Lusis chopped her way through a reaching werewolf paw and didn't stop hacking away parts until she made it into the screen of trees and realized, right beyond it, line on line of elves in bright armour fought a massive number of Men and orcs, some of the latter astride werewolves. She blinked, and was stunned to see the Men of the Peaks rally their horses. They turned like a pinwheel, galloping along through the field simply laying waste to whatever stood up. The great armoured horses had metal shells bound along their bellies and legs, and their shoes were cleated with dull spikes, for they were trained to trample the rest.
"Winter combat!" Remee shouted at her. "We should be driving the aggressor out into the wind. There's a storm offing, and it howls more fiercely than any werewolf ever could. Do you hear it?"
Hear it? It was sucking the breath out of Lusis' lungs as she reached the edge of the trees. She gasped and nodded at her rugged brother.
He crouched, "Lusis, we must use the thick snow on the higher land against the enemy, drive them up there in repeated routs. The wind, cold, and climb will exhaust them."
She knew this tactic. They would go numb. They would get sloppy. And then, one of these pushes downhill, they would find themselves falling rather than charging. And the Rangers of the North had long said A man falling into battle fell into his grave.
"Hold them high!" Elsenord shot by shouting. "Hold the enemy forces on the highlands. Let the cold be our dragon!" A roar broke over the Rangers, and many, she saw, of the Forces that had joined in.
Downhill from Elsenord Buckmaster, Bregoln heard and nodded. He pulled out a long and curved goat's horn and its sound brought the Men of the Peaks around into a line.
"Helin," Lusis pointed at the elf woman and shouted over the wind. "Get down to her, Remee. You are the sum of generations of winter warfare. Give all to her!"
Remee nodded grimly. "Sail across the snow again, little sister."
She smiled at him as he turned and made his way downhill. Behind her. Telfeth pressed close, and then, Nimpeth. The latter elf pulled her to her feet. "Unhurt?"
Lusis heard it in her head.
"Unhurt here," she searched her friend for injury and saw nothing. Telfeth was also whole.
Amathon came out of the wall of blowing snow and took down his hood. "The fight is in the city, Lusis-Istari. They have somehow passed the walls and all the Forces and Sections there – that is even more than Drivenn's traitors could manage." His head inclined, "And, Lady, the King is abroad on the great elk toward the center of town. He did send me to find you. He is with his Elites."
"He knows that way is where the heart of the lozenge is… on Dorondir's map."
"The beloved King has," Amathon nipped his lip, "a plan."
Warning bells rang between her ears. Lusis swept snow off her face. "Is he all right?"
Now Amathon found it difficult to contain his smile, "The King is well, but he wants you beside him, Lusis-Istari. Will you go to him?"
She panted. "Wherever he is. I will. Lead on."
They passed over a landscape she didn't know. The snow blew so thick that she wasn't sure she'd reached the walls beside Jan Kasia's until she slammed into the logs with one shoulder. Lusis switched to rope mode at once, slowed her heartbeat and focused on feeling her way along without much help from her eyes. The yard to Kasia's was deserted. His house doors were uncharacteristically barred shut. The streets, so usually full of bustle, were grey and empty now.
"I don't know how much help I can be." She gasped.
"Have cheer, Lusis Buckmaster," breathed Nimpeth. "You did make a dragon's head explode."
Lusis' eyes widened in disbelief.
This amused Amathon, whose wine-red brows rose. "There is some hope in that, you must admit, my Lady."
As she passed it, the door to the main building rolled open. Heat and firelight flooded out at her and Lusis slowed. The inside was still distressingly full of workers. Jan Kasia and most of the Council were still among them. One of the serving staff shot through the door and slung a warm white fur around Lusis' shoulders. She bound it to place.
"Lusis!" Kasia called out to her. "I've looked at the map, Lusis, and there are reports of a dragon, or dragons, in the center of that lozenge the elves drew. It's right over the amphitheater. But then, there are rumours of an army of orcs and wolves too… and that can't be. What does it mean?"
She panted and nodded her head. "It means I'm headed there to wade through orcs and dogs and try to kill a dragon."
He opened his arms, "You can't kill a dragon, Lusis. Don't be ridiculous. It is beyond a Ranger."
