The splash was not a loud one, over the rushing of the river, but elven ears picked it up nonetheless.
“Did you hear something?” Caleniel asked. Lilleduil got up, her suspicions roused.
Thendryt had not let her examine him to any great extent, he had not seemed to want her touching him. He was all over blood, but had assured her that he was fine. It had been a mighty feat Khalis had asked of him, but apparently the Man was quite capable of walking single-handedly into a nest of Dunlanders and half-orcs and causing havoc. She had been forced to assume the blood was that of his enemies.
Was he washing up? She knew he’d been unhappy about her curiosity about his past before her admittance to the Warband, so she’d let the matter lie. The man had Tur Elisbeth’s favor, no matter what had happened, as had been made very clear, so there was no sense in dwelling upon the matter. Captain Khalis had seemed unsurprised at Thendryt‘s exit, but then Lilleduil herself, with her limited experience, had seen him leave the company numerous times.
Nonetheless, they were in enemy territory and no one should be out alone. So she rose and followed after him. He was not in view standing by the shore, so she moved closer to the water’s edge and looked down. There beneath the water was a large, dark shape, water eddying about it. Snarling some of the choice Khuzdul curses she’d heard in Moria (She wasn’t absolutely certain they were curses, the dwarves were not forthcoming about their language, but the context was right.), Lilleduil leapt into the water after Thendryt, calling back to the others, “Some help here!”
She was small for one of the Eldar, and Thendryt was a massive Man, heavily armored. She’d had to dive beneath the water to seize hold of him and then it took both Caleniel and Khalis’s aid to raise him to the surface. When he was on the pebbled shore, Lilleduil turned him onto his side, pounding on his back.
“Spit it out, you stubborn Man!” she snarled. After a moment, Thendryt coughed a little and water ran out of his mouth, where upon she turned him upon his back and gave his face a couple of slaps. He did not regain consciousness.
“We need to move away from the shore before we‘re seen,” Khalis said worriedly. They’d set a good part of the camp they’d scouted ablaze and the Dunlendings would eventually begin to organize and look for the perpetrators. They had removed all insignia that might connect them to Imladris, but if they were discovered to be elves, even a half-orc might be able to figure out who had sent them. “Is he breathing?”
“Yes, he just won’t wake up,” Lilleduil answered.
“What is the matter with him?”
“I don’t know.” Caleniel was already stripping his armor, and Lilleduil started helping her. “Let’s get him away from here so I can get a closer look.” It looked as if there were at least three wounds. She got to her feet and hoisted Thendryt’s legs, glaring at the wounded Man with annoyance. Lie to me about being wounded, will you? “You take the stone head, Captain. That’s the heaviest part.” Despite the seriousness of the situation, Caleniel laughed, shaking her head at Lilleduil. The captain simply gathered Thendryt up entirely and carried him away from the shore where they could examine him a little more closely. Caleniel followed with his armor.
“Two arrow wounds and a good-sized slash,” Lilleduil announced after she’d had the chance to look him over.
“It doesn’t seem enough to have brought him down,” Khalis observed, “unless he was poisoned. Thendryt is tough.” The Captain of the Warband frowned.
“I can’t be sure, but I don’t think he is poisoned,“ Lilleduil admitted. Forostel was much better with poisons than she was. “As for the wounds…individually, no, I don‘t think he would have succumbed. But altogether, perhaps…I suspect it is blood loss as much as anything else.” She field dressed the wounds, noting that one of the arrow wounds still had the head in it. At least this will staunch any further blood loss until we can get him back to Mirobel.
“We need to get him back to some place warm, where he can be properly tended,” Khalis said, echoing her thought. “Caleniel, pack up his armor, please.” The warden did so swiftly, strapping it into a compact mass she could wear on her back, and not hamper her movement, whereupon the captain hefted Thendryt once more.
“Do you want me to help, Captain?” Lilleduil asked, but Khalis simply shook his head, slinging Thendryt over his shoulders. It was an impressive display of strength.
