Author note: Sorry there has been a much longer gap than usual in getting this chapter out. I've found some temporary work, thank the Valar (!), which is full-time, so I've had much less time to write. But it's made this story all the more important to me. It's also been a tricky chapter to finish and edit - lots of detail, lots of character development, and, well, you'll see.
Hello new followers, although I suppose you're still on chapter one so won't be new by the time you read this - and I have only just realised this after years of saying 'hello new followers'. *facepalm emoji*
Reviewers - as always you brighten my day, week, month with your lovely comments!
Patrons - You guys know how I feel x
Beatrice3 I think that's one of the kindest reviews I've ever had, especially as a first review from someone. I've worked so hard on this story, research and planning as well as writing of course, and sometimes I forget that. It really is a huge undertaking and has become a massive part of my life, despite it being a total secret I've kept for years from everyone I know, and I mean everyone! I think I'll be a bit lost without it! So to hear you say such lovely things warms my heart. Thank you. I started writing it purely for myself, and now I have hundreds of people to write for, and I feel a lovely sense of community x
October Opal I have *so. much. to. say* about your review but that would involve massive spoilers! But be reassured that everything you mention is covered in the remaining chapters. Yay for Haldir/Orwen, that will almost certainly be my next project, although a lot shorter than this one. And then it will be time for Pippin and his lady-love, Diamond (actual Tolkien character). Both these stories will be set in the Face in the Crowd version of Middle-earth, so Keren etc. will have cameos. I'm very excited! But first I have to finish this absolute beast of a book...
Chapter Ten - The Drear Hills
The spring rains came late, but made up for it with the sheer volume of water that fell from the skies just as Keren and Hrafn reached the grey rocks of the Emyn Muil.
"Perfect," Keren muttered as she put up her hood, gazing up at the rise of stone that climbed ever upwards, covered in brambles and thorns, no clear path in sight. But Hrafn was still, which she knew meant he was thinking hard about something. "What is it?"
Hrafn's eyes narrowed, as if searching for any answer other than the one he had. But then he sighed.
"I'll have to send Stian back," he said, disconsolately. "This is no place for a horse. There are no proper paths, and I'm willing to bet there are cliffs and ravines further in."
Keren looked over at him, at how he'd subconsciously put his hand on Stian's withers.
"Hrafn…" she said simply.
"No," was his only reply.
"Hrafn. You don't have to come with me, I've never asked it of you. Take him back home. Both of you should go home."
He shook his head.
"He'll be alright. He's smart, he'll remember the way."
She tilted her head to one side, sighing, not knowing what else to say. She wanted his company, but felt so… uncomfortable, at the thought of anyone being so kind to her, of anyone giving up something they loved to help her.
"Neither of us knows what lies beyond those hills." She found words eventually. "I don't know if I'll make it to Ithilien. And I can't promise that you'll make it home, if you come with me."
Hrafn just shrugged.
"None of us know anything. We all just… blindly go onwards. But the Dark One has fallen, his people are hiding in the shadows. I don't think the path will be as dark as you fear. The light is touching even these places now."
Keren looked up at the rainclouds with a hint of humour, as much as she could muster.
"That elven cloak of yours will keep you dry." He moved around to Stian's muzzle, stroked his forehead, his nose. "You're not getting rid of me, Keren. It just means we go on foot the rest of the way. How's your ankle?"
She rolled it tentatively.
"Holding up." It did ache, but she wasn't going to tell her friend that - her brave, selfless friend who was now whispering a goodbye to his beloved friend. She awkwardly patted Stian's flank, still not a natural with horses, and walked a little distance away, giving Hrafn some privacy. She watched as he bowed his head, speaking low. He turned Stian, tried to get him walking, but the horse refused to move. Hrafn shoved on his flank, urging him to go, tugged on the reins, dug his heels in the ground, until Keren couldn't watch anymore. Stian was not going anywhere without his rider.
"Just go!" Hrafn yelled after a while. "Go home!"
Keren's heart ached.
"Go, Stian," Hrafn said quietly, defeated, then turned to Keren after he had stared at the horse for a full minute. "We'll have to leave him here, hope he sees sense. He won't budge."
"He doesn't want to leave you," she said.
"Well…" Hrafn did not finish his sentence, but picked up his pack and began walking up the first shallow slopes of rock. Immediately Stian started to follow. Hrafn did not react, just carried on walking, and walking, and walking.
Keren stood watching for a while, wondering what to do, then shouldered her pack and walked as fast as she could to catch up to him.
"Keep walking, don't look back," Hrafn said gruffly as she joined him, and something inside Keren wrenched as she saw the hurt on his face. "He'll get the message. And soon he won't be able to follow."
"Hrafn, I - "
His glare cut her off, fierce and desperate and angry, and she knew not to insult him further by begging him to return home.
