the hours since the merchants had left, Mother and Father had locked themselves in the kitchen, discussing and debating in low, urgent voices.  Now, they ate in silence without meeting one another’s gaze, their faces tight with identical expressions of worry.  Kali tried to fill the unnatural stillness with more than her usual amount of prattle, but saw limited success.  Even she seemed on edge.  Her tone was tense and almost desperate even as she chattered away about how our dog had learned a new trick and how she wanted to name the newborn kid “Sunflower.”

After what felt like an age, our plates were clean and I was given leave to depart.  I snatched up Dakheel’s plate and all but raced to the barn.  Bursting into his quarters, I found the foreigner apparently at ease.  He sat atop a barrel, needle in hand, mending a tear in his much-abused tunic.

I thrust the plate at him.  “What was that about?”

He arched an eyebrow as he set the mending aside.  “A good evening to you as well, Hakim.”

I flushed, but set my jaw.  “I’m serious.  What were you doing with the merchants’ camels?”  I lowered my voice, though there was no one there to overhear, “Did you steal from them?”

I thought I saw indignation flash through his eyes at the accusation, but he covered it quickly.  “I did not.”  His voice was mild, as if the question had been utterly trivial.  He ripped a piece of bread in half and offered me part of it.

I nibbled at the bread, not at all hungry for once.  “Truly?  Because if they find out they’ve been robbed, it will go badly for all of us.  They’d cancel Father’s contracts for certain, and if they find out it was you . . .”

“Peace, my friend.  I took nothing from them and left nothing behind.  They should never be the wiser.”

“Then, why?  Surely you realize what a risk that was to take?”

“I do.  And I thank you for not alerting them to my actions.”  I bit my lip, but kept silent.  No need to tell him about the strained conversation I’d had with the men as they nearly caught him in the act.  “I needed only to search their bags,” Dakheel continued, “To know . . . whether they were what they appeared.”

I frowned.  “What do you mean?  They’re fleece traders.  We’ve sold to men like them for years.”  Dakheel hesitated.  “I helped you,” I pointed out, “The least you can do is tell me what’s going on.”

He sighed.  “Very well, Hakim, though I fear you’ll not like what I have to say.”  He spooned up a bite of stew, but his face was distant.  “The . . . my Enemy makes use of many spies.  Some he sends even among those who profess loyalty to him, for his paranoia runs deep.  His servants can be identified, at times, by the tools they carry.  Lock picks and ciphers, parchment, ink and sealing wax for their reports, hidden compartments where they stow their orders.  When I met Ghassan and Nadir, their . . . interest in me seemed out of place.  I had to know whether they were merely traders or something more sinister.”

I swallowed.  I was not entirely sure that I believed what he said about spies—why should a great Lord like Sauron care about the loyalty of a few humble goat herders?—but it was clear that Dakheel believed it.  “But, if they were, why would spies be interested in you?”

Dakheel paused.  He searched my face for long moments.  At last, he said quietly “Because such Men are trained to recognize those in whom the blood of Númenor runs true.”

My eyes widened.  I dropped a crust of bread and had to stoop to scoop it up before the mice could get to it.  I’d heard of the lost island of Númenor—both from Dakheel’s tales of Elendil and from the legends my own people told of the ancient Lords of Umbar.  They had been a proud and fearsome race, the legends said, but had diminished over the centuries as the Númenoreans of Umbar warred with those of Gondor.  The Lords of Umbar were all but extinct, and the Corsairs who now called themselves nobility bore little resemblance to them.  Their enemies had fared little better, and though some now whispered that the Men of Gondor had some Númenorean blood, the Gondorians seemed common enough to our eyes.

“That was a race of lords,” I said quietly.

Dakheel put his plate aside and shrugged back into his mended tunic.  He smiled dryly.  “And do I seem lordly to you?”

But, I thought of that strange light I had seen at times in his eyes.  I did not respond.  After a moment, he sighed.  “’Race of lords’ is a lovely concept for a tale,” he said at last, “But in practice it is somewhat less glorious.  There have always been ordinary men, even among the Númenoreans.  I bear some resemblance to a race of Men that Sauron once feared and I walk far from my own lands.  For him, that is reason enough for suspicion.  And his suspicion leads quickly to wrath.”  He fell silent for a moment.  I felt rather foolish.  Romantic tales of lost lords made fine stories for children, but I was far too old to be taken in by them.

“No matter,” Dakheel said at last.  “I have no wish to draw Sauron’s eye upon myself, but I found nothing to indicate those men serve the Dark Lord.  So long as they saw only a crippled Tark, they may inquire no further.”

“But if they knew you were Númenorean, they’d take you to the Dark Lord.”

“Yes.”

“Because they’d have suspicions.”

“Unfounded suspicions.”  His voice was mild.

“And you’re not going to tell me what those suspicions are.”

He sighed.  “Hakim, I’ve told you before that I did not come to Harad on a mission of espionage.  If I told you my true purpose, it would only endanger you.  I’ve said too much already.”  His voice held the ring of finality that meant he would say no more.

Silence stretched between us for a moment.  I looked at my feet.  “I don’t think they suspected . . . anything,” I said at last, “They had other reasons to be curious about you.”

Dakheel smiled grimly.  “Yes,” he said in an off-hand sort of way, “I suppose they merely wished to buy me.”

My head spun a little at the strangeness of the conversation.  Just a moment ago, we’d been discussing his connection to ancient royalty.  Now, it seemed, the talk had shifted to the possibility of his pending enslavement.  “It won’t come to that.”  I tried to sound confident.

“These men hold your father’s contracts.  They have power over him?”

“Not that much,” I insisted stubbornly.

“We’ll see,” he said stonily, “You should get back to the house, Hakim.  It is growing late.”

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I returned to the house to find only Kalima, working on her spinning in uncharacteristic silence.  When she saw me, she jerked her head towards the closed door of Father’s study.  “They’re fighting again.”

Sure enough, muffled voices were emanating from behind the door.  I crept close until I could make out what they said.

“What would you have me do?”  That was my father’s voice, clipped and strained.

“I would have you remember your duty.”

“If we don’t hand him over, Ghassan will send his crony the Inspector to accuse us of violating the Dark Lord’s laws.  Then Dakheel won’t be the only one leaving in chains.”

“We’ve done nothing wrong.”

“It’s not about right and wrong, it’s about the wealth Ghassan stands to gain.  He has us at his mercy; we’ll never be able to make our contracts.  I might have been able to plead poverty . . . but he saw Dakheel.  He’s dead set on making a profit, and now he knows how he can.”

“He thought he saw a slave.  He was mistaken.”

“So, what, I should just explain that to him?  Explain to Ghassan, cousin of the vizier, that he’s actually a friendly Tark?  No, no, I’m sure he has a perfectly good reason for wandering the Haradwaith.  And we cannot ask what that reason is, apparently, because my wife wants to adopt him!”

“Do not mock me, Azzam!  I’m not the one turning my back on millennia of custom.  If you do what he asks . . .”

“I will be cursed in the sight of all your archaic gods, I know.  The same gods who stood by while the Great Eye wrapped us all in bondage.  They will surely strike me down with all their wrath if I harm one hair on the Gondorian’s head.”

I was taken aback by the bitterness underlying the sarcasm in Father’s voice.  Perhaps Mother was as well; she fell silent.

After a moment, Father spoke more quietly, his voice almost pained.  “There was a time when you bid me do the wise thing, Asima.  It wasn’t I who first wished to lay aside tradition and mercy where Dakheel was concerned.”

“That was before.”  She matched Father’s soft tone.  “He saved Kalima’s life, Azzam.”

Then came a long pause followed by a sigh.  “Yes.  Yes he did.  But, what did he save it for?  So that Kalima can be thrown out into the streets?  So that she can see her brother go off to war and die?  Is that what he saved it for?”

Mother did not respond.

A/N:  Thanks for reading!  Reviews and concrit are very much appreciated.

A/N:  Big thanks to Cairistiona, whose work as beta made this possible.

The throne room is designed to impress, to dazzle, to make supplicants feel their own insignificance.  Like the courtyard outside, it is composed almost entirely of marble—both white and black, all smoothed and polished to a mirror-like finish.  Carvings of ancient Gondorian kings glare out from alcoves along the walls.  The ceiling arches impossibly high above me.

I keep my eyes on the floor.

My belt is lighter, now; my sword, like all the humble knives of my companions, was left in the entryway under the watchful eyes of armored soldiers.  I clutch my purse a little tighter as my compatriots and I kneel, our faces bowed in submission as we would in the presence of one of our own nobles.  My knees begin to ache almost immediately, but I neither shift nor rise.  From my furtive glances about the chamber, I’ve seen no one who looked to be a king—only guards, servants, and a handful of simply-dressed advisors.  Still, it never hurts to be careful.  I will not put Ayman at risk over something so petty as failing to show the proper respect.

As a handful of Gondorians filter in from a side chamber, I snatch covert glimpses, trying to judge where power lies in this kingdom and in this chamber.  These newcomers are clearly no strangers to power.  Gondorian clothing is strange to my eyes, but I can easily see that their garb is much finer and more costly than any I have seen yet; the dyes are richer, the cuts fuller, the piping and embroidery far more elaborate.  None of these men wear a crown, but I study them nonetheless, wondering if this fabled king might be among them.  Few seem capable of inspiring the sort of tales I’ve heard.  Most are well into their later years, with gray beards and a scholarly look, masked in part by haughty expressions.  They watch us with faces that suggest pity or indifference or outright loathing. 

I wonder for a moment if I was a fool to have come here.

I shake off the dark thought.  These courtiers can hate us as much as they wish; it is the king who holds the power to release prisoners or to execute them.  It is the king I must sway.  My gaze alights for a moment on a tall man in a blue surcoat, who regards us with suspicion as he converses with a younger man.  This one, at least, has the look of a warrior—a stern face set in what the Umbari might call “noble lines.”  But, then he bows his head slightly in deference to his companion and I shift my gaze to the younger man instead.  This one, too, might have seen combat recently, if the military set to his shoulders is any indication.  He clutches a sort of scepter that might be a mark of office.  His eyes are a clear gray, and softer than those of his fellows.  But after a moment, I dismiss him as well.  This kind-eyed man seems a touch too timid and a touch too wan to be the living legend who commanded the dead and rode against the Black Gate itself.

The lords, for these are clearly nobles of some sort, gather in a small knot near the front of the chamber.  There are perhaps a dozen of them, but no one steps forward to take control of the proceedings.  These, then, must be more advisors—men with some influence, but not the king.

I could have saved myself the trouble of my fruitless guessing game.  Before the pain in my kneecaps can become intolerable, a herald appears at the door, announcing the arrival of “The King of Gondor, Aragorn, son of Arathorn; Elessar Evinyatar, the Elfstone and the Renewer; first of the house of Telcontar; heir of Isildur, heir of Elendil, long may he reign!”

This king of theirs seems to have a lot of names.

