The elf paused, kneeling in the soft grass...catching her bearings. It had been some hours since the goblin ambush on the Bradywine River and her quarry was more elusive than ever...but whatever it was, it was running out of options.
She had first felt it when she had been patrolling the Greenway...a malignant, angry feeling lingering on the breeze like the smell of decay. At first she tried to ignore it, but it persisted and she realized that if something felt that dark and that powerful in a fleabitten place like this, then it could be important. Reluctantly then the elf had gone on the hunt...and was shocked to note a band of Goblins were also on its trail. Wiping them out on the river's edge, she was none too amused to find that the dark thing had made good time while she was busy, and had made for open country through the Brandy Hills.
The long chase however was drawing to a close.
The elf spat and looked up towards the ruins of Ost Barandor, a grand but battered remnant of an old Arnorian fotress.Yes, the feeling was definitely coming from up there and had stopped moving...her quarry had gone to ground.
"Now we shall see what this is all about, you nasty little bitch..."
Climbing to the top of Ost Barandor was a simple matter for the slim she-elf...tall for her kind and well muscled and athletic. As she walked slowly along the mighty precipice of the fortress, soundless despite her plate armor, her short dark hair was tossled by the winter breeze.
A figure huddled in the shadows at the edge of the precipice, close to a mighty drop down into the valley below. As the elf moved closer she kept waiting for the figure to rise or respond to her presence...but it had yet to stir even as she stood directly over it. Asleep, it seems. Ludicrous.
Now that it could not escape, it would have been sensible to patiently wait until her quarry woke and then question it while it was disoriented.
Xandilif the Banshee had never been known for her patience.
One mailed boot kicked the figure soundly. "OI!!" shouted the elf, then kicked it again.
With a cry of terror and pain the quarry leapt to it's feet, only to be caught by the throat and lifted. It's feet kicked 6 inches off the stone of the fortress.
Xandilif shook the figure lightly, its cloak falling open to reveal a young woman of slim figure wearing rough traveling clothes.
The woman clutched at the heavy gauntlet around her throat. "Gnnnnn grhk"
Xandilif took a step forward, holding the woman's kicking feet out in space, dangling her over the long drop into the valley. "Stop squirmin', or I let go...and morsel go boom."
The woman grunted and tried to flail at the elf's face with her already broken nails but the elf just laughed and leaned her head back out of her feeble reach.
Xandilif shook her again. "Eh eh eh...don't make mommy spank the naughty morsal...."
The woman's eyes misted up, her face going blue as Xandilif frowned. "Damn...fragile little morsel."
Xandilif pivoted and released her throat, dropping the woman onto the hard stones where she lay gagging and gasping for air. The elf continued speaking to herself, apparently not paying the woman any further attention. "Don't make no damn sense...I feel it but this one can't have it...maybe it is hidden near by?
As the mysterious woman struggled to recover, retching onto the stones, Xandilif went down to one knee, and pulled her chin up..."Where is it, then? Don't play hard to get, morsel, this ain't no loveplay and you'll just get yourself hurt....just tell me where it is and I won;t have ta break you...NOW.'
Her breathing was still coming in great gasps as she coughed, then looked up at her elven tormenter with wild eyes. "Whaaaa? Wha?"
Xandilif continued, still holding her by the chin."You seen something around here, maybe even been carting about with ya....something old...something dark as spider puke?"
The terrified woman tried to move away from her, her movements jerky, her fear primal. "What... are you... talking... about? Who... are you?"
Xandilif smiled coldly."Mmmmm...morsel can talk...that's gonna make this easier. I feel it on you...you stink of it, girl, like an alehouse whore who ain't bathed in a week of paydays. It shouldn't be here...you shouldn't have it...it'll frig your soul backwards like a shorn sheep and then eat it whole"
The cloaked woman held her bruised throat with both hands, her eyes on the armored elf. "What are...?" Her words came up short as the Banshee reached forward and flipped her hood back with one gauntleted hand, revealing the woman's tan skin and bronze colored locks. The woman scrambled up and cowered away again, gasping in fear as she could feel the edge so close.