They walked, picking a winding path through any gaps in the brambles and stone they could find, all the while the land rising. They looped back on themselves, and veered from left to right, cutting a zig-zag through any more favourable passages they could see. Soon things became too narrow for Stian to follow, and Keren looked back to see him stopped between two boulders, his road come to an end.
Please find your way home, she said to him silently, thinking of Leofric in Lothlórien until the end of his days, happy and safe.
She looked over at Hrafn, whose eyes were red and sore. But he did not look back. He never looked back, until the day grew dark and they stopped for the night, and by then Stian was miles away.
The rain was a torrent, but they managed to find some shelter nestled against a large boulder slightly tilted over their path. Keren sat against Hrafn's side and lifted most of her cloak over his head and shoulders, her hood still keeping her dry. The droplets were heavy and hard, but not too cold. The warmer months were here - good for her time on the road, but worrying for reaching her destination in time. She wondered if her birthday was close. Three years since that unexpected coming-of-age party, when Palen and the two hobbits had dragged her to the courtyard. It shone brightly in her memory, making her smile. Legolas had been there.
Hrafn was already dozing, his head lolling on her shoulder. It had been a hard day for him.
If I ever get to see Legolas again, I'll make sure to befriend Arod properly, she vowed, for the horse had carried them safely whenever they needed him, and she knew he would not have left her either.
She munched miserably on some slightly soggy waybread, took a small sip of water, and slept.
The rain had stopped overnight, but left a haze of mist in its place.
"We might as well stay put," Hrafn said when they awoke. "If we try to move on we'll just get lost, and might end up further back than when we started."
Keren agreed, although she had no clear sense of how much they had progressed anyway. She could not see the sun, and the dim reassurance that she felt they'd been walking in vaguely the right direction was all she could rely on.
"It'll be alright," Hrafn said softly.
She sighed. "I'm just worried I'm running out of time. Every moment I'm not moving I feel like I'm losing him."
"The blossom was on the trees in the forest when I left to find you. You've got until the fiftieth day of summer, you say?"
She nodded.
"Then I would say you have months rather than weeks," Hrafn went on. "Perhaps Have-a-lass won't even have made it there himself. I wonder… "
He stopped short.
"What?" Keren prompted.
He shrugged.
"Well, I do have to wonder. Thranduil gave you a year to do this journey. He knew at the time you wouldn't have had any knowledge of the road - but he knew it wouldn't take that long. Imagine if you hadn't have had to stop with my people, or didn't stop with the bears. You would have been in Ithilien for months already."
Keren frowned. "I'm sure he knew it wouldn't be an easy road -"
"Keren. He was giving you every chance to do it. If he'd wanted you to struggle he would have given you half the time he did. Do you not think - "
"You're forgetting something," Keren interrupted. "He still sent me on a journey that almost guarantees my death, no matter how long he gave me to do it. The worst part is still ahead of me. The marshes - no one makes it through if they don't know the path, and I don't know the path. Whatever his reason for giving me more time, he still wants me dead."
Hrafn was silent for a moment, but then spoke quietly, looking out into the mist.
"My shaman, remember when he cast the runes for your journey? He… did see death. Of course he did, for you are mortal. But not - not on the road. You will not meet your death on this journey. You will at least make it to Ithilien."
Keren, afraid to look at the intensity on his face, also stared out into the empty whiteness surrounding them. Could she dare to believe him, to believe in stones thrown on the ground?
"Did he see where I will meet my death?" she asked quietly.
"No-one should know that. He would not have told you. But…"
He turned to face her.
"But he did tell me to follow you. That you would need me, if the balance of the world was to be righted. The boar - it seems you must thank it, or you would have had no help at all on these darker roads."
Keren felt as if the mist closed in around them, as if Hrafn's very words were heavy.
"The balance of the world?" Those words in particular sat on her shoulders.
Hrafn smiled. "Talk to an elf and you end up getting ideas far above your station. You've gone and bonded with one. What else can be expected of you but to change the world?"
Keren tried to smile back, but it was getting harder and harder as her journey wore on. And now Hrafn was here, perhaps not even fully by his own will. What if Thranduil somehow discovered he was helping her? Would her journey be forfeit? If they ever made it through, would he be waiting by the tree with a smirk, Legolas nowhere in sight? It was all exhausting. And what if, at the end of it, Legolas had not missed her, had found the call of the sea too much, had already gone, abandoning all hope of a future together? The remaining hope in her heart, like a shining speck of sand, told her that was impossible, but the heaviness of her road was dragging her down more every day, tricking her into such dark thoughts.
"Don't give up," Hrafn said, puling her back to the here and now. "I won't let you give up."
The mist stayed for most of the day, clearing only as the sun began to set. With its light shining golden and red from the west they were able to go south as confidently as they dared for an hour, though the brambles still were not giving out, and their arms and legs were torn and bleeding, their clothes ripped and snagged by the time they had covered a mile.
"They're getting thicker if anything," Keren said, panting as she hauled her leg over a stubborn gnarled root.
