The Path to Dol Guldur

They set out not long after Drianna’s departure.  It was at best an hour after dawn and the woods were gloomy, visibility perhaps a hundred feet.  The trail that had led them this far, wide enough for horses single file, narrowed to a footpath winding uncomfortably between bulky misshapen oaks and beeches with low hanging branches that seemed to itch to grab them in their clutches. 

What little elven magic from another age was faint now, barely enough to keep the path from being completely overgrown.  It was deadly quiet too, not a breath of air or sound, save that of their own footfalls, soft rhythmic thuds which the forest quickly sucked away.

There was no conversation amongst them as they marched along.  Events of the prior night had been a slap in the face that had left them all brooding about their own fates, entombed with their own thoughts. 

After a few hours they noticed that the scent of the place was changing.  What had been a dry, almost acrid smell of dead leaves and woody decay was being supplanted by a noisome rot, vaguely sweet and sulfurous.  This coincided with the appearance of new vegetation.  Mottled black and green vines began to creep up the distorted tree trunks like predator snakes.  Moist, grey-white flowers bloomed off the ropy stems, bobbing slightly as if to tempt the unwary to come closer for an inspection.

Small scattered patches of moss on the forest floor expanded to thick oozing carpets of dark green and yellow-gray that came right up to the edge of the trail.  The first of the distorted evergreens began to appear amongst the mutated beeches and oaks. 

No fair scented firs were these. Thick squat trunks, twelve feet thick thrust above the noxious moss. Scaly black and red bark glistened with a layer of sticky resin the color of dried blood.  The branches sprouted in a mad tangle as if fighting each other for space while pendulous whitish green cones hung from their tips like insect larvae, twitching slightly.

At what might have been mid-morning, the trail met an isolated rocky prominence that heaved up off the forest floor.  Little more than a tumble of boulders upon each other, it still broke the oppressive monotony, for no trees grew on its surface. The foul mosses and vines shrunk back, held at bay by a welcome patch of sunlight that shone through the gap in the tree canopy at the top of the stony mound. 

Arahael, in the back of the line, could see Ardugan and Haldir up ahead halted at the base of the slope.

“This is the first of the three dolmens.” Ardugan commented to Haldir.

“It is just as the old scrolls and tales say, Ardugan.  In fairer times long ago graceful wooden stairs ascended their slopes and beautifully wrought platforms topped the rise.  Music would be played and one could look across the treetops and listen for the distant sound of melodies from one of the other dolmens.  Now only the stones remain.”

“Thankfully He has not corrupted them as yet” Gandalf replied, joining their conversation.  “Let us halt for a moment to take sustenance and sunlight.”

“Welcome as it may be, should we not take care that snakes or other vermin do not inhabit the crevices of the rocks?” Aranarth commented, removing his pack as he approached them.

“It is safe here, brother, as I have sat alone for hours atop this stony rise in times past.  Come, I will show the way to the summit.”  Ardugan cast his pack aside and lightly made his way up the nearest boulder field into the sunlight.

“I could use the light of day myself” Arthed added agreeably, as he doffed his pack next to Ardugan’s and following his younger brother up the slope without further comment.

Hagar and finally Arahael arrived.  They glanced up the rocky rise, following Ardugan and Arthed as they climbed up into the brilliant light of early summer afternoon.  

“Well let he who is last be the one to bring the provisions.” Gandalf laughed as he scampered up the slope with an agility unseemly for a man of his apparent age.  The others looked at each other momentarily.  Haldir leapt up first, his elven feet scarcely touching the rocks as he raced past the wizard.  Aranarth glared at Hagar and Arahael, but his son quickly launched himself up the first boulder, a rebellious smile on his face.

“It would be more efficient if we would share the burden” Aranarth growled at Hagar.

“Agreed! With the two of us there will be more for me to eat when we reach the top.  I will carry the meats, waybread and dried fruits.  The waterskins you can easily sling across your shoulders.”  Hagar replied enthusiastically.

And so they clambered up the rocks towards the height, a lumpy summit just a dozen feet above the treetops, but a world apart from the oppressive forest that lay below.  The seven companions found perches upon a ring of small boulders at the top.  The air at this level was less fetid and a slight breeze from the west sailed past them.  Aranarth and Hagar distributed the food and drink.  The sunlight seemed to wash away some of the dread from their hearts from the morning’s deadly brush with the spiders, though none were so warmed as to forget the seriousness of their situation.

“You can see it from here.” Ardugan commented matter of factly, chewing on a nugget of dried beef.  “Off to the southeast, that bare topped low mountain.”

They rose one by one to see it.  Dol Guldur, hulking in the distance over the forest, surrounded by a weak yellow haze.

Gandalf was looking elsewhere, to the west and southwest, talking half to himself.

“They will be coming soon, later today, seeking what purchase can be found high up in the limbs to our south.” 

He turned to the group. “A few moments more, then we must be on our way til darkness halts us.  We must reach the base of the Necromancer’s hill by noon tomorrow.”