I dare not lift my head now, so my first impression of the king is a pair of leather boots.  I keep my face bowed to the floor while the great doors at the back of the hall swing open.  As the king walks past us, though, I follow him with my eyes, so at first all I see are the boots.  Black leather.  Clean and oiled, but a bit worn around the ankles, in stark contrast to the spotless sable cloak that swishes around his heels.  As he walks past me, I note the length of his stride and glimpse a remarkably long sword belted at his waist.

He steps onto a dais that places him a step above the knot of advisors, but does not ascend the steps all the way to the oversized throne.  As he turns to face the hall, I risk a glance, catching only a brief glimpse of fine clothes and jewels, of dark hair under a strange, steel crown.  But, what I see makes my breath catch in my throat, and I quickly fix my gaze once again on the flagstones.

For, the king bears not one sword, but two.  The long sword at his belt must be the legendary blade his subjects whisper about, but he carries another in his hands, turning it over and over as he regards us.  A long, Gondorian sword in a simple leather scabbard, somewhat aged and somewhat dried from years in the desert.

My sword.

Silently, I curse my foolishness.  It had seemed only prudent—bearing the weapon to the city as a precaution against bandits and a warning for pickpockets.  I hadn’t spared a thought for how it would appear to the Gondorians—a stranger from an enemy land bearing one of their own weapons.  What conclusions should they draw?  I could only have gotten such a blade from a warrior of Gondor.  They must think I had slain one of their own, or captured him and taken his blade.  The bright steel marks me, unmistakably, as a man who has profited from their misfortune.

And isn’t that close to the truth?

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“Is it ready?”

“Azzam, I think you know how I feel about this . . .”

“I do, Asima.  Is it ready?”

“I . . . yes . . . yes, it is ready.”

“It must be tonight, then.  We can wait no longer.”

“You know the markets won’t open for another week at least.  Until then . . .”

“Until then, Dakheel remains our responsibility, I know.  I will speak to him . . . after.  Perhaps he will understand, though that will make this no easier to bear.”

“We will be judged for this.”

“If it helps, you can tell your gods that it was my decision, as the head of this family.  They will have mercy on you, I’m sure.”

“They will do no such thing!  I am your wife, not your chattel.  If you had not convinced me, you would find me impossible to compel.”

“So you understand.”

“I hate it.  I’ll regret it for as long as I live—as will you.  But I understand.”

“Thank you, Asima.”

“Don’t . . . Azzam, I vowed a life by your side.  Your sins are my sins.  But do not thank me for them; I cannot bear it.”

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“There is something I do not understand.”  Dakheel sat on the floor beside me, his long legs stretched out in front of him.  I had just finished a story about the great mûmakil-rider Mukhtar, who had won great honor for his southern tribe in battle against the strange people who dwelt in the far east.  Dakheel idly took a bite of stew and passed me the bowl.  “You speak of each region of Harad as if it were its own entity—with one ruler here for your people, another in the far south, and yet more along the coastline.”

I nodded as I stirred the still-warm stew.  “Each province has its own nobles.  They’re like . . . governors, I guess you’d call them.  Not as high as kings, but more powerful than the tribal chieftains they replaced.”

“And yet, you also speak of a unified army.  I have seen this force myself.  It is a cohesive unit with impressive discipline.  Each company holds men diverse in appearance and dress, as though coming from many different tribes, yet we’ve seen no signs of infighting nor rivalry.  And the men of Gondor tell me it has been so for centuries.  How did such a force come to be?”

I scooped up a bit of stew.  It must have been from the bottom of the pot; it had a slight metallic tang.  “We were not always scattered.”  I lowered my voice.  “We had a high king, once—a dynasty founded some eight centuries ago.  We are forbidden even to speak their names, now, but they unified the sixteen tribes of the Harad and appointed the governors to serve them.  The Grand Army was founded under their reign.”

“What became of them?  Did they die out like the kings of Gondor?”

I lowered my voice still further.  “Yes . . . and no.  The last king ruled until about forty years ago.  When the Dark Lord returned to his throne in Mordor, he sent emissaries to our capitol in the distant south, demanding that we honor treaties made with our ancestors millennia ago.”  I passed Dakheel the stew and he took a small bite.  “The king would have given our allegiance.  It’s said that all the court prostrated themselves before the Dark Lord’s servants.  But, they had not come for his submission.  The Dark Lord decreed that if Harad wanted his aid and protection, the viziers must burn their own king alive.  He said that he would be ruler enough for Harad—that he was god and emperor both.”

I glanced around the empty cell, as if checking for eavesdroppers.  This tale was forbidden, which only meant that people got a great thrill out of repeating it.  I was no exception.  “They say the last king went willingly to the pyre—that no one forced him or bound him.  The faithful say this is because he recognized the might and right of Sauron and submitted to him as to his god.  But,” I paused for dramatic effect, “Even as he was burning, his wife and his children escaped into the jungles of the deep south.  That is how we know that the king resisted him to the last.  The spectacle of his death drew the eyes of Sauron’s minions, giving the queen and her children time to escape.”

Dakheel looked thoughtful.  I told myself that I was not disappointed that the last king’s grisly fate had not evoked shudders and exclamations in this hardened Northerner.  “What became of them?” he asked at last, “His family?”

“No one knows.  Sauron’s servants swear they were slaughtered as they fled, but witnesses are few, and no bodies were ever produced.  For a while, orcs from Mordor combed the jungles of Far Harad . . . but the queen was born in that region, and there are cities hidden there that even the Great Eye has never seen.”

“But, his people he left to Sauron’s mercies,” Dakheel murmured this, as if to himself, “Though perhaps those are kinder than Sauron’s wrath.”

I leaned back against the wall, nibbling half-heartedly on a crust of bread.  Dakheel seemed to pull himself out of his heavy thoughts when he saw my eyes drifting.

“You should return to the house, Hakim.  You look spent.”

I shrugged one shoulder slowly, still staring into space.  “The rains will come soon.”

“Indeed?  I have seen the clouds lengthening and wondered.”

“It won’t be long.  A couple of days, maybe.  At most.”  My eyelids fluttered.  It had been a long day.

“Well, worrying about them now will do no good.  Off to bed, Hakim.”

I nodded absently and clambered to my feet.

The world spun.  I must have been far more weary than I’d thought.  I shook my head to clear it.  I took a step towards the door, but stumbled and had to grab the wall for support.

“Hakim?”  Dakheel’s voice was laced with concern.  He stood slowly.  And swayed.

“Something is wrong.”  My tongue felt heavy and clumsy.

“Hakim, are you alright?”  Dakheel’s words slurred just a little. 

The world swam.  I squeezed my eyes shut and lifted a hand to rub my temples, but instead of alleviating the strange dizziness, it seemed to bring on a new wave, fiercer than the first.  I stumbled again, and this time could not stop myself from dropping to my knees.

“Ha . . . Hakim?”  Dakheel took a step towards me, swayed, and fell ungracefully to his rump.  I had never seen him so much as trip before.  My head now throbbed, steady beats in time with my own heartbeat.  My limbs felt like they were full of lead.  Even holding my head up was a trial, and I slowly sank further and further down.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Dakheel snatch up the nearly empty bowl of stew.  With trembling hands, he lifted it and sniffed.  His eyes widened in shock.  Somehow, I couldn’t bring myself to care, beyond wondering idly what had upset him so.

“No . . .”  He somehow dragged himself to his feet and took a stumbling step towards me.  Darkness was nibbling away at the corners of my vision as I sank to the floor.

Dakheel took another step in my direction, as horror flitted across his face, warring with the glazed cast that was falling over his eyes.  My own eyes felt so heavy . . .  I saw Dakheel stumble, saw him right himself, saw the determination in his eyes even as it was chased away by that unfocused fog.

As the darkness encroached, I saw him manage one more step.  But even as I sank into unconsciousness, I knew he’d never reach me.

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I floated in a formless void, not quite asleep, but . . . disconnected.  A small, distant part of me knew that I had to wake up—it was very important that I wake up—but it seemed like so much work . . .

“Hakim.”  A stern voice drew me back to myself.  My eyelids fluttered, but they seemed to weigh about a thousand pounds apiece.

“Hakim.”  There was a definite note of warning in that voice.  If I didn’t get up, there would be hell to pay.  Reluctantly, I pried my eyelids open.

The room beyond was an abstract swirl of color.  I blinked slowly until the haze solidified and I could make out a face staring down at me.

I immediately regretted opening my eyes.  My mother’s brow was furrowed.  Her lips were set in a thin, white line.  “How long,” she asked, in a quiet, dangerous voice, “Have you been stealing from the foreigner’s food?”

I screwed my face up and leaned back, my eyes closed once more.  A pillow under my head.  I was in my own bed.  That was interesting.  “Didn’t steal,” I mumbled, “He gave some to me.”

“And you just took it.  With no thought for our responsibility to him.”

I resisted the urge to clap my hands over my ears like a toddler woken from a nap.  “He wanted me to.”  I cracked one eyelid.  The room was spinning in lazy circles.  That couldn’t be normal.  “He said he could tell we didn’t have enough.”  The words rolled out easily, though a niggling voice in the back of my mind warned that I said too much.  “Me and Kali.  ‘Cause of the drought.  He’d give her bread sometimes.  Didn’t want you to know ‘cause you’d be ashamed, but that’s silly, right?”

I opened my eyes fully and stared fixedly at Mother’s eyebrows until they stopped gyrating across my field of view.  Something was wrong, but I couldn’t put my finger on what.  Surely it wasn’t normal to wake up like this at . . . what time was it, anyway?

Mother’s eyes flashed.  She opened her mouth to speak . . . and then shut it suddenly.  She looked away and her face seemed to collapse in on itself.  Her eyes took on a haunted cast.  “Yes, that sounds like something he would do,” she murmured, half to herself.  She looked back at me, and her gaze reacquired a trace of its former hardness.  “You won’t do it again.”

I struggled to sit up.  Something was definitely wrong.  I managed to prop myself up on one elbow and used the other hand to rub at my eyes.  “The food . . .”  I froze.  My stomach clenched as understanding washed over me at last.  I stared at Mother.  “You tried to poison him.”

She opened her mouth, but then closed it once more.  Jaw clenched, she did not meet my gaze.

That cleared the last of the cobwebs from my mind.  Though my limbs were still slow to obey, I sat up fully and pushed back the thin sheet that covered me.  With an urgency born of fear, I rose on unsteady feet.  Mother stood and reached out to steady me, but I pulled away and all but ran from the room, down the hall, and out the front door.

True night had fallen.  Diffuse moonlight shone through a thickening haze of clouds.  The earth was still warm under my bare feet as I stumbled toward the barn, willing certainty into my step as the cool air dispelled the last of my drug-induced clumsiness.  My limbs trembled.  A sudden fit of shudders wracked me, but I forced myself not to falter.  I reached the barn just as my father emerged with a lamp in his hand and a dark expression on his face.

“What did you do?”  My voice was sharp—disrespectful, even—but I found I didn’t care.  “Father, what did you do to him?”

