The old South Road was lined with the camps of folk
fleeing the Shadow in the south. The companies, large
and small, slept within circled wagons with armed Men
standing watch. But the guards did not see Arwen as
she flashed past on Asfaloth, both shrouded in spells
of shadow and silence.

   The camps were widely spaced, with long stretches
of empty road between. As she galloped along one such
Arwen suddenly saw red fire bloom like an evil flower
on the side of the road ahead, and heard the cries of
Women and children. She drew Hadhafang (1) and the
blade glowed blue, Orcs!

   Not just Orcs, she soon saw, but giant Uruk Hai
bearing the White Hand. Arwen threw back Luthien's
cloak, her spells of concealment fraying away as she
charged them with a cry of "Elrond and Imladris!"

   Asfaloth crushed one Uruk beneath his hooves and
Arwen sliced the head from another's shoulders. She
caught a flash of movement out of the corner of her
eye, drew her dagger left handed and threw it with
deadly accuracy into throat of a third. Asfaloth
pivoted and Arwen saw, by the light of the burning
wagons, two more Uruks, crossbowmen, preparing to
fire.

   She no longer had her Evenstar but had brought with
her a jewel almost as powerful; the Elfstone of Idril
Celebrindal. She called on the sunlight locked within
the jewel and it blazed around her, bright as day.

   The Uruks cried out in shock. One dropped his bow,
the other fired a bolt that flared sun gold and
vanished. And then the Men behind her cut them down
with arrows.

   Arwen looked at Hadhafang, dripping black Orc blood
onto her glove, and saw the light in it flicker and
fail. The enemy was dead or fled. She looked then at
the flaming wagons and called on the memory of summer
rains locked within the Elessar to douse them.
Darkness fell over all. Then somebody lit a lantern,
and another.

   The Men, Women and children stood staring at her in
the yellow light. She stared back at them. After a
moment she remembered to wipe the blood from her blade
on the skirts of her surcoat and sheath it. Found her
voice. "Is anybody hurt?"

   Two Men were wounded, one gravely. Arwen, when she
came to sew up the long gash in his side, found her
hands were trembling so she couldn't hold the needle.
An older Woman took it gently from her.

  "Here, let me, m'lady."

   A Man of like age helped her to her feet, and she
needed the help for her legs were shaking as badly as
her hands. He sat her down on a wagon haft and
produced a leather cup. "Drink this, m'lady."

   It was mulled wine and she swallowed it gratefully.

   "Your first battle?" he asked sympathetically.

   "The first at least in which I have fought." she
admitted. "I am a healer not a warrior, though I have
been taught the use of arms."

   "Everybody feels weak and sick after their first
blooding." the Man told her reassuringly.

   Arwen nodded. She'd heard her father and brothers
say the same to many generations of Isildur's Heirs. 
"One becomes accustomed, they say, but it should never
become easy."

   "No indeed." the Man agreed emphatically. Grimaced,
though it's hard to feel much compunction over Orcs."
he hesitated a moment. "If I may ask, m'lady, what are
you doing out here all alone?"

   "I am going South to join my husband who is in
Rohan." she answered.

   His eyebrows quirked. "Does he know you're coming?"

   "No." Arwen admitted. "But I want to be with him."

   "Of course you do." said the Woman coming to join
them. Looked pointedly at the Man. "If your husband
makes a fuss tell him you've a right to choose for
yourself where you want to die - and in what company."

   "Still, travelling alone through such country!" the
Man protested, speaking to his wife rather than Arwen.

   "There is a party of my kinsmen on the road ahead
of me." Arwen told him. "I hope to catch up with them
soon."

   Man and Woman exchanged a look.

   "We have seen them I think," the Woman told her, "A
party of Dunedain knights with two Elves."

   "Those are my brothers. But we are Mortal though we
have Elven blood. We too belong to the Dunedain of the
North."

   "They are perhaps two days ahead of you." the Man
warned, still concerned.

