Chapter 1

'I ambar na- changed; im tur- feel ha in i nen, im tur- feel ha in i coe, im tur- smell ha in i gwilith.'

Leòwyn knew the world was changing. She knew the same way the seasons changed, or a storm was brewing. She knew it in her very bones and in the center of her being. The air moved more swiftly across the plains and whistled in between the mountain passes. It was now tainted with a metal scent that reminded her starkly of the iron in freshly spilt blood. The trees beneath the steady eyes of the White Mountains creaked and groaned in increasing tempo, as if they too could sense the changing tides of Middle Earth. Walking among the trees she had frolicked in as a child was not as comforting a thought as it used to be.

She began her morning by venturing farther from the little creek and quiet meadow of her home as the sun sluggishly rose over the mountains. Her hollow-home was nestled beneath an ancient behemoth she had aptly named Oaken Grandfather as a young child. Her great protector stood on the far side of a small clearing ringed with old trees as if standing guard over her. Her mother had raised her there. As the only child the Valar would ever gift her mother, she had been given all her heart had desired.

Leòwyn smiled slightly in memory. I'm being slightly nostalgic this morning, she thought to herself as her booted feet kept her on the path few dared to travel these days, even in the light of day.

Today she had exchanged a flowing dress for men's trousers, a tunic, and boots. All were in the color of the world around her. She knew better than most how to blend into scenery. On her waist was strapped a thick hunting knife, and over her shoulder she carried a full satchel. Her cloak swirled around her shoulders.

For Leòwyn, her hearts desires had always been deeply connected to the rock beneath her feet, the water that flowed through streambeds and creeks to the River Isen, and the most especially – the trees. Leòwyn could scarely count the days she had spent in the trees surrounding her childhood home. They were too many. Her formative years had filled with hours of being perched on one sinewy branch or another.

Mother used to call me a little bird, she snorted, smile turning melancholy. The jagged ache in her chest, for her mother's presence, intensified.

Her mother had been a rare beauty with full, laughing lips and even features as soft as a birds wing. She had also had the light inherent in all of Elvish descent. A light that had shined outward whenever Lilithien had gazed upon her only daughter. Leowyn had inherited her dark chocolate hair seemingly almost black in some lights, her elegantly arched eyebrows, and beneath them almond eyes of such clear blue they seemed to be made of chips of ice off the Great Misty Mountains themselves.

Such striking features is where the similarities ended, Leòwyn sighed.

Her own skin was a much richer shade than her Elvish mothers' porcelain and the graceful way her mother had moved, as if flowing from one movement to the next had always evaded her daughter. Leòwyn instead had her mortal fathers stubborn jaw, and her ears, while pointed, were not nearly enough to notice unless one looked close.

Leòwyn sighed heavily again. Her thoughts always turned dark when she thought of the one person who had always been there and now was not. She shook her head vigorously, No. I will not dwell on such things.

Picking up her head from where it had fallen in her dark thoughts, her sharp eyes surveyed the path and realized she was a lot farther into her journey than she imagined.

Must not have been aware. Leòwyn, you fool. Now is no time to be star gazing, she shook her head at herself, tempered amusement flowing through her.

While it was true that times were changing, and many places in the world were no longer safe, Leòwyn trusted in her instincts as a hunter to be prepared for most instances in the woods she had grown in.

Now focused back on her task, her stride quickened towards the Fords of Isen. With the snow on the lower hills of the White Mountains beginning to melt, small signs of spring preparing to once more take back the Kingdom of Rohan were blossoming throughout the forest. The eve of spring however, did not stop the cold from stealing its way into her cloak, even lined with a layer of ermine pelts as it was. Leòwyn shivered, pulling up the hood of her midnight blue cloak to give her nose some protection against the ravages of the winds. She had completed this cloak for herself before the first snow struck the mountains many fortnights ago and had never been so grateful for it as now.

The Fords would be nearing to bursting with all the snow melt and would make it much easier for her to perform her task. As she thought of this her mind turned towards the task she had set out to complete this morning. Her small meadow, while boasting a stream, moved too slowly to be adequate for the purification of her instruments. Swift moving water was ideal for the processes Leòwyn perfected many years ago as a young Healer under her mother's tutelage.

Leòwyn placed a small hand on the worn leather satchel she carried at her hip. In it were her most precious items. Healing instruments the likes of which had never been seen outside of Elvish hands. They were a small token of her mother's memory.

