The next evening, the men of Stangard hold a feast to welcome Seregrían better and show their gratitude for her aid. The feast, though spare due to the deprivations of Sithric, still makes the mead hall ring with laughter and song, glad sounds that have been missed of late.
No gladder sound is raised than the toast of praise led by Stanric and Cynrec, hailing Seregrían and boasting her deeds on behalf of the town. Many know the tale, but it is wholly new to a few there, most of all a man named Caeorwulf, a errand-rider from the south who arrived that night from Harwick, the chief town of the region of the Wold. Stanric bids Caeorwulf sit with him and hears his tidings from the south; he then, with a grim face, bids Cynrec and Seregrían join him in a quiet corner for a hasty council.
“Caeorwulf bears tidings from Harwick and their Thane Harding, the Reeve of the Wold,” Stanric says by way of introduction, “and the news he brings to us is alarming. Blodcywn, I would have suggested your next journey would be to the stronghold of Langhold, where Thane Utdred and the Lady Cillan hold rule. But now we learn that Langhold was besieged and put to the torch. Utdred fell, along with many good men, defending the town from the combined numbers of brigands and Easterlings who swarmed against the walls. But it was not by numbers that they fell; a power of terror descended upon Langhold. The survivors speak of a black horror astride a great flying beast, and all men fled before it.
“Lady Cillan led the survivors to Harwick, but the city is already overcrowded. The Langholdings are now in tents and shelters outside the city walls, and they lack for even the most basic things. There is no help I can send for provision or men, for we shall be laboring to rebuild Stangard’s lot. But perhaps there is something you might do, Blodcywn?”
“I shall go and see for myself what has happened,”, Seregrían says, “and I shall help as I may. I do not know what comfort or aid I can provide, until I see what their greatest needs are.”
“Your greatest task will be to bend the stiff neck of the Reeve,” Caeorwulf says. “Harding’s distrust of anyone outside his walls is well known in these lands. He will not welcome you unless he sees proof of your friendship, and only deeds are proof to his eyes. While it is fair to say his distrust has kept his people safe, it has not made many friends.”
“And Harding, does he choose his counsel with equal care?” Seregrían asks. “I note that Sithric came here at the word of your king in Edoras, and that is simply the way of it. But I also noted a name he mentioned, and often: Grima? Who is this, and does Harding also know this name?”
Stanric and Cynrec share a dark look, then Cynrec explains, “Grima son of Gamlod is the chief and closest counselor to Theoden King. But to all who meet him, he is known as Wormtongue – and not for little reason. His words, many say, have bent the king and lessened him before his time – and those who would curry his favor are of like mind. You saw that with Sithric. They weaken the strong to being their fall.”
“I know not if someone of Grima’s ilk has also entered Harding’s counsels,” Stanric says. “We get little news as it is from Harwick and the rest of the Wold, let alone the schemes from within the mead halls.”
“This I will say, that Harding is his own man for good or ill,” Caeorwulf says firmly. “No counselor cut from Grima’s cloth is close to the Reeve, or anyone else in Harwick, that I avow. The Hardingas are true men, in spite of their coldness to newcomers. That is simply a mark of these days, though it was not always.”
“All this taken into account makes me see my next stop is Harwick,” Seregrían says. “I shall go and render what help I may. This I say to you, Stanric: war is marching on your frontier, and I am glad that you have not seen its’ fires yet. It seems that the first strikes have fallen upon Harwick, and there is where I shall go next.”
“Then I bid you a safe and strong journey, Blodcywn, in the hopes you guest with us once more in better times,” Stanric says. “Come, I drink your name, friend of the Eorlingas!” And Seregrían shares a toast with Stanric before departing.
The next day, Seregrían takes her leave and rides south through the lands between the rivers, Celebrant to the north, Anduin to the east, and Limlight to the south. Upon crossing the Limlight she enters the Wold, and the marks of strife already rise to meet her. She arrives at the site of what once was Langhold, now a burnt husk atop a scorched hill; the smell of ash and death fills the air. But beneath the smoke and stench she feels something more, a sense of dreadful fright that lingers long after the terror has passed; not even standing against the merrevail had she felt this undertow of fear. For the first time, she knows the presence of the Enemy’s most terrible servants: one of the Nine has surely been here.
“I only know what I have read of the Nine,” Seregrían thinks out loud, “but all my lore could not have warned me of this! The scent I knew in Dimrill Dale was like a faint smoke – but here, this is a reek, and stronger as I move south. The Elves can barely muster those who stand against them. What can Men do to defy such fear?”
And the answer comes to her mind, from somewhere else. “A guiding star to thy friends, and a burning brand to thy foes – were those not thine exact words?”
“Then that is what I shall be, if that is what these men of Rohan need most,” she says firmly. With a dig of her heels, she turns her horse and rides down the hill, the nearby walls of Harwick to the south.
