Chapter 10: Weapons

[ Setting the scene: Éowyn commands the Rohirrim who’ve retreated to the refuge of Dunharrow.]

5 March 3019 (Third Age), Dunharrow

Inaction.

She was deathly tired of it.

Month after month of the King’s seemingly unbreakable malaise had — against all odds and thanks to timely intervention of the Wizard — finally been broken. Frenetic activity followed, as if to make up for so much lost time: Théoden and company off to Helm’s Deep, everyone else evacuated to the refuge of Dunharrow. Unless the battle of the Hornburg was a complete disaster (and though, according to reports, the numerical odds were poor, she had complete faith in the will and strength of their warriors and the impenetrability of that legendary fortress), there would certainly be a mustering at its end. And then a ride. To Isengard, perhaps. Or maybe even Gondor, to join the greater war.

But if it went ill...

It was too horrible to contemplate. Though, at the moment, she had nothing but time for contemplation, for once again Éowyn found herself sitting and waiting, as she’d been bidden (and was now forced) to do far too often. With all the realm in foment, with so many crucial deeds to do and far too few hale hands to do them, she remained inert, dangling her heels like a child on an overly large throne. Such was her utterly pointless so-called “rule.”

I’m not a Shieldmaiden, I’m a Nursemaiden.

She was deathly tired of it.

Shelters had been built. Food and essentials distributed. Defensive plans sketched ... desperate and unrealistic though they seemed, given that her charges were mostly too old, too young, or too infirm. (Though she did briefly consider it, there was no point in trying to organize the women into a fighting force ... capable though many of them likely were ... for the usual tiresome objections against attempting such a radical disruption to the traditional order might destabilize her authority.) The hopeless had, to the best of her abilities, been consoled. Everything that could be done, had been done.

Everything except me.

Éowyn wondered when her internal narrative had grown quite so bawdy. I fear I know exactly when, but I prefer not to think about it. And it’s not true, anyway; I was “done” less than twenty-four hours ago. Her intensely pleasurable, surprisingly emotional encounter with the siblings had been a most welcome event. But in the afterglow she felt uneasy, and the empty breadth of unoccupied time for reconsideration was only making it worse.

For her, their joining had been about much more than sexual exploration and pleasure. To finally have sex surrounded by kindness and love, rather than avarice and coercion, was a form of healing for which she’d yearned. That night, returning to her own bed, she wept tears of joy rather than her usual sorrow and shame. One day, she hoped to view the night’s events as her first true sexual experiences. Though she’d had little success thus far, she was determined to keep trying.

But there was guilt, too. She didn’t regret how events had progressed to a most satisfying conclusion, nor the choices she’d made along the way ... at least when considered in isolation. Ah, but they ended up with you getting fucked by a handsome young man and his breathtaking sister, so you would think that, wouldn’t you? What unsettled her was how she’d inserted herself between the lovers without sufficient regard for what might come next. For lovers they indeed were, in mind and heart if not yet in deed. Though that day won’t be long put off, I fear, no matter how determined their resistance. She worried that she’d made it even harder on them by escalating a sexual tension already certain to be omnipresent in such close quarters.

Mostly, she wondered at her own motivations. I spoke to them of kindness, of comfort, of sharing ... but didn’t all my choices ultimately devolve to my own benefit? I got everything I wanted, but left them just as unable to have what they want. Was that selfish of me? Was I taking advantage of their vulnerability to service my sexual needs?

The answer remained elusive.

Mulling over her unexpected threesome while beset by her constant and extremely distracting need for sexual entertainment meant that she’d been horny all day. Busying herself with other tasks allowed her to suppress it for a time, but now that all was done she had no choice but to sit and brood upon it her urges. And to consider potential solutions. With every moment that passed she lost herself in ever more improbable possibilities, and her desire to return to Elfi and Théo’s tent for another night of dangerous ecstasy grew. If I hadn’t seen them earlier I’d probably be with them right now, entwined in naked decadence.

