PART SIX: One Way to Get out of Moria

PART SIX: One way to get out of Moria Tynuilos Silversong sleeps only lightly upon a roughly made pallet, left warm by its previous occupier not five minutes before she took rest, and too soon to be filled by another when it is time to wake the Eldar. Naugrim occupation of Moria’s central halls does come at the price of a few hours sleep in someone else’s bed as the demand for constant patrols brings deprivation to their very survival. Despite the fearless goats who ride past Yrch camps without so much as a tremble, ridding the main routes of the Dark Lord’s legions consumes Tynuilos into a system that knows no end. Like the great turning water wheels of Nalâ-dûm she performs her duty without question or resistance, thoughts of home fading as quickly and as intangibly as clouds of sweat that rise from the back of a galloping horse. And when she looks to her host and sees their gnarly features unaffected by dreams or memories or feelings too long and distant in the past, She might oft wonder that a Naugrim heart is carved from the very same rock that Aulë did use to shape his race, leaving it not beating yet alive, solid of passion, resistant to woe and strong in intent...they are unbending in this mire of fire and shadow! Nah...Moria is no vast city of treasure but a glittering prison that robs Tynuilos’ skin of its lustre, steals away her laughter and etches her face so pale in the lamp light that her eyes are pitch. Here, in her obedience to Dwalin’s ancestors she is woken early, suddenly by a whistling noise that fills her ears like an alarm. The camp is under attack, Orc skirmishers sending out a barrage of arrows that fall from the darkness overhead like a thunderous storm pouring forth its black rain, each point hitting the stone floor with the sizzle of a poison tip. Naugrim guard adding to the song of battle with loud roars as they gather their gear hurriedly, Tynuilos’ footsteps are as swift as the forest deer bounding between her half-height companions, her hardened armour deflecting a couple of wayward arrows as she lungs to snatch up her helm, sleeping with her weapons already attached for swift reactions such as this, her long legs and fleeting strides making fast work amid the band of half dressed guards that are hurriedly running up into the surrounding passages ahead of her and fanning out as they scatter into an array of tunnels, but they are going the wrong way and Tynuilos must beckon them all to follow her with hushed sounds and silent signals. The unlit passageways curl and entwine like the imprint of Aulë fingers in supple clay when he did shape this mountain, the tunnels now strewn with piles of debris and ancient rubble that turn every carefully placed footstep into a clumsy business. Yet, Tynuilos is sure of her route that fixes a strong Orcish odour at the end of a tunnel missed by the ordinary eye since it is in much darkness and recess of the curving wall. She follows her nose, signalling for the surrounding guards to hug the inside edges of the tunnel as they ascend a steep slope, the low ceiling forcing the Eldar into a crouch and onto her knees as her troop collects a short distance from the opening. Through a gaping mouth at the base of a forgotten stone balcony, Tynuilos and her bulky companions spy two rows of Yrch Archerslined along the parapet, continuing to let loose their screaming arrows in unrelenting waves into the camp below, the two areas separated by a void of darkness too wide to notice the balcony from the camp, yet an easy flight for falling arrows. “Where is this place?” One of them mutters, his voice escaping the cave to alert the Black unit that immediately begin to charge! Breaking free of their tight exit, Tynuilos and her crew react quickly, cutting and scything, hacking and gashing at the incoming flesh, the battle-maiden’ s sword instantly locking with the blade of the Yrch commander, the clash of metals sending a burst of sparks into the dim fit for the grinder’s wheel. And there will be need of grinder before Tynuilos’ duty is done, blunting the edge of her Noldorin crafted weapon upon the many creatures made in mockery of her own race. With the lifting of her foot, she manages to push the commander backwards, plunging her Elven steel into his chest with such swiftness that she rips out innards in her hasty withdrawal, hacking at the next incoming Orc while the filthy blood of the first splatters amidst her swinging action. At her feet, the fallen commander squirm’s in his own putrid puddle, raising himself up to continue the fight yet met half way by the downward thrust of a Naugrim axe, his body slumping down without doubt, where it becomes the first block in a wall of dead Orc that will number...well Tynuilos can step over the wall, but her stunted companions must shift more than their legs if they wish to follow her at the end of battle. Beyond the parapet, now clear of its contingent of foe, dwarven horns are blown to signal that all is well, some returning down the tunnel in the necessity to quickly establish a sentry post. Beyond the balcony, there is only a small room inset into the cave that furnishes a partially collapsed wall, a downward staircase filling with its rubble that looks to be five hundred years old. What lies below has not yet been established, yet long buried. Tynuilos removes her helm and surveys the interior of the room whilst the Dwarves are busy tossing the dead Orc off the edge of the balcony to drop into a bottomless pit. Whilst it is obvious that the skirmishers found this vantage point from one of the many unlit tunnels, the young maiden cannot help