They went north from the ruined city, along the shores of the the lake and the skirts of the hills, and then far into the bleak open country beyond. Bright autumn faded, and the weather grew cold, frost at night and thin sun barely warm at noon. They had brought winter clothes from the Brandywine, woolen shirts and heavy cloaks, mittens and scarves, and though Miriel had grumbled under her breath at the weight in the heat of late summer, now she was ruefully thankful for Anna's foresight. But their food began to run low, and still they went north, and she could not help but worry.

Anna knows what she's doing. Has she not proved that by now?

But she's not used to patrolling with another. Perhaps—

Memory then: an arm around her, a sword by her side. A low, fierce voice: 'She's mine.' And a wry smile. She will not let me starve.

Their faces grew lean, and their packs light. There was game, but less of it now, as animals burrowed away for winter, and Miriel found herself dreaming of abundant autumn meals in the Hall as she led them north. Anna made her lead, watched that she kept as straight a course as she could despite the barriers the land placed before them. Steep slopes and marshy bogs, dense thickets and swift streams, and always the choice: Through or around? The risk of one against the delay of the other, mistakes unforgiving so far from any help. At least we are two. And she will not let me go wrong. But then, small and cold: The Wild may give no choice.

At last one day they came to the top of a rise, and a ridge of hills spread out before them, fading into dimness east and west. Anna narrowed her eyes, seemed to be searching. Finally she drew a sharp breath, laid a hand on Miriel's shoulder.

"There." Pointing, north and east. "Those trees." A dark smudge only, at this distance, against sere grass and bracken. But they might be trees…

"That's it."

No more, but the direction at least was clear, and Miriel asked no questions, only led them as straight as she could over uneven, rising ground toward the hills.

They were indeed trees, low and brown and weathered, huddled in a small, sheltered gully on the south side of the hills. A few dry leaves still hung from twisted branches, rattling softly in the wind, and a stream trickled down over stones.

Abruptly, as Miriel was about to descend the bank toward the stream: "Stop." She obeyed, stood still and watched as Anna unslung her pack, paused for a moment eyeing the ground—and then leaped down into the streambed, landing sure-footed on rocks. She glanced back up at Miriel, a smile flickering over her lips. "Wait there."

Again Miriel obeyed, watched Anna step from stone to stone up the stream as the walls of the gully narrowed above her. At a place where the trees overhung the stream she stopped, crouched and slipped under them, and disappeared from sight, though Miriel could still hear movement. At last she reappeared, a rare smile of open relief on her face. "It's here," she called, and gestured Miriel to follow.

It was, of course, not nearly as easy as Anna had made it look. Miriel's boots slipped into the water twice, but the seams were sound, and she remained dry-footed, and came at last to stand behind Anna, balancing on two stones.

Anna glanced back. "Why do we do this?"

She had wondered at first, but the answer came quickly enough. "So we don't leave a trail."

A thin smile, and Anna gestured her to follow beneath the grasping branches.

They emerged into a small open space, masked from above and below by dense, low trees. And there in the side of the gully, by a rock that had clearly been rolled away to unmask it—a hole.

It was far too small to be called a cave, too small even to enter. But as Miriel crouched and peered into the opening, gradually the darkness took shape: walls and roof and floor, paneled in cedar wood, tight-fitted and joined, resistant to insects and rot. Piled in that box in the ground were crates and sacks, folded clothes, tools and weapons. And clear even over cedar and dirt, the smell of apples.

They pulled all the food out into the open: dried meat and meal, oats and nuts, travel bread that felt nearly as hard as the rocks themselves—and a small sack of dried apples, gritty and musty but still sweet.

Miriel smiled a little, at the reminder of home. "Rangers made this place."

Anna nodded. "This, and others." She pursed her lips, thinking. "Eight, ten of them, maybe, all across the Wild. Should be restocked every autumn, but we don't always get to them all. Looks like this one was, though. Lucky for us." She grunted, not quite a laugh. "Safety net. Thin enough, but there may come a time when it's all you have."

They took food, enough to last a month easily, and half a month longer at need. Then they rolled the stone back over the hole, and slipped out of the hidden place, leaving no sign that this gully held more than trees and rocks and grass.

It was nearly sunset, and the wind flowing down from the north was cold. But they went back west along the base of the ridge, crossing one draw and then another, at last following the third up to find shelter in a south-facing hollow beneath thorny bushes. "Don't ever camp near a supply cache, if you can help it," Anna said, as they gathered dry sticks for a fire. "They stay secret, or Rangers who rely on them will die."

It was a miserable night of wind and spitting rain, and they did not sleep much. But the food in their packs gave them comfort, and when the morning dawned frosty but clear, Anna was nearly cheerful. She led them up, careful on slick, icy grass, breath puffing white as they climbed. Miriel watched her feet, fearful of a slip with a full pack. But when at last the ground before her flattened, and Anna stopped, she raised her eyes—and caught her breath in wonder.

