Chapter Twenty-One: Living on a Prayer

The weather the next day was less than desirable, for a late winter storm was upon them. It was neither rain nor snow, some dastardly offspring of the two, though Nieriel was shielded from the worst of it thanks to her beautiful Elven cloak. She could tell, however, that the men she rode with grew bitterer as the weather continued to turn for the worst, for their cloaks were thick but by now sorely soaked.

Indeed they had been riding, scouting most of the day; the celebration was two days behind them and the threat of an attack lurked on the horizon. No one knew when, but everyone knew it was inevitable. There was a heaviness to the air, a darkness that lurked, that shadowed the minds of even the most stout of heart. There was no new news on the happenings in the east, no word from the soldiers who tirelessly scoped the countryside night and day. They were squatting like senseless ducks with Théoden refusing to budge from his seat and Denethor silent from his borrowed throne. Nieriel hated it, but what could she do? To ride out alone to Gondor would be foolish. And there had been naught a word from Gandalf, not an inkling of Sam and Frodo. Nieriel was growing as restless as her counterparts, watching the hours trudge on by the lowering of the candles.

Éomer and his éored had taken to the hills early in the morning to inspect the far reaches of the kingdom, and Nieriel, Legolas with Gimli, and Aragorn had ridden out with them. They rode through the West Emnet while Théoden took a legion of men to the East, and the two halves were to convene at the junction of the Snowbourn and the Entwash to conclude the day and return to Edoras. Nieriel wondered, from beneath the warm, deep confines of her hood, if Éomer and his acrid mood would call an early end to the day, for the skies only greyed further and it did not look like the deluge would end any time soon.

"We are going to catch nothing but our deaths out here," Gimli grunted, swaying to and fro behind Legolas on their borrowed mount. "This storm is not abatin' anytime soon."

"First you are afraid of a salad and now a little water has you up in arms," Legolas remarked snidely, causing Nieriel to fight the twitching of a smile. "Perhaps you are still feeling the remnants of losing our contest?"

This was met by many a chuckle from those that rode around them, and Gimli growled in response.

"I had been drinking long before that, laddie! Started at lunch…no, breakfast, if my mind serves me well! That was the only reason I lost, and I stand by that!" Gimli said stoutly, and Nieriel knew that if he had enough room to thump his chest he would have, as if that helped to prove his manhood.

Legolas sighed heavily. "And so I will wait patiently for the day you admit to defeat."

"It was not defeat!"

"And you call it?"

"A rematch!" Gimli swayed precariously, for he jabbed a finger in the air. "I demand a rematch! Tonight!"

A few of the men laughed in response, eager for the bout. Eager for anything to see them from this weather, really. And the dismal frame of mind that shadowed them all.

"Are you so sure?" Legolas taunted, and Nieriel felt him look at her, but she kept her eyes on the road ahead. They had not spoken since the night of the celebration, let alone make eye contact.

She made sure of it.

"I would not think you have recovered from the first bout, Master Gimli," Aragorn teased, and this was met by more chuckling.

"You do nothing but worry about talking to your people there, Aragorn," Gimli said gruffly, wagging a knobby finger at the ranger. "Tell them to have the ale ready, and at aplenty."

"I somehow think the plenty part will not be a problem," Legolas murmured, and this was met by a hearty hoot from the dwarf.

"What about you Nieriel?" Gimli called to her, and it drew one too many gazes to her. He frowned then, as if just realizing something. "I do not recall seeing you at the celebration, and you have been curiously absent as of late."

"Why are we still talking about it?" Nieriel groused, suddenly overly grateful for the dark confines of her cloak. "The celebration was two days ago. We have larger matters at hand."

"It is just a curiosity of mine, lassie! No need to get defensive!" Gimli chimed, his lilt emphasizing his wonder.

"You needs stop speculating about me, dwarf," Nieriel bit out, knowing she sounded more bitter than the weather. "Anymore and you will lose your tongue."

You do not mean that. You are being surly because you do not like the tide of the conversation…or the fact that you would call this dwarf friend.

She locked her conscience up tight behind the door in her mind.

Gimli's beard trembled with his poorly hidden laughter, his brows high and taunting. "Can we not just talk friend to friend?"

Nieriel's stare was ice.

"Och, I thought we were better than that, lass!" Gimli clutched his chest as though he were suffering an infarct, though his grin was devilish and his finger turned accusing as he waggled it in her direction and said, "One would think you have something to hide about what went on that night!"