but smell them still, their stench lingering long in her nostrils as though they were still about her, yet none remain on the balcony as the leader of a Dwarven battalion arrives to take command. He thanks Tynuilos for her keen senses, but listens not to her reasons how...or what still troubles her, beginning his command with the deployment of parties sent out along those various tunnels to secure them all. Tynuilos wipes errant Orcish odours from her armour that is smeared with their putrid fluids and unable to squeeze down a tunnel full of Dwarves carrying supplies, the elf maiden spies a ledge a small distance below the balcony that runs parallel to it, ending at an easily climbable rocky outcrop that would put her on the trail straight back into camp. She drops off the edge of the balcony without a single Naugrim to notice her, taking the lower path that is immediately halted when she spies a secreted opening beneath the balcony, set deep in shadow and proffering only a slender hole, yet enough to fit her build. That vile Orcish stench invades her senses at this point and although she should return to camp and report her findings, until she takes a closer look it’s nothing more than a stinking hole, of which these mines are pickled! She’ll just scout the area, see where the opening leads...sliding through the hole on her belly and passing through a lower room to the one immediately above, fully built into the rock and furnished with the end part of that blocked staircase, yet, more interestingly, part of the rear wall has been dismantled, leaving a roughly cut whole in the rockface. Gingerly, Tynuilos steps through the whole, testing the floor before submerging herself fully into the pitch, where, with sharpened eyesight, she glimpses a vague glow some distance ahead, like dying embers in a forgotten hearth. She can hear noises also, indecipherable, yet, all too familiar; creeping through a vacuous black space inside the mountain that leads her towards that faint light. Crouching down, she touches the crumbling ground with her finger tips, it proffers no heat yet the full flavours of Orc filth rise through a hole at the base of the rock face where she spies a large opening below, a cave lit by several fires. Banners of the White Hand hang between ramshackle arrangements of huts whilst crooked shadows haunt the rough walls with shifting Orc. She bends her ear to the hole, crouching low to hear the foul mutterings below, but under her slender weight the floor shifts and she slip and slides through,landing with a slight thud upon a ledge just a little below, although getting back up into the lofty room would be a feat of expert climbing. Still, it could have been worse she smirks inwardly as she turns to quickly remove herself from the ledge, but Lo, she is struck from range, by a perfectly placed arrow that stabs the back of her right knee and causes such an insert of pain that she recoils, curling inwards. Instantly she pulls the arrow free, yet the poison is already gripping her senses whilst her perky ears can hear the screaming of a skirmisher alerting his comrades. There are sounds and vibrations of rushing feet somewhere distant upon the same ledge which she now sees encircles the cave below and she clambers to hitch herself up to the hole above her head, just out of arms reach. Grasping with outstretched fingers, she is already dizzy, whilst her breath is falling shallow in her lungs. Then another arrow sings through the air, hitting her in the shoulder joint, entering through the slight and soft crease between her armour plates and piercing her flesh with its vicious bite. An easy shot for Eldar eyes, she curses the luck of the Yrch who has now shot her twice. Internally, her systems are already begining to labour beneath a double dose of toxins and she loses her footing, slipping at the same time that she spies approaching shadows. Several lumbering figures are on their way and as she makes one last attempt to reach her escape,a third arrow stings her arm. Instantly, she loses grip and falls from the ledge, downward into the room lit red with burning fires. Like the single beat of a drum, the noise of her inelegant landing is more than enough to announce her arrival, drawing a sea of black faces and yellow eyes directly to her spot. Peering up, she struggles to regain a fighting stance, half crippled and losing all sense of reality as a hundred Yrch quickly gather about her, those from the ledge running in to surround her, yet all keeping a small distance. Through blurring vision Tynuilos notices that some are dressed in attire that suggests something different from the usual soldier of the Dark she has encountered for the last few months, then she sees an alter of Darkness and totems of witchery and as she cocks her head as though to even out the dizzying inside her skull, a creature step from the baying crowd and walk slowing into full view before her. Of Orcish design, his stature is twice the strength, crudely carved muscles gleaming in the light of the fires, his naked form painted with symbols and oozing with foul slime. Tynuilos immediately grips the hilt of her sword to send this demonic creation back from the vile pits whence it came, before she will be overwhelmed by Orc or poison, whichever works upon her first. Beads of sweat are collecting upon her brow and her lips are as dry as paper leaves, a growing thirst upon her tongue that numbs her mouth. Yet, for all her want, she cannot unsheathe her weapon. It is not stuck, and her strength of grip though ebbing is not yet waned, still, she is unable to find the command in her willing arm, and her sword remains