The boom and crash of the tide against stony cliffs rolled in like a sea mist; the harsh-edged sounds became smooth and sibilant with distance, softening on the sunned grass and hushing through the gnarled branches of golden elder trees.

A flash of white skimmed along the wavetops down by the rocky shore. Fork-tailed and delicate, it flicked its wings, catching the sunlight and seeming to sparkle amongst the rolling blue waves. A pair of soft, stormy grey eyes watched the little tern as it fluttered up to its nest upon the stack, and then was lost as the carriage rolled on.

The eyes turned down instead, to watch the rutted, stony road gently rumble by. A line of pale standing stones stood mantled in a thousand years of lichen and moss, keeping silent vigil over the sea.

The face in which the eyes were set was young, pale and exquisitely delicate; a white marble carving given life. A smooth arc of feathery black hair as dark as a raven's thoughts fluttered and blew across the child's face as she rested her chin on her folded arms and watched the landscape pass sleepily by. She was clothed in a simple black dress of fine material, and around her neck hung a silver pendant of elegant design. It depicted the form of a leafless tree with seven bright stars set in an arc above, and it dangled and clacked against the sill of the carriage door as it swayed.

The child chewed her lip for a moment with a sleepy frown, and then sat back in her seat with a heavy sigh.

"Ada, idhenna im! Garo ammen haeron i heltha lend?"

"Not far now, Aewen." Replied the man sitting opposite her, after glancing out of the window. "Practice your Common, they do not speak Sindarin in the provinces."

"I bored," the girl uttered rebelliously.

"I am bored, you mean," replied the man, looking up from the roll of parchment he had been reading and grinning at his daughter. "Repeat – I am bored"

"I – am – bored," she echoed. "And hungry"

"Well, moaning will do you no good, and hungry will be remedied soon," interjected an equally fair-faced woman, who could only have been the girl's mother. "As for bored, you can read these tales of lore with me," she offered, with a brief smile. Without waiting for a reply, she shifted closer to her daughter and wrapped an arm about her, unbinding a thin, leather-bound book from its case and opening it primly.

Although she did not smile, the child's face became relaxed and content. A warm fluttering sensation slowly filled her stomach and her scalp tingled as her mother's voice turned like magic the loops, dots and curls of the tengwar on the page into images of great heroes riding white horses, fighting unspeakable evils, reigning victorious or going beyond, far away over the sea, to where the sun sleeps and the dead sit in peace.

Her finger traced the lines on the page and she made the sounds they spoke, too slowly to keep up with her mother, unless she slowed her pace to let Aewen read along. A giddiness seemed to hold her still in her seat; a comforting sway of balance, as though the world around her were rocking like a cradle, slowly and gently, with her head tingling and still in the centre. It did not make her feel sick, but loved and warm, and she felt safer still when her father came and sat upon her other side, closing them both in his arm and making with his body a nest with her in the middle. He began to read the parts of the heroes and villains in the tales, raising his voice to clear nobility or lowering it to a cruel hiss as each character spoke his piece, whilst her mother carried the tale between.

The enclosing warmth and comforting, familiar smell of her parents lulled her into the sense of a waking dream, and her hunger and all thoughts of complaint were forgotten. It seemed all too soon that the grass and stone outside became the timber-and-daub houses of a town upon the coast, and a grey sea mist began to roll in. Aewen felt a pang of regret as her parents' manners changed and they broke apart, closing the book and setting it away. As they moved away and began to bustle about the carriage and correct their appearance, ready to meet the town's dignitaries, the cold crept in at her sides, seeming the more bitter in those places where their bodies had warmed her.

Aewen shuffled across in her seat to look out of the carriage window and see the town. The mist had closed in; a bright grey shroud that wrapped a cool salve around the sunned wood and stone. Looming out of the fog came the old walls and sea-defences, solemn and dignified spectres of a past age, whose proud bearing outstripped the newer dwellings and storehouses, but did not belittle them.

The carriage rumbled to a stop before a handsome stone hall, with a slim tower keeping watch out to sea set in its midst, casting a silhouette before the muted flare of the sun. Aewen hopped out of the carriage as soon as the door was opened, putting a hand down on the step to help her balance, and ran in a quick circle about it, enjoying the cool breeze and the shrouded sky.

"Aewen, stay close. We are going to meet the Captain of the garrison here, so you must be good and stay quiet."

The girl frowned and tugged on her mother's hand to make her look down.

"Nana, can't I look at the town? The last Captain was boring."

"No, Aewen. You're coming with us. You'd get lost."

Pouting, the girl dropped her mother's hand and looked to her father hopefully.

"It would be better if we didn't take her, Nimwen. There is one matter at least I need to discuss with the Captain that she should not hear of. Come, Tildur can watch her until we are done, and then we can eat together later."

The girl's mother frowned briefly, and looked at her daughter sternly, a slight glint of her eye observing the practised look of hopeful innocence that had hastily replaced Aewen's pout.
"Well, alright… Tildur, would you?" she asked of one of the guards who had been riding closest the carriage. "Don't let her get out of your sight. And don't let her order you," she added with a brief smile.

The guard nodded, and began to dismount. Without waiting another second, Aewen turned and ran down the cobbled street towards the sea, her arms spread wide, and her tongue sticking out of her mouth to catch the cool mist. A muffled curse; a sigh; a brief laugh and the pounding of heavy feet followed her, but she paid them no heed. She did not stop running until she came to the toothed wall that looked out over the docks below, ranked with a dozen heavy crossbows that were tarred against the weather, hanging silent and still from their pedestals.

She paused for a moment, listening to the keening and twittering of invisible gulls and the soft tinkle of the boats as they ducked and bobbed in the little swell of the waves. Running her hand along the smooth stones of the wall, she skipped along it for more than a hundred paces until it met with the grass and pebble of a promontory that jutted out over a shingle beach like the prow of a ship.

