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Stirrings of Shadow  by Fiondil

40: Sifting Through the Ruins

Warning: Certain descriptions of what is found when Thengel and others go to Underharrow to investigate its destruction may prove disturbing to some readers.

****

Thengel’s people brought many needed blankets, clothing, food and medical supplies, as well as extra horses for Aragorn and the other scouts. It was decided that they would not send any of the refugees to Dunharrow until the morning. Elladan elected to return with them saying that he would be of more use helping his brother with the burned victims and those suffering from frostbite. Aragorn was tempted to return to Dunharrow as well, but Thengel bade him to stay.

"You are, after all, under my command, in case you’ve forgotten," the king reminded him gently and Aragorn acquiesced with a bow.

The other members of the scouting party also remained. Ragnawulf was with them, having traveled back with the king and the éored. That night as the refugees slept Thengel demanded that the scouts describe everything that had happened. They told him about the traffic between Edoras, Upbourn and Underharrow and seeing Isenwulf of Upbourn in the company of Éolind and the other traitors. Thengel did not appear too surprised by this and they realized from Ragnawulf’s expression that he must have told the king something of what they had learned as they made their way to the refugees.

"Tomorrow I will go to Underharrow," Thengel said when they were finished giving their report, "and see for myself the perfidy of mine own people." His voice was cold and unforgiving and his eyes were dark under the stars. Aragorn fought a shiver as he looked upon this scion of Eorl the Young. The Rohirrim might not have as ancient or as noble a lineage as the Dúnedain, but they were mighty and fell in their own right. Thengel’s puissance could not be doubted, nor his determination to see the murderers of innocents come before his justice.

"What about Upbourn?" Hildered asked then. "Do you think the town too is burning even as we speak? There was no one to send to check," he ended apologetically.

Thengel gave him a brief hug in comfort. "I ordered some of my éored to continue on to Upbourn and ascertain what, if anything, has happened there," Thengel replied. "If the same thing has occurred there as here there is naught we can do about it."

"I do not think Upbourn is in danger of being destroyed," Elladan interjected, much to everyone’s surprise. "We had already passed Upbourn and the evil I sensed emanated further up the dale in the direction of Underharrow, not Upbourn."

"Sense evil, you say?" Thengel asked in surprise.

Elladan nodded. "I have fought against orcs and occasionally Men for nearly three thousand years. The stench of orcs is quite recognizable, but so is that of Men who commit atrocities, though it differs in degree."

The matter-of-fact manner in which he spoke chilled the Mortals and one or two listening to the conversation bristled at the implied insult to Men offered by the Elf’s words. Thengel merely sighed and closed his eyes. "In that, you are correct, Lord Elladan, much to my sorrow and chagrin."

"Men do not have sole claim to perfidy, Thengel King," Elladan replied with a tight smile. "The kinslaying of Elves against Elves at Aqualondë, Doriath and the Eithel Sirion is testament to that."

Thengel nodded at Elladan’s words, then commanded Hildered and the other scouts to seek their rest, assuring them of his approval of all they had done and tried to do. "No one could have done more than you did," he told them when Aragorn demurred. "Go now and rest. You have earned it. The watch will be the duty of my éored. Tomorrow, we will go to Underharrow and do what is needful for the victims."

They all gave Thengel their obeisance and then went to the tents which had been set aside for their use. Thengel, however, remained long beside the bonfire that still blazed, his thoughts dark and dangerous as the stars wheeled slowly above him in indifferent splendor.

****

The men Thengel had sent to check on Upbourn returned in the early morning hours to report that the town was quiet and the ramparts manned. Everyone breathed a silent prayer of thanksgiving for that. As soon as it was light enough, the refugees were on their way to Dunharrow with a suitable escort while Thengel led the rest of the party to Underharrow. The King ordered the bodies of the refugees who had died to be brought with them so they might be buried with their fellow victims. These were wrapped with blankets and securely tied to some of the horses. It was a grim ride and when they came upon the bodies of the three who had fallen along the way, they stopped. Thengel dismounted and knelt beside the body of the child, brushing the snow off her and cradling her in his arms, weeping. No one else moved and it was several minutes before the king got himself under control. He laid the child’s body down and stripped off his cloak, wrapping her in it. The other two corpses were wrapped in blankets and these three bodies were brought along as well, Thengel insisting on carrying the child in his arms.

As Underharrow came into view they all stopped in shock and at least one of the younger men was heard to gag at the sight. There was something horribly obscene about it, Aragorn decided as he gazed upon the ruins: the blackened walls, most of them fallen, with smoke still rising while all about was pristine snow under a winter-blue sky. The Snowbourn, where it was not iced over by the banks, sang merrily as it coursed its way northward through the Westfold before turning east into the Entwash. Even the tracks the refugees had made to the camp were gone. It was the sight of carrion crows wheeling overhead however that made the scene worse and Thengel cursed under his breath. He urged his steed forward but the horses balked at the smell and the heat of the fires still smoldering within the ruins, so they were forced to leave the horses some distance from the ruins and walk the rest of the way.

Close up, the destruction was even more terrible. The main gate still stood, though the ramparts on either side were nearly burned to the ground. The planks that had barred the gates were still evident, though they were now mostly charcoal. Approaching where the ramparts had fallen into ash they were forced to pick their way carefully as they climbed through the breach in the walls to the left of the gate, for the wood still smoldered. The snowfall the night before had done little to put out any of the major fires.

As they stepped through the break into the village itself they stopped in sick amazement. It was a scene out of Angband, Aragorn thought, remembering some of the tales of the dread dungeon from his childhood. The smell of oil and burning flesh permeated the air and they all were forced to tie strips of cloth over their mouths and noses. Two or three lost their breakfast.