The land stretched out before them, sloping down and then at last flattening into a broad plain, autumn brown broken by pools and ponds that gleamed in the early light. And far, far away, fading in haze on the edge of sight…

She blinked, shook her head, but the vision remained. There was no mistaking it, though she had seen it before only in her mind, an image drawn in the words of legend. "Is that—"

"The sea," said Anna quietly. "Or a bay of it." And then, a tightness slipping into her voice, "Beyond here is Lossoth land. We do not enter it without need; so it has always been." She grunted, shook her head. "And so the brannon taid commands it must remain."

But if it were up to you…And she felt Anna's anger, and her own, and the memory of blood and flame. But then Hannas, in quiet honesty: 'I would have done the same. So would we all, if it was the only way.'

Anna gazed north for a long time, silent and still. At last, abruptly, she turned away. "This is the boundary of our land. You've seen it now south, west, and north." She shook her head. "Couldn't show you it all, but I've done what I could." A soft, dry laugh. "You've years to see the rest." She turned, looked Miriel full in the face, and smiled. "Let's go home."


They followed the crest of the ridge for several days, until one afternoon they stood looking out from the last height of land, and the slope fell away below them. Miriel glimpsed far off in the east a shadow above haze, the barest hint of the hills of Carn Dûm rising from the plain. A fearful place still, it was said, abandoned yet not empty, and grass would not grow on those ruins.

Ghost stories, told in the Hall on winter nights to frighten children. She had shivered with delight, breathless and eager. 'Is it true?' she had whispered, as Sirhael sat on the bench beside her, warm and solid. 'Have you seen it?'

Silence. And then, in a tone she had never heard, 'Rangers do not go there.'

Behind her then, soft and hollow, "I went there once. Following orcs out of the mountains." Anna shuddered, swallowed. "Never again. Never."

And Miriel remembered the green Tyrn Gorthad, haunted, so it was said, by the same evil that lay on Carn Dûm. She thought of Faron, and felt her breath catch, and hoped Anna had not seen.

They went no further east, but rather turned south, across the valleys and rolling hills of old Arthedain. Here and there she glimpsed ruins on hilltops, the tumbled remains of watchposts held against Angmar. Held for a time, until all were crushed, swept away into shadow.

She heard Anna's footfalls behind her, firm and steady. She would stay. If that post were hers, she would not run, not though all the hosts of fear and darkness stood before her.

And you? Would you flee, or die?

I would never run. I would fight…

And then Calen's voice, as they sat together watching the stars, in the hills north of Hoarwell bridge. 'You do not know what you would not do, until the choice comes. And perhaps it will never come. But if it does, you will know then.'

I would not run.

But assertion is not truth, nor belief.


They traveled south, as the moon waxed and then waned. Their packs grew gradually lighter, and they began to eat less, stretching their food to last. "Another ten days, most likely," said Anna, one evening as they huddled together in a hollow of the hills. "Less if the weather stays fair." A brief, dry chuckle. "More if it doesn't."

They almost made it. The North Downs were in sight, a shadow on the southern horizon but less than two days' journey ahead, then two days to pass through, and they would be in Elenost.

She had heard tales of the fierceness of winter on the plains: storms that came without warning, the sky clear one moment and raging the next, snow swirling in blinding curtains, wind fierce enough to freeze a man's eyelashes shut. But she had not seen it, and so she did not know, would have missed the first signs.

But Anna knew. Miriel hear the footsteps stop behind her. She stopped, turned, found Anna gazing north, feeling the wind, watching the clouds. Thicker now, Miriel realized, far thicker than they had been just a little while before, and when she looked back towards the south, the downs were gone in fading light. Then Anna's gaze dropped, and she turned slowly, eyeing the land from north back to north. Only a moment to decide, and then, sharply, "This way." And Miriel followed, pack jolting as she ran.

The wind was already rising, and snow beginning to fall, muting all colors to soft brown and gray, when they scrambled down into the streambed. Anna glanced round, then headed upstream, to a place where bushes grew close to an undercut curve of the bank. "Get out your blanket." Sharp and urgent, and Miriel obeyed at once, cold fingers clumsy on the knots of her pack. Burdened footsteps and grunting breath, and when she looked up again, she found Anna had begun gathering a pile of heavy stones from the streambed. "Give me the blanket, then the stones." Anna vaulted to the top of the bank, snow swirling around her. Miriel shivered as the wind found its way through her layers, but she crouched, wrapped her arms around a stone, lifted it to her chest with a sharp grunt, and set it heavily on the bank at Anna's feet. And even amid cold and strain and fear, she almost smiled. Without Silevren, I could not have done that.

