To Rivendell

He could hear the sound of the water up ahead.  The Bruinen was swelling with snowmelt from the Misty Mountains, a rampart of white 50 miles to the west.  The Mitheithel had been full too the day before last when they crossed the last bridge, its roiling currents nearly over its banks.

The day was surprisingly warm, almost hot for early spring as it had been for nearly a week.  To the east they had seen the snow line rising each day, through the distant foothills to the ridges of the higher ranges.  Now the product of the sun’s work would make their crossing at the ford a task not to be taken lightly.

Aranarth eased his mount to a slow walk.  He could see Arthed up ahead rounding a bend in the East-West Road, soon lost behind a thick stand of dark evergreens that bordered the path on both sides.  Arthed would return in due course with his assessment of the crossing, though they both knew it was unnecessary, given their intimate knowledge of the terrain.  It was just his brother’s way of providing him with some privacy.

Ardugan had left them not long after they broke camp at the Rendezvous, preferring to meet them at a place and time of his choosing.  It was his nature, secretive, at home in the wild in his own company and that of the creatures of the forests.  He would suddenly appear, out of thin air it would seem, with that enigmatic smile of his, slightly mocking.  They would make a show of the surprise and he would be pleased, and comfortable again in their company for a while.

Aranarth smiled briefly at the thought of his youngest brother, though worry tugged at the corners of his mouth at the thought of Ardugan in the house of Elrond.  Of the three of them only Ardugan was a stranger to Rivendell, at least so he thought.

And perhaps that was not necessarily a bad thing, either, Aranarth thought to himself, recalling his own introduction to the elven sanctuary decades past.

It was a different time of season, late fall.  The leaves had blown down and the skies were gray, spitting sleet and rain.  His wife was with their second child and Arahael was a rambunctious young boy dashing about their lonely house east of the Blue Mountains where Aranarth and a few close followers had established a settlement.  The crops for the season had been taken in just a week past.  Aranarth had been readying himself for his customary winter patrol when the knock came.  Lorelyn had opened the door.  He had heard her gasp.  He’d burst into the room still holding the axe he had used to prepare some kindling.

Two elven princes stood at the doorstep, tall, young, dark haired, splendidly garbed and caped as if on a mission of high import.

“Aranarth, son of Arvedui?” they inquired in unison.

“I am he. And what courtesy can this son of Arvedui provide to such noble visitors”

“The courtesy is ours, sir.  I am Elladan and this is my brother Elrohir.  We are the sons of Elrond, Master of Rivendell who has sent us to seek you out.”

Aranarth stared at them appraisingly.  Well he knew the name of Elrond and was familiar enough with the elven lord to know of his sons, though they were seldom seen this far west.

“You have found me.  Please come in.” Aranarth motioned them in, glanced at Lorelyn who went to the next room and set two extra plates for dinner.

Long they had talked over dinner and for hours more as the fire in the hearth burned to embers.   There would be a long journey east for him and his young son.  And things to bring that he had kept safe in the years following the fall of Arthedain.  Lorelyn had listened to it all.

“It is a hard thing your ask” her gray-blue eyes were like stone upon the young elves.

There had been an uncomfortable silence.  Then Elladan spoke.

“You have all been invited to stay in Rivendell.”

Lorelyn shook her head slowly.  Her words bespoke her movement.

“I understand well what your Master intends young lord.  But Rivendell is not my home and the tutelage of its mentors will draw my young son in directions I cannot go, cannot share.  Well I know his place in the line of the kings of old and great was the dread that I felt with his birth, knowing that lineage.”

She turned to Aranarth whose shocked face betrayed his unknowing of the depth of the private burden she had not shared with him.

“Yes husband.  The first son would belong to me but for a little while ‘ere some would lay claim to his heritage and destiny, whatever that might be in these times.  No…I will not accompany you to Rivendell.  Arahael will be well cared for, fostered in a way and for a role that we here cannot fulfill.  I am with child and there will be more to come…” Loreyln cast a curious look towards Aranarth who blushed, then stared at his feet suppressing a smile.

She continued.  “Say only to Lord Elrond that I expect the best that he and his counselors have to offer my son.  The tide of events has swept this land and the kingdoms of the north are now but stories told around the fireplace.  My own mother was with the gift of farseeing and of that some I have been granted.  What we decide this day we do for another yet born in a far day that you two young lords may live to know.  Some sacrifice is always to be expected in life.  This is not the worst.  Take care that you remember my words.”