Thengel stooped and brushed a gloved hand across one section of the ramparts that was still somewhat intact, removing the snow. The beam was not overly large, having been a brace holding up the parapet. He sniffed it, dropping the beam with a grimace. Then he stood and surveyed the area.

"You say you think they fired the walls first, then boarded the gates so none could escape?" he asked Hildered who was standing next to him.

Hildered nodded. "We saw them nailing the beams to the main gate before they rode off," he said, "but by then all the outer walls were on fire and Elladan said he could see fire arrows let loose to fly over the walls and onto the thatched roofs. Then they rode off."

"By the time we reached the town," Aragorn picked up the narrative, "the fire was too intense for us to reach the gate and try to remove the planks. Then we remembered the posterns."

"Apparently the murderers were not as careful about blocking one of the posterns," Hildered continued. "Someone from inside had an axe and was able to hew his way through the door, otherwise, I doubt if even we would have found any survivors."

Thengel nodded. "Spread out," he commanded quietly. "I doubt anyone survived this hell, but I want to know for sure. Bring the dead to the square."

Then the gruesome task of sifting through the ruins began. It was slow and tedious for there were some places where the fires still burned enough that they had to bring piles of snow to put out the flames. Most ignored (or tried to) the huddle of bodies they found leaning against the main gate.

"Why did they not go to the posterns?" Gilhael whispered to Aragorn as they set about removing the bodies and shifting them to the square. The Dúnedain had volunteered to deal with the bodies by the main gate and any others that were out in the open while the others searched through the rubble of houses and other buildings. "Why did they stay by the main gate when they had no hope of opening it?"

Aragorn pointed. "Some of them attempted to climb the ramparts, but look, it collapsed on most of them. I think the others were too overcome by heat and smoke to think clearly enough to move away and seek other egress."

"Do you think if they had stayed in the center of the town here by the well they could have survived long enough to escape once the flames died down?" Hildered asked as he passed them to search the feasthall.

Thengel who was standing to one side, shook his head. "The fires have died down but at the height of the conflagration everything, including the people, would have burst into flame. They had no hope."

And so the search for bodies went on. More than once one of the men was seen running towards a stand of trees by the river, which was now easily accessible, where they became violently ill. Slowly, as the Sun made her way inexorably across the sky, they moved the dead into the square. Aragorn kept an eye on his cousin for this was too similar to what had happened to Gilhael’s village the year before and Aragorn was concerned that Gilhael might suffer from one of his ‘episodes’. Yet, the older Dúnadan went about the grim work silently and competently. Once, catching Aragorn’s concerned eyes, he gave his Chieftain a wintry smile that did not reach his eyes before returning to pulling yet another charred body that was more blackened skeleton than anything else out of the ruins.

"There are too many to built a proper cairn for them," Thengel said at one point, his expression sorrowful, "and the ground is too hard yet for burial. We will have to burn the bodies. I will not leave my people to the crebain and we cannot risk pestilence once the weather warms and the bodies decay," he declared.

That announcement did not go well with any of them but no one offered a protest, knowing full well that Thengel was right. It went against their natures but the circumstances dictated otherwise.

"Someone is going to pay dearly for this horror," Hildered whispered, and all agreed. His expression was beyond bleak and he had been sick twice, weeping uncontrollably upon finding two small charred bodies hiding under the remains of what must have been their sleeping cot. No one disparaged him for it, for they were all feeling the same sense of loss and despair.

It was two hours past noon before they finished their grisly tasks. Faggots were gathered from the charred wood all around them and placed strategically around the bodies. There were too many for a single pyre so they made four piles. Thengel waited until all the bodies had been placed on the pyres and then gently took the corpse of the child they had brought with them and placed her on one of the piles, leaving her wrapped in his cloak.

They all gathered around to hear the king’s words: "We commend the souls of these people to Lord Béma and the other Powers. May they be welcomed into the Halls of our Fathers with joy, and given every comfort, for whatever their loyalties, their murderers deemed them unworthy of life and so I claim them for my own and name them þegnlic and I shall exact þegnwer for each one of them. This I swear by my ancestor Eorl and those who committed this atrocity will suffer our fullest wrath. Now, let us return these people to the earth whence we all come."

That was the signal for the pyres to be lit. Aragorn, Gilhael, Hildered and Ragnawulf begged leave of Thengel to stand guard over the pyres while the rest of the éored made camp north of the ruins near the river. "Everyone should wash as thoroughly as possible in hot water and soap," Aragorn instructed Thengel. "We do not want any pestilence to follow us into Dunharrow."

Thengel agreed and the command was given. "You may stand the first watch," he told the four men, "for that honor belongs to you, but I think others will wish to stand watch as well. We will rotate every two hours until the embers have died."

So they stood, each before one of the pyres, and watched until their relief came. It escaped no one’s notice that Thengel himself stood off to one side throughout most of the night, never leaving to seek his own rest until long after midnight.

The next morning, while the éored broke camp, Thengel and Hildered entered the ruins one more time alone. Hildered carried a metal coffer that had been found in the ruins of the feasthall. The metal had buckled a bit but the coffer itself was still sound. Thengel had decided to fill it with ashes taken from each of the pyres. "When I have regained my throne, I will bury these ashes with full honors in the barrows below Edoras," he said.

Finally, Thengel and Hildered joined the others, with Hildered carefully placing the box into one of his saddlebags before mounting. Thengel looked back at the ruins of Underharrow. "We will rebuild," he said in an uncompromising tone and several of the Riders nodded grimly in agreement.

Then, they set off for Dunharrow, leaving behind ashes and disappointed carrion birds.

****

All words are Rohirric (Anglo-Saxon):

Þegnlic: Loyal, noble.

Þegnwer: Thane’s ‘weregild’.





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