Hearing the death cry of one of their own brought the others forward. Melia turned around to see another worm emerging behind her. She wasted no time in firing a bolt. This one striking the creature in the face and forcing it to recoil in pain as steel tore through its muscle. In the rear of her vision she saw Arwen being approached by one of the worms. The queen was no novice in protecting herself and she immediately stabbed the creature with her sword. Her blade penetrated its flesh easily enough. The creature howled in pain as Arwen swung at it again. However, the worm did not flee even though its blood was spilling forth from it. It seemed to hold its ground before pulling back and widening its jaw, in readiness to lunge.
"Get out of its way!" Melia shouted, a flash of insight prompting her to speak.
Arwen reacted instinctively to her warning and attempted to leapt out of the way when suddenly the worm ejected something from his mouth she thought at first to be venom or some other poison but was to soon learn otherwise. Her skin prickled with cold as the blast of frost escaped its mouth and killed the fire immediately. Steam hissed from the doused fire as icy cold waves of air extinguished it with little or no effort at all.
Eowyn rushed forward to aid Arwen, slashing her sword about wildly to clear a path towards the queen. However, the unexpected trait exhibited by the worm a moment ago was in no way unique to it only. With a sinking feeling, Eowyn realised that somehow cold drakes had emerged from the deep places of the world to plague Middle Earth once more. When these worms grew to maturity, they would become dragons whose ability would be to either freeze or burn down everything in sight. Eowyn threw herself out of the path of one such creature’s deadly breath when it breathed its iciness in her direction. She barely escaped the hiss of cold before she pierced the creature through the neck with her sword. Its blood poured into the earth before it crumpled to the floor very much dead.
Arwen saw Eowyn’s efforts to reach her and decided that the Lady of Ithilien had difficulty enough saving her own skin. The queen of Gondor recovered her balance after avoiding the initial icy breath of the worm. It turned its gaze in her direction once more determined to have her. On its slithering belly, it sidled toward her quickly, its body moving in thick loops. She saw it flicking its massive tail in her direction, trying to knock it down before she jumped out of its reach. It took the opportunity to lunge at her, jaws snapping. Arwen staggered back to avoid it and dropped on to her behind when a rock obstructed her retreat.
She let out a sharp scream as the creature’s jaws came at her. She could see its teeth and feel its cold breath against her skin as it loomed in for the kill. Arwen forced her sword between them, keeping it poised between its jaw and her throat. Yet she knew she was terribly vulnerable because all it had to do was exhale and she would turn to ice as those poor unfortunates in that frozen village. The worm regarded her for a second, its eyes glaring at her malevolently when suddenly; something drew its attention from her. It retracted its head from before her and screeched angrily. Arwen took advantage of its distraction and scrambled out of its reach. She looked behind only when she was clear of it’s breath and saw the reason for its preoccupation.
Somehow, Eowyn had landed on the beast’s back, her legs coiled around its body as she raised her sword above her head and plunged the blade into the creatures skull. Its death cry was brief and its blood flowed freely when Eowyn pulled out her sword. All life drained from its body as it collapsed to the ground, with Eowyn astride it as if it were a horse. Eowyn climbed off the dead creature’s back, completing the journey to Arwen in order to protect her. However, Arwen’s attention was no longer upon Eowyn, her legs were carrying her towards Melia.
Melia’s skill with the crossbow almost rivaled Legolas Greenleaf with the long bow, Arwen thought as Melia fired bolt after bolt from her Easterling weapon at the worms coming at them. She had managed to keep two of them at bay with her arrows but she was fast running out of them. Arwen could see the worry in her face as she continued to strike fatal wounds in the worms coming at her. Very soon, she would have exhausted her supply and be forced to rely upon her sword. One of the worms covered in a litany of bolts was still determined to have the Ranger even though its other companion had given up its advance and was writhing in pain from the multiple piercing of its skin.
The worms blew its deadly breath at Melia who barely escaped it when she leapt out of its way. A rock that had been behind her when she jumped took the full force of the cold blast and its sudden state of freezing shattered it completely, sending jagged shards in all directions. Melia landed on her side, her crossbow slipping out of her hands as she fell. Losing her weapon, she scrambled for the sword that she rarely used but carried nonetheless. Arwen thought quickly, aware that she had only a second to act before the worm killed Melia. Throwing her sword like a spear, Arwen watched the blade fly through the air to penetrate what passed for the worm’s neck. The sword kept going until it was buried to the hilt.
The worm attempted to screech but it did not manage as what passed for its vocal chords were severed. By this time, Melia had recovered enough to thrust her sword into the belly of the beast, pulling back her sword and spilling its innards into the permafrost that covered ground. The creature closed its eyes finally and collapsed to the ground. It moved no more as its blood flowed from the wounds on its body, creating a pool around it where it had fallen.
For a few seconds, no one spoke as they stood amongst the carcasses of the creatures that had almost killed them. All three were still stunned by the fact that they had survived the onslaught. Eowyn had dispatched the wounded beast that had attempted retreat when Arwen was saving Melia’s life. However, she was not terribly proud of that fact since Melia had done the same for her as well as Eowyn. They were simply grateful to be alive. For the moment at least, Arwen sensed the danger had retreated even though it was not entirely gone. She could feel it close and as she glanced in the direction of the darkened mountain range they would soon be required to enter, she knew where it was coming from.
"Are they all dead over there?" Eowyn asked Melia as the duty of ensuring the worms were dead not merely wounded was concluded.
"Yes," Melia nodded slowly, retrieving her bolts from the dead carcasses at the same time. It was grisly work and she had no wish to be any closer to the fledgling dragons but there was no other way for her to replace her bolts with newer ones if she lost them, especially not here, at the edge of the world. "They will trouble us no more."
"I have heard of these worms," Eowyn replied, her gaze sweeping across their latest battlefield. "I never thought I would ever see them again. I always thought Smaug was the last of them."
"These are not dragons," Melia pointed out. "They are far too young. We should not have been able to penetrate their hides with our swords, if what I am told about dragon scales be the truth. They are harder than mithrail. If I recall correctly, the only way to kill a dragon is to pierce its belly, the one vulnerable place upon their bodies. We did more than that here."
"The Enemy is responsible for this," Arwen said softly. "He is drawing out these creatures from the deepest depths of the ancient world."
"Well we know at least what became of those towns," Eowyn sighed as she went to a shrub that had been treated to the worm’s deadly breath and crushed a branch in her hand. It broke as if it were a dry leaf, turning to powder in her hands. The Shield Maiden of Rohan dusted her palms of the fragments, clear disgust in her face as she did so. "These things have invaded them and turned them into ice, not to mention those that Cirdan sent to deal with the problem. If we search hard enough, we would probably find their bodies as well."
"I suppose," Arwen retorted unhappily. "I know at least why they have kept people away from here."
"Why?" Melia asked, wiping blood from one of the bolts and looking none too happy about it.
"Because they are the guardians of Turin’s sword," Arwen met both their gazes as she stated. "They are keeping those who might be able to use it against the Enemy away from the weapon. They have killed everyone to ensure that it remains beyond the reach of others."
"Beyond our reach," Eowyn declared. "So there’s more of these awaiting us in Brethril?"
It was a question but Eowyn did not really expect an answer nor did Arwen choose to provide any.
"Not just these," Melia said after moment. "These are young worms and there are many of them. The Enemy could not have simply conjured them out of nothingness; these beasts must have been born in some fashion. What I want to know is, if these are the infants, where is the mother that sired them?"
