The morning was beautiful. The air still retained some of the cool of the night but the promise of sunny warmth was there, the thin light of melted red gold stretching there where the sky met the earth growing thicker and more diffuse with each heartbeat. They stopped to rest briefly and evaluate their surroundings. The faster beating of hearts, the faster than usually breath would have been imperceptible to any outside eye or ear but it was there, a sign of the forced effort, one useless or done just to set them into an alert state, or maybe to quell still undiminished frustration over the last days failed missions of finding their lost kindred. Regaining their breath was maybe the cause why all were silent, or maybe just the routine of the mission did not require the long-tested commando much talk in knowing what each was to do next.The news the forward observation Outpost of had been again overrun by the spiders descending from the mountain above was brought by the one sentinel who did what he was supposed to do: leave and call for help in clearing it again. That ruin on a cliff did not worth the trouble to station more capable warriors there permanently but was nice to have for a view on the movements of eventual toops going out from the keep of Dar Gazag. This time it was them to clean it up, with steel and fire, and Ruthion had become known to hold a grudge against the spiders of Grams even since the loss of his old silver javelin to one of them, so his name was -like a warriors joke- to first to come to mind when they heard of the damned spiders bred in the deep caves of the Steps… not that he ever objected to such task and he seemed to indeed enjoy his revenge by quelling their numbers.
So it was again him this time that got assigned to handle the <cleaning task> along with another of the veterans of the moors, Tyelpenasse. They both were known not to need more direction than that and the commando formed without much talk. Tyelpenasse’s not very talkative sister, Turuninde, joined them clad in the black and red matching her surprisingly big shield for her thin stature, and two other of the archers in their usual group, prepared for the task with noldor creativity and long time experience with efficient setting stuff aflame. Flint set into an elaborate steel frame was strapped with thin but strong chains around the flexibly armored glove of their main hand and an apparently decorative intricate steel work adorning the shoulder guards, descending as low as the elbow, was designed so that one movement was enough to take by its tip one of the especially designed arrows in the backpack-type quivers, arrows made fully of the lightest possible alloy, and with cotton around the steel tip, set this aflame by striking the glove’s flint against the steel shoulderguards and preparing the arrow, metal shaft against the central metallic decoration of their longbows, just under the burning fibers, while moving the hand along the shaft to find and pull the string while aiming. Alongside them also were regaining their full strength two others, the one-eyed giant wearing defiantly the crest of Feanor and his kindred that had too changed her camp preferred robes with a light blue armor reminding the delicate and untouchable clear sky, matching strikingly the one Ruthion was wearing, and a shield that reflected delicately the morning’s light.
They all seemed ready to move again, for the assault itself, even the giant whose limping surely asked him more effort and strength of will to keep up, a disadvantage compensated by the ferocity he was fighting with enough for no one to dare comment on it, when Ruthion frowned and rose his hand in the air for all to stop and pay attention. He seemed to have heard or otherwise been alerted on something above the hill or on the other side of it.
