Strider slowly lowered the various bundles of supplies he had just purchased and set them back down upon the counter and stared at Forras as if he had not quite heard the man correctly, yet Forras’ head made a curt bobbing jab of a nod affirming that he had. 

          “The Wolf-Men of Sauron,” he replied in a voice barely above a hushed whisper.  Then glancing furtively about his shop, he held his hand up to halt Strider’s next comment and hurried around the end of his counter and hastened to the doorway.  He quickly pushed the heavy door shut and slid the wooden bolt across the frame, locking them both inside.  He waved his hand at Strider, indicating that he should follow and quickly moved toward the back of the small building.

          “Come, I have rooms in the back; we can talk there without interruption.”

          Forras disappeared through a doorway and Strider had no choice but to follow.  Slowly he walked around the edge of the counter and made his way through the barrels and stacks of goods to the rooms beyond.  The Dorwinion trader was already seated at a wooden table littered with dirty plates and moldy bread and when Strider entered the small but cozy room, he gestured toward the remaining chair, inviting Strider to join him at the table.

          As he seated himself across from the man, Strider could see that Forras was nervous and edgy, and filled with a terrible fear that he had not seen in any man for quite some time.  His silver eyes studied the harried trader for several moments, trying to assess if the man was serious in his belief that shape shifters of some sort were roaming the mountain passes of Rhûn.  

          Finally he asked. “How do you know of these Wolf-Men?”

          “Because they took my son!” the man hissed.   A harsh, biting stab of bitterness and frustration sounded in Forras’ quavering voice and the expression on his face was hard and angry.  Then, just as quickly, his features seemed to melt and his face was a portrait of pain and anguish.  His work-worn hands came up and covered his face and his shoulders shook as ragged, rough wheezes came from deep within his chest.  Strider half arose from his chair, ready to aid him, but Forras held up a shaky hand.   “No,” he said.  “It’s all right.  I…I just can’t get over losing my son; knowing that I will never see him again.”

          Strider’s compassionate gaze turned on the man and he gently reached across the table and placed a hand upon Forras’ arm.  The grief stricken trader jumped at the ranger’s touch, but quickly came back to himself and ran trembling fingers through his dark hair in an attempt to calm his nerves.  Without preamble, he quietly began speaking.

          “It was over a year ago,” he said.  “We were losing livestock.  A goat here, several sheep…not sure really what was going on, but we thought maybe a lone wolf had come down from the mountains of Rhûn after a harsh winter and no food.  Several of the men in town decided to track it down and kill it and my son chose to join them.

          “They followed the beast for several days and eventually came to the sea and the mountains rising up from the shores.  The tracks seemed to lead up into the ridges and then disappeared.  By this time they had traveled far from our valley and several of the men felt they should just return.  That the wolf had gone back to its lair and would trouble us no further.  But two of their party did not agree and wanted to see the wolf dead.  My son agreed with these two and the three set out into the mountains after the wolf.

          “The remaining men made camp near the sea and waited.  When the trio hadn’t returned by the following dawn, they began to worry.  By mid-day there was still no trace of the men, and at dusk, they finally decided that the hunting party must have met with some type of accident.   Against their better judgment, they decided to investigate.  At the rising of the sun, they, too, started into the mountains.  They hadn’t gone more than a half a mile when they found the bodies.”

          Here Forras halted in his tale and swiped a shaking hand over his mouth.  He was sweating even though the morning air was cool and pleasant and Strider feared he might put undue strain upon his heart just by relating this story, but after a few moments, he continued.

          “They found two of the three men dead; their bodies strewn upon the rocks as if they had been ripped open and gutted by some insane madman.  There was blood everywhere; so much blood…” his voice drifted away and his gaze slid to the tiny window behind the ranger’s back.   Strider had the distinct feeling that someone was watching them, yet he dared not turn about to look.

          “They never found my son’s body,” Forras’ voice suddenly broke the stillness between them.  “They searched all that day and into the next, but nothing was ever seen of him.  They finally gave up looking, and after burying the poor men who had met with such violent ends, they came back to the valley to tell me the terrible news that my son had vanished.

          “I was utterly devastated.  Torn between taking off for the mountains myself and looking for him, or just accepting this tragedy as something fate had dealt me.  I was beside myself with grief and just when I was finally coming to terms with the fact that he was dead, he appeared at that window.”

          At this he pointed to the very window he had been staring at before and now Strider realized that he must still be waiting and hoping for his son to reappear.

