[Elora]

Uien

It seemed as though hours had passed since she fled through the wall. Uien settled down and let the panting men pass her by, guilt nearly swallowing her whole. Shee had fled and left Falowik behind. Had she mistaken his intent? Did it matter? She should not have gone. When it seemed that enough time had passed, Uien rose again and set off in a new direction, back to the wall. She set a blistering pace, hoping to set as much time between her and pursuers as possible, worn down with running endlessly through the tangled warren of broken stones. It wasn't hard to find the way that Falowik and the others had gone. The whisper of stones told her much.

Uien flitted from shadow to shadow, following their siren song to a place that was unfamiliar to her. [i]The stones care not if we live or die. Why follow them,[i] she asked herself. [i]What else would you follow,[/i[ she returned. It was the noise from within that was harder to move through.

Falowik's cold face by the wall repeatedly stared back at her as she moved along the whispering path. She trailed as fast she dared. The moon would shortly sink and before her yawned the moonless hours of pre-dawn, when the night was unbroken by light.

Her heart scudded hard in her chest. [i]Surely it could not be,[i] she reasoned as Falowik's flat and hard expression beat at her memory again. It made no sense. Betrayal, from Falowik? No, she would reject that. For he had held them all off from following, had he not? It would have been a simple matter to hand her across as she stood close by his side, held at quarter by the other men. He had felled her attacker when he could have simply wrapped his arms around her and thrown her to him. He knew she would not resist his arms.

Filled with her own thoughts and the memory of the stones, Uien came to a wide empty place. There was a square, now in ruins, with broken columns dotting it down each side. A small building, stone, stood at the far end. Uien paused, listening to the stones. They were in here... did she trust them? What else could she do? Uien crept forward, from column to column, waiting for attack to fall in the failing moonlight.

Uien crept forward towards the dilapidated garrison house with all the caution of a spooked deer. She walked light and lithe despite the travails of the night, swift and cautious to the last stone column. Men's voices could be heard softly and Uien held her breath and sank down into a crouch.

She heard unrest, doubt, uncertainty and impatience. There were two voices and that of Falowik. Suspicion shimmied through the two men that accompanied him. They waited, she deduced. The night had not gone well and those they waited for were delayed. It was some comfort, that deduction.

Uien crouched in the embrace of the remnant of what once had been a pillar. In an age past, she would have been hunkered down in the great square of the city, flanked by colonades of magnificent stone columns, surrounded by the music of water contained into clever fountains. A flag marked with the white tree of the Kings of Numenor and the seven stars would have fluttered in bright daylight. A green, lush sward of grass and carefully tended trees would have graced the square.

That was in ages past. Now, it was a ruin of wrecked stone, tangled growth of neglect and forgetfulness, and memories that whispered ceaselessly around her like ghosts. The building that the two men and Falowik made use of was once a garrison, a small one room structure whose roof now gaped at the setting moon and fading stars like an open, toothless mouth.

Uien waited for time to slip past, sluggish and slow, and then ghosted closer when she was reasonably sure the square was otherwise empty. Each step was painstaking, cleaving a way through stones and rocks and vines withered with the summer's heat, through memories of her own darkness and that which had visted Fornost. She moved as fast as she dared, which was not fast at all, harvesting pools of shadow and slipping through bare spaces of the last moonbeams like a silvery fish through water - barely a ripple.

It was like a game, she told herself, when she would hide from her brothers. Instead of stones and dead cities, there were golden trees. Instead of evil men, there were those she knew and loved. But one thing was here that was not in the Golden Wood, and she would not leave this dark place and him behind. For he had not betrayed her, her beloved. She refused to allow that and if that made her fool, then so be it.

Uien clung to that childhood memory and drew from it vestiages of strength that carried her closer, imagining that even now her brothers closed in around her, calling her name and laughing softly. When she came to realise that she stood in the shadow thrown by the back wall of the broken garrison house, Uien's eyes went wide with surprise and her breathing stilled. She was close now, very close.