"But then they stop, look." Hrafn pointed ahead, and in the last light of the sun they saw an end to the vast thicket, atop a peak in the hills.
They fought through until it was dark, the night staying clear, the moon shining brightly on what lay past the thorns. They reached the edge of them with relief, only to have their hopes shattered by looking down.
"It's alright, I brought rope," Hrafn said, in answer to the sharp cliff edge. "I say we go over now while it's too dark to see how far we might fall." He grinned.
Keren stared at him. "Or we could just go round? We need to start heading south-east anyway."
"The ridge is too long, we'd go too far east. And this way we leave the thorns behind us for good."
"Can't we at least wait until it's light so we can see what we're doing?"
Hrafn stood, hands on hips, deliberating.
"We're going to face more cliffs before we're through. But, fine, as it's the first. We'll wait until light."
The next day brought more rain, but as far as they could make out the land started rising again from the bottom of the short cliff, up to an even higher ridge. There were no thorns, no plants or trees of any kind, just bare rock as far as the eye could see.
"It should only be a few days journey from one side to the other. So even with the wait yesterday we must already be halfway through…" Keren said hopefully. Hrafn looked doubtful.
"That's assuming we've been following a straight line, and we doubled back on ourselves early on so much we can't be certain of that. But the land is rising, that's a good sign. The higher we are, the more we'll see, we can figure out if we've gone wrong. But we need to tackle this first."
He nodded down at the cliff. Keren took a deep breath - she had never been afraid of heights, but never had she dangled in thin air held only by a rope before.
"Here," she pulled some rope from her pack as Hrafn went to do the same. "I'd trust this to hold our weight more."
He rolled his eyes at the slight towards his people's craft, but silently assented.
She looped the rope around the sturdiest, thickest thorn root nearby, praying she remembered the knot she had been taught correctly.
"I'll go first," Hrafn said as she finished, and before Keren could disagree he had lowered himself over the edge. She watched the knot nervously, but it held firm as the rope quivered under Hrafn's hands. She knelt over the edge, watching as his feet, flat against the rock, slowly walked down the sheer face. He didn't slip or falter once, making it look easy. Although the edge was steep, it was not too high, and he was down before he had even started to tire.
"Come on, it's just lovely down here!" he yelled from amongst the thin fog that hung in tendrils around him.
Taking the rope in her hands she felt a moment of terror as she hung out over the cliff, and for a moment couldn't move at all. The last time she had climbed anything she had fallen and delayed her journey by three months.
"You can climb trees but you can't trust yourself to dangle off a rope with me here to catch you?" Hrafn shouted up. "I'm not an angry boar!"
That shook her into action, and her feet suddenly moved as she leant backwards, keeping the rope taught. Her breathing light and shallow, she inched her way down, realising they would have to leave the rope behind. But as her foot touched flat rock instead of air, she felt the rope go slack, and watched as it fell, folding and collapsing into a pile at her feet.
"…if that had given out any earlier…" she whispered.
Hrafn shivered. "That didn't just give out. It knew you'd got to the bottom."
"Your people cast runes and listen to the wind, and yet you're afraid of elven magic," she said as she bent to retrieve the rope.
"Are you telling me you weren't?" He raised an eyebrow. "Come on, you were never wary? Not even once?"
Her mind flicked back to that very first meeting, when the moon had shone on silver hair, and Legolas had come close and told her things about herself that she hadn't even known.
"…No," she said, swiftly walking on. She heard him chuckle behind her.
They climbed in a straight line to the top of the next ridge, and surveying the land from their vantage point they saw they were on course.
"That's a bit of luck after all that wandering about at the start," Hrafn said, but Keren didn't answer. She stared out at the rest of the hills before them, grey, unchanging. And beyond them…
"There's Mordor," she whispered, for they could see the tips of dark, high mountains, and beyond them a lone, tall flat-topped summit, far, far in the distance.
"Still looks grim doesn't it, "Hrafn conceded, "even though evil has fled. It felt so far away to me, though we heard so much of it. You must've lived in its shadow all your life."
"It will be years before it can be habitable again. Even Ithilien still had regular patrols when I set out from home last year." Her voice was quiet, hushed. She felt many things. Wonder at how far south she had come. Memories of looking out at the Black Land from her own city. Now it was much nearer, though flame was no longer spewing from the sky. The fact she was not alone. Hope kindled in her heart.
"We're so close," she said, almost smiling.
She felt Hrafn's hand on her shoulder.
"One more day of rock, perhaps two if we get a bit lost in the next pass. Then we're out. I'd say we have enough food for two weeks, so we may be a little hungry by the time we reach Ithilien," he went on. "But it will see us through the marshes and the plain for the most part."
"What about water?" she asked. She had been worrying about this for some time. She had expected to find a spring somewhere in the stones, for something other than the Anduin must feed the marshes so far east, but so far they had found nothing, and she was not planning on drinking anything from the pools of the marshes themselves, not after what Legolas had told her of what dwelt below the surface.
