The rapids rushed through their narrow channel. Above the rapids a cloud of mist hung against the sky, where sunlight had drawn two rainbows. Wet stones glistened in the sunlight and humid moss shone in emerald green. As Hellrien crossed the Trestlespan riding north across the Greenway she saw half-rotten broken carts here and there by the roadside, signs of recent orc attacks against anyone who ventured to cross the bridge. Here the road was so little-used it was often overgrown by grass and undergrowth, giving a hint of where the Greenway had gotten it’s name from.
Sun heated her clothes as she rode along the road. She was feeling hungover, depressed and miserable. Her throat was sore from too much pipe-weed. Poor quality home-brewed wine churned in her stomach, her face had a sickly pale hue and black rings under her smarting, bloodshot eyes. She had woken up under the big bridge, with no recollection how she had gotten there, and thrown up in the streaming river below her. It hadn’t improved her condition much. She had grass-stains and dirt all over her new dress.
Her recollections of last night were blurry and scarce, and the little bits she did remember made her wish she had forgotten them too. To say that her reception in Mrs. Woodruff’s house was chilly would have been the understatement of the year, but at least she was allowed to pick up her things and leave. She felt like she hadn’t left the best possible first impression on the townsfolk of Trestlebridge, but that seemed to be the story of her life. She swore she would never touch strong drink again, for the thousandth time in her life.
Hellrien kept following the road, still deep in thought. She smiled sarcastically at herself and loaded her pipe. After a while the woods cleared. Another road forked from the Greenway towards east, and far in the north she could see sickly, dead trees covering the hills. Hellrien’s nostrils shivered. She was reaching the Fields of Fornost!
To her left she could see the ruins of some ancient outpost on top of a knoll. Hellrien stopped her horse and spurred it towards the ruin. One of the drunkards in Trestlebridge had told her about a Ranger who had a camp by the fork of the road where he could keep an eye on the Greenway and the Fields of Fornost. It had to be up there – that’s where Hellrien would have set her own camp in his place anyway. And didn’t she smell something nice sizzling on a skewer? Hellrien’s stomach growled with hunger. She hadn’t been able to eat a bite for breakfast, but she was sure she could eat something now.
It turned out she was right. The Ranger called Mincham and a mismatch couple of other travelers were sitting around a campfire, roasting a hare. Hellrien jumped off her horse and approached the campfire, keeping her hands up to show she came in peace. Mincham invited her over for a lunch.
Hellrien told a little bit of herself and where she was going while they ate, like she had told to Mattie Woodruff in Trestlebridge. Mincham listened, mostly in silence. He couldn’t figure Hellrien out. Both the woman and her attire had seen better days. Both had been recently washed, but her clothes were ragged and worn and the woman herself clearly hungover. Only her weapons were in good shape, but they too – a thrusting spear and a big warhammer – were crude and primitive.
And yet she claimed she was looking for the Treasure Hunters’ Camp in Fornost – to find out any news of her missing friends.
When she had stopped talking, Mincham was quiet for a long time. When he spoke, his words were scarce and measured, as was typical with Rangers of the North.
”You still have time to reach the Norbury Gates before sundown if you make haste. If not, I suggest you stay here overnight. Do not walk the Fields of Fornost after dark. There are a lot of wargs and orcs there, especially around the Norbury Gates, but both are nocturnal creatures. You may be able to pass the Norbury Gates in sunlight, but make no mistake – if the orcs spot you there they will come after you and slaughter you, day or night. So stay alert, and stay as far of the orc encampments as you can. And leave your horse here, I’ll take care of it. Do not try to take a horse in the Fields of Fornost.”
Hellrien thanked Mincham for his advice and left her horse with him before continuing along the Greenway on foot. The moors along the road were growing sickly, scrubby trees all over, but Hellrien could see they weren’t all dead. They were growing patches of leaves here and there, although arduously. Life was struggling here, but there was life all the same.