It was a mark of how grim his mood was that he did not chide me for my insolence.  He would not even look at me.  “I did what had to be done,” he said shortly.  Not waiting for a response, he strode back toward the house.

I hesitated for only an instant before wrenching the barn door open and rushing through.  The deadbolt was slow to yield to my clumsy fingers, but at last it too gave way and I pushed past into Dakheel’s quarters.

In the dim light, I could just make out the shadowy form of my friend.  Dakheel sat on his pallet, his arms wrapped around his knees, his torn cloak gathered loosely around his shoulders.  For a moment, everything seemed so normal that I could almost pretend my strange awakening had been a fever dream.  Then, his shoulders shook with a sudden tremor.  He stretched out his legs, and I heard an ominous clanking.

Finally, my eyes adjusted enough to distinguish the dull gleam of metal around Dakheel’s ankle.  I swallowed hard.  A manacle.  One of the trappings of slaveholders that my family hadn’t used since my grandfather’s time.  I don’t know how long my father labored to clean the rust off and make it usable once more, but it was locked securely around Dakheel’s ankle and attached to a six foot chain bolted into the very brick of the wall.

I sat down, quite suddenly, right where I was.

Dakheel hadn’t noticed me until that point, wrapped up in his own cares, but he lifted his eyes at the sudden sound.  “Hakim?  Are you alright?”

I stared at my bare, dirty feet.  “I’m sorry,” I said at last.

A long pause.  Dakheel sighed heavily.  “You didn’t know.  That much, at least, is clear.”  He gave the chain a tug.  “Your father expected I’d try to flee when the rains arrived.”

I couldn’t meet his gaze.  After a moment he looked away.  “I should have expected this,” he said quietly, “Perhaps I could not have prevented it, but . . .” his eyes lit upon mine once more, “At the least I could have kept you from being hurt in the crossfire.”

“Don’t worry about me.  I’m alright.”

“Nevertheless, I was careless.  I knew your father would act somehow, I just didn’t suspect he would do it so soon.”

“I’ll talk to him.  I’ll make him understand.  He can’t have you sold, not after what you’ve done for us . . .”

He held up a hand to stop me.  “Peace, Hakim.”  His eyes glinted in the faint moonlight.  “I thank you for your friendship.  It means more than you know.  But Azzam understands what he does.  I do not think he will be moved, this time.”

“No, you don’t know him—not really.  He’s not like this, he’s  . . . good.  He’s always been a good man, so I don’t understand why . . .”

I trailed off, suddenly aware that my ramblings would bring Dakheel no comfort.  He smiled gently.  “Deeds that seem evil are often the product of a desperate heart,” he said.  I simply stared.  Was this for my sake?  Or did he truly forgive my father, who was even now in the process of betraying him?  “Do not judge his deeds too harshly.  And do not be ashamed for still loving him.  He is your father.”  He leaned back, suddenly weary.  “You should go now, Hakim.”

As I stepped out into the night air, I felt sudden wetness on my face.  I blinked.  Was I crying?

No.

I lifted my face to the heavens as the first drops of summer rain fell.

A/N:  Thanks for reading!  The next update will probably be on Thursday.  Feedback of any kind is greeted with open arms and squeals of delight.

A/N:  I know, I said I’d update on Thursday, but I need to get this fic off of my mind and onto the interwebz so that I can deal with some RL stuff.  Hope you enjoy!  Big thanks to my lovely beta Cairistiona for all her feedback.

I needn’t wait long for the moment of reckoning.  Silence falls over the throne room at the king’s arrival.  I count the cracks and divots in the flagstones and listen to my own heartbeat as it pounds in my ears.  After a moment that feels like an age, Elessar calls out in a ringing voice, “Rise!”  A scholar repeats the word in Haradric.  With aching joints and anxious hearts, my countrymen and I stand.  “Hakim, son of Azzam.”  My heart races.  My stomach churns.  Perhaps he’ll allow me to plead for Ayman before he acts on my obvious guilt.  Perhaps.  “Step forward.”

I draw a steadying breath.  Slowly, in deference to my stiff knees, I take a long step.  There is no point in trying to hide.  I stand with a straight back, but a bowed head as the King of Gondor steps off his dais and advances to within a few paces of me.

I force myself to take slow, even breaths.  I hear the scrape of steel that signals the king slowly drawing sword from sheath.  I stare at the floor and try not to imagine my head dropping to roll across that polished marble.  But, then the king breaks my concentration by tossing the weapon to land with a clatter on the flagstones at my feet, and I’m so startled that I look up.

And meet his gaze.

And feel my own eyes widen.

His eyes are bright and hard, like polished steel.  A few strands of gray streak his hair, and his features seem more chiseled and stern than when I last saw them, but nonetheless, that face is unmistakable.

Dakheel.

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The rains had come at last.  That first evening brought only a brief shower—barely enough to speckle the dirt with moisture—but as the clouds rolled in day after day, the rainfalls grew longer and stronger.  Before the end of the week, the gentle, ground-softening showers gave way to true storms marked by dark clouds, streaks of lightning, and driving rain.  The rainfall pounded into our hills and swept into the trenches and gutters my ancestors had built.  Water poured down, in a stream that seemed endless, replenishing our cistern and spilling out to irrigate the fields.  The brown grasses on the hills sprang to sudden, vibrant life.  Here and there, the earliest flowers peeked out from the shadows of trees and rocks. 

These signs of new life did nothing to lighten my father’s mood.  Day after day, he slogged alone through the fields, a permanent scowl carved into his face as he checked the integrity of the irrigation systems and made small repairs.

The only person more troubled than Father was, of course, Dakheel.  I now visited the barn twice a day, to bring him meals and clean out the crude chamberpot.  He continued to insist that he did not blame me and tried to treat me as he always had, but as the days stretched on, he grew grim and reticent.  He no longer told stories of his own, but pressed me for every detail I knew about the slave trade to Mordor and Umbar.

Night after night, I returned to the house only to cover my ears against the arguments that rang out between my parents.

A week passed in this manner.  Father made no mention of taking Dakheel to the slave markets in town, but he also seemed no closer to releasing him from his chains.  When Father told me that the two of us would be going alone to pick up our seed crop from the merchants, I breathed a sigh of relief, though I did not relish the prospect of spending two days alone in Father’s company.

The errand passed uneventfully enough.  As we inspected the seed and the camels we’d leased to haul it, Father grumbled about the miserly nature of seed merchants.  We spent a night in a modest room at the local inn and browsed through the marketplace the next morning.  I earned a few coppers by mucking out the stable, and spent most of it on a small doll for Kali.  Had I been less worried, the trip could almost have been fun.

Leading the four camels, the journey home took almost four hours.  By the end, my feet were blistering and Father’s long silence was driving me to despair.  But, when we at last drew within sight of the house, my relief was short-lived.  Mother waited for us, her dress flapping in the wind, her normally neat headscarf coming loose to settle around her shoulders.

“He’s gone,” she said by way of greeting, “I went to bring him his evening meal and found the quarters empty.”

Father frowned.  “Dakheel?  How?”

By way of response, she led us briskly to the barn.  “The door was still latched.  He must have climbed over the partition.”

I hastily shut the camels in empty stalls and followed them into Dakheel’s quarters.

“He pulled the chain right out of the wall.”  A pitted hole in the brick supported my mother’s assertion.  “He piled crates and made his escape there.”  I looked dubiously at where she pointed.  Sure enough, a few crates were piled atop one another, but there was still nearly an eight foot gap between the highest crate and the top of the partition, and the drop on the other side was twelve feet onto unforgiving floorboards.  “There are tracks out the back way.  Leading into the hills.”

I followed them out into the barnyard.  Sure enough, the mud was disturbed by a clear set of tracks—the kind left by boots, not sandals.  The trail led west into the wasteland.

Father stared at the footprints.  “Is anything missing from the house or the grounds?  Valuables, food?”

“Kali left her waterskins by the well.  All three are gone.”

“But you’re alright?  He’s not robbed the house?”  Mother shook her head.  “He means to try himself against the desert, then.  Hakim, unload all the camels and then saddle two of them.  We must pursue him.”

I hesitated.  “He might have been gone for hours . . .”

“The camels, Hakim,” he cut me off sharply.  “Do not question me now.”

I reluctantly stepped back towards the barn, but I didn’t quite miss what he said to Mother.  “Asima, tell me this was not your doing.  By all that’s holy, tell me you did not aid him.”

“We have a duty to Dakheel,” she answered coldly, “But, it’s no aid to cast a man out into the desert with little hope of survival.”

My breath caught in my throat.

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We set out less than ten minutes later, though our camels were footsore and miserable in the light rain.  On and on we rode.  The tracks, which had seemed so clear at first, vanished abruptly less than half a mile out.  Still, Father insisted we sweep farther and farther west, scanning empty plains and searching hidden gullies and finding no sign of our quarry.  The light misting rain gave way to a steady patter, punctuated with the larger drops that meant another downpour was not far off.  My headdress was soon soaked through.  I removed it and lifted a hand to screen my eyes from the rain.  The distant horizons had vanished behind the gray wall of an approaching storm.  Though sunset was still hours away, the sky had grown dark, full of black clouds streaked with lightning.

This was getting dangerous.  If we kept to the heights, we risked a lightning strike; if we rode in the gullies we could be washed away by a flash flood.  Solid earth was giving way to sucking mud, and the camels risked injury with every step they took on the uncertain slopes.  I tried to reason with Father, but my complaints fell on deaf ears.  He simply rode on, his face stony, giving no sign that he’d heard me.

I pushed hair back from my face, sending water flying in all directions.  Then I squinted and shielded my eyes more carefully.  There.  Off to the west, something was moving.

I hesitated for half a second—long enough for it to become clear that the distant shape could not be a Man.  “There’s something out there,” I called, loudly because it was becoming harder and harder to hear over the drum of rain and rumble of thunder.  “It looks like a horse.”

Father spotted it and pushed his camel into a quick pace.  I followed as rapidly as I dared, but he soon pulled away.  As we drew closer, the dark figure resolved into a four-legged beast with no rider.  It was not a horse, but another camel.  My own mount called out a greeting as the animal galloped right up to us and stopped, nuzzling Father’s camel in a friendly manner.

I reached them just as Father made his mount kneel so that he could clamber off and inspect this new beast more carefully.  “It’s one of ours,” he said as I pulled up.  He fingered the animal’s halter.  Sure enough, it bore the blue and gold tassels of the merchant we’d rented the camels from.

I frowned.  “How did it get all the way out here?”

Father stepped to the camel’s side and lifted a simple leather pack that was bound to the saddle.  Opening it, he pulled out three full waterskins and a very familiar leather pouch.

“He played us for fools,” Father said, his voice tight with fury as he opened the pouch and pulled out a handful of Dakheel’s herbs.  “He left those tracks intentionally, knowing we would race out after him.  And when we did, he doubled back and stole one of the camels we left behind.”

I swallowed hard.  “But, something happened.”