Aewen was not sure when it happened, but from one moment to the next, something felt wrong; alert. The mist ceased to be cool and balmy, and became chilling and wet. She frowned and stood on her tip-toes, feeling that something was amiss, and looked out over the waves, though she could barely see half a dozen horse-lengths ahead. The mist swirled and danced, making shadows on her mind; spiralling dragons and flocks of birds, running horses through the fog, and so quiet. Somewhere the gentle tolling of a bell cut harmony with the gulls, and a dockhand called out. Aewen stared again into the sea mist, willing it into different forms; an ox, charging; a great eagle; a great black-sailed ship…

Her mouth dropped open, aghast. The ship was real! A great moving shadow skimmed silently through the waves, then landed with a crunch against the shingle beach. Its trimmed, fan-like sails were black as the night, and two ranks of oars like the legs of a centipede were raised high and withdrawn into the hatches without a sound. As she watched, the blurred forms of five dozen men shimmed down ropes into the surf and began to run up the beach.

"AEWEN! TOL! TOL!"

Her heart nearly stopped in shock as Tildur's voice bellowed her name. His broad form came rushing at her out of the mist and grabbed her up by the waist as if she were a doll, then ran for the town, screaming at the top of his lungs.

"CORSAIRS! CORSAIRS ON THE BEACH! ARM YOURSELVES! THE CORSAIRS OF UMBAR ARE HERE!"

Moments later, a hail of blind arrows came hissing out of the mist, clattering on the stones or thudding into the grass around him, as though the sky were raining barbs.

The shock that ran through Aewen had held her paralysed until now. The serene calm had been ripped away so unexpectedly that she could barely breathe, but when she found her voice she began to bawl and scream like an infant, her face a pale mask of tragedy as she clung her arms around her guardian's neck.

His pounding feet carried her into the town proper, where hers was not the only voice screaming. A dozen guards had rallied, and looked urgent askance at Tildur, whilst the townspeople screamed and pelted back and forth around them.

"From the east beach! Two ships and more a hundred men! Where is my Lord; where is Brandir?"

"In the town hall, sir! Guards! Man the gates!" bellowed the Sergeant of the group, rushing to a bell and ringing it with all his vigour.

Tildur ran on, grunting his effort, and holding Aewen so tightly it was a struggle for her to find breath. Before her mind had caught up, though, she was being set down, and her father was there, and her mother, looking deathly pale, tensed and shivering like a racing hound.

"Nimwen, take her to the stables and go! Ride! Don't turn back; just ride! Tildur, Captain…"

The rest of Brandir's orders were lost as a new pair of hands grabbed her up, and she was pressed with a furious fear against her mother's breast as she began to run, as her father had said, toward the stables. Before they had left the cobbled square, the hail of arrows began again, and there were yells of agony and gasps of shock as men, women and children fell dead or wounded, black-fletched arrows projecting from their bodies.

"AADAAAAAAAAAAA!"

Aewen's voice made a gut-wrenching wail as she saw her father fall, an arrow striking the place between his shoulder and his chest. She clawed at her mother's shoulder, trying to climb over and run back to the square, but her grip was like iron, holding their bodies pressed painfully tight together, and Aewen could not move.

She barely noticed the warm fug of horses and hay, as startled whinnies filled the air, and it was not until she was thrown across the saddle of a tall, strong black horse that she knew where she was. Before the thought had completed itself, they were away. Her mother's sobs and the rasping of the great beast's breath became one as they galloped out of the stables and through the narrow streets, the sounds of battle fading behind. The saddle beneath Aewen's dress seemed to slip and slide away from her, and it took her a moment to gain her balance.

Everything came to her with difficulty, for control of her body was not hers; her mind was stunned, her eyes streaming, her breath fast and deep, gulping in too much air so that she was made dizzy, and a hand held her clamped tightly in place. She had never known such panic.

In a half-daze she made out the shapes of a hundred women and children as their horse passed them by, running towards the hills, and the acres of wilderness beyond. If they were making any noise, she could not hear it, for her heart was thumping too loudly in her ears.

Her fingers wound their way into the coarse black mane and she felt the immense power of the horse beneath her with something close to exhilaration, hurtling tirelessly forwards away from a danger that seemed to be pressing on her back.

But then, just as her head began to clear, something sharp jabbed into her from behind and scraped on the bone of her shoulder blade, making her squeal out in pain. Her mother's grip loosened, and was gone, leaving a vast cold gulf at Aewen's back that nothing in the world could now fill.

Struck dumb, she slipped sideways from the horse's sweaty neck and fell, gripping onto the flailing reins and mane. Her heels bashed against the grass below, and she fell onto her back beside the horse as it snorted to a stop, its head low, trying to tug the reins out of her hand.

No bodily pain could match the panic inside her now, as she tugged herself to her feet and ran back to the broken bundle of black silk and white skin that lay sadly on the hillside. If only she could shake her hard enough, she would wake up and none of this would have happened. She had to scream and scream and shake her, harder and harder until she woke up, and everything would be all right. Nana always came when she was upset, always….

Aewen was blind to all of her own pain, deaf to the screams and clashes from away down by the shore, ignorant of the dozen swarthy figures jogging up the hillside, bearing bows. She was closed to everything except the two gently-lidded eyes before her that refused to open, set in a pale face like a white marble carving given life, and then left without it.

She did not break away or look around; not even when rough, unsympathetic hands dragged her from her feet and tugged her away. If only she could keep shaking her… but she could not reach. Her mother's body was left further and further behind, until it was simply another black dot among many upon the lonely hillside.