Windwalker

A Lord of the Rings Fan Fiction

by Murasaki99

Any LOTR character you recognise belongs to J.R.R. Tolkien and his heirs. I don't own 'em, I'm just borrowing them for some non-profit fun.

The black stallion cantered down the partly overgrown road, surefooted in the dark. Men of this era called it the Greenway, but in ages past it had been known as the King's Road. His rider sat the animal easily, letting the horse pick his way around heavy scrub and the occasional tree that had grown up through breaches in the edge of the ancient roadbed. Three hours ride ahead lay the town of Bree, and beyond that the crossroads leading to the Great East Road, back toward the distant lands claimed by his Master. His mission to speak to the agents of the Dark Lord in the north had been completed with fair success, although many of them had met premature deaths at the hands of both elves and men. Even so, his dark captain would be pleased at their progress. It was not yet time to reveal the plans of his Lord and so the needs of secrecy meant he travelled at night and kept away from towns.

The sun had set some time earlier and the moon had not yet risen, but the lack of light did not trouble Coros. Day or night, his vision was limited to a grey twilight that had little to do with the world of mortal men. Thousands of years ago, in an earlier Age of the world, Coros had left their company entirely. Now he rode trusting to his horse and to those other senses that had sharpened as his mortal vision dimmed. When mounted, he could see through the eyes of his horse, and while the animal did not have the bright color eyesight of humankind, his night vision was excellent. Combining the horse's sight with his own abilities gave Coros a panoramic sense of the nearly empty lands through which they passed.

An hour later the wind picked up, bringing the scent of recent rain and a quick frisson of sensation across his nerves. Coros slowed his horse to a walk, waiting and alert. The sensation was repeated somewhere to his right and he turned the horse off the roadway, following it like a hound tracking an elusive scent. Magic was rare in this day and age. The few wizards in the world kept to themselves for the most part, and the era of human sorcerers was long past, and yet someone worked a spell this night. The threads of magic were carried on the breeze, like the aroma of night-blooming flowers.

The horse passed into thin woods of old fir trees and began to climb the slope of a gentle hill. The feeling of magic grew stronger and Coros corrected their movement every time he caught a twinge of power. At last they approached the crest of the hill. On the summit, he saw through the eyes of his mount a human form, arms upraised in the fine starlight filtering down through the raggedly cloudy sky. His horse halted just under the last shelter offered by the trees. Coros dismounted as quietly as possible. From the top of the hill, drifting downslope came the sound of a human voice half-chanting, half-singing in the ancient tongue of Númenor.

Walker-on-the-Wind
Child of the West
Bear to me this night
The seeds of Life

Stallion and mare
Dance in the meadow
Falcon and tiercel
Stoop in the shadows

Summer blooms apace
Winter is but a memory
In the Spring will I see
The fruit of my hope?

The words were simple, but magic coursed through them, pulling at him like invisible silken spider webs. The magic smelled of rosemary and jasmine, the scent very strong now that he was so close. The singer was of his own distant kin, the blood of ancient Númenor bound them together and lent the charm far greater power than would have been normal. This was one of the Dúnedain of the north, a descendant of fallen Westernesse.

The singing stopped abruptly. "Who is there?" The voice was female, clear, and only slightly afraid.

Coros halted, surprised to find he had walked out into the open and climbed nearly to the top of the hill. The scent of magic and of the singer's blood combined filled his nostrils and sent strange tingles down his nerves. Although he could not see her, he could sense her nearness and every subtle shift of temper.

"Man in black, who are you?" she demanded again, jolting Coros from his half-trance.

"I am what you have been Calling for, woman of the Dúnedain."

"Calling you?" The woman's voice carried a tone of disbelief mingled with hope. "I have only been singing an old song."

"From afar I felt your spell. You have great strength."

"You… you are the Walker-on-the-wind?" The savor of magic and living blood grew stronger as she moved closer.

Coros bowed his hooded head. "I am. What do you want of me?"

"A child, Windwalker."

For the first time in a long while, Coros wished he could see again with living eyes. The woman's aura was bright and strong and held no tinge of madness, but he wanted to see her expression, given her irrational request. "Woman of the Dúnedain, I am no longer of mortal flesh, I can sire nothing."

"Ahh, so you are indeed of the Úlairi!"

Coros nodded silently. She should run away now, if she has any sense, he thought. He knew the air around him was cold from his presence, surely she must have noticed?

Impossibly, the woman drew another step nearer. "Our line grows thin, Windwalker. I have been married now a year and yet no child graces our home nor grows in my womb. There must be a child. Time presses on me." Her voice was filled with determination. "It has been said you share our bloodlines. The old ones also say you can open that which is barren. Is it so?"

Now he had to think, an activity that was growing increasingly more difficult the closer the woman came to him. I am long past the age where a pretty face or form could distract me - how can a simple hedgewife's spell bind me like this?

"My Captain said once that it was possible for us to help… engender children. He told us if we lay with a woman, and she went to her husband that night, a child would be the sure result. That child would be the get of its sire, and of us as well." Coros shook his head in a slow negative. "I do not understand how such a thing could be, it seems contrary to nature. I do not think it possible. Certainly I have never done any such thing."

