Is Your Love Strong Enough?

She felt a slight prick at her neck as she pushed the arrow into the man’s neck but then felt the coolness of the metal at her neck fall away as the man atop her fell back. “Lindy!” The other man near her yelped and then he was on her and he slipped his hands around her throat. “You kilt em! You bitch!” He growled and his face contorted with rage as he squeezed her neck so tightly his fingers went white. He grunted with the effort and it was clear he meant to strangle her to death.

Laenaya felt a warm trickle of blood run down the side of her neck before the cold steel slipped away as the man fell limp and then died. She managed to get the fallen tent fabric off of her head just in time to see the other man charge at her and shove her back onto the ground. She felt his hands go around her throat and squeeze hard. She struggled to breathe and began to fight against him as everything started to go black. She managed to get her knee up between his legs and she slammed it up into his groin. He yelled out in pain and let go of her. She shoved him back and grabbed the dead man’s dagger. Without hesitation she plunged the dagger into the man’s chest.

The bowman snarled as he squeezed, and he would not let up until she was no longer breathing. Or so he thought. He felt the woman beneath him shift under him and then a sharp pain that made him want to sick up as her leg or knee, he did not know which, slammed into his groin. His hands left her neck immediately and it was all he could do to stay upright. He leaned to one side gasping and groaning as he threw his right hand down to keep him from falling onto his side. He knew if he did he’d curl up as a babe until the pulsing pain of his groin subsided. That option was denied him when soon after he felt a knife pierce into his chest to its hilt.

With a cry and flung himself back off of her. One hand fumbled for the dagger as one of his lungs filled up with blood. He still knew she was there but her movements were shadowed as if he were in a dense fog. “Lindy! Help me!” He had said but it all came out as a gurgle and blood poured out of of his mouth onto his chin. He jerked the dagger out but his hands and arms felt disconnected and wooden. As his sense of awareness dwindled he took one last breath and would not take a second.

Gulbrandt lay unmoving on his right side near the left leg of the large man that he felled with one of his knives. The arrow hit him in the left shoulder just inside the shoulder blade and came out at an odd angle in his side. There was a pool of blood by the exit wound but already there was barely any flow as the blood had congealed around the arrow shaft. The arrow was not barbed but the head was still too wide to pull it out without breaking the end off. Gulbrandt was quite pale but he still breathed though he still wasn’t conscious

Laenaya was trembling with fear and nearly in tears as she watched the man flail about with the dagger in his chest. She moved away from him as blood began to stream from his mouth. He went stark white before finally collapsing to the ground. When he finally drew his last breath his eyes remained open and staring up towards the sky. Laenaya gasped for breath and choked and coughed as she managed to start breathing normally again. She could already feel dark bruises forming on her neck from where the man’s hands had been. She knew that she had been close to death today.

Suddenly, she remembered Brandt and she got up and grabbed a pack containing healing supplies and rushed over to his side. She prayed that he still lived and let out a gasp of relief mixed with tears when she saw him still breathing. He was unconscious but lived and right now that was all that mattered. She examined the arrow and the wounds and knew that the arrow would need to come out. She was afraid to just pull it out as she feared the wide arrow head would cause more internal damage. She managed to break off the head of the arrow by sheer force, but before she pulled out the shaft she prepared some bandages and got out a glass vial of a greyish powder that she would apply to the entry and exit wounds. She grabbed hold of the back of the arrow shaft and in one quick movement she yanked it out and threw it aside. Immediately, blood began to pour from the wound. She quickly applied the powder to both sides of the wound and then began to wrap the wound as best she could.

“Please wake up Brandt…please.”

Gulbrandt didn’t know how long he was unconscious but he woke with a start and noticed that the shadows around him were as if the sun was going down. He had slept the day away? He wondered. He was naked to the waist and his arm...or was it his shoulder? Hurt so badly that he almost passed out from the pain when he tried to sit up. He had blankets draped over him but there was no sign of Laenaya, not inside the tent anyway. Regardless of how bad his vision swap he struggled using his right arm for balance to rise up onto his hip.

“Laenaya!” He croaked, his throat was so dry that his shout was not much of a shout at all. His left arm was bent and a makeshift sling held it there against his chest. Obviously he had been wounded and obviously Laenaya had tended to him. Which meant...Which meant that somehow she must have done for the two he saw. ‘That a girl,’ He thought but still felt more than a little worried he could not see her from where he was. He saw the flicker of a large fire just outside the tent opening and he could sense that their horses were still nearby. That and the scent of stale blood and man sweat. ‘So she must have dragged the bodies somewhere nearby and left them to rot,’ He decided.

