The day dawns with little fanfare, the sun breaking over the hills to the east, though the trees on the slopes where they camped block the sight. Early awakenings had become second nature, these sixty odd years spent in the Wilds. But the days grew shorter and the summer days stretched into autumn, and one could feel it in their bones in such a cold morning as this (the uneven ground did not help things either.)
She was surprised to find the elleth still deep in slumber, keen sensed as they were. But the breaking of their fast and camp seemed to have stirred her, and Créa left some food nearby where she had lain in case she wanted to eat. It seemed though she was eager to get a move on, and she could hardly blame her. Even she had wanted to get back out into the Wilds and indulge in her duties, of a life that was slipping away and would be no more than a memory.
A warm smile is given at the regifting of her cloak, and she sling it around her shoulders, tightly secured with the worn brooch. “Of course,’ came her reply, “the weather can be biting here.” Though it was a curious thing that an elf should be so affected by temperature, Créa disregarded it. She too was not overly fond of the cold.
Soon enough the camp is dismantled, looking as though they were never there, before mounting their horses. “I don’t know if they’d be different than the ones you’ve dealt with in Rhûn, but they dwindle here, and quickly.” Without masters they scattered in their holes. “I have no advice, other than to give caution. Animals backed into corners strike the fiercest, and so too will they.”
A few commands were given and the other two split from the group in order to cover more ground, and to report back in Ost Forod should they find anything. They were experienced enough in this terrain that she trusted them, and with that they all set off. “We’re headed for the Duskencleft,” she informed Vezely, wanting to keep her in the loop, “there’s a good chance we’ll catch some there.”
The road she led them on was not much of a road at all, but worn earth where the rangers had patrolled and so they had to pick their path carefully, for the grass held dew and could prove treacherous should the horses slip. Quickly the land beneath them lowered into a small valley out of the forest, and hills and ruins cradled either side.
Hours passed as they twisted round the worn path in a careful descent, content to listen to the news of the birds and the wind in the sea of grass. But soon she went a ways ahead to scout, and pointed to the left, off the road. “There’s no real road to the cleft,” she said, squinting as she tilted her head back to see the top of the steep hill, “so we’ll have to go off from here.” She informed the other that this road leads to Forochel–one of the only ways in to that desolate wasteland, and hardly used.
It was hardly an hour or two into their steep ascent when the first sign of trouble was spotted–a deer carcass, violently and hastily torn apart, staining the earth around it. Dismounting to get a closer look, it was not more than a day or two old. Further ahead showed more signs–footprints, broken branches in the brush, and Créa dismounted to continue on foot, bow drawn. A camp had to be nearby.
Rustling sounded from the foliage not far ahead, and she froze. Keen was her hearing, and again a branch snapped. Her breath was held, arrow notched and string creaking–
-with a twang! her arrow sailed forth, a shrieking cry from the bushes, and with a sudden movement their quarry burst through, malice in their eyes and swords swinging as they charged.
Boney and pale, fingers of a chill hand curl and choke about the worn black leather-bound pummel of the Rhûnic scimitar strapped at her hip. As the Stewardess nocks an arrow, smooth and silently she unsheathes it and doing so more silent than her booted footfalls which are not as gentle as her kin’s. The unsullied blade, which tapers into a curve near its pointed tip, is held by her side. Its thin single edge still holds its sharpness but on close inspection it appears scrapped and knocked. Over-polished, overused, and not forged with the integrity of what she grew accustomed to under elite service of Mordor.
The superior blade she claimed as emissary, forged by dwarven thralls of Nûrn, fell at her side on the fields of Pelennor. Lost to war. Perhaps it was picked up by some Gondorian soldier to become a heirloom hung on their wall to boast of the defeat of the heathens. Or perhaps, a bounty pawned off for a few coins to be melted and reforged.
The other hand already dons a long dagger that stays at the ready when their travel by foot continued from the torn carcass. This knife was stolen off a Gondorian soldier; one whose throat she slit with it during an escape from tents where Mordor’s survivors were sent to die. Her scimitar take her dominant hand and so she flips the other. It will prove a protective defense against the ungraceful battering and blows of orcs and their clunky iron.
Akin to the Dúnedain, keen ears sense their presence, though of foulness they do not portend. Though Vezely holds no love of the orc as they hold no love of her, she finds them altogether ordinary even if their presence in these lands are anything but. Thus, when Créa’s arrow flies and the stampede commences with horrid shrieks and brute weapons of war held ominously high, no fear shakes her resolve.
The Pultai in her yet breathes life, it instills her with the rush of combat. Hands adjust their grips and feet take her towards them. The speed at which she shuffles and dodges, and her blades slice and cut, disembowling the first she greets, show another side under the foreign attire — of the kin she does not call her own.
No attention is paid to her three comrades’ part in the melee. Keen they are to stay out of her blade’s way.
An orc who stands a head over her height lumbers nearer, his nostrils flaring, sniffing the air as if he can smell her elven blood with disgust.
“Albai,” he curses loudly in an accent that appears a regional orkish dialect to ears accustomed to the south. So loud he hails her in fact that intent to call her an elf is to alert his brethren of the threat she poses. To that, Vezely only smirks. How displeasingly familiar to hear an orc undress her and call her what she denies to call herself.
At his iron cleaver hurls down, she skips and lurches forward. The Gondorian dagger shows it worth, stabbing him in the neck and cutting upward, cleaving his head into two halves that fall over his shoulders to hit the damp ground before his legs give out. The black blood runs thick and warm against the cold skin of her pale hands.
“Mat lat flagit rraus,” she spits in Black Speech, a cruel smile creeping over her thin lips and making her forget her current state of disenfranchisement among former enemies and allies.
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