Father brushed at a bit of sticky mud that clung to the camel’s flank.  “It doesn’t seem hurt,” he said slowly, “But it has certainly fallen . . .”  He trailed off, scanning the distant horizon as best he could.  Then, quite suddenly, he tied a rope to the camel’s halter and all but raced back to his own camel.  Mounting quickly, he tied the third camel’s lead rope to the back of his saddle as his mount pulled itself to its feet.  “Come, quickly.”  He set out at a pace that was practically a gallop.  I followed, trying to remember the geography of this region.  Rolling hills lay to the south, peaks and canyons to the north.  And to the west . . .

“The wadi,” I muttered, in growing horror.  Perhaps a quarter-league away, a series of steep hills were interrupted by a dry stream bed, running north-west.  The product of innumerable flash floods, it was a smooth, flat track that would tempt a rider with easy passage.  A Man of Harad would know better than to ride along it in the rainy season, when a flood could come up at any moment.

To an outsider, it might seem like the perfect road leading back to Gondor.

I spurred my camel on, until I was flying as fast as my father.

After several anxious minutes, we came upon the wadi.  Sure enough, the afternoon storms had caused a flood that was only now slowing to a gentle trickle.  The harsh rain reminded me that it could spring to new and treacherous life at any moment.  A ridge rose above the far shore.  Father directed his camels up to the high ground, and I followed.  We rode on, more slowly now, searching the earth below carefully for signs of passage.  After what seemed like an eternity, Father turned and pointed.  “There!” he yelled, almost screaming to make himself heard over the rain.  Beyond his trembling finger was a depression in the mud, full of brown water, and a handful of scrambling tracks where an animal had floundered its way up the far bank.  “The camel fell there!”

My brow furrowed.  The streambed ran brown with something that looked less like water and more like liquid sludge.  A few rocks, polished smooth by wind and rain, rose up out of the bank.  But no huddled form, no flapping cloth or blowing hair, nothing that might be human was in sight.

We pushed our mounts on, but the terrain grew more treacherous up ahead.  The ridge sloped down to merge with the wadi as it neared a series of bluffs and cliffs that could lead to spectacular waterfalls.  After only a moment’s hesitation, Father rode down into the turbid water, with me close behind.  Water swirled around our camels’ hocks.  I tried not to dwell on it.  When Father paused a moment too long, I pushed past him and drove my camel forward until I could peer over the edge of the nearest bluff.

My heart leapt into my throat.  “Father!  Come quickly!”  The slope beyond was not quite a cliff, but in this treacherous weather, it might as well be.  Water poured over the side in a flat stream and rushed down nearly a hundred yards to a shallow pool below.  The soil of the slope was rocky, but the rains had turned much of it to a quagmire, as even the heaviest boulders sank and shifted in the muck.

Less than twelve feet down the slope, a rain-soaked figure clung to one such boulder, his arms trembling, his fingers scrabbling on the slippery rock.  His face was bent against the wind that snatched at his cloak.  His legs dangled over a sheer drop, and the rusted metal of a chain swayed with the gusts.

Father reached me and sprang off his camel almost before its knees touched the mud.  I hurried to follow suit and soon both of us crouched on the edge of the bluff.

“Dakheel!”

At the sound of my voice, the figure lifted his head.  A long cut on his scalp dripped blood into his eyes.  Dakheel blinked against it and looked up at us blearily.  Father sprang to his feet and snatched a length of rope from his saddle.  Tying a loop at one end, he tossed it down to land in the mud beside the foreigner.  The Man just stared at us, his face white with exhaustion and blood loss.  “Grab the rope!” Father yelled.  Dakheel’s eyes, normally so sharp, seemed to slide sluggishly from my father’s face to the rope beside him and down over his shoulder to the drop behind.  I ground my teeth, listening with all my might for the sudden roar that would signal another flood approaching.  “Quickly!” Father all but screamed.

At last, Dakheel reached out with trembling fingers to take the rope.  Slowly and awkwardly, he slid the loop over his shoulder and around his neck, so that it supported his back. Father began to pull and I hastened to help him.  It was hard going.  The sucking mud was slow to release its grip on Dakheel, and with his lower body dangling over the ledge, he could do little to help us.  At last, though, we lifted him a few feet and he managed to get his legs under him, scrambling for purchase on the steep bank as he clung to the rope.  We heaved, the wet rope ripping at the skin of our hands.  Dakheel gained a few more painful feet.

Father did something, then, that surprised me:  even as he hauled against the rope with all his might, he began to call out encouragements to Dakheel.  “Just a little further . . . It’s alright, you’re doing fine . . . Grab that tree root . . . There, a little further . . .”

Even with all our efforts, my back was screaming in pain and my hands felt aflame by the time Dakheel was close enough for Father to reach down and clasp his forearm.  We hauled him up to the comparative safety of the bank, and for a moment, the three of us just collapsed, panting.  Dakheel’s face was so pale it seemed gray.  Blood stood out lividly against the washed-out skin.   His fingers and palms were shredded from hanging onto the sharp rock, and his eyes were bleary as he stared up at the sky.

Father was the first to move.  “Come on, we can’t stay here.”  He got an arm under Dakheel and hauled him to his feet, still muttering reassurances, though Dakheel seemed beyond understanding them.  “You’re alright . . . it’s not far . . . here . . .”  He loaded Dakheel onto the camel the other had stolen and carefully tucked the dangling chain up into a saddlebag.  But, then, he took the muddy rope and lashed Dakheel’s hands together.  The touch of the rope seemed to pull the injured man out of his stupor, enough that he pulled weakly against the bonds, but he was clearly too exhausted to put up any real fight.  I wondered how long he’d had to cling to that height to reduce him to such a state.   Father kept murmuring to him in that uncharacteristically gentle tone of voice, even as he tied the man’s hands to the saddle horn.  When it was done, he clasped the other man by the back of the neck and lifted one of the pilfered waterskins to his lips.  Dakheel drank greedily—almost desperately—until Father pulled the skin away and the foreigner sagged into the saddle.

When he turned to face me, the warmth vanished from my father’s eyes.  “Don’t just stand there,” he said in curt Haradric, “We must go quickly.”  We scrambled onto our camels and set out, bending our heads against the almost-painful lash of another downpour.   It was slow going.  Once we left the wadi behind, Father set a cautious pace, mindful of the risk to the camels in such limited visibility.  Dakheel’s camel followed Father’s, only pausing occasionally to tug against the lead rope that bound it to Father’s mount.  Its rider sat hunched, gripping the saddle horn with white-knuckled hands.  I tried to stay close—Dakheel seemed one stray gust of wind away from falling out of the saddle.

It took nearly an hour, but at last we came within sight of our homestead.  By then, the rain had mercifully lessened to a drizzle.  Dakheel seemed a bit stronger.  I saw his eyes flit from the distant barn to my father’s back to the ropes that bound him.  His expression was carefully blank.  With a chill, I realized that this was the same cautiously evaluative look he’d first worn on the day of rest so many weeks ago as my father’s anger exploded out at him.  But, when he saw me watching him, he simply offered a weak smile and turned his gaze forward once more.

Mother was waiting for us when we reached the barnyard.  As our weary camels sank to their knees, her eyes flicked from face to weary face.  “Azzam, what did you do?”  Her voice was accusatory, but soft.  I don’t think she meant for me to hear.

Father looked away.  “Bring your healer’s kit, Asima,” he said shortly.

As Mother departed without a word, Father dismounted and went over to Dakheel, drawing his belt knife.  The other Man watched him warily, but all Father did was cut the rope that bound Dakheel to his saddle and pull him to unsteady feet.  They picked their way towards the barn, Dakheel stumbling slightly, his hands still tied in front of him, my father holding his arm in a grip that both supported and restrained.  “The camels, Hakim,” Father called over his shoulder.  Remembering myself, I hastened to climb down and lead the tired beasts into the outer barn.

As I settled the camels in their stalls, Father led an unresisting Man back into his makeshift cell.  I could hear them speaking softly, but though I strained my ears, I could not make out what they said to each other.  I could tell, though, that my father’s anger from just a few hours ago had somehow vanished.  When Mother returned, laden down with herbs, blankets, and a steaming basin of water, I abandoned the saddle I was wiping off and went to help her.  As I lifted the basin from her arms, I touched her elbow and said quietly, “It wasn’t Father.  Dakheel fell in the wadi.  That’s how he was injured.”  I stopped, suddenly feeling very foolish.  What was it to my mother if Father had caused the injuries?  Hadn’t Dakheel stolen from us?  Wasn’t Father within his rights to do that and more?  I stared at the ground.  “I just thought you should know,” I mumbled.

I thought I saw Mother’s eyes soften, but she merely nodded.  “Bring the water in,” she ordered briskly, “And then give those camels a proper grooming.”

I followed her through the partition.  In the room beyond, Dakheel sat on his pallet, his bloody head tipped back against the wall, trembling slightly from the combination of cold and weariness.  Father stood off to one side, his arms folded.  Dakheel’s cloak and tunic hung, dripping, over a barrel.  If Mother was bothered by the foreigner’s state of undress, she gave no sign.  Without hesitation, she knelt at his side and wrapped a thick blanket about his shoulders.

Father said nothing, but his eyes felt heavy on me.  I set the water down nearby, managed what I hoped was a reassuring smile for Dakheel, and left to do as I had been bid.  Behind me, the indistinguishable murmur of voices resumed, with my mother’s soft alto now dominating the conversation.  As I combed the mud out of the animals’ coats, I stole frequent glances through the open door. 

Father said little.  After a moment, he sat down heavily on an overturned crate, staring at his own hands while Mother worked with her usual quiet efficiency.  Soon, Dakheel had a steaming cup of tea in his hands and was sipping it while Mother cleaned the gash on his scalp.  After a while, she roused Father and made him translate a simple question.  When he did, Dakheel simply nodded, his eyes sliding between my parents.  Mother got out a needle and began stitching the cut, speaking to him all the while, though Dakheel understood perhaps one word in ten.

Her chore lasted longer than mine.  When the camels were clean and settled with grain and water, I made a noisy show of putting the curry combs away and stomping towards the door, only to fade into the shadows and circle back.  There was an empty stall just on this side of the partition where I knew I could go unnoticed.

I reached my hiding space just as my mother finished stitching Dakheel’s wound.  “You must try to keep it clean,” she was saying, “Azzam?  You’ll make sure he keeps it clean?”

“I will tell him.”  A weary voice.

“And drink plenty of water.”

“Thank you,” Dakheel whispered.  I wondered when Kali had taught him the Haradric word for gratitude.

There was a small hole in the partition where a knot of wood had fallen away.  If I pressed my eye against it, I could just make out what was happening beyond.  I watched Mother gather her supplies and cast a concerned look at Father.  “I will wait for you at the house, husband,” she said quietly.  Father only nodded. 

In the wake of her departure, the two Men sat still for a moment, neither looking at the other.  Dakheel broke the silence.  “I am sorry about the camel,” he said, in a voice that croaked slightly, “I meant to send payment once I reached Gondor . . . but I know it would have caused a hardship, all the same.”