Late in the afternoon she could finally see the walls of the ancient city looming in the horizon. Finally! Fornost, the ancient capital of Arnor. Where Dorvairse and Hashchirgael were captured. Where most of the Sworn Brotherhood had been heading to the last time she had seen them. She could see typical orc encampments erected by the gates, and was really careful when she approached the walls, but orcs sleep through daytime as their eyes are sensitive to light, so she managed to sneak past the Norbury Gates without incidents.
Hellrien still had the map Colbert had drawn with her, and after she had passed the gates she found the camp fairly easily. She was surprised by it’s size. She had been expecting maybe a couple of tarps in a distant nook of the ruins, but she could see right away the Treasure Hunters’ Camp was much bigger than that. Here, amidst the ruins in the middle of enemy territory, was a small community of it’s own, an island of resistance, complete with regular guards, barrels and crates, tarps and tents, tables and benches, swords and helmets on crude shelves, camp followers and even training yards for archers to practice in.
The first person Hellrien encountered was a fierce-looking brunette with a very scary-looking bow aimed at Hellrien.
”Peace!” she exclaimed. ”I come from Trestlebridge. I’m looking for the Widdup brothers, do you know them?”
A growling sound behind Hellrien alarmed her and she turned quickly towards it’s source. It was a man, a miserable wretch in final stages of chronic alcohol addiction, leaning to a tarp and slobbering in his mug, growling and muttering hoarsely and mindlessly.
”Widdups?” the woman said, focusing Hellrien’s attention at her again. ”They’re over there.”
Hellrien found the Widdup brothers in the inner court of the Treasure Hunters’ Camp, and it didn’t take long for her to figure out the brothers were both complete crackpots. The brothers, Arch and Will, were twins and very similar in appearance. The only thing Hellrien could tell them apart from was that Arch had a raven-black hair while Will’s hair was lighter brown. Both had formidable, downwards-turning horseshoe mustaches and grim-looking, weathered faces but their mouths laughed often, and winningly. They were daredevils and incorrigible pranksters, unruly boys who had never really grown up, junkies for action and adventure who needed their fix every day. Hellrien liked them immediately.
”Mattie sent you, huh?” Arch queried.
”As a late birthday present, I’d wager”, Will suggested, tongue in cheek.
Hellrien told the Widdups her story, and the brothers leaned back and listened, arms crossed.
”Well”, said Will when she was finished talking, ”I’m sorry to say we don’t anything about wizards or the like here, though it’s pretty clear Angmar is mustering it’s forces for something big, and who knows who’s pulling the strings over there. And we haven’t seen folks as you describe either, but that only means they haven’t come through this here camp. We don’t ever go deep into Fornost, as that would mean certain death.”
”And what if I wanted to take a peek? How far could you get me in?”
The brothers exchanged glances. ”She wants to go take a peek”, Arch snickered.
”And why not?” Hellrien could feel her ire rising up. ”Are you saying that because I’m a woman, I can’t handle dangerous situations?”
The Widdups exchanged glances again, looking surprised, and burst out laughing. ”We’re not saying anything of the sort, miss Hellrien”, Will guffawed.
Suddenly both brothers grew serious. Will grasped a stone bottle on the table and pushed it towards Hellrien. ”Take a sip, miss Hellrien”, he said in a friendly tone, but Hellrien noticed the brothers exchanging sly glances and a wink and guessed they were up to something.
”What’s in it?” she asked suspiciously.
”Dwarven brandy”, Will said. ”Taste it, it’s good. Strong and good.”
Hellrien eyed the brothers, narrowing her eyes. Distilled spirits were rare in Middle-Earth, and dwarven brandy was among the strongest there was. The Widdups were clearly hoping she would choke on it, but they couldn’t know Hellrien had gotten accustomed to dwarven brandy during her months in the Blue Mountains, rare as the stuff was. She viewed the brothers scornfully and took the bottle to her lips, eager to show the boys how strong spirits are supposed to…
… and choked immediately at the vile taste and burning sensation in her mouth and going down her gullet, burning like acid as it went down. Her eyes bulged, and she gasped for air and swallowed air repeatedly just to be able to hold it down. The Widdups laughed with tears in their eyes, pointing their fingers at Hellrien’s face like it was the most comical thing they’d ever seen. Arch had to stand up and turn his back to Hellrien, leaning his hands to his knees as he tried to control bouts of laughter. Will literally dropped from his stool and rolled on the ground with laughter. Hellrien felt like slapping the boys around their ears, but was afraid she would throw up violently if she as much as breathed. There was a small forest fire raging in her stomach.
