The tramp of steel-shod boots grated upon pale flagstones as Makanárë strode up the path, face grim. Overhead, the stars glimmered pale and distant, while the closer lights of Imladris blinked and faltered in the cool breeze. Her steps did not waver, feet leading her up a grassy knoll until she stood beside a simple cairn, newly made.
Themodir. A fellow Hammer, a brother-in-arms. Despite all the efforts of the warriors to save him from the goblin-tunnels, and the healers to stanch the poison which oozed from his wound, he had passed to Mandos. There would be no more meeting for them, not on this side of the Great Sea. Bitterly she shook a strand of hair out of her face. Since when had she cared about the passing of one warrior? Only half an Age ago she would have turned away numbly, without a thought. But now ...
Steel rang on steel as she drew her swords, crossing them before her and driving the points into the ground. Wordlessly she knelt, hands on her sword-hilts, and bowed her head over the cairn. Countless times she had seen kinsmen, comrades, brothers and sisters in arms fall at her side. The long years had weathered and callused her heart until she barely felt the pang of grief. Yet ever since she had come to Imladris and joined the ranks of the Hammer, she had felt strange forces working on her, impulses that shook the unfeeling wall she had built around herself. For months she had been living, training, fighting, bleeding alongside the Hammers. And now, she could not help but miss the one Hammer who had returned to home and kin, only to be torn from them by death.
She fumbled in her pocket, steel gauntlets grating against the chain-mail of her Hammer hauberk. Two plain dice, carven of bone, tumbled from her hand onto the cairn, clattering to a stop. Twelve. A perfect, lucky score. She still remembered the game of dice that she and several other hammers had played in the Hithaeglir, shut up in a Dwarven keep with a snowstorm raging outside. Themodir had been there, consenting to play for a round, and soundly beating the Sergeant's roll, though the round was won by another.
She closed her eyes, murmuring a blessing in Quenya which she had recited countless times over the graves of her fallen comrades. Then she laughed brokenly, opening her eyes to glance at the bone dice lying on Themodir's grave.
"I hope they have dice in Mandos, brother." The words fell hoarsely from her lips as she knelt there, head still bowed, mouth set in a thin line. The night deepened as she remained, holding vigil with head uncovered, short chestnut hair falling limply over her face.
It could have been hours, or even a lifetime later when she rose to her feet, cheeks unstained with tears but eyes lit by a burning light. Makanárë stood, presented her blades in a salute, and turned away, vanishing into the night. The last murmurs of the night breeze bore her parting words, in a voice scarcely above a whisper.
"Namárië."
