[Airerûthiel]

A strange fire seemed to have been lit in Torfithien's heart; she knew this area fairly well, but the appearance of wargs was something she had not experienced in the region before now. The attack upon her companions had fuelled something dangerous deep within her. Her eyes blazed with a fierce red flame of anger and rage as she pulled an arrow from her back quiver and fitted it to her bow in a single fluid movement. The weapon sang as the shaft flew to its target, embedding itself in a warg's skin just below the shoulder.

The creature let out a howl of pain, but this only seemed to spur it on. Its already quick pace increased tenfold as it came for her. Her hand was on the hilt of her long knife. She glanced sideways, trying to find some help, but the others were already occupied trying to fend off the other two. Swiftly she drew the knife. Its blade flashed like a streak of brightest sunlight as it caught the stars' glow. With a roar that sounded like the battle cry of a true warrior and seemed to echo on into eternity, making the very landscape ring, she plunged the knife into the warg's heart.

It snapped at her neck, trying desperately to take a life before its own ebbed away. She ducked and dodged, trying to pull the blade from the wound. It was stuck fast, and the harder she hauled on it the less it seemed to move. Suddenly she slipped on the blood-stained ground and fell onto her back, taking the wolf with her. She found herself staring up into the warg's face, her blood freezing to carmine ice in her veins.

At the same time the creature's teeth grazed her shoulder, tearing her tunic and leaving a small yet noticeable wound, she managed to free her knife. Blood from the warg's chest poured over her like a red waterfall, covering her in the dripping liquid. She could hear arrows whistling in the distance, striking the wolf's thick hide. Her head was spinning, but she knew she had to fight on.

Using the sleeve of her good arm to staunch the bleeding of her injury, she somehow managed to reach around the warg's side and pull the arrow from its shoulder. The weapon snapped in half as she yanked it loose, but she had all she needed. Stabbing wildly on the warg's body wherever she could, trying to break the skin and get the creature to lose even more blood, eventually her arrow found its eye. The howl of pain that the wolf let out rent the air apart.

"Torfithien!" She did not recognise the voice, nor could she tell where it was coming from, but suddenly it became clear that unless she got out of the way the warg was going to fall on top of her, crushing her to death. In that moment the silence struck her. She rolled sideways, praying she would escape. The warg's heavy lifeless body fell barely inches from her own as she passed out.

[ April 12, 2003: Message edited by: Airerûthiel ]