But she had seen them, albeit from a cautious distance. They’d been wandering the camp hand in hand, enveloped by the same sadness and fear she felt when she met them. Most would judge those emotions a normal reaction to their displacement and the danger that that precipitated it, but she knew better. That their father lived was not, she knew, the unmitigatedly joyful news it should have been, for their promise to at least delay, or perhaps forever stay, their love was still in effect. They were offered only uncertainty and painful choices. They were trapped.

And I certainly understand feeling trapped.

She sighed, frustrated for them and for herself.

If I go to them now, I’ll be as much a distraction for them as they’ll be for me. A trio of bodies with which to, for a short time, submerge our problems in an ocean of pleasure. But I worry that inciting another bacchanalian dalliance might accidentally — or deliberately — push them into the very behaviors they’re trying to avoid. I know quite well how easily arousal turns to abandon, causing people to do things they were otherwise determined to resist.

She shuddered at the memory.

I want to return to them because I’m feeling frisky, not because I believe they expect my return. I don’t doubt I’ll be welcomed — especially by Elfi, who seems to experience sexual pleasure with far less internal conflict than her brother — but it still feels selfish. Would they wonder if I’m only there so they can attend to my lusts? And if I’m honest, isn’t that far too close to the truth of it? In all my imagined and fantastical ideas for an encore, is a single one of them actually based on their desires? Moreover, how is it fair for me to have sex with Théo in front of Elfi ... making her wait her turn with me, making her watch me doing all the things she desperately wishes to do with the one person she loves more than any other, but isn’t even allowed to touch? She shook her head. Horny or not, that’s no way for a Lady of the House of Eorl to act. In fact, it’s the sort of thing Wormtongue might have done.

Another shudder.

No, I can’t go to them right now. A beautiful, treasured memory it will remain, unless some chance of fortune should bring us together in a place and time where we can be free from caution. And so, she sighed in resignation, I guess it’s another solo effort. I’ve certainly mastered the art of self-pleasure these last few weeks. Unfortunately, its appeal is growing as threadbare as Elfi’s clothes.

As her sexual experiences accumulated — even those she’d rather forget — they rendered all but her most time-sensitive masturbatory sessions repetitive and unimaginative by comparison. She didn’t intend to stop — she doubted, at this point, whether her body would let her — but she perpetually craved more than her fingers alone could provide.

Unfortunately, “more” wasn’t immediately or easily available. All the usual reasons she couldn’t just have her way with any random person applied even more forcefully now. For no matter how bleak or frustrating the circumstances, she did “rule” this motley band, and ruling necessitated self-discipline and restraint.

Last night, she snapped awake at the end of an utterly debased dream in which she had a series of potential partners brought to her bedchamber to audition for the privilege of servicing her sexual needs. While the waking orgasms that resulted were among the best she’d been able to give herself of late, she found the fantasy itself repellent and disgraceful.

Though if they came to me without warning, having their way with me while I slept...

To her consternation, she found the idea inexplicably exciting, but then quickly shook her head free of such arrant nonsense. Anyway, it would be impossible. Even if they could get past my guards, no one here would dare touch me in such a manner. Not just due to my position, but also my well-earned reputation as an unapproachable ice queen.

She grimaced. Since the only potential partners to whom I could go without consequence ... to myself, at least ... have been placed off-limits by my conscience, that leaves me. Again.

With a heavy sigh, she unbuckled her sword to hang it from a nearby rack. Openly displayed symbols of my authority are important, for I need to project an image of power and counteract reminders that I’m a woman. And so, I strap a giant phallic symbol around my waist and parade through the camp looking grim. She grunted in frustration, even as her thoughts drifted to phalluses of a less symbolic nature.

As she held the sword and scabbard, turning them around and around in her hands, an idea struck ... one that could solve many of her problems at a single blow. We’ve a cobbled-together defensive plan and a rag-tag collection of ill-prepared people. They profess they’re willing to take up arms, and I believe them, but do they know anything about weaponry or armor? Swordplay? Tactics? Hand-to-hand fighting? What sort of people are they under duress? If I order, will they obey? Will they follow a woman — ruler or not — into death, should that be their only option? It’s my responsibility as a leader to know.

