The night was ink-dark, and only the breath of stars shimmered faintly above the towering forests of the Aldburg Wood. Deorla rode in silence, the hooves of her mount—the Harbinger—striking the mossy floor like low drums of war. The creature was bone-armored and wreathed in withered leaves, a beast born of shadow and decay.
The rustling came first. Then the grunt. Her black gaze snapped ahead, narrowing. There, through the underbrush, came the unmistakable form of a monstrous boar, larger than any she had seen. Flanking it were leaner beasts, tusked and wild-eyed—guardians of something older than memory.
A shimmer in the moonlight revealed more clearly Deorla had no doubt: Scion of the Great Boar.
“So the blood of Everholt still lingers,” Deorla muttered to herself, reining in her steed.
The tale of Folca, the 13th King of Rohan, and his tragic end while slaying the legendary boar of Everholt was known even in Nurn. That same blood now ran in these beasts—guardians of forest and vengeance. She did not engage them; not tonight. They were watchers of borderlands, not enemies. She gave a slow nod of respect and continued on her path, though their gleaming tusks followed her all the way.
Few hours later under a starry night sky, she reached a waterfall—a cascade so wide and thunderous it swallowed her thoughts in sound alone. She stood there for a time, cloaked in black, her Harbinger steed drinking from the pool below. The veil of water, glittering like gems in starlight, marked her entrance into Gondor.
She passed the waterfall and pressed on, the sky turning from starlit blue to the sickly grey of dawn. On the far side of the Beacon hills, where the land flattens before the White Mountains rise, Deorla was intercepted. A party of Variags—men of Khand—rode fast upon her trail. They bore the blood sigil of the eastern tribes, and at their head rode Vrakya, a Jarl of savage ambition and grim reputation.
Clad in plated bronze and crimson cloth, Vrakya dismounted with a smile full of broken teeth.
“You ride alone, Shadowflame. Too far from your desert roots. But the Rohirrim still bleed in the East— But I heard recently the price off your head is something everyone talks about now. What a weird chance I runned into you, all alone. Boys, get her!"
Before the final word left his lips, Deorla was in motion.
She struck first—not with some spell, but with the flat of her gauntlet, slamming it into his jaw with a crunch of bone. The Variag stumbled, cursing, and drew his blade in a wide arc meant to intimidate. Deorla ducked low, pivoted on her heel, and swept his legs from beneath him with a perfectly timed kick.
He crashed into the dirt, and she was already atop him. They wrestled in the dust, blades scraping armor. Vrakya was stronger, but she was faster. A feint—his blade caught her shoulder plate, but not skin. Her dagger found his ribs.
He gasped, but she twisted the blade deeper, breath hot against his ear.
“You should’ve ridden past.”
She pulled free and rose. Vrakya didn’t. His men watched, unmoving—awed or afraid.
Deorla didn’t bother with a speech. She simply turned to them, blood still dripping from her blade.
“You didn’t see me,” she said. “You saw a ghost on the wind.”
None challenged her. One by one, the riders turned their mounts and vanished into the wild.
She cleaned the blade on Vrakya’s crimson sash, then buried it beside his body beneath a cairn of stones, marking the site with a spearpoint stabbed into the earth.
By dusk, she arrived at the great ruined gate of Anórien, once a symbol of Gondorian pride. A statue of Isildur stood above her, sword raised against the twilight.
Deorla looked up and smirked.
“You died clinging to power,” she said, brushing past it. “Let’s see how long your house holds without it.”
The road stretched out before her now. To Osgiliath. To Gorgoroth. To Mordor.
And to her final ambition.