   "Asfaloth is very fast. I will catch up with them
tomorrow perhaps."
  
   But she spent the rest of the night in the
encampment, and this time she did sleep.
***

   She woke to find a clutch of wide eyed children
peeking round the tent flap at her, only to scamper
away the moment she stirred.

   She emerged to find several Men, including the
older one who'd been so kind last night, inspecting
the scorched contents of the four burnt wagons.

   "Have you lost much?" she asked.

   "No, we've been lucky thanks to you, m'lady. You
put the fires out before they had time to do much
harm." he gave her a considering look. "I am Celegorm
son of Curufin."

   Arwen maintained a calm front with some difficulty.
Aragorn had told her about the Gondorim's fondness for
First Age names, but how anybody could burden a child
with those two was beyond her. "I am Arwen daughter of
Elrond."

   He took it without a flicker, naturally assuming
her father had been named for *the* Elrond. There was
a tug on her sleeve and she looked down into the
small, serious face of a little girl.

   "Are you a witch?"

   "Elleth!" Celegorm said scandalized.

   "No I'm not." Arwen answered quickly, with a smile
to show she was not offended. She wasn't quite sure
what a witch was but she knew it was not anything she
wished to be taken for.

   "But that was magic, wasn't it?" the child
insisted. "The light and then making the fires go
out?" 

   "Yes, I suppose it was." Arwen unfastened the
silver eagle brooch with its great green stone from
her cloak and showed it to Elleth. "This belonged to
my Elven grandmother, it has certain virtues that
helped me last night."

   "I thought you were an Elf." the girl said, clearly
disappointed.

   Arwen shook her head firmly. "I am a Woman, but I
have Elven blood and so look like one of the Elder
race."
***
 
   Her hosts gave her porridge and thin ale for
breakfast and told her they had come all the way from
the marches of Anorien and Rohan and been on the road
for some four months.

   Celegorm, their leader, was a man of Gondor of
mixed Dunedain and Northmen blood but his wife
Leofwyn, and half their party, were Rohirrim. And they
had only bad news to tell of both realms.

   "I no longer trust the Lord Steward's judgement."
Celegorm said bluntly. "First he sends the Lord
Boromir off on some mad errand and then he keeps the
Lord Faramir out in Ithilien. East and South are
crawling like ant hills with marching armies and Mount
Doom belches fire night and day they say, yet Denethor
does nothing."

   "And King Theoden is no better," Leofmund,
Leofwyn's brother, put in bitterly, "he sits in Edoras
and listens only to the Wormtongue. Some say he's been
bewitched, and I believe it. Such a sudden failing
cannot be natural."

   "And so, no longer trusting our lords to defend us,
we left our homes and headed north away from the
Shadow of Mordor." Celegorm finished.

   "I fear you will find no more peace in Eriador."
Arwen told them sadly. "Yet I can promise you the the
Heirs of the Kings of Old will do all in their power
to defend their people."

   "So it's true.... there is an Heir of Isildur."
Celegorm said slowly.

   Arwen nodded. "And at this moment his kinsmen are
preparing to march, with what strength they have,
against foes north and east."

   "Which is considerably more than *our* lords are
doing." Leofwyn said grimly.
*****

   After bidding her chance companions farewell Arwen
urged Asfaloth into a gallop, not on the road but
beside it, to avoid becoming entangled with the
companies of refugees heading northward. 
  
   There were many of these - and they seemed to grow
ever more haggard and ill equipped the further south
she rode.(2)

   By late afternoon she spotted a mounted party
headed southward, like her riding alongside rather
than on the road. They saw her too it seemed, for they
stopped and waited for her to catch them up.

   As she came to a halt before them Halbarad closed
his eyes in resignation and her brother Elrohir
groaned aloud.

   "Didn't I tell you it was Asfaloth? Arwen, Little
Sister, have you gone mad? Does Father know where you
are?"