          Forras rose from his chair and walked to the window.  “You can’t imagine the joy I felt at seeing him there.  He looked hale and strong and not a scratch upon him.”  The man turned back to look at Strider.  “But then I saw his eyes.  They were red and glowing… and then he… he grinned at me and I could see his teeth…”

          His body twitched with an involuntary shudder at the remembrance of this terrible sight and his arms crossed in front of his chest as he gathered up his courage to go on.  He turned away from Strider and once again stared out of the back window at the low hills, vine covered and green in the bright sunlight.

          “He begged me to come out.  Said he wished to speak with me.  But I was afraid.  He was my son, but I was afraid.  He had… changed.  I didn’t know how, but I knew that if I went out that door he would kill me.”  He paused, and as his silence continued overlong, Strider thought he might not be able to speak further, but suddenly the man turned back to the table and yanked the chair back, throwing his body into the seat and staring at Strider as if crazed and half mad.

          “I told him I would help him.  Whatever sickness had overcome him, together we would find some way to cure it, but he only laughed at me.  Laughed; but it was no laugh of happiness or joy.  It was an insane cackle that sent chills through my very soul.  That’s when he told me he had been bitten and was forever damned.  He was one with the blood pack; his will no longer his to control.  He was sworn to the Dark Lord and could never return.

          “Upon hearing those retched words, I ran to the door unthinking and would have blindly rushed out into the night.  Rushed to him and grabbed him to my chest as my beloved son.  But he suddenly growled and snarled like some rabid animal and before my eyes transformed into some kind of hideous wolf-like creature.  Not quite animal and definitely not man, yet huge, with great horrid teeth and fangs, and I froze in my tracks unable to move a step further.”

          Forras’ hands came up again to cover his face and this time the sobs and tears of his loss and pain would not be restrained.   The man’s shoulders sagged with his grief and sorrow and he could speak no more.  Strider swiftly rose from his chair and went to the trader’s side, placing a strong hand upon the man’s trembling form; his hand clenched Forras’ shaking shoulder and he quietly remained beside him until the Dorwinion could finally contain his emotions enough to lift his head.  Through blurred and wet eyes, Forras looked up at the ranger and then slowly drew his hand up to his shoulder and placed it upon the steadying hand that Strider had already set there.

          “Thank you,” he whispered.  “I… I’m all right.  It’s… just been a long time coming.”

          Strider nodded, silently giving the man’s shoulders another slight, gentle squeeze and then he returned to his seat opposite the trader.  His sad, grey eyes sought the man’s and he leaned forward, his hands spread open and questioning.  “Is there no hope for your son?  No one who knows of some cure for this, this… sickness?”

          Forras shook his head.  “None that I know of.  There have always been tales… legends really… around this region, about the Wolf-Men of Sauron.  Some said that those bitten by the accursed werewolves could be cured by drinking a potion of some sort that had been conjured and brewed by the ancients… long ago, when the sorcerers lived in Barad-Fân.”  He looked up at Strider with tear-stained cheeks.  “But no one ever really knew where to find the Cloud Tower.  It was said to be floating among the mists of the mountain peaks, inaccessible to any who could not fly to reach its turrets, for there was no mountain pathway that led to the Tower in the Clouds.”

          Forras shook his head sadly and wiped at the rest of his tears.  “But tis only a tale told to children.  There never were any sorcerers there to help; no ancient fortress.   No,” he shook his head once more.  “If there ever really was any kind of cure, it is now forever lost to us.”

          Strider stared at the trader, helpless to ease this man’s suffering, yet his curiosity and excitement peaked by the mention of this Tower in the Clouds and the so-called sorcerers who lived there.  “What happened to your son?” he finally asked.

          Forras shook his head sadly.  “I don’t know.  I never saw him again.”

          Both men sat silent; each with his own thoughts, and then after a time, Strider rose to his feet and quietly slid his chair back under the table.  At his movement, Forras looked up, his face stricken and incredulous with fear.

          “You can’t still be going?” he cried.  “Not after what I’ve just told you?”

          Strider nodded solemnly.  “I must.  I must try to find this Tower.”

          Forras, too, rose from his seat, his eyes frightened and pleading.  “Do not go, ranger!” he begged.  “If you value your life, please, I beg you, do not go.”

          Strider’s lips set in a grim, determined line.  “Fear not.  I shall be on my guard.”  He headed toward the doorway and then turned back.  “I thank you for your warning, Forras.  Be at peace; for my decision to go on is my own.”

          Strider moved out of the back room and into the outer shop.  He gathered up his supplies from the counter’s top and headed for the barred door without another word.  Forras was left to watch as the dark haired ranger unlatched the bar and walked out of the shop, into the lane and, he felt, most assuredly to his death.  