"Then she is beyond a Ranger." Nimpeth told them. "Give us your draft horses, your river horses, Jan Kasia. It is a long way."
The horses were given without argument. Four of them were hitched to a wagon and it was Bess Bowman who stepped up to drive them. Her head was now bound in a bandage, but she was far from beaten. "Get aboard. I know the way."
They had to climb into the back over extra bows and quivers, and long pikes. Kasia was frantically breaking open boxes in the main floor and throwing anything of use in the back, which included furs to warm them, thankfully.
"Go," Lusis pounded on the wood of the wagon. Workers pushed water skins at them. "Go, Bess Bowman, and ride like Mount Doom is burning behind you!"
Because she knew where she would find the King.
And he had a head start.
It took hours to make the trip to the middle of town.
Clashes had broken out across the central part of the city, and they seemed to want to spiral outward into the city proper. With lines of elves and men, and no reinforcements coming in from the line Helin held, this was not proving as easy as their enemies might have hoped.
The sun was a cheerless ruddy glow through the clouds to the West as the horses trudged through the final rows of houses. One of them had an arrow in his shoulder. He did not complain of it, being longsuffering, as suited his hardy breeding, but it was deep. As they stopped, Amathon got out and went to cover the horses in some of the fur blankets from the back. He pressed some salve into the beast's shoulder and it exhaled a puff of steam. He was forced to simply pull out the arrow, which, with his elven strength, happened quickly. The horse jolted, but was too exhausted to fight. His head sagged as the elf applied a thicker coating of salve.
"He needs help," Amathon said as he returned. He wiped his hands along the thick blankets of fur. His voice woke Lusis again. She'd been watching him. His eyes were on her now. "Are you well, Istari?"
She nodded. After hours of skirmishes Lusis had nearly fallen asleep in the last fifteen minutes. She'd been lulled by the silence, and rocked in the carriage, wrapped in furs. She blinked to awareness now. Every inch of her worn body was unwilling to come out from under the furs. Bess, who had driven them this far and fought beside them, now toppled over from the seat and rolled into the back. She impacted with the shafts of pikes with a grunt.
Otherwise, it was eerily quiet. Lusis stirred herself to go to Bess. Her forehead was bleeding slowly into the bandages. Nimpeth came with the skin of water for her.
"Bess, you need to rest here for a while," Lusis pulled furs up around the girl, and rolled one under her head. She glanced up at Nimpeth, "Leave a bag of water here with her. She needs rest."
"There's no fighting here." Bess' voice was whispery.
Lusis glanced up at the eaves of houses three storeys overhead, "We're in an alley, Bess. As sheltered as we can make you. Just rest."
The girl's brown eyes shut.
Nimpeth covered her head with the fur she was wrapped in. "She will be warm, as will be the horses. That is the best we can do." The elf Elite leaned against the wagon, her hair in a wild dark tumble, and her face speckled and dotted with the dirt of war.
Amathon stepped around the back of the wagon, paused, and then smoothed Nimpeth's dark hair. She turned, leaned her shoulders against the wood, and laid herself against his wide chest. After a moment, Amathon exhaled, "Gi
melin, Nimpeth-bess."
Lusis quickly looked away from them, not only to give them privacy, but because she couldn't tolerate their intimacy in her extremity.
"Gi melin," Nimpeth replied in a whisper.
And Lusis realized that she hadn't seen the King in hours.
Thinking it best to give them a moment, Lusis started out across the huge rotunda that was at the core of the great seal on the city. She laid a hand over her sword hilt and walked around the central point in what had been Sauron's lozenge drawn in light. In the distance, a werewolf howled. Some hours ago, the forces of darkness had made it inside the city. Lusis really didn't know what that meant for the people. She paused. The round of roadway seemed to have endured a collapse of stones.
The amphitheater had been built in another Age.
Its stone was of the same brightness of the ruins of Dale. She knew that meant it had been quarried from quartz-rich deposits inside of Erebor, or recovered from Dale itself. A bad Omen, her mother would have said, and she was of the people of this land. Lusis smelled something familiar. She trotted along the flank of the towering wall – its highest stones some six storeys above her head – and found the jumbled breech in the wall. The wide round cobble promenade was littered with broken stone and stinking blood. She hissed sharply in the silence, the smell of dragon was so powerful. Soon, her eyes made out the twisted body of a dragon pinned under stone. Its neck was cut open as if Jan Kasia's head chef had sliced it like a cake.