With that she rose and left the room.  Aranarth stared at Elladan and Elrohir.

“It is late.  Lorelyn will stay with Arahael the rest of the night.  We will leave at dawn.  You may stay in the guest cottage til then.  It is well provisioned .”

They shook their heads.  “We will await you outside…when you are ready…”

They’d left at dawn, Lorelyn standing in the doorway, a chill wind tugging at her long auburn hair, face drawn down by more than the cold.  Young Arahael was still sleepy, sitting in front of Aranarth on his best mount.  The horse carried another special cargo, carefully wrapped and securely fastened, the broken shards of Narsil, the ring of Barahir and the scepter of Annuminas.  The heritage of Elendil would be protected both in lineage and in its symbols.         

Aranarth paused for a moment in the gray light, locking his eyes with Lorelyn’s.  She could see his face, grimly set, burdened by their shared loss.  She forced a small smile, a slight wave of her hand, then turned, backed away from the threshold and quietly shut the door.

It had taken them many days riding to reach Rivendell, cloaked in the first winter snows.  Arahael had responded well to the rigors of the wild, taking delight in riding up high with his father, eyes marveling at the ever-changing landscape.  The elven brothers had done their part, entertaining him with songs and sharing such delicacies as they had brought along for the journey.  Aranarth had kept to himself for the most part.

Then one bright cold morning they were crossing the Bruinen, its banks glistening with ice.  Hours later, high up in the snowy foothills as the sun lay low on the western horizon the group came to the split in the road. Ahead the trail made its way over the High Pass and east to the distant Anduin.  But it was left that they turned, crossing the cascading Bruinen again over a long graceful stone arch.  Up and to the right Aranarth had seen the elven refuge of Rivendell built into the side of a great gorge, its terraces and fine mansions lit by the setting sun in perfect harmony with the rush of the stream and the contours of the land.

Elrond had been waiting for him, still and somber, on the first terrace at the foot of the stone bridge.  There was little conversation.  The boy was fast asleep and Aranarth had carried him inside, following Elrond.  The brothers saw to the horses and the other precious cargo Aranarth had been carrying. 

He’d spent several days at Rivendell.  Elrond had taken care to introduce him to his wife, Celebrian and his young daughter Arwen, just entering adolescence with the promise of great beauty.  Arahael had quickly taken to her, scooped up in her arms and carried about from room to room.  There were many others, teachers, storytellers, poets.  There were warriors too, Glorfindel, and Elrond’s own two dashing sons.  Aranarth was quietly appreciative but after a few days ready to leave.

“He will be well schooled in his heritage as you had been by your father” Elrond stood beside Aranarth as Elladan brought his horse to the lower terrace.  Aranarth had looked back up the valley to where Arahael stood on a high balcony, his laughter echoing off the rocks as Arwen whispered something in his ear.  It was a clear, calm winter morning, the sky a deep blue.  He heard Elrond continuing.

“There will be more, of course.  He will be learned in the tongues of men and elves, their writings and their histories.  We will teach him mastery of sword and spear, the names of the plants and creatures of the world.”  

Aranarth then turned his eyes to Elrond, his face set in sober resignation.

“He will be well cared for here.  But he must know men, not merely know of them and their deeds, no matter how skilled the teachings.  My Lorelyn will not come…and I know well the reasons, know them more now then I did some weeks ago.  But I will return, often, as I make my way through the wild.”

Elrond nodded. “As I had hoped you would.  You and all the Dunedain are always welcome here, Aranarth.  More than welcome, you are needed here if your son is to go forth properly into the world when it is his time to accept his destiny as the heir to Elendil.”

Aranarth had kept his vow to return and Elrond had met his obligation to educate and protect Arahael. Thrice each year Aranarth would visit, perhaps just week or up to a month.  Elrond had made clear to the boy that Aranarth was his father and that his destiny was to take his father’s place as Chieftan of the Dunedain.  Still, there was an understandable distance between the two, parted most of the year.  Arahael, surrounded by elven ways and speech, confronted with his father, often road weary and brusque, trying to maintain a relationship with a boy who thought himself more elf than man.     

