the Greenway

The dark man slipped through the trees of the forest, looking around the empty landscape. Soon, Sharkey would have control of this place. Bree land. A servant of Mordor, as opposed to Isengard however, this man had a different mission than securing Sharkey's miniscule throne.

The wind had picked up, warm gentle gusts making their way down Bree’s dusty streets. The rustle and clapping of washing strung from window to window created its own rhythm above her head. Joy leant against the stone wall surrounding the market square, Hjotr nestled against her chest, bound by cloth. That rustling of linen above lulled her into distant memories as she awaited Kip, the grocer, with the parceling up of her goods.

The road stretched on, the old stones broken and grass grew between but it still stood, marking the old route that ran north to south. The day was warm and the only sounds were the rhythmic click of the oaken staff and the hushed scrape of the small footfalls on the Old Road. She knew who had laid the stones she now tread, the men of the west who came and cut down the forests to build their cities. All now fallen but the land never recovered and it was this long memory her people held. Of strangers from the sea, who came with steel and a hunger for timber to build their innumerable ships.