Three more stones, and Anna set them along the blanket's edge, pinning it to the top of the bank. Then she jumped down, and Miriel helped her stretch the blanket over a leafless bush and secure it on the ground. They piled a few more stones along the edges of their makeshift shelter, but already the slick snow made them nearly impossible to lift. "That's enough," Anna shouted at last, voice raised against the wind. "Don't want to drop one on your foot." Rare jest in her voice, and Miriel chuckled, fear pushed back at least a little. As she meant it to be. And then a sudden rush of affection, warm and calming, and the fear was gone. She will not let me freeze, no more than she would let me starve. The Wild will not have us, not this time.

They huddled in the hollow of the bank, sharp rocks beneath them, branches plucking at their clothes. But though the wind howled over the top of the bank, and eddies of snow gusted beneath the blanket, they were spared the worst of the storm. And the shelter became better, Miriel realized, as the snow deepened, covering the blanket above them and piling in drifts on the sides. It was cramped and uncomfortable, and she had to shake her hands and feet to keep them from going numb. But they had food, and shelter, and each other. 'And together we will survive the storm.'

It lasted two days, wind howling and snow swirling, and the blanket above them sagged under the weight. But the stones held, and the wind stayed northeasterly, and beneath the bank they were protected. Anna insisted that one of them always be awake, to keep the other from sleeping too long and freezing. When neither could sleep, they ate and told stories, and Miriel was surprised at the store Anna had in her memory. "The men of Rohan write little," she said, when Miriel asked, and there was vague wonder in Miriel's mind that she should feel comfortable asking the question, and Anna answering. Not so long ago…

"Even more than the Dunedain, our history is passed down through tales. My mother told me many when I was young."

Our. Not their. And then, How must it feel, to belong nowhere? At least Calen was raised as one of us. She frowned. But sometimes we are hers, and she ours, and sometimes not. She did not entirely understand it, and knew she could not ask this, even now. She gazed into the gray blankness of snowdrift, trying to feel the being of another. But it was water and sand, slipping away even as she grasped, and at last she gave it up. Back then to solid ground: Anna's voice, speaking of Eorl the Young and his great horse.

"Felaróf?" And without meaning to, Miriel found herself laughing. "You name your horses too?"

Anna frowned. "Of course. 'Horse are next to brothers.' That's what they say, at least."

They. Now they are they. And still she did not understand. But she put it aside, and smiled apologetically. "I'm—I didn't intend to make light. It's only…" She shook her head, chuckled at the memory. "I could never remember all the names, when I was young, the men and horses and swords. The schoolmistress beat my hands for it, but that didn't help."

Anna laughed. "Pain teaches, but only certain lessons." She glanced sidelong at Miriel. "Certain very useful lessons."

"Yes, mistress." They both laughed then, and Miriel knew they both thought of Silevren, and there was joy in that pain.

At last the howling became silence, and when morning came, and Miriel pushed an arm through the drift wall of their shelter, blinding light flooded in.

It was not truly that bright, once they had struggled out and stood in knee-deep snow, gazing over the shrouded land. High clouds veiled the sun, and that was just as well if they were not to risk snow-blindness. They hauled out their packs, shook the snow off Miriel's blanket, clambered out of the streambed and onto the plain. But as they headed south, Miriel glanced back at the bank, the bush, the stones. Thank you for our lives. She smiled a little, and was glad Anna was ahead of her.

They took turns breaking trail, slogging through the snow. In some places the ground was nearly bare, scoured by the wind, but in others the drifts rose waist-high, and they stumbled into holes and tripped over rocks they could not see. But they kept moving forward, and the North Downs crept nearer. The weather remained cold, but the snow settled and compacted, and the climb up through the downs was less difficult than they had feared. And so at last, hungry and wet, tired and cold, they smelled woodsmoke, and came down out of the Wild to Elenost.


Notes:

My beta readers have reminded me that this story has been trickling out over many months, and though all the references to past events may be entirely clear in my mind, I am not my readers. ;) So, in the (rather likely) event that you don't remember and (perhaps less likely) want to go back, Hannas's reaction to the Lossoth attack is in Chapter 16, Miriel's conversation with Calen about limits is in Chapter 25, and Faron's experience in the Barrow Downs is in Chapter 28.

Miriel's reflection on the last defenders of Arthedain was inspired by the fanfic story "Tell All the Wild and Fearful Things," by Dwimordene. It's posted on AO3 (originally on HASA), not FFN, but it's definitely worth a read, as are all of Dwimordene's works.

And the storm on the plains is straight out of Laura Ingalls Wilder; the Little House series were the first chapter books I read on my own, and they still have a special place in my heart! Might have something to do with my username, too... ;)