Xanderian looked up as she began spreading out the bedroll for the night. “Isn’t that obvious my love? Theodan King of Rohan, she was seeking to heal his failing wits, and through doing that, heal all of the Riddermark. ‘Change these things and things shall change’ as the false King said. I wonder…what she thought she might pay for HIS soul’s return?”
Cyndwin simply stared, rendered speechless by the revelation...then slowly turned so her companion could help her out of her hauberk. "Who would have ever imagined...." she whispered then fell silent, letting the night swallow her wonder.
---
Xanderian and Cyndwin rose at dawn to watch what passed for a sunrise in Angmar and slowly made their way toward the Himbar, picking their way carefully over the rocky crags of the blighted landscape. Occasionally they would pause to dispatch an unlucky Angmarim patrol, the young Shieldmaiden, so meek and pale looking, drawing them in like a wounded bird before dispatching them for their overconfidence with her great sword. Should any manage to evade Cyndwin’s initial attack, they would find themselves cleaved neatly down the middle by Xanderian’s Lovelorn, so fast and so sharp they would never even feel the blade.
As they made slow, wearying progress, Cyndwin finally couldn’t contain her excitement over the revelations of the previous night and broke the comfortable silence. “Rian…you said that Hildawyn was seeking to aid Theoden King by her mission? Are we then to help her bring that to fruition, and do good service to the King, perhaps coming to his attention?” She preened slightly, looking out at the bleak horizon while eating a bit of dried meat the elleth had purchased from Bree craft fair before departing. “Perhaps we will even be presented for our heroism in Edoras. Surely the King must know you, my love…will you tell him kind things of me, perhaps introduce me?”
Xanderian stared for a moment as she cleaned the curved length of Lovelorn, then began to laugh. “My beloved Aza, I said that I surmise that was her intention, to aid her King in his recent plight. I suspect that shows more about the reverence the folk of Thornhope have for their King then it does for their realistic expectations or knowledge. They sent a young girl into the wilds of Angmar on what could only be called a fools’s errand, to treat with creatures of unredeemable evil and awesome power, over a problem they could never hope to understand let alone address. We are not here to help her mission, dearest one, we are to save her life if we can. Her mission was madness from the beginning.”
Cyndwin kicked a rock, watching it plummet down into yet another arid ravine, a bit crestfallen but quickly recovered. “But you do know Theoden King, no? You have feasted in his halls I am sure, and beheld the muster of his best and brightest in your honor? Mighty Xanderian, the Longtracker, Heroine of Rohan!!!” As she spoke, she danced around the elleth huntress, finally bowing low before her, then caught herself and curtsied instead.
Leaning forward she raised the girl’s chin to kiss the blonde tenderly, Xanderian gently shook her head. “I have been to Edoras yes, but was sheltered by the night and only in passing and did no feasting and saw no muster in anyone’s honor, least of all my own. I may have seen Theoden King from a distance on a battlefield, but I am not sure…you all look so much alike, especially garbed for war, and your banners confuse me. They all have horses on them, for one thing.”
The Shieldmaiden sighed in disappointment and shouldered her knapsack again. Walking gracefully behind her, her boots silent on the uneven stones, Xanderian whispered. “I rather expect in due time it shall be you who will be presented to the King of Rohan and feasted in his halls, Cyndwin of the Westfold, heroine of Rohan and my heart…”
The blonde woman paused for just a moment, her shoulders tensed…but then continued striding forward as Xanderian followed. Only a careful observer would realize it was not dust but a tear she brushed away with the back of her gauntlet as the pair made their way deeper into Angmar.
---
Far away, in a chamber high in the dread tower of Carn Dum, a bone thin man sat, staring down at the stony valleys that surrounded the fortress. His hair was grey, his skin the pale color of slate with a sickly, bluish tinge beneath the flesh as if icy poison pumped deep in his veins.
With silent steps a black robed sorcerer entered and bowed, then glided forward with a bit of hesitancy. In his hand was a rolled dispatch. The sorcerer cleared his throat, and whispered “My lord Donark, a message from our spies in Aughaire.”
Without looking away from the window, the pale lord held out one skeletal hand and took the parchment. Letting it fall open, he glanced down at it and nodded. When he spoke, his voice was filled with an unexpected vigor, his tone redolent with the accents of Mordor. “Interesting…send a rider to the Dourhand. Tell him the first of his little birds flutters near the trap.”