Also, she thought as she shed her clothing, physical activity might help distract me from my other needs.

Changing into training gear, tossing a few spare weapons into a bag she still hadn’t finished unpacking... and here I thought I had nothing important to do! ... she refastened her sword and strode from the room, full of purpose.

Assembling a class was easier than she feared. From the ranks of the elders she found a handful who’d been Riders in their day, including one who’d been an instructor. When Éowyn explained her plan he straightened, a warrior too-long forgotten asked to serve once last time, and proudly offered the sword he’d always kept sharp. Even as he limped through the camp he cut an impressive figure; long grey hair whipping in the wind, grizzled face stern and purposeful.

Most, though, were scarcely more than boys; young men who hadn’t chosen to become warriors, and younger men who weren’t yet old enough to make that choice. None were of school age, for she would have flouted tradition and armed women before deliberately subjecting children to the terror of warfare, but it did thin the ranks of her potential recruits. Most were at an awkward transitional point between the patient confidence of adults and the awkward hesitation of teens, especially when holding unwieldy weapons with which they’d never been trained. Emotionally, the majority definitely resembled boys. Fear weighed heavily on many faces, feigned braggadocio on others. Only a few managed clear resolution and determination, and Éowyn quickly realized that she’d have to spend as much time strengthening hearts and wills as she would on the finer points of battle.

“Gentlemen,” she began. Alas that there are no ladies. Well, I need their full attention. A mixed-gender group would make my work far more difficult, for my hormone-ridden charges would be completely unmanageable.

Did that go well? She wasn’t sure. A few of the youngest men were more or less hopeless, whether due to physical inability or pure fear, and she was already reformulating her plans should Dunharrow become the setting for a last, desperate stand. Whereas many of the older men, despite knowing the proper use of a weapon, were too hobbled to be of much more than strategic value.

But her efforts were paying off with the rest, and many improvements were already apparent. In this, the former instructor’s help had been utterly essential. While he couldn’t actively spar lest he topple over his weaker leg, his demonstrations of sword, spear, and shield techniques were clear, concise, and impressive.

At the moment, however, all save her were out of breath, and most were drenched in sweat. Though they’d little time to prepare should danger already be on its way, she knew she shouldn’t push them too far beyond their limits.

“We’ll take a rest. Take refreshment as you will, and reassemble in fifteen minutes. You won’t need your armor or weapons when you return, so you can leave those in the storage area.” At this there were looks of great relief that the clumsy, often ill-fitting mail shirts they’d been wearing and the heavy shields and swords they’d been holding aloft would no longer be necessary.

For her, the fifteen-minute interregnum provided an additional purpose: sufficient time to further prune their ranks. In their situation a certain brutal efficiency was necessary, and the gap between the most and the least competent kept widening. She needed to convince several of her charges, without shaming them, that their skills might best be applied to a different task.

When she returned to the makeshift training room — a few minutes early, for despite her worries almost everyone she’d spoken to had come to the same conclusion regarding their abilities — it wasn’t empty. The grey-haired instructor sat on a bench, his back erect and his chin proudly thrust forward. His bed leg stretched out in front of him, and though he was trying to hide it he was clearly in a fair bit of pain.

She sat down next to him. “Please forgive me, but in my haste to craft polished steel from fresh clay I neglected to ask one of my true warriors his name.”

He turned to her with a wry smile. “A name long-unloved, though I’ve grown into it in my dotage. Gréor is my name, Lady Éowyn.”

She smiled at the pun. “Gréor you may have grown, but not where it matters. I’m immensely grateful for your knowledge and your help.”