Father waved a hand dismissively.  “No lasting harm was done,” he said, “Our gods command us to forgive in such cases.”

I tried to reconcile those words and that tone with his livid expression when he first realized what Dakheel had done.  I could not.

Dakheel seemed to ponder that before he spoke.  “It seems I owe you my life once again.”

For long moments, my father was silent.  Then he sighed.  “Do you, Dakheel?”  His voice was heavy with regret.  “And in a week’s time, will you still?”

Dakheel looked down, rubbing his wrists slowly.  “Then, you are still resolved.”

“What choice do I have?”

“You could let me go.”

Father laughed bitterly.  “I could, at that.  And I could lose my farm.  I could see my wife and daughter cast out in rags, my son sent to die on foreign spears.”

Dakheel closed his eyes.  “I wondered . . . but I had hoped things were less desperate than that.”

Father stared off into space.  “As had I.  Sometimes it is folly to hope.”

“The money that you stand to gain,” Dakheel said quietly, “It will not bring you happiness.”

“You think I don’t know that?”  For the first time, a note of sharpness entered my father’s voice.  “You saved my daughter’s life, and I must repay you with a life of slavery.  For this I will be cursed in the sight of the old gods and lose my honor.”  He studied his knees.  “But, there is no other way.”

Silence stretched between them, pregnant with wishes and fears unspoken.

“May I ask one boon, Azzam?” Dakheel said at last, “In payment for Kalima’s life?”

Father looked up.  “Speak.”

“I have seen the slave merchants who pass through these lands.  I have seen the captives they take to Mordor.”  For the first time that night, I heard a trace of true fear in his voice.  “I have seen the land north of those mountains.  And I do not wish to return.”

Father nodded, unsurprised.  “There are other merchants who travel south.  I fear you will find Umbar little better . . . but if you think your fortunes will be better there, that is a chance I can offer you.”

They fell silent once more.  Dakheel offered no thanks for this smallest act of mercy—no more than my father sought it.  My father tried one more time.  “Tell me your name.”  His voice was tinged with desperation—remarkable, considering he was not the one facing a lifetime in bondage.

The other Man’s regret had still not shaken his resolve.  “If my name could be any help to either of us,” he said quietly, “Would I not have told you long ago?”

Father’s knees creaked as he stood.  Opening a barrel, he pulled out a canvas sack that made a muffled clanking noise.  “Then, you know what I must do.”

Night was approaching, and the light was beginning to fail, but it was not yet so dark that I could not see Dakheel’s face as he looked up at my father.  He seemed a shade paler than he had before, but after a moment, he gave the tiniest of nods.  Father opened the sack and pulled out its contents:  a full set of manacles.  As he knelt before my friend and took hold of his unresisting wrist, I found I couldn’t watch anymore.  As quietly as I could, I stole from my hiding place, out into the free air.

The clang and scrape of shackles closing seemed to pursue me into the night.

A/N:  Thanks for reading!  Chapter Eleven will be up on Sunday.  It will be the last “real” chapter, and an epilogue posted a few days later will wrap up this story.  Whether you liked this chapter, saw room for improvement, or are absolutely furious with me, please leave a review!

A/N:  My beta, Cairistiona, deserves much praise and adoration.

Dakheel—no, Elessar, I remind myself, he is Elessar, their king—should be old and wizened by now, yet somehow he’s retained far more youth and vigor than I can claim.  His hands are scarred.  I wonder how many more scars he bears under his fine garb.  His face is set in hard lines—an effect magnified by his bright, steady gaze.  The shuttered light that I’d glimpsed on rare occasions now shines forth, uncovered and undimmed—an aura of nobility, as the superstitious might say.

With an open hand, he indicates the blade now resting at my feet.

“Pick up the sword.”  Even his voice is different; though he retains that melodious accent, his voice now is not pitched low for conversation with a boy, but clear and ringing, meant to be heard by all the hall.

I glance uneasily at the solemn guards stationed at each corner of the throne room.

“Pick up the sword.”  He speaks again, this time in fluent Haradric, his voice still as hard as tempered steel.

Has time created bitterness where once there was none?  Now that the mantle of power and rests on his shoulders, does my old friend mean, at last, to hold me accountable?

I meet his gaze once more.  It all but burns with resolute authority.  Beneath that, though, I think I glimpse something else—something softer and more familiar.  Something that murmurs ‘Peace, my friend.  It will be alright.’  It seems impossible that I can look into the eyes of this terrible lord and find Dakheel once more.  Perhaps it is only my imagination.

Nonetheless, I bend and lift the sword with steady fingers.

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In the week after Dakheel’s escape attempt, I had little time to worry about his fate.  The rains had finally softened our fields enough that they could be tilled.  This backbreaking chore had to be accomplished by hand; we’d not had the money to hire a team of mules since I was a small child and the camels had already been returned.  Day after day, I labored in the rain, pulling the handheld plow with my father, while mother steered from behind and Kali cleared away stones as best she could.

For the most part we labored in silence—too weary for much conversation.  Though our work would have been greatly sped by a fifth pair of hands, neither of my parents suggested we bring Dakheel to help.  Did they fear that desperation would drive him to flee once more, I wondered?  Or were they simply reluctant to derive anymore profit from his captivity on our lands, however insubstantial it might seem?  I do not know their reasoning.  All I know is that day after day, we labored and day after day the foreigner waited, locked in the barn, now with chains at wrists and ankles both.  I still went down to talk with him each evening, but plowing left me so weary that I was in danger of falling asleep even without herbs to ply me. 

And besides, neither of us had much to say.  I had long since run short of reassurances, and Dakheel had already drawn from me everything I knew about Umbar.  As for the foreigner, a great stillness seemed to fall over him, day by day.  It reminded me, strangely, of the moment before a great cat leaps—how it will freeze for an instant or a minute, every muscle coiled, its eyes fixed on its goal.  I got the sense that Dakheel was gathering himself for something, though I knew not what.  Every morning and evening, I half expected to find the barn empty and had to fight off the sinking feeling of disappointment when I found him still waiting for me—still caged.

The days passed in a haze of blisters and backaches until, the night before the day of rest, I was abruptly dragged back to reality.  Late in the evening, once I had returned from the barn and Kali was already slumbering in her bed, Father rose abruptly from his desk, fetched a pitcher and washbasin, and left the house without a word.

I looked up from a book and my brow furrowed.  “Where is he going?” I asked Mother.

She did not meet my gaze, keeping her eyes instead on the shirt she was mending.  “He goes to Dakheel, to let him wash if he wishes, and to talk to him.”  Her lips pursed, but her face was otherwise expressionless.  “Tomorrow, you and your father are going to town, to the markets.  You’re taking Dakheel.”

My eyes snapped up to stare at her.  I opened my mouth to speak . . . and closed it again.  I stared down at my lap and swallowed against the lump in my throat.

It wasn’t as if I hadn’t seen this coming.

“You’ll leave early in the morning,” Mother continued, her voice wooden, “We decided it’s best not to tell Kalima until afterwards.  You know she’d make a fuss.  She’d only make it more difficult for everyone.”

“It’s not fair.”  It was quiet—my objection.  I told myself that all the important words had already been said.

“No,” Mother agreed, “It’s not.  Get to bed, my son.  You need your rest.”

But, my bed held no comfort for me.  I tossed and turned, but all I could see was Dakheel’s face. 

There was Dakheel, trapped in delirium.

Here was Dakheel, fierce and defiant as holy water sank into the ground.

Dakheel, his face solemn as he told me a tale of doomed lovers.

Dakheel, his face full of laughter at some joke.

Dakheel, tender and full of concern as he watched over Kali.

He was a stranger—a foreigner from a land he would not even name.  I did not even know his true name.

He was a friend—my closest confidant.  With him, as with no other before him, I had been candid about my hopes and fears.

My parents, for all their gruffness and cold demeanors, genuinely liked him—cared about him even—but were willing to sacrifice him for a greater good called “family.”  They did it for me; for my sake and in my name, they laid aside their honor and took on this sin.

Could I?  To save myself, to save my sister, to save this tyrannical, nebulous concept of “family,” could I stand by and watch as a good man was sent to his doom?

By the time I heard the front door creak open and caught snatches of my father’s voice, I had my answer.

So, I waited.

I lay awake, staring at the dark ceiling, until the sounds of low conversation faded and I heard my parent’s door click shut.  Then, I waited another hour for good measure.  Hazy moonlight was drifting through my window and the only sound was my own heartbeat by the time I dared to rise.  On bare, silent feet, I ghosted to the kitchen.  Good.  Mother had already baked tomorrow’s bread and laid out cheese and dried meat for the trip to town.  I took it all and bundled it up in an old tablecloth.  Waterskins were easy, too; they hung by the door on a neat rack.  I took three and filled them from the rainwater barrel outside the front door.  The hardest part was finding the key to Dakheel’s shackles.  I searched the hearth and my father’s study in vain and was just beginning to fear that Father had hidden it in his bedchamber when I came upon a scrap of iron in one of his desk drawers.

I did not run down to the barn.  The last thing I needed was for a parent to wake, glance out the window, and see my darting form.  Instead, I crept from shadow to shadow until I reached the door.  The bolt to Dakheel’s cell slid open silently and easily.

Somehow, Dakheel was asleep.  His face was almost peaceful in the dim light.  But, his hands were curled awkwardly atop his body, prevented by the manacles from separating more than a foot.

The floorboards creaked at my steps, and he woke at once.  “Hakim?”  He sat up and ran his hands over his face.

I snatched his leather pack from the corner and began to stuff it with food.  “You have to leave.  Now.”  The last loaf had to be squashed a little to get it to fit.  I wrestled the ties shut and tossed the pack to Dakheel.  “If you set out now, you’ll have hours before Father realizes you’ve gone.  The rainy season will last a few weeks longer.  It is dangerous, but if you keep to the rocky heights and watch for flooding, you can make it.  Father will be reluctant to follow on foot.”

“Hakim . . .”

“There’s some food.  Maybe a week’s worth if you’re careful.  This time of year, there are plenty of flowing streams for when the water runs out.”

“Listen to me . . .”

“You’ll have to stay away from settlements.  That won’t be difficult—they are few between here and Gondor.”

I pulled out the key and reached for his shackles, but he stopped me with a firm hand on my wrist.

“Let me show you something.”  From the ragged hem of his tunic, he pulled a scrap of wire, bent and hammered flat.  Deftly, he inserted it into the keyhole of one of his shackles and twisted.  A moment later, the iron sprang open and fell away from his wrist.  He flexed his hand slowly.  His wrist was bruised and scraped from the manacle.  “I found the pick the last time I was free,” he said softly, “A precaution.  Since then, I’ve had little to do but practice.  I could have freed myself at any time in these last few days.”

I stared.  “Then, why didn’t you?”

He met my gaze squarely.  “Because I must go to Umbar.”  While I gaped, he looked down at his half-shackled hands.  “I thank you for what you’re trying to do, Hakim.  Truly, it means more than you know.  But I must walk a different path, for now.”