On occasion Aranarth would be accompanied by Arthed, who relished the time with Arahael.  Big, jovial uncle Arthed.  Aranarth would smile, watching them feign swordplay or listen as his younger brother demonstrated his deftness with the axe or recalled old tales of the defeat of the Witch King.  How so much easier it had been for those two to share time.

Still as Arahael reached manhood he was sent out with Aranarth to patrol the lands west of the Misty Mountains.  At times he went south with Arthed to the northern borders of Gondor then up along the Anduin to the Carrock and back to Rivendell over the High Pass.  He was respectful, yet somehow distant, as if this was some task, some process of learning separate from the future life he would lead. 

It had some benefits, certainly the most of which was to meet Oriel, the grand niece of once of Arvedui’s guards, living not far from Arthed at a small farming hamlet with her family and others descendants of the days of the king.  Unlike Lorelyn she had no misgivings about living in Rivendell after marriage and raising a family, having never known the life at Fornost, as Lorelyn had experienced as a child of one of the noble families.

Then this past fall there had been news upon Aranarth’s usual late season visit.  Oriel was with child, one who would be born in the early summer.  Elrond had given Aranarth a meaningful look but said little.  The evening of his departure that past fall, Aranarth had watched his grown son and his wife, comfortable, strong, garbed in finely woven vestments, enjoying the warmth of the hearth.

Many emotions tugged at him.  It had reminded him of his early years with Lorelyn, the absolute love and companionship when it was just the two of them, how she understood from the beginning his destiny and what it would take from them.  Yet in watching them he also saw a loss, that for years to come the thread of kings would be in stories told in Rivendell, not in kingdoms seen.  This son of his and his sons to come as jewels on a string, each one after the other, tied on, tied in, asked to be prepared to fulfil a role that might never be attained. 

As distant as he and Arahael had become, he still felt a knot in his stomach for the years to come when his son would stand in this place as he now did, and stare at his own son to be, matching hope with destiny, paring love with harsh reality.  Aranarth had felt a great open gulf before him at that moment, a long empty stretch of time ahead, sons upon sons upon sons, a barren hostile world, a heritage fading in the sweep of future’s caprice.

Then the music of laughter seemed to pass overhead and descend, filling him with soft light.  Aranarth shook off the cobwebs of past memories, now aware that he had spent long moments still on the trail while Arthed had gone to ford.  The sounds of hoofs on the trail came to him.  A hundred yards ahead Arthed emerged through the passage in the hemlocks, two resplendent riders behind him, smiling, capes billowing, their horses in high spirits.         

“Aranarth! Come, we are expected!” Arthed shouted

Aranarth recognized the twin brothers with Arthed, nudged his mount into motion, a small crease of a smile breaking the distance on his weather-beaten face.  The trio met up with him just shy of the evergreens, the smell of pine needles fragrant in the air. 

“You look well brothers.” Aranarth greeted them

“As do you Aranarth.  Come our father awaits you both.” Elladan replied

“There will be yet another.” Aranarth smiled fixing his gaze on the young elves

“Another? Who?” Elrohir was taken by surprise.  Arthed gave his brother a sly look.

“Our youngest brother, Ardugan.”

“Yes, the records to mention him, though we are not met.  But where is he…did he not accompany you?” Elladan replied, slightly nervous as if this addition might disrupt the plans that his father Elrond had carefully fashioned.

“He will make his presence known in his own way, Elladan…just what I do not know, though I suspect that one moment you will suddenly find him on a terrace in the very heart of Rivendell when a moment before none was there.”

“Rivendell is not entered lightly, Aranarth.  Many of our people watch its borders who are seldom seen, so keen is their craft.  Unwanted guests are lucky if they are simply turned away…in darker times we have let loose the arrow first.  I will alert the guard.”

“As you wish Elladan.  But it will only make the challenge more interesting for him.”

“Yes, I believe he will thank you for that.” Arthed added approvingly.

“Indeed! Well then you must tell us about him” Elrohir broke in, “We have a few hours ride ahead of us.  Plenty of time for new tales, especially one about this mysterious brother of yours of whom you have never spoken.”

The trio turned their mounts east, towards the sound of the rushing Bruinen.  They had gone but 20 paces round the bend in the road, entering the evergreens, when Elladan spied something in the middle of the trail.  He dismounted, taking careful steps with his shiny black boots, great grey-green cape hanging slack from his shoulders.  They all watched as he approached the object, a beautiful wreath woven from fine pine branches in the shape of a half moon and set upon a small cairn of rocks.

