Lady of the Shield-Hand

by dir4133

Loena, Horse-Mistress of the Riddermark, is the heir to a destitute familial tie. The line of Baldor had been great once, and celebrated, but after generations of neglect, had fallen into nothingness. As the dark grows, and the power of Orthanc strengthens, Loena joins of the quest of the Ring for the sake of her name, and to protect land she so loves. No MS, 10th Walker

1. Prologue

Golden haired for a Golden Age, they had named her. Well fought and mother of fighters, they'd named her also. Maiden of Shields and swords and blood, they'd called her, gathering in the wake of her horses pounding hooves. Mother of the trees they felled and the streams they drank from, blessed as the sun that grew their food, warmed their cheeks, dried their clothes, banished the long fears of the night.

Bringer of peace, they'd alleged. They'd brought their steel to her as she'd passed as though she'd bless it, speeding as fast as she could against the horizon. The wind would catch in her hair and against her lips, she'd close her eyes against the cold, revelling in it. She'd feel her heart in her chest, it pushed against the confines of her rib cage. As though her heart longed for the pure air of the young country, as though her heart wanted to be as free as she.

Across the winding rivers and ever-plains, against the eye-coloured sky, against the great white frozen mountains to the south, and the deep green of the woods to the West. They would build homes here, they would gaze horses here. They would find the give in the rock and clear the land for crops, and they would turn the wild as the land they survived.

There were no more enemies in the land she rode. They had abandoned it to the might of the horses hooves. The warring was over, they had told her. The days of the King have come. These were days of felling trees and building houses, these were days for planting crops and breeding horses.

Ah, but still, she missed the wind in her hair when she wasn't riding. And she missed the weight of the steel in her hand when she was not fighting. The woman wanted to become a streak of gold against the grass, she wanted to ride into the sun, and disappear with it as the stars stole the sky.

She was the heat in the sun, the cry of the eagle as its shadow crossed against the ground. She was the sting of the wind off the mountains, the thunder of her kin as they stormed their enemy on horseback, screaming as they went. Wild people, golden people.

She breathed them, lived them; as the sun rises.