A SHADE IN WAITING
Source: Jessica Ney (Ed.): Anghus McBride’s Characters of Middle-Earth, ICE, 1990 p.16
LOTHUIAL
Lothuial waited, silent and immobile as the rock she leaned against. Her prized possession, the enchanted dagger, gleamed with a pale silvery light in the chill night air. Behind her, Dol Amroth glittered like a jewel in the moonlight, the port city alive and bustling even at this late hour — which would soon be more than she could say for the lone traveler approaching on the seaward path. Blood rushed through her veins as Lothuial’s anticipation mounted, yet she remained quiet as the wind. Her hood fell back, freeing her beautiful sable hair, but she dared not move to gather it back. “No matter, it will not distract me. Gontran -will be pleased with my earnings for tonight,” she mused, already gloating over the uncounted wealth of her unsuspecting target. “Fool! He thinks that the Prince can protect him! Well, he is not safe from the Shades of Dol Amroth!”
THE SETTING — SOUTHERN GONDOR
The great fief called Dor-en-Ernil, the “Land of the Prince,” comprises all the lands between the rivers Gilrain and Ringló and includes the penninsula of Belfalas. The famous haven of Dol Amroth stands on a spit of land above a deep harbor located on the northwestern-most shore of the promontory. The hills outside the city shelter a company of assassins whose leader walks in the Dark Lord’s shadow. No traveller is safe from their deadly attention.
LOTHUIAL
The daughter of one of the Prince’s yeomen, Lothuial coveted her father’s skill with the longbow from the time she could walk. When her younger brother began to learn the rudiments of archery, while she was trained in herblore by her mother, Lothuial’s resentment festered and grew. Her family was traditional in the ways followed by the Dúnedain, and its women were not trained in the arts of war. The young girl took to slipping away into the woods with a “borrowed” longbow to practice shooting at tree trunks, then squirrels, and finally deer as her prowess improved. One morning, hoping that her proficiency would mollify her father, Lothuial demonstrated her skill to him. Unfortunately, the realization that his daughter had been disobeying him for years merely enraged the yeoman beyond reason. Rigid and white with anger, he forbade Lothuial to enter the family home and informed her that that the family name was no longer hers to use. Lothuial possessed a temper as fiery as her sire’s was cold. Drawing on the herblore so unwillingly learned, the young woman placed a powder in the water of her father’s pitcher and wash basin before departing to the woodlands forever. She miscalculated the dose: instead of developing a painful, but temporary, outbreak of hives, the yeoman burned with a fever of which he died. Lothuial had become a fugitive in truth. Unable to return to either family or society, she joined Gontran’s band of Shades.
Lothuial wears the dark grey garb adopted by the Shades of Dol Amroth. It is practical gear, although her cloak possesses an ornately embroidered stripe on its lining. The assassin’s cloakpin resembles a leering Orc’s face, and half a dozen silver bangles adorn her neck. Lothuial’s dagger, heavier than most such blades, is her most prized possession.
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