[Amanaduial the archer]

Dragged upright by an orc, Coromswyth felt her arms wrenched painfully back behind her, but barely responded, remaining stiff and difficult to move. The orc behind her cursed and shook her like a rag doll, but Coromswyth refused to make it any easier. The creature cursed again then pressed his mouth close to her ear, his filthy, leathery skin rubbing against her smooth cheek, but her eyes remained facing forwards, impassive and unresponsive.

"I heard once that orcs and elves were similar in some ways, elf," the orc's voice was a harsh, salacious whisper. "Maybe...whatsay we try some out, hmm?"

Coromswyth closed her eyes and swallowed down the sickness that was welling inside her stomach, quelling the fear inside her though she refused to reply or respond in any way. As she had been taught, she would say nothing. Nothing.

Behind her, she felt the orc move, holding both her hands in one huge paw now, but effortlessly, his one hand completely engulfing her wrists, as he shifted enigmatically behind her. Her eyes flicked up and around the tent, searching for some way out - but Ambarturion and Megilaes had already been taken away, and the tent flap was closed, crates lying in front of it. She would never make it in time. Maybe if she managed to get to the crates, she would be able to take cover behind one...still the daggers felt cool against her wrists. The young Southron had not found them - or at least, he had not removed them. Maybe if...

Spangling shivers shot suddenly through her nerves as she felt her stomach pull slightly tighter from behind, and realised with a sickened jerk that the orc had begun to pull her dress free, unlacing the ties up the back with great, rough drags as he began to laugh, a harsh, grunting, animal sound, still holding her effortlessly. Suddenly, more than any time before, Coromswyth felt afraid.

She began to struggle now, attempting to jerk away from the orc, to throw her whole self away from his grasp, to...she barely knew what she was trying to do, simply that she had to get away, had to get out of his grasp, away from those pawing, leathery hands. The orc laughed more loudly this time, and Coromswyth cried out aloud, in some desperate attempt to alert someone. But no one would come. Not now.

The orc pulled off her cloak and began, with a sort of relishing ritardando, to fiddle with the complex clasps on the back of her underdress. Coromswyth cried out again, loudly, trying now concentratedly to move one of her dagger pommels into her hand. If only she had put them in with the blades pointing towards her palms...in her desperation, she felt the blade snick her arm, the blood slickening her forearm and dress, but she didn't pay it any heed - behind her, the orc had given up with the delicate, minute clasps and had produced a knife. Coromswyth yelled more loudly this time, screaming wordlessly for some help before it was too late, eyes closed tightly as she struggled viciously, opening her eyes briefly...

...and behind her flashed another blade, different from the orc's, a swift, darting movement that soared so close beside her face that she felt it cut a long, deep gash along her cheekbone. She gasped and fell to the floor as she felt the orc behind her slump with a strange, indescribable, gurgling sound. Writhing away on the floor, Coromswyth pulled out one of her daggers with her newly freed hands and launched herself towards the prone orc, who now sported a dagger in his arm. With a fierce cry, she stabbed downwards at the creature's throat, once, twice, three times, until he lay still, and other hands caught her.

For a moment, Coromswyth thought she was in the hands of another elf, so gently firm was the grasp, but it was not for that reason that she stopped struggling - a sense of sort of hopelessness settled over her, an exhausted relief but knowledge that it couldn't get better. Behind her, fingers deftly and quickly tied her hands again and this time she was as unresisting as a rag doll, tears in her eyes which she barely fought to stop. There was a pause, then she felt something take hold of her dress once more, and she stiffened - but only for a second, freezing up with her eyes closed. A moment later, the being wordlessly stepped away, and she realised he had simply retied her dress.

"Come, Ehan - we need to get back to Herding, I said I would report to him before they were taken away."

Coromswyth felt a shock of recognition at the young, quietly confident voice, a voice wise beyond it's years. Looking up and around, she saw that it was indeed a man - and not just any man, but the young Southron who had captured her. She met his eyes and they stayed locked for a moment or two, and fleetingly Coromswyth felt herself wish that the mind of a man and an elf could merge as the minds of two elves could - for what would she find in this man's mind, what could he find in hers? His wisdom was that of the ageless elves, young of face but behind the veil of skin he could be an ancient, with as much knowledge of the world as any one of the Silvan...

"What about he- I mean, what about it?" It was the young man who spoke now. Coromswyth heard the hesitation and the shade of awe in his voice, and the macho veil he threw over it, and turned her grey gaze to him. Unlike his captain, the younger man, Ehan, avoided her gaze, looking away fixedly at his captain. The older man glanced back at the elf and sighed, looking away out of the tent, presumably across the camp. "You're right, we..." he paused and sighed, then turned back to Ehan again. "You're right. Look...go to Herding. I shall take the elf - seems the rest cannot be trusted simply to follow orders." He cast a cursory look at the dead orc on the floor here.

Ehan paused, evidently wishing to speak, then nodded. "Right. I...right. Of course, Captain Koran."

Koran? A first or second name? Coromswyth's mind seemed detached now, and found a resting place in her omnipresent curiosity. She had started out with an interest in the easterlings and southrons, the Haradrim - after all, it was they who had been the very cause of the grief that had started her studies...

As the younger man - a fellow soldier? Undersoldier? Servant? Squire? - left the tent, Koran strode over to Coromswyth and lifted her, once more with that almost effortless movement by her elbows. He tightened the rope around her hands and as he did so, Coromswyth felt compelled to speak, despite all that she had been taught.

"Why did you not stop me, Southron?" she murmured softly, so that none would hear beyond the tent, her words enclosed to a few feet of air around her and Koran. "Why, Koran, did you let me kill the orc?"

He paused, and she could see the edge of his face behind her, infuriatingly just beyond her sightline. He didn't answer for a long moment, then reached forward slowly and drew back the hair from out of her eyes where it stuck to the tear stains that ran down her cheeks, his skin dark, a dusky, tanned caramel against hers, a fine shade of alabastor. It was an action that reminded her - maybe reminded them both - that he was a Man - not as fair as the elves, but not an orc.

He leaned forward and she felt his hair brush her cheek as he whispered in reply, "Because it is possible that I hate the orcs quite as much as you do, elf."

"That is not my name."

"I know not your name, elf, and know you will not tell it to me." Koran pushed her slightly from behind and Coromswyth began to move. "I cannot expect you to - after all, what do the mighty elves, fairest of all, owe to a mere Man?"

The bitterness in his voice stung and Coromswyth's mouth twisted into a wry smile. "What? You have stolen my life, man."

"You steal ours to keep yourselves alive for eternity," he countered sharply.

"Then neither is in eithers debt." She hesitated, then said the single word that went against everything she had ever been taught. "Coromswyth."

A yelled outburst of the black speech stopped Koran from replying - if he had been meaning to. Orc hands grabbed the elf and she was handed through what seemed like a chain of grasps until she was finally thrown onto a hard wagon floor. Twisting as far as she could to look around as the wagon began to move, she looked around for the Southron captain's for no real reason - but instead met a different pair.

Startled grey eyes stared back at her, like those of a deer about to run, before they steadied themselves. A sort of resolution came about in them, and a head of ash blonde nodded briefly, and an unspoken understanding passed between Coromswyth and her anonymous watcher before he was gone, as quickly as he had come. The female elf lay back once more, absorbing what she had seen, and after a few minutes, she sent out her voice to Ambarturion.

"Ambarturion? Ambarturion, we have hope yet. The elves of the forest watch us..."