Cottoncrow's Cry - Chapter 1
The War of the Ring, as it came to be known, was over. So dark and troubled had been the end of the last Age, that it took a bit of an effort for the free people of Middle-Earth to realize that a new Age had begun.
Chapter 1
The War of the Ring, as it came to be known, was over. So dark and troubled had been the end of the last Age, that it took a bit of an effort for the free people of Middle-Earth to realize that a new Age had begun.
To the initial period of disbelief, a surge of euphoria followed. Throughout the land, Men, Elves, Dwarves, Hobbits and all other good creatures understood that the danger had passed and that the threat of Mordor was no longer upon their heads. And the euphoria gave room to a foolish belief that, with Sauron, all evil had been banished. Life made an effort to return to its normal path, only to discover that that path had forever been changed.
The Elves were leaving. Their existence in Middle-Earth had reached its winter, and a new life awaited and called for them in the lost lands to the West.
The Dwarves had returned to their mining and crafts, content once again with the peace of their isolated and earthly dwellings.
The Hobbits, lords and masters of a reconquered Shire, were all too happy to return to their simple lives, eager to leave adventure aside for many generations to come.
Men had found their King, and the lost heir of Isildur would lead them steadily in to this new Age. The Age of Men.
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Cottoncrow was a small village lost to all maps.
Sufficiently near to have heard about the war and troubles that had scourged Middle-Earth, but still far enough to stay away from the fights and the new king’s ruling.
Those born there lived freely, under their own rules and had done so for many generations. But it hadn’t always been like that.
In the time when Morgoth still walked the land, in the days when Middle-Earth was still young and the island of Númenor was still above the waterline, Cottoncrow was a place of death and slavery.
Caranthir, the cruellest of Fëanor’s sons, had fallen upon the Men who live there, with a group of elves whose hearts were as dark as his. Before moving to the lands north of Gelion, there he imposed his ruling and will. Those had been days so filled with pain and terror that, for a while, Cottoncrow was a village of living-dead.
Ages came and went, things changed, the elves moved on, and the dwellers of such a lost village could once more rule themselves, returning to their quiet existence of farming and fishing. But those days were never forgotten... and never were they forgiven.
The town’s location seemed almost idyllic, like a hidden pearl in an oyster of green and gold. A river ran east of the dwellings, with a lusty wooded area separating the two. The farmers took advantage of the fertile earth and planted their crops north and south of their homes. There, the fields were alive and colourful, with corn, rye, barley and rice, either steadily growing or waiting to be harvested. To the west, snow-peaked hills shielded them from the cold ocean’s breeze and offered iron for their smiths.
All days but one, as early as the rooster sang, the market place would fill with those offering and those searching for goods to trade. On the free day, the leader of the village would gather with the oldest of every family of nearby and discuss what was needed, what had been accomplished and all that was to be done.
The children learned at home with their parents, not of letters or sums, things they had no use for, but about the crafts that their fathers had learned from their fathers. Sons were taught to work, the daughters were taught to obey.
They had no written laws. Whatever problem might occur was solved between the interested parties and the town’s leader. They ruled themselves by Nature’s teachings, and to Nature they paid their devotion and offered their prayers. It was the earth that would give them a good year’s crop or starve them through the long and chilly winter. It was the water from the river that would offer them its fish or drown the fishermen that tried to hunt there. It was the sky above their heads that would send them rain to help the blossom of their seeds or to wash them away.
They knew how temperamental Nature was, and with that knowledge in mind, they tried their best not to anger Her. In return, they were blessed with fields as full and healthy as the ones they had been blessed with this beginning of Age.
They were to Nature what Nature was to them in return, and nothing would befall them as long as they followed this rule.
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The first ones had been the family of the fisherman John, who lived outside the village. Their customers and friends noticed their absence from the market. Five days later, seeing that they still would not come, a friend of the family went to their home, near the river.
As no one answered his calls, the villager entered the dark, wooden house. The first thing he noticed was the smell.
Being a fisherman’s home, the man thought that the smell was perhaps due to some forgotten fish, left to rotten somewhere in the house. A pot of food sat on the long dead fire coals and all of their fishing tools were store against the wall near the door. A few wood and rag toys lay scattered around the dirty floor, but the sound of children was absent from the house.
The man went to the large window and opened it, letting the sun and fresh air inside. And with the brighter light, he saw the bodies.
The fisherman and his wife were in a corner the main room, in a large cot, propped against a wall. Their small boys lay there as well, hidden at first look by the bodies of the parents.
They had all died curled upon themselves, soiled by their own vomit. Their skin, turn in to a yellow-greenish colour, gave them the look of rotten cattle. Their faces were masks of pain. The fisherman had died with his eyes open, and even the unnatural tone that death gave everything could not hide the fear in them.
