The great company of Prince Legolas wound its way along the Elven Path, banners of the Woodland Realm proudly displayed. Soldiers in glittering mail rode two or three abreast, glittering lances held aloft, decorated by gaily colored streamers indicating family and clan affiliations of those who bore them. In the vanguard, the Prince, clad in a bright green hauberk and crowned with a garland of silver rode, accompanied by minstrels and maidens singing. Altogether, the Prince might have stepped out of the stories told in the king's hall on feast days. As the elves passed beneath the gnarled boughs of the great trees, the darkness that had lately infested the forest seemed to lift. Shadows fled from the music that accompanied them, along with the outsize spiders that had crept within them. The mirky forest seemed to breathe clean air in relief at their passing, as though stirring in a troubled slumber.
In contrast to the proud elven chivalry, Morwee was clad in tight fitting leather breeches and a battered leather jack over dun colored woolen tunic. A full quiver of iron tipped arrows, an elegant soldier's short stabbing sword and a bone handled hunting knife she had made herself completed her kit. The scouts bore no burden beyond the bows they carried, a small waterskin and a bread bag with lembas.
Orofin, the master of the scouts had sent her leagues ahead of the main march to see to the safety of the north side of the road. They were nearing the west gate of the Elven Path and the scouts had been instructed to be particularly wary as they approached the edge of the thickly wooded country and passed onto the broad floodplain of the Anduin. The dull, low murmer of the distant watercourse was now a faint roar as she heard Orofin's signal, which had switched to that of a grebe common to the Anduin's central vales. Homing on the signal, she made her way from copse to thicket to stand of young oak and alder. They were now close enough to the river that she could smell the clean glacial meltwater of spring amidst the perfume of the season's blossoms on the fertile open ground. The wood had been as a diseased giant, shot through with parasites and cancers, prostrate and slowly asphyxiating in a miasma of mold. But the world she now entered into was verdant and young seeming. Nearly untrammeled since the ancient passage of the great host of the elves from Cuivinen. Here and there, the signs of the passage of men could be found. For they were warned that some hardy of the edain dwelt in the wilderland east of the Misty Mountains, living close to the land. It was not known what, if any, allegiance they might have.
Morwee approached the road following the line of a low hillock upon which grew a dense thicket of young trees amidst the tall grasses and shrubs, approaching the road carefully. Her intent was more to impress her mentors than out of expectation of any real trouble so she was doubly surprised to see a trail of trampled undergrowth. And then another. She realized there were prints of shod feet all round. Her nostrils flared as she caught a sour stench. Casting frantically about with senses at a pitch of awareness, the scout fitted arrow to bow and threaded forward through a lattice of dense foliage in the direction of the prints. Within a few paces, the thicket was at its most dense and she passed saplings that had been wantonly hacked at to make an easier path. And suddenly, there before her were five figures. Three looked toward the road, now just beyond. One was sitting on a large rock sharpening a wicked serrated knife and the fifth, smaller than its companions, was doing something on the ground.
Her mind swam. She was looking at orcs. She'd been trained how to fight them in open array in a pitched battle. They figured in almost every song and story passed down by her people since almost the beginning. Twisted creatures imbued with Morgoth's despite for Eru's children. The wise differed on their suppositions regarding the origins of these malicious creatures. It was held that Morgoth could not create, but only twist. But twist what? And how? As she beheld them, they were surely unlovely. Swarthy and crag-faced, they were uniformly scarred and weathered looking like rock faces in a desert. It was as though she were looking at elves who had aged like men, yet remained somehow filled with an unwholesome vigor born of pure anger. The orc sharpening his black iron knife said something in a gutteral grunting way to one of the road-watchers, eliciting a low braying chuckle that somehow made her flesh crawl. The little orc who seemed to be arranging equipment looked up and said something that seemed like a complaint and Knife Sharpener barked in reply, eliciting a muttering shrug. Knife Sharpener seemed to be in charge if the body language and tone of the others were any guide.
