Xanderian slowly cleansed her hand in the marsh water of Gladden, leaving a glossy red stain in the dark water. Around her lay the bodies of perhaps a dozen relic thieves, in various poses. Corrupted men and half-orc mongrels mainly, with the scent of Angmar and Isengard lingering around them. Most were pierced with long dark arrows that seemed to reach up to the overcast sky like prayers. One or two of the thieves had managed to play dead in an to attempt to ambush their attacker as she finally entered the makeshift camp. Lovelorn's razor sharp caress left them scattered in pieces for their trouble.
As the Huntress rose, the last survivor of the group of relic hunters crawled painfully over the marshy ground towards her. His weapons were long since discarded, for he lacked the strength to raise them. "Mercy...please..." he croaked as the Elleth glanced idly down at him, her beautiful face pale and impassive, like the moon on a winter night. She took a moment to admire the placement of the three shafts Heartbreaker had placed in his upper back in a neat triangle. He would bleed out soon without Elvish medicine, she clearly saw. He was strong indeed to still be breathing. "Mercy...I beg you..."
"Mercy?" the Elleth asked softly, "As you wish..." and she placed one booted foot on the back of his head and bore down, pressing his face deep into the sodden earth. He thrashed for just a few moments, gasping water and wet moss into his lungs, his hands clawing at her leg, before he quivered and lay still at last.
Going down on one knee, Xandarian stripped the satchel from his waist and dumped it's contents onto his corpse to be sorted.
"Well, an interesting haul...." she murmured to herself, poking through the trinkets and scraps. "A handful of Library coins from Dol Amroth...so the scholars of Saphadzir have been buying relics from these scum. Disappointing. I needs must have another word with Tolrian soon about ethics.
She lifted a silver flask from the bounty, taking a sip of the dark liquid inside before spitting it out into the marsh. "Dourhand Brandy...so again the foul hand of Kheledul appears. No matter how many of those vile dwarves are slain they still seem key to the trade of relics and flesh from gentle Bree to the distant East and back again. One day soon that must end..."
Rising, she shook her head at the disorder of the scene around her. Already the foul residents of the marsh were appearing to feast on the bodies left behind. Drawing her cloak around her against the rising chill, she paused, noticing a chain around the dead man's neck at her feet...an amulet of protection invoking some minor god of Angmar dangling from it's length. Leaning down she casually broke the chain, tossing the talisman into the swamp.
"No protection for you, let your spirit rot here with all the others, never truly dead, never again alive, for eternity." She shuddered despite herself. She had been hearing the whispers of trapped spirits since she first began haunting this accursed marsh. Begging, wheedling, promising, questioning...some wished solace, others release...some wished simply to know if they were dead or not. They all seemed to have a story they wished to tell, a statement to make. Ignoring them took effort of will and strength of mind. However, Xanderian of Belfalas, exile of Rivendell and witness to legend, felt a strange kinship with them...her soul was also trapped, in torment. Yet she felt a freedom here in Gladden, far from the prying, judgmental eyes of strangers, of comrades, of her sister. The freedom to lose herself.
Walking back to her horse, carrying the satchel of stolen relics she had liberated from the thieves, Xanderian paused...a new whisper seemed to have joined the others. Barely audible, clearly different. This one was not dead, and not in the Fields of Gladden but somewhere far away...and it was not calling out to her as Elleth, or Kinswoman, or Huntress, or Soldier...but it was calling for Rian.
Rian.
Xanderian froze. Only two creatures left in this world called her Rian. One was her sister Xandilif who was busy entertaining herself in the ruins of Mordor.
The other was Cyndwin.