The man trembled in fright, horrified by such a vision, wondering what could have caused this. He ran out of the haunted place, fearful that it might strike him too, and didn’t stop until he reached the village.
It wasn’t long before others started to die as well.
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The old carpenter was next. Purple spots that he told no one about, started to appear all over his body, giving him feverish spells. When all of his skin started to take a yellowish tinge, the old man closed his shop and refused to leave his house, afraid to be seen by any of the others.
They had all seen the fisherman’s family when they were brought to be buried. And the sight had frightened them all.
The colour was wrong, the gravedigger had granted them, and even the healer refused to touch any of the bodies. In the end, they had decided to burn them, as no one wanted them in the same ground as their dead relatives.
The matter was, after a time, forgotten, until the body of the old carpenter was found.
Panic spread as fast as the strange disease. Fishermen, farmers, shepherds, blacksmiths, housewives, everywhere it struck, killing the older, the weaker, the children and the newborn babies. Even the larger beasts were not spared, horses, cows and dogs dying faster than humans.
The people lived in fear, not knowing or understanding how this could be happening. Why? Had they done something to deserve such a curse upon their heads? They talked about a plague, they talked about demons, but no one could come up with a reason for such a hard punishment.
Samuel, the healer, found himself powerless to stop the inclement and savage path this disease took. The Bruisenbite, they had started to call it. It always started with the purple marks, like little bruises all over the body. The stricken burned with fever for three days, until their pain was too overwhelming. Their skin and eyes would turn into a sick shade of yellow, and their stomachs could take no food. No survivors were left to tell their tales. Ruthless and quick, it was a killer that never missed its mark.
The healthy ones grew scared of the fast way in which it spread, and refused any contact with those infected, taking no heed if they were long time friends or even family. All were abandoned in equal manner. At first sign of the Bruisenbite, the stricken were forced into an old, abandoned house, outside of the village, where they were left to die. When one met his or her end, the body would be dragged outside by any infected still strong enough to do it, and burned.
The fires were lit almost everyday, but still the stench of death and sickness impregnated all of Cottoncrow.
The inhabitants of such a cursed place turned to their ruler for guidance, for he was seen as one of the oldest and wisest men in the district. This time, however, he had no words of encouragement or wisdom to offer them. Not since his youngest son’s disappearance, at the beginning of the current season. Bomieth, as the old man was named, had lost all interest in life and the affairs of his village, living only to see the return of his son.
After Bomieth, Samuel was the most respected man by all, not only because of his understandings of healing plants and herbs, but also because of his gift.
Samuel, it was told, was able to tell the future, much in the same way, as, on feast days, he would gather an audience and tell tales of the past.
They turned to him then, not in search of a healing broth, for they had confirmed to themselves that none would work, but in search of a way to drive this plague away from their homes.
After much persuasion, for it was not something he idly did, Samuel agreed to look upon the folds of fate. He took a set of five stones, which had been given to him by the Dwarves on one of his many travels. Each stone was engraved with a black rune and, as he cast them to the ground inside his house, some of the runes were left facing up, others hidden from view. Samuel looked at his five stones for a long time, earning the impatience of young Tom, who had gone to him in representation of all the others.
“So?... What do you see?” He asked when he had no more nails to eat.
Samuel looked up, his face trying to mask the annoyance of being interrupted.
“It is not very clear,” he begun at last, analysing the three runes facing up. “I see the mark of Sauron...”
Tom choked on his own spit, looking around in fear, as if the dark lord had entered the room himself.
“... the Bruisenbite,” Samuel went on, ignoring Tom’s reaction, “and a two headed creature.”
In front of him, the young butcher had grown pale.
“And what do you understand of such signs?” he asked with growing fear.
Samuel thought for long, turning over the other two stones, one at a time.
“The three are connected like the links of a chain. Break the weakest and we might have a chance. Sauron, from what we hear, was defeated in the south, but the power of his legacy is much too strong for us to face. He seeks revenge, unleashing the Bruisenbite on us, and that one, we have already realized that it is beyond us to defeat. We must face this two headed creature and break the chain that binds us!”
Tom nodded, still in shock at what he had heard. If before he held little hope of them beating this evil, now his hopes were laughable, facing the magnitude of what they must overcome.
“A two headed creature... I have never seen one. Do they even exist?”
Samuel held the younger man’s eyes, trying to determine if he was doubting his word or merely curious. He decided on the last.
“I do not know... I can only tell you what the runes have shown me,” the healer said, storing the stones away. “We have never seen a elf either and yet we have no doubts that they are evil and cunning creatures, who have caused much grief and pain to our forefathers. Let us take this warning at heart and be watchful and prepared for whatever may come!”
A steely determination took over young Tom, and saying his thanks, he went to tell the others all he had heard. And so it was that, in a village decimated by the Bruisenbite, all which were still healthy and able, readied themselves for the coming of the two-headed creature.
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