There was desultory grumbling and a rush to finish off a last mouthful of food or a final gulp of water.  They all took a last long look at the sun, then reluctantly descended, below.

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Off to the north and west of their position, another had already taken leave of the lonely ride back to the knoll just outside Mirkwood.   

She sat on Xandr looking back along the trail.  Just two hours spent traveling west had perceptively brought her closer to the western edge of Mirkwood.  There was a scent of life in the air, which came from the west this day.  The trees were still strained and bowed, but there was tangibly more green to their leaves, signaling a small victory over the darkness.  More light seemed to filter through the forest canopy, allowing a few scant plants to grow on the forest floor.

Behind her were the other horses, Balas and Ensil strapped their mounts which limped along gamely, along with two other spare horses who had served Aranarth and Arthed.  Nytral had slipped off, maintaining his distance. 

Perhaps it was the change in the mood of the forest as she went westward, or could it be that Ardugan’s swift work on her wound was paying off.  That and a generous supply of lembas she had consumed in the saddle for breakfast.  She was beginning to feel like her old self again.  And over the last hour she was getting less and less inclined to wait out events on a knoll outside Mirkwood. 

Action, far more than patience, was in her blood.  Her mind churned, wheels turning.  Again she looked back at the horses, the still forms of her escorts lashed to their mounts.  The sight filled her with guilt as much as rage.  Time was spilling away.  If she was to catch up with Eradan, a decision had to be made now.  But what was she to do.  She could not simply abandon the lifeless forms of her comrades to the forest, food for some stray spider.  Nor could she leave them fastened to their mounts, who would bear the burden for days without any respite. 

Drianna ground her teeth in frustration.  She looked again at their forms, wrapped tightly in their blankets.  No, it was as Eradan said.  The cavalry was a service that neither gave nor expected any quarter.  They would far prefer her to return to her companions then to sit idly by dwelling on their already determined fate.

Drianna smiled.  “Is it so, Balas and Ensil? May I take your leave then and mayhap strike a blow for your efforts on my behalf?”

The forest answered with silence for a while.  Then there was a rustling and a soft clump ahead of her.  At her feet the two bobcats sat expectantly, their eyes shining with a curious mischief.

Drianna felt a compulsion to dismount.  She walked over to the cats and crouched down beside them.

“You favor me with your company, yet I sense you have something more than companionship to tell me”

The two cats cocked their heads briefly at her then darted off to the horses carrying the dead cavalrymen.  The steeds seemed slightly agitated at their arrival, nervous, yet excited in some mysterious way only horses sense with their emotions.  She looked back to the path where Nytral gave her a long look with his deep black eyes.  Xandr turned his head to her, holding a gaze that tried to send a message.

Drianna returned the stare and a thought slowly grew, more a memory than anything else.  A time when she was raising Xandr as a young colt, teaching him a trick a stableboy had shown her.  She would tie a knot in an unusual configuration with a small bow around a sugar sweet.  The young Xandr learned that if he could grasp the end of the bow in his teeth and gently pull, the sweet would tumble out and be his.  It was a trick she had enjoyed demonstrating over and over.

Yes, there was a way, she thought to herself.  Drianna went over to one of the two spare horses and removed two coils of rope from a saddle bag.  She walked over to the wrapped bodies of the cavalrymen, each draped across the back of their own horses.

“Forgive me for not accompanying you further, but I will find no rest under the boughs of a woody knoll outside Mirkwood with you while my brother risks his life in Dol Guldur a second time.  These fine steeds will watch over you ‘til I return.”

Having said her peace, Drianna went to work, cutting the coils of rope into various segments, them into loops and hitches of various shapes and functions.  She tied them off on the pommel of each saddle, then lay the bulk of the array over each body, leaving a longer length of cord that slipped through several of the more elaborate knots.

It was a skill she had learned as a child, but eight summers old.  Mardil had taken his precocious daughter with him on a tour of Gondor’s still formidable naval armada at the mouths of the Anduin.  While he conferred with the Admiral of the fleet on his flagship, Drianna was to receive a casual tour of the decks by a young ensign.  But whilst his back was turned she had bolted off, scurrying down a hatch into the lower decks.  Wandering about as if she was the captain she came upon a white bearded old salt bent over heaps of ropes, setting up intricate knots in webs of rigging.  She sat down, intrigued by his concentration and the complexity of his constructs.  Time went by and the aged sailor looked up at his admirer.

“So..ye be a knotsmith young lady?” the leathery old man grinned at her, his gnarled hands moving nimbly among the wide lengths of rope.  “Here…let’s show you one I like…the slow drag”

With that he pulled a few stray lengths of cord and went to work.  She watched him eagerly, fascinated by his easy expertise.  Soon he had a curious network assembled to which he attached a heavy block and tackle on the free end of the rope.  A large ropy loop stood out prominently.

“Now lass..” he said in a gravelly voice, standing up holding the web in two hands, suspending the heavy gear from it two feet off the floor.  “…just make a tug on the short end of yonder loop”

Drianna had done so and the knots began to unravel in a slow progression.  The heavy block and tackle slowly descended, its weight balanced against the friction of the ropes against each other as they passed through various hitches and binds.