I scowled, suddenly furious.  “Not you, too.”  He blinked in confusion.  “I know what this is about, alright?  My parents think that by selling you, they can make enough money to keep us from losing our land . . . and keep me out of the army.  Maybe they’ve convinced you, somehow, because you think you owe us.  But, I can’t let that happen, don’t you see?  I couldn’t live with myself.  So, maybe there is another way, and maybe there isn’t.  Maybe I have to join, but it’s better to go and still have my honor than to just stay here and watch.”

I ran out of words.  For a moment, he just stared at me.  Then he sighed.  “Yes, Hakim, it’s better to go with honor.  And my honor demands I go to Umbar.  Not for your sake, or . . . not just for your sake.”

I sank down to sit, suddenly deflated.  “Then, why?”

“Because there are too many others like me—prisoners of war or captives carried away.”  He looked away, staring at the bars of moonlight where they filtered down from the rafters.  “It was foolish, trying to leave as I did.  I knew, already, that I would have to take a more difficult road.  But, the task seemed so daunting and home seemed so close . . .”  He trailed off and closed his eyes.  “I have to go south.  There are too many others suffering there.  Tarks as they call us.  Slaves.  And, if I am to help them, I can only get close as one of them.”

I swallowed hard.  “It can’t be done,” I said bluntly, “The slavers . . . you don’t know what they’re like.  They’re strong and they’re cruel.  They’d kill you without a thought.”

“I have dealt with their ilk before.  And I have to try.”

“Why?”  The question burst out of me before I could think better of it.  “For the slaves?  You don’t even know them!  Why die for them?  You once told me that there was no one in Gondor or Rohan who would pay even a bit of silver to save you.  What do you owe these . . . strangers?”

For long moments, he watched me, his eyes steady and piercing.  I held his gaze, difficult though it was.  Finally, he looked away and nodded slightly, as if he’d seen my heart and found me worthy.  “There is a story I’ve never told you.”  His voice was deep and solemn.  I recognized in that inflection the beginnings of a tale.  “’Twas only a few months ago.  I had served in Gondor for years, but I knew my time was nearing its end.  The Steward’s good will would not outlive him, and other pressing concerns called me away.  But, I put that out of my mind when I was called to go to Lebennin.”

His gaze was distant and troubled.  “There was a village there, along the banks of the Anduin.  They were simple people.  Herders and fishermen.  Ships had come upon them in the night and set the village to the torch.”

He closed his eyes.  “My men and I arrived too late to do anything but bury the dead.  Survivors were few.  Those that we found spoke of black ships with great banks of oars—the Corsairs of Umbar.  They landed and pillaged the town.  They killed every man who lifted a weapon against them.  They killed even the dogs.  But, they carried away every animal of value . . . and every person.

“I returned to Minas Tirith in a rage.  Long had I warned about the dangers of the Corsair fleet, and long had I been ignored.  I demanded to see the Steward.  In private, I pleaded with him.  ‘How long,’ I asked, ‘How long must our people suffer this predation?’  I appealed to his mind and his heart.  I used all my considerable influence over him.  And in the end, he gave me a fleet.”

Dakheel drew a slow breath.  “We used only small ships, with experienced men.  We slipped into the harbor undetected and were upon the Umbari before they realized we had come.  In the chaos, none could stand against us.  We sought out their captain and slayed him, but it was not him that we’d come for.  It was the ships.  They all rested in harbor.  We had too few men to commandeer them, but that had never been our intent.  As the defenders were roused and time ran short, I ordered the ships put to the torch.  I knew there were men aboard.  I convinced myself that they were soldiers in Sauron’s service—that they deserved what they got, though I should not have subjected even an orc to that kind of death.  I fled with my men, triumphant.  It was only later, when you told me of Umbar, that I realized what I had done.”

A sudden chill fell over me.  I remembered Rashid’s words from weeks ago.  “They say a great storm rose on the bay—a mighty tempest . . . It broke upon Umbar and sank nearly every ship in the harbor.”

Dakheel met my gaze.  “A storm didn’t kill the galley slaves of Umbar, Hakim.  I did.”

I stared, as the horror of the situation struck me.  I could almost see them—the doomed men forgotten below decks, screaming as their chains grew too hot, as the smoke dragged them down . . . I brimmed with sympathy for Dakheel and at the same time I recoiled from him.  I’d known he was a warrior from his own confession.  I’d known war was terrible from his stories.  But, until I saw the devastation in his eyes, I did not truly understand what that meant.

There was nothing I could say—nothing that would make it better.  All I could do was try to save his life.  “They’ll kill you,” I said flatly, “If they discover what you’re about.  And even if they don’t, you might die still.  Slaves often do.  And no one will even know you were here.”

“I must try, nonetheless.  It is a debt that must be paid.”

“Will it mean more killing?”

“Perhaps.  That is the nature of war.”

“Yes,” I said bitterly, “Always war.”

For a long moment, he was silent.  Then he reached for my face with his free hand and tipped my chin so that I met his gaze.  “No.  Not always.  There will be peace between our peoples someday, Hakim.  The days of men are short . . . but not so short that we should give up hope of seeing that peace.”  His hand dropped away.  Slowly, he reached for the shackle and closed it once more around his wrist.  “You should go now.  You have been a good friend . . . better than I looked to find here, and probably better than I deserved.  But there is nothing left to be said.”

And, there wasn’t.

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I slept fitfully that night, haunted by dreams in which our fold caught fire and all the goats screamed with human voices.  When my mother touched my arm in the morning, it was almost a relief.  Then I remembered why I must rise so early and my heart sank.

I trudged down to the barn, heavily laden with two packs.  It was still dark, but I knew sunrise was not far off.

I found Father in Dakheel’s cell, putting the rusted manacles back in their canvas sack.  Dakheel waited silently, rubbing his wrists.  When he saw me, he offered a solemn nod in greeting.  Without a word, I dropped one of the packs at Father’s feet.  He grunted as he stooped to tie something long and thin to the side of the pack.  The light was just bright enough that I could make out the scabbard of Dakheel’s sword.  I arched an eyebrow in question, and Father caught the look.  “We’ll sell the sword as well,” he said shortly.  He stood with a length of rope in his hand and strode over to Dakheel. 

The taller man did not resist as Father began to bind his hands.  I winced, thinking of his scraped wrists.  “Father—“ But both men shot me warning glances, and I fell silent.

We left our lands and stepped onto the road in a silent procession.  But for Father’s and my packs and Dakheel’s bound wrists, we could have been any group of laborers on our way to work.  The morning light was growing rapidly, as it always did in the desert.  As dawn approached, the sun all but leapt over the distant horizon, banishing in an instant the grays and blues of early morning.  The first rays gilded the far away dunes and heads of rock and glinted off the red earth and green grasses.

As we made our way east along the rutted track, Dakheel watched the sun with the smallest of smiles.  “A sunrise without a shadow,” he murmured.  But, then he cast an anxious glance to the north and fell silent.

Much of the morning passed that way—in silence.  The road was straight, and we made good time despite the damp mud.  All the while, Father stared stonily ahead, speaking not a word.  Dakheel’s face was composed and unconcerned, his gaze flicking lightly from the road to the surrounding scenery to the distant mountains.  I glanced between the two of them, willing someone to break the heavy silence, but not willing to do so myself.

The sun was high in the sky when the village finally came in view as a dark smudge on the horizon, half a league away.  Father paused, his face clouded with indecision.  At last he unslung his pack and nodded toward a nearby cluster of boulders.  “We will rest a while, and have a midday meal.”  So, I followed him over to the rock formation and sat, carefully keeping confusion off of my face.  A midday meal was a rare indulgence for us.

I thought I understood when Father pulled out the meat and cheese we’d packed, divided it into three portions, and gave the lion’s share to Dakheel.  This was one last gift, given in consolation—a salve for my father’s conscience.

Dakheel ate slowly, his gaze drifting across the landscape.  It was now the middle of the rainy season, and the desert was in full bloom.  Scrubby bushes and straggly trees had put out new leaves of rich, verdant life.  Grasses had sprung up along the slopes and in the ditches.  Everywhere, wildflowers peeked out, their tiny blossoms riots of red and blue, gold and violet.  Rainstorms would likely roll in come afternoon, but for the moment, the sun shone down and the sky was scattered with clouds like puffs of wool.

“This is a beautiful country.”  Dakheel’s voice was soft and thoughtful.

I nodded, glad of any attempt at conversation.  “The flowers will last until the end of the rainy season.  Perhaps another week after that.”  I nibbled at a hunk of cheese.  “They say in the forests of the far south, there are plants that bloom all year long.  They say some of the flowers are as big as a man’s hand.”

Dakheel smiled.  “I should like to see that.”

Father’s scowl deepened a little.  Dakheel turned to him, his voice light.  “I hope it will not disappoint you overmuch, Azzam,” he said, a touch of humor softening his words, “If I say that I have no intention of dying in Umbar.”

Father met his gaze, and his own eyes softened infinitesimally.  “I hope you don’t.  But, I’ve warned you about hope.”

“Indeed, you have.”  The smile faded from Dakheel’s face as he looked away.  “This market of yours,” he said to my father, “It is an auction?”

Father shook his head.  “This time of year, there are too few buyers for that.  ‘Tis only a handful of traders.”

Dakheel nodded.  “Nevertheless,” he said slowly, “It seems the sort of thing Hakim ought not see.”

I opened my mouth to object—I wasn’t a child, I’d seen the markets before—but Dakheel’s eyes met mine, and the protests died on my lips.  He wasn’t looking at me like a child.  Rather, he met my gaze as an equal with a request—almost a plea—in his eyes.  I looked down.  He didn’t want me there at the end?  It seemed wrong after I had come so far.  Only . . . I thought of the human indignities I had seen in the slave market, and had to suppress a shudder.  Was it any wonder he didn’t want me there to see him poked and prodded, priced and penned like a common mule?

Father watched with sharp eyes.  “I agree,” he said simply, “Hakim, you will take your leave at the gates and await me at the inn.”

I could only stare at my knees and nod.

All too soon, it was time to tie our packs shut and set out for the village once more.  As we drew near the rough, mudbrick walls, I could see Dakheel drawing in on himself, stifling that keen light in his eyes so as not to draw undue attention.  By the time we reached the gates, his head was bowed, his shoulders slightly slumped.  Still, when I paused, uncertain, he met my gaze and reached out to clasp my forearm.  “Farewell, mellon-nín,” he murmured so that only I could hear, “May we meet in better times.”

And before I could find the words to respond, he turned, following my father, and was soon lost in the press of people.

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When Father found me later, he would not meet my eyes.  He was even more taciturn than usual, but he grunted that we would stay the night in the inn and set out for home in the morning.  So, I spent a sleepless night tossing and turning in our tiny room, while Father stayed in the common room and drowned his guilt in tankard after tankard of brandy.

By the time the earliest pre-dawn light crept through our dusty window, Father had finally returned and was snoring loudly on his pallet.  I rose silently, though the caution was hardly necessary, and crept from the room.  There was something I needed to see.

