The latest sack of the Dunlending lands had been the most brutal - they had only recovered 30 prisoners, most of whom would not last the night. They had fought well, there was no denying that - but Tor and Skip's frankly disgusting plot to massacre the children took things over the line of reason. The Dunlendings were almost useless after that, against the ruthless, still-organised mercenaries. Revolted, but still-organised.
Lebryn stalked through the camp, trying to keep the level of prisoner abuse to a minimum - it was like shovelling snow while it's still snowing: he knew just as well as the other captors that they would start again as soon as he left. He had already prevented--postponed--three instances of rape and two near-murders when he approached the last prisoner - a fierce warrior, if memory served. But it seemed that someone had got there first.
The sickening honeyed silk of Léofwine's voice reached his ears before his eyes registered what was happening, along with the snarled whimpers of the prisoner. His slim fingers were wrapped around her surprisingly delicate throat, his free hand pawing at her curves, and Lebryn felt his dislike for the man, if he could be called that, multiply. He let his lip curl with disgust, before dragging him to his feet by his hair, ignoring his protests.
"You want a shag, you pay for it. Clear?" Without waiting for the worm's assent, Lebryn let him fall, before trying to assess the severity of the woman's injuries. Difficult when it seemed to him that she was trying to curl in on herself, to hide her curves from any wandering eyes.
"Did he hurt you? Hey, look at me - did he hurt you?" Lebryn tried to tilt her head up with his fingertips, but she still resisted.
"Fine. Don't take my help - I've done my part. But there are plenty of others like him here, I can assure you of that."
(meme)This was the first time that Aina had seen Lilyth giving such attention to a man. She was lovely in her way beyond any of the other women of the Maeghai. Flirting made her twice so- all charming wiles. Lilyth was persistent, too. She hung at Uvatha's arm and giggled and begged him teach her his signs. From across the hall Aina fitted her with a cool and level stare. The girl felt it and looked up and, when she saw the she-wolf gazing at her, her pretty face whitened to a frightened pallor.
Uvatha smiled at the young woman as kindly as he could. She was a lovely little thing, and quite clearly going out of her way to attract his interest. And while it was flattering enough to the masculine pride to have a woman like this clinging to him so, there was something in Lilyth's manner which made it clear to him that her interest was not in him, but in some perceived increase in status she might gain by snaring him. Despite his certainty that he was being used as a game-piece in some social contest or other, his native kindness and politeness prevented him from simply shaking her off his arm and walking away.
But when the girl's face paled and she stepped away at last, Uvatha followed her gaze to find his fierce Aina watching them coolly. His forced smile smoothing out into something far more genuine, the big wraith crossed the hall to join her, lifting one of Aina's hands and pressing a kiss to her palm.
Despite his nobler impulses, he could not help, however, but be flattered by Aina's reaction to another woman's interest in him, and he grinned with wickedness dancing in his eyes.
Any Misery in the Sound of the Wind || Raethva, Aina, and Greagh
Raethva moved through the lowlands.
The hills here were strange to her eyes, furred with green things instead of white snow, with trees that bore soft leaves rather than sharp needles. The air seemed thick in her lungs, almost wet, as though she tried to breath water instead of air. The woman kept her respiration steady by force of long practice, despite a strange urge to hold her breath. The air smelled strange, too, the familiar cold odor of stone almost buried beneath a damp musk she thought must be soil and a bright sharpness which might be the plants. The Aragai tilled what small plots of nearly-flat, thin-soiled land existed in the heights below their city, but even in those places in the heights of summer, the air did not smell like this air.
And the sunlight! It was warmer here than in Aragothe by far; Raethva was warmer than she had ever felt before without a fire raging nearby and furs piled upon her. But somehow, the sunlight, while hot on her face--seemed dimmer as well. It was a strange color, too warm and too golden, and it, like the air, seemed somehow thick--almost viscous as it poured down the slopes.
It was a soft place, the lowlands, she decided. The winds were gentle around her, the ground soft beneath her fur-lined boots. Everything was easy here, there was no challenge to it. Food was abundant and free for the taking, and fresh liquid water ran in thin streams and rivulets from every other crack in the stone.
The lowland vuathai must be soft as well. They followed decadent Daenu and feral Laghd, she knew. Without Daugva's heights to test them, without Aergharíghe's cold brightness to inspire them, how could they be strong? How could they be worthy, or pure? Something like contempt rose up in her and she looked at it carefully as she had been taught, taking the feeling and turning it over and around, understanding it fully--and then setting it aside, discarding it as unhelpful and unneeded.
