In the end, the eighth lute's demise was in its abandonment. Left discarded in a nest of leaf litter at the edge of the Ithilien woods. Someday, a far roaming wanderer might stumble upon the bleached, wooden skeleton, strings long since corroded, and wonder who might have left it there. Ryheric was again luteless, in the meantime.
An extreme and bloody business had been finalised, the lute lost in violent circumstance, the twice-chipped curved southern blade reclaimed, then a long road. Eventually, Ryheric found himself in Breeland once more.
Riding towards Staddle upon Son of Mouse, he came upon a wide open cottage. Empty and about to be cleaned, except for a stack of old furniture piled outside.
He spied something surely imagined, and it drew him to dismount the colt. He moved closer to the gutted house from where a family intended to relocate. In that pile of discarded and broken furniture, he found it.
The lute had a measly four courses instead of the six or eight he was used to. Woefully inadequate for a skilled lutist. It looked like it would be more at home in a stack of firewood than the arms of a musician. The wood was beaten, old and brittle, one string did not keep its pitch. It was cracked in many places, and ready to fall apart.
Ryheric picked it up, dusted it off and strapped his ninth instrument to his back.
She was doomed to be short-lived, and would crumble and fail any day. But she was beautiful, and there was music in her, yet.