“We call ‘at the slow fall, lass…very handy when yer lowering a main mast and such”

Just then there had been a commotion and a small coterie of over uniformed officers came thundering down the lower decks looking for her.  They had glared at the old man and scooped her up despite her loud protests.  She’d spent the rest of the day in an upper cabin minded by two impassive midshipmen.  But the moments spent with the old sailor had kindled an interest in knots and ropes that she continued, expanding it to hunting snares and other curious applications.

Now that first lesson, the ‘slow fall’ would be applied to the still forms of Balas and Ensil once their horses had reached the knoll outside of Mirkwood, hours to the west.  All that was needed was for the knot to be released and they would descend gently from their position fastened to the side of their horses.   But there was another important ingredient yet to make that happen.

She went over to another saddle bag and fished around til she felt a small metal box.  Something the elves had given them in Rivendell as trading goods, should their cover story be put to test.  It was plain and slightly battered, the metal dull.  She pried off the lid and a spicy fragrance poured out.  Cinnamon, twenty dried sticks, often coveted as an additive to teas and fine desserts.  This would do just fine.

Drianna took three sticks out, replaced the box in the pouch, and walked over to her constructs of rope.  At the horses carrying Balas and Ensil she took the long free end of the last length of cord she had left dangling and carefully wrapped it around a cinnamon stick, then looped and tied it over and over again, creating the shape of a blossom.  A short stub of cord remained, coming out of the center of the blossom.    Now she cut another length and made a similar blossom shaped knot, free standing, with the third cinnamon stick in its center.  This she took over to Xandr.

“Do you remember old friend?” Drianna held the rope blossom up to Xandr.  The great horse’s nose began to work, animated at the strong cinnamon aroma.  He opened his mouth, pulling his lips back to reveal strong white teeth.  Gently, he locked them about the small portion of cord that emerged from the center of the loops and whorls of rope.  A tug and the blossom collapsed in a heap of coils and the cinnamon was freed up.  Xandr picked it from the unraveled cords and munched it, a satisfied look in his eyes.

“Well done, Xandr.” Drianna led him over to the horses bearing Balas and Ensil.  “Now I have two more for you when the time comes.  But that will be later.”

Drianna then released the baggage and saddles from the remaining horses.  No need for them to be weighted down unnecessarily.  She walked over to Nytral who stood quietly, several yards in front of the other horses, an enigma in black on the westward trail.  Chrisandil and Clybrindor sat attentively beside him.

“There is something more than horse in you Nytral” Eyes like black glass stared back at her without expression.

“And the two of you seem to know more than a cat should”  Drianna smiled at the two bobcats, who twitched their tales in response. “So I will not account myself foolish to stand here discussing plans with you.” 

Nytral cocked his head ever so slightly.  A trace of emotion flickered in his eyes.  Drianna cautiously reached out and touched his head.

“You must lead them westward, back out of the forest.  Xandr will join you before dusk, after he has taken me back to the campsite.  As for the two of you…” Drianna crouched down in front of the two bobcats.  Their yellow-green eyes locked on her, curiosity and a measure of approval mixing with the usual regal haughtiness “…you will do as you please, but it would please me to know that all arrived safely.” 

As if to underscore her comments, they seemed to forget that she was there the moment her words were out, commencing a desultory grooming process that gave all indication of lasting the rest of the morning.  Drianna rose to her feet, strode over to Xandr and eased herself up into the saddle.  The movement brought a fresh stab of pain into her shoulder as if to remind her that her choice to go east would not be without difficulty. 

But already, Nytral had started off to the west, the other horses following obediently behind.  The cats had disappeared in the seconds it had taken her to mount Xandr.  She waited until the horses had rounded a bend in the trail fifty yards west, out of her line of sight, then turned Xandr eastward.

Pressing the great steed on, unencumbered by the slow pace the limping horses had set in the morning, she managed last night’s campsite in less than an hour.  There Drianna layed out a pile of oats and some dried fruit for the stallion and emptied the contents of a water sack.   

There was no lack of provision in Xandr’s saddlebags.  More lembas, dried meats and fruits, mixed nuts.  Then on to armament.  Here there would be no luxury of heavy mail, shield and plate.  She had to conserve her strength and that meant minimizing the weight of defensive measures while maximizing those offensive capabilities she could carry.

And so she donned just a light coat of mail, over which went a jacket and leggings of cured leather with layers of toughened cowhide and thin metal sheet to protect the most vital areas.  Still that left relatively unprotected areas that at best would slow, but not completely stop the piercing of an arrow or the thrust of a knife. 

She bound her mane of yellow hair and tucked it inside a smallish battle helmet. Lightweight and cleverly crafted in small overlapping sheets of pounded steel it provided surprising resistance to even a stout blow.  It had been a present from Eradan some years back, the work of one of Gondor’s finest armorers.

