How did it come to this?
Loyal to her family, her lands and her people, Théadain, the illegitimate daughter of Théoden, King of Rohan, has little concern for the world that lies beyond her familiar grasslands. When all that she loves is threatened...
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Chapter 54
The night drew in around the widespread camp of the Rohirrim, the air mild after the unseasonable heat of the Spring day, though a chilling breeze occasionally whistled from the Dimholt pass, spooking the horses and causing the men to shudder superstitiously.
In the dancing shadows by a well-stocked fire, Théadain snatched a few moments of sleep, sat upright on a log with her elbows braced on her knees and her head cradled in her hands. She had not the energy to pitch herself a tent, not with the knowledge that it would be pulled down in a few hours. Aragorn had offered her his, when he had moved to retire for the night, but she had refused. Sleep would not have come easy to her on the eve of battle, whereas he had looked deeply exhausted – that and she could not bring herself to test her father's acceptance of their courtship by risking being caught in Aragorn's tent.
Still, as the shadow of night had crept in, and her gaze had settled on the hypnotising flicker of the fire, sleep had come. Bewildering snatches of dreams danced through her mind as she drifted; a howling wind, a flickering fire, the whinny of a horse and the voice of her stepmother.
"Over the land there lies a long shadow... The dead awaken; for the hour has come for the oathbreakers..."
A mountain pass loomed before her, a dark pathway, and still the wind wailed past the rock walls.
"Who shall call them from the grey twilight, the forgotten people? The heir of him to whom the oath they swore."
A figure walked the path ahead of her, shrouded in mist so that she could not see- and then fire sparked once more before her and they were gone.
"From the North shall he come; need shall drive him... He shall pass the Door to the Paths of the Dead."
A blade flashed in the darkness, and a great crash of fire jerked her from her fitful doze – for a moment she saw herself back in Helm's Deep, the echo of an explosion ringing in her ears, but as she came to her senses she could see that it was merely a log that had tumbled from the fire before her.
Scrubbing her hands over her face with a weary groan, she rose to kick it back amongst the smouldering embers, staring down at it for a long moment.
"The eve of battle and a haunted mountain does not an easy sleep make." She muttered wryly to herself, rubbing her hand over her jaw as Elfhild's voice continued to echo through her mind. Why she remembered the detailed verse of ghost stories from her childhood and not more important matters she could not understand, yet here she stood, haunted still.
"D'you ever rest, lass?"
The voice at her back made her start, even as she turned to smile at Gimli in welcome as he trudged to her side.
"I'll sleep when I'm cold beneath stone, my friend." She laughed softly as she scuffed at the ground with her boot, "Or when the battle is won – either way, sleep is out of my reach tonight."