Hrafn nodded - he had thought of this too. "We've still got one skin each. We'll go sparingly for now. If it rains again, that might have to do. But there must be a water source somewhere. Perhaps we'll find one at the end of the hills. There's probably a stream, and we can fill our skins before the water turns stagnant."
Keren turned to face him, placed her hand on his forearm where his hand still rested on her shoulder.
"I don't think I could do this part without you," she said. "I don't know how to thank you for finding me."
He smiled - a strange, sad smile. "Just… find him, and be happy, I suppose. That's what I ask as thanks."
She squeezed his arm, all awkwardness gone between them now. "You're the best of men, Hrafn. The very best. And I thank the Valar that boar tried to kill me."
She chuckled.
"The who?" Hrafn said.
"Never mind," Keren replied. "I think that's a story for another day."
They descended the next cliff, higher, though less sheer - Keren was able to find proper footholds in the rock. The climbing paths the other side, however, proved to be less friendly than the ones of the previous day. The sky was bright and clear, which meant the sun could guide them, but this proved frustrating, as sometimes they had no choice but to go way off course, looping back around hours later, and they knew just how far they were going out of their way.
They stopped for a quick meal when the sun was at its highest, warm beneath their travelling clothes. Keren endured the sweat trickling down her brow, and convinced herself that the few drops of water she allowed herself to swallow were enough. She was fearful to take her cloak off, as she knew in a pinch it would disguise them both amongst the rocks. But so far, on her whole road, she had come across no unfriendly folk. Whether she had just been lucky, or whether evil truly had left this corner of Middle Earth, she did not know. Still, she would remain guarded. Though there were few miles left, they were the most likely to bring her trouble.
Their march started again, leading further and further down into a ravine. Several small sheer faces of rock they either jumped or climbed down. Scree sometimes covered their path - Hrafn often skidded and slid, but Keren's elven boots kept her footing light and true. Their path kept winding, twisting - one truly depressing time they'd had to go almost in a circle in order to find a clear path. Keren was very glad of her shorter hair and lack of skirts as they scrambled over rocks and cracks. A bath, however, she did miss. A bath would be good.
She was lost in a daydream of hot water and steam when Hrafn flung out an arm in front of her.
"Hold still," he whispered, staring down the narrow trench ahead of them, the sky a narrow strip above between the two rock faces. "Do you hear anything?"
Keren met his gaze, wide-eyed. Was someone else trying to find their way through the maze of hills? She strained her ears, but heard nothing, and she shook her head.
Hrafn frowned. "I thought I heard…" He cocked his head, listening again. "Maybe not. No wait, there. Listen." His eyes flared as he reacted to something.
She did hear it then. Laughter, carried on the wind. It could have been coming from any direction. Deep, male laughter, loud voices. But then other sounds alongside them, more laughter at first, that turned into grunts and squeals.
"Men," Hrafn said, "and something else - I can't - "
But Keren had heard similar noises before - guttural roars, sharp shrieks, fierce yells, carried up from the plains of the Pelennor long ago. "It's orcs. Men and orcs."
"Then we need to get out of here," Hrafn said quickly. "Are they coming this way, do you think?"
"They're bound to be moving away from Mordor, and we're going towards it."
They shared a look, and each saw the other was afraid.
"Orcs are fairly stupid and small," Keren said, figuring Hrafn had never encountered them. "I'd be more worried about the men. Though we don't know how armed they are."
"Let's hope we don't find out," Hrafn replied. "Come on, let's keep going for a while. I think that might be a stream up ahead."
Walking far more quietly now, avoiding any loose stones that might roll and knock together, alerting anything nearby to their presence, they came upon a tiny rivulet of water running along the trench floor.
"Where there's a valley there's water," Hrafn whispered. "I knew we'd find some eventually."
"Shh," Keren warned. "We don't know how sound travels in this place. No more talking until we're clear."
They knelt and filled all their skins before drinking deep from the mountain spring, fresh and cold.
Hrafn cocked an ear again, his hearing sharper than Keren's. Without speaking, he pointed. West of them - away from where they were headed. Keren allowed a sigh of relief. They would still have to be careful though. There would be no rest or sleep for them until they were clear of the rocks now, she knew. She just prayed that the gang were indeed heading away from the Black Land, or when they got to the marshes they'd be an easy target.
They shouldered their packs. The sounds faded into the distance, and Keren allowed herself to relax a little. The sun had curved round into the west - the end of another day. The roundabout nature of their path had cost them time, but she reckoned one more steep climb out of this valley and they would reach the edge of the hills, where they dropped suddenly to the marshes below. Perhaps even by nightfall they would be there.
Keeping the sun just off their right shoulders as best they could, they marched on, occasionally looking behind to see if they were being followed. But they never saw anything, and all was quiet. They smiled grimly at each other, still not deeming it wise to speak.