Her sword hung from her belt and two small daggers were tucked in sleeve pouches.  To the back of her pack she strapped a small crossbow, easily removable with the tug on a slip knot.  Over her right shoulder would go her hunting bow.   Not a great tall long bow, but a lithe, medium length arc of supple wood and taught line whose flex and snap magnified the draw her own strength provided.  She had made it herself and could fell a stag from a hundred yards, smaller prey from twice that distance.

She backed up to Xandr where her backpack lay suspended from a strap around the saddle pommel.  Slipping through the straps, Drianna stood, wincing at the impact of its weight on her tender left shoulder.  At least her legs were sound, for they would have the bulk of the work the next two days.  She fixed the hunting bow over her right shoulder and turned to Xandr.

The great white stallion gave her a long look.  His noble face bore the scars of the attack by the bats weeks ago.  His eyes communicated concern for her, knowing that she too now bore the pain of an injury and was heading east to a danger he could sense.

“No, Xandr…” Drianna whispered into his ear, holding his great head once more in her hands. “…do not worry about me.  Your part is done.  Go west.  Join the others…two more treats await you in the knots.  Just pull them and the rest will follow”

She gave him a light rap on his back flanks, the signal to be off that she had taught him years ago.  He tossed his head once, then took off at a quickening gait, breaking out into a smooth loping gallop, navigating expertly between the bent and twisted trees hemming in the trail.

In a few moments he was gone, the sound of his hooves fading to silence.  Xandr would catch up with Balas’s and Ensil’s mounts at the knoll outside Mirkwood.  He would smell the cinnamon in the rope blossoms she had fashioned then pull the cords seeking the treats.  The knots would unravel according to plan and the wrapped bodies of Balas and Ensil would gently ease from their ropy nets to the ground freeing the horses from their burden.  The old sailor from years ago would be pleased to know his craft had contributed in this way.

But now she had to focus on the task of travelling alone to Dol Guldur, almost half a day behind the others.  Ahead the forest looked darker, the trees even more bent and gnarled, branches seeming to reach out to grab the unwary.  A faint scent of sweet sulfurous rot hovered at the edge of perception.  Drianna took one last look west, then turned away and plunged east into the darker depths of Mirkwood, ignoring for now the slow ache growing in her shoulder.

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They arrived at the second dolmen later in the afternoon.  Gandalf bade all save Haldir to rest upon its lower reaches, just out of the darkness and oppression of the forest.  The two then made their way upwards, a few feet below the small summit, taking care to keep its mass between them and Dol Guldur, now beginning to hulk ominously to the east.  It was well into the second day now that they had entered Mirkwood.

Gandalf pointed to the southwest, over an undulating sea of treetops.  Above them the air was hazy, shimmering in early summer heat.  Far, far away along the western horizon a white glimmer hinted at the snowy ramparts of the Misty Mountains leagues away. 

“Your elven eyes are the most keen amongst us Haldir.  Does anything mark the horizon coming from the west.” 

Haldir sensed a trace of anxious expectancy in Gandalf’s voice.  Shading his eyes with his hand against the sun he scanned over the forest, an ominous dark carpet of woods.   In the haze far to the west, below the heights of the distant mountains, he could discern a patch of deep green that marked Lorien’s upper reaches. 

“The skies are empty…not even so much as a cloud”

There was a worried look on Gandalf’s face.  “They should have been on their way by now” he said, half muttering to himself, squinting against the westering sun.  He let out a small sigh.  Then there was silence between the two of them, Haldir still scanning to the west, Gandalf staring into the middle distance, lost in his thoughts.  Below them nearer the base of the dolmen, the others were in quiet conversation. 

Minutes drifted by.  Aranarth looked up at them, impatience and concern growing on his face.  They would need to be off soon if the final dolmen was to be reached before nightfall.  He made his way quietly up the boulders to where Gandalf and Haldir had positioned themselves.  They seemed not to notice he was there, the gray wizard hunched over, seated on a rock. Haldir stood like a statue facing west.  Aranarth followed Haldir’s gaze across the vacant pale blue sky, seeing nothing but an endless sea of trees.  The air was still, time seemed suspended for the moment.

Then Haldir stiffened and leaned forward slightly.  Aranarth saw his eyes blink twice then focus again on the west.

“There is something….”  The elf spoke softly

“What?”  What do you see?”  Gandalf was suddenly alert, coming out of his reverie

“A smudge…like a bit of dark smoke, coming east from Lorien, changing shape….wait, there is another like it following some distance behind…heading for the edge of Mirkwood, but south of here.”

“Good…good!”  Gandalf cried, then rose and turned to the elf, a broad smile on his face and twinkle in his eye. 

“Come then Haldir, we have no time to waste skygazing and Aranarth is ready to drag us bodily back to the trail as we have much distance to cover ‘ere nightfall.”

They both looked at him quizzically, startled by his abrupt change in mood.  But there was no mistaking his laughter as he clambered down the mound of boulders to the base of the dolmen. 

Arnarth and Haldir made their way down behind him.  The others were donning their packs, sensing that some decision had been made.  Gandalf eyes lingered appraisingly at all of them for a moment, then spoke.

