(The opening takes place about a year after the events of Bad Fish. For more information on the strange case of Hildawyn of Thornhope, see HERE and HERE.)
Awash in blood red light, filtered through the festering clouds that filled the sky, the two sisters walked slowly over the rough-crafted bridge, their feet barely touching the wooden slats. The water below was shallow enough to wade, yet it seemed to flow and shake more like quicksilver and pulsed with a strange dark power. As they walked, the smaller of the two paused every few steps, as if offering what little aid she could to the stride of her otherwise stronger sister. An untrained eye would have thought them equally graceful, but to the wise it would have been clear that the armored sister was still recovering from grievous wounds of some sort.
As the two elleth approached, the old man looked up from an earnest conversation he was having with a boy of no more than five summers, a dozen or more warriors of his tribe in attendance. With a sigh he fell silent but left his hand on the boy’s shoulder, turning to face this intrusion. Rising slowly from the wicker and bone throne, the man fixed his fading eyes upon the two appraisingly, the green of the cloudy irises gleaming like wet stone. They had lost much of their acuity to time and travail, but none of their acumen.
As he spoke, his voice seemed to emanate more from his spirit than his throat, his hand fondly petting the boy’s hair. “Look well at our visitors Crannog towards the day you sit in my stead. The one encased in iron the Trev Gallorg know, yet the other, sleeved in hides and chain, we do not. And what might be your Fem, unknown outsider? The Fem of the one called Xand-e-leef we know, but perhaps the other has no Fem. Without a Fem, we of the Trev Gallorg will pay no more mind to you than we would stones rolling down a basalt ledge. A creature with no Fem has no reason to breathe good air that another more worthy warrior could use, so what be your Fem? Have you none, then begone, what becomes of you matters not to the Trev Gallorg."
The younger elleth bristled at both words and tone, being still filled with the pride and gravitas of the first born, until her elder sister stepped on her foot with one heavy boot. Controlling her gasp, she muttered in pain to her sister. “Fem? What is a fem? What nonsense is this…you said you wished my help to bring down a quarry in flight, who owes you blood and lives both. What reason have we to treat with these savages? Would you not say "let us brush them aside and be about it", Gawad?.”
Xandilif grinned like the wounded beast she was, ignoring her sister and bowed slowly, carefully before the old Hillman. “You have a good memory still, Cragorn of the Trev Gallorg, despite lookin’ like you’ve been through a Scara backwards.”
The warriors around the aging chieftain smiled and nodded, remembering the first born’s fierce tongue, so unlike the others of her kind that would drift through Aughaire on their own business, diffident and uninvolved with the matters that interested the Hillmen.
The Champion continued, straightening a bit. She was still amazed that despite her wounds, the massive sword she now carried across her back had yet to burden her. “This be my baby sister, Xanderian, and you speak the truth, she has no Fem as of yet for she hasn’t found one that truly suited her. Perhaps she never will, or far more likely she has found too many and can’t choose between them like a fickle fishwife before a shipload of sailors. What matters however is myself, for we are here on a personal errand of mine. MY Fem...well…my Fem has changed.”
This caused a buzz to go through the Hillmen warriors and Cragorn shook his gray maned head stiffly. “Your Fem is no longer to seek out the darkest havens of the bat women and best their mightiest?”
Xandilif the Banshee smirked awkwardly, then lost her words in a brutal coughing jag, finally spitting vivid red blood down onto the stony ground. Her voice finally rasped out. “That was…well…that didn’t turn out the way I expected, not no how. Let us not speak of the Merrevail nor of their Queen Ergoth, at least not while I am this sober. Ergoth and I..well..we are giving one another wide berths for now, so as to keep things…sociable. You know how such things are, what begins with anger soon becomes fire of another kind until it is but ashes, stirred and stirred again in a sweet, sour haze of…”
Xanderian cleared her throat and whispered to the Banshee in Sindarin. “MUST everyone we meet hear this drivel? What’s next, sad poems and harp music for ‘the monster that got away’? Do you have the strength for this, Banshee, even with that blade keeping you on your feet?”
The champion glared at her sister, before coughing again and wiping a bit more blood from her lips, her voice gaining force from her remembered rage. “So my Fem…” she shot a fierce side glance at Xanderian, “my PURPOSE as it is called in Westron, is now of a different hue. I seek a dwarf as a matter of fact, a Dourhand bastard. I have him on the run to his Master and when I get my fist in his beard I will cut off his legs and mount his torso like a rocking horse and gallop his reeking carcass back to Annuminas.”
Cragorn’s eyes became slits, not liking the way this conversation was going. “Who then might this dwarf be, and of more concern to the Trev Gallorg, who might his Master be that he flees to them in Angmar and thinks they will shelter him from your…indecipherable wrath?”
Xandilif sighed, catching her breath. “The dwarf is called Mans, a slaver prince of the foul Dourhand hailing from the Blue Mountains…and his Master is a Lord of Carn Dum. Donark, Paymaster General to the False King.”
A hush fell over the warriors and Cragorn rose unsteadily, his grandson supporting him as best the boy could. “Donark of the Vaults is beyond the reach of the Trev Gallorg, you know this Xand-e-leef, Scourge of Morfil. We will offer you what aid we can, but this Fem is your own and not a battle we may fight with you while still keeping our own foes at bay.”
The Champion nodded brusquely. “I know that and would not ask it to be otherwise, I just wished the Trev Gallorg to know what business I and my sister had in your lands. We will lend strength to your Fem where we may.”
Stepping forward, the chieftain embraced the elleth champion roughly but with an affection that caused Xanderian to tilt her head. “Then so be it…may your Fem lead you to glory and victory, Xand-e-leef of the First Born and her Sister With Many Fem.”
Having been formally dismissed from the presence of the Chieftain of the Trev Gallorg, the two elleth strode back across the bridge to gather their horses and continue into Angmar, Xanderian unsure still what had just occurred as Xandilif muttered to herself darkly. “Glory and victory…but not for me…for Tris. At least let me leave that at her tomb in the darkness. At least that.”
~~~~~~~
Xanderian stood before the chieftain, several lifetimes and many meetings having passed since she had faced him as a little boy at his grandfather’s knee that day. At her side now stood a blonde Shieldmaiden, clad in close fitting bronze and leather armor. Crannog ran a hand through his auburn beard and smiled. “Hail Xanderian of Many Fems, kinswoman to the Trev Gallorg. What brings your road back again to Aughaire with Cyndwin the Willowflower still beside you…yet where is Xandilif the Pale Morroval?”
The elleth smiled and bowed slowly in unison with Cyndwin. “My sister is about the business of our betters, noble Crannog. I and Cyndwin however am on a more personal hunt. We seek a girl of Rohan, called Hildawyn of Thornhope, who haunts me in my dreams bearing an empty scabbard and what I now conclude are the Brazen Scales of Donark himself. I seek news of her passage into Angmar towards Carn Dum....and word of the healer known as the Silken Witch.”