The elf stared at her. "You fecking well know what I am talking about...the thing that haunts your dreams, that stalks your nightmares, that takes your quiet moments and fills them with shadow and fire...that makes your tight little tummy flip-flop when you hold it...The thing you should never have touched."
The woman stared in terror and crept closed to the edge, screaming back to the elf."I don't know what you are talking about!!!"
Xandilif smirked as the a soft rain of stones fell from under the girl's feet. "Careful morsel...one more step and I will have to search your corpse for it...which could be fun, but I like em to make a bit of noise when I peel the clothing off, y'know?"
She suddenly seemed to realize where she was standing, and edged even closed to the drop. "Don't touch me. DON'T...."
"Or you'll jump!!??....OH NO...SOMEONE SAVE HER!!!! BY ELBERETH WILL NO ONE RESCUE HER???'" Xandilif laughed raucously as the woman began to weep tears of frustration, but then stopped as she pulled a weapon from under her robe. It looked like a short, curved thorn, carved of basalt stone with a razor thin edge and strange hilt. A thin dark haze seemed to surround it.
The woman brandished it menacingly. "Step back!"
Xandilif smiled...."And there the little bitch is....I knew it. The nose always knows."
She slashed out at the champion with the dark thorn but the elf sidestepped it easily, one hand reaching up to casually swing SilverWand off her back.
The woman grew pale as she suddenly seemed to notice the greatsword.She began to scream, attempting to appear fierce in in her terror "You will die! You will die if you don't step away."
Xandilif sighed. "The hard way...always the hard way." and swung the mighty sword in a long ark, catching the woman on the side of the head with the flat of the blade. She went down in a heap without a sound, the dark thorn skittering away across the stones. The elf pushed it well away with the point of SilverWand...and knelt beside the woman.
Opening her waterflask, she bathed the woman's forehead in clean water until she began to come around, moaning softly. "Oh stop whining...you just got thumped. Show some damn backbone."
The woman tried to focus on the elf, her vision swimming. "You are from... Mans. I'm... not going back...
Xandilif stared, her manner changing and her voice growing hard again. "Mans? Mans??? What tha hell...?"
The woman was now weeping near hysterically. "I'm not going back...' she looked up at the woman beseechingly and paused, still weeping. "Wait...I've seen you before... No... Maybe. You are not from Mans?"
Xandilif had now lost all of her playful tone..." What are you to Mans? Tell me now or I swear by all that rots in Mordor I will gut you like a drunk hobbit with a head cold."
The bronze-haired woman tensed again, her tears being dried by a growing panic. "Nothing... I just thought..."
Xandilif grabbed the woman by the hair and drew a short, curved dagger from her boot..."That is not the answer....".
The woman squealed in terror again. "Don't hurt me!!! What do you want from me?"
"The truth....why did you ask about Mans? You a friend of that little turdblossom of a Dourhand knobsucker?"
The woman watched, her expression confused. She choked up at the question. Me??? A friend of Mans?"
The elf continued, voice growing colder still. "If you are I will take your head now and send it to him with my love..once you tell me where the feck he is"
"You know him? You know Mans of Kheledul?" The woman tried to get her heartbeat under control.
Xandilif looked at her, eyes faraway and dark and cold as death...."You could say he and I, we have some overdue debts from Annuminas. I have been looking for that perverted little warg-mounter for a long, long time...your age 5 times over."
The bronze-haired woman sobbed in relief and wiped sweat and tears from her eyes with her sleeve. "Well, good luck with that. He's sitting in Kheledul, fortified, with an army of Dourhand and men from Angmar, Umbar, who knows where else... He's been looking for me. I've been running away from his dwarves for days."
