Title: the Wraiths of Rohan

Author: Shadowstriker

Disclaimer: I own nothing, curls up crying.

Rating: teen

They could hear the sounds of the battle even through the thick stone walls of the cavern they were hiding in as the men of Rohan and their elven allies battled for their lives on the walls of helms deep. Their fathers, brothers, uncles and sons where out there and they worried as they listened with mounting dread as the metallic crash of sword against shield and the death screams of men, elves and orcs were heard in ever increasing fury as the fighting drew nearer.

All the women of Rohan were taught how to to fight from the time the could lift a sword and axe so they could defend their homes and children when the men of their villages were away at war or off hunting for food, over the years many an orc and goblin had met its end on the blade of a mothers sword, but they were not permitted to fight in war, their king would not allow it.

So while they huddled in the caverns beneath the fortress of helms deep the men of rohan fought and died above them to protect their families and the women of Rohan grieved for those they would never see in that life again.

Many of the older teenagers resented this but knew that they wouldn't stand a chance against orcs as they were twice as strong as a man, even when defending their homes it would take two or more women and girls working together to bring down an orc and the reports of the urukhai said they were even stronger and that there were thousands of them in the armies that had marched on helms deep. Yet as each scream was heard as human and elf was wounded or killed filled them with a deep seething rage that was growing stronger by the minute as if something terrible within them was fighting to be freed.

All of these girls were holding weapons in their hands and the older women looked on them with pride as they guarded the sealed entrance to the cavern knowing that if the men failed to stop the enemies from reaching them, that though they would all die, they would die fighting and not cowering before their foes.

Suddenly there was a thundering blast that knocked everyone in the cavern who had been standing from their feet as the ground seem two roll under them, as they climbed back to their feet a thick layer of white chalky dust stirred up by the blast began to settle on all of the people in the cave with them, coating them in a fine covering of powder from head to toe.

When they had regained their feet, the people in the cavern could see that the great doors that had guarded the entrance to their sanctuary had broken from their hinges during the blast that had shook the cave and as the older women looked on in shock the first of the girls walked through the broken doors and out of the cavern, each seemed to have dark glow in their eyes that many would speak of in whispers about for generations to come, but only in the light of day.

Soon more followed until every teenage girl in the cavern had passed through the entrance, their weapons held firmly in their hands and a look in their eyes that only promised death.

Not long after new screams could be heard through the walls, but not the screams of young girls, but of orcs as they cried out in fear as they died, for as the deeping wall was breached two hundred bone white wraith like girls charged from the inner keep with a high pitched wailing war cry on their lips and when they met the orcish tide that was washing over the ruins of the wall, they cut through the first ranks of orcs as if a great scythe through grain and never stopped. Every time an orc would swing at a girl another would seem to be there to kill it as if the battle were a dance that only these young women hear the beat of and if one fell it was only after killing all the enemies around her that she would allow herself to succumb to her wounds.

In the years to come men of rohan and the elves would speak of the battle of helms deep with a quite awe and wonder.

And the sight of a rohan woman was enough to send an orc running and screaming in terror, for in the following ages the wraiths of Rohan would become known a slayers.