Once Laenaya had bandaged Brandt’s wound as best she could and put his arm into a sling she began to dispose of the bodies of the bandits. She did not really want to touch them, but she knew she had to. She dragged the three bodies individually away from the camp, but did not have the means to dig a hole to bury them. She then disassembled the tent, or what was left of it, and then reassembled it around him. She laid a few blankets over him and lovingly brushed the hair back from his face before going to attend to the horses. She watered and fed them and then rebuilt the fire. She had stepped away to collect more firewood but as she returned she heard Brandt’s almost panicked voice. She dropped the wood and rushed into the tent and to his side. She was dirty and splattered with dried blood, both a mixture of his and of the three bandits. Her neck had a wound from where one of the bandits had injured her with his dagger and there were also large dark bruises that had formed in the shape of the other man’s hands that had tried to strangle her to death. Her eyes were a mixture of worry and relief.

“I’m here Brandt,” she said soothingly as she caressed his cheek. Then, knowing he must be thirsty, she got up and poured him a cup of tea. “Here, drink this,” she said as she helped him to drink some. “You’ve been unconscious nearly all day.”

The tea that flowed down his throat was like he was being infused with life. He could feel the warmth of it and the soothing it brought to his throat that was near to burning with how dry it had been. With the front flap open allowing for some of the light form the fire to bath the inside of the tent, he scrutinized Laenaya’s appearance. He scowled when he saw her neck then turned to face the large mound of bodies in the distance. “They did that to you?” He asked but he didn’t need her to answer. He turned back to face her and noticed how her expression was such that she would break into tears at any time. ‘Did killing them upset her?’ he wondered. “You did what you had to Laenaya...and you saved our lives,” He added. “All three of us,” Gulbrandt said.

He didn’t need her to tell him how bad his injury was. Riding was going to be pure agony but he would do it to be away from here. Feeling woozy he laid back onto his side then beckoned her to join him with his right arm. He balanced on his elbow while he saw her considering.

Laenaya was still shaken up by what had happened, that was for certain. She had been afraid the entire time Gulbrandt was unconscious that more bandits would come, but thankfully she had seen no one all day. She could see her husband’s eyes narrow as he examined the bruises and marks on her neck. She was lucky to be alive. The man could have easily crushed her windpipe or broken her neck. She didn’t want to think about that though. She really didn’t want to think about anything that might have happened.

When Brandt indicated that he wanted her to come and lie next to him she hesitated for a moment because she didn’t want to hurt him. However, she needed his comfort as much as he needed hers and she carefully laid down beside him. “It’s not killing them that has upset me,” she said with a little sigh. “It’s the fact that it happened at all. I hate not feeling safe in our own kingdom.”

The irony of her statement made him chuckle. Doing so made him wish he hadn’t however and his vision lurched when the pain struck him like a lance. His arm, shoulder and side burned as if a real lance had impaled him. He swallowed to avoid sicking up and blinked the blurriness away. “You dispatched them even when they were in melee with you. I suspect, easier still if at a distance, if you had a chance to use the bow. None of you, the King nor his kin are easy meat. Even young Elfwine did what he had to to save Calista,” he said though his voice was little more than a murmur. “Generations of your family have fought to burn the traits of honor and courage into all of you. This...lawlessness is only a sign that the people want peace. So many wars...so many dead. You read Kressara’s letter. And I believe her when she wrote that it would take several generations for the Haradrim to even be a threat again. If they even wish to be,” he said. And almost sighed when she leaned back upon him. The movement hurt at first but when she settled he shifted until the pain had fallen to a numb ache.

“Did you see their clothes?” he asked and knew she’d know who he was talking about. “Deserters from your father’s army,” Gulbrandt said. “And it will be the same with the Easterlings and Northman I think. The Northmen are good at quick assaults and raiding but not a long war. If Elessar’s forces combine with Eomer’s...they’ll cut the Northman off form their supply lines and that will be that. If I were him I’d give no quarter and kill as many Northman as he could before turning aside,” Gulbrandt said without a hint that such a thing would bother him. “Completely crush them,”He added. “And them...perhaps, we’d have peace in this age...if only for a time,” He said and felt his eyes grow heavy.