[Lyra Greenleaf]

They reached the Rohirrim village as the storm broke overhead and rain pourerd down. There had to have been some sort of acouts out as they reached the village to find pandemonium, people milling around and screaming. Mara smiled grimly to herself as she began to kill. With the men she found it easiest to aim for the heart. She couldn't reach the neck on most of them, as good living on fertile soil had let them grow tall. It should be our land, OUR soil! she thought furiously, anger making her blade dart quicker.

It was harder for the women. For the most part Mara let the ones who were running, run. She only killed those who stayed to fight, but anger at their stupidity made her hit them the hardest. She ignored the children, the little ones anyway. A couple of teenage boys wanted to play at heroes, she slashed one of them in the leg- if he was found and tended he should survive. The other died. She killed automatically, her only pleasure coming from the thought that they were being punished, and the joy of using her skill. Everyone she had ever killed deserved it, anything else was pointless.

From the way Raken's cronies ran around yelling she could tell they felt differently. Mara had to kill one of them to stop him killing a little blonde girl of not more than five summers. That is no waste any more than the horsemen she thought with disgust as she watched the little girl stumble away, screaming.

One horseman managed to give her a deeper cut than the scratches she'd received from others, he died for his pains but Mara crept off the battlefield to see the damage, cursing softly. After she'd bound the cut, she began to count in her head, she had killed perhaps 20 people. She felt no pity for them- they were horsemen who had deserved death- but it seemed a waste of life, somehow. She darted back into the fray, swinging the sword. Fighting men perhaps two or three at a time made her feel alive, and she began to smile.

"Mara" she heard from behind her. Finishing off her enemy she turned to see one of Raken's louts beckoning her.
"Raken said you'd want to help out burning this place down"
Mara's smile widened. this was the best part for her. Horsemen meant nothing, but if their crops were gone they might have to leave. One day they'll be pushed back to the mountains and this will be ours again! she thought happily. She turned to follow the man back to the houses.

"Hand over the flint then" she said shortly, and he obeyed. Perhaps the other oafs have been talking she wondered with a satisfied glimpse at the man's retreating back. She gave a shiver of pleasure as she made a spark which began to smolder in someone's woodpile, and moved on, lighting a branch which she reached up to a thatched roof, then a barn. She knew that this was what she was supposed to do for the rest of her life.