Sucked Into Middle Earth...Just My Luck!

Chapter 14

I entered the hall again as the king had returned from mourning his son. There were two children eating ravenously under Eowyn's watch and they were discussing the trek to Helms Deep. I cleared my throat to get their attention.

"Alice? Where were you? You've changed your clothes" Aragorn noted.

"I have to tell you something" I told them in a guilty voice.

Boromir, who was behind me, stepped forward to stand by my side. I felt a little better despite the many eyes that were now upon me. I opened my mouth to tell them what I'd done when a guard burst through a side door and shouted "the prisoner is dead!"

Every eye that had been drawn away immediately snapped back to me accusingly and I inhaled sharply under their gaze. This was way more intimidating than I'd thought it would be.

"Uh, Yeah...about that..." I tailed off awkwardly.

"Alice! What were you thinking?!" Boomed Gandalf and I actually flinched at his volume.

"She had only the best intentions" Boromir defended me, much to everyone else's surprise. I suppose we DID have quite a love/hate friendship.

"She murdered our prisoner" stated Éowyn from the side.

I turned to her and sighed. I actually kinda liked Éowyn as a character but I wasn't about to apologise for my actions. In fact I'd tell them exactly what drove my decision. I met her gaze evenly and said "he is sly enough that I don't doubt he would escape, either by himself or with inside help. I don't want to see your people die needlessly, and I certainly didn't want you to suffer as his 'prize' if he'd delivered the lands of Rohan to Saruman. Your filthy prisoner would have you begging for death rather than his 'kindness' if he had his way".

She looked horrified. Everyone looked horrified. It WAS pretty horrific to be fair. Nobody knew exactly what to say and I held my ground firmly. Eventually Théoden cleared his throat and said "yes, perhaps it is better that he was dealt with sooner rather than later".

"You're welcome" I said simply. Somehow admitting what I did made the guilt of my actions a little lighter, and for that I was grateful.

"Please do me one favour, Alice" Aragorn started, turning to me, "tell us BEFORE you kill people".

"Would you have let me kill him if I'd told you?" I asked him and he sighed, looked down and then shook his head. "Exactly" I stated.

"Enough of this, what's passed is past. What are we doing to secure our future?" Asked Gandalf and Théoden turned to me surprisingly.

"You have otherworldly knowledge, what would you suggest?" He asked me and I was taken off guard.

What SHOULD we do exactly? I had a base plan but we needed careful execution if we were to keep casualties at a minimum. I held up a finger to the group and took a seat, producing a notepad and pen and scribbling furiously, occasionally scratching out something and fixing it. When I was done I gathered everyone around my carefully written list and the comparatively cruder map I'd drawn to the best of my memory of the Birdseye view of Helms Deep's perimeter.

"This is...very good" said Aragorn admirably as he studied all the sketches and read through the plan.

"Have you had training in battle tactics?" Asked Théoden and I snorted.

"Not unless you consider reading a lot of action adventure books to fill the void that was my social life training" I laughed.

"What are these 'mines' you've marked out in front of the fortress? Surely you don't plan to tunnel in such a short time?" Asked Gimli as he pointed out the crude little dots I'd put around Helms Deep, just far enough away that they wouldn't affect the infrastructure of the walls.