“A token of his passage” Arthed intoned knowingly.

“But we just passed here moments ago!” Elladan protested

“It seems he is already well on his way to Rivendell.  We should make haste if we are to announce his arrival to the guards.” Aranarth advised tongue in cheek.

Elladan cast a dark glance back, mostly at his brother Elrohir who was failing in his attempt to hide his mirth at his brother’s discomfort.

“Aranarth is right brother…we spend too much time gathering baubles on the trail.  The ford awaits us…have a care not to splash about so much crossing back this time.” 

Elladan managed a smile. “There would have been less splashing if I’d not had to pull you and your horse out of that deep hole in the river” 

“What?..” But Elladan had galloped off before Elrohir could complete his retort.  Aranarth and Arthed laughed, knowing well from their own experience the camaraderie of brothers.

“It’s all right Elrohir…we’ll not share this misfortune of yours with anyone else” Arthed replied with mock seriousness.  Then he and Aranarth spurred their mounts on, hooves flying towards the ford, Elrohir just shaking his head, then galloping off to join them at the crossing.

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Some leagues away to the east the mood was not so lighthearted.  Two figures, astride large powerful horses were slowly making their way up a steep rocky trail.  The unusual early spring heat in the Anduin lowlands had given way to a cool breeze under cloudy skies.  Hardwoods had yielded to evergreens as they climbed through the foothills to the higher ridges.  Then the firs had thinned, growing stunted, then petered out altogether as the rugged terrain began to show its rocky bones amidst tufts of hardy grasses and lichen covered boulders.  Not far ahead the first patches of snow nestled in sheltered hollows, a harbinger of things to come.

“It is early to attempt such a crossing” Hagar grumbled loudly.

“Early?! I thought Hagar, grandson of Fram climbed the high passes of the north in mid-winter for sport, ever hopeful of finding one of the dragon’s kin in a cave behind the next snowdrift!”

Silence from the sullen blond northerner in back of him.  Gandalf reached a rise in the trail.  They were on the south face of a great long eastward lobe of the high mountains to the west.  The Old Forest Road was rising to meet its sister, the East-West Road at the High Pass.  Despite the dry winter in these parts and the unusual warmth of the early spring there would be several leagues of deep snow to confront.

“How fare these steeds in the snow, Hagar?” Gandalf turned to his frowning companion.

“Belly deep and beyond they care not” Hagar growled

“Then they will be tested this day” Gandalf muttered to himself.

Soon enough the bare rock trail gave way to snow.  Early on just enough to dust the hooves but ‘ere long knee deep.  A few more leagues of hard trudging the horses were laboring, snows now brushing the stirrups.  A hard, crusty snow it was in the early morning, softening as the day warmed only to refreeze again at night.

“Seems no less deep ahead Wizard” Hagar groused loudly, “Will you have us fly the rest of the way?”

It was mid-day and while still cool by most measures, it was unseemly warm at this height.  Gandalf raised his hand, signaling a pause.  He cupped his other hand to his ear as if straining to bring some faint sound to his ear.  Hagar merely glowered at him, shivering slightly, hoping it was not noticed.

Gandalf dismounted, landing nearly chest deep in the snow.  He waded to the right scraping snow from the snow laden hillside that crowded the path they traveled. Hagar watched as he pressed his head to the bare stone for a moment, then stood up suddenly, smiling.

“Ha! We shall have help indeed in this crossing!” 

“Help?! I see no help…only rock and snow!” Hagar shouted

“Let loose the bobcats Hagar…and observe” Gandalf ordered

Hagar showed little reluctance.  The unruly cats had been howling and poking their heads from the latches in their baskets all day, annoying him to the limit of endurance.  A flip of the clasps and they were out, their great spread paws wide enough to support them on the snow crust.  They both snarled and spit at Hagar, venting their captive displeasure.  Hagar responded with a few half-hearted snowballs, easily dodged by the agile felines.

“And these miserable creatures will clear the snow!?” Hagar challenged.

“No…they are merely the bait” Gandalf smiled.

There was a distant rumbling sound of rock on rock, crashing down.  Gandalf waded back in the snow to Hagar, still mounted.

