The Year 2063

It had come at last, a day she had dreaded for two thousand years. A lump settled in her throat as she climbed the rocky cliffs behind the silent scouts that led her through a narrow pass. Jagged cliffs sprung from the mountainside and in the dusk looked like great sharp teeth peaked with the red blood of the suns rays. It seemed to the elves as though the very heart of the hill bled out into the pass, and the surge of its flow pushed them along the narrow ravine, closer to the source of its pulse.

She swallowed as she remembered the look in Legolas's eyes early in the day. He looked at her with eyes that seemed to be staring out into a thick fog impenetrable by even the keenest sight. They had prepared for the battle together in silence. An act usually done with jesting and cautious anticipation, yet this time it had turned to a solemn and mournful dread. And when at last her knives were on her belt, and his quiver was full she found their mouths empty of words, for no breath from her lips could send the fog away and she feared that the gloom had settled forever on his heart. She poured white mead into a leather cup, and they both drank from it and were silent until at last she took his hands into hers and said. "Do not be as Amroth was, promise me this. Do not drown yourself in sorrow or grief. You must carry on for our people, you must lead them through the ages."

"I cannot do this thing you ask. I cannot hide in caves and carry on in cautious calm. No my love, I am and shall always be vengeful and to proud to stay in my fathers halls. So, therefore, I shall swear you this oath, and hope that it will suffice." He said to her words that had hung rung in the ears of her family through many ages, and his eyes grew as dark as the depths of the blue sea as he spoke them.

"Neither law, nor love, nor league of swords,

Dread nor danger, not doom itself

Shall defend the brood of Sauron,

Or any darkness he lay upon Middle-earth from me.

This I swear, to defend our peoples,

And to deal death to the evils of this land ere day' ending,

Woe unto world's end! My word hear thou

Eru Allfather! The everlasting.

Darkness doom me if my word and deeds faileth…

On this holy forest hear in witness

And my vow remember,

Manwe and Yavanna!"

And after he had spoken these words, she left in silence, knowing it would be many a thousand years before she was reborn to see him again.


"Just up here, there is a crack in the rock." Curufin whispered, and shifted his heavy pack. He beckoned her forward, but the Captain paused. She turned back and gazed far down the gray mountain to the dark edges of the forest where the black of the trees swallowed up the great boulders the mountain had shed. An unease had settled there, and she had felt it bore into her mind as she climbed the craggy cliffs. She had ordered no archer's here, nor swordsman, and their path was not one used by orcs. Yet she thought the there was movement in the trees. And there it was, a figure, shifting slowly through the shadows from trunk to trunk. It was clad in a heavy robe, and a long beard shifted back and forth with each step.

"Captain just through here." Curufin beckoned her. But she did not come, instead she wrapped her cloak tighter about her and watched the figure move in the dusk. She reached out to it with her mind desperate to see if this figure was as evil as she feared it to be, for its presence made her heart ill at ease. Slowly that figure turned to face her, and she prayed that the face would not be hidden in the black shadow she so feared. But at last she saw the piercing eyes of the Grey Pilgrim in the trees for a moment, before he disappeared again into the forest, and she let out a breath she had not realized she had been holding.

"Mithrandir." She muttered, and then turned to find Curufin watching the forest wide eyed. She beckoned him forward and said to him not to be afraid. Then he led her on, further into the veins of the ancient bald hill.

Before them in the shadow of the mountain stood a black crack snaking up the side of the granite stone. It appeared in the dim light to look like little more than a shadow on the irregular rock face, but when inspected it formed a deep slit in the mountain side. The crack was small enough so that one had to turn sideways and remove all their gear and weapons to slip through the crevasse. For ten feet it pressed tightly on Unede's chest, and she tried to ignore the beads of sweat that pooled on her forehead. It was not until her hand found a wider opening that she breathed freely in the dark stale air, and she was certain the other elves could hear the hectic thumping of her heart.

Curufin lit a torch silently and lifted it to reveal the cave where the elves found a moment of reprieve. She was handed a skin of water, and the company drank their fill, and took a small amount of food.

After some time Curufin spoke "We will go forward through this cave, until we come to the mouth of a crevasse. It is low, and wide, and we must crawl through it until the mouth of the pass opens." Unede nodded.

"And then we will be high in the great hall where to orcs and goblins sleep?" She asked.

"Yes Captain." Curufin whispered. "We should find protection from their arrows behind the stones, should any live to let them fly." She nodded again, and then together they made ready the vapors that would lay waste to the teaming horde below them.

The elves sat quietly after they had prepared their deadly store. Curufin let his torch burn low, and they were careful and silent in any movement's they made. After much time had passed, Unede sent out a scout to check the stars, and he reported that the hour was late, and that dawn would be on them soon. This she thought, was the time to strike. She readied the elves, and her scout's guided them forward down the dark passage and towards a host larger than any they had seen in this age.


The elves scuttled their way forward through the crevasse, inching forward against the rough stone that pressed onto their backs and bellies. The slit in the heart of the mountain was not wide enough for them to draw their bows or throwing knives should the poison fail. They were trapped, trapped in the mountain if their plan did not succeed. For many minutes the slid forward until they saw a glittery red slant before them, and below that a steep drop where the harsh breathing of orcs echoed off the stones. Unede waved at the elves to prepare, and each of them slipped a mask over their mouths and nose and spread out along the length of the opening. Unede peaked over the lip of the crevasse and found below exactly what she had expected. Five thousand sleeping beasts, even the guard had slipped off on his watch and was resting his head on a stone table. She crinkled her nose at their carelessness, and sent a silent prayer to Yavanna that they had brought enough poison to kill the horde below them.

She pulled back over the lip of the cave, and looked sternly at the elves on either side of her. She pressed her eyes shut, and tried to remember all the good that she had had in this life. The feeling of his warm breath on her neck as he slept, the lightness of his dance, the swell of his lips on hers. Then at last she gave a short nod, opened her oiled leather sack, and together the elves released 500 clothes, dripping with the wetted poison of the fire wasps, and leaking vapors heavily into the room as they fluttered down from the ceiling and hit the stone floors in sickly wet slaps. The elves pulled back quickly, eager to make and escape without being seen, and a moment later the room fell into utter chaos.

The screams and shrieks bounced off the hewn rock, and the sounds of agony filled the room, desperate ragged gasps, and clattering of armor, rang sharply into the night. Unede covered her ears as the thumps of bodies began, and harsh calls of death pierced the air. Then, when the chaos had calmed to only a few desperate shrieks, She crawled quickly forward, and beckoned the other elves to follow, and soon they came again to the little room where their exit lay.

"Run now, run as swiftly as you can into the forest, and do not stop. If the enemy knew not of this cave then surly it is now revealed to them, and I'll not let it be your grave. So go now, and be swift, and silent until you are a league away." She said to them. "I will climb now to the tower, and meet this necromancer in his halls. Now my house shall have its vengeance, and our forest shall be rid of this long unwelcome evil." And at with these words she took her knife in her hand, and slipped back through the crack, leaving her host behind to seek the alone the blood of her enemy.