Cottoncrow's Cry - Chapter 13
When Gimli and Alumna reached Bomieth’ side, they were left a little confused. They could not see to whom he was shouting at, all that they could see was an old man acting like he had lost his mind.
Chapter 13
When Gimli and Alumna reached Bomieth’ side, they were left a little confused. They could not see to whom he was shouting at, all that they could see was an old man acting like he had lost his mind.
Who ever it was that had made Bomieth lose his temper, it was a person that he hadn’t seen in a long time, and a person he wasn’t expecting to see ever again.
Looking with more care in to the dark corner where this person was supposed to be, the two newcomers managed to see the outline of a small figure, almost totally hidden in the shadows. As their eyes slowly adjusted to the gloom, the figure took a step towards the light, a hand reaching out to Bomieth.
Gimli was the first to recognize her as a dwarf, a female dwarf, but even he had some difficulty. Had it not been for her white haired head, he would’ve mistaken her for a child.
She was shorter than Gimli, reaching no higher than Bomieth’s middle section. Her white hair fell over her shoulders in thick, tangled, grimy bundles. Her face betrayed her age more than her hair, covered with deep wrinkles as it was and her clothes seemed to be as old as her years. The air around her smelled of old fish and dirty socks. In her large fingered and callous hands she carried a wooden staff as tall as her, its headpiece carved in black stone in the shape of bear’s claw. She used it for support as she talked quietly to the old man.
“Bomieth,” Alumna called out. In his outpour of rage, the villager had yet to notice their arrival.
The old man’s dark eyes turned on the younger woman, immediately softening. He took a deep breath, trying to calm himself. There was really nothing that he could do now. He had imagined that this was a part of his life that would be able to put behind his back and forget. He was wrong.
“Who are you?” Gimli asked the she-dwarf.
The rags covered figure looked at him, judging his face, posture and clothes. Satisfied with what she saw, she smiled.
“I was looking for you, master dwarf,” she said, her staff rasping on the ground as she moved closer to him, her other hand reaching for the dwarf’s hand.
Gimli took a step back, confused by her actions, but with a speed that belayed her age, the female grabbed his hand just the same.
“You must come with me at once!”
“Of course I must,” Gimli replied with sarcasm, forcibly removing his hand from her strong clasp. It seemed to him that that village had more than its share of idiots, and he seemed to be attracting them all. “What do they call you?” He asked her, unable to deny the homely feeling of talking to another dwarf after so long. Even if it was a crazy one.
“Her name is Khazam,” Bomieth said, his eyes never losing sight of the female. “She is an outcast… she should have never returned here.”
The she-dwarf huffed.
“I became an outcast because you lot were ashamed of me,” she replied with a deep voice filled with competent.
Bomieth grew even larger, towering over her.
“You became an outcast because of your actions,” he exploded in her ears. “Do not blame others for the fate you brought upon yourself.”
“You are Bomieth’s mother, are you not?” Alumna whispered, her eyes round with surprise at her own connection. “He once told me about her… but he said that she had died given birth to him…”
Khazam raised a bushy eyebrow, looking at the old man.
“Is that what you told our son, hem?”
The man pressed his hands inside the baggy coat he wearing and averted her gaze.
“It was for his own good,” he replied enigmatically. “What gave you the right to return now?”
The she-dwarf held his gaze, daring him to deem her return invalid.
“Am I some wild beast that feels nothing for its offspring? Have I no right to see my dead son?”
“H… How did you know?” Bomieth croaked, his mouth dry of all spit and his heart thundering inside his chest. It was too soon, the pain was too near and she was the last person he wanted to share it with.
“The forest has eyes and ears and I haven’t been that far away that the comings and goings of this village are strangers to me,” she explained with a shrug of shoulders. “Now tell me where I can find my son or I’ll leave at once.”
Bomieth gave a sad, dry laugh.
“But that is exactly what I want you to do… You are not welcome here, now no more than then.”
The wood staff clapped the ground furiously.
“I have been punished enough for my past actions!” She shouted, disturbing the peace of the quiet street. “You may want me far, but I assure you that feeling will not be shared by this master dwarf here,” she added in a more calm manner, her eyes once more travelling to meat Gimli’s.
“And I’m sure you have a good reason to believe that,” Gimli said, giving little credit to the woman’s ramblings.
