Escape to the North

Stars_Alight
Here is it!! My entry!!

"Run! Do not look back! Just keep running until you reach the border!"

"Run, my daughter! Run to the north! They will not follow you there!"

The dull colors of the underbrush rushed past her feet in a blur of grays and browns as she ran. Briars and thorns snagged at her exposed ankles, and sickly vines hanging from the dead trees obscured her vision up ahead.
But still harder she ran.

"We love you. We love you so much! Always remember this!"

Twigs snapped and crunched under her bare feet, and the thin, dead branches of small trees and bushes whipped at her tear stained cheeks.
But she paid them no mind. She couldn't.
The cold air stole the breath from her lungs just as quickly as she could draw it in, but faster still she ran, never looking back, as her parents had instructed her.

"Run!" Her mother had called back to her, as the hideous creatures pounded relentlessly against the door of their home.
"Get out of here, NOW!"

"Go north! There are shelters made by the rangers who stop here from time to time to rest from their travels. We will meet you there, my beloved Melda!" Her father had yelled as he grabbed a sword out from under his cot and prepared to fight to save his family. She had never seen the sword in their home before, and had never known her father to be the fighting sort.
Then again, she was young, and she still had a great many things to learn yet in this vast world.

"I don't want to leave you!" She had sobbed. Her mother knelt down and cupped the side of her face tenderly.

"We will join you soon enough, my beloved Melda. But we must hold them off long enough for you to reach the safe houses! Do you understand now my beloved?"

Melda nodded shakily, tears still pouring from her large, doe brown eyes.
Her mother had leaned down and placed one last, gentle kiss upon her forehead.

The sound of her own broken voice echoed back to Melda as she yelled out for her parents and continued to run; echoing off the dead trees and scattered boulders around the landscape and back to her pointed ears.
The grey sky above her began to darken, and the wind rose from its gentle breeze to a gust of frosty winter air whistling through the forest. It wiped her dark hair to and fro, tangling it across her face and catching in her mouth as she panted and gasped for her lost breath.
The cold air did not bother her, nor did the crunch of the day old snow on the stony ground. It were nothing compared to the adrenaline and fear that pumped through her veins and warmed her heart.
Yet the heat did nothing to comfort her.

It scared her.

Her mind may have been set on her destination, but her heart was still with her parents back at their cottage.

She remembered hearing her father speak to her mother many a night ago how it wasn't safe for wood elves such as themselves to live so far from the ElvenKing's halls, yet her mother had insisted on building their own cottage and living on the borders of Mirkwood. She had said it would be fine, that they would be safe, free to live how they chose to; yet father always had his doubts.

And it seemed, he had had them for a good reason.

The howling and the cackling and the shrieking and the taunting grew louder behind Melda, chilling her to the bone like the wind could not.

Her legs began to shake, and her side throbbed in pain from the intake of too much air all at once. A loose tree root suddenly tripped her up, making her fall onto her chest with a startled cry.
She quickly scrambled to her knees and turned to look back behind her.
Through the gusting wind and the frosted foliage she could make out the faint outlines in the darkening wood of the orcs behind her. They were chasing after her with spears and crude swords, all the while jeering and yelling after her.