Nieriel turned the color of the cold sky up above as her temperature flamed bright as fire. She turned her eyes to the path ahead, refusing to look at anyone or anything save the dirt before her.

"Go on, tell us who the lad is then!"

Mortified beyond words, Nieriel jerked hard on Stormwind's reins and dug her heels into his sides with vigor. Even though she knew there was no way in the netherworld that Gimli could know what had transpired between her and Legolas that night. Unless, of course, the elf remembers. And he told him. And they have a secret jest about it. She darted past Legolas and a howling Gimli, knowing, feeling Legolas's gaze on her, as well as the stupefied faces of the other soldiers.

She barked to Strider as she passed, "I am going to ride ahead. I will meet you at the rivers."

The ride did last most of the day, and the weather did only worsen. The sleet turned the sky near black, and the mist that took the fields was almost as thick as a summer fog. When the temperature began to plummet and the sky began to lose what little light it held Nieriel knew it was time to head for the rivers. Looking forward to a warm, quiet fire and a fresh batch of dry clothes, Nieriel turned Stormwind to the south and let only her path consume her thoughts as she traversed the land.

She had ridden far north, though still a long journey from Fangorn, but not so far ahead so she could not see the riders behind her. She was not familiar with these lands, the layout nor the type of terrain, and it proved to be a treacherous one, even more so in the coarse weather. If she were not so careful and Stormwind were not so surefooted they would have been lost to the innumerable amount of jagged gaping holes or the countless hillsides with their suddenly jutting cliffs. However, blessedly, any unwanted malevolence was to be quiet this day; there was no stench of orc on the wind, no howling of wargs echoing throughout the plains.

Yet however blessed this may seem to others, it was concerning to Nieriel; contrary to popular belief no news was not good news. Something was brewing. Something was brewing and although she did not see it, heard no new word of it, she could sense it. For every once in a while, the air that drifted down the fields held the taint of fire and death. And now and again she would catch a glimpse of something dark far off in the sky, but it was fast, fleeting, and then nothing more. And for Denethor to be so close-lipped even though the south was inundated with attacks, for Mount Doom to rumble with thunder yet nothing ever came of it, with no other word from any other parts of the world… Nieriel did not like it. It was too quiet. And this malicious quiet made her skin crawl.

Théoden's spies had learned nothing either. He had men placed in every major city, every thriving port, but their weekly reports returned little, if nothing at all. All was still. The villages were not being ransacked as they were weeks before. There were no more orphans showing up on doorsteps with only the clothes on their backs. She did not view these things as positive, however wonderful they were; no, this told Nieriel that Sauron and whatever army he had was regrouping. Building. Scheming. Focused on only one thing.

And then there were the coastal dwellers, Amrothos and his sister; they had heard nothing from their father. No rider, not even a single pigeon had been sent. It was all very strange, but in Nieriel's experience with wars, this was the gathering, the swell before the crash of the wave.

It was coming.

Darkness was coming.

Just as Arwen predicted all those months ago, Nieriel thought, letting out a sigh so soft, though it carried all the weight of her worries. To be back in that time, reading our books and lazing away the afternoons…

My simple, vaguely monotonous life of loyalty and servitude is not so simple anymore.

She thought she heard thunder on the air and it broke her reverie. She slowed her mount, listening for a crack of lightening, the echo to the rumble. And then she frowned. It is not humid enough for it to storm. She shivered. And there has been no shift of air to cause a change in the atmosphere. She drew Stormwind to a halt and closed her eyes, her brows marred by the disgruntled look on her face. With the fog so thick and the sleet still pouring, even her keen eyes would be no good. She focused her ears, her nose, her sense of touch on all that was around her. The wind whipped, bringing with it stings of ice. The air was cold and smelt of wet earth. Stormwind shifted uneasily beneath her, kicking a stone to the edge of the cliff on which she had stopped.

A tingle started in her feet and her adrenaline began to build, to swirl thick and scorching through her blood. Stormwind tossed his head and then shook his mane, casting water to slash her face and through the air. He whinnied and Nieriel soothed him with a gloved hand, listening hard through the rushing fall of the sleet.

An answering rumble suddenly echoed. Nieriel's grip tightened on the reins as her hands began to tingle and her breaths slashed out of her in gasps, puffing white clouds out before her face. Frantically she looked left, and then right, searching for the riders below from where she and Stormwind were situated atop a small, black cliff, surrounded by dead grass and barren bushes. Was it the hooves of their horses that caused the thundering? Am I panicking for nothing?

