Blaecwyn's Tale - Part 2

Three long months had passed, each day and night blurring together in the blasted lands of Nan Gurth. The fighting had been almost constant, rest coming only in the short lulls between battles. It always seemed so endless, almost futile, but it was against them to give up. Blaecwyn turned in her saddle, looking over her shoulder to her small band of men. They were exhausted, as was she, but they were all going home now. Just a few more hours and they could all rest - at least until they were called out again. One of her men looked over to her, offering a weary smile which she grimly returned. Cheer was hard to come by this day for all that they were nearly home. One of their own, a young farmer, by the name of Jed had lost his life on this trip and that was always a cause for regret. Having fought side-by-side for so long, having watched over one another, tended to each others injuries, ate, slept and laughed together, each one of the people in this group felt like a family member. It was always a massive blow to lose one. Blaecwyn sighed heavily as she turned back to watch the road ahead. As always she was in the lead. She stood at the forefront in any battle and travelled at the head of the loose column whenever the group moved. To the men, it was a symbol of her place as their leader and a silent aknoweldgement of her wish and will to protect them. To her, it merely meant that they could not see her face. Never a particularly pretty woman to begin with, Blaecwyn's looks had long since taken a turn for the worse, and she knew it. From the eyepatch she wore to cover her pearly-white right eye and the scar stretching from that to just above her jaw, to her oft broke and reset nose, her battles showed. It wasn't just the physical scars of her encounters, though, but the mental and emotional ones that showed in her features. In her mid to late twenties she may be, yet she had the habitually hardened expression of a veteran, compounded further by a certain degree of unaknowledged sorrow and bitterness in the depths of her visible blue eye, which only grew with each life lost. The measured hoofbeats turned to clatters as the procession left the dirt road and began to traverse the Trestlespan. Two of the men would splinter off from the group here, for Trestlebridge was their home. Twelve more would march onwards, each going his own way as he neared his home in Bree-land, until finally only Blaecwyn would be left alone to make her way from the town itself to the village in which she had set up a house with her husband four years before. How she longed to see them again. Flowlen, the Gondorian to whom she had lost her heart. Vorondir, her little tousle-haired son with his bright blue eyes and ready smile. Lahessa, Vorondir's twin sister, as quick to laugh as she was to wallop all-comers with her latest favorite toy. In the world of darkness and death that she had made her own, the three that comprised her family were Blaecwyns link to sanity and the hope of brighter days head.