“Nay, my Lady. When there’s truly nothing left to do one is dead, and the manner or time of it no longer matter. The challenge is retaining the wisdom and flexibility to delay that moment by seizing dwindling opportunities. As you likely understand better than you did before we arrived here.” She looked at him in puzzlement. “I mean no offense. But with power comes the too-frequent burden of enforced inaction. Where a warrior might fill a day with deeds, a leader must often do nothing, watching in frustration while others do those deeds.” Somewhat taken aback at his insight, she found herself nodding along. “Ah, my Lady, but you give a long-pastured horse too much credit for a small conclusory leap. I was watching you this morning. If you’ll forgive the temerity of the observation, you ran out of duty long before you stopped searching for it. And yet here we are, because you grasped a dwindled opportunity.” He grinned, his eyes twinkling. “By which, of course, I mean me.”

Her laughter brightened the dull, windowless room. So there’s a devilish spark left in him after all. “Inaction has oft been my companion, but it’s true that this charge has been especially exhausting. Still,” she leaned closer, “I must tell you that I believe myself to have grasped well.”

He gave her quick speculative glance, but that fled under the sudden onset of a grimace. With a sharp inhalation, he clutched his thigh.

“You’re in pain, Sir.”

“No worse than usual, my Lady. And please: even were I ‘Sir” in some mythical heraldic age, I am no longer. Gréor Dwindled I might be, but Gréor it would please me to be named nonetheless. There isn’t enough time left for honorifics. I’ll settle for honor.”

“Isn’t there...”

“ ... some sort of analgesic or poultice? There are several, though of ever more limited effectiveness as the days pass into darkness. But they addle my wits and subdue my energy, and today I guessed — correctly — that I’d need both at full strength. You deserve me at my best,” he added, though he wasn’t able to manage enough of a grin to make it the joke he’d intended.

Nor was she. “Still, Gréor ... is there any way I might ease your pain?”

After another curious look, he closed his eyes. “Still searching for duty, I see. I’ve stood too long, my Lady, and in my irresponsible dotage I bear too much weight for my enfeebled frame. Would you ... could you help me remove this mail shirt? It’s difficult for me by myself.” He leaned forward, lifting from the front as she stood and pulled on the back. As the leather undershirt trailed behind it, caught between seams, she stared in horror at the deep slashes scarring his back.

Somber, still tugging on his armor, she quietly asked, “how did it die?”

Though he was grunting with exertion and (she suspected) a fresh upsurge of pain, his breath caught at her question. After a few moments of uncomfortable silence, he answered in the same flat tone. “Wargs don’t die easily.” She had indeed recognized the pattern of bites and claw marks, which were seen more and more often in these perilous times. Her efforts to remove his mail shirt faltered. “If you think that’s bad,” he added, “you should see my leg.”

His face was contorted with pain, and not just the physical kind. A second uncomfortable silence stretched before he grunted again, breaking the somber mood. “The answer is that you should have seen its leg. Especially after my sword encouraged it to join its three hairy companions in the bloodstained dirt.”

She almost smiled, finally easing the heavy iron from his body and resting it against the wall, then folding his leather undershirt on top of it. He sighed.

“It’s been far too long since a beautiful young woman separated me from my armor.” She grinned; that was flirting, and unmistakably so. Restraining her instinct to return his banter, she pondered how to respond with the proper amount of distance and respect. But he wasn’t done. “Though on the other hand, I’m pretty sure the warg was a female.”

She burst forth with unrestrained laughter, and he joined her.

The remaining trainees drifted in, distracted by their ongoing conversations, most of them ever so slightly late. It was undisciplined, but in truth she didn’t want to demand too much of them. Their cohort was now restricted to young men, for the older group didn’t need to relearn what she was about to teach, nor were most physically equipped to endure it. Among those that remained, the two she deemed most promising had been the only two to arrive on time, and stood at patient attention while the rest gnawed the fraying ends of their badinage.

The atmosphere in the room had changed. It was no longer quite so hard-edged, punctuated with the ring of steel upon steel, and among the recruits there was already a measure of camaraderie. Yet as silence fell it grew more tense, for none but Éowyn and Gréor knew what was to come.