“Stone giants…up ahead.  They awaken in the spring in these parts.  This early heat has got them up and about”

“Then we must turn back! We will be stuck in the snow like worms in the mud!” Hagar expostulated

“On the contrary…the giants will clear the way” Gandalf made a curious meowing animal noise and the bobcats scurried over to him.  He seemed to whisper in their ears and they shot off across the snow where the steep south facing ridge met the deep snow covered trail.

‘Good…we are rid of them” Hagar replied with satisfaction.

His good humor was rudely interrupted by the crashing of rocks and trembling of the earth as two figures, mottled gray and white, descended down the ridge to the trail, each easily thirty feet tall.  Massive in the shoulders, long armed, slightly slouched, with thick legs and wide feet with long gripping toes, the two shaggily furred creatures now stood on the trail peering ahead at the bobcats scampered westward on the glistening snows.  Hagar sat in his saddle, jaw agape.  Gandalf pressed his fingers to his lips for silence.

One of the giants let out an inarticulate bellow and lumbered forth after the cats.  The other followed, picking up a boulder the size of a small cow in its huge hand. 

“They have just awakened after their winter hibernation” he whispered to Hagar.  “They are powerfully hungry and will chase the first thing they see.  With luck the cats will outwit them along the trail until such time as we are near the snow line on the west side of the High Pass!”

Ahead they could see the giants picking their way up the trail, its width barely enough for them to place their feet.  In their wake the deep snows were compacted flat.

“Come Hagar! We must follow them before the others awake!” 

“Others?!”

“Look…up there on the side of the mountain above the trail…see with your mind, not just your eyes!” Gandalf pointed ahead, impatient to be off.

“I see nothing but clumps of rock on the steep slope, surrounded by snow”

“Clumps indeed…look again with those sharp blue eyes of yours” Gandalf replied, walking away and mounting his horse.  He gave it a nudge and it pushed off, following the deep footprints of the stone giants.

Hagar glowered at him but proceeded forward, eyeing the slope above him suspiciously.

They still looked like clumps of rock to him, he kept telling himself as they journeyed along.  The stone giants were beyond sight now though they occasionally heard a distant echo of their bellows caroming off the peaks.  Hagar soberly appraised their footprints in the snow, each nearly large enough to contain him head to toe.

A small cascade of snow tumbled down from the slope on his right.  Hagar looked up, following the trail it had left on its way down from one of the rock groups.  Movement caught his eye, perhaps a snow hare he thought, scampering about, dislodging a bit of snowpack from amongst the rocks. 

But then he realized that the movement was in the rocks themselves, a twitching, as if the boulders were shifting position arbitrarily.  Mystified, he watched more snow shaken loose, sliding down from above.  The rocks seemed to move in unison, part of a pattern. Then it struck him, the pattern was in the shape of a man, only larger, much larger.

“Gandalf! Look…up on the slope!” Hagar shouted, spurring his mount on to catch up with the wizard.

“So your brain has at last come to the assistance of your eyes, Hagar.  Now we must hurry, before the rest of the giants see us as breakfast!”

Gandalf galloped off, with Hagar close behind, their horses kicking up a white spray as they wove in and out of the great footprints of flattened snow.  Ahead the trail wound along the side of the great ridge, towards a notch in the crest of the snow-capped Misty Mountains, now just two leagues away. 

Twenty minutes later they were at the High Pass itself, pausing to let the winded horses catch their breath in the thin air of the high mountains.  Hagar looked back to the east beyond the icy crests, the powerful thrusts of rock and snow buttressing the backbone of the Misty Mountains on which they now stood.  Far away and below the mighty Anduin wove a silver thread through the deep green of its spring floodplain.  Further east the dark edge of Mirkwood ran across the horizon from north to south.  Somewhere in that vast sea of trees was Rhosgobel, though he could not discern it. 

From here the world seemed both endless and diminished.  Endless because he could see across countless hundreds of leagues of mountain, forest, and plain, distances that would take weeks of hard travel to cross.  And he knew there was more, vast unknowns to the east beyond the reaches of his vision at even this high altitude.  His homeland, marked by the faint glimmering intersection of the Langwell with the Anduin far, far away on the very northern horizon, seemed small and insignificant, a minor piece in the mosaic of the world’s lands and kingdoms.

It was overwhelming for one whose universe had consisted of little more than his physical prowess and position as son of the chief of his people.  Now he had the beginnings of perspective as to just how much that mattered in the world immensely larger than he could have imagined. 

