The Dwarf opened his eyes. Above him he could see the wide wonder of a blue sky, a-wash with dazzling shapes of snowy clouds. A faint breeze was in the air, blowing before it the smell of some far-away Pine-wood. The smell reminded him for a moment of another life, where he once collected firewood for his fathers furnace in the woods surrounding Thorins Halls. But that had been a different life. One filled with torment, pain and suffering. Now, he was amongst his ancestors in a wonderous place of infinate possibilites; where even Durin the Deathless, would no-doubt reside.

His thighs where burning, his cheeks puffing out with the huge intakes of breath he couldn't help but create. Behind him the heavy padding of the Warg rider was bearing down on him, spear levelled, the creatures jaw widened. Within seconds it would be on him, and all would be lost.
Somehow, as the Orcs jeering laughter echoed in his ears, he managed to throw himself to his left; diving out of the way of the in-coming Warg and its spear wielding burden.

But it was fractionally too late.

Barafo dashed back down the gentle slope, leaving the Uruks body for the carrion birds that would soon descend on the site. He paced himself, breathing steadily, as he made his way back to the copse of tree's some hundred yards or so from the hill behind; with the occasional jolts of pain from his injuries spurring him on.

Barafo pushed himself up from the turf, his sinews straining under the weight of his iron armour, sweat trickling heavily from his brow. Seeing the Dwarf vulnerable, the Uruk-hai lunged forward once more, his crude sword cutting a wide arc through the air.

I never thought i'd be sad to turn my back on the place they call Imladris....

It was a few short hours ago that i was curiously being treated as one of their own and a mere few short hours even earlier that i was crossing the bruinen fords.

"instinct"...i kept reminding myself.
.
.
keep it together
.
.
and yet somehow they had a way of breaking down these inhibitions...these long passed down words of caution that we all know and trust. Having spent some time there i'm still at a loss as to why...perhaps i shall never know.

Bright light floods my eyes and a deathly silence screams in my ears.
My heavy, warm breath stifles me inside my helmet and the smell of blood it caries entices a primeval urge deep within.
The familiar, worn bindings of my axe hilt tantalize the fingertips of my outstretched hand. Cool grass, wet with the morning's
dew, scarf the base of my neck. Memories of my youth cloud my thoughts, putting me at ease and yet aggravatingly tell me
not of my current fate.

As the blindness fades, a dark outline begins to appear. Instinct pulls my left arm off the ground and across my chest