As the sky started turning red they came across something that made their stomachs turn. A corpse lying within a rough circle of scattered boulders, so mutilated it was hard to see if it was man or orc. Keren gagged and held her nose. She was no stranger to corpses, but at least all the ones she'd seen in the Houses had still had their heads, and had not been lying in the sun for an indeterminate amount of time. Flies buzzed around it as they hurried past, Hrafn stopping to hurl what little there was in his stomach right up.
When they reached far enough away for the sight and smell to disappear they quietly and hurriedly assessed the situation.
"So there's in-fighting," Hrafn whispered, wiping his mouth, his voice rasping. "If we do come across them, perhaps we could turn them on each other."
Keren shook her head, still feeling the smell at the back of her throat. "They're not just travelling through. Did you see all the old bones and rags round those stones? In hiding probably. We've been lucky that we haven't run into them before. Let's just get out of here."
They moved on swiftly, and the floor of the ravine gradually began to rise. They had started the final climb, though it meant it would be harder to hide. They did not stop, and the wind picked up though the sky remained a solid red in the west. Sometimes Keren thought the wind carried noises to them, of shouts and snarls, but there was nothing to be done but keep walking. Every time they had to turn or double back she felt uneasy, but it was more out of fear than any certainty that they were being followed.
But then she heard it. Footsteps, many more than one set - before them, beside them, she couldn't tell. Panic took her, and she grabbed Hrafn, threw them both to the floor and pulled the cloak over them. Hrafn was too stunned to cry out as she mimed telling him to tuck his legs in tight. Though she was small he was not, and the cloak - magic as it was - would be hard pressed to cover both of them. But somehow it did, for they had curled up behind another rock, half hidden by that.
Hrafn frowned in confusion and panic, but Keren didn't have the means to tell him the cloak would keep them quite safe so long as they remained utterly still. She just glared at him until he realised there was a method behind her madness. And then they came. The heavy feet at first, then grunting, yawns, grumbling. The band were on the move, were going to pass right by where they lay.
A harsh voice carried over to them, drawing ever closer, not human.
"I'm tellin' you, someone saw what was left of 'im an' chundered, that pile of stomach-stew was fresh. We ain't alone in 'ere. Could be a nice chance to expand our palate, then we won't 'ave to stick any of us for a while."
Keren felt Hrafn tense beside her. She winced - the thought of these orcs knowingly tracking them down was not a welcome one. Still and safe behind the rock, she began running through all she had been taught by Negeneth and Legolas, many months ago. But if they just stayed silent where they were, the orcs would pass them by, move further and further away, without ever knowing they had passed their quarry.
The orcs' conversation was rough and harsh, and Keren was concentrating so hard on whether they were moving away that she was not fully listening to what they said - it all sounded like plans for eating and resting that night. Eating her and Hrafn probably, if they succeeded in finding them.
The voices began to fade away into the distance, and Hrafn relaxed a little beside her - but she was not going to any time yet. Dead still they lay for twenty minutes or more. Looking at each other, both knew they had to get out of the rocks tonight. If the band tracked them and spied them on the open marshes, it would be over.
"We get out of here, then we travel by night through the marshes." Keren's voice was no more than a breath. "Weapons drawn at all times. It will slow us down, but it might keep us alive."
She lifted her cloak an inch off the ground so she could peer around the rock. Their road ahead was clear, and there was no sign of the orcs. She risked lifting it a little higher so that her head was uncovered. Nothing - no sound of heavy feet or clanking armour. She finally did allow herself to take a deep breath.
"They're moving north, I reckon, back down to their camp for the night," she whispered. "Let's go."
Hrafn nodded, and neither of them spoke again, though Keren took her bow and arrow, holding it low and ready to shoot. Hrafn drew his sword, and it gleamed red in the setting sun. Swift and low and quiet they moved through the rocks, which were widening out. Their road continued to climb, and Keren hoped they were coming to the last great cliff - the southern wall of the Emyn Muil. One final long climb down and they would be through. Her breathing was shallow. Whilst she heard no sounds from behind them, her mind would not allow her to believe they had gotten away so easily. But perhaps luck was on their side.
Soon the land flattened out and they saw they were indeed coming to the edge of a vast cliff, stretching as far as they could see to east and west. They crept stealthily to the crest of rock, lying flat, for they were no longer sheltered. As soon as they hit the edge, Keren felt a tiredness come upon on her so draining that she could have fallen asleep right where she lay. She had done something no-one had expected her to do - using naught but the sun and their wits, and a bit of luck, she and Hrafn had made it through the Emyn Muil. She was hungry, and she was exhausted to her bones. But she had done it. Her eyes closed despite her best efforts to stay awake.
"Hey," Hrafn said as loudly as he dared, nudging her side. "None of that. We have to get down and onto the marshes. Food and five minutes of shut-eye once we're at the bottom."
She was pulled from her state of half-consciousness.