The elf tilted her head, taking that all in, and the woman paused, staring at her again. "You look like someone I've met. Xan... Xanderin or... Something like that. It feels like a lifetime ago"
Xandilif laughed hoarsely. "OH you are fecking kidding me...you are one of the Monk's strays? I swear to Elbereth's shaved backside, morsel, if you are lying I will find a bear in the woods beyond and let it hump you to death."
"Wait...Who is Monk?'"
Xandilif ignored her, and was still ranting..."By the stars everywhere I look she has another poor little lamb...'
The woman finally got a word in. "What? What are you talking about? and who is this Monk?"
The elf sighed. "Xanderian...about my size...has a bow that will bite ya if you look at her sideways...speaks like she is reciting the Lays of Alberian in front of Manwe himself...always seems to be about to cry or strip off her kit, or both at once?"
The woman laughed. "That's her! I know her."
Xandilif sighed...and sheathed the blade..."What are the fecking odds....And where did you pick up THAT bit of nasty business?" She gestured at the black thorn, laying some distance away.
The woman looked uneasy again. "Why do you want to know? It's mine. I haven't stolen it, if this is what you are thinking. I took it from a cave from the hands of a very dead ... thing."
"You sure it ain't stolen YOU, morsel?' It's old..and it is powerful...and dark as Ungoliant's privates with the candles out. Anyway, pretty morsels should not play with dead things. You better hope to hell it don't come looking for its toy back..."
The woman shrugged defiantly. "I don't care. It can come looking. The darker it is the better. I know how it works and I'm going to use it. On Mans."
Xandilif sat and rolled over onto her back, laughing. "OH yes...I looovveeee it when they talk all tough like that... Makes my toes curl...but I admit I would like to see the look on his face when you ram that up his little Dourhand. What is my new morsel called?"
The woman smiled..."So would I actually...and I am Cily. Just Cily."
The elf stared and started to laugh again, kicking her booted feet on the stone in mirth. "Ahhhh...so you are Cilyniton?"
Cily frowned. "You know my name?" How?"
"The Monk...she has been moaning about you...said she dreamed of a bronze dragon of despair and her normal shite...She tends to go on like that a good bit..I ignore her most days." Xandilif rolled up to her side, still chuckling.
Cily watched her with an astonished expression. "She remembered me? And the dragon..." Cily spoke more to herself now. "I saw Xan in my dreams. I thought it was just... a dream. Was it not?"
'She never forgets nothing, and has been moaning that you left before she could save you...she fecking wants to save everybody...but you been high on her list."
Cily gave the elf a curious look. "Save? Why would she want to save me? I never told her... I don't understand."
Xandilif shrugged. "You gather up a baker's dozen of you little flatlanders in a room she will make a beeline for the one whose daddy kicks the shite out her every tuesday and try to save her...My sister can be a bit of a pain that way"
Cily listened, thought about the elf's words, then giggled. "She is your sister. But the way you talk... Not like her. What's your name?"
The elf smirked. "You can call me Sweetheart, Morsal....but the name is Xandilif the Banshee...Silverwand's Slut at your service and your fecking family's as Durin's brats would say. So what is your grief with that knee high pile of nazgul droppings, Mans?'
Cily looked away. "Mans captures people, puts them in cages and sells them off to the highest bidder. His dogs caught me at some point, but I was lucky to be able to pay for my freedom."
Xandilif nodded in satisfaction. "He still playing that game? Good...."
Cily raised her brows. "Good? What does that mean?"
"It means no one will weep when I make him wear his own liver as a new hat"
The bronze haired woman shook her head sadly. "I've seen a powerful elf, bigger then you, felled by his archers. You won't even get close."
Xandilif took her chin in her hand again. "You ain't never seen no elf like me, honeybritches...and when I go, I won't be going alone."
Cily looked at her in surprise, not bothering to pull her face away. "What do you mean?"
Xandilif smirked and stared her in the eyes. "You and me, Morsel...we are gonna kill that syphilitic spunk gobbler..and we are gonna look good doing it"'