Lusis quickly took note of something else of importance to her and ran down the crumbled stones to the curled figure of an elf. He had been pulled free of puddled dragon's blood and was breathing fast and shallow. An Elite of the King. Long red hair. She remembered him from the Elite's Chamber, sparring with her Troop and later besting Redd. Now he was dragon-sick and injured by what appeared to be a long and barbed quill. It was bandaged. No one had made an effort to remove it from his sides, for the shaft, itself, was covered in tiny barbs.
She gritted her teeth, extended a hand, and touched the elf. He was, by now, too far down the dark tunnel of dreams to resist.
"Ai. Leave me, neth," he breathed.
Slowly, Lusis straightened. She wasn't about to leave him. But… moving him would be difficult without help. She was set to go back for Amathon and Nimpeth when the fleet motion before her turned into Telfeth – dusty and worn as the young Elite was. "Neth," she said in her light, high voice, "Neth means sister, Lusis-Istari. In the dragon-nadh – dragon chains – caused by exposure to the blood of such ilk, he must think you're Farathel of the throne-room guards. For this is her brother, Celondir." She paused, and her voice actually wobbled, "By Elbereth, he is damaged."
Lusis looked quickly up at her. "He is hurt. He is not beyond help, Telfeth. Bess can get him clear of this place."
"Clear to where?" the girl asked softly. "Where is safe, my Lady?"
That was a good point.
"The Halls. The Vault." Lusis hadn't had any news from either location. She was aware there were enemies in the city, now, but she knew nothing of safe havens.
"It is too far."
"Then she'll tend for him in the cart."
Telfeth reached out, hesitantly, and then smoothed the Elite guard's red hair. It was something that, normally, she would never have been permitted to do. He made a small tumbling of elvish that Lusis didn't understand.
"Talking to his sister," said Telfeth, "telling her that she is precious." She quickly smoothed her emotions and took off her cloak. She gently wrapped it around him so that the dragon's blood, with its sickness, the 'fetter' it caused, as the elves spoke of the effect, did not touch anyone.
Amathon came around the curved wall and hurried down to them. "Celondir. Stars." He was breathless. "Friend-Celondir, forgive this pain." He snatched the Elite elf up and said to Lusis and Telfeth, "Hurry with me. There is something I must show to you."
They rushed behind him, back into the labyrinth of streets.
Bess Bowman had stirred herself. She waited at a cellar door made of stout wood and iron, and nearly twenty men and women crammed the narrowness of the alleyway, all armed. Nimpeth waved them to cover. "Here are men and women of Lake Township," she said lowly, "who have done good work."
Good work, indeed. Inside the cellar, laid out on wool blankets, were six injured elves. Two more were attending them with what healing their bloodied and exhausted bodies could muster, too busy to even speak to her in passing, as they boiled water and tended to injuries.
Bess scowled. "We'll need to wash away the dragon's blood."
One of the older women in the alley turned her head. "Giron. Morgain. Pump water from the well into the trough and let's get the blood off of this one." She turned her no-nonsense face toward Lusis and said, "You're the Buckmaster Chief, the King's woman."
"I – sure. Yes. I am." Lusis wasn't about to dispute details. "Who are you?"
"Mirrin." The woman told her. "I keep this bakery." She clapped the stone wall beside her with a flattened hand. "And I will not allow the brave ones who have been fighting the dragon to lie in my streets and die. No, King's-woman. That will not be me."
"We been running through the ruins," said a teenaged boy, "finding the elves, and bringing them in to be helped, we have."
Amathon inclined his head to them. "Alia, good children."
The boy flushed in his cheeks.
Amathon continued, "I have one of our greatest here. An Elite warrior these two Ages and leader of a Spark of elves. He is imprisoned by the guileful blood of a dragon and impaled through with a spine. Please, will you safeguard good-Celondir?"