The spying elf was suddenly aware of how much time might be passing. Since she had given the counter-signal, he would not worry over her for a bit. But how was she going to cross the open ground between this line of trees and the road without being seen by these orcs?
She was sure she could shoot the two facing her before they'd have any chance to react, leaving the three facing away. One of these at least she could shoot as she fled back down the deer trail she'd come up. But that left two more. She could see the three road watchers were well armed with scimitars at their belts and each had short hunting bows. She guessed they were here simply to mark the passage of anyone using the road and report it to Dol Guldur. Unless there were many more such posts. But the ground west of the forest didn't lend itself to concealment of organized soldiery of any sort.
She felt the tendons of her right arm flex, drawing the arrow back a bit. She found it difficult to shoot them unawares like this. They had not harmed her or anyone she knew for sure despite their reputation. That they could not be treated with was legendary. They would murder you or flee from you, she had always heard. Or if they caught you...the details were never lingered over, but their love of torment was as legendary as their general cruelty and ferocity.
The decision was made for her as the yellow eyes of the small goblin looked up as he rose from his crouch. Locking on to her own, the creature's mouth opened but all that emerged was a cough as her arrow feathered his eye. No time for contemplation now. Morwen's training guided her limbs, knocking another arrow. Letting fly. The leader shouted and drew back his knife to throw. As his arm made it to the midpoint, another elvish arrow sprouted from his neck. The corpse crumpled in a grotesque pivot as the three who'd been keeping watch on the road turned round in shock. One raised its bow, looking for a target as the other two crashed forward, scimitars sweeping from their sheaths. The one with the bow Morwen shot before it could pick her out amidst the foliage. Drawing the last two. Only steps away, the thick growth of saplings and brush forced them to dodge to reach her, allowing her time to cast aside the bow and draw steel. In her right hand she brandished her stabbing sword and in her left she drew the long hunting knife favored by the Mirkwood elves. The first orc to reach her found to its dismay that she was left handed and its slashing attack against her sword left it off balance, the elf's knife ripping the iron links of its chain hauberk apart like rotted canvas. She saw the second orc swinging just as she tugged her knife free. Bringing the wide blade of her sword up just in time to parry, she felt a wave of nausea as the orc's horrid breath hit her. She tried bringing her knife up in an arc, the blade point down in her fist, but her opponent sideslipped. Her knife sliced through a sapling, slowing her down. The catlike pupils of her enemy locked on her, exuding malice alloyed only by a quick cunning.
Her assailant pushed hard against her as their blades were locked together, catching her badly off balance and tossing her back down the incline up which she had so recently crept. Rather than attempt to stand, she instinctively rolled back down the slope another turn, causing the orc to curse loudly as its blade swept through empty air and into the ground. Nimbly regaining her footing, Morwen calculated the distance and threw her knife. Badly. The blade went wide, causing the goblin to grin. Pressing its advantage the bandy legged creature leapt forward, blade flashing in a wide arc. Again she raised her own sword to parry and the force of the blow numbed her hand. Only sheer will forced her fingers to clutch the hilt and meet a second hammer blow, the sound of ringing steel filling the air. The orc's booted foot came up of a sudden, catching her in the belly. All the air went out of her in a loud wheeze and her sword flew into the brush. Crooked teeth curling into an executioner's rictus, its brawny arm came up to strike the killing blow. Morwen twisted violently just in time to put a young alder's trunk between her skull and the black scimitar's onrushing blade. The orc shrieked in rage, tugging the weapon free and drawing its arm back to strike once more. Morwen's hand found a loose stone on the ground but as she felt her fingers grip it, the orc suddenly toppled forward, an arrow shaft protruding between it's mailed shoulders. She looked up into the ever serious face of Orofinn.
“Are you injured?” he asked. She shook her head. “Then gather your things and be quick about it.” She stood and shook herself off. She hoped for some validation of her skill but found none in his backward glance. Later, as the company made its camp and she was allowed to rest, her mentor came to her as she took her meal. “You're alive and you're blooded. It means nothing more than that,” he said plainly before going on to other duties. Such was the way of war.
