100 Years Ago
Xanderian's gaze slowly traveled around the so-called city with disgust from within a thatch hut they had commandeered, her fair eyes dark and unmoved. The Banshee had called this ramshackle collection of garbage heaps and sheepfold "Galtrev". An inauspicious name for an inauspicious place.
She shifted, looking away as a group of sheep wandered past, their herdsman whistling at them idiotically...at least she thought it was a herdsman. She still found it hard to keep track of these menfolk. Ox clan, Falcon clan, Dragon clan...what did it matter they were all monkeys in homespun rags.
Slipping her new bow off her shoulder she carefully tested the weight and found it adequate. Not the finest quality being of local make, but it will do for now, until she had mastered the intricacies of the bow waiting for her back in Imladris. Xanir had already named it Heartbreaker in a silly song he had concocted for his tutor. "Xanderian casts her eye but not her heart. Nay, no heartbreaker is she, she leaves that for her bow. She bats her eyes and leaves broken hearts, but always retrieves the shafts. She always retrieves the shafts.". It amused Lif, but Xanderian found it droll. The name had stuck within the family, and so Heartbreaker it would be....assuming she ever gained the skill to wield it. Her progress, swift though it was, annoyed her to no end.
With her typical commotion a bit quieted for the sake of stealth, Xandilif shouldered into the hut, bearing bread and ale and what looked like some kind of roast fowl...or perhaps it was a cat. "I bring you a feast, little sister!! Tuck in, ya waif, or you might just perish before my eyes. Did they never give ya a damn meal in fair Imladris? Last Homely House my arse."
Xanderian sighed and took a bit of the bread and looked unimpressed, eating it without interest. "You said we would meet comrades here to prepare for the ride to Isengard. I see no companions, but feel the eyes of Isengard heavy upon my back already...this dungheap is infested with the wizard's crows. As well most of these monkeys have a sinister demeanor, their pockets no doubt full of Saruman's filthy gold and some with their veins polluted with orcish blood."
Her elder sister nodded, biting off a piece of the roasted whatever it is and spitting out a bit of bone, speaking as she chewed. "Aye, this place is as corrupt as a Moria provisioner and filled with the wizard's whores...but a few of the menfolk resist his wiles. Look to their clan markings to tell the difference, Monk."
The huntress shrugged and sniffed at the offered ale...a sip or two and then passed it back. "They all look the same to me and I care not of their clans. This ale is terrible. It's stale and tastes of straw....where are these companions?"
Lif took another bite, still talking..."Got a message from Thrani, he and his brother and a healer of some kind will meet us on the road for Nan Curunir, says things got a bit too hot for 'em in Galtrev. If you think WE stick out in this place, you should see what they make of Durin's folk. Anyway, yeah the ale is bad, but even bad ale is good, right?"
Xanderian ignored her sister and took up her pack. "If we are to meet them elsewhere then good...we can put this place behind us and get on with business. Are you sure you can trust these little miners you have saddled us with? If they are like their Dourhand cousins they will sell us out to the first Uruk they see."
The champion spat and drained the ale skin. "Are you on that again, Monk? By Elbereth's knickers, Rian...they're alright, I have fought beside them before. Not EVERYONE is out to get ya, ya silly git. I told ya I would make sure ya were alright, didn't I? I promised 'em before they sailed I would do that and I keep my oaths."
Xanderian stared at her sister, voice low and angry. "I don't care what you promised them...if they had cared they would have remained and not required your stupid oath. Instead they sail with no reason why, and leave us to tend their babe in their absence. They didn't care, they never did and don't pretend it was otherwise, Lif."
"We know why they sailed Rian...they didn't tell me any more than you...but they cared. At least wise I think they did..." Xandilif looked away, unwilling for her younger sister to see the pain in her own eyes, keeping her voice level. "Anyway it don't make no fecking matter if they did or not. The Child is safe with his tutors and we have work to do. Important work...it don't get better than that for the likes of us. I 'told ya I would get ya out of Imladris didn't I? Ain't I a good sister to ya Monk?"
