[Burzdol]

"Are you talking to me? If you are, I can't talk now, Aduthondiel is it? My master wants me to be a Rider of Rohan next year, and I'm practicing at the moment," Hethor said to the lady above him. The man was a head taller than her when he stood up, and he walked right past the woman. His master had created another twenty snoworcs and took up a snowball.

"This'll be a little different. Ready to fire at will boys?" he asked the men on the rooftops.

"Yeah, we're ready. C'mon Hethor, let's see what you got. If you want to join us next year, you're going to have to get better," one of them replied.

"Go then!" Hethor yelled as he hung himself at the firt snow orc. To his suprise, it moved.

"Hehehehe," the little old man chuckled, "I just love the presence of magic!"

Hethor dodged a stick sword from one of the snoworcs that was behind him. He spun around to cut it in half, then stabbed up to the hilt of his sword into another. Two more came on swiftly, and he ducked the one, but got hit by a snowball from above. Hethor heard laughter as he sliced through both snoworcs. More snowballs and snoworcs attacked him from all around. When the last three came onto him, Hethor sliced through one, and went for the next. As soon as the sword got halfway through the snoworc, it froze to ice. He tried and tried to get the blade free, but he had to let go due to a barrage of snowballs. As the last snoworc came ten feet from Hethor, he took threw his hidden knife into its head. Then with both hands, he launched his own assualt of snowballs.

"Brilliant! Just brilliant!" Master Gunhen yelled as he held up his hands to stop the snowball-launching men, "Now we're going to try a different thing. Leave your sword and come to the top of the hill with me and five men."

"Okay," Hethor said, following his teacher. Five of the rooftop men followed, the others stayed at the bottom, preparing some type of fort.

When they got to the top of the hillon the one end of the street, Master Gunhen explained what he was doing, "Okay, I'm going to teach you how to excecut a long distance battle. It's us against them with snowballs. If you get hit, you stop playing. The object is to win. Well, what are you waiting for? Get working on the forts. Hethor, you come with me to work on strategy. Draw what we should do for our battle plan. You lead this battle."

"Okay, they have nine men, we have seven. We have to get all of them without losing a single on of our own. We're going to have three men stay down behind the forts and launch snowballs as quick as you can. We want them to think that everyone is still behind there. Me and three other men will crawl straight back until we get to a place where we can stand and get onto the roof. We'll have two on each side go slowly down the sloping roofs to attack. It should be easy enough."

"Done!" One of the men yelled from where he was building. In turn everyone else on the battlefield yelled they were done, and Hethor's group discussed Hethor's strategy.

"We can do this. Launch the first volley of snowballs, use both hands," Hethor told the people that were going to stay.

Hethor motioned for his three men to move out. They slid on their stomachs until they reached the designated spot, they then climbed to the roofs. As they amde there way down, they watched the snow battle. Hethor was glad, his plan wsa working. When the four men reached their destination, the groups of two looked at each other and nodded. As one, they threw as quick as they could at the men below. Soon, the three from the top of the ill charged down into the fray. Hethor's plan was a success. Eveyone jumped down and got another mug of cider.

"That was fun, Master Gunhen. Really fun," Hethor said as he sipped his cider.

"Thanks. But that's not the end of your training today," he said with a wink, leaving Hethor with a mix of feelings welling inside of him.