The Last Ring-bearer - Kirill Yeskov [77]
The girl was awaiting them at a small, unusually thick door leading into a narrow and low (about five feet high) tunnel. It was so dark that even the Orocuen could not see much.
"Éowyn, in there, now! Take the palantír! Faramir, help me… where the hell is it?"
"What're you looking for?"
"A beam. A small beam, about six feet; Grager's men were supposed to leave it on the other side… Aha, here it is! Did you close the door, Prince? Now we secure it from the outside with this beam… Come over, let's fit the other end in this hole here. Praise the One, it's an earthen floor, this will hold well."
A few seconds later the door shuddered under blows from the inside; they were just in time.
Upstairs in Emyn Arnen a major spat was in progress. Sir Edvard, pale with anger, screamed at the chief of counter-intelligence:
"You're under arrest, Cheetah, or whatever your name is! Know this, bastard: up North we hang traitors by their legs, so that they have time to think before dying!.."
"Shut up, idiot, it's bad enough already," the captain answered tiredly. He was sitting on a step, eyes closed, waiting patiently while another man fashioned a crude cast for his foot. A grimace of pain contorted his face from time to time: a broken foot is a truly horrendous injury.
"Anyway, you're under arrest," the Dúnadan repeated; then he glanced up at the Secret Guard officers arrayed in a semicircle behind their chief and felt a sudden fear – not that he scared easily. The seven figures froze in a strange immobility, and their eyes – usually dark and empty, like a dry well – suddenly shone with a scarlet shimmer, like a predator's.
"No, don't even think about it," Cheetah said, turning to his people, and the scarlet shimmer disappeared without a trace. "Let him consider me arrested, if that will make him feel better; a fight among the White Company is just what we don't need right now…"
Suddenly a din rose in the courtyard, then the door opened, and in walked the man whom they least expected to see, flanked by stunned sentries.
"Grager!" Sir Elvard said in astonishment. "How dare you come here? Nobody gave you safe conduct…"
The baron smirked. "It's you who's going to need safe conduct now. I am here by the order of my suzerain, the Prince of Ithilien," he stressed the last words. "His Highness is prepared to forgive all the evil you've done him and were about to do. Moreover, the Prince has a plan that will allow His Majesty to save face and you to keep your heads attached."
Chapter 30
Ithilien, the Settlement
May 15, 3019
The morning that day was wonderful. The watercolor blue of the Ephel Dúath (what idiot had decided to cal then Mountains of Shadow?) was so transparent that their snowy peaks appeared to float in the air above the boundless emerald stretches of Ithilien. For those few minutes the fort of Emyn Arnen on a nearby hill became what its creators must have imagined it to be: a magical forest dwelling, rather than a fortress. The rays of the rising sun have magically transformed the meadow on the edge of the Settlement – the plentiful dew that had previously covered it like a coat of noble faded silver suddenly shone like a spread of uncountable diamonds; perhaps the early