What's this? An update? So quick?

Yes, yes it is. Enjoy :)


To his everlasting credit, Daemon made no sound but a choked gasp of pain as he staggered against the trunk, his left leg crumpling beneath him, leaves falling about and showering Ashryn on the branch below.

For a moment, everything was still –

And then, the horn.

This was not the rallying call of the woodland realm, but the one which heralded darkness, fury, death.

Malice.

Ashryn did not know where they came from.

They had heard the scouts coming – but in their arrogance, they had not suspected that they had walked right into a trap. They had stopped in a wider segment of the path, almost a clearing in truth with soaring trees lining the sides, the trees in which they now sought refuge, surrounded by the bushes which had hidden the ambush.

Thirty – forty – forty five orcs crashed through the wood, adding their own shrieks and roars to the haunting hellhorn, all of them shoving at each other to crowd against the trunks which held the elves, waving jagged scythes and swords in the air. She counted perhaps three bows, all of which could have been responsible for the wounded Daemon, grasping at the main trunk with knuckles white as bone with one hand, the other clasped tightly at his thigh, crimson blood trickling through his fingers.

A drop found Ashryn's head, another her shoulder.

Two orcs went down in quick succession, arrows piercing their eyes. A third, one of the archers, dropped even as he drew an arrow of his own.

"Can they climb?" Ashryn shouted to Anduillon, who was positioned steadily on a juncture between two large branches, firing and reloading with deadly speed.

An arrow whipped wide of Anduillon's head as he nocked one of his own, deathly calm. "I do not think so, but we cannot be sure."

Another drop of blood splattered at her feet, and Ashryn's attention narrowed on the wounded – the only one she could help - leaping nimbly for a branch, swinging herself up swiftly to settle beside Daemon, his face tight with pain.

"Clean through," Daemon hissed, his fingers stained red. His brown leather pants were black with blood.

Ashryn twisted to gain a better seat on the trunk, batting aside Daemon's hand to get a better look at the wound. "Don't count yourself lucky just yet," she warned, ducking low to make herself a smaller target even as she leaned forwards for a better look at the wound. "I can't take a proper look at it in this situation," she shook her head, grabbing a fistful of her cloak to cut a strip off the bottom. "I can only bind it for now. We need to get out of here."

"That," Daemon ground out, each syllable well laced with pain, "may be somewhat difficult."

Indeed. Their only stroke of luck was that the orc patrol didn't seem fully proficient with the bow – the three archers appeared to be the only ones capable of using them, and Anduillon had already shot down one – now two. But there remained some thirty to forty bloodthirsty creatures who would likely hound their steps through the forests, and with Daemon incapacitated, it was unlikely they would outrun them in time to receive help.

The horn blew again, mounting the group into a frenzy. They smelt blood.

Ashryn felt the fear, acute in her chest and spreading through her veins, paralysing, consuming, with every beat of a spear on shield. For the first time, she realised that not all four of them may return alive.

"Whatever you are thinking," Daemon snapped at her, "stop it. Time enough for that later."

She stared, blinked, and stared some more.

"Your quiver!" Anduillon's voice cracked across them to Cassian, crouched another tree over. The archer's own was empty, his bow held loosely in his hands.

From her place next to Daemon, Ashryn could only see Cassian's face, his body hidden in foliage, grey eyes darting across the orc pack and his jaw tight with rage. Something flashed in the air: Cassian's own quiver spun across branches to land safely in Anduillon's grasp, and in one fluid motion, he had planted the arrows at his feet, drawn and loosed in an instant.

Ashryn's fingers moved with a speed she hadn't thought them capable of as she looped the shred of fabric just upwards of the wound, tying and knotting it before she had fully comprehended what she was doing. Blood was still seeping from Daemon's pants, now dripping down – down –

Uirdae.

The plant was a low growing one, thick of root and wide of leaf, with large jagged edges stained a ghastly green purple. The elves named it the eternal shadow – uirdae – and aptly so. It was only a small plant, but if she could somehow gather it and crush it and scatter it from the trees –

"Cassian!" Ashryn called out to the ellon, whose head snapped to her instantly as she pointed down at the plant, confusion in his eyes as he looked from her to the shrub and back again, uncomprehending. "Cover me!"