”’Dwarven brandy’… Aah-ha-haa-ha haa!”
”They fall for it every time… Hee-he-hee hee hee!”
”What the…?” Hellrien’s voice came out as a hoarse whisper, her vocal chords charred by the vile substance. Wiping tears of joy out of the corners of his eyes, Will explained through bouts of snicker:
”Miss Hellrien, that’s orc draught. There’s extremely strong alcohol in it, and something else too, but we don’t know what. The poor buggers drink it raw, we usually blend it with ale for more palatable taste and less dramatic effects. In small amounts it will warm you up, numb all your pains and ailments and fill you with courage and good cheer. In bigger quantities it will make you extremely drunk extremely fast, lose your mind and go berserk. It will also mush your brain and ruin your health faster than anything else, if you drink it all the time.”
Hellrien had to admit that now, when the burning lump in her stomach had melted away, a pleasant warmth and euphoria was spreading all over her body. Suddenly she wasn’t hungover anymore. She felt strong as a bear and brave as a cat, in fact she had never felt better. Hmmm!
”That’s how we get by up here”, Arch explained. ”Liquid courage! You see, what we do here for sport is hunt orcs. Every day after sundown we go out through the Norbury Gates to hunt the orcs from the Ongbúrz and Blogmal tribes, who have set up their camps there. We kill them if we find them wandering around alone or in pairs, and loot them for what they have. Miss Hellrien, have you ever killed an orc before?”
Hellrien had to think about that for a while. She didn’t believe so. Even during her adventures in the Lone-Lands she had managed to avoid direct confrontation with the orc-kind.
”I don’t believe I have.”
”But you have killed things? I mean in combat? You’ve seen actual combat, and know how to use those weapons of yours?”
”I have and I do.”
The Widdups exchanged looks again. ”If you want some excitement in your life, may I suggest you come with us tonight when the sun goes down?” Will asked. ”There should be challenge enough for you right there – bear in mind that orcs can see in almost complete darkness as well as we see in broad daylight, so it’s extremely risky business. Their other senses are very keen too. And forget about ’taking a peek’ in Fornost City – if your friends have strolled down there, you will never see them again, and that’s my measured opinion.”
”Alright”, said Hellrien. ”Let’s do it.”
The brothers grinned at each other.
”Let’s find her a fat one”, said Arch.
”Yeah”, Will agreed. ”Fat ones are the best!”
That orc draught sure made Hellrien feel mellow. Maybe another sip would make her feel even better? Her fingers moved towards the bottle, but Will snatched it and lifted it out of reach. ”Nu-uhh!” he said, shaking his head sternly.
Hellrien threw an offended glare at him, pouting like a child that had gotten a slap on the fingers when reaching for a cookie. ”What?” she huffed indignantly.
”No more orc draught for you. Not if you’re serious about coming with us later. You need your wits about you there.”
”Besides”, Arch added, ”you don’t want to develop a sweet tooth for orc draught, especially not for the raw stuff. Or you’ll end up like Bart Rosethorn over there. Did you see the poor bugger? His mind’s almost gone now. All he wants to do is drink orc draught, and if you try to stop him, he’ll get shakes and cramps so bad it’ll kill him unless you sedate him with enough orc draught. Best just let him drink himself to death with the stuff, there’s nothing more anyone can do for him.”
”If it’s so dangerous and unhealthy, then why do you drink it?” Hellrien wanted to know.
Will stuck his tongue out for her. ”Because we just don’t give a damn, miss Hellrien!”
”Live fast and die young”, Arch added. ”Ain’t none of us gonna live forever.”
It was beginning to get dark. Purple shadows crept down the Fields of Fornost, covering the ugly, maimed landscape in their shade. There was something mean and wicked about Will’s grin when he looked at Hellrien.
”It’s time”, he said. ”Are you ready to go, miss Hellrien?”