Beginning from an early age, Leòwyn had shown an aptitude for the healing arts. Even as human as her blood, she was as sensitive as any Elf to the sturrlges of the wounded. Her mother had been a well-known healer, and if rumor be truth, her uncle had become one of the most adept Elvish healers in Middle Earth around the First Age. Leòwyn brooded on that fact. She had never met her mother's family, for they had not understood nor accepted Lilithien's love for a mortal man.

Elves, she decided, could be just as prejudice as men. When Lilithien had slipped away in the darkness of the night from her bedchambers it was to meet up with her mortal love. She had never returned.

As Leòwyn grew closer to her destination, an uneasiness began to spread outward from her chest. She took notice of the lack of noise. For a small second her feet stopped as she strained her enhanced senses outward. She could sense nothing, even the thinned-out trees had stopped rustling in the winter wind and the small animals had stolen away.

With a quick thought, Leòwyn jumped onto the lowest hanging branch of a western white pine and faded into the darkness of the canopy, almost as if she belonged there. Her forest was a forest of pines and therefore did not lose their needles during the winter. Throughout the years, as a child and then as a woman the trees had come to accept Leòwyn within their branches. She would sing to them of times long past and they had come to love her for it.

The tree, which the dark-haired beauty now sat, rustled slightly and slid more pine covered branches to block Leòwyn from view. With a sweet thought, she touched the trunk of the tree and silently thanked it. Leòwyn felt, on the outer reaches of her mind, that something was coming. From the bitter smell of the wind it would not be a friendly something. She loosened the hunting knife at her belt and settled on her haunches to wait. Before long her legs started twitching, her muscles feeling as if on fire as her anticipation grew.

Suddenly there was a loud crash in the direction she had been walking towards. The woman in the tree tensed and had to stop herself from jumping in fright. Another crunch came, this time from the path she had just strode from. Leòwyn froze, scarcely daring to breathe. There were loud sounds of big bodies clamoring around her. She could think of no other reason for such organized chaotic noise.

Something or possibly multiple things were hunting her. And now she realized they had already surrounded her. Leòwyn prayed to the Valar that her hunters had not seen her ascend into this tree. For she could barely get her fingers to unclench from around her dagger much less think of moving the rest of her body.

The elf-maiden had never been hunted before, and she now found she did not enjoy it.

As she held her breath, a massive, dark skinned figure stepped out of the trees to her left and began to shuffle down the small path she had walked countless times before. As it drew closer, Leòwyn had to suppress a gasp of shock. The creature hunting her, she now realized, was out of legend. Orcs had not been seen in this part of the world for an Age and she had never expected to see one in her lifetime.

The world is changed, more than I ever imagined, she thought.

The creature was covered, head to toe, in what looked like a mixture of black and red blood. Underneath was possibly clothing but was indistinguishable from the coloring that dripped off its body and the unsheathed, ragged blade in its hand. It rubbed at its eyes with a filthy claw, to stop the stick combination from obstructing its eyesight, but it only seemed to make the problem worse as the smear on its face got larger.

A guttural snarl left its lips, as it spoke for the first time, "Auzeg, get you slimy guts out here and find the witch."

Leòwyn's horror grew. It spoke the common tongue. While the movement looked unnatural around its grotesque teeth, the words uttered were clear.

Another orc stepped out of the shadows of the pines and sniffed the air. This one's face looked like it had been smashed in by a cleaver. Its crooked nose looked painful to breathe out of and rows of sharp teeth flashed as it spoke.

"The she-human scent is gone from this place. I can smell her all along the road but here it stops."

Leòwyn wondered at that. Was even the wind on her side?

"Then she has not gone far. Find her! Lord does not want our surprise ruined for the horselords," the first, and largest creature roared.

Leòwyn resisted the urge to cover her ears at the sound. She knew it was only a matter of time before they found her. She could not move without alerting them to her presence in this tree, but she could not stay here. Her mind whirled. Horselords must mean the Rohirrim. But what surprise were they speaking of.

Another time, she thought. First, how many are there?

An idea wormed its way into her mind, and out of it a plan developed. She did not give it a very high success rate, because for it to work, these creatures would have to be very slow witted and possibly as sensory blind as a human. But it at least gave Leòwyn a chance.

