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!