”Aye, let’s do it.”
The Widdups collected their weapons and Hellrien followed them out of the camp. The sun had set below the horizon but it wasn’t completely dark yet. It was the best time to go orc hunting, Arch explained, as they begin waking up and you can still see farther than your own nose. There’s also so much light still that it hurts their eyes, thus giving the orc hunters more equal footing with the orcs.
They stopped talking and sneaked along the wall as they approached the Norbury Gates. Will was leading the way, Arch was on the back and Hellrien stayed in the middle. When they stepped out of the gate, they turned left and began sneaking pressed tightly by the wall. Every so often Will would stop them by raising his hand, and both brothers peered intently into the gloom. Hellrien wasn’t sure what they saw out there, but the brothers seemed to know what they were doing.
”Would you mind being a decoy for us?” Will asked suddenly in a whisper. ”Just walk down the slope in any direction. If something attacks you, we will kill it with our bows, so don’t wander off too far.”
Hellrien nodded and did as she was told. She had managed to advance maybe thirty yards when she suddenly heard heavy and brisk footsteps coming behind her.
She spun around, weapons ready. An enormous blade flashed towards her. Something scraped her tunic.
Hellrien thrust her spear towards the attacker, but realized she had misjudged the length of the shaft of the battle axe. In the dim light she saw how the orc took a side-step and her spear missed it by at least a yard. Then the creature was right in front of her, and a wild swing of the battle axe missed her head by an inch as she managed to duck it just barely.
The massive orc barged at her like an auroch. Hellrien spun aside and managed to hit the hard head of the hammer on the orc’s face. It grunted with pain, but it’s massive left arm managed to take a hold of Hellrien’s head and squeezed it against it’s fatty, tough-skinned belly. Hellrien was in real trouble now! That strong arm would snap her neck like a twig in less than a second.
She sunk the claw of her hammer into the orc’s groin, which made it release it’s grasp, and Hellrien staggered backwards, ears burning and humming. The orc charged at her. The blade flashed. Hellrien threw herself aside, and a cool stream of air swiped Hellrien’s hood. Hellrien aimed a swinging blow towards the orc’s head. The pain surged throughout her whole arm as the head of the hammer sunk in it’s target. The half-naked brute fell down with a rumble.
Hellrien stood by the corpse, breathing heavily. Her heart pounded and hands shook with shock. The orc didn’t make a move. She heard an orc shouting something with it’s own language from farther away, and a warg growled somewhere behind her, not too far away. It was time to split. Hellrien ran back towards the Widdup brothers, steaming with desire to break their bloody necks. Her left ear burned like it was singed.
”Why didn’t you shoot?” she demanded in a furious whisper.
”Shhh!” Will warned. ”We wanted to see how you’d fare. It was you who boasted all that stuff about ’taking a peek’ in Fornost City, and that we shouldn’t treat you differently for you being a woman and all, remember? Now you’ve felled your first orc, how does that feel? Hot, eh?” Will saw how Hellrien’s hands were still shaking and nodded at her approvingly, with something resembling almost jealousy twinkling in his eyes. She remembered the first impression she had gotten from the Widdup brothers. These boys were addicted to danger.
”Well fought, miss Hellrien, very well indeed”, said Arch. ”I’m impressed. You sure wasn’t exaggerating when you told you know how to fight. How about we head back to camp now? Looks like you got your fix of excitement for tonight.”
Hellrien agreed, and the trio began heading back. They were right, Hellrien thought. The trail had gone cold. She had found no trace of her friends, nobody even remembered them coming through. She didn’t even have proof they had used the same route to get here, or that they had ever gotten this far in the first place. She had to come to terms with the idea that the story of the Sworn Brotherhood was over. She had done what she could to find them, and there was nothing more she could do.
So what then? What next? Where would she go? What would she do? What did fate have in store for Hellrien?
She could stay right here for a while, hunt orcs and drink orc draught with the Widdup brothers in the ruins of the ancient Fornost. But she knew that very soon her blood would begin to draw her on the road again, and she would leave this place and the Widdups behind. Where would she go then?
Only time would tell.