She spotted them, so far away from her, trundling tiredly toward the rivers not a mile away to the south. The sleet seemed to thicken then to an unrelenting deluge, and she blamed the shiver that stole her on the bitter cold and not the exhaustion, the desperation, and the hopelessness she could sense from the riders. Or her own impractical fear. She forced her breath to calm, to ease out even and slow, but her adrenaline would not temper and instead spiked.

For she sensed another, more malignant force on the air.

Or rather, multiple others.

Her eyes flashed wide and she screamed, "Wargs!"

A howl split the air and Nieriel kicked Stormwind so hard that he reared, and then dashed into action down the cliff. The riders had halted at her scream, turning to point or look in her direction, yet they burst into movement when the first warg rider tipped over the cliff not a length behind her, snarling, snapping, frothing at the jaws.

It had not been thunder Nieriel had heard; no, it had been the rumbling of the rocks upon which she had stood with Stormwind, the ground crying out in warning as the enemy closed in from behind.

Downwind. Against the storm. Their scent had been hidden, almost completely masked. The pelting of the rain had drowned her hearing until it had almost been too late.

And now she was riding for her life.

As she tore down the side of the cliff at breakneck speed, she watched up ahead as the men all turned toward her and their war cries sounded on the wind. Assuming a semblance of a formation, they set the charge toward her with their swords raised. Nieriel concentrated on the broad bodies heading her way, on keeping her grip on the slippery reins, on clutching onto Stormwind with all her might as she urged him for everything he was worth. She could not focus on the wargs so close behind her, or the orcs returning the men's cries with ear-shattering shrieks of their own. She could not focus on the fact that yes, Stormwind was fast, but after riding all day through an unknown environment, over terrain he was not used to, and being just as tired and cold as she was, he was beginning to wane and her enemies were gaining on her. She could not, should not dally on the fact that there was more than one warg at her back.

Three, if I am not mistaken.

You have been in worse situations.

Legolas was leading a pack of archers toward her, a small group who had separated from the bulk of the soldiers, while Strider had broken off to the left to come upon the flank of the battle with another lot. Éomer and part of his éored came from the opposite side, and in the distance, from the other side of the river, Nieriel could barely make out Théoden readying his own men to join the fray.

She could only hope the wargs and their riders would be outnumbered.

Though my brethren are still too far away. They were barely more than specks to her eyes.

An arrow sang past her head and she ducked low, stabbing her boots into Stormwind's sides. A burst of speed rippled through him and Nieriel grasped at him tightly, feeling her body shift precariously in the wet saddle. A warg from behind boomed out a roar of defiance and Nieriel startled upon hearing how close he trundled behind her. Do not look. You cannot afford to look. She focused on Legolas, on breathing, on staying low. Do not look back.

More arrows sluiced the air around her, and Nieriel forced Stormwind to weave over the fields to throw off their target, all the while trying to dodge a large boulder here, a skeletal thistle bush there. Closer, closer, closer… She could now see the fury in Legolas's eyes as he let loose his arrows, one after another after another. She could hear more plainly the bellows of Éomer as he primed his éored for battle.

Yes!

The soldiers on their steeds parted for her and Nieriel raced into the epicenter of their formation, and it was not a heartbeat later that the battle broke out behind her. Wargs crashed with horses and shrieks of terror and pain cracked through the air. Swords clanged and spears snapped. Men roared their wrath and orcs screamed their own murderous rage. The sleet pounded in a torrential pour, though it did nothing to cool the horrible aggression that so suddenly marred the air.

Nieriel pulled hard on Stormwind and the beast stopped so severely, tufts of sopping grass and splashes of mud flared up beside them. He pranced to a stop and Nieriel leaned to the left to spin him, to face the onslaught she had only just narrowly missed.

Her eyes slowly widened in sheer and utter disbelief.

The gap that had been created to facilitate her retreat had been swallowed, and in her wake orcs and men clashed while wargs chomped at horses or fell beneath their hooves. Chaos was abound, painted crimson and ebony by the slashing arcs of blood from both friend and foe. The sleet poured on relentlessly, and Nieriel watched as Man and Orc alike grappled to stay atop their mounts who slid along the slick terrain, their legs nigh asunder.