Slowly, Leòwyn reached her hand into her trouser pocket and withdrew two large pebbles. Each movement she made seemed to her stuck in honey. She grimaced. The pebbles now residing in her palm had sentimental meaning for her since childhood. She was loathed to be parted with a part of her past but if the loss of them could save her life she could consider it a needed sacrifice.

As discreetly as she could, Leòwyn lobbed one of the pebbles in the direction she had come with an underhanded throw. Her elbow almost grazed one of the pine's branches but luck was on her side. She froze with her arm still suspended above her head, palm facing the sky, and so did the creatures below her.

The pebble ricochet off many branches on the way to the pine covered ground. With a screech, the two orcs in her view took off towards the sound as three more emerged from the surrounding brush in pursuit.

Five then, Leòwyn noted.

Waiting until she heard their retreat, she once again lobbed her second pebble in the direction of her first throw but aimed to the left a small bit more. She felt more than saw the orc pack move in that direction once more.

She thanked the Valar that the history books did not lie. Orcs were told to be more slow witted than other malevolent creatures and tended not to look up. Moving swiftly down from her perch, with the arms of the tree moving quietly to allow her space, she placed her feet on her original path and turned towards her meadow. As she swung around, one eye still on the direction the orcs had gone, she heard a snarl that froze the blood in her veins.

Six then, her brain snarked as the orc directly in front of her raised its wickedly twisted blade above its head, intent on striking her down. They truly are hideous creatures, Leowyn remarked as time seemed to slow.

With a choked gasp, Leòwyn's body moved before her brain could comprehend her fate. Her arm slammed forward, the impact sending waves of pain through her wrist. Before her, the orc stilled, and its arm halted its downward path.

Moments passed.

A painful gurgle broke through its already blood smeared, chapped lips before a dark, tainted liquid began to ooze over its large yellow teeth. It continued to slide down its chin and drip on the black, rusted breastplate it wore. As the creature in front of her struggled to breathe, it expelled a large breath. The putrid smell hit her nose and snapped her from her frozen state.

Leòwyn was finally able to unglue her eyes from its disfigured face to look down to where her arm was quickly becoming slick with the same inky black substance. Her prized hunting knife, the handle made from the femur of her first buck, was embedded in its abdomen. She had managed to find the gap between armored plates and slip her only weapon in between them to strike the beast who meant to kill her instead.

Panic bloomed in her mind. The dark liquid, hot as it slipped down her forearm, burned her skin though if she were to look there would be no mark. She jerked her arm back towards her body and with a sickening squelch her knife slid out of the creature's body. Her wrist jarred once more as the blade gratted on an upper rib.

Leòwyn had to prevent herself from becoming sick when the smell of the creatures blood hit her nose. The smell was not something Leòwyn could compare to anything else. It was a rotten, sickly sweet smell, as if the creature was decaying from the inside out. After pushing away her nausea at the smell Leòwyn realized, with a pang, that she had never killed another being, other than for survival. But this could be seen as a matter of life and death.

The orc, in its death throes, crashed to the ground as if it were an ancient oak tree returning to its place of birth. Its armor giving off a huge bang as the large body slumped boneless at her feet. The woman stood stunned for a moment before the sounds of the returning orcs behind her sent her running faster than she had ever run before.

Does this make me a murderer? she asked herself and was even more unsettled when she could not determine the answer.

Somewhere in her mind, Leòwyn knew she was running the wrong way. She had wished to return to her meadow and the protections her mother had put in place over it. But her panicked feet and jumbled thoughts had stolen her in the wrong direction. She could not very well stop her flight now.

The hair on the back of her neck raised as a roar from behing her scattered the remaining hiding birds in the tree tops. She could hear the screams of rage as the orcs found their felled member and gave chase. They would catch her trail swiftly and she was not certain she was fast enough to outrun five enraged orcs who had the scent of woman-flesh in their nostrils.

So Leòwyn put her head down and ran. She lost track of the leagues her feet carried her. The trees continued to thin out on both sides of the small deer path and she instinctually knew the Fords of Isen were close, so she pushed her legs faster. If she could cross the Fords, the orcs would have a hard time catching her. She was a notoriously capable swimmer.

Up ahead Leòwyn could just make out the entrance to the flood basin on the west side of the river. She pressed forward, lungs screaming at her to stop, but her mind unable to do so.