The voices inside were those of the men, and Falowik's also. Uien's brow furrowed as she followed their talk. Yes, they were unsettled and they were waiting for help. That meant that there were others they expected to arrive. She knew of at least two that perhaps even now turned back for this place in frustration at not being able to find her. Uien's mind sped. She could not wait for that. She leaned her back against the aged stone wall and it's coolness spread through her tunic and undershirt down her spine.

If she had a sword.... then she'd provide them with the means to kill her and Falowik, her Brother replied for her. She was no warrior. She was a healer... and that meant that she could heal great injury - or cause it. The whispering of the stones rose in pitch, itching at her awareness. It was that whispering that enticed her forward into this nightmare, and drew in Falowik also.

A chill spread through Uien at the very thought, but it was that or consign Falowik and her heart to something worse. These men had a familiar reckless violence. Blood hung off them in the air. Death was in their voices and eyes. Swallowing her heart, Uien moved forward clinging to the wall. She gathered up a stone, sighted a nest of dried vines and shrubs and threw it directly into the growth. The stone make the desired impact and rustling as it rolled to settle. The talk within the garrison hissed to a halt.

"Ain't Lagk a/d Slout," said one nervously. The hesitant footfall of a man neared the door. As he peered out, Uien rolled another stone across the broken pavers and curled herself tightly. She heard his boots crunch on the rubble around the garrison, broken tiles that had long shattered on the cobblestones.

"Oo's 'ere," he called, his sword a sibilant hiss as he drew it. By pure chance, Uien's two stones had woken a resident of the tangle of vines and bushes and the growth shuddered with outrage. He neared, the back of his head and ragged clothing all Uien could see. From that angle, she deduced as he crept back towards the rustling leaves, she could reach his throat if she was swift and silent... and brave.

It was a gambit, she knew, but waiting was far worse. Not daring to breath, Uien darted out from the shadow of the back wall towards the man as he crept towards the weeds. The faintest sound of her soft soled boots scuffing against the cobblestones as she leapt for his back drew him up. Before he could turn and get his sword about, Uien's weight hit his back. The man sucked in a breath that was caught within his lungs as her deft fingers found his airpipe.

Her face was devoid of emotion, she dare not let it slip now, as she stopped his airway with precisely the right pressure. His eyeballs widened and expanded, as though they would pop and he hit the ground clumsily. Uien rolled over the stones hard, coming to her feet and shaking. He writhed, clawing at his throat.

She stared at him for a moment, expressionless, and then darted back to the cover of the back wall of the garrison. If she dared feel, she would likely be ill. If I am fast enough, I can unstop his breathing, she reasoned with herself. She had not killed, not yet...

The clatter of his sword as it fell from a nerveless grip had been unnaturally loud, bouncing and skipping off stones. Uien leant against the stone wall, unfeeling the chill now, surrounded by the whisperings once again. The man choked loudly on the stones and Uien squeezed her eyes shut. It would be a cruel way to die. His legs were kicking frantically. She had to be fast.

There was one other to deal with. The garrison was now quiet within, waiting. The noise of the choking man could not be hidden. Uien turned and crept along the back wall, away from the corner that she had been waiting in. She peered around the opposite corner and examined the edge of the square beyond, lest the others had circled around the square. Another gambit, but one she had to take. Uien slipped forward up the side wall, closest to the doorway. The silence was dragging all into its heaviness.

As Uien came to the front corner of the side wall, the moon failed utterly and set for the night. A darkness all but absolute descended upon Fornost and all was shadow now. But this made little difference to Uien, for she had endured shadow deeper and fouler than this and she had not something so precious at stake, merely her own life, before now.

She could make out the very tip of a drawn sword that caught the faint glimmer of retiring stars. Most had already cast a veil around their silver glory. It was well that moon nor star looked upon what she would do, Uien realised. The square was now silent. The other man was likely dead. His face would join other evils within her soul, but this one was earnt. This one was all her own. There was no innocence here. Only memory and death.

