Anna restocked on her supply of daggers, leaving her anklets behind in their stead. When she went back for her horse, she noticed a dimple of amusement in the old man's cheek. Between the new dress and the company she took, the strangers held in high regard by the king, he was glad his judgment was still on the mark.
Anna marched with the same company as they left the city. During most of the walk, Legolas rode beside her but something caused him to dismount and leave Eowyn to lead the horse which Gimli was still on. As Legolas made his way ahead of the bad to scout the area, Anna slowed her horse so that she traveled slightly behind the rest of the Riders. She heard Gimli rambling on about Dwarvish traits, she caught Aragorn's gesture to his chin, she felt the weight of a mother's belongings for her entire family, she smelled the earthy scent of her horse, and tasted the dry sour taste of uncertainty in her mouth as her horse reacted to what happened in front. She gripped the horse but her unknowing calm filtered itself to the horse.
'Scouts!' Legolas called out. As Theoden ordered the plans for battle, Anna was caught in the center of the division. The riders would go into battle and the rest to Helm's Deep. As Eowyn was forced to go to Helm's Deep, Anna was about to go with her but Aragorn gripped her horse's bridle and led it in the direction of the Riders. One look at him reminded her of her promise and she went on, looking back only to see Aragorn and Eowyn's last glance.
Dagnir was swept into the current of Riders, hurriedly catching their pace and topping the hill just as the Wargs and Orcs did the same.
At the first Warg, Anna swerved her horse away, throwing daggers at orcs and as each new obstacle came in her way she realized this method was not working. She jumped off the horse, a dagger in hand, and whispered to the horse, 'Run!' in its own language.
The moment he did so, a Warg came from behind him and Anna swatted at it, leaving a slash mark on its face by the knife. The Warg lunged at Anna and she pierced its open mouth, up into its brain. She had fallen with the attack but slipped out from underneath the Warg now, taking in her hand another knife. An orc was dismounted and rampaging toward her. For the split second that was allowed, the she-elf could see that this Uruk-hai did not care who it killed, only that it killed.
In a reflex movement, she had a dagger in each hand and clashed the orc's knife with one and pierced the other into it stomach. She looked down at the corpse, her first killing hand to hand. Only one who has experienced that can describe the true terror and adrenaline rush fro survival. As the other dies, a natural tinge gives a heavy heart but is quickly overridden by the arrogant moment of victory.
Clinking armor behind her sounded. She twisted around and slashed across the orc's body. Legolas rode up beside her, offering a hand up.
'No!' she screamed above the clamor of battle; her battle was with the Wargs on the ground. An orc arrow zipped past them and Legolas set one back at them. Without his notice, Anna took a knife form his belt since she was running out of sharp things to throw at the Uruk-hai. It was the orc knife they had found just before Fangorn forest with the rope bands.
Anna did not notice its origin or culture, only its uses. One of the last orcs left died on the knife; Anna learned where the armor stopped. She held the bloody knife, now standing above her kill. She looked now at the knife, the handle carved in a disgusting orc face and the sharp edges jagged. Where had Legolas taken this? She was not with him to see what he had collected of the hobbits. She had heard no news of them. An ugly assumption made itself the truth in her head as she looked at the knife: the hobbits were gone.
In a moment, the adrenaline in her body reached her mind and showed strange things; the black orc blood on the knife turned into the fresh red blood of hobbits. She dropped the knife on the ground, the handle following the tip. The blood returned black. Anna looked up, the effects of the battle lying on the floor in tangled heaps. She heard from Legolas and Gimli a calling. 'Aragorn! Aragorn!'