There is a bluff that overlooks the south gate of the village, rising above the ramshackle houses into the clear air.  I climbed it on legs that felt leaden and looked down on crumbling adobe and cracking roof tiles, all illuminated by soft, gray light.  The slave caravans always set out at dawn.

There.  A handful of men on camels.  More camels and donkeys laden with supplies.  A long line of ragged human beings, their pale skin covered by dirt, their limbs weighed down with chains.  Each slave wore a rag tied about their head as a headdress, obscuring each face, but even so, Dakheel was easy to spot.  He was the tallest of them.  He stood the straightest, with only a bowed head to suggest he was not a soldier on parade.

I don’t know how, but he seemed to sense me watching from above.  As the column drew close and began to pass through the gate, he lifted his head and met my gaze.  Just for a moment, his eyes flashed, bright and sharp with every emotion he couldn’t show.  I lifted my hand in farewell, and the corners of his mouth curved up, ever so slightly.

It was enough.  Enough to let me know that he had not been crushed by my father or the slavers or even his own guilt.  He left as a slave, but he was not broken, and he was not beaten.

Then he ducked his head, and all an observer would see was a battered line of slaves trudging toward their doom.

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A few days after we returned, I found Kali in the back of the barn.  As Mother had predicted, she had reacted with wrath when she learned that Dakheel would not be returning.  For what felt like hours, she’d screamed and railed at our parents—calling them cruel, calling them cowards.  They offered no defense against the child’s truths, but neither did they offer comfort.  She took to fleeing from them—finding odd places to hide whenever we were not at work.  Only in the fields with me, did she act like herself.

When I came upon her, she was sitting on Dakheel’s abandoned pallet.  In her small hands, she held a tooled leather pouch, which she was turning over and over.  Wordlessly, I sat beside her.  She did not look at me.  Her face was tear-streaked, but composed.

“I thought he’d stay,” she said at last.

“I know,” I said softly, “So did I.”

“He wanted to stay, didn’t he?”

“I think he did.  But he couldn’t.”

“Because of Father.”

“No.  It’s not that, Kali.  It’s just . . . he’s a great hero, you see.  A man like that can’t stay forever in a place like this.”

Her face remained strangely blank.  Though she was still so young, for a moment she seemed ancient and world-weary.  “I know.”  In a few hours, she would curl up beside Mother and ask for help with her needlepoint.  Another day and she would climb into Father’s lap and ask him for a story for the first time in weeks.

Soon, she would begin to forgive.  But not yet.

Without another word, she pressed the pouch into my hands and walked away.

Sitting alone in the dim chamber, I opened the pouch, lifted it to my face, and breathed deep.  There.  A faint aroma evoking rain storms and new life.  But it was scarcely an echo of what I remembered.

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In the months that followed, rumors came up out of the south at an unprecedented rate.  First, it was tales of slave revolts, of hundreds of captives overthrowing their masters and vanishing into the night.  Then came mass desertions from within the Grand Army—a phenomenon never before seen on such a scale, even during wartime.  Then came the rumors that men hardly dared to whisper about a growing faction deep within Harad that named Sauron a false god and called for an end to his tyranny.

I couldn’t have said how I knew, but with each troubling tale, I breathed a sigh of relief.  He was still alive.

But, what can I say for my family during that same time?  If this were a child’s fable or a parable told by priests, this would be the part where we’d all learned a valuable lesson.  We would turn to each other, forsaking the cloying wealth of the world in favor of the boundless love of family.

But, this is life, and life does not fit so easily into simple tales.

The money helped, for the farm at least.  With the coin Father brought back from the market, we were able to stock the barn with feed.  Bales of hay were stacked high in the loft, and sacks of grain covered the battered pallet where a man once slept.  The goats thrived.  We had more food on our own table.  The next harvest season promised to be a good year.

Yet, both my parents were crippled by guilt they refused to show.  Father turned to the bottle, first in the evenings to avoid having to talk to us, then more and more during the day.  As my eighteenth birthday approached, I found myself leaving the herd in Kali’s hands so that I could take on more and more of my father’s work.

He aged quickly after that, and died just a few years later.  In a bitter piece of irony, he got what he’d wanted in the end; even Ghassan would not compel a young man to go off to war when he had a widowed mother and young sister to provide for.

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When I think of those first months after Dakheel’s departure, only two moments stand out in my mind.  The first occurred a month after he left us.  Mother found me in her bower, staring down at a small collection of jewelry.  Or, more specifically, staring at a particular ring, larger than all the others with green stones that glinted in the lowest light.

She put her hand on my shoulder in a rare gesture of affection.  “It’s not really worthless, is it?”  I asked, “Dakheel’s ring?”

She sighed.  “At first, I thought it was.  As I though he was worthless.  Now, I’m not so sure.”

“Why haven’t you sold it?”

“I dare not.”

“Because of the wrath of the gods?”

“Call it what you will.”  After a moment, she lifted the ring and dropped it into my hand.  “It is a ring for a man, though.  You should have it, Hakim.  Dakheel would want you to.”

I closed my fingers slowly around the gleaming silver.  It was wrought in the image of two snakes, a detail I’d not noticed when I first set eyes on it.  “What about Father?  Shouldn’t it be his decision?”

Her eyes hardened and her hand tightened ever so slightly on my shoulder.

“It is a ring for a man.”

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Mother did not falter as Father did.  She continued to labor from sunup to sundown, cooking and gardening, weaving and sewing, keeping up the house and teaching Kali her lessons.  She would spend full days in a frenzy, making soap or cheese or a decade’s supply of candles.  Like Father, though, she withdrew.  She became colder and sterner than ever before. The only time she truly came alive was when I sat down with her book of herb lore and asked her to teach me healing.  Outside of lessons, though, she spoke little to Kali and me, and even less to Father.  I could tell that she blamed him, as she blamed herself.

But, still, when Father’s liver suddenly failed three years later, she was there for him at every moment—treating him for weeks, staying at his side through the delirium, holding him as he died.

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Nearly eight months after Dakheel left us, every family was summoned to the temple at the center of every village.  The priests had decreed a grand celebration to honor the Dark Lord’s imminent ascendance.  Participation in the feasting and sacrifices was mandatory, even for small children and the infirm.  The next day, the four of us walked home together, our feet dragging.

We reached the house only to find something long and slim, wrapped in rough cloth and lying across our doorstep.  I picked it up slowly; gone were the days when Father would insist on handling any potential danger himself.  Pulling away the cloth, I gasped at the familiar sight of steel and leather.  Wordlessly, I held it out so that my parents could see.  There was no mistaking it; this was not just a Gondorian sword, this was Dakheel’s sword—the one Father had sold for a handful of silver to the same trader who bought my friend.

“It’s his,” I said quietly, “But how?  Why?”  Somehow, none of us doubted that Dakheel himself had left the blade.

Father’s brow furrowed as he reached for the scabbard.  I found myself strangely reluctant to release it.  “I don’t understand,” he muttered thickly, “Is this a threat?  Is he coming to take his revenge?”

Mother snorted.  “Some threat.  Labeling another an enemy by arming him?  What purpose does that serve?”

I stared at the hilt for a moment longer.  Then, I thought of something.  Leaving the sword in Father’s hands, I raced into the house, all but ran to my room, and threw open my small trunk.  The contents—clothes, parchment, a handful of childhood toys—were slightly mussed, as if someone had rifled through them with great haste but no malice.  And a few things were conspicuously absent.

“They’re gone,” I said, returning to my parents and Kali.  “His ring, his pouch, the herbs.”  I lifted the sword out of Father’s unresisting fingers.  “I think he left this as payment.  For the ring.”  I spotted a scrap of parchment tied to the corner of the hilt, and lifted it slowly.  A handful of words were written across it, in tidy, Westron script.

For Hakim, may he bear it in the days of peace.

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A/N:  Only the epilogue remains of this story.  It will be published in a few days and will wrap up the story of Hakim trying to free his son in Minas Tirith.  Obviously, much more could be said of Aragorn’s travels in Harad, but that’s not Hakim’s story to tell.  Before you start throwing things at me, know that there is a sequel in the works which will detail those adventures more fully.  The first part of that story will probably be up in about two weeks.

As always, I value your feedback, both positive and negative.

Mellon-nín:  Sindarin for “my friend”

A/N:  Well, this is it.  Big thanks to everyone who has followed and reviewed this story so far—your encouragement has meant a lot to me.  Special thanks go, as always, to Cairistiona.  I’m not exaggerating when I say that were it not for her, this story would still be in pieces, collecting electronic dust on my hard drive.  She’s been an awesome beta and sounding board and the best cheerleader I could ask for.

I hope you enjoy.

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I stand still as a statue, with the tip of the sword just inches above the ground.  I no longer try to duck my head, but watch the king steadily, waiting for some cue.  He paces around me in a slow circle.  My breath sounds harsh and impossibly loud in the sudden silence.  The king’s footsteps all but echo.

“Why have you come here,” he says at last, “Hakim, son of Azzam?”  His tone is formal.  It is strange to hear him speak Haradric so well.  Dimly, I take note of a gray-robed scholar who stands before the lords and repeats his question in Westron.

“To beg your mercy for my son, Ayman,” I respond as steadily as I can, “Who was captured in battle upon the Pelennor Fields, three months past.”

“What is your trade, son of Azzam?”  He asks in a voice that carries, though few besides my countrymen and the translator can now understand him.

“I herd goats, my lord, in the northern Haradwaith.”

“And have you, yourself borne arms against Gondor or her allies?”

“No, my lord.”

“And have you profited from the spoils of war?”

I meet his gaze, though my mouth has gone dry.  “Only once.  Malik.”

It’s a strange word—malik.  In most contexts, it translates best as “master”—an honorific that does more to drive home the lowness of the speaker than the high status of the one addressed.  But, in another context—the one I call upon now—it comes to mean something quite different.  Spoken with the proper inflection and a certain syntax, it is turned around again and denotes only the righteousness and grandeur of the one being addressed.

Used as I use it now, it means “king.”

He steps to within a pace of me.  I glimpse once more that elusive flicker of reassurance in his eyes.  Then he glances at the purse at my belt, and I fumble to hand it to him.  Turning from me, he opens the purse and pulls out a necklace of my wife’s, made of slightly tarnished silver.  “Time was,” he says dryly, “A man’s life had more value in Harad.”

I bow my head once more.  “I am but a poor man, my lord.  I offer such wealth as I have at hand.”

He drops the necklace back into the pouch.  “And if I told you that more was required?”  His voice is still measured.  Even.  Controlled.

“I would endeavor to give it, if it were in my power.”

“And if I demanded your lands in the Haradwaith as recompense?”

“I would give them, in exchange for my son’s freedom.”

He suddenly turns and draws his sword in one smooth motion, halting with the tip just inches from my neck.  A muffled gasp runs through the throne room, but I stand stock still.  “And if I demanded instead your very life?”

