The Angmarim man had no name.
She knew little of their customs, little of the hillmen, and less of those who clung to the blasphemous religion with which the Witch King had deceived them so long ago.
She remembered wars, so many generations of men ago, fighting against the Witch King and defeating at last his armies. Too late it had been for those splinters of Arnor; Cardolan and Rhudaur, but proud had she stood in the army of Rivendell, with Arnor, and with the Éothéod.
But for all his words about his belief in Sauron’s return, she could tell his spirit had been defeated before ever she encountered him.
For all his proud words, and belief that the enemy of old would return, he had no real fight left in him before ever she encountered him. He hadn’t struggled in that first encounter. Hopefully the rangers encamped at Sarn Ford would know what to do with him, for she was ill-equipped to understand the minds of a mortal, let alone one who had lived so long and for so many generations under the lies of the enemy.
And he needed new clothes. He’d tried to flee in a burst of rage and had fallen flat on his back in a bog. Which he proceeded to lie moping in for about a quarter of an hour before she and Glirwing finally stopped laughing and dragged him out.
The firelight reflected off of his face as now he slept, for the first time since she’d captured him near the ruins of the once proud Caras Gelebren. He had scowled as for the last hour she’d sung hymns to Elbereth, but at last some of the tension had relaxed, and now he slept.
She continued to sing, but softer now, not wishing to disturb his rest.
Glirwing would be halfway to Sarn Ford by now, bringing news of her captive, and of her observations of the surrounding area. Her cousin’s face had been grave and concerned when they parted, as Gelilthor spoke of her foreboding. The words she’d spoken to the young one, as she called the Angmarim man, and realised with a cold certainty were true. “On the road from Caras Gelebren, the doom of us both shall be deemed by thy choice, for good or for ill.”
So then, a choice lay before him, to turn aside from the dark path or to continue on it. And if he chose the darkness, it could well mean her death, though she did not know how.
But he was so young. She was not good at judging the ages of men, especially those not of the Dúnedain, but she could tell he was young. He hated her with a long instilled hatred, but when he surrendered to her she had read something almost akin to a desperate hope in his face, and she saw it again when she told him silly stories of mortal friends she’d known, or of her own childhood in Nargothrond, though the names meant nothing to him.
Though she heard also a twisted form of estel when he spoke proudly of the Witch King, and Sauron and the return of Angmar’s power.
The morning light grew cold and grey and overtook the shining stars. The Angmarim man stirred, and Gelilthor readied to depart.
