[Kryssal]

Ok, I've added in all of Leena's posts throughout my old ones, in time with the game as much as I could. For your convenience, I'm going to put them all right here so that no one has to go back to try and find them.

Oh, and I finished off with her latest post. [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]

~*~

Idly wondering if she should have tried harder to go to the Swan House, Leena wandered the streets of the village. She was bored, to say the least, and it would have been nice to have Thagon there to tease; it would have made the time pass faster at least.

Sighing, the priestess sat down against a small tree off the side of a road leading out of town. She swiped the back of her neck and grimaced. The gritty sweat that rubbed off on her hand made her want to run and take a bath, but she knew she’d get to that soon. Right now she was trying to rest up a bit.

A small cat came up to her and got a nice head rub for its efforts. Laughing at the incessant purring Leena continued to pet and play with the spotted feline. It was almost napping in the gray fold of her dress when it suddenly flipped over, hissed at something behind the warrior and ran off to the nearest house with its hair completely on end.

“What was-” Leena stood up as fast as her catching dress would let her. When the cat had screeched off the maiden turned to see what the matter was, expecting to see another animal. Instead she saw wild men; they had seen her too. Cursing she ran crookedly until safely behind a building, barely escaping several darts. One particular dart had hit and stuck in the edges of her skirt. She quickly yanked the offending object out, careful not to touch the poisoned tip.

Gently sliding out her slender sword from its worn scabbard, Leena tried to double back around the house to get behind the men that she had seen. Two of the invaders were going around just that way to catch her and they faced at the corner. Lunging forward before the leading man was able to clear the corner and bring his sword to use, she stabbed him with the dart and completed the lunge by jumping over the poisoned man and bringing her sword into the second mans gut. The impaled man sputtered and fell backwards, allowing Leena to yank out her sword with little difficulty. In the same movement it took to take the sword out of the now dead man she brought the hilt into the back of the head of the dart victim. Just because he was poisoned didn’t mean that he couldn’t kill her before he went out for good.

The fight was over in mere moments and Leena wanted to get at the other brigands before they noticed that their comrades weren’t returning right away. Gathering up a dagger and all the darts that she could find on the corpses, she turned to find her next opponent.

~*~

There were so many dead! Leena had killed three more wild men so far, but had seen at least twenty fallen villagers and five dead Rohirrim fighters.

Currently she was chasing down a fleeing invader who she had seen kill a child. The memory flashed behind her eyes, stealing from her concentration as it played out once again in her mind.

- A young child, no more than six summers old, running out from his hiding place to hold his just killed father. The wild man laughing as the boy cried and tripped when he finally reached the dead villager. The small boy hugging his fathers middle, tears still flowing unendingly. The brigand picking the tiny form up sneering, “Want to see him again?”

Not waiting for the child to answer he snapps the young ones neck and drops him like a maiden would a soiled cloth. -

Leena had been dispatching another killer when she saw the bits and pieces unfold from across the road. Giving a terrifying yell she ran to the boy. The wild man had heard her cry, saw her eyes, saw her coming towards him and he ran, dropping his sword as he turned to flee. Pausing to touch the boy’s still warm cheek and to mutter a quick word of prayer, Leena had gathered her fading strength and started in on the chase that led out of the town and through the forest. She wasn’t paying attention to the land as it passed by her in blurs, her only focus was on the weaving figure before her.

This one will die of his own poison, but not before I gut him.

Seeing her prey falter slightly up ahead she put on a burst of speed and stumbled on a bit of her dress as it caught beneath her again. Cursing yet again she kept up the pace and was soon on the man, tackling him from behind with a dagger leading the attack.

Crying out as he fell, the man started to beg for his life. “Ple..please. I didn’t..I’m….I don’t even have a weapon!” The figure was pitiful, writhing on the forest floor trying to back away from the advancing priestess.

Leena’s face screwed up in revulsion. She took her sword and thrust it into his belly, then took out one of the stolen darts as he screamed and spit up blood. Kneeling down she embedded it into his chest, right above the heart, much like when someone hits a table with their fist.

“Now you have two.”

~*~

Hmm…Leena looked to her left, right, and even swiveled her upper body to check behind her. I’m lost. Perfect.

After her last fight, the priestess had tried to follow the chase trail back to the village. The problem was the many other trails overlapping the one she had helped make coupled with the fact that Leena suspected that in the run they had gone in more than one circle.

Sighing, Leena set out on a large trail and hoped it would lead her right. Eventually it would lead her somewhere: to the Swan House, out of the forest randomly, or to the invaders camp. Frowning at the prospect of ending up in the enemies lair, she trudged along, not really looking for danger, but at least listening for the tall tale signs and keeping her sword ready.

She scrunched up her nose as she walked, smelling her body odor and feeling very sticky from sweat. A good bath was definitely needed, but she had no idea of when she’d be able to get one.

After almost an hour of walking she saw someone crouching in the bushes ahead of her. She had barely seen him in the first place, just a glint of sunlight at the right spot revealed his hidden presence. Moving into a hunting stance and taking out one of the darts from the pouch she kept them all in at her waist, she tried to make her way around to his back as silently as possible. She was almost able to see his backside when two bow wielding men with arrows trained on her stepped into view on either side of her.

She looked between the two, not giving in an inch. They were too far off and covered with too much foliage for Leena to be able to discern exactly where their loyalties lie.

It didn’t take long for one of the archers to recognize her. In fact, Leena had still been trying figure out how she was going to handle the new situation when he called to his companions and offered his hand to her as he approached. As he came closer the priestess could see the garb of a Rohirrim officer.

A smile broke on his face. “I am Beden and we could use your help.”

She took his hand after putting her weapons away and smiled in return, “I’ll do what I can.”

~*~

It had been at least five hours since Leena had arrived at the army’s temporary camp and they still hadn’t decided on a course of action.

The priestess sat in council with four high rank leaders and the discussion that had been going on for over an hour was about what they should do with the camped army. The messenger that they sent out three hours ago never returned and Leena thought it unlikely he had made it to the village since no one sent word. The army had too many wounded men to march off to the village and Settac, the main leader who had immediately taken over as acting Captain, was being very bull headed.

“We are in an unknown position to the enemy,” he repeated for the sixth time. “And to our allies,” Leena muttered as he continued, “And we have too many wounded to safely take back to the village. That’s all there is to this!”

Leena fumed at the balding would-be commander. “Fine,” she said in forced calm. “We’ll stay here till tomorrow midday at the least. We must move before the morn after though, agreed?”

He raised his head, looking slightly superior. “We’ll talk about it then.”

The priestess’ eyes flashed and had to forcibly restrain herself from attacking that arrogant prick. All he wanted was his new found power. He wasn’t even thinking about what his men needed nor about his duty to the village. She wished that Herebrand were here to quash his power trip.

The three, thus far silent, other leaders looked at each other and departed together. Leena stayed behind at the cold fire, trying to clear her mind, but it was resisting. Taking deep breaths and reaching inside for her training, a calm finally over took her and left her rational, even if she was still tinged with anger at Settac.

Looking around at the camp, Leena could understand why the pompous ‘Leader’ didn’t want to move. Many of them were close to dying and there was high risk in moving them. Personally, Leena thought that most of them could die regardless and the army had to get back to the village, it needed the good men’s protection. Leena had another surge of anger toward Settac at him going after a large band of wild men and leaving the village behind with most of the army following him. Now, because the battle had been more fierce than calculated they were stuck with too many wounded.

Going to her bedroll for the night, Leena swore that she would get the army out by tomorrow night, even if she had to gag and tie Settac.