“It seems the allies that Radagast has recruited have completed their stay as guests of Lorien and are en route to assist us.  But their time in this forest is to be brief, no more than a day.  So we must make haste to the third dolmen ‘ere nightfall, if tomorrow we are to pay visit to the Master of Dol Guldur at the appointed time.”

The mention of Dol Guldur was like a dousing of cold water to the group, a reminder of the reality of their mission.  Gandalf stared long and hard beneath his great bushy gray eyebrows at each of them, gauging once again their resolve at the imminence of their task.

Haldir was cool, expressionless, elven eyes distant as his thoughts.  Beside him, Aranarth found a deep scowl to match the glare of his eyes beneath the rim of his battered helm.  Arthed’s long lean face was somber.  His right hand fidgeted absently with the handle of his axe.  Eradan stared stonily back at Gandalf, his proud high visage still swollen and bruised from rough days inside the Necromancer’s lair.  Framed by long yellow braids clotted with his own blood, Hagar’s face was a curious mix of apprehension and youthful truculence, though his eyes met Gandalf’s unflinchingly.

Arahael had an air of quiet preparedness about him, mixed with a fatalistic relief, knowing that the true test of all the training he had received was irrevocably at hand.  Ardugan’s unnaturally large eyes were a heartlessly cool blue, the ever-present wry smirk now nearer a leer.  Thoughts of dealing death again were awakening killing instincts that lurked within him and had kept him alive those many years alone in the wild.

Yes, they are all prepared in their own way Gandalf thought to himself.  Let us hope that He is not so prepared for what we have in store for Him.  

Quietly then they left the second dolmen behind them, plunging back into the forest which seemed ever darker, more fetid and sinister. 

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Drianna sat atop the first dolmen, breathing heavily.  Her shoulder throbbed unmercifully.  Exhausted, she lay back on a slab of rock for a moment, savoring a moment of afternoon sun, shutting her eyes briefly. 

With a grunt of pain she sat back up suddenly, shaking her head.  Sleep was tugging hard at her body, too hard to tempt it this soon in the day.  She remembered the maps Gandalf had laid out before them days before at Rivendell.  She just had to reach the second dolmen today if she was to catch up with them tomorrow.  She took a draught from the water skin that hung over her good right shoulder.  A few more minutes rest and then she had to be off.

Drianna stared wearily at the pack next to her propped up against a lump of rock.  It would be all she could do to make the second dolmen before the forest became too dark to traverse.  It would not do to be stumbling about, losing track of the slender thread of trail that wound through the increasingly nightmarish vegetation.  

Another long look at the westering sun, then she crouched down in front of the pack, slipping her arms through the straps behind her.  Drianna leaned forward, wincing as the weight of the pack bore down on her left shoulder, a hot center of pain around which all else traveled.  She stood, tightening the straps, adjusting the mass to proper balance. 

She knew she could just as easily spend the rest of the day marching west instead towards safer realms.  A trace of a smile fought for purchase against the grimace of pain that was stamped on her face.  She knew herself too well to consider turning back.  She had to be part of the mission.  Pride and competitiveness were part of it.  But there was something else, a growing feeling that things would somehow be dangerously incomplete without her there.   Things that would put Eradan’s life at risk. 

That brought back her suppressed resentment about the entire mission.  Gondor called upon to risk its best as pieces slid about on the chessboard of Middle Earth by elves and wizards.  Gondor to the rescue of Arthedain, which if her version history told true was but a dry rotting branch by the time the Witch King advanced with vigor.  Now her brother was hauling his battered body back to the very place he had already once barely escaped with his life, while her father and his cavalry lined up in formation like unprotected sheep on the empty plains of the Brown Lands.

Her anger smoldered into a dark rage that wound between her grinding teeth and poured from flinty blue eyes.  It was over a league from the first dolmen before she realized that she had been marching like an automaton in a wave of anger so all consuming that it had blotted out the drumbeat of pain in her shoulder and any sense of her surroundings.

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Far to the south of Drianna the afternoon sun was hot, the air heavy and silent, the vast empty plain unceasing in its attempt to diminish their presence to little more than the dust that caked the hooves of their mounts.  Her father, Mardil, smiled at the irony of what came into view as he reached the crest of the gently undulating slope before him.  The dark unmistakable line of Mirkwood, perhaps five leagues north.

Finally some landmark after days in a sea of grassy stubble and windblown dirt the consistency of ground ashes.  Then men would be cheered as a mariner lost at sea would welcome the sight of land, any land.  But his long aristocratic face with is high forehead and grave, gray eyed countenance merely sank deeper into the lines of worry that bound it.

He had consulted the daykeeper in the morning, the one whose task it was to track the days, nights, stars, and progress on long tours of duty.  Mardil had already known the answer to his question.  They would approach the edge of the forest tomorrow, draw the enemy out, and hope that the works of the others were not in vain.

He had all but given up on finding any trace of his son.  Now he feared for his daughter’s life, knowing that she would insist on accompanying the party to Dol Guldur, willful to a fault, unable to accept the likely fate of her brother.   Life would be empty indeed should he lose them both and still live. 

