Ral and his straggling group of Elves, wolves, and men had reached the foot of the Grey Mountains. The Elves showed no sign of tiring, but the men were not used to the elevation, and all of them, Ral included, found themselves short of breath.
The Elves wisely said nothing about it, not even in their own musical, breathy language. The wolves were kept chained at the back and front, ready in a moment to spring upon any offender. Their eagerness kept them from becoming exhausted.
Ral mopped the sweat from his brow and stared despondently up at the mountain peaks. "We will begin the trek in one hour," he decided.
The Elves glanced at each other when this news was translated into the Common Tongue. Ral watched them look quickly at the injured Elf from the forest stronghold. Since the wolves had set their jaws to him, he had uttered nay a complaint. Ral had once believed sickness could never take an Elf, but now he was not so sure. Infection could, surely.
The wounds had been washed, and washed again at each stop, so hopefully the Elf's mystical resilience would keep him from falling ill. If not, Ral had said himself, there was nothing they could do but leave him to the birds. If that were the case, it would have to be done after they had climbed a few miles; they were far enough from the Elf King's land to rest safely, but there was no sense in leaving a trail as obvious as an Elf body.
One Elf spoke up in the Common Tongue; Ral waited for the translation, though he had caught a few words. Piecing them together in his own language required too much effort in such thin air.
"He says that if we wait very long, the mountains will become too dark to climb," Fer said, and muttered, "I don't know if I'd believe him. We're not safe here, and they may be trying to stall us."
"By the time it grows dark, we will have quite a bit of distance behind us. Ask him why he mentions it. Does he think us to be fools?" Ral forced irritation into his voice. He was too tired for arguing.
Fer questioned the Elf and then translated the answer, "He says that when it is dark this late in the year, it is very cold. It will be much colder on the mountains, and thus more dangerous for us. Many men have perished there in the past."
Ral sat quietly for a moment. Summoning strength into his legs, he rose to his full height. "Hah! Men he says? No Elves, then? So superior, are they?" Would that he had such feelings in him! "Tell them that, being so unequipped, if I become too cold, I will tear those fine cloaks off their backs and we will put them to use!"
Whether he felt this way in reality or not, Ral was a convincing actor. The Elves stared up at him, some of them shocked, the others masking it. His men had shied away from him. Memories of Vel's outbursts would ever be engraved in their minds.
The wolves picked up on his mood, and it confused them. They stirred uneasily, snarling low, snapping at each other.
Ral sat back down, listening as it was translated, half regretting what he had said. He knew that of anyone, the Elves knew most about paths over the mountains. If he thought he could count on them to help lead the way, he would gladly have taken it as an excuse to treat them better.
But no Elf in their right mind, nor even in the wrong mind, would aid their kidnapers.
When Asfaloth was born, he had been a shaky, perhaps even flighty, little colt. He had run from Glorfindel on long, knobby legs until he toppled end over end, and found the Elf several yards back.
The friendship between them had been slow, but Glorfindel could have marked their progress day by day. Always there was some tiny, new grain of trust the colt would give him. At first it was that he would only run three meters away, and stand there listening to his songs. Or he would wait next to his mother when Glorfindel fed her. Eventually, it was that he would take treats out of Glorfindel's hand.
With the wolf, it was very different. He knew full well that keeping a wolf and keeping a horse would have some large differences. The first of which was that a wolf was not meant to be tamed; it was meant to kill. Though, he had not captured this wolf with the intention of quelling her 'wildness'.
But was it too much to ask for her to at least show some tolerance of him? He fed her, he protected her, and still...
"Ow!" The Elf yanked his hand back. He touched where he had been bitten, to find that no blood had been drawn this time. The wolf had learned not to snarl when she bit him, because Legolas and Asfaloth were never far, and were very quick to punish her.
No, Glorfindel knew that she would never trust him. She probably did not trust those who had trained her, nor even the wolves in her pack. He could not say that he had expected anything different from her. One thing only marked the progress he had made.
Glorfindel could almost always tell where Asfaloth was, even over some distances. More than two decades spent together had ensured it, and this bond had become stronger since Glorfindel had become dependent on him, and they had begun to travel together again.
Regardless of any bonds of friendship, the wolf was tied to him every hour of the day. He would have been scared if he had not begun to recognize her, first thing when he woke up, and then as a presence in his mind throughout the day.
He was fairly certain that other Elves had this ability. Lady Galadriel, certainly, and Lord Celeborn and Lord Elrond. He was not sure if Legolas did, and despite his curiosity, he could not ask him.
The wolf sat back on her haunches; Glorfindel could feel her watching him. "What would you have me do? Starve you?" he asked. He moved his hand back to the saddle bag, and the wolf lowered her head, pulling against the rope. Any time he moved his hand, especially where she could not see it, she would go into a defensive stance and growl.
He heard Asfaloth's reins slap against one another as the horse turned sharply to wolf and Elf. It was the only warning the wolf would receive, and she knew it. The rope was tugged gently as she turned her face to Asfaloth, sizing him, and thought better of what she was doing. Slowly, she settled down and waited for Glorfindel to pull her back onto the trail.
"So what is that, due west?"
"Mirkwood."
