I do not own Lord of the Rings or any of the characters.

Working

Rhanir looked around silently, watching the bar's patrons drink and laugh, gossiping and spreading rumors of everything from rumors of the butcher's wife having an affair with the blacksmith's wife to rumors of bandits trying to fence supposedly ancient elven weapons. Rhanir listened carefully to that rumor, memorizing it and where the man spreading it claimed to have met the bandits. As he returned his attention to the rest of the bar, the barmaid walked over, setting a pint of ale on the table for him.

"There was a messenger here who asked for you by name," the barmaid said. "He left you this."

She held out a small piece of parchment and he accepted it, sighing heavily as soon as he saw the flowing script it was written in. It was a summons to a meeting in Rivendell, and the summons was by Elrond himself. Rhanir ripped up the paper and held the pieces out to the barmaid.

"Burn this for me, would you?" he asked.

She nodded and gave a small bow, like half a curtsy, then walked away, leaving him to drink in peace. He leaned back further into the shadows before pulling the black cloth over the lower half of his face down to take a drink, pulling it back up afterward. After a few more hours, he left the bar, making his way north. After a couple of days of walking, he reached a small town consisting of a tavern with an inn above it, a pair of houses, and an abandoned fort for one human army or another, though Rhanir didn't care who had once used it, and currently it was being used as a sort of communal house for the other fifty or so people who lived in the town.

Rhanir headed to the tavern and sat down at the bar. "Pint."

The bartender nodded and set one in front of him and Rhanir handed him some money. He pulled his mask down to take a drink as he glanced around the tavern. Apart from him, there were only a handful of other people, two of which were talking to a third in a hushed voice, a long, thin object wrapped in a grey cloth sitting on the table between them. Rhanir waited for the person they were trying to sell to to leave before walking over and sitting across from them, lifting the edge of the cloth and raising an eyebrow at the curved dagger under it before setting the cloth back down.

"How much?" Rhanir asked.

"Really?" the bandit asked. "You just walk over and think we're going to sell our dagger to you?"

"Oh, you misunderstand," Rhanir said. "I didn't mean the dagger. I meant the rest of it. I've been looking for a group of...valuable relocators who claim to have found ancient Elven weapons. I'm prepared to pay a small fortune to get my hands on all of them. So, how much?"

The two looked at one another before one of them picked up the dagger and slipped it into his sack.

"Follow us," he said.

The two of them left the bar and Rhandir finished his drink before following, tugging his mask up. He walked through the town with them before leaving it, heading a mile west. Finally, they reached a small cave, and Rhanir followed them into it, one hand reaching back to the dagger on the back of his belt, concealed by his cloak. After a few more minutes, he stopped as they stepped out of the cave into a small wooded area surrounded by stone rises. One of the two, the one not carrying the dagger, glanced back at him, tilting his head after the other bandit.

"You want the weapons, they're this way."

Rhanir nodded, continuing to walk after him. However, after a few more seconds, he dropped into a low squat, four arrows streaking over his head. He yanked the dagger out of its sheath, a short, curved blade a little shorter than his forearm, then lunged forward as the two bandits drew their swords. The first slashed at him and he stepped out of the way, slashing his throat and taking his sword using his left hand. He used the sword to deflect an arrow aimed for his head, then swung it around to knock the other nearby bandit's sword aside before spinning and driving his dagger into the back of his neck before turning and using his body to block two arrows. He shoved the bandit's body aside, pulling his dagger out of his neck as he did before sheathing it and pulling his own bow off of his back. He threw his hood back so he could grab his arrows and drew one back as he leaned out of the way of an arrow, loosing his own. It stabbed into the bandit's chest, and Rhanir spun, an arrow grazing his shoulder as he drew another back, firing, only for the bandit to escape. Rhanir began to sprint toward him as he pulled another, ducking under one arrow and leaping over another. Then, as he landed, he fired again, now much closer to the bandit and hitting him in the face just as he stepped out to fire. He ducked behind a tree as two arrows flew past, one bouncing off the tree and snapping, and the other stabbing into one past him. He stepped out as he drew the next back and waited. After a moment, the bandit stepped out and he loosed his arrow as he stepped aside from the bandit's, allowing it to streak past him as his own hit the bandit squarely in the heart. Then, he turned, dropping into a crouch as he drew his next arrow back, loosing it as the last bandit moved back into cover, only for the arrow to stab through his lower leg. He shouted in pain, falling to the ground as Rhanir sprinted through the trees, circling around behind the bandit, who had an arrow nocked and ready.

As Rhanir reached him, he slashed his bowstring with his dagger, then held it to his throat. "Where are the weapons?"

"There's a cave over there!" the bandit said, pointing. "They're in there! Behind the big rock!"

"Good," Rhanir said, stabbing the bandit in the gut. "If they're not there, I'll be back to torture it out of you. If they are, I'll be back to treat your wound."

He stood, taking his dagger with him and walked down to the cave the bandit had directed him to. It was less a cave than it was a depression in the cliff face, a huge boulder sitting in the middle of it. He walked around it, finding a roll of cloth and knelt, unrolling it smiling instantly. There were four weapons. Two were a pair of short, curved blades, both black and with blades about two and a half feet long. One was a recurve bow made from a rough, white wood with lines of gold running around it in a sweeping latticework and with a thin string so white it seemed to glow. The last was a bastard sword with a bright blade, nearly white, a black grip with rings of silver around it, a rounded, rounded pommel, the silver guards curving toward the blade slightly before widening at the ends, and a pair of thin, curved silver wires wrapping around the blade across the first six inches of the blade, forming an "X" about halfway along the lattice. All three swords had their sheaths under them, so he sheathed all three, pulling them onto his back. The two curved blades together and extending up behind his left shoulder and the bastard sword behind his right. He slung the bow across his back and tossed his old bow aside. Then, he walked back over to the bandit he'd wounded and knelt, lifting his head by the hair.

"I'm surprised you told the truth," Rhanir said.

"Help me," the bandit pleaded. "You promised!"

"Actually, I never promised anything," Rhanir said. "And either way, I lied. You see, I'm a mercenary, and I was hired to find all of you. It wasn't easy to track you down. All I had to go on was that there were bandits with elven weapons. It took me damn near a month to find you. And now, it's over."

He drove his dagger into the bandit's head, then ripped it back out and sheathed it, walking back to the tunnel, then passing through. As he stepped out on the other side, however, he stopped. There were a dozen elves sitting before him on their horses, all wearing the armor of Rivendell. Rhanir sighed.

"He sent an escort?" Rhanir asked.

"He figured you'd ignore his summons," one of them said.

"Well, I was banished from my home, and most times when one of us is banished from one realm, the others tend to not accept them either," Rhanir said.

"Shall we go?" the elf asked, holding an arm out toward Rivendell.

Rhanir sighed, nodding. "Fine. Let's go."

He walked over to the spare horse they had and began to follow them as they began to head to Rivendell, riding their horses hard.

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