locked in stone. What is happening? Her eyes lock upon the creature in question as he smiles down at his captive maiden, standing more than two heads in height to Tynuilos full strength, his bulky shadow drowning out her own like the erasing of her from all memory; no-one will ever know she was here! Beyond her, yet all around, she hears the slowly rising chant of the crowd, eager to spill her blood and beckoning the creature to fulfil its crudely made duty and achieve its first kill. With the last of her poison reeked strength, Tynuilos roars loudly, denying her fear and facing her death...the sound she makes echoing through the cave and causing the crowd to wail with excitement. Yet, there will be no fight, for she is sinking fast to her knees under the sheer weight of that vile venom that does plague her insides with weakness, the creature’s stare seeming to push her downward as though she were a rag-doll. Half collapsed, paralyzed and alone, Tynuilos’ head falls forward until her chin is resting on the curve of her breastplate, her sword arm long since given up its claim of weapon, she can do no more than wait...and dream. In the far reaches of her mind, there is a song. Softly at first, it grows louder until it is filling the inside part of her ears with its softly breathing tune, to drown out the deafening noise of the crowd beyond. And though her limbs are spent of energy, and her body is wrecked with pulsing poison, she feels warmth emanate from the song. It is not enough to rouse her, since her strength has certainly left her in the physical world, yet calming, and sustaining, as though it is not yet her time...for death. Not yet. “Not yet...” she hears a voice utter, almost aloud. A familiar voice that rings in her ears as though he were standing next to her, his familiar scent of the woods, his unmistakable earthly presence, his palpable compassion; Tynuilos feels him near; Tynuilos can see the outline of his shadow upon the floor, the sharp curve of his bow slicing a dark scratch into the ground. And then she hears the unmistakable sound of his arrows that pelt from his bow swifter than the wind. Randomly, the crowd is hit with missiles too precise to dodge, keeping her foe at bay, as though a hundred Orc could be culled in an instant. She must look up and see with her own eyes! Craning her neck, and tearing muscles to steal a glimpse, the young maiden raises her head just enough to peer through heavily lidded eyes, fighting back the blur of her vision to glimpse what she can smell, and feel and hear about her...yet, there is nothing there, except the summoned creature who is leaning inwards just a few steps from her body, bemused and intrigued. Recoiling in horror, Tynuilos feels a sudden gust of wind stream downward as something drops from above to land squarely on its feet beside her, filling the cave with a deafening boom. A faint shower of dust covers her kneeling form in the aftermath and whilst she has no strength left to look up, she feels the blunt end of a staff slam into the ground that cracks it open both sides of her, splitting the roughly hewn floor into three sections. She can hear the screaming crowd fall into fiery pits that well up between the cracked earth in unseen command whilst above her head, the cold flap of eagle’s wings swoops over her, its talons extending outwards as it attacks the creature before it, tearing at it with claw and beak as words are uttered to shift the forces of nature, air and earth working in unison to bring ruin to the Orc camp and end that creature’s miserable existence. The noise of battle is a cacophony inside Tynuilos’ mind, that grips vaguely to her spinning reality, deciphering only short bursts of Naugrim yells and Orc screams and the summoned creature’s death knell as the eagle lands its fatal blow upon the creature's thick neck that spews gushing dark fluids across its painted chest; the eagle returning faithfully to its master before being sent swiftly to chase and finish the scattering of the crowd, half perished in the sundered earth, the remnants being hacked and blasted at by the swiftly arriving Naugrim guard, who emerge from one of the tunnels with fast and furious intent. Finally, as the last Yrch perishes to flame or sword, Tynuilos falls, yet not fully to the ground. She is caught in the grasp of that staff bearer’s arms, a potion quickly taken from his robe and administered to wet her lips and tongue as she breathes a single word. “Clill.” He holds her up, kneeling and cradling his kindred sister until the potent potion does its work and some Naugrim arrive with a stretcher for the maiden. She is numb of limb, her senses too heavily laden with spite to keep her conscious, yet her eyes are open, clouded with distance and making no contact with the activity about her. Carefully, Tynuilos is dragged back to the Naugrim camp on that stretcher, where she is lifted onto a goat driven cart, to be steered slowly and with escort along the twisting tracks and trails some distance above, to rise from the mountain finally and emerge into the light once more, reaching the relative safety of an Eldar camp some short travelling distance from the Golden Woods of Lothlorien. Clill can stay no longer than the time it takes to ensure that she will recover. He leaves a batch of his carefully brewed concoction with those attending to his wounded sister and a letter for her to read upon fully awakening, which in his own hand, he writes simply: I was never here; You did not glimpse me, nor did I rescue you from the certain clutches of death, because moments before you imagined that...I was sitting in the Sanctuary library.