Uien moved forward in silence, elven feet elven light, face set in grim lines of fell beauty that noone could see in the darkness. The sword tip wavered as the one who held it shifted stance and attempted to pierce the pre-dawn murk with his mortal sight. Uien again stilled her breathing and reached into a lifetime of healing lore. Not death, she hoped, but incapacitation. In her hand was a heavy stone. All she had to do was dive through the door, beneath his sword and smash it into his knees. He would not walk then.

Her mind went blank as she launched herself into a low roll. She heard a roar of surprise and rage, and the crunch of splintered bone. She felt the shocking heat of steel as a sword sliced through her shoulder, narrowly missing her neck and head. She felt the warmth of blood and the touch of her now filthy undertunic as it settled on her skin. She felt him hit the ground, cracking his head on the stones and then the silence reigned supreme.

Uien gathered herself back from the fallen man, stone clattering uselessly to the ground, blank of purpose and words. The last sound, that crack of his skull, reberverated through her hearing. It was a wet and final sound. A sob shuddered from her lips as she realised what it heralded. It was death. She had killed another, she a healer, and for what?

Not what, whom...

"Laurëatan," she ventured within the darkness of the garrison. Uien's voice was light in that heaviness, and it floated. She heard the crack of skull shattering on rock and swallowed hard. There was movement by a wall, and Uien turned towards it.

"My hands are bound," he said and Uien nearly sat down with relief. Recalling the sword of the now dead man, she reached forward with numb hands and gathered it up. Working carefully in the poor light, aided by elven sight, Uien slit the rough ropes that had bound Falowik's wrists, heedless of the blade that cut into her own hands as she did so. It seemed right that she spill blood, little as it was, of her own given what she had wrought.

"There will be others coming," she whispered as the ropes slipped free. Falowik took from her the sword and stood. She rose beside him.

"What of the two here," he asked. The wet collision and crack of head on stone, the sound of a man choking...

"Dead," Uien replied as a wave of despair wailed through her. "I killed them. I did not mean too..." In the darkness, Uien pressed her now killing fingers over her mouth to keep that wail within her. Blood trickled down from her shoulder and hands. She felt a hand at her elbow and allowed herself to be pushed forward.

"We should go," Falowik said. She heard questions within him. He peered out the doorway as another who now lay cooling had.

"There is a place that is safe," Uien murmured strangely. She felt disembodied and disconnected. "The stones sing of it."

Falowik turned back towards her, troubled by the tone of her voice, hollow almost and great many other things.

"It is this way," Uien said as she walked past him on unsteady legs, out into the square without looking this way or that. Falowik stepped after her. The stones whispered of a place that had proved safe until all was lost upon a time. All was lost now, was it not? She was a murderer. Yes perhaps all was lost, and perhaps not, said a voice of reason through the growing numbness of shock.

Back towards the procession of broken columns Uien went, Falowik trailing uncertainly. He caught her up again.

"Is this a good idea," he asked, thinking of the others at camp and the two other men that he knew remained within the ruins. Uien did not answer, blank and listless. He set his hands on her shoulder and felt the cool wetness at her right shoulder. With alarm he drew his hands back and seized her own, also sticky with warm blood on cold flesh that was shivering.

"You're bleeding!"

"The stones are whispering," Uien murmured disconectedly. "They see everything, remember everything." Uien fell into a whispering singsong, words familiar and words unfamiliar to Falowik as she fell through the tongues of Men and Elves. Shock had her now, and gone were her walls against the memories held trapped in Fornost's ruins. Held in abeyance for so long, they poured into her, flooding her, filling her.

Uien stood, whispering and shivering, in the ruined square of Fornost. Memories of stone merged with memories of dark forgotten places beneath mountains. Only the tentative touch of Falowik's hands on her face through the track of tears that fell unheeded, brought her back for a moment.

"I am cold," Uien observed through her shivering before being swallowed by the memories, hers and others, again.