The huntress smiled slightly and nodded, knowing what Lif needed to hear. "Yes Banshee...you are a good sister to me." She truly did feel her elder sister had done well by her thus far despite her shortcomings, and was proud of the confidence and honor that Xandilif had been shown by those who opposed the shadow. The fact they had let her keep that blade she had found in a barrow far away speaks of that...even she with her meager knowledge could feel the age and power about it. Of course, she could not quite shake the feeling that SilverWand had found Xandilif, and not the other way around.
"Then off we go!" Lif took one more bite of the carcass then tossed it to the stray dogs that infested Galtrev. Xanderian tucked the remaining bread in her pack for later and followed her sister out into the bustling market and headed for the gates. As they did so, both elves drew up the hoods of their cloaks to mask their features...Galtrev was not the friendliest place for daughters of fair Imladris.
Approaching the gate, they spied a young woman trying to make her way in, a heavy basket of trade goods on her shoulder. A guardsman, wearing the mark of the White Hand upon his tabard had stopped her and was questioning her hard. His words were growing increasingly crude as the tribeswoman grew more and more frightened in turn. Things were spiraling out of control and the air was tense.
The two elves moved carefully and quietly to avoid notice...trying to slip through the gate while the guards were distracted. Considering the mission they were on the fewer who noticed their coming and going, the better.
In a burst of anger at her reticence, the guardsman finally pulled the woman's basket down from her shoulder and scattered it's goods in the dirt. Amongst the loaves of bread were several vicious looking daggers, previously secreted in the bottom of the basket but now gleaming in the hot sun. They were clearly not of local make. With a guttural shout the guard grabbed the woman's wrist and pulled her roughly from the line of people begging entry to Galtrev, all of whom suddenly became very focused on their own affairs.
The guardsman hurled the woman to two of his comrades and all three began shrieking at her in what sounded to be a strange mix of the common tongue and Orcish. They shoved her from one to the other like a doll as she wept and begged, denying having known the blades were there. A brutal backhand and blood sprayed, the woman spun and fell to the dirt, her face contorted by what seemed to be a broken cheekbone. She was harshly dragged up again by two of the three guards as they continued shrieking at her. One of them yanked at her, her blouse ripping asunder as another punched her hard in the abdomen, blood spraying again from her mouth as she screamed and went limp, ceasing the pointless struggle...she knew what was coming next and seemed desperate to simply survive now as she was dragged weeping into the underbrush, her skirt being shredded as they carried her, throwing her into the brambles and falling upon her like dogs on fresh meat.
The others at the gate looked away pointedly as a new guard arrived to continue searching them. They all looked away...save for Xanderian. She stood like a statue, staring at the hopeless scene as the woman had now stopped crying altogether, or perhaps it was just drowned out by the sound of the guards. The young elleth was unsure what to do...a single tear ran down her pale cheek. Monkeys they may be...but this was wrong. Her hands began to tremble and her eyes grew darker. This was wrong.
The huntress reached for her bow...but Xandilif gripped her wrist in a vise like hand. "NO Monk...there are too many. We can't help her...we can only get her killed. And even if we slew them all, more would come and raise the alarm and our mission would be spoilt right proper. There are more important things than this. Anyway, what do you care...they ain't much more than beasts, I heard ya say it enough."
Xanderian wavered, as two more guards came over to join the others with raucous shouts. She shuddered, then turned to follow her sister through the gate, tears now openly running down her face if any of the guards had bothered to peer under her hood. They didn't stop for some time as Xandilif remained silent and seemed unmoved by what had occured. However those orc they encountered on the road died badly on SilverWand's edge...more badly then usual.
That night by a weak campfire on the road to Nan Curunir, awaiting their dwarves, Xanderian dreamed she was standing on the shore at night, speaking with her mother who sat in a beautiful ship adorned with swans and bright torches....and her mother asked her while looking at the distant horizon "Of what purpose the fall of the mighty when the meek yet bleed?" In her dream the young elleth had no answer...and her mother shrugged sadly at her silence and sailed away...leaving Xanderian alone in the dark.
Xanderian woke asking herself that again and again as she and Xandilif and their newly arrived companions made the grey, grim trek towards Isengard and their mission. "Of what purpose the fall of the mighty when the meek yet bleed?"
Still no answer came to her.
