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Phoenix

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It wasn't often that Rovan went out onto a patrol on his own. Typically, the militia would have sent out at least a couple others with him, but his village had come down with a horrible illness, and he was one of the few who hadn't caught it.

He had very mixed feelings about being out here. On the one hand, it put him out of the risk of exposure to the disease, but on the other he was on his own. Being on your own on patrol was a dangerous place to be.

Well, Agathar, he said, leaning forward and patting his horse's neck. It's just the two of us out here, he said. At least he had his faithful horse at his side. Surely, the two of them could overcome anything. In his early twenties, this wasn't Rovan's first patrol, but he was no veteran warrior. Most of his time was spent as a blacksmith in the local village, but every man was a soldier in his town as with the Rohirrim as a whole.

They moved along at a moderate pace, and in the distance made out the forests of Lorien. He had always been warned against going there. Rumors of an elf witch of great power had always been thrown around from the elders.

To the north Lorien and to the south Fangorn. We have eerie woods on every side, he said with a shake of his head. These patrols rarely ever yielded anything anyway. The occasional orc or two, but rarely ever even in a larger pack. In all his patrols he'd only come across two actually hunting parties.
 
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Sreeya

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“Orcs? This close to our borders?”

Laewyn couldn’t help but ask as the scout reported his findings. She had been finishing up her supper of fruits and nuts when the scout barged into the thicket of trees, a sense of urgency in his tone. With Nenya’s protection, the Silvan elves of this region had admittedly grown complacent in their comforts. She put her bowl aside and grabbed her longbow and quiver, not having needed them for quite some time now.

She had been recently promoted to have a small company of troops to command. Laewyn whistled shrilly to gather her people, her horse trotting up near her. She glanced over to the scout, “Inform the Lady Galardriel at once,” She said as she hoisted herself onto her horse, slapping its rear to gallop out of the woods.

Laewyn wasn’t entirely sure how she felt about some of those in her company out in open battle - they were still green and hadn’t faced too many adversaries. Unlike the elves of Mirkwood that were constantly plagued by spiders and other creatures, the Lothlorien elves lived a primarily peaceful life.

Her thoughts carried her all the way out into the fields, and she could see the tenseness in some of those around her. She ignored it for now, drawing out her bow as she gazed into the distance. Already she could see some movement and it looked too speedy for orcs to be on foot, “Wargs..” She muttered under her breath as she picked up speed towards them.

Laewyn knew for a fact that some of the elves in her party had never encountered a warg before, and this would make things that much more difficult. She noticed they were circling back towards Rohan, and she continued to give chase.

“Should we pursue?” She heard her second in command yell out.

“Yes!” Laewyn shouted back, “I want them far away from our lands!”
 

Phoenix

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Rovan continued trailing over the fields when something caught his eyes on the horizon. At first he thought it was the horses of fellow Rohirrim, but that was disproven quickly as he saw orcs and wolves tearing into what looked like a small convoy.

His hands started to tremble as he saw how many of them there were. There was no way that he could win this fight by himself, and he was about to turn to run and warn the rest of his people when two things happened.

The first was that he noticed the elves running across the plains as well and wondered if they were going to fight and the second was that the warg riders noticed him. From over a nearby hill, a rider raised his bow and fired, striking his horse in the neck and sending him reeling before falling over. Rovan would have grieved for the loss of his lifetime friend were he not in such a panic already.

A warg was advancing on him and his bow had fallen away, forcing him to pull out his sword and hack at the face of the closing wolf while the other held back further. He could only hope for some sort of intervention the elves, but if not he would be on his own.
 

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Laewyn could see movement ahead, and she grimaced at the sight, knowing they were probably humans. She watched a horse fall as a result of an orc firing an arrow. She couldn’t see the rider, but she quickly drew out her bow and took aim. It was difficult to steady her shot atop a galloping horse, but her keen eyesight guided her.

Within moments, she let loose the arrow, the point striking true into the neck of the warg that was advancing on the fallen horse. Laewyn focused on the surrounding wargs - it was not an elf’s business to concern themselves with the fates of man. She was surprised at her own actions at meddling with the warg at all.

Laewyn had her blade out then, whirling it above her head to slice an orc’s head clean off. She circled around the fallen horse, clearing out a path around it. Two of her soldiers were killed, thrown right off their horses.

The wargs were heinous, wasting no time in feasting upon the dead. The sight incited fury in her, and she rushed towards the warg, nocking and firing several arrows to bury into its head. In her fury she missed the orc rider from from the side, and she felt a sudden, heavy blow to the back of the head.

Within moments, she was knocked off her horse and landed on the ground, her vision blurring as she tried to stay conscious.
 

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Rovan slashed across the snout of the warg, leaving a terrible gash that caused the dog to fall back. He could see the warg behind felled by an arrow as it started moving forward, and he realized that whoever had fired it had just saved his life.

A plunging blow from his sword caused the warg to stumble over, crushing one of the fallen orcs and throwing the other onto the ground. He wasted no time in running forward and plunging a sword through its back before it could climb back up.

Panic was still flooding him, but he didn't give himself the time to stop and think about it. There was no other choice but to move or die. He grabbed his bow from where it had fallen and advanced closer to the main skirmish. He may not have been an elf, but he was still a skilled archer... better than he was with a sword at least.

He nocked and arrow as he ran forward, watching an elven woman knocked from her horse. He couldn't see what had knocked her off, but he could see that she was still moving and there was an orc - dismounted from his warg - advancing on her. He raised his bow and loosed, setting the arrow flying with deadly accuracy straight through the orc's chest, ripping through its leather armor, and sticking out the back as it spasmed and fell.

He came to stop next to her as he nocked another arrow. The skirmish seemed it could have been going better, and the reality of what would happen to them if they lost was repulsive and graphically in front of his face only a handful of meters away.
 
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