Gandalf watched him quietly for a few moments, letting the lesson sink in, then gently eased his mount over next to Hagar’s.

“It is perhaps too much of the world to see in one place, eh Hagar?” Gandalf smiled kindly beneath his gray beard.  Hagar just sat silently, feeling tiny, insignificant, all unfamiliar and thoroughly unpleasant sensations.

“There is still much that one man can do in this world my young friend” Gandalf put his hand on Hagar’s shoulder. “Don’t let its size daunt you.  Come…we need to catch up with our feline trailblazers” 

Hagar nodded silently and they rode over the crest of the pass and down the western side, still making progress through the footprints of the stone giants.  They had gone perhaps a league when Gandalf reined in his mount and put up a hand to signal Hagar. 

Ahead, perhaps a mile, they could just make out the footprints cutting sharply left, off the trail, down a steep, snow clad slope.  There were two figures, small at this distance, blundering down, their cries and bellows echoing faintly amongst the peaks and bulwarks of stone and ice.  Ahead of them only the keenest eyes would have perceived two tiny dots weaving an erratic path just ahead of the lumbering figures.  The dots reached the edge of a snowy precipice, seemingly trapped, stone giants ahead of them, a thousand fathoms of empty air at their feline backs.

With a distant roar the stone giants charged ahead.  Their prey waited until the very last instant, then darted aside at high speed, one in each direction.  The giants dug in their heels to stop and change direction, a much more laborious process given their size.

But their heels just dug deeper in the snow, which was soon over their knees, then their thighs.  Abruptly they were waist, then chest deep, too late in realizing that the bobcats had been scampering along a great empty cornice of ice and snow hanging well out from the underlying base of rock.  There was an ominous rumble, then suddenly a great slab of ice and snow separated from its rocky mooring, a remorseless frozen mass that carried the vainly struggling figures forward, over the edge of the cliff.  They let out a great final roar of frustration and fear that reverberated off the west wall of the Misty Mountains, then plunged in a cloud of white to an uncertain fate in the chasm below.

“Our friends have indeed done us a great service” Gandalf commented approvingly.  “We must take advantage of our good fortune now, Hagar and make for the western snow line before any of their friends indulge in slow witted curiosity about the fate of their brothers!”

The two of them hastened down the western slope, reaching the end of the easy footing where the giants had gone off the trail.  There they found the two bobcats, preening themselves, clearly pleased with their adventure and evidencing little interest in the arrival of Gandalf and Hagar.  Gandalf smiled and directed his horse onward, now knee deep in untrammeled snow, but at least going downhill, and as time wore on, through a a diminishing carpet of white.

The afternoon wore on.  They left the snow behind and descended into a deepening ravine carved by a fast swelling freshet of snowmelt.  Lichen and scattered patches of alpine grass emerged on the south facing slopes of the coomb.  An hour later the walls of the narrow canyon opened up.  They found themselves amidst a scattering of dwarf evergreens on the edge of a hanging valley.  To their left, the now roaring stream hurtled over a precipice. 

Fortunately their trail did not follow the same course, and instead veered away from the plunging current, picking a way along the sheer faces of massive bluffs and buttes.  Hagar peered nervously over the edge of the trail to the valley floor below, a tumble of house sized boulders amidst clusters of birch and alder.

It was getting late.  The sun was setting now, illuminating the snow-clad peaks behind them in gold.  They were still some ways from the valley floor and had passed what appeared to be roomy caves in the rock wall where they could easily spend the night.

“Are we to work our way down these cliffs at night” Hagar grumbled loudly

“Well we could make camp in one of these cozy caves you seem to long for, but they  have been known to harbor unwelcome visitors” Gandalf admonished.  “Come, son of Breor, there is still enough light in this spring dusk to guide us to safe harbor I know in the valley floor below.  With luck tomorrow this time we shall be in Rivendell!”

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She had been bad company for days, cursing the journey, berating them for the small inconveniences of the wild.  They’d passed the Undeeps two days before, making little conversation with the small troop assigned there, a residual of the force Eradan had led now some weeks past.

The pace had been harsh for horse and human alike, 20 leagues a day, long days followed by exhausted sleep and cold dinners.  There were but three of them, Drianna on a lean, compactly built mare bred for long endurance, and two seasoned cavalrymen, Balas and Ensil, on similar mounts.  They had brought two additional horses in the event of lameness or sickness, such was the import of their trek.