He shook the thought aside.  A thousand men arrayed behind him on horseback needed a clear head to lead them.  Speculative grief was a luxury for peaceful times with limited responsibilities, neither of which were presented today.  To his right Perrian cleared his throat.

Mardil turned in the saddle to his troop captain, arrayed in the new gleaming light armor that encased him in what was now a furnace of body heat and reflected sun.  The man was pointing high off to the southwestern sky.

 “It has been circling far off for the last hour, Steward.  The last few minutes it has closed the gap on us, descending in great loops.”

Mardil shaded his eyes against the sun.  There it was, at first little more than a black dot against the relentless blue.  But quickly there was the hint of wings, then a clear shape of a bird, a large one.  A few more downward loops and it leveled off, coming right at them.

Perrian started to make a signal to the archers.

“No!  Hold that command!”  Mardil’s voice was tense, uncharacteristically harsh.  Perrian lapsed into immobility.  The bird, it had to be an eagle, approached on its final glide, wings wide, effortlessly parting the air, now only thirty, twenty, ten feet off the ground.  A brief flurry of wings and it eased itself to a spot in the sparse brown grass just a few yards from the hooves of Mardil’s horse.

He dismounted.  The eagle seemed to glare at him impatiently.  He noticed something wrapped about its right talon.  Slowly he knelt beside the great bird whose eyes nearly met his own.  Gently he untied the knot that bound the parcel, a cloth sheath designed to contain brief messages.  Before he had fully stood, the raptor had let out a cry and launched itself back into the air, its only true home, riding the currents of heat upward into the sky heading southwest towards the Emyn Muil.

Mardil removed a small scrap of parchment from the finely woven pouch.  He alone of the thousand on the plain knew how to read the elvish script. 

“Captain Perrian!  Prepare the men to camp here on the rise.  We will watch the forest the rest of this day from a distance.  On the ‘morrow we will enter its eaves.”

Perrian saluted crisply and rode off at a gallop to bark orders to the company commanders.  Mardil crushed the parchment into dry brittle bits and allowed himself a grim, mirthless smile.   The playing field would be level this time, to the great surprise of the enemy.  No, he thought, turning and looking back at the powerful, gleaming horsemen behind him.  It would be far from level.  Now he allowed himself a real smile.

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Five leagues to Mardil’s north, a man called Drazakh stood in the last of the forest’s deep shadows.  Ahead the trees thinned to ragged clumps swimming in a sea of yellow brush and thorn hedge that faded into the tawny haze of the Brown Lands to the south.  Gimlet eyes under a single heavy black brow picked out tiny specks along the horizon to the south.  A voice like an iron grate dragged across rough flagstone barked a command.

“It is as He said it would be.  Alert your battle groups” 

“No, Drazakh…we should wait til they are closer, more vulnerable”  The tone was almost sibilant with insincerity and contempt.  It did not go unremarked.

Drazakh whirled and struck the orc commander with the full force of his mailed fist, sending him flying into the trunk of a nearby tree.

“I am in command now Ugbek!”  Drazakh stood over him a snarl writhing beneath his greasy drooping mustache.

The orc gathered himself to his feet slowly.  He knew he was no match for the Easterner, some barbarian from lands beyond Far Harad.  Easily a head taller, shoulders like slabs of granite, a face disfigured with battle scars and hideous tattoos, Drazakh was now His favorite, after the prior leader, an Orc, had his head liberated from his body by the mace of the Gondoran whelp.   

“Yes, yes…of course!” another voice intoned smoothly, “Ugbek! It is not for you to question Drazakh!” The tone turned harsher, though mockingly so.  “Come! We must go to our troops and make sure they are ready.”

Naglish, the other orc commander dragged Ugbek off into the forest.

“Fool!” he hissed, looking back over his shoulder to make sure that Drazakh was out of hearing range.  “Do not confront him now!  There will be plenty of blood tomorrow on the plain and who is to say what blade or arrow may find a target”

Naglish’s yellowy eyes met Ugbek’s. 

“Aggh…you are right, Naglish, as always.  These…men! They serve Him but are little better than those on the plain.  A few things I have saved from the last battle…arrows, lances…of Gondor make they are.”

“Now you are thinking like an orc!” Naglish smiled, grabbing his cohort by the shoulders.  “Remember, we have work to do…did our commander not order us to ready for battle?”  They both suppressed a vile, murderous laughter, heading off in that slightly crouched orc manner to their encampment half a league away.

A hundred yards away, Drazakh smiled with an expression that would scorch stone.  He had heard their every word, could still distinguish the crack of the dry twigs under their shod feet as they plunged into the darkness of the forest.  They could hate all they wanted, but they were not as he, a son of the East.  There your eyes had to see ten leagues, your ears waking you from deep sleep to the shift of the sand beneath your enemy’s boot two hundred yards away.  That you needed just to survive twenty summers at the bottom of the heap. 