A flash of understanding as Ashryn readied herself to swing over the edge of the branch. "Don't you dare -"

And she was falling. Something hissed over her head, crude steel burying itself hilt deep in the trunk behind her, and Ashryn's heart was pounding as she narrowly avoided a scalping but parted with a thick lock of hair as she hit the ground in a roll, coming up and slashing out neatly with both knives, catching an orc in the throat.

Daemon was laughing out loud above, matched in volume only by Cassian's curses as he, too, plummeted off his own branch, landing neatly beside her and bowling into combat, sword drawn and defending her. Arrows from above pierced those few orcs closest to them as Ashryn wrapped her hand in her cloak, sawed off the whole handful of plant, and clutched it tightly into a ball.

Anduillon's methodical shooting had perhaps taken out fifteen before Ashryn and Cassian had landed, and their combined efforts now left twenty-five or so forming a loose semicircle around the pair, Cassian's sword before him and Ashryn wielding a knife in one hand, uirdae wrapped in her cloak in the other.

"Whatever it is you have in that cloak, use it!" Cassian shouted at her even though they were all of half a meter apart, lunging forwards with a stab that sent the closest orcs backing away. Arrows sprouted from two more necks.

"I can't!" Ashryn snapped back, sheathing her knife for an instant to knot the cloak so she could free both hands, "it has to be crushed and then scattered so we don't inhale it and use it on ourselves -" she was cut off abruptly by the need to twist aside in avoidance of a clumsy blow, lashing forwards and burying her knife deep in the orc's chest as she did so, kicking out to remove the body.

Cassian was moving like a whirlwind, never quite stopping. "Then get the hell up that tree," he commanded, cocking back a small knife in his left hand and flicking it into the forehead of another foe.

"And leave you down here?"

"Both of you, now!" That was Anduillon, and it was clear that he was issuing an order.

Ashryn sheathed her knives, turning and leaping straight up for a branch, feeling rather than seeing Cassian do the same beside her to scramble up even higher. Her hands closed around the lowest branch, and she was swinging a leg up onto the surface in order to place her whole body in safety when something closed around her left ankle. Like a noose, some part of her mind thought inanely as it tightened, a sudden, unexpected weight focused utterly on her leg.

The momentum pulled her straight back over, one leg hooked over the branch and her hands tearing on the rough bark as she lurched, suspended in mid-air. An orc had leapt to grab her foot: unable to jump as high as she, it had, nonetheless, grasped her around the ankle, its entire weight – perhaps double her own – pulling her down to earth.

Her other leg slid over the branch, the weight of the orc falling with her lower body. Something cracked in her ankle as she stopped herself – both of them – from falling, digging her fingers deep into the bark and feeling the splinters deep in her skin, pain shooting up her arms and shoulders, legs twisting and kicking to dislodge her passenger. Her hands were slipping – she was falling –

And then she wasn't.

There was a thud as the orc crashed to the ground with an arrow in its throat, its companions instantly swarming over its body to grab at Ashryn's dangling legs, but by then she was already up the branch and clambering up the trunk for a higher one. Her ankle was broken, every movement causing a flare of agony, but she did not dare stop, not even when she tore off a fingernail on the bark, smears of blood following her as she ascended. I will not fall.

Her hands were scraped and bloody, her shoulders aching, but the pain dulled in comparison to the white-hot poker stabbing her ankle with each second. I will not fall.

But now there were hands on her arms, settling her against the trunk, blurred figures through the tears of pain, and even voices, saying something that sounded like her name, but it was oddly muted, almost like she was underwater.

A second or an eternity later, Ashryn blinked away the tears, Cassian's concerned grey eyes focusing in her vision. Daemon was beside her, on another branch leading off the same great trunk, and there was Anduillon just another tree over, both quivers empty.

"I am not going to yell at you," Cassian promised, "until we get that ankle looked at."

"Good," Ashryn replied, fumbling for her cloak, trying as hard as possible not to jolt her ankle. "Good," she repeated, carefully, spreading it before her on the wide branch, the leaves slightly crushed but still mostly whole. The jeers from below seemed fainter, perhaps sobered by the numerous fallen bodies.