"It must have been done, if your Chieftain spoke of it." Her voice held hope and an iron determination.

Her scent drifted into his nostrils again, bearing a subtle and familiar tang. Angmar? She carries the blood of my Captain? He spoke from personal experience? Coros felt a stab of annoyance. It was he who bid me ride this way, I shall have to speak to him about this at length later.

Aloud, he said. "No mortal woman would want to lie with us. We are not entirely alive. My body is cold, to linger near me can be deadly, and as for my flesh…" He raised his hands and threw back the hood of his black outer robes. The woman gasped, but did not withdraw. He continued with brutal matter-of-factness. "I have faded, Woman of the Dúnedain. Your mortal eyes cannot see me, nor can I see you."

"You are no disembodied spirit, Windwalker, or you would have no requirement for clothing, horse, armor, or sword. I do not need to see you."

Uttering a low exhalation of frustration, Coros tried once again. "You do not want this. I am nothing. I can give you nothing." He was unused to feeling afraid of anyone or anything, and yet some instinct demanded he leave as quickly as possible. With great effort of will, he backed a step.

An instant later, he found himself lying flat on his back with the woman atop his body. Startled he writhed under her, trying to push her off. His hands lacked their usual strength and he was unsuccessful. To move her was like trying to move the Earth herself.

"Lie still," she bid him in Adûnaic. To his horror, Coros felt his muscles go lax at her command. Her hands found his chest, parted his robes, and began to seek for the catches to his breastplate. "You are cold, but that is something that can be mended, at least for this night." With a sound of triumph she loosened the armor covering his middle and pulled it away. The padded jerkin underneath was little impediment and soon she was running her hands over the chill unseen muscles covering his torso.

"You are well-made for someone who is not entirely alive," she chuckled.

Coros shuddered. The woman was sitting astride his loins and he was rapidly becoming uncomfortable. He knew he should be shaking her off and leaving, but his will to resist had been leached away by the potent net of magic the Dúnedain had woven. Her need flamed around her as bright as the Eye of his Master and at this close range, far more compelling.

Her hands drifted up to his face, feeling the angles of jaw and nose, the planes of his cheeks. "You are not ill-favored, either." She rocked back on his hips and began opening her robes. Her soft laughter reverberated down through his bones. "And you are no ghost, Walker-on-the-wind."

He gasped as she joined with him, slowly at first, quivering at his coldness, moving with more confidence as her inner fire warmed him. Her body both burned and soothed. It was at once unendurable and exquisite, a perfect balance of dark and light singing up his long-dormant nerves. Coros howled into the night air, clutching the grass beneath his hands and driving his fingers into the soil beneath. His cries only seemed to encourage the woman who rode him to greater efforts. He lost his sense of time, caught up entirely in the moment. At last their screams of completion mingled and echoed away into the darkness.

"You are certainly not a spirit, Windwalker," she panted, lying happily spent across his chest. She rose up a little to look at him. "I can see you, a little! What magic is this?"

"The sharing. You have some of my substance." He stared up at her. Seen through the grey shadows of his world, she had a handsome face, dark-haired and pale skinned in the wan light of the thin new moon. "I can see you as well, a little."

"What is your name?"

"I was named Corollairë in my youth, when I still drew living breath," he murmured, tracing her face with a shaking hand. "Coros, I am called now, by those who are my brothers."

She rose, gathering her robes together and tying them closed against the chill air. "For your gift, I am in your debt, Coros Windwalker. I will not forget." Having gotten what she needed, she withdrew swiftly and soon was gone.

Coros lay on his back, watching the moon rise slowly until the last shreds of the binding-spell faded away. Then he got up and carefully put himself in order, shivering a little at the afterburn of their efforts. My Captain of Angmar, I will have words with you concerning the old lore and your part in it.

Coro's stallion trotted up at his soft call and after several shaky tries he managed to mount and turned the animal back toward the Greenway. As he rode, he heard faint with distance another version of that spell-song which had entrapped him so thoroughly. Gritting his teeth, he dug his heels into the stallion, who leaped away into a dead run. The thunder of hooves on the roadway drowned out the siren call, but he did not draw rein until well beyond Bree.

"I am home, my husband," she called as she entered their house. He turned from the fire, a smile easing the worry from his handsome face.

"Here you are at last, Gilraen! I was beginning to fear for your safety. There have been fell voices on the wind." He drew her into his arms and she returned his affectionate embrace with enthusiasm.

"Well then, my Arathorn, let us stay inside where it is warm and stir no more outside." Smiling, she drew him toward the alcove where they slept and pulled the heavy curtains around the bed.

"You are most persuasive," he murmured, pulling gently at the ties of her outer robes.

"Good," she laughed, likewise working at the fastenings of his shirt. "It is a fine night for being alive together."

Owari

Authors notes: This was the result of a rabid plot-bunny bite and a sudden surge of my off-kilter sense of humor. In the writing I began to realize that the former Lord of Angmar has a long-running project that he has quietly been working on in his spare time. Gads, this probably means a sequel or three (or a prequel?).