"Just so tired," she mumbled. "But I know we… I know. Don't let me sleep. Don't let me fall."
Hrafn chuckled, a low sound so welcome and cheering after the grim day they were leaving behind them.
"No falling with your elvish rope. You could probably doze all the way down."
She smiled sleepily, and stood, after taking a quick look around. The hills behind them were clear - no sounds of laughter or shouts, no sign of any orcish band. She took the pack from her shoulders, and drew the rope from where it lay close to the top. All there was to tie it around was a small, low stone, but she knew it would be enough for the trusty handicraft of Legolas's people.
Legolas. She was so near to the end.
"That's all there is left to do now," she said, looking down at the marshes."They're all that lies between me and him."
"All we have to do is cross them," Hrafn said. "They're a lot smaller than I thought, and there will be no darkness assailing us from ahead. I think we can do it, Keren. I think we can."
They both looked out. There, far in the distance, a dark smudge lay, grey in the twilight, stretching south. The forests of Ithilien. "It's a short road, but the most dangerous part," Keren said.
"You made it this far, when no-one thought you would. What's a couple of bogs to you now?"
Keren smiled grimly. "A couple of bogs… where the dead of long ago linger, ready to drag you down. If we don't stay on the one road between those and the Nindalf, we're doomed. And at night we have no chance of finding it. There's another path, a secret one, through the Dead Marshes, but there's only a handful of people alive who know the way, and unfortunately I met them long before I knew I'd have to do this. No - we have to find the main path, and I think we've come too far east to find it tonight."
Hrafn frowned. "Well let's just get down there first, then we can decide which way to chance after we've rested."
"Wise old raven," Keren joked.
"Less of the old, please."
They smiled in companionship, neither of them needing to say how relieved they were that they had made it though the labyrinth of rocks.
The western sky glowed pink, but all around the darkness was already growing. A large star shone brightly in the rich dark blue of the sky to the south, which Hrafn pointed to.
"There is Gefn, lady of the sea, the great giver of light," he said.
Keren took in his words, how eerily similar they were to the tale she knew.
"The elves say it's Eärendil the mariner," she said, "who crossed the great sea and now sails the sky, bearing the brightest light ever known in Middle-earth."
Hrafn looked at her, something new in his eyes. He nodded.
"Let's go," Keren said. "Whoever's up there sailing, I hope they stay shining until we're through the marshes."
"You go first this time," Hrafn said, "I don't want you up here on your own if trouble is following us. I know it's high, but your rope won't fail you, and I'll - "
Hrafn's eyes flared wide, and his breath made a dry sound in his throat. He looked confused for a moment, his eyes locked with hers. And then Keren realised something was now sticking out from the flesh between his collarbone and shoulder. An arrow, large and crudely hewn, pierced straight through from his back. Just as she registered this another arrow whistled past her ear.
Hrafn pointed down, trying to speak. "Climb. Go. I'll stay - you get away. You - find him."
Keren shook her head quickly, angrily, and drew her bow, nocked an arrow, fired at where she now saw them, four orcs and two men, coming up the hill behind them. It sailed wide.
Stupid. Stupid to think they had gotten away with it. Orcs were scavengers - they would have smelt them on the wind, known that they had lain close by. They had been playing with them, and had now cornered them where they had nowhere to go but down, to be fired at from above.
Keren hated herself in that moment, hated her stupidity and her naivety and her lack of knowledge. Hated that she had dragged a friend into this place, and now he was hurt. Her fault, all of it, every bad thing that had happened on her journey, all caused by her mistakes.
Keren, stop this. Concentrate. Kill them. You can do it. Aim well, then don't think, just shoot. Use the sword too, like we taught you. All of that, was for this. I can't help you. It has to be you. My love, I can't lose you. Fight. I know you can.
The words sounded in her mind, jumbled, overlapping, hurried but not panicked. She didn't question where they came from. She trusted them, she believed them, even as the terrifying figures drew nearer. She could fight. With a sword in her hand she had even been good at it.
She drew another arrow and fired again. She had aimed for the heart of the leader, but it struck him in the leg. Something at least. He roared, but carried on, barely limping. The one at the back was still firing at them, so she aimed for him next, placing herself in front of Hrafn, who still stood, winded but alive. Her arrow flew quick and true into the archer's arm. Not what she'd been aiming for, but enough to take his bow out of action. If she was to truly take them out she would need them to get closer so she could get at them with a sword.
So she let them come. Six of the last remnant of the armies of Mordor - the two men tall and lean, hair lank and dirty, and the orcs shorter, with greyish skin and glowing cat-like eyes. All had the same crude weapon - a sword with four sharp points sticking outwards along the blade. They were smiling, for the male was wounded, and the girl was a girl. They would have some fun with her before they finished her off.
But the girl was not about to let them. Not after everything she had done to get here. And she would protect Hrafn with her last breath, if things really were going to end. She drew her sword and took up her fighting stance, just as she had done as a student, and tried to picture tall and graceful Negeneth in place of the orcs. The band laughed, and an ice-cold fury took her. She was going to kill them all.