By the gods, but the hillside she had just traversed was crawling with wargs. No, not crawling. Besieged. Overwhelmed. There was no hillside to be seen. It had been overrun, inundated with the ugly, twisting bodies of bedraggled wargs, with the grotesque and frenzied orcs and uruk-hai as their riders. Nieriel counted ten. Twenty. Thirty. Forty. Fifty. And then she stopped.

She stopped counting because counting was not killing.

Fire burned in her belly and she let out a war cry before kicking Stormwind into a feverish gallop, unsheathing her blades in the process. The first orc she came upon was trampled. Her second foe, a wounded warg, was all but decapitated by two slices of her blades. Black blood splashed up into her face, smeared through her eyes, but a quick swipe of her sleeve had her vision refocused and together she and Stormwind took on a warg and an orc. Her mount collided with the warg and the orc leaped off its back directly at Nieriel, and she reciprocated with her blades straight and out, effectively stabbing him in the chest although he latched onto her in a frenzy. She gave a mighty cry and thrust with all her might, and the creature was unable to maintain his handling and was lost to the fray of hooves that was the battleground.

Something stiff and heavy suddenly slammed against her shoulder from behind and Nieriel grunted at the affront, pitching forward almost enough to be jostled from her saddle. She steadied her grip on her weapons, but before she could turn to face her assailant the crack! came again, this time harder. She nudged Stormwind with her knees and he whirled to the right at the same moment she arced her arm to lash out with one of her knives, her face mottled with fury and cinched in pain. Her blade met a jugular and blood spurted like a fountain as an orc holding a bludgeon went to the ground.

However his warg was very much still alive.

As the orc thwumped to the ground the warg ripped its head from side to side in a snarl that sent a chill down her spine, and Nieriel watched as the beast rolled its shoulders, setting its weight back on its haunches. She pulled hard on Stormwind's reins to have him retreat, but her horse refused; there was simply no room with the battle raging on around them. Nieriel dropped her hold on the reins and prepared to throw her blade at the same moment the warg screamed its anger and launched to stretch the short distance between them. Nieriel drew in a breath and aimed, though there was suddenly no need for her to release her weapon; an arrow had sprouted from the skull of the warg and he dropped with a pitiful mewl.

Nieriel's head whipped to the right. And then to the left. Legolas was several dozens of feet away from her, yet they locked eyes over the raging battlefield as if nothing but empty air separated them.

He asked with only his clear, blue eyes, are you all right?

She knew not to waste a single second. Nieriel nodded, he returned the gesture, and then the moment was gone.

The next minutes of her life felt like years; she slashed and stabbed and whirled, immune to anything but the warm splashes of blood from her foes on her flesh and the harried sounds of war clanging around her. There were times when she thought she or Stormwind were going to lose their balance and topple to the ground to be lost, but by the graceful hand of fate she remained upright, and so did her steed.

Orcs were dropping like flies, however Nieriel noticed that the men were not faring much better. She tried to look for her friends; she spotted Legolas wielding his bow with a proficiency that was unmatched even in this weather, and Gimli standing beside their horse and swinging his axe like the damning blade of a pendulum, slicing anyone that got too close. Aragorn and Éomer were shouting orders, in full assault with their long blades. Théoden was toward the front commanding what archers were left.

There are too many foes, Nieriel thought. The number was dwindling, but not quickly enough. Éomer's éored were highly trained and used to this landscape, but their numbers had lessened drastically after Helm's Deep, and their weariness from traversing throughout the day was evident. Nieriel cringed, her stomach churning, as she watched one said soldier take an axe to the skull, the bone splitting on impact and blood arcing high into the air. Burning with revenge, she yanked one of her smaller blades free and threw it the length to the orc who had done the deed, yet felt hardly any satisfaction when he dropped to the ground dead, the knife protruding from an eye.

Not enough of us. The warg of the dead orc spun to face her spitting anger, but before he could leap an arrow took him in the shoulder. Distracted, the warg turned to face his assailant, which gave Nieriel the moment to kick Stormwind to motion and finish her attack. She bent low to the right, dropping an arm, and the warg sensed the movement and jerked his gaze back toward her. But it was too late. With a thrust, Nieriel pinned his jaw to the roof of his mouth. She pulled on Stormwind's reins to halt him with one hand and twisted the other, and the warg extracted her blade for her when he fell to the ground. Dead.