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          It was nearing dusk when Strider reached the vastness of the Sea of Rhûn, two days after his unsettling talk with the Dorwinion trader, Forras.  The haunting tale of the man’s doomed son would not leave Strider and he could not help but feel uncertain about continuing on with his journey.  But the tantalizing hints of this mysterious Barad-Fân kept urging him forward and as he rode through the bleak, foreboding landscape ever southward toward his goal, his curiosity grew with each step closer to the black, jagged mountains that rose from the land beside the sea and dominated the horizon ahead.

          As he gazed out over the cold, grey expanse of the sea, an unexpected feeling of utter despair and loneliness overcame him.  Gone were the green valleys and rolling hills of Dorwinion.  Now all that he could see before him was an endless, slate grey body of undulating water, and wave upon wave of foamy, swirling froth that lapped at the sandy shore with unrelenting regularity.  But there was no sight of any creature, large or small, on land or in the sky above, save he and his sturdy stallion, Hodoer.

          The horse’s head shook with uncertainty and his nostrils flared out, sniffing in the salty tang of the air and water and he pawed impatiently at the feel of the unknown sandy soil beneath his hooves.  Strider leaned down and stroked the horse’s arching neck and whispered to him, his voice barely heard over the whistling winds that skittered and danced over the tops of the waves.

          “I know, boy,” he said softly.  “It’s as if the land and sea are dead and all who once dwelled here.”

          Hodoer chuffed; a low, rumbling vibration that Strider could feel through his legs as they rested against the horse’s ribcage.  Finally, he turned the steed away from the shoreline and headed for the foothills of the mountains nearby.  Almost instantly the sandy beach gave way to rocky outcroppings and rough, steep trails that disappeared into the rugged stone at the mountain’s base.

          A low-hanging, thick mist whirled around the spikes and peaks of the mountain tops and their dangerous narrow path, obscuring the road ahead and Strider wisely allowed Hodoer to choose his route among the rocks and scraggly bushes.  It was not yet dark, but the cloud cover had blotted out the sunset and the entire area seemed to be lost in dark shadows and roiling fog.   As Strider cautiously peered through the mists he was oddly reminded of the Shadow Lands and the realm of the dead.  He pulled his woolen cloak up and around his shoulders and flipped the hood over his head as a sudden chill shivered through his body.  Hodoer, too, seemed tense and skittish and reluctant to go any farther along the precarious pathway.

          The wolves were upon them before Strider even had time to be consciously aware of their presence.  They leapt from the sheltering rocks above and from both sides of the trail, without sound or warning, and the eerie silence of the desolate land was harshly broken by Hodoer’s hideous shriek as a massive, black beast slammed into his neck, fangs bared, growling and snarling as it sank its teeth into the horse’s neck.

          Another great wolf charged into the stallion’s side, knocking the horse off his feet and onto the ground, while a third lunged for Strider as he and the horse fell to the rocky ground.  Hodoer shrieked again as the beast worrying his throat, gnawed deeper, choking off his life and slashing open his neck.  Strider hastily tried to brace himself as his horse fell out from under him, but he was caught beneath the animal’s chest and could not wriggle free of the saddle and stirrup.  The full weight of the horse crushed his right leg and he winced as his knee painfully ground into the rocks.

          The monster that had lunged for his head overshot his mark as horse and rider tumbled onto the stones and it landed some ten feet away from the ranger.  Then bounding off the rocks where it landed, the wolf circled back around and made another leap toward the fallen human; its slavering jaws bared wide revealing white, spiking teeth.  Strider pulled his Elven blade from the boot of his unfettered leg and plunged it into the beast’s chest as the wolf landed atop him.  A piercing yowl filled the air as the keen blade sank deep into the wolf’s hide and blood splattered over Strider’s face and hands as he fought to push the animal’s dead weight off his body.

          Hodoer’s legs wildly thrashed at the air in his death throes and the wolf at his throat finally snapped bone and muscle and the horse lay still as his life’s blood gushed out onto the black rocks.  Strider had managed to squirm out from beneath the horse while it bucked and kicked in its death agonies, and scrambled away on hands and knees.  He tried to gain his feet, but was violently smashed to the ground as another wolf landed upon his back, knocking the air from his lungs and sending his Elven knife skittering down the rocks as his wrist cracked against the stones.

          Strider heard a horrid scream and then realized that it had come from his own lips as a hot searing pain shot through his upper thigh as one of the wolves bit through the leather of his trousers and tasted blood.  He frantically tried to get out from under the wolf standing upon his back and could feel the beast’s hot, rancid breath beating upon his neck, but he was effectively pinned to the ground by the animal’s weight and could not move.

          The excruciating pain in his leg increased as the teeth clamped down harder and Strider screamed again as the white hot intensity of his agony spread throughout his body and raked every nerve of his being.  His vision began to grey out and brilliant flashes of light exploded behind his eyelids and he could remember thinking that now he was going to die and then he knew no more.