Trying not to think about her friend bleeding behind her she started running towards them, blessing her sword as she had been taught to do.
Elbereth protect and guide me, Tauron fill me with your wrath, Tulkas let my strikes be true.
There was a slight registering of something in the leader's eyes, but Keren had no time to care as she swung her blade in a great arc to take off his head. He saw it coming, ducked and dived out of the way, but that had been her plan, and she deftly jumped over his low swipe at her ankles, and thrust her blade straight into the heart of the man who had run up behind him. She stared him down as his eyes flared with shock, and she sensed all of them freeze for a moment. But she had no time to watch the life drain out of him. She pulled the sword out, slick with fresh, red, human blood. Her stomach and heart turned over for a split-second, but the voice in her head spurred her on.
Straight away she span and sliced the head off an orc who stood gaping, nearest to her. His body crashed to the floor. The others roared in disbelief and anger, and began circling, taunting her with foul words and gestures, but never getting close enough for her to kill. They were hoping to tire her, then. She had dealt with this many times with Negeneth, and they were far stupider than her. She could wait.
Then one of the orcs fell, a sword point straight through his chest. As he fell, Hrafn appeared behind him, pale and grim, the arrow still in his shoulder, a small patch of blood blooming around it.
"Get out of here, Keren, go," he said, as loudly as he could, panting through his pain. The leader made for him, whilst she was left with the only remaining man and the other orc. She had rarely fought two-to-one, but knew she would be better served by her knives now. Hastily she sheathed her sword and drew them from behind her shoulders. Quick and deadly she needed to be, dodging past their longer weapons. She could do it, this was where she had excelled. But there were two…
That split second of hesitation cost her, as she noticed too late a fierce swipe of the man's blade aimed at her side. She dodged it, jumping back, but felt a slice of fire below her ribs as his blade connected with her, ripping through clothes and skin.
Not fatal, her healer's mind said straight away. Not fatal, fight on.
She roared, with agony and anger, and sprinted straight for the one who had made her bleed. He let her come, grinning. Just as she was about to reach him she instead swerved left, surprising the small orc that stood to the side with a slash to the throat that stopped his amusement with immediate effect.
"Two left, Hrafn, come on!" she shouted, bloodlust coursing through her for the first time in her life, as she turned back to the man. But he had seen the way the fight was going, and he had already turned and was running, running straight towards their packs at the cliff-edge. Starving and desperate, eating only flesh of orc and his own people for months, he was going to steal all their provisions and make his escape.
"No!" Keren half screamed in desperation. She shouldered her knives and went to draw her bow to bring him down. Her first shot went wide, her second hit him in the thigh, but he kept running, and she watched in horror as he took up first her pack, then Hrafn's, and ran, limping, back towards the rocky hills.
She heard a sharp cry from behind her, and saw Hrafn had fallen to his knees, struggling to get to his feet whilst he parried blows from the orc leader above him. Keren sucked in a breath of panic and let fly another arrow. It lodged firmly in the arm of the orc, causing it to roar and stumble back, giving Hrafn precious time to get to his feet. He swiped wildly with his sword, exhausted, slashing across the orc's stomach.
It grabbed at its belly, and Keren ran over to finish it off, drawing her sword for the final deathblow. Hrafn stood, defiant, breathing hard, face white, and she knew he would have wanted to kill it himself. But he was at the end of his strength, and she would save her friend.
But she was only three paces away when the orc suddenly straightened, no wound to its stomach visible - Hrafn's sword had not connected with it at all, it had been feinting. Keren skidded to a halt and watched - as if in slow-motion, so little power had she to stop it - as it took one step toward Hrafn and stuck its sword straight through his torso. It held him there, pinned on the blade, until blood bubbled at his mouth. It's work done, the orc wrenched its sword back out and spat as Hrafn sank to the ground.
Keren froze, and felt something in her crack. A little bit of sanity, gone. She was silent with rage and terror, as she walked slowly towards the orc - far taller and stronger than the rest - her sword held ready. If this was how she was to meet her death she would make sure she avenged her friend, avenged the future with Legolas ripped from her, before she went down. She would see the creature dead before she succumbed to the wounds it was about to give her. And then she would curl up next to Hrafn and die, quiet and proud.
Knives. Not sword. Speed and skill. Knives.
Her thoughts were not coherent, but she obeyed them, and she saw the orc's eyes narrow as he wondered what she was about abandoning her sword for the two small curved knives. He lunged at her, and she span, and ducked, and swiped. Heavy and tall, she could tell he was angered by her light, lithe form dodging his blows. He started throwing punches in frustration. Neither fist nor sword caught her, however, though she was not able to get close enough to do any real damage. After several minutes of this, when both were beginning to tire, the orc roared in blind rage and raised both arms above his head, his sword high in the air, ready to split her head in two. She saw her chance, and, just as she had with Negeneth, she dropped to the ground, rolled and span on her knees, distracting his gaze as she stood far quicker than he expected, one knife at his heart, one at his neck, but instead of stopping and waiting for Negeneth's nod of approval, she forced them both home. A punch to the heart, and a deep, cutting, slice to the throat, and she held him there, so he had to watch her watching him, as he died.