Nieriel quickly hopped down from Stormwind to retrieve her other smaller blade, cutting left, jabbing right to clear the way through the battle to the fallen orc. A shadow fell over her suddenly and she leapt back a step, swinging wide in offense, yet it was only Legolas on his borrowed steed. Offering to her the knife she had been on course to retrieve.

"Thank you," she called up to him, and was surprised at how breathless and hoarse she sounded.

"We cannot win this," Legolas snarled down at her, his ire with the situation palpable. Nieriel watched as he surveyed the carnage, his own chest heaving with exertion, his blue eyes bright through the storm. His short sword was drenched with black blood yet his quiver was empty, and his bow hung unusable on his back. "We have to retreat."

She turned her eyes back to the fray, for they were in a small pocket of their own fighters which allowed them a moment to reconnoiter, and felt her stomach churn once more.

They were not outnumbered anymore, but they were waning. Badly. Men sagged under the stress of the fight, barely able to hold their swords to fend themselves. Théoden looked haggard, hopelessly soaked through to his bones with cold and sleet and blood. Strider was shouting at him words Nieriel could not hear. Gimli was fighting three uruk-hai, scarcely holding his ground. Éomer was inundated, fighting two at once, and Nieriel watched as a third joined the fray.

We may not stand a chance; Legolas is right. She felt her resolve thicken then, and her adrenaline surged hot once more. Her blood flared to life and her breath hitched, a light coming to her eyes that bespoke of yearning and hatred, a vile hatred for these fiends. So much they had taken from her! Her blood family, her childhood, years from her life that she would never get back, her dearest kin, her most wonderful friends… She felt her fists curl tightly around her blades, and her nerve endings jumped frantically with electricity, ready to set her body into motion.

But that does not mean I will leave this battlefield without finding out if we could win.

"I do not know about you, princeling," Nieriel whistled for Stormwind and he came cantering up to her, his head held high. Nieriel swung up into his saddle effortlessly, whipping her blades with fluid wrists as she peaked a brow at Legolas. "But I have never run from a fight with an orc."

She kicked Stormwind and he jumped forward, causing her hood to fall back. Rain pelted her face in harsh drops and Nieriel welcomed the stings, for they washed her skin clean of the taint of her enemy and any despair that dared to linger over her countenance.

You are stronger than that.

Stormwind plowed over what bodies were beneath him with renewed vigor, and Nieriel hacked viciously at any foe he did not fall. She heard the men rallying a new assault and joined in with their cry, the orcs and wargs answering in kind. The listless melee that had lagged broke out into utter and absolute frenzied anarchy, and for a time Nieriel saw nothing but the growling faces of her enemies as they charged her from all sides. She and Stormwind stayed strong through it all, and she allowed herself to think that maybe if they could just keep up this momentum, they could see this through without having to retreat.

That was before tragedy struck.

Two wargs came at Stormwind from his blindside, and the horse spooked. He listed dangerously to the right and Nieriel loosened her grip on her weapons to grapple for the pommel of the saddle to stay upright. However when a warg feinted in threat, Stormwind reared, and Nieriel lost her balance completely. She went down onto the ground hard on her back, losing the grip on both of her precious blades while her body got sucked into a thick puddle of mud, which thankfully cushioned a sharp blow to her head. However her teeth rattled along the bones of her jaw, causing black flecks to dance across her vision as her already battered body screamed in agony, and in reaction Nieriel closed her eyes.

She tried to push herself up and her hand slipped along the slimy film of the mud she was trapped in. Her legs sprawled in opposite directions, her cloak weighed her down, and her body suddenly became one giant ache that throbbed with an aggression that let her know she had pushed herself too hard this day.

Get up get up get up! Her conscience screamed, and Nieriel grappled to comply. But she had yet to open her eyes. Why could she not open her eyes? It suddenly felt too good to lie still, to just rest for a moment, despite it being in a puddle of filth.

She fell back into the mud once more, yet a familiar high-pitched whinny coerced her into blinking against the pain. She looked across her heaving chest and saw Stormwind caught between two wargs; one beast had the reins between his jowls and another was snapping at her horse's heels.

Abject terror clawed its way out of Nieriel in the form of a horrible, gasping shriek which drew the attention of the snapping warg. He changed his trajectory to her, prowling slow and long toward her as Nieriel snarled in response, forcing her bones and muscles to submit to her will and move.

