#is lendrain having a good time? no absolutely not <3< /div> Explore tagged Tumblr posts

[aurore-parle-de-ses-idees]

36 for an oc of your choice? >:)

(it was Going to be isena & isedd, but isena only ever wants to respond Fuck This and begin stabbing, so. the scene was like two lines long. lendrain does I.9.5: Amarthiel's Hope instead):

“We must know what Amarthiel is planning,” Calenglad says. “A large party of Angmarim was sighted near the docks; you should start there. Tadan, are you prepared?”

“We’re ready,” Tadan says. “Lendrain?”

“I’ll be right there,” Lendrain calls, tightening his shield across his back. Calenglad watches him go, hopping into the small rowboat with the others and pushing off for Annúminas.

“Watch over them,” Calenglad murmurs to the lake. "They will need it." The clouds gather over Tinnudir.

---

“They were ready for us,” Hallas growls, throwing himself behind a pile of rubble beside Lendrain. “She is here, but at this rate we'll never reach her.” Lendrain curses, weighing another javelin in his hand.

“I have an idea,” he says reluctantly, and wishes Hallas’s look was more skeptical than hopeful. “When the way is clear, find Amarthiel.” His old friend frowns.

“Lendrain-” But he is already away, hurling his javelin straight for the Angmarim captain on the slope above them. Crossbows snap over the man's cry of pain, but Lendrain is already gone, throwing himself into a roll beneath the hail of bolts.

“Is that all the better your aim is?” Lendrain shouts as the crossbowmen throw aside their heavy weapons in favor of spears and swords. “It’s no wonder Múra was nearly unguarded- you must have put half your bolts in each other instead of the targets!”

“You!” Many of them turn on him, then, and ah, they really are still sore about that one. He hadn’t thought one sorceress was so much more beloved than any other, but they seem to have taken her death even more personally than that of the False King. Or whatever passes for death for one such as him, anyway.

Lendrain runs into the city and the Angmarim pursue him. He wanted to think he knew the broken streets well enough to lead them away, but fifteen years have come and gone since he last set foot in Annúminas himself, and it was not half so deadly, then. He can only hope enough of them pursue him that Hallas and Tadan and the others can find Amarthiel.

He bursts into an open court, the arches overgrown with ivy and stagnant water in the fountain. Another party of Angmarim turn at his entrance and he skids to a stop, but the others are hot on his heels and loud with rage and soon he is surrounded entirely. He hefts his axe, and slips his shield onto his arm, and prepares to stand until he can’t.

The ones he had led away from the docks are plenty eager to fall on him, and if he has forgotten the streets of the city he has never forgotten how to fight. He swings and swings and swings, and hopes this will be enough for- for everything. For the others to find what they need, for those he abandoned, for the peace of those he hasn’t saved since he came back to this.

He makes a fair accounting of himself, all things considered. Better than he has any right to, certainly, but eventually his foot lands on a stiff, lifeless arm and he falls, and his shield is torn from him and a heavy boot stomps hard on his axe-hand and he screams.

And then arrows fall among them and his enemies fall back, ducking for cover until they realize there are only two bowmen among the Rangers. Even when they realize how greatly they outnumber the five Dúnedain who rush into the courtyard, though, they keep their distance, watching the ruins about them as if they still spawn more Rangers at a moment's notice. Lendrain gasps for breath on the ground amid the bodies he made, every bruise and small scrape crying out at once as the rush of battle leaves him. 

“Lendrain?” Hallas calls, voice tight and worried. Lendrain waves a weak acknowledgement but doesn’t rise. Distantly, he wonders how many other Rangers survive within the walls of the sunken city. There hasn’t been word from Daerdan or any of his people in days. 

“Have you found-” he wheezes from his back, and chokes back the rest of the question when she arrives.

Amarthiel enters the courtyard in a rush of red, grabbing Hallas by the front of his armor as she passes and dragging him behind her. The others cry out, but she is attended by new lieutenants Lendrain has not seen before, their armor unlike that of the Angmarim champions- unlike any Lendrain has seen in his travels.

The Champion of Angmar seems less terrible by daylight, if only just. Her silver mask gleams in the sunlight and the red of her dress is nearer the color of roses than of blood. Lendrain feels again the touch of her hand on his face, the single point of incandescent heat like she wore a burning ring or else held a coal to his cheek.

“You have come a long way to see me again, Lendrain,” she says, ignoring Hallas as he grasps at her wrist. “I am glad to see you returned to Gath Forthnír alive.” His blood runs cold, and every word she says only worsens his dread. “It was useful while it lasted, but all things end one day. But you should rejoice! You and all your kin here, for I have brought a palantír to Annúminas once more, and with it I shall look out over my lands as the kings of old.” Hallas draws a dagger from his belt and strikes at her, but Amarthiel catches his wrist and looks at him with disdain, and in panic Lendrain struggles upright, making it no farther than his knees.

“Let him go!” he cries, raising empty hands. “Please-”

“Let him go?” Amarthiel laughs. “As he holds a blade to my chest? You are a bold one. What would you offer in exchange, if I were to grant such a request? You had best make it good.”

Anything, he wants to say, even with Hallas glaring at him upside-down in Amarthiel’s grasp. Anything. Just let him go. Because this is what he always feared, what he knew even as a child he couldn’t face. This is why he ran, and why he hardly dared return, even to see his dearest kin again. He thinks of Helegdir, holding back the raids from the north with the people of Aughaire, and of the nightmares of the Halls of Night, and he says nothing, only watching Hallas desperately, but Amarthiel smiles as she looks upon him, finding something in his face to her liking. She laughs, and throws Hallas aside, and strides away, her new entourage falling in behind her and the Angmarim in the court bowing as she passes.

“Morguldur,” she says over her shoulder, “deal with them.”

“Yes, Mistress,” one of the men says, stepping out of line. Fire dances around his hands, but Tadan’s bow-hand is true, and Morguldur is dead on the ground almost before his allies are out of sight.

“Lendrain,” Hallas says into the terrible, deathly quiet that follows, “what did you do? What did you offer her?”

Nothing, he wants to say, and wants it to be true, but her touch had burned and there is a blankness his memory will not fill and he doesn’t know why she turned away here. “I don’t know,” he whispers. “I don’t know.”