Eyes rolling back in his head, his foul breath, warm on her face, gradually stopping, she wrenched out her knives, watched him sink, and then ran to Hrafn.
He had fallen on his side, and she took his head in his lap, and watched as his eyes shuttered and blinked. His breath was shallow, and gurgling. The healer in her, long lying dormant, kicked into action, going to snap the ends of the arrow to make it easier to remove, ready to try to staunch the torrent of blood that would leave the fresh wound.
"Leave it," Hrafn said. "Done. Just… Hand. Sword."
Keren nodded. She knew, deep down, that she could not save him. But she had hoped, just for a moment, that she might. She reached over to where his sword, the twin of hers she realised for the first time, lay at his side, and placed it in his right hand, upon his chest, whilst she took hold of his left.
"I'll stay with you," she whispered, and the tears began to form, but she blinked them away. She would be strong for him, the man who had followed her into the wilderness, had given his life for hers.
"I… told you so." His voice was wavering, already far away, but he tried to smile. "Told you, you would… need me. Always thought it might be… like this."
"Shh." Keren brushed his damp hair off his face. "You don't need to talk."
"Want to. Make sure… you finish. Find… Legolas. Don't fall. Mustn't… give up. Promise."
Keren gripped his hand tighter. "I promise."
"Ravens… Think of me."
"I will, always. Always, Hrafn. I - I…"
He smiled again, faintly.
"Elfwyn. You were... my… gift,' Hrafn said, and died.
Keren bent and kissed his brow, and hoped somewhere he felt it. For she loved him, not in the way he had wanted, but with as much space in her heart as she could make. She had killed him, in a way, and there would always be a darkness, a heaviness, that she would carry with her now, knowing it. What had he done to deserve dying so far from home, to protect a girl that fate had flung in his way? What faraway deity had dragged him into her story, knowing what his part would be? Who else would they sacrifice for her to succeed?
There was nowhere to bury him, or even shield his body from the elements, but she thought he wouldn't mind. Let the wild man of the woods return to nature, she thought, let the birds he was named for find life from his death.
She did not cry, but she found she could not let go of his hand, even as the last light left the sky, and she was left in darkness with the bodies of both friend and foe. She would wait for the light. She lay down beside him, keeping his hand in hers, and slept the night through, and when she awoke in the morning he was cold and still, and she had to prise her hand from his frozen grasp.
In the grey light of dawn she assessed her situation. Her friend was dead, but so were her enemies. She knelt and wiped clean her weapons as much as she could on the hem of Hrafn's cloak, grimacing as she did so. Their packs were long gone, but so was her one surviving foe - he would be avoiding trouble, lying low with their food and water. She had all her weapons. The cut to her ribs was more of a scratch - stinging, but likely to heal without stitches. If it got infected though… Well, she would cross that bridge if she came to it, for she had no other choice.
She stood, and took one last look at Hrafn. Dark stubble and swirling tattoos on a pale, sleeping face. Clothes of fur and leather, and his shining sword. She would not forget.
She took staggering steps to the edge of the cliff, the rope still hanging ready. The sun broke over the hills to the east, and golden light hit the marshes below, hit the mountains of the Black Land, hit the waving trees of Ithilien far away, blowing in the same wind that now tugged at her hair, at Legolas's Lórien cloak.
She was alone. She had no food or water. She could not waste time walking miles to the west searching for the clear path on the edge of the Nindalf, or she would starve. She would have to take the shortest route, and pray she would be guided through by the ones watching over her. She knew she had no choice. And she knew the Dead were waiting.
Author note: Horrible admittance - Hrafn was created in my head just to die. His character went through several names and guises - first he was a Mirkwood elf that went the entire journey with her, then I decided that wasn't enough of a challenge for her. Then he was a horse, just to try and force her to love them - also that would have caused a serious lack of dialogue and we would have had some sort of Kristoff/Sven situation going on... Then he just stumbled into my head fully formed as one of the wildmen of Mirkwood, and the part of the woodfolk was massively expanded as a result. But whatever version of him made it into the story, he was always going to die to save Keren, and she would always be willing to die to save him. And she will always carry guilt that she didn't. Up 'til now there had been zero good people dying in this story, apart from Orwen who had died long before it started. Keren needed something seriously bad to happen in order to grow, she needs guilt and grief on this journey to become the person I need her to be. Am I basically the Valar?! This power is going to my head. Seriously though, this was very hard to write. And it's just going to get harder. I'm off to watch a video of puppies playing with babies or something.