Come on you bastard, she urged the warg, who let out a clipped bark as if responding to her taunt. She managed to grapple to her knees, pushing herself upright with muddy hands, her eyes focused keenly on the beast as it shook its head and cracked its jaw twice in warning.

She struggled to plant a foot on the ground, and a flash of silver caught her eye. Nieriel used her peripheral vision to decipher what had glinted. One blade. About three feet to the right. Her eyes flashed back up to the warg, who was licking his meaty jowls as he inched toward her, waiting for her to make her move.

Nieriel knew two things: she had to act quickly, and she had to use the element of surprise to her advantage.

It only took a second for a plan to form in her mind.

Pitching forward onto her hands and knees, Nieriel fell into the mud…and directly, harmlessly, onto her blade. With her arms crushed beneath her she quickly located the handle at the same exact instant the warg leapt, eliciting a shriek that would freeze lesser men in their tracks. However Nieriel rolled onto her back and with both hands wrapped around the hilt, she jammed her blade into the air and made contact with the underbelly of the beast, ripping him open from throat to nethers.

The beast did not utter a single sound as he fell.

Panting, Nieriel rolled and pushed herself to stand, however the change in altitude made her dizzy. She listed to one side yet thankfully a strong hand wrapped around her upper arm to steady her, and when she turned her eyes to her savior she was not at all surprised to find Legolas standing there.

"Good?" he asked her, and after a moment and a few slow, deep breaths, Nieriel nodded. Legolas grinned then, and offered her a spear with a sharp, bloodied head.

"Shall we?"

Nieriel took the spear from his grasp and together they rejoined the bedlam. Nieriel's first order of business was to rescue Stormwind, who was only slightly better off than when she had last seem him; he was fighting for his freedom, and had nearly won the reins back. Legolas lent his hand as well, and quickly and efficiently they dispatched the warg. Nieriel slapped Stormwind on the flank to send him from battle, knowing that he would be safe on his own for the time being.

She watched him gallop off while swirling the shaft of the spear wide to get a feel for its weight before she turned back to the battle. The number of fair heads, however tired and bedraggled, outnumbered the enemy, though Nieriel could tell they could not hold out any longer. The end was nearing.

She ran headlong into the thick of it with Legolas at her side sporting his short sword. Together they clashed into a trio of orcs, taking two by surprise while Legolas beheaded the third before the creature could even react. Nieriel turned in an arc and swung her spear into the helmet of another, rendering him senseless enough that Legolas could swoop in and stab him to his doom.

Nieriel watched as the orc fell, gurgling his disdain at having been bested. The whine of a foe charging interrupted her good riddance and Nieriel ducked low and spun around, jabbing out with her spear, and happened to catch a warg in the chest, which propelled the orc from its back. The enemy went sprawling into the mud behind her and Legolas braced himself to stab him.

Nieriel was too quick; she withdrew her spear from the warg and with a very dramatic swirl, brought the weapon spiraling down into the orc, pinning him to the ground she thrust so hard. She braced one booted foot on the flailing orc and grabbed her spear with both hands, and with a twisting wrench she effectively silenced the orc and ripped her weapon from his thoracic chamber.

Legolas raised a simple brow, but Nieriel only shrugged before she rejoined the others and their assault. She could not help but notice, however, that Legolas stuck near to her. As she thrust and cut and stabbed and smacked, he stayed tight to her back or her side, defending her just as much as she was defending him.

And by the gods, did they work beautifully with one another! If she went low, he went high. If she missed her target he would catch it before it scampered away. If he lost his balance she would brace herself so he could catch it, and more than once they traded weapons as the situation allowed. Like fighting with Arwen, she could not help but think. In tandem were their movements, as if they had been fighting side-by-side for ages; Nieriel could predict his graceful moves just as effortlessly as he executed them, and he played from her strengths just as naturally.

For how long they carried on like that Nieriel could not say, yet she began to notice the field was thinning out. The deadened bodies of their enemies was growing and the sounds of clashing metal was dwindling. She slowed her movements, and then her slowing became a halt altogether, and in blatant disbelief she looked over the hillside she had careened down gods only knew how long ago to watch as the remaining wargs retreated. There were no orcs on their backs because their dying screams and gasping breaths echoed from the battlefield in proof that they had, every last one of them, fallen.

We beat them back, Nieriel thought dubiously, her gaze darting around the field. There were not many standing, but she thankfully spotted those that mattered most, and a wave of crushing relief surfaced over her; Aragorn, Théoden, Éomer, and Gimli were smattered throughout the fallen bodies, heaving and bleeding, but alive.