Now up ahead lay the Celebrant, emptying its mythic waters into the Anduin.  Beyond its shores lay the forest of Lorien, veiled and mysterious, a cloistered land of elves. 

“What now m’lady?” Balas inquired neutrally, prepared for another angry outburst

“Look ahead…our guide comes from the eaves of the forest”

A mile off, a figure emerged on horseback, still and erect in the saddle.  Details emerged as he neared.  Garments of grey and dull green, long blond hair, swept back to a ponytail, high cheekbones.  His mount was grey, but not some pastiche of ashen color, but a curious, almost luminous blend of dark and light.

Drianna’s two companions stirred uneasily in their saddles, but she had known of this meeting from her parting with Mardil two weeks before.  Still she was apprehensive.  It was one thing to be the daughter of the Steward, secure in the confines of Gondor.  It was another thing entirely to be far beyond its borders, representing her people, and now meeting with an elf who would guide her to Rivendell.  For all her evident hunting skills and bravado she too was on edge, though it was not a precipice of fear, but the adrenaline of challenge.  And now he was upon them, calm, confident, quietly purposeful.

“I am Haldir, Marchwarden of Lorien.  What is your business in this realm?”

“I am Drianna, daughter of Mardil, Steward of Gondor.  These are my companions, Balas and Ensil.  We journey on the invitation of Elrond, Lord of Rivendell.”

Haldir was momentarily taken aback.

“We have been expecting an envoy from Gondor, but…”

“But not the daughter of the Steward, it seems.”

“No, but…”

“But as you may already know the eldest son is missing in the Brown Lands or worse.  The youngest son busies himself in the library.  Do you wish to see the authorization of the Steward?”

“No, it will…

“Not be necessary.  Good!  We still have far to journey to meet our appointed task in Rivendell and time is short.  Will you be accompanying us?”

“Yes, the Lady Galadriel has asked me to represent Lorien”

“Very well.  Then please lead on.  We are at your service.”

It was not as Haldir had envisioned, though he now seemed to remember the slightest curl of a smile upon Galadriels’s face as she instructed him as to his mission in Rivendell and his task with the delegation from Gondor.

Thus, they made their way north along the Anduin, at the edge of Lorien, then along the alluvial grasslands that bordered the Great River, past the Gladden Fields til they met the junction where the Old Forest Road crossed the Anduin at the Old Ford.  That in itself was five days hard ride, though neither Drianna nor Haldir made any show of weariness.

Little did they speak as well, Drianna occupied with the mystery of her brother’s fate and the import of her mission, Haldir satisfied to remain contained in elvish silence, parting with words only to give direction to their journey or counsel on where they might decamp for the night.

As Gandalf and Hagar had done less than a fortnight ago, their party too made their way west towards the High Pass.

“And how do you propose we cross winter’s snows which seem to still lay deep upon the mountains, Haldir?” Adrianna posed sharply

“Word has it that the path has been made clear by those who have gone before us”

“And who would that be?” Drianna inquired

“None that you would know, but whom you will soon know well enough when we arrive a few days hence.”

“Well met will be any who can bring my brother back and restore my father’s will.” Drianna spoke, her face set hard with fresh memory of loss

“Whether that is possible I cannot say.  Our task is yet to be defined for us.” Haldir answered

“I need no counsel to define the task, Haldir.  It is clear enough to me, even if I must attend to it on my own!” Drianna retorted hotly

“Of that I have no doubt” Haldir replied respectfully, “But you would be well advised to hear all that is said before taking leave to bring battle on your own.”

“I have come this far.  A rest in a few days will do the horses much good and my companions grow weary of the trail.  In that time I will listen as you suggest.”

Haldir stole a glance at her, riding next to him as they wound westward up the steepening foothills of the Misty Mountains in the early afternoon sun.  She was dressed in buckskins under a woolen cloak.  Her red streaked golden hair caught the light and sent it back like spun gold.  She was unusually striking for a mortal, her spirit burning hard and strong.  They would not know what to make of her in Imladris.  Haldir permitted himself his own quiet smile, understanding better now the trace of wry amusement that had glimmered across Galadriel face when she had asked him to accompany the party from Gondor.