   "He does by now." she answered steadily. "Don't
scold, Elrohir, I'd be no safer in Rivendell."

   That got their attention. She turned to Halbarad.
"Greymere's been taken, Aranel and the children are
safe but the Line is broken. Armies of Men, Orcs and
other things are massing in Angmar, the Ettenmoors and
Hollin. Gilvagor, Beruthiel and Belecthor are
preparing to march openly against them. The time for
secrecy, they say, is past. And I," she concluded
simply, "am bringing Elendil's sword to his Heir."

   Halbarad's hands clenched on his reins but all he
said, almost to himself, was: "Aragorn still has need
of his kin." then he smiled a faint, wintery Ranger
smile at her. "And as we can neither take nor send you
back, my Lady Arwen, we have no choice but to bring
you with us."

   "Thank you, Halbarad." she said with relief. "Don't
worry, Aragorn will know who to blame."

   "Indeed he will." the Ranger agreed drily.
***

   There were thirty and one Rangers, mailed and
helmed beneath cloaks of dark grey fastened on the
shoulder by the Star of the North, worn openly as a
badge. Her brothers, in their bright Elvish armor and
mantles of glimmering silver-grey, rode on either side
of her.

   "What have you done, Arwen," Elladan asked quietly.
"and how did you get Luthien's cloak?"

   "Ivorwen gave it to me when I visited the Havens
last year - no, two years ago now." she answered.(3)

   Elrohir frowned. "It should go to Aranel, her
daughter's daughter."

   "So I told her." Arwen agreed. "But she said I was
also her granddaughter, and Luthien's too, and I had
greater need of it." (4)

   "And did you?" Elladan asked.

   She swallowed. "I - I used it to take the shards of
Narsil secretly from their place. Fingol reforged them
for me."

   "Without Father's knowledge." said Elrohir. It was
not a question.

   "You don't know what it's been like," she told the
fingers twined in Asfaloth's mane, "I tell him and I
tell him I've made my choice - but he won't listen! He
goes on arguing, pleading...I cannot bear to hurt him
so but I must!" tears slid unheeded down her face. "I
could stand no more of it. He has cleared Rivendell
and sent our people to the Ships." softly. "I let him
think I would go with them."

   "Oh Arwen!" Elrohir groaned.

   "I know, I know!" she sobbed. "I am a liar, and a
coward. But I had to get away! And I was afraid -
afraid he wouldn't let me go."

   "Arwen!" both brothers stared at her, agast.

   Elladan said: "You can't think - you can't believe
he'd use force against you?"

   "I don't know!" she cried. "He's desperate,
Brother, I think he might do anything to keep me - and
how can I blame him? He's already lost his sons, I am
all the child he has left. If I stay behind too our
mother will never see any of her children again - and
it will be he who must tell her so!"

   The twins flinched a little at the thought of
Celebrian, well and happy again in Valinor, waiting
confidently for her family to join her.

   "But she will see you again." Halbarad said
quietly. The other Rangers were studiously pretending
not to hear but he had fallen back to ride alongside
Elrohir. "And you will see her," he continued to
Arwen, "and your father and all your other kin. You
will just have to wait a little longer."

   "Till the End of the World." Elladan said, with a
wry grimace.

   Halbarad nodded. "A long time I grant you. But long
is not never."
*****************

1. Hadhafang is the blade forged for Idril Celebrindal
in Gondolin before its fall, which she used to defend
herself as she wandered the streets of the burning
city searching for survivors to send down her Hidden
Way.  

2. These are refugees fleeing the devestation of the
Westfold.

3. Luthien left her cloak to her adopted daughter
Elanor, Beren's brother's child, who married a lord of
the Green Elves. Elanor's daughter married Elurin son
of Dior and the cloak has passed from mother to
daughter in her line ever since. Ivorwen, Aragorn's
maternal grandmother, is its latest owner. 

4. Ivorwen means Arwen is, or will be, her
granddaughter by marriage of course.