The Eastern Woman

Air

In love with Goneril?
No. No way.

Elrond's daughter was an Elf, and like all the other Elves, she had a formidable intuition, but on that matter she was wrong. She was totally wrong.

Hammon was not in love with his General at all.

He was afraid of her, which was a little different.

A cold shiver ran down his back every time he remembered the actions committed by the warrior girl, right in front of him.

That time she had opened the stomach of a Haradrim spy with a precise blow of her sword and had let him bleed to death: she had sat on her mahogany throne, eating an apple, placid, indifferent, completely deaf to the screams of that man.

That time she had found a thief in their camp, a girl from the Hills who had entered her tent with the idea of ​​stealing her golden sword, and as a punishment, she had tied her to a tree and had burnt her hair with a torch. It had been Hammon himself who had saved the girl, by throwing water over her.

But it had been the episode in the village of Stillwater that had made him understand that their General was a psycho.

They had been marching for weeks, five years before, looking for a place to camp for a few days. The legion had just won a very hard battle against a group of Orcs and mountain Trolls, who had attacked a small village by the White Peaks Mountains.

Goneril had decided to stop her army nearby an anonymous village inhabited by a few dozen families: that was a perfect place because there was a river with crystal-clear fresh waters.

But the villagers had not exactly welcomed their arrival with a grin. People had gathered outside the houses immediately, lighting torches and waving staffs in the air. "We don't want you here!" They had shouted. "Murderers, filthy brigands!"

The leader of that tiny village had put himself in the front line and had shouted: "You are nothing but rabid dogs! Go away from here!!"

Goneril had not lost her cool. "We are not brigands. We are soldiers, and we are looking for a place to camp for a few nights. If you do not disturb us, we will not disturb you."

At that point the situation had degenerated. The leader had thrown a stone towards her direction, which for a few centimeters had not hit her.
"I know who you are! You're the viper of the East! Go away, before you and your pigs infect us with your diseases!"

"I said we're not here to threaten you ... we'll leave when we've recovered ..."
A stone hat hit her on the forehead. Immediately a rivulet of blood had descended on her cheek, and had ended on her lips. Goneril had not even raised a hand to clean herself. Her eyes had filled with that cold hatred that Hammon knew well.

"Degarre." She had said. "Bring every man of this miserable place here in front of me."

The captain had inspected every house and had with the other soldiers dragged all the local men to the center of the village.

"Now, let me tell you that what I am about to do will seem unfair to you, but you have deserved it. I'm not going to punish only your arrogance, but also your ignorance. You ignore the meaning of the words respect and courtesy. You know, even my stepfather used to punish me when I made mistakes ... and then I learned. After his punishments, oh how I learned!" she had said.

"Hey... what do you want to do with us?!" Had shouted a man.

"Degarre, now amputate the left arm of each of these peasants." She had ordered.

The villagers, on hearing those words, had begun to scream.

Hammon, as usual, had tried to reason with her. "Come on, Goneril, stop it. You can't do that!"