As if someone had stolen the wind from within her lungs, she burst across the edge of the thinned forest and stumbled at the sight before her. Leòwyn almost wished to return the way she had come and face the five orcs still pursuing her. She had pulled so far ahead of their bulky forms and shorter legs that she was sure she could have lost them and circled around home. But something had drawn her forward, the feeling simliar to the weight she had felt in her chest before the appearance of the Orcs. As if she had not choice in the matter, her legs are continued to carry her towards the Fords. Towards this.

The scene before her would have fit perfectly in a tale of the battles of old. Men, horses, and orcs clashed in a cacophony of screams, steel on steel, and the sound of flesh hitting the earth. The battle was thick, and tt almost seemed to be one entity, shrieking and whirling, pushing and pulling, all at the same moment.

If her legs had been able to support her winded body, she might have chosen to take flight again. It was a better option than to kneel and watch the agony of death consume the bodies below, one by one.

Leòwyn stared for a moment longer, allowing her traumatized mind to return to the present. Her eyes had distinguished the lines of battle. There was a line of men, which wavered but seemed too stubborn to fail, and a line of creatures that pushed relentlessly across the Fords. By now, most of the men had been unhorsed, with the remaining, fierce looking chargers still guarding the backs of their masters on the ground.

Reaching up to cover her mouth in horror, she was startled to find wetness dampening her cheeks. She found she could not stop the flow of tears, unbidden as they were so Leòwyn wept as she watched men and horse fall.

The tide of the battle was turning with the monsters, with their massive bodies, and powerful arms, slowly taking ground. They fought uncontrolled, with a rage that gave them strength but took away their skin with knife work. They hacked wildly, many falling under Men's swords, before they could dodge but another was always ready to take the fallens place.

The Horselords of the North were not so easily frightened, however. For each man that fell, he took a baker's dozen of his enemy with him. Still, Leòwyn could see that it would not be enough. Even her untrained eye could see the doom that was to be the outcome of this battle.

Wiping her eyes with her dirty cloak, Leòwyn decided that being out in the open, so close to a battle and so unprepared for one was not her most intelligent moment.

Quickly scanning her surroundings, she decided to take a few steps backwards, once again into the trees, where she found a small but sturdy oak that agreed to bear her weight. She wondered what had happened to the orcs that had been hunting her when suddenly they burst from the tree line much as she had done moments before. Unlike her however, the orcs did not stop. Instead they seemed to forget all about their woman prey and plunged headlong into the battle below. She lost sight of them in the chaos quite quickly and she was thankful. Leòwyn had never sent a prayer to the Valar for the death of any creature but she did now.

The men were faltering, their line buckling in the center. As the Men gave ground, one painful step at a time, the ground beneath them turned black and slick with the blood split. Leòwyn was shaking as her enhanced eyesight left her privy to the fear in the Men's eyes as they were cut down, and their masks of pain at each new wound.

Suddenly a crisp, clear note rang out from the opposite side of the Fords that Leòwyn currently sat.

For a moment, the battle below ceased as each side tried to determine the new threat. A line of horses began to crest the small hill and she was able to clearly see the tall Horsetail helmets and broad shields of a new company of Rohirrim.

With a choked laugh, tears of relief rolled unstopped from her recently dry eyes. There was hope yet. She did not know when she had gotten so invested in this battle but she assured herself it was natural. If orc should win, they would sweep across the land and pillage the people she shared blood and a name with.

With the appearance of these new warriors, she was struck with how useless she was. Leòwyn was as unprepared for battle as a newborn but watching one the dge of one was almost more unbearable. She did not belong there but she could not leave.

That did not mean she did not wish too. Leòwyn knew that she should leave but being able to do anything about it was another matter entirely. The indecision was striking a hard contest in her mind. Something was still holding her here, making it impossible for her to move.

The sensation was like a weight on her chest, the feeling that had not left her since the emergence of orcs into her life. It was freezing her body from movement. But her mind was fighting it, very unwilling to stay in such danger. Leòwyn clenched her teeth as she fought an inner battle.

"Whatever is drawing me here must be important," Leòwyn whispered to herself, "I am as safe as I can be in this tree, I will stay a moment longer."

She frequently talked out loud to herself when making decisions. She figured it was something that happened to those who spent life alone. Nodding her head, Leòwyn settled back against the trunk of her young tree friend and turned her focus again to the Fords.

I ambar na- changed; im tur- feel ha in i nen, im tur- feel ha in i coe, im tur- smell ha in i gwilith. The world is changed; I can feel it in the water, I can feel it in the earth, I can smell it in the air.