Shifting slightly with a hiss of pain, Ashryn unsheathed one of her knives, holding it hilt down to crush the leaves. Cassian moved forwards hurriedly to take over, grinding them down into a fine paste.

Daemon watched with a keen curiosity; Anduillon warily as he monitored the orcs below.

"They're better dry," Ashryn told no one in particular, "but these will do. Anduillon – I need one of those quivers."

He tossed Cassian the borrowed one, and under Ashryn's direction, the paste was scraped into the quiver. Grimacing, she wrapped a hand in the remains of her cloak, and Cassian trickled a skin of water into the solution as she mixed. It was perhaps the most rudimentary job she had ever done, a far cry from the fine powdered version of uirdae she had corked in a jar in her house, but it would do. The cloak was also somewhat water repellent, guarding her skin from the poison.

It affected dark creatures – orcs, spiders, trolls – more so than it did the elves, but she still did not dare use her bare hand to mix the poison, especially not after it had been fully crushed.

"Fling it," Ashryn advised Cassian. "Before they move further apart." The orcs remained grouped tightly together as they circled the tree which now held all four elves, waving their weapons and chanting with a dark fury, clanging weapons on metal shields, raising an awful clangour.

"Just like that?" Cassian held the quiver uncertainly with both hands, glancing down at their enemy.

Ashryn felt a stab of irritation. "No, I want you to drink it instead. Of course, just like that! If I had a powder, they would inhale it, and it would come into effect much faster, but I don't, so you'll have to make do. The mixture will be corrosive to the skin and absorb that way."

Cassian raised a placating hand. "Just making sure, your highness."

She scowled. The contents of the quiver went flying in a wide arc, scattering into a multitude of purple tinged droplets and falling like a light summer rain onto the orc patrol. As an afterthought, Ashryn shoved off the remains of her cloak as well, stained with poison and ragged at the edges.

A few seconds of silence. "Is that all?" Cassian asked doubtfully, a question which Ashryn chose not to dignify with an answer as she slumped back on the trunk, closing her eyes.

The adrenaline had done little to dull the agony coursing up her ankle. She needed a splint, perhaps, ice for the swelling, and she absolutely needed to take off her boot to check the extent of the damage. The sounds below were dimming, it seemed, the shouts coming less boisterously. Of course, it could be possible that she was losing consciousness, but Ashryn liked to think of herself as being made of tougher stuff.

Cassian's inhale of wonder confirmed her success, and Daemon whistled in appreciation.

"They'll be passed out," Ashryn explained, "for a long time. A day at least, and if we're lucky, up to a week, depending on their diet and age. We have time."

"There's an old outpost not far from here," Anduillon said, "if we can get the two of you there, Cassian or I could call for help."

Cassian grunted. "The horses will be halfway back to the city by now."

"I always assumed you were the type to enjoy a leisurely stroll, Cassian," Daemon taunted, still with an undertone of pain.

"It will take us perhaps twenty minutes at a slow pace," Anduillon ignored both the ellons, "but there will be supplies and safety there. The trickiest part will be getting Ashryn and Daemon off this tree."

Ashryn opened her eyes. "If I got up here, I can get back down."

"I make no such promises," Daemon teased, but he sounded confident enough, almost nonchalant as he adjusted his weapons at his side.

Anduillon descended first: it took him all of five seconds to reach the ground, and another ten to ensure that the patrol of orcs was out of commission. Less exuberantly, Ashryn followed.

And by Eru, it hurt. That was all she had to say.

The getting-out-of-the-tree hurt, the waiting-for-the-others-to-get-out-of-the-tree hurt, the wading-through-the-unconscious-corpses hurt, and above all, the walking (read: hopping) hurt.

In the end, it took forty minutes, not the twenty that Anduillon had predicted, what with the many breaks that Cassian insisted they take whenever he happened to glance over at Ashryn (white as a sheet) and Daemon (jaw clenched so tight he was likely to spit out a tooth). Once they arrived, they had to climb up another tree, which sent a fresh bout of blood seeping out of Daemon's thigh, just to reach the talan up on the boughs.

