[Elora]

Falco

"... And I still say we go on and find the two who are missing. If there are more brigands, then they will be on their way here quick smart now that they know where we are. If we get to Fornost, we might be able to stop those two from sending more on!"

Falco stood with his hands on his hips, fists clenched, and his eyes blazing rightful anger at any who gainsaid him, which was most of the group to be honest. Others were injured and most wished to tend their hurts. There was a prisoner also, presided over the Elf's grim crow. Falco did not wish to go anywhere near crow nor blinded man.

"Now, who's to say it's their fault," Anson said wearily. It had been a long night.

"Look around you, youngster. Do you see Uien? Where did Falowik disappear off to when things got thick here?"

"That may well be, but 'tis too early to fling accusations about. We don't know if they have survived."

The Ranger, their leader, was predictable in his support of the other Big Folk - or so Falco thought. He folded his arms stubbornly.

"At least we will have more cover at Fornost then this forsaken hill," he persisted, dropping for the moment his suspicions concerning the source of the attack. He'd remember them when the time came again, as he was certain it would. The rest of the group mulled over matters and murmured amongst themselves.

"I think the Shirriff is right," one lone Hobbit voice ventured uncertainly. The group silenced, turning their collective attention on its owner. Gorby swallowed and reddened, uncomfortable at siding with the Shirriff now that he had such speculation.

"If those Men came at us in the ruins, we'd better be able to cover ourselves. Wouldn't we?"

"Or bury ourselves," Lumiel muttered. The idea of being penned by ruins under attack, stone coffins, was not pleasant.

"Perhaps," Thoromir said. Gorby resumed his intent inspection of the ground at his feet in what remained of the camp's fire. Noone had tended it since the onslaught began.

"Very well, those who cannot walk can be carried on the horses. We have two without riders at present. Fornost is a mile at the most. We should make it by dawn." A ripple of voices danced around the group and movement followed.

In the pre-dawn darkness, they filed warily, leading their horses and injured, and their blind prisoner, towards the ruins that were now called Deadman's Dike.

"Keep alert," Falco advised the two young hobbits nearest to him. "It would not be above them to come at us unawares even now, such filth as they are." A strange anger lit the Shirriffs gaze, and Gorby and Anson attempted to move forward a little.

"We'll soon see, yes we will," Falco muttered to himself as he imagined the reckoning when they found that scoundrel Falowik and his elven cohort.

Uien

Through the empty darkness came a voice. She knew it, that voice, and it reached for her. She reached for it, across the chasm and the coldness, and for a long frozen moment she thought she would not catch it. And then she did.

"... make for camp," the voice said.

"Falowik," Uien breathed in relief and recognition, as though she had only just realised he was present. She smiled, incongruous and unfitting as it was.

"It's you." After all the terrible things she had done, he was there. There was a warmth around her, turning back some of the chill that seeped through her. She shivered still, but not so much. The Stones whispered and sang still, but for the moment she was on an island. It was ricky and far from steady, but it was an island of some clarity.

"Yes," Falowik replied close in her ear. " And we should go, for camp, now."

"Of course," Uien replied pleasantly, at odds with the disarray of the sea that lapped at her island's shore, eating away her unstable ground.

"It is this way," Uien said, pointing the direction of the camp out. She belatedly noticed the bloodiness of her hand and she frowned at it.

"I am bleeding," she said, puzzled at how that could be. The sea lapped closer, churning and eroding her tiny island of clarity. Then they started moving, she and Falowik. Her island had shrunk to a small foothold by the time they made the outskirts of Fornost. Falowik paused, checking nervously over his shoulder and peering into the greyness that hinted at the coming day.

Uien sat on a stone, a mistake, for the song it held leapt up at her.

"My love," she started in alarm, but too late for her foothold was gone and the sea of memory, sorrow, war and darkness had her again. There were evil things in it, and she had to swim it or drown. Falowik spun from his inspection of their surrounds to watch Uien sag. He caught her up, catching the murmuring in Elven and long forgotten Aduanic that fell from her lips. Her eyes were closed and her head lolled forward.