That female dwarf was, in a matter of speaking, impossibility to him. Never before had he heard of Man and dwarf kind siring a child. Dwarf kind prided themselves in the purity of their ancestors and rarely, if ever, had unions existed outside their inner circles. To all of his knowledge it wasn’t an impossible deed, it was just… unheard of.
“Indeed, a good reason is what has brought me to you, master dwarf,” she replied, a sense of urgency dripping in to her voice. “That elf,” she said, capturing everyone’s attention with that single word.
“What about the elf?” Gimli jumped in, shortening the distance between them.
“I’ve seen him… in the forest, no long ago.”
Gimli grabbed bought her shoulders, preventing her from leaving before he was told all he needed to know.
“You saw him?”
“Aye,” she confirmed. “I could not get too close, for fear of being caught, but I did manage a good enough look at them when they passed me by. At first I thought them to be just villagers, but then I realized that the one seated in the back of the cart was no man at all. I’ve not seen many, but I have seen elves before. We don’t see many of their kind in these parts so I imagined that this is the same one that everyone’s been talking about.”
“Were they alone? Was there no one else in the cart with them?” Bomieth inquired, intrigued by absence of the third member of the missing group.
The she-dwarf thought carefully before answering.
“No, none that I could see… but as I said, I kept my distance.” She said with closed her eyes, silently reviewing the scene in her mind. “The elf didn’t look too well… his head kept dancing in flavour with the cart’s balancing, like he lacked the willpower to keep it straight,” she told, her eyes opening to look straight at Gimli’s pained face. “You would do best to hurry.”
Gimli’s heart clenched. They had been forced in to a position that gave Samuel power in the first place because the elf had been in need of a healer. It seemed highly unlikely to him that, somewhere during his escape Samuel had taken the time to help his friend.
“What did the man look like?” He asked her.
The she-dwarf sighed and rolled her dark eyes.
“Like a man, for all I can tell,” she blurted out, her patience obviously coming to an end. Seeing the rage building up in Gimli’s face she quickly added, “It was dark, master dwarf… even with eyes as keen as our kind possesses, it was impossible to picture any details.”
Gimli was forced to hear the reason behind her words, even if he did not trust her motives.
“How do we know that it wasn’t Samuel himself that send you here?” He baited her, “Maybe you’re just here to play games with our minds while that no good son of an orc makes his escape!”
The idea had just come to his mind, and now that he had put it in to words, it no longer seemed that much farfetched to him. From what he had learned from his dealings with that man, he knew that it wouldn’t be above him to use this dwarf in such way.
A ghostly sense that this she-dwarf was not be trusted had settled somewhere between the nap of his neck and the pit of his stomach, and for all of her common sense attitude, he could not ignore it.
The warrior dwarf could not quite put his finger in what had cause such a reaction from him, for usually he would be quick to trust his own kind, but this one he could not bring himself to treat in the same manner.
Some part of his head reasoned with him that perhaps his past experiences with the Fellowship and the last days he had spent in this village had sap him of all of his ability to trust in strangers, whatever small amount he had possessed before. Another part, the one that sounded oddly enough like Legolas, reasoned with him to be cautious, but fair.
He had, after all, been right to trust Alumna.
The female smiled, a gentle movement of flaccid muscles that made her face look even more ancient and mysterious.
“There is no way of you to know,” she quietly said, meeting his eyes, “and I’m certain that there’ll be no words coming from my mouth that will convince you otherwise, if that is what you truly believe.”
Gimli’s sharpen gaze held hers, unwilling to let go until he had a reasonably better answer than that. She had in fact, said nothing.
Khazam sighed.
“I was outcast many years ago, master dwarf. The only Samuel I knew then was the goat keeper. Unless that it is him you’re talking about, I know nothing of this Samuel that you speak of.”
“We speak of Samuel, the healer,” Alumna provided, nearing the older woman.
“Ah, the charlatan,” Khazam snarled. “I have heard of him, of his powerful and magical rune stones,” she said, not hiding the sarcasm in her voice. “Has he been stealing from your house Bomieth? Because I thought that the only rune stones around these parts were the ones I left there.”
The old man shrugged. She had left many things there, most of which he had never really paid attention too.
The she-dwarf’s gaze turned sad.