I stare into his steady eyes, and at last I think I understand the purpose of the sword in my hands.  Slowly, I drop to one knee.  The tip of his sword follows me, tracking my movements smoothly and steadily.  I bow my head, lifting the sword with both hands.  If the tales he’s told me are true, this is the posture a Man of Gondor adopts when he swears an oath of fealty.  “It is yours, Malik, to do with as you will.”

His face remains inscrutable, but slowly, he sheaths his own sword.  Then, he lifts the blade from my hands and sheaths that one as well.  Bending slightly, he clasps my shoulder and gives it a squeeze that I interpret as reassurance.  “Rise,” he murmurs softly, in Westron.

As I obey, he turns from me and sweeps across the room to address his advisors, in a voice meant for all.  “Many years ago, I walked the sands of Harad, first by chance and then by choice.  I wished to learn of its people and discover how the Enemy held them in thrall.”  He takes a few pacing steps.  “And I did.  I found that among his greatest weapons was this,” he held out his old sword for all to see, “Their fear of the Gondorim—of our supposed savagery and lack of mercy.  Yes, even as some of our people speak of the Easterlings in fear, so do they speak of us.”

He props the sword on a stone seat that stands at the base of the throne.

“The other great weapon was this,” he lifts my simple, pathetically empty purse, “A form of economic bondage so subtle few realized he was the source.  Monetary value placed on human lives—ours, theirs, their children’s.  A source of greed for a few, simple necessity for most.”

He walks along the line of nobles, meeting each man’s gaze as if they are soldiers and he is marshaling them for a charge.  “I’ve heard it said that we can never have peace with the Haradrim—that they are too different, that our grievances run too deep.  But, the Harad I know is full of men and women like the man you just saw—people who love their families.  People who desire their own land, free of the shadow’s taint.”  He paused.  “That is why I propose that we free the Men of Harad who are now our prisoners.  No, not that we ransom them.  Not that we sell back their lives for coin, and in so doing place their families more firmly in their overlords’ thrall.  That we free them.  And in so doing, weaken their chains and take the first steps towards peace.”

A few of the advisors are now nodding along, but most seem vaguely troubled, and suspicion is hardening into anger on more than one face.  Elessar pauses before the most open of the detractors, a man younger than most with broad shoulders and a face set in hard lines.  “You, disagree, Lord Angbor.”

The lord inclines his head slightly.  “I will do as my king commands.”  His voice is stiff.

“Then, your king commands that you share your opinion, that we all may benefit from your insight.”

The other man hesitates.  His frown deepens still further.  “You speak of a chained people,” he says at last, “But when the Haradrim broke upon Lamedon, we saw something entirely different.  Repairing the devastation they wrought at Linhir will be the work of years.”

“Indeed.”  The ring of command has slipped from the king’s voice and he now sounds rather like a patient schoolmaster.  “And can we accomplish that work while prolonging a war that, with Sauron’s demise, has now become senseless?”

Angbor does not respond.  Forgotten for the moment, I study the lord’s face and pick out several old scars.  He strikes me as the sort of man for whom battle is its own end.  I have seen his type among my own people, though I’ve never understood it.  His respect for the king is obvious, though.  He seems to be mulling over Elessar’s question.

The man to his left is less enamored.  An older, slightly bent man, his lips are pursed tight under a neat, gray beard and he mutters something that sounds suspiciously like “Tut!”

I think I see Elessar’s shoulders tighten infinitesimally.  But, perhaps I imagined it.  “You have something to add, Lord Mundron?” 

The older lord offers a bow that strikes me as somewhat exaggerated.  “A wise king is a merciful king,” he intones, “But, I fear your kindness will do little to move the hearts of the Haradrim.  They have ever courted their own destruction, for they are a stubborn people, and slow to change their ways.”

“Yes, how terrible that must be for them,” Elessar says lightly.  I wonder, suddenly and wildly, whether anyone else in the chamber knew him well enough to detect the note of dry humor underlying those words.  “Nonetheless,” he continues, “Change is upon us and a choice now lies before Gondor.  What shall we make of these days of peace?  We can spend our strength nurturing old grievances and see our land crumble further.  But, if we take a chance at reconciliation—if we take a chance on Harad—then we may see blessings we have not yet imagined.”

He stands before the nobles, making eye contact once more.  “Lords.  Council members.  By the law of Gondor, I do not need your consent to this.  But, I wish it, nonetheless.  What say you?”

He stops before the youngest of the council members—the one who holds a white rod and wears a thoughtful expression.

“The Steward of Gondor says ‘aye.’”

The man next to him is nodding slightly, looking impressed, the suspicion all but gone from his eyes.

“The Prince of Dol Amroth says ‘aye.’”

“The Lord of Lebennin says ‘aye.’”

“The Lord of Lossarnach says ‘aye.’”

On and on down the line until Elessar pauses before Angbor.  I can see just a sliver of his face in profile—enough to see that it is calm and expectant.  Angbor’s face is troubled.  He glances down, then back up, meeting the king’s gaze.  Then he relaxes and nods, the ghost of a smile playing over his hard lips.  “The Lord of Lamedon says ‘aye.’”

Now, there’s no one left but Mundron.  Elessar fixes this last councilor with his gaze, and I sense a battle of wills commencing—one poor Mundron has little hope of winning.  The older man’s jaw works.  His face twitches.  At last, he speaks, almost sulkily.  “The Lord of Anfalas says ‘aye.’”

It is over.  Not one council member has opposed the king’s mercy.

My fellows shoot me covert looks, hoping for a translation, but I shake my head.  I’ll explain once I’m certain that this is not just a dream.

Once the last lord has spoken his approval, Elessar turns without a word and strides back to stand before me.  As he drops the purse back into my disbelieving hands, his eyes hold a glint of triumph.

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As we file out of the throne room, I am stopped by a hand on my elbow.  I turn and find myself looking into the eyes of the man who called himself the Steward of Gondor.  “The King requests a moment of your time,” he says softly, “In private.”

I bow.  “Of course, my lord.”

The Steward leads me through a side corridor, and indicates a heavy, wooden door with a nod.  I thank him, and push the door open, not quite sure who I will meet on the other side.

The chamber beyond is smaller than I expected.  It seems to be a study of sorts.  Small trestle tables are stacked with books and a desk littered with parchment is pressed against one wall.  Paintings and tapestries line the walls, depicting scenes from Gondor’s history and its lore.  One painting sits propped against the wall rather than hanging with the rest, as if it were a recent addition that no one has yet found time to hang.  I think I recognize the scene:  an elven maiden and her human lover meeting in a starlit grove.  An image from one of Dakheel’s favorite stories.

He sits in a high-backed chair, staring at this painting as though lost in thought.  I close the door behind me and bow deeply.  “What do you wish of me, malik?”  I ask in Haradric.

He meets my gaze easily.  In private, far from the prying eyes of those who would call him a legend, his face is less stern.  “Sit with me a while, Hakim.  But do not address me so.  I fear ‘malik’ is one word I will never grow to love.”

So, I lower myself slowly to sit in an identical chair.  “Should I then call you ‘sire’?” I ask, switching to Westron, “Or ‘majesty’?  It is nigh impossible to think of you only as Dakheel amid . . .” I wave a hand to indicate our surroundings, “all this.”

He smiles and shakes his head.  “It was never ‘only’ Dakheel.  That was always just one name among many . . . but mine nonetheless.”

I’m not sure what to make of that statement except that he remains skilled at dodging the question.

A tea service sits on a low table between us.  With a wave of his hand, he offers me a cup.  I sip it slowly to give myself something to do while I study him.  Dakheel—it is easier to think of him as such away from the terrible grandeur of the throne room—seems strangely untouched by the years.  But for his finery and lavish appointments, he could have been propped on a hay bale next to me, sharing a plate of beans.  His eyes, though, are deeper.  Sadder, perhaps, but wiser too.

“Ayman has your look,” he says suddenly, “I noticed it even as he laid down arms, but did not think to inquire further until after my coronation.”

I nod.  Somehow, I’m not surprised that they crossed paths amid a field with tens of thousands of soldiers.  It’s no more impossible than anything else I’ve heard this day.  “Thank you for sparing him.”

He looks away.  “I am sorry I had to put you through all that.”  He studies his own teacup.

“Did it help you free my son?”

“I believe it did.”

“Then I need no explanation.”

“I need to give one, all the same.”  He studies his own teacup.  “The council . . . well, you saw them.  Peace seems to be the only thing Lord Angbor actually fears, and Mundron is not the only one still driven by old grievances.  For all their lives and all the memory of their fathers, Gondor’s enemies have stayed more or less the same.  Mordor.  Khand.  Rhûn.  Harad.  If we are to have peace, I will need their help in crafting treaties and maintaining them.  But, first I needed them to commit fully to the idea of a peaceful Harad.  I needed them to see the humanity in her people.”  He meets my gaze.  “Do you think relations between our peoples will change?”

I blink.  Is he asking me for foreign policy advice?  I take a moment to collect my thoughts.  “Change, as you said, is upon us already,” I say at last, “The only question is how and to what end.”

He nods, his face a bit rueful.  “I will remain in negotiations with the nobles who have come.  Perhaps we will pound out a treaty.  Perhaps I’ll be tempted to use their heads as battering rams . . . but that’s a risk we all must take.”

That startles a laugh out of me.  For a moment, I hesitate to laugh in the presence of a king . . . but, he’s been a king all along, hasn’t he?  And it’s never stopped me before.

He smiles, and stands with a touch of regret.  I hurry to follow suit.  “They are waiting for me now, in fact.  Ayman is being held in a camp just outside the city.  He has suffered neither wound nor ailment.  The chamberlain can direct you there, and the guards know to expect you.  But, I hope you will both join me tonight for a meal.  It would be good to catch up, as old friends.”

I smile.  “I would like that.”  Dimly, I wonder when I lost my fear of Elessar.  For, he is the king, still; I can see a quiet gravitas in his bearing and cannot quite forget how his eyes burned as he held his sword to my throat.  But, he is my friend, too, and perhaps a thousand other things besides.

“There is one more thing.”  My sword—his sword—has sat unnoticed, propped under a window.  He lifts it now and offers it to me.

I hesitate.  “It is yours.”

He presses it into my hands.  “It was a gift for the days of peace.  I hope you will wear it, now that those days are nearly upon us.”  And then he turns and slips out the door, light as a spirit in all the regalia of a king.

Fin

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A/N:  As this tale comes to a close, I’d like to thank all my readers and especially reviewers one more time.  You guys have inspired me and kept me writing, revising, and editing long after a sane person would have stopped.  I’d love to hear your feedback on this final part, be it positive, negative or anything in between.

A few words on the promised sequel:  I am working on a sequel to this tale which will provide more detail about Aragorn’s travels in Harad.  There are three planned chapters, each of which will be narrated by a different original character and each of which will concern a different setting.  It’s about half-finished, but because I have a terrible track record with WIPs, I’ll be waiting to post until it’s completely written (probably in a week or two).  I may also revisit these characters in other fics.  The tentative title is “Strangers.”  It will be a very different fic in tone and content, but I hope you will enjoy it all the same.