There was shelter, dried food, skins of water, and medicine, but Ashryn didn't quite see any of that. She simply collapsed on the surface, stuffed a fist into her mouth, and screamed.

"Do I get to do that?" Daemon asked insolently. She would have kicked him if it didn't hurt so bad.

"You stay," Anduillon told Cassian shortly, sparing him the need to tell the archer that he would not leave the wounded. "It should not be long."

Cassian gave a brusque nod in reply, and Anduillon was gone in an instant.

"The foot needs to be elevated," Ashryn said dazedly, but it was much easier said than done. Even the slightest movement incited a barely controllable urge to scream again, and when Cassian accidentally nudged her leg in order to grab a small pack to rest her foot on, Ashryn quite promptly passed out cold.


She woke to darkness, punctuated by a million dazzling stars and a full moon.

Her throbbing ankle was propped up, her back aching from the hard surface. Across from her, Daemon looked rather hale and hearty despite the fact that his skin was blanched white, pristine bandages around his leg, Anduillon fletching arrows at his side in the starlight.

"Ah, she wakes," Daemon remarked, and the figure crouched over a large pack rose, blue eyes glinting in the night.

Ashryn managed a tight smile. "Your highness."

"You should have stayed unconscious," Legolas told her, "that boot needs to come off." He cast a dark look at Cassian, who raised both hands in defence. "I am not the healer here."

"The healer," The prince continued, unlacing her boots with fingers light as the wind, "still might lose a leg."

Cassian paled, but Ashryn rolled her eyes. "I can take off my own boot."

"Why?" There was a dangerous glint in the prince's eyes. "I'm doing a much better job."

"By Eru," Ashryn swore at both of them angrily. "If it were not for me, all four of us may very well be dead, so stop with your – argh!" She slammed a palm into the wood, even the slightest movement of the boot sending her vision swimming with tears of pain. Her hands, however, were already bound with bandages, now dotted with fresh blood.

Legolas ignored her, bracing one hand gently on her calf and sliding the boot off slowly as Ashryn choked back another cry of torment. "You should not have been out here at all," he set the boot aside, now slipping deft fingers over her sock to slip that off as well, "and someone was well aware of that."

Cassian's jaw was set. "I did not make the decision."

"Irresponsibility costs lives." The anger in Legolas's eyes bled into his voice but not his hands, which remained gentle as he probed around her ankle, the joint swollen and bruised.

"Not today," Ashryn placated, shifting to get a better look at her own injury. "A few more hours rest and I shall be fine."

Legolas unscrewed a tin of salve, dark green and pungent with the smell of pine needles, humming in assent as he spread the paste over her ankle. "Aye. But instead of lying here with another scar, Daemon may have died today with an arrow in the heart. Cassian, I hear, may have been utterly besieged by foes and cut down. Anduillon is out of arrows, I see, and in hand to hand combat, he, too, may have fallen. And while this -" he cut off the end of a cotton bandage to bind her foot, "may have simply ended with an amputation, "that -" a hand brushed past her cheek to raise a lock of chocolate brown hair, sheared three inches from her scalp, "could have concluded with a knife buried in your skull." Something dark lingered in the prince's eyes. "None of you understand death." His hand withdrew, working to bind her ankle.

"I do not understand death?" Ashryn recoiled, deathly quiet.

Legolas raised his head, gaze meeting her own. Motherless, too, the veteran of a thousand battles. "No, you do not."

Something blurred in her vision, fury meeting despair, and Ashryn didn't know whether to hit or to cry. "I don't want to speak to you," she whispered to this prince of icy steel.

It had gone very quiet. Neither of them seemed to be breathing, and Ashryn was suddenly terrified.

"Then sleep," Legolas ordered, rising. "All of you. I shall wake you at dawn."

Cassian was coiled like a viper, shoulders squared, but he said nothing as the prince settled at the edge of the talan, bow unstrung in his hands, staring out into the dark.

Ashryn curled on to her side, leg still extended and elevated, closing her eyes over the unshed tears.


Remember, reviews are love!

Best wishes (and Merry Christmas),

Silver