"Haha!" Gimli bellowed, brandishing his axe in the wake of the scampering and howling wargs. "We did it!"

There was no cheer that took the field, only the ragged breathing of those that remained and the struggled grunts and whimpering moans of those who were dying. Incredulity was stark on Nieriel's pale features, and the emotion kept her immobile as she watched the last of the wargs top the rise and disappear over the cliff she had once been perched on top of.

How on this green earth— her breaths were coming out hard and fast, her limbs trembling in the aftermath of battle –-did we manage that?

"Gamling, gather up the fallen!" Théoden suddenly shouted, reorienting Nieriel back to reality. "We must be gone from this place! Éomer, gather your éored to you and let us be gone!"

More than a hundred foes, when we were only but fifty. She shook her head, dispelling the thought. There was no time to linger in her mind or on this filthy field. They had to move quickly before their enemy returned with more of their ilk.

A splintering holler took her suddenly by surprise. Gimli stomped his way over the fallen bodies, offering Nieriel her knives with a grin shining through his crimson beard as bright as the sun.

"You were a force to be reckoned with out there lassie!" Gimli boomed while Nieriel took her knives from his grip. "I did not know you were so good with a spear!"

She raised a single brow. "I am good with everything, dwarf."

"She was magnificent, was she not?" Legolas murmured, so softly Nieriel knew she had been the only one to hear it.

Briefly, they stole a moment with one another. Their eyes locked, ice-blue on forest-green, before she severed the contact and focused on wiping her blades with her mangled and muddied cloak, the speak tucked close to her side.

"Your movements were spectacular!" Gimli continued, his eyes shining with his appreciation. "You and the elf together… Why, I have never seen such fighting!"

"Let us not tarry," Théoden trotted up to them atop his steed, his face fierce and focused. "You will only have time to talk if we make it back safely. Let that be our priority."

Nieriel nodded her consent and sheathed her blades, asking, "And the dead?"

Théoden's jaw was tight while his nostrils flared, and rain dripped down his face from the helmet he wore. The drenching had not let up in the slightest. "We will send for them," his words were uttered as though they tasted foul in his mouth. "Our own safety must come first. There are many of us who are injured."

Nieriel nodded, and then whistled for Stormwind while the others clamored for their own steeds. Nieriel spun slowly, pulling up her hood as she went to shield herself from the worst of the onslaught of the torrential downpour of sleet. Her tunic and breeches were beyond ruined, so sopping with mud and blood they were. She wiped at her eyes, blinking away the water that stung the gashes on her face and made her contusions throb in angry pain, and as she perused the battlefield her heart sank ever lower.

Too many… She felt her gut clench, watching as Éomer picked up a fallen comrade beneath the arm, the man struggling to rise from his knees. Nieriel cringed when he fell to the mud, a hand covering an oozing, open laceration on his abdomen. She could tell by the pallor of his skin that he would not make the slight journey back to Edoras.

The taste of victory is bittersweet in my mouth, she thought, her focus flittering over the fallen bodies, all in various states of decay and dying. Gimli was moving throughout the carnage and stabbing any foe who still fought for life while Aragon weakly helped Éomer and Gamling settle those that could stand to sit on the horses that could be wrangled and had not been spooked by the battle.

Speaking of… Nieriel frowned and whistled again, this time louder and longer. She looked over the cliffside, the fields to the left and those to the right, but through the arching showers it was hard to see, and it was only getting denser as the sky dimmed and night began to take his due. Where is Stormwind?

Her heart clenched. It quivered. He could not have gone far. As silly as it sounded he was one of her best friends. She had raised him from a quavering colt, a dear gift from Elrond, spending days and nights to ensure he was the finest, most beautiful, strongest, and boldest of them all. He always came back to her. He had lived through numerous skirmishes, ones much worse than this one. He was swift and sure; he could outrun anyone and anything. He was trained for the harshness of battle and the unpredictability of war. He had helped her flee nazgûl, evade the wrath of Isengard. He had ridden through blizzards and over mountains and through rivers with her. And to be… to be… I cannot think it. He is here. He is somewhere. She whistled once more, and the sound splintered from trembling lips as her throat burned.

