Bearing the shirt of mithril that Idril ordered made for her son Eärendil, Morlotheil hurries to find a way to return to the Hidden City. A bit of a challenge, since she knows not where it lies exactly, nor the paths that are secret that might lead her in. The hands of the Powers alone can guide her steps as she presses on, burdened less by the Coat than the weight of her hope and doubt.
Chapter Eight, Borrowed Feathers
Furtive and fleet, I wound my way through the wild lands beyond Doriath and ruined Nargothrond. Hard is that road, and not far would I have made my way but for the gift of Melian's bread. What water I could find was fouled, but managed by craft to find a few places where fresh springs founted. Animals have fled the burning and the droves of orcs that plague the plains. Lying in a burrowed hole or cleft tree by night, I curse silently the wasted time. But then was the time when the eyes of the Dark One's servants are keenest, and only beneath the sun's pure rays do I have any hope to come to Gondolin unseen.
Slowly the mountains grew before me. Memory could not serve me unless I crossed the wide lands and follow the Sirion into the Dark One's territory; I had not come this way before. The forest of Brethil has shaded me somewhat, but before me now lies the land of Dimbar, and on my left the dark passage of the Sirion, where once I walked with Beren and Finrod Felegund. The thought of going there again makes my heart labour.
Ahead, beyond the river valley, high hills rise; part of the mountainous chain of Ered Gorgoroth. What lurked in those hill I cared not to discover, but perhaps their shadows might offer more protection than this naked plain. A dry riverbed offers some path and though my thirst is great and the memory of water there is old, I follow. Few enemies would I encounter in such wild and inhospitable places.
Was it Fate that guided my way, or some memory that was not my own? A day or two upon this road I heard above the familiar cry, piercing and welcome. A great eagle circled above me, and my heart rejoiced.
He came in low in the late afternoon; his great pinions flinging dust and gravel in my face. I hurry forward, aware of danger in the lurking-places; eyes and arrows that might at any moment take note and fly. He landed gracefully and turning his great curved beak at me, he spoke.
"Hurry, Child. Fell eyes are upon us, and I am too great a target to miss! Upon my back and with speed! Here are the foe!"
I leapt to his back, clinging with desperate strength as he lifted us off of the ground with mighty wing strokes. So great was the girth of his neck that my arms could not reach around, and I grabbed handfuls of feathers to stop myself from falling as he levered us into the air, labouring mightily. Less huge than the magnificent Thoronodor who bore me to Gondolin long ago, still this eagle was very large. His feathers were of a dark golden colour, and edged with creamy white. His breast was a flash of brilliance in the setting sun. Too great a target indeed, to my dismay.
Arrows rose from pits and caverns, and cries and calls of fell beasts and orcs sounded below. I heard the whistling of the shafts that came close, and I ducked low as they grazed and shattered shaft and vane. My mighty mount dipped suddenly, dropping several feet before labouring upward, lifting us beyond the flight of the cruel horn bows that chewed at us.
A piercing pain spoke in my shoulder, but I dared not move. The wind tore at me and pulled my feathered cloak back like small wings of my own. I felt the bulge of the shirt beneath me, safely pressed between my gut and the eagle. I felt something cold trickling down my right arm, and opening my eyes to water in the wind, I saw a great stain upon the golden feathers, soaking my sleeve and hand knotted in a fist.
The shaft of the arrow had pierced through the eagle's breast and come out to take me as a second target. Pinned together in pain, still we flew. The eagle cried out in his agony but soared on, and the hills flashed beneath us in the last rays of sunlight, showing me that we were high above the world. Clouds drifted below and rained our mingled blood upon the earth.
"The mighty Eagles of the mountains are the hands and eyes of Manwë," said the hen eagle to me once, and her voice returned to me now in my haze of pain. "No movement escapes their eyes, 'tis said, and no words spoken in the wind escape the ears of that Lord of the West who sits on Taniquetil, the tallest of all the mountains in Middle earth. He listens and sees, and no sparrow falls that he does not note."
When at last my heroic steed folded his wings in the air and fell, I was torn from him; the arrow was ripped out and we were separate. I fell through the air, a leaf far from my tree, and my cloak spread out behind me and caught the air like wings. As the clouds swallowed me and wept me upon the earth, it seemed to me that my heart flew still, and as the sun sank to Her rest on the distant west, my spirit arrowed toward Her, flying as if on borrowed wings.