Compos Mentis [Rávamë's Bane: Book 2]

Part II : Chapter 14 ~ Chasing Wolves

A/N: New Year's Eve surprise!

I really glad I managed to get this update done literally just in time for the last day of 2017, especially since several of you left such amazing Christmas gift fanart on my tumblr (the sounds I made seeing those was inhuman btw.) Granted most of you will probably not be able to read this update until next year, what with all the party going on. ;)

Thank you all again so much for the comments/reviews/fanart/and lurking in the background enjoying the story silently. This last year has been difficult in places, but coming on here and reading/seeing what this story means to you all has been one of the best parts of it by far.

Hope you enjoy the rather action packed update, and have a happy New Year. x

~ ♛ ~

Everything is scarier in the dark.

Horror movies, camping in the woods, Steven King novels.

But I'll say it from first hand experience: there's nothing quite like seeing a terrified warrior barrel into your line of sight, drenched head to toe in his friend's blood. I'd have taken an evil clown in a paper-mâché hat and bad face paint over that any day.

The smell of gore hit me from over ten feet away, and the scent alone was enough to pull every nerve in my body taut as a violin string. But the reaction of the people around me was what really drove the fear home. There's something about herd mentality that means if everyone around you is suddenly instinctively scared — no matter how you may be able to rationalise the sensation away — you are scared too.

And right then, everyone around me wasn't just scared.

They were pants-wettingly terrified.

A moment of eerie calm was all we got before the crowds of women, children, elderly, and soldiers all simultaneously dissolved into varying levels of hysterical panic. Some screamed, some fumbled to run, but most just stood rooted to the spot, paralysed by the base instinct that should have been urging them to protect themselves.

"Riders, to your mounts! Now! Move!" Theoden's voice bellowed over the sudden chaos, and though it took a beat longer than it should have, the guardsmen all did as instructed, running straight for wherever they'd left their now spooked horses to graze. With a booming shout Gimli tore from my side along with them, though I had no idea how he was planning on swinging himself up onto a horse without someone to help him.

I turned a frantic look to Boromir who had gone a bit white around the eyes. He looked fretfully down at me only long enough for us to exchange a short nod of understanding. They were needed, but I was no warrior. I couldn't help this time.

"Keep yourselves safe," Boromir said over the noise, clapping my shoulder in a firm grip just once, before quickly following the other soldiers to the horses.

"Make for the lower ground!" Eowyn was shouting at the women and children somewhere off to my left, herding them in the other direction. "Stay together!"

"Eleanor!" Sarra's voice finally penetrated my nerve-driven catatonia, and I spun to find her fearful but controlled gaze boring into mine. "We must go too."

I violently shook myself out of my daze, biting my nails into my palms to wake up my senses.

"Right, yeah. We need to find Freda and Eothain before..." I trailed off as a sudden flash of torchlight off gold blond hair dragged my eye to the riders. They were mostly mounted now, charging out into the dark, and I'd turned just in time to see him swing up onto Arod's back. Grey-blue eyes somehow found mine in the crowd of fleeing women, as if drawn there by a magnet, and for an impossibly long moment we just stared at each other. No anger or resentment or pain, just a lingering look.