“I left them there so that our son could one day learn the language of his forefathers,” she explained. “Is it true that he was killed by this Samuel man?”
Old Bomieth was looking at his dirty shoes, not wanting any to see the hurtful tears in his eyes.
“Aye,” he whispered, knowing that he own at least the truth to that woman. “Our son died by the hand of the charlatan.”
Her staff thundered against the ground once more, this time in rage.
“And he was allowed to escape? How can this be?”
But none could answer her. They all wanted Samuel back, so that he could pay for his many crimes.
“We all mourn his loss,” Alumna finally offered, knowing that no words would be enough to diminish the pain of that mother.
The she-dwarf looked up, eyeing the woman carefully for the first time. Her eyes never went beyond the almost hidden jewel in the woman’s neck.
“He gave you that did he not?”
Alumna’s hand went automatically to her necklace, for one insane moment fearing that the dwarf would ask it back. To touch it brought back such sweet memories of her lover that she could not fathom the mere thought of being parted from it.
Khazam, however, made no move to reach for it. Instead, the smile that blossomed in her face wrinkled her eyes in such manner that the tears trapped in them went racing down her face.
“Did he ever tell you what it meant?” She asked, seeing the young woman in a new fashion now. She had no idea, of course. The she-dwarf’s eyes turned to the old man, “did you ever tell him?” She asked, realizing that her son would have no idea either.
“I told him that it had belonged to his mother,” Bomieth offered, refraining from offering the longer explanation. The one that involve him telling his son that he had not been born of the same mother as his sister, the arguing that had evolved from him refusing to tell young Bomieth why his mother had been outcast from Cottoncrow, the fight between father and son that had eventually led to the two of them barely speaking and his daughter blaming him for those events.
How could he ever face his son and tell him of how he had found this dwarf, his mother, trying to choke him to death only days after his birth? How could he explain the glint of madness he had seen in her eyes then?
No, this creature had no right to know all that, or the way his heart ache with the knowledge that in the end, she had always been the victim in his son’s eyes, because he had refused him the truth.
“That necklace,” the she-dwarf said, the smile still playing in her eyes, “my mother got it from her mother the morning after her passage to womanhood.” Seeing the lost looks in everyone’s faces, Khazam wondered if they even knew what that meant for a she-dwarf. The redness that was gently spreading across Gimli’s face told her that he at least knew of what she was talking about.
She explained the others.
“A she-dwarf reaches adulthood after spending her first night in a male’s bed. When I had my first, my mother passed in on to me.”
Gimli was shuffling his weight from one leg to the other, wondering on what twist of fate had they went from looking for an elf to this… talk! At least Alumna seemed as embarrassed as he felt by this whole conversation, which meant that young Bomieth hadn’t been that far from the necklace significance after all.
An uncomfortable silence had settled amidst them, each lost in their own thoughts. Gimli’s thoughts, however, urged him to action.
“Assuming that what you say is true,” he started, meeting the confused look of the she-dwarf, “about what you saw,” he clarified. “Can you take us to the place you saw them pass by? Can you put us on the right rack?”
The she-dwarf could not hide the pleasure that she felt seeing him come to this decision.
“I can do better than that, master dwarf,” she said with a glint in her eyes. “I shall take you to their destination.”
Legolas acknowledge his surroundings with the feeling of being twice his age. He had never felt this old. A smile graced his lips.
While for a man, because of the effects time has on their bodies, this could come across as an ill feeling, to an elf it was far from that. The passage of time added to their knowledge and wisdom, like the truck of a tree that grows thicker and stronger with each passing year, so felt the elves as well.
In fact, for one brief moment, the feeling of being as ancient as a tree was so strong in the elf’ spirit that he looked at his own legs in surprise, expecting to find roots in their stead.
He carefully rose to his feet, testing the strength of those new found limbs and smiled to himself. The trees were happy to see him up on his own.
Legolas closed his eyes and pressed an open palm to the rough bark of the tree beneath which he stood, feeling the life pulsing within it.
“Thank you, mellon.”
The old being was pleased with his words. But it was also worried for his new found friend.
The trees had already told him all that had come to pass in the time when he was not conscious. All of Samuel’s actions and planning had left an opened sore in the hearts of the trees, and even if the churning and acrid smell could not affect them, they knew it was there and what had brought it in to being.