But a misery she could not set aside trickled through her as the soft breezes swept her dark hair back from her face and the strange dim sunlight reddened her cheeks. This was not her home and never would be, but her own home was lost.
Lost in her own private misery, Raethva did not see the woman at first. She stopped dead in her tracks at the sight, then melted back behind an outcropping of rock. Well-hidden now, she peered out at the other woman who sat with her back to the trunk of one of these strange lowland trees. She was Kaeltai, was the stranger, this much at least was clear from her features and garb. But the woman was a lowlander, though; could she be trusted at all? Did Raethva even want to make contact with anyone, now or ever?
Frozen with indecision, Raethva hovered there, just out of sight.
((Under a cut for blood and gore and violence galore.
Uvatha wrenched his ax out of the ruined neck of his foe and found himself in one of those strange pockets of stillness which arose in the unchoreographed eddy of battle’s dance; there were no enemies nearby, none who threatened him at this moment, or threatened a friend. He took the chance to pause a brief moment, surveying the battlefield around him.
They had attacked at dawn, a ragged band of Kaeltai whose devices proclaimed them to be members of many tribes together, but all of whom still wore the White Hand of Isengard somewhere upon them. They were desperate and starving, bereft of leadership and home. They were hungry, they were feral…they were kin, but they were maddened and beyond reason.
The Maeghai village had barely been warned by their outlying scouts in time. The men and women among them who followed the warrior’s path had shrugged into armor of boiled leather and mail and brigandine plates, had seized weapons kept sharp and oiled against such an eventuality—though all had expected the attack to come from Rohan, not from among their own.
Uvatha did not have armor. He did not have a weapon of his own. He had only his old sleeveless tunic, had only his own two hands—and centuries of experience, and an undying body. He had charged into the fray alongside the others, no hesitation, no delay, and no fear. He had taken any number of small wounds, slices and cuts that wept a thick dark ichor which was not quite blood. But he had dealt out far more damage than he had taken, snapping necks and wrists and dislocating shoulders with his hands alone. The ax he now held he had taken from a foe; Uvatha had caught the man’s wrist in a crushing grip, twisting and pulling hard, caught up in that old battle-frenzy. He’d found himself holding the ax with the man’s hand still attached, blood gouting from the stump. Shaking it free, he’d buried the ax in its former owner’s skull and then turned to find the next.
They found him terrifying, did the White Hand attackers. Huge, red-eyed—and silent. Uvatha fought like one possessed, his entire body a weapon, and yet while all around him men and women roared with anger or shrieked with pain, Uvatha made never a sound, his mouth hanging open in something like a grin. He saw the fear in their eyes, he listened as they taunted him, trying to provoke some response. He gave them back nothing but the taste of their own blood in their mouths.
He was good at this. He hated it and loved it at once, as he had always hated and loved it. It was wasteful, it was senseless. And yet his body moving with grace and power, the smooth shifting of muscles under his flesh, the smells thick in his nose and the blood hot on his face—he was good at it, and there is always a pleasure to be taken from skill in any task, even the task of death.
“You fight like a terror,” came a voice from behind him, warm with humor despite an edge of exhaustion and the roughness which sprang from screaming too loud and too long.
Uvatha spun with upraised ax even as he recognized the voice. His fierce battle-grin softened for a moment into something more genuine as he looked at his Aina. Battle-wearied and coated with the filth of war, hair greased back not with white lime but with battle-field mud—still, she had never looked so lovely to him as she grinned back, a light in her eyes and a wildness in her stance. She was good at this, too, she felt at home here as he did.
He nodded once, then ran rough fingertips through the bright blood staining her arm—not her own, he suspected, but wet and hot all the same. There had not been time before meeting the attack to apply the blue woad of war, but he did so now, painting the lines on her face in the red blood of her enemies. It was perhaps presumptuous; those lines should only painted by a family member—or spouse. But she only smiled all the morely fiercely and returned the gesture, dipping her fingertips into his own black blood and drawing two short, sharp lines across his cheekbone.
Uvatha’s eyes softened as he tilted his head to the side for a moment, almost in question—then he spun past her and slammed the head of his ax into the neck of a man behind Aina. The foe’s ugly notched blade—which had come far too close to Aina’s kidneys, far too close!—fell from suddenly nerveless fingers as his body collapsed, twitching.
There would be time for soft words and lingering looks later, when the battle was won. When you wore the woad of war, you were no one’s lover but death.