There were evil things in that sea, and their horror brushed against her. It was too much, that burden and she pushed it away with leaking strength. It brushed again and the secrets burst over her like a thick, clinging mat of weed.

"Ai, no!" Uien whispered in a terrible low keen.

"What!" Falowik demanded in alarm. Uien shook her head, attempting to dislodge the secrets of Deadman's Dike, the evil that had followed in Fornost's failing footsteps. She was drowing in this sea. She could feel it sucking her under its black, briny surface. Falowik adjusted her weight up and started forward again.

"Terrible things have been done here, Laurëatan. Terrible crimes. I can see them."

"And we can see you," came a stronger voice through the fog of dawn.

Falowik looked up to see the shapes of horses loom through the greyness. All Uien could see was blood, blood spilt, and empty eyes starting blindly at the darkling sky.

"Well now, what have we here." Shirriff Falco Boffin strode forward and rocked from his heels to his toes as he took in the worn state of Falowik and Uien.

"There are at least two others still in there," Falowik said in a voice made hard by the suspicion in Falco's.

"Is that all? Running short of allies?"

Falowik glowered and tightened his grip on Uien.

"What's wrong with her then," Falco said, noticing the strange way the elf was standing. She was leant forward, head bowed and limbs slack. The stains on her shirt were dark. He peered at her and then at the sword in Falowik's hands.

"She's injured," Falowik said as he drove his sword point into the earth and unhitched her pack from where it hung over his shoulders. "There could be something in here."

Falco scowled, suspecting a ruse. Yet, there was too much blood for a trap.

"Give that to me then," he said reluctantly. Equally reluctant, Falowik handed it across. "Hurry up then! If she's hurt then there's no sense in wasting time."

"Where are the others?"

"They'll be along soon enough, though you might wish otherwise." Falco riffled through Uien's pack and pulled out odds and ends. "No idea what most of this is, but these will do well enough."

Falowik opened his mouth to first ask the Shirriff what he meant about the others. Then, when the Shirriff pulled a little knife from his belt and set towards Uien's shoulder, he thought again.

"What are you doing?"

"Can't bind if I can't see it, can I? Question is, what have you been up to tonight." The Shirriff sliced at the torn shoulder of Uien's shirt to reveal the injured shoulder beneath.

"Nasty, but not life threatening... Don't look at me like that, Wanderer. I've seen my share of sword wounds, great and small, tonight included. Know what I'm doing, I do."

Brusquely, Falco began winding cloth around Uien's shoulder and then set to work on her hands. In that time, Uien continued to murmur strange, lyrical words that belied the darkness they spoke of, faintly.

"Poisoned dart," he wondered aloud.

"No, not that, I think," Falowik said. His head darted up to again stare hard at the fog.

"There he is! I've found him," Anson called. "You shouldn't have walked off like that Shirriff. Thoromir wasn't happy at all."

The rest of the group soon gathered. The Shirriff stood once again, leaving Falowik crouched by the prone Uien.

"All's well as ends well. Look who I found!"

Falowik watched a worn, weary and bloodied group dismount and draw closer. Only one remained mounted, slung across a horse with his head bandaged.

"Valar be praised," said one Elvish voice and then faltered as the song of the stones that was drowing Uien lapped at their awareness also.

"Uien's been hit by a poisoned dart," Falco said.

"I think not," returned Eswen. "This is a dark place." As she listened to Uien's whispered words, her face paled. "Very dark. We should not linger here long."

"We will stay as long as we need to, and no longer," Thoromir said as he eyed the stones.

"Apparently there are two more of the scum in there. Is that right, Falowik," Falco asked blandly.

"Aye," Falowik said and turned to stare at the stones also and then back to Uien.

On horseback, those that lived to tell of the night's encounter sped with all haste west, for there was much to tell. Their Master would not be pleased, but it had to be told, for there were foes about capable perhaps to undo his long nurtured plans.