As she was the only unencumbered one, Lilleduil whistled up her lynx-friend Tinnufaron, and took point. The more she thought about Thendryt’s deception, the angrier she got. Any Angmarim or Dunlenders who got in her way were going to burn…
The return to Mirobel was uneventful, other than Khalis’s slip down a slope and subsequent tumble on top of the wounded man. Thendryt also had a new bump on his head, courtesy of a rock outcropping they’d slipped around. They’d encountered a few Dunlenders and even some Angmarim. This had resulted in some joking about Thendryt’s lost opportunity-he hated Angmarrim more than anything-but the enemies were nothing Caleniel and Lilleduil could not handle. Khalis had rigged a clever airbladder out of a cloak to help float Thendryt across the river on the final approach and they were all very relieved to arrive back at Mirobel. Lilleduil suspected that Khalis was particularly relieved by the way he stretched after setting Thendryt down close to the fire.
He went off to talk to the healer stationed there, an elf named Postoneth, but Lilleduil did not wait for his return. She swiftly stripped Thendryt of his shirt, and pulling out her wound washing solution and her medical supplies, removed the field dressings and began to work on him in earnest. Even as her hands moved deftly and swiftly, her thoughts roiled in silent fury.
“Recently joining the Warband only means I won’t kill you, Elf,” Thendryt had told her mere moments after they’d met by chance in Delossad. It had been a great disillusionment for Lilleduil, who had believed that the members of the Warband were to consider each other family. He’d also made it plain that, despite the fact that she wore the cloak of the Leutha Maethor, she had yet to prove herself to him. She had come away from the whole encounter rather disgruntled, though when she had complained to Tur Elisbeth, she had been given short shrift. She was not to talk of other members of the Warband in the disrespectful manner she had used when speaking of Thendryt. Thendryt was an honorable Man, and Lilleduil knew nothing of him or the trials he had endured. Tur Elisbeth had been most displeased, so Lilleduil had let the matter rest, resolving to have as little to do with the Man as possible. Their few subsequent exchanges had been civil enough to make her think that progress was being made.
Until now. I asked him directly if he were well, and he LIED to me with two arrow holes and another wound on him! What was he trying to prove? The hardiness of Men? Was he competing with the Captain? What did he think he was going to do-go back to Mirobel with us and then slip off and dig the arrowhead out with his TEETH? Or was it only that he didn’t want ME tending to him?
“I really want to slap you some more,” she growled under her breath at the unconscious man. Across the fire, Caleniel, looked at her a bit startled and then laughed.
“That’s some bedside manner you have there, Lilleduil.” Lilleduil looked up at her.
“I have a perfectly good bedside manner-if you’re a creature of the wild,” she protested, and the warden laughed again.
And given that Thendryt is about as cagey and suspicious as a wild creature, it ought to suit him just fine!
Khalis returned about then with Postoneth, who took one look at what she was doing and seemed well enough pleased to leave her to it. The captain took her scalpel and fired it for her at her request, but he left as she started digging for the arrowhead. Caleniel, who had gone in search of some clean clothes for Thendryt, returned, only to depart again just as she dug it out. Lilleduil couldn’t blame them-it had to be rather disquieting to see a healer cutting on someone you knew.
The arrowhead was not deep and had hit nothing vital. Lilleduil saved it for Postoneth, in the event he could tell if it were poisoned. She poulticed both of the arrow wounds, then cleaned and stitched the slash on the left arm and bandaged everything up. Clothing Thendryt, she tucked him beneath blankets close to the fire, settling nearby to keep watch.
It wasn’t that he was a Man. Lilleduil could have cared less about that. She had plenty of friends among the Second born, including the young Warden who had been wounded earlier in the day. It was that he was surly and suspicious and with entirely too lofty an opinion of himself. And that he snarled more than her saber cat friends!
I don’t care if I ever prove myself to you or not, Thendryt. Today you have very definitely failed to impress ME!