The look of the room had changed as well, with the trainees stripped to cloth undershirts ... or less, for some — including her two favorites — bared themselves to the waist, muscles satiny with the dull gloss of dried sweat. Gréor wasn’t quite so uncovered, but his well-worn sark hid little. Despite his earlier self-deprecation — for he did carry a bit of extra weight around the middle — his was still a remarkably imposing form.

This left Éowyn the most covered, and to this she’d already given thought. Blithely shedding her outerwear might prove counterproductive, for too many would be overly focused on the fact that she was removing her clothes, and she’d lose precious time getting them back under control. She eventually needed to match their state of dress for what she had planned, but she decided that it needed to be part of the lesson, not a prelude to it

She tucked her hands under her mail shirt, waiting until she had their full attention.

“I... we ... have shown you how to see and then exploit your advantages. We’ve taught you how to be where others want to be before they are, but also how to press forward into space you’ve created for yourself. We’ve taught you how to block, to defend, to preserve your person while you wait for opportunity. But now it’s time for a third and more difficult lesson: how to yield. How to submit. How to exploit your disadvantage. How to achieve victory by giving in.”

As she spoke, she smoothly removed the top half of her mail. Under it she wore a thin shirt identical to that worn by the men ... except, of course, that she was not one of the men. It clung to her body, patches of sweat highlighting the outlines of her slender curves. Though she was careful to ensure that it remained on her person, the bottom hitched up just enough that the wiry and rippling muscles of her stomach were visible.

Well, I certainly have their attention. The trap is baited.

“You.” Éowyn pointed at the man having the most trouble keeping his eyes above her neck. She was slightly disappointed, as he was the most promising of the group, but he’d soon learn that his error went well beyond staring at her chest. She handed him a wooden rod about the length of a sword, round and blunt but entirely capable of bruising an unwary foe. “Attack me. Don’t strike for the kill, but for the wound.”

He gaped, the rod hanging limp from his hand. He didn’t move.

“We’ve sparred already, have we not? Why hesitate? Are you afraid? Prove your manhood.” He grimaced at her challenge as the others chuckled. That was far too easy. He stared at her for a moment, pupils dilating as he again ran his eyes over her body, half in study and half in salacious appreciation. Every intention obvious long before he moved, he halfheartedly lunged at her stomach.

In a blur of motion she sent him tumbling across the room and into a wall. Gréor, who hadn’t left his seat, leaned over to pick up the wooden rod that flew from his hand and skittered across the floor, snorting in disapproval. Éowyn, despite her quick defensive throw, hadn’t even moved her feet.

The young man rose from the floor, clearly embarrassed and breathing heavily. His chest flexed with every breath, and despite her concentration she didn’t fail to notice. He looked aggrieved and spoke with petulance. “Lady Éowyn, you still wear mail. My options were constrained.”

Gréor snorted again.

“You didn’t end up in a pile on the floor because you were afraid to strike me below the waist. But come: this time I’ll give you all the options you could possibly want.” She unclasped the lower half of her armor and tossed it aside. Underneath she wore woven tights that ended just below her knees; clothing that adhered to every detail of her form even more closely than her shirt. None could restrain a downward glance, even Gréor. With a raised eyebrow of approval he handed the rod back to the trainee.

“Attack me again.”

Nostrils flaring, eager to regain his wounded pride, he charged from the other direction. This time he feinted, switching hands as he dove and slashed at her knees from below. Clever boy, she thought as she leapt aside, twisting to grasp his wrist and somersaulting herself over his chest. Along the way her knee plunged into his stomach, and not gently. As he rolled to his back in pain, she snatched the wooden rod from his hand and laid it across his neck. There was fear upon his face as she pressed it against his vulnerable windpipe. This position she held, eye to eye, for a time before standing and releasing him. As soon as she did he closed his eyes and coughed, clutching his stomach and rubbing his neck.