One of the healthy but harrowed elves shot out into the alley. "Ai, the smell of dragon's blood is sickening the weak." She said. "I'll cut him from his clothes, we need to wash him clean of it."
Amathon went with her toward the trough at the end of the alley, and Nimpeth, a trained healer, herself, swung down to help the young Silvan man who bustled between the other injured elves.
Lusis sucked a deep breath, "Mirrin, children, did you see the King?"
"We wouldn't know him to see him, kind lady," said Morgain, the young, black-haired girl.
"Oh, you would," Bess assured them. "He is tallest, and he is a silver-blond. He moves in a way that cannot be mistaken, for he speaks the language of dragon-charming, constantly – that is how honed he was to take their heads in his youth."
A large man set down his shovel and exhaled. "Then… then I saw him." He looked amazed as he said so. "He… he was in layers of fine clothes, only dusted with battle. And he had two swords that struck like bolts from the heavens. His hair and shoulders were aglow, it… it seemed. He… why, he…." The man's voice petered away.
Lusis reached a hand and wrapped her fingers around the man's large shoulders. Each word fell out like a drip from the tap of a pump. "Please tell me." She could feel her pulse in her fingertips.
The man's wide, brown eyes took her in. "It hardly seems possible-"
"Then it was definitely him," she reassured. "What did you see, good man?"
"He… he moved with such sureness," said the man, "that he passed under the chin of one of the dragons and struck off its head. But the two others…"
"Two?" Bess asked anxiously.
"Yes," the man nodded. "The two larger had been terrorizing the citizens for a quarter of an hour when he came. They would not risk themselves to his swords… or, so it seemed. But he brought them as close in to attack as he could, and… and it seemed to me that he raised a sword and tumbled the walls of the theatre down on them. And when they lay under the rubble, he took their heads."
Nimpeth looked out through the cellar door. "He… he tumbled the stone walls?" She was wide-eyed as she asked.
"Yes," said the man. "He did. And he went into the theatre, and I could not see him after. It… it seemed he had a quarry inside."
"Lusis," Nimpeth said gravely. "There are, adding good Celondir to this number, 13 elves in this cellar, all o
f them in need of repair."
"Stay with them," Lusis said quietly.
"No, Lady, and that is not why I mention their number." Nimpeth shook her head, "The King travels with a section, and I have been counting the fallen hereabouts. And, apart from father-"
Lusis turned to her. "Is he in there alone?"
Gravely, the woman nodded. "By my count… yes."
It was then that Amathon came through. He carried Celondir, now drenched and wrapped in Telfeth's cloak, down into the cellar. "We go for the King, Nimpeth-bess. Would you cut this barb and remove it from him?" Lusis followed him in and hurried to help ready the covers that humans were spreading over thick horse blankets.
Carefully, Amathon and Nimpeth set down their friend.
The wine-haired Elite exhaled and inclined his head to Celondir before he turned to Lusis and said, "I go for the King."
She nodded in agreement.
Nimpeth interjected. "I go too. I love him no less than you do. And adar is there."
"You are sure?" Amathon use a hushed voice. "This is your second month, and nearly third."
Lusis glanced at the elf woman.
The Elite set a hand over her belt and said, "That only means we would both die for him."
In the broad and wood-choked cellar of Mirrin Breadbaker, now covered with swaddled and injured elves and the Men who tended them, Lusis realized that Nimpeth was two months into her first pregnancy. She inhaled the wood-smoke air deeply. "Nimpeth, I am your Lady. I am asking you to please consider this new life of yours, and let me safeguard the men you love."
The Elite's quick hand reached out and caught her husband's dark red hair. She watched it glide between her fingers. She glanced up into his hopeful eyes and gravely commanded him, "Come back to me. Bring my father. And my King."
He bowed to her. "Yes, meleth. Or not at all."
"Ai." Next she looked at Lusis and exhaled the words. "Take him."
This was almost more than the deadly Elite could muster, so Lusis didn't delay. She tapped Amathon's forearm, turned, and left Nimpeth to heal and to worry. Telfeth hurried after them, fleet as a young deer. Bess trotted not far behind. The smell of dragon's blood wafted in air, astringent and nauseating, like the smell after a particularly ferocious lightning storm.
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