The elf had no need to enter the smoking tower in ruins to know what lay in inside it. That man’s last cries of despair still lingered in the air around them.
Legolas could not know what Samuel’s plan were, nor could the trees tell him any more than what they had felt and sensed, but what ever the man had in mind, Legolas knew he could not allow it to come to pass.
The previous scheming of the so called healer had almost led to the extinction of an entire village and the mere thought that some unforeseen plan was still running its course was enough to send chills up the elf’s back bone.
As much as he wanted to return to the village and quench the worries of his dwarf friend, whom by now must be going insane with all the troubles they had managed to arrange themselves; and as much as he wanted to be reunite with his father and kin in the distant forest he called home, he could not.
Defeating Samuel had become personal. Making sure that that man would have no chance to hurt any others had grown in to necessity. He was an itch that the elf simple had to scratch.
The normal rustling of leafs gave place to a more urgent one, a panicked and errant movement of branches that warned Legolas that the man was returning. Two courses presented themselves to him. He could either let the man know that he was no longer helpless, battle him and easily win, but risk the chance of ever find what his plans were, or he could bide his time, pretend that nothing had changed and wait until the time was right.
Assuring the concerned trees that they had no reason to worry about his wellbeing, Legolas laid back down, trying to place himself more or less in the position that the man had left him before, hoping that Samuel wasn’t cunning enough to see through his ruse.
The heavy trotting of the farm horse that Samuel had stolen echoed through the ruins like drums long before either man or animal could be seen. The man smile in relief upon seeing that the elf was exactly as he had left him.
The longer he was away, the heavier his doubts had become. For some reason that he could not comprehend, an ill feeling that something was not right had take possession of his mind, speeding his actions so that he could speed his return.
But all was well now. The sun would soon reach its higher point and if he started now they could be at the caves by night fall.
Before he could be on his way, however, a more practical problem presented itself. How to put an unconscious elf on top of a horse?
The animal wasn’t particularly tall, for his former owner had been more concerned with the animal’ strength rather than the length of his stride, and the elf wasn’t particularly heavy that Samuel couldn’t carry him. The problem was getting a dead weight on top of the horse and then clime behind him fast enough before the elf started to fall over again.
He had thought about it for some time now, and still no answer presented itself. The prospect of hauling the elf and dropping him like a sack of potatoes in front of the saddle was as unappetizing for the man as, he was sure, would be for the elf.
To carry the elf in that position would leave little room for the man’s legs, as well as force the elf to spend the entire bumpy journey on top of his wound. For the pain that would surely cause, Samuel couldn’t care less, but the danger of, in his weakened state, the elf dying from the ride, was one that the man was afraid to take.
As he neared the unresponsive body and measure the distance from the ground to the saddle, Samuel realized that sack of potatoes it would have to be. Grabbing a fist full of the dark tunic and the hem of the elf’s leggings the man managed to bring the elf to a seating position. He took a deep breathe and then haul him up the rest of the way, on to his shoulder.
Legolas forced his body to relax as the world spun around him, carefully opening his eyes when he felt that he was partially up side down. He could feel the man nearing the horse with unsteady steps and soon realized what Samuel had in mind. The prospect didn’t attract him much.
As soon as Samuel paused by the quiet animal, gathering his strength for the next exercise, Legolas grabbed his chance and reached one hand to touch the horse’s leg nearest to him.
The horse’s large brown eye starred at him blinking in surprise to find that the first born was alive. He moved his head to touch the elf, wanting to offer his comfort, but Samuel had secured his reins to a near branch and he could not reach that far.
Barely moving a muscle, Legolas tried to make the animal understand that he needed help. The horse looked from him to the man holding them both and voicing his agreement, startling the man in the process.
Surprise poured in to Samuel’s face as, out of nowhere, the horse graciously started to kneel where he stood. Quickly releasing the reins from the tree, so that the horse wouldn’t suffocate himself, the man silently patted himself in the back. He had managed to steal the only smart horse of all of Cottoncrow.
The horse’s urge to kick the man senseless, an idea that he had entertained since he had been taken away from his home, was once again postpone due to his wiliness to help the elf. The pride of caring one of the first born on his back would be enough to compensate the uncomfortable presence of that man. So, when the man finally settled behind the elf, grabbed the reins and kicked his side to move, the horse obeyed.