Iyn frowned. On the horizon, 'Mirkwood' loomed, black and chilling. He had been warned to stay down and hidden; Elves could see him clearly otherwise, even from this distance. He was almost convinced Vel was pulling his leg about that, but orders were orders.
"Look," Iyn said suddenly, pointing to a medium sized animal that had wandered out into the meadow. Ais muttered something under his breath and kept his nose buried in a book.
A flash of something white caught his eye; turning in the little space he had, he saw Vel's 'Gamphall' in the forest.
It sat down and watched the animal, which was now very cautious and on the verge of bolting. Gamphall's tail twitched; the animal's ears stayed focused on it. Gamphall sniffed the air and, seeming to lose interest, began batting at its tail. It became absorbed in the game; it flipped and rolled, pounced and spun, all for the sake of capturing its long white tail.
Baffled, the smaller creature came closer, while Gamphall continued to ignore it. It came still closer; and then a few steps more. The two animals could have touched noses. Iyn frowned. He was as curious as the animal of the Elf woods, but even so, he wouldn't have come that close, were their situations reversed.
The man watched as Gamphall finally caught it's tail, and the animal stretched out it's nose, daring at last to smell the strange beast up close. In a blurring moment, the poor naive beast was down, kicking wildly, with Gamphall locked onto it's throat.
"Did you see that?" Iyn asked.
Ais looked up from his book. "Is that Gamphall?"
Iyn climbed down from the tree and walked into the clearing, once Gamphall's prey had stopped struggling.
"Iyn, don't!" For a moment, everything was still; the wind (Ais was unsure if there had been any to begin with) was noticeably absent. Gamphall raised its head to look at Iyn, and time stood still. Ais' heart sank as a breeze came out of nowhere, barely rustling the panther's whiskers, pushing the tips of the pale green grass.
The panther swivelled its head gracefully toward the Elf kingdom, testing the air. It took a moment for Ais' ears to register the savage growl, starting deep within the panther's throat.
"They know we're here!" Ais had meant to yell it, to warn Iyn, but he wasn't sure the words ever broke free from the block of ice in his gut. He was fairly certain they hadn't, and he assumed it was for the best really. The Elves couldn't hear him if he was silent. Gamphall would ignore him if he did not draw attention to himself.
The panther, it was said, would kill those that threatened its safety, including those foolish enough to come out of hiding, thus alerting keen-eyed enemies to the Laskanik soldiers' positions. Vel had trained the panther to do this, not so much to cover his tracks - Gamphall would kill, but he would not hide a body - but instead to terrify and threaten his men into staying hidden. In Iyn's case, it had failed.
Gamphall's round white ears shot back, and it turned fierce yellow-green eyes to the young man. Slowly, it's ears moved to the sides. The yellow-green became slits, and Gamphall snarled, showing every inch of it's long fangs. Iyn panicked. He turned, running, though logic dictated that it was useless.
Ais refused to watch; if Gamphall got him, he would not watch. But in seconds, Ais was surprised yet again, when Iyn was sitting in front of him, hugging the thick trunk of the tree. He had, indeed, made it up ahead of Vel's pet.
Ais gave the younger man a disbelieving grin, while Iyn fought back the painful gasps that lie between hysterical sobs and laughter. But then there was a sound; part of them knew that it took only a short time, but Ais could count each time the claws entered the bark, and left, climbing higher. He got to four.
Then Iyn was knocked from his limb, tumbling down to the muddy floor below. Ais stood up and began searching for other limbs; Gamphall watched for movement from Iyn, but when his patience was unrewarded, he sprang after Ais, following as easily as Ais assumed he would have on the ground. But up in the trees, there were fewer places to hide, and only one place to go if he wished to outpace the hunter.
"We draw near to something," Glorfindel murmured.
Legolas felt apprehensive as well, but for no reason other than he was, by nature, watchful, and his senses were even more on edge now that he was on the hunt. "What do you mean?"
The wolf was behaving strangely, at least in Glorfindel's mind. The strain she gave against the rope was less for rebellion now than out of distracted curiosity. She was more obedient to him when he pulled her forward.
But Glorfindel had no hope of explaining this to the other Elf, so he shook his head and answered, "Take my words in faith, Legolas."
Legolas accepted this more readily than Glorfindel thought he would if Legolas had told him such a thing. "I will. But do not keep me in the dark over long, my friend; Arwen is not with us, but we agreed she was right when she said that information was best shared when we are all in danger."
Not yet could Glorfindel hear the wolf pack; nor could he hear the bones which adorned the Wolf Lords' horses. But he could feel a cold, tense tremor in the air, and he knew they would have peace (if this could be called peaceful) for but a little while longer.
Author's Notes: I was looking in this old book my dad gave me when I read the bit about a leopard chasing it's tail to get it's prey to come close, and thought 'Ha! That's gotta be a Gamphall moment.' Those leopards...what will they do next? Sorry for the long wait and the shortness of the chapter. Got bit HARD by another plot bunny. Have to feed that one before I can get back to work on the others. Then, on top of that, Star Wars fever is returning, slowly but very very steadily.
Picture update: The two Glorfindel pics are up at http://www.geocities.com/deidos_thekell/ and the Gamphall drawing should be up at some point in the not-too-distant future. They upload kind of slowly, sorry.