And that was when Stormwind appeared, and Nieriel's heart splintered for a second time. With a wretched whimper came her horse, limping heavily on one of his front legs. His reins had been mangled, slashed and hanging flaccidly to drag along the ground as he trudged through the mud on legs even more unstable than hers. Nieriel rushed forward, not caring who she trampled over, and caught her weary mount in a grasp that was as tight as the fist around her heart. She closed her eyes tightly and inhaled his familiar horse scent, and for a moment the sting of tears threatened to seep beneath her lashes. She burrowed her fingers in his mane, holding tight onto the rough hair that was dripping with rain, while she nuzzled his neck and he placed his large head over her shoulder, pain rippling through his muscles in the way that he tremored.

"I thought I lost you," Nieriel whispered, and Stormwind stepped closer to her, as if he understood her sentiment.

Breathing deeply, Nieriel pulled back and opened her eyes, affectionately running a hand from his forelock to his nose as she peered into his intelligent, brown eyes. The stark relief she had felt when his brief hiatus had been eradicated was replaced by a crushing sadness when she realized her beautiful beast was weak with pain and weariness, it was so plain in his eyes.

I will not be able to ride him back, the realization struck, and she suddenly knew she had a long, dark, cold night ahead of her. But she would not leave him out here alone.

Her train of thought was ruptured when the piercing howl of Gimli shattered the air.

"Aragorn!"

Nieriel whipped around so fast she almost lost her balance, but it was in enough time that she saw Strider fall to the ground on his knees, and then onto his side in a stinking, filthy puddle of mud. Nieriel dropped the reins of Stormwind and leapt over the fallen bodies, dashed around the twitching wargs, and splattered to a halt beside Aragorn who would have fallen face-first into the mud if it were not for Gimli's strong, albeit bloody and bruised hands.

"Aragorn!" Nieriel grabbed his shoulders to help Gimli hold up the ranger and winced with regret, quickly removing the appendages. There was a spearhead sticking out from his right shoulder, the staff shattered and broken, and he had a bleeding temple gash that was dribbling crimson blood into his eyes, so thick not even the rain could wash it off. His hands were latched onto his stomach, and as Nieriel peered down she saw scarlet blood leaking at an alarming rate through his pale, trembling fingers.

"Get a horse!" Nieriel barked, however the sound came out fractured and haggard. A pair of legs dropped down beside her and instantly Legolas was there, and together, with Gimli's help, they hefted a lagging Strider up onto an itching steed who could barely hold still, fear plain in his darting eyes.

"He needs to get to Edoras quickly," Nieriel said, holding onto Aragorn and looking at Legolas earnestly. "He needs to see their healer."

"I am well…" Strider immediately passed out and listed to the side, and it was only Legolas's sure hand that kept him from falling to the ground.

"You are the fastest rider, you take him," Legolas said matter-of-factly, handing her the reins to the stirring horse as he pushed Strider back into the saddle.

"I cannot… Stormwind…" Nieriel looked to her own mount then, who was limping his way toward her, his eyes bright with fear and pain; she had never seen such a look on him before.

She looked back at Legolas, terror so easily gripping at her already frayed nerves. "He cannot be ridden; he needs to be led and it will be a long journey."

"I will lead him back. You take care of Aragorn." Legolas told her, his voice so sure and calm, the antithesis to her quaking tone.

Nieriel looked up at Strider, his body so slack, his coloring too light, too grey for her liking. Stormwind shuddered to a halt beside her and he nudged her shoulder, but Nieriel knew, for her own peace of mind and for the sake of Arwen's that she had to be the one to see Strider to safety. But Stormwind… She did not leave her horse lightly, she could not. She had trusted no one with him in all the years she had him. And yet she was the fastest rider and he could not be ridden, and Aragorn needed tending now.

Resolved, but liking it not, Nieriel stepped up to the saddle and threw herself behind Strider, enveloping him in her arms. She took the reins in hand and curbed the beast who was more than ready to dart, looking down at Legolas and Gimli who stood beside her.

"Please make it so he gets back safely. He is limping badly on his right front leg; I am not sure what else ails him." Her voice was desperate, so pleading.

"You worry only for Strider. We will take care of Stormwind," Legolas told her, and a short burst of relief at the surety of his words had Nieriel nodding and then turning to the west. Aragorn sagged into her hold, and her own weariness was immediately forced to the background and his comfort and survival burst to the fore.

A moment later she tore off of the battlefield, leaving only a prayer for swiftness in her wake.