With a harsh salute, the Sorcerer backed out of the chamber. In his wake, still watching the unchanging stones, Donark of the Vaults sighed and gently stroked the harsh, heavy bronze scales on the pedestal near his hand, murmuring to himself. “I sense another transaction soon to come, but who shall profit by this, I wonder. Who shall profit indeed…and who shall pay the price this time, hmmm my girl?”
He smiled coldly. "Who shall pay the price?"
---
Making their way up a small rise, Xanderian and Cyndwin peered into the setting sun, noting a small cluster of spiders picking their way towards one of the priest’s tents that dotted the stony landscape. The beasts seemed uncertain, even hesitant in the face of the occupants of the tent, hidden from view. As the two drew their swords, Cyndwin made a face as she drove a banner into the sandy earth at her feet. “I hate spiders…but better dead than alive I suppose”.
Xanderian smirked softly as she caressed the smooth hilt of Lovelorn. “That could be said of so many people we know, beloved.”
Cyndwin snorted and at the sound, the four Bogbereth wheeled and charged the newcomers, their horrible chittering sounds echoing against the cliffs as Cyndwin met the first head on, driving point first with her great sword as if it were a lance, through the carapace of the beast, turning her face away as the flailing legs convulsed and grew still.
A second Lurker had leapt toward the woman from her right side, vicious mandibles flashing in the red sunset, but she pivoted away from it as if ignoring its attack. In midair the silver flash of Lovelorn cleaved it in half, Xanderian catching the spider almost thoughtlessly with a backswing as Cyndwin had known she would. She herself crouched as she swept low with the great sword, knocking a third Bogbereth up and onto its back heavily. Stomping down with one armored boot on the spider’s head, she turned to watch Xanderian face the last Bogbereth, a large and fearsome Stalker.
Lovelorn seemed to weave a glittering pattern in the air as Xanderian attacked, then spun to face the Shieldmaiden, sheathing the curved blade elegantly. For a moment, the spider staggered forward as if confused, then literally came apart, falling into sections on the parched ground.
The two turned to face the tent on the horizon as Cyndwin tilted her head while they began to walk towards it. “My love, why are you not using Heartbreaker? Were you concerned your swordplay had lost its edge?”
Xanderian shrugged. “For now, I prefer to keep Heartbreaker silent, too many creatures in these lands may hear her and be drawn to investigate. Until we have need of her, I prefer to keep her at bay whatever she may think of her idleness, which is not much.”
Cyndwin nodded though she found the answer strangely unsettling, as she paused at the edge of the closed tend. Counting to three silently and wrapping her hand in the coarse muslin she pulled the flap open, prepared for the Angmarim Priestesses who normally tend these alters…to instead find a somewhat dowdy woman clad in brown robes that had seen better days, her reddish hair tied back in a loose bun, her weary features seeming to be somewhere in her middle age. She stood at the altar, pouring clean water from an earthen flask over it as she whispered gentle words in an ancient tongue, humming to herself between phrases as the pallor of evil slowly seeped away from the alter as she cleansed it.
At the intrusion, the woman looked up calmly, drawing her raw silk shawl about her shoulders as she rose. When she spoke, her Westron was strangely accented, and the words themselves sounded ancient on her tongue. “Ahhhh…I had wondered when you would arrive. I have felt your coming for days now. It is good that I am finished here so we might speak.”
The Shieldmaiden looked confused, but Xanderian simply nodded, as if not surprised that they were expected. “So you are the Silken Witch?”
The woman nodded as she gathered together her herbs and oils with quick, skillful. “I am Tara, though most call me as do you, first born…the Silken Witch. I am who I am and I do what I can…as I know do you, Xanderian the Nightwind, and Cyndwin of Rohan.”
The elleth raised an eyebrow that the woman used her name amongst the Dunedain but allowed it to pass for the moment. “If you knew we were seeking you, then you must also know why.”
The woman nodded again, stepping past them into the fading sunlight, the bulk of Carn Dum looming distantly above them. “Indeed I do, first born. You seek the child of hope, Hilda. I have been waiting and waiting for someone to come in search of her lo these long years. I am heartened that it is you and not more innocents to be cast into the fire.”
Cyndwin let the flap of the tent fall. “Then Hildawyn is with you, Witch…umm…no offence intended I am sure.” Her voice was hopeful, having come to feel for the girl as a fellow traveler from the Riddermark.
Tara looked up at Carn Dum and shook her head. “Tragically Hilda the child of hope is no more, poor misguided girl….and I will need your help to save her.”