He turned back to the forest now, his hand on the pommel of a huge flat expanse of curved steel that could halve a horse.  His own men would keep eye on the orcs and after this battle was done, he would personally see to the punishment for their insubordination.

Perhaps even He would care to observe the finer points.  There would be many days of work after all.

But that was in the future.  There was still another captain to be addressed today, Zeorn the Wolfmaster, though this one was far more to his liking that the wretched orcs.

After half and hour’s hike, Drazakh came upon Zeorn’s compound, really little more than a clearing of bare earth amongst a cluster of thickset, black barked trees.  Low growls met his arrival from a hundred hungry lupine throats chained to the twisted, gnarled trunks. One made the mistake of leaping towards his throat, fangs bared.  Drazakh whipped out a small iron club and neatly crushed its skull, dead before it hit the ground.  The others skulked quietly away and lay glaring at him.

A figure emerged from a fold in an irregular shaped canvas tent at the rear of the clearing.

Tall, half a head taller than Drazakh, but lean, muscles like bundled ropes trying to free themselves from the confines of his metal studded heavy black leather battle gear.  Beside him two huge black wolves slathered, unfettered, eyes greedily calculating Drazakh’s body weight. 

But Zeorn’s head was more distracting than the hungry stares of the wolves.  Of Rhovanian descent, his village had been torched years ago by a raiding party from Dol Guldor.  Horribly burned, six summers old and the only survivor, he had dragged himself off into the forest, learning to survive on the dark provender of Mirkwood.  By his mid-teens he had met the first of the wolves He had bred and introduced.  In that split decision of food vs kinship they had accepted him as one of their own. 

It might have been in part due to his appearance.  What skin that still covered his skull was without hair or adornment, save the livid scars of badly healed burnt flesh.  Both eyes still set in their sockets, though bone showed below the right and protruded along the jaw line, revealing teeth deeply browned from meals of raw meat. 

Then again it might have been the swift demise of the wolf that set eyes upon him as food.  It leapt at him upon first sight.  Zeorn ducked the blow and grabbed both front legs whilst it was still suspended in air, then stood, thrusting up, turning the hound over on its back with a twisting motion that snapped both forelimbs.  Its yelp of pain was stilled by a rib breaking knee thrust and a ripping bite to its jugular.  He had stepped back, letting the beast twitch for a few moments in its death throes.

That had been the alpha male of the group.  Now they all belonged to him, fiercely loyal.  He gestured to the two wolves at his side who quietly padded off to the victim of Drazakh’s wrath, which was dragged off as an appetizer for a few of the younger pack members.

“My apologies for the discourtesy you encountered” Zeorn bowed before the Eastener.

“We all have our problems with command.” Drazakh replied, the incident with the orcs still fresh in his mind.

“You have news then.” 

Zeorn got to the point quickly.  Drazakh like that about him.

“They have arrived as He predicted.  There will be battle tomorrow.  It seems by the greeting I received that you are ready.”

“Almost.  They are not hungry enough and some examples must be made amongst those who are less…competitive…for food.  That will be resolved tonight.”  There was an ugly gleam in his eyes, saliva emerged between the teeth of his exposed jawbone.  “Take care that none of your command approaches this compound after dark…I cannot guarantee anyone’s safety other than my own.’

Drazakh grinned.  “Only a few of the…mmmm…less competitive…of my own will dare these parts tonight.”

He turned and walked away, satisfied with his dark humor.  It would be no joke for the count of twenty he would demand from Ugbek and Naglish for Zeorn’s sport tonight.  But that was always the way of the herd, culling the weak that the strong should survive.

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The long shadows of the distant Misty Mountains to the west were overreaching the forest heights of his leafy bower when the message arrived on the wings of an eagle.  Radagast quickly removed the pouch strapped to its leg and bade it farewell.  The great bird wasted little time, departing quickly, in moments a mere speck in the glow of the western horizon.

Anxiously he opened the message, then let out a sigh of relief.  They had left safely, well fed in Lorien, and clear on their mission.   Now they were no doubt gingerly alighting the upper canopy of His forest realm some leagues east and north of Dol Guldur. 

Even the kestrels and goshawks would be uneasy this night.  While they would be high enough to escape the funguses, vines, and scuttling aberrations that filled the night nearer the forest floor, the hostility of the trees themselves would pain their avian spirits.  But this they knew before agreeing to the mission.

But this gave him little comfort, standing there nervously twisting the ropy cord about his long brown cloak.  From the beginning his heart gravitated to the creatures and plants.  These friends of his, painstakingly cultivated over hundreds of years, were at risk now.  Tonight and tomorrow he would abide in his treetop barrow.  Though they were far too distant for him to meaningfully assist in any way, he felt better up here in the heights beneath the open sky.

In another hour the sun’s glow would be a fading rosy memory.  A full moon would soon be poking its milky circle above the eastern rim of the forest, burnishing the night leaves with silver.  The evening would be warm, the air humid and still, stars bright as diamonds scattered on fine black felt.

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Far to the south another of the Istari sat upon a rocky outcrop of the third dolmen.  He stared west, chin propped on the palm of his right hand.  The hood of his cloak was down, a light silver sheen of moonlight glistened in his long thick hair.   His deep gray eyes were open, yet seemed dreaming, far away over the inky black rolling sea of treetops to some unfathomable gulf of time and memory.

A few yards away a tall elf stood silently, his golden hair faded to milky white in the moonlight.  His keen eyes scanned the western night sky, its stars glittering.  Fifty leagues away, a narrow white serration at the horizon marked the highest snow capped peaks of the Misty Mountains catching full the moon’s flood of light.  The elf brought his gaze closer now, spying the first dolmen, from here a speck of pale grey above the blackness of the woods.  Then the second dolmen, its small, lumpy summit a tiny island of bony rock breaching the benighted treetops just a few leagues to the northwest.

A third figure shared their silence atop the dolmen.  Tall, massively built, he set his eyes eastward where a looming bulk rose from the forest, blotting out the stars.   Its lower reaches were black as night, covered in rank vegetation.  Further up its slopes steepened, the vegetation yielding to gashes of bare rock that widened and merged to a level, barren carapace of stone whose rim gleamed like a bleached skull in the ghostly light.

Halfway up its height a point of light glowed ruddy yellow.  A smaller speck of light moved towards it slowly. 

Aranarth sat down beside the wizard.  Gandalf did not appear to notice him at first.  Then he seemed to slowly draw himself up from a great depth back to the existence of the moment.   

“Ah, Aranarth, forgive my inattention.   My thoughts were of…home.  It has been a long time and a long time it will yet be.”

“Well do I know the feeling.” Aranarth’s gruff voice was thick with emotion.  They were both quiet for a moment.  Aranarth spoke again.

“They post little guard on the mountain if torchlight is any measure.  Perhaps it is as Eradan told us…He has sent every able bodied man and orc south awaiting the arrival of the Steward.  Even the woods about us seem quiet, bereft of prying eyes and midnight rustlings”

“All are in thrall of His anticipation…the focus of His energies to the south, his greed for the ‘morrow when he expects to capture his prize.”

They were both distracted suddenly by an intake of breath.  They could see Haldir’s posture stiffening slightly, his head forward a bit in a pose of concentration, eyes blinking, then steady and open.

“Something in the night air, Haldir?” Gandalf spoke softly

“For a moment…I thought I saw something on the second dolmen, just briefly, a spot of black moving about”  Haldir replied

“One of His creatures perhaps…following our scent.  Though all seems quiet we will watch the night more carefully this time after the lessons of last night’s peril

Haldir straightened, taking one last look.  “Nothing more…whatever it was is gone now.” 

The wizard rose, right hand on his long staff.  “Come then, Haldir, Aranarth , we have much ahead of us tomorrow and must get as much rest as one can in such a place.  Arthed and Hagar have the first watch.”

The son of the last king and the Marchwarden of Lorien made their way down to the lower slopes where each picked their own small cul-de-sacs to rest amongst the larger boulders.   Further down on the forest floor a ground fog was creeping in from the east, gray tendrils wrapping winding through the twisted trees and vines, bringing a vague odor of sulfur, offal, and putrescence.  Tonight’s watch would be marked well above the fog, on the stones where the elves had once played and sang in another Age.

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To their west, Drianna collapsed with relief on the lowest slopes of the second dolmen.  The last half hour she’d navigated in near darkness, crawling on her hands and knees, her palms outstretched, feeling the ground for some faint impression of footprints.  It was that or lose the trail entirely.    

Now she caught her breath and eased out of her pack, a grunt of pain forcing itself between clenched teeth.  The pain had been welcome in a way, dominating her mind, leaving less room for fear as the thought of spending the night alone in Mirkwood had settled in.

Yet something was different tonight.  A quietness in the woods as if it and all its creatures were caught up in some collective anticipation that dissuaded their nightly prowls

Still she would set up her protective ring as she did when hunting alone in the White Mountains.   Drianna painfully dragged her pack up near the top of the dolmen and extracted thin twine, some small sharp sticks, tiny rattles and hooks.  Clambering slowly about the summit, she set up trip wires and snares in two concentric rings.  Not that they would halt the attack of a company of spiders or a pack of wolves.  But at least she would be awake in time to deal death to some of them, rather than be taken by the throat in her sleep.

Drianna pulled a blanket out of her pack and laid it out on a ledge beneath the outcrop that comprised the dolmen’s top.  The crossbow was loaded and within reach.  Her sword lay beside her on the blanket, silvery blue in the moonlight.  She nibbled on some lembas and a few handfuls of nuts and dried fruit, then gingerly rolled over on her back.

The night sky was dazzling, reminding her of high summer evenings in the upper reaches of the Ered Nimraith, the air fragrant with the scent of tall firs and spruces.  She smiled, remembering the tales her brother would tell of Gondor’s history, just the two of them sitting by a small campfire.  Drianna closed her eyes, just for a moment, she told herself, savoring the memories of her youth.  That moment stretched on for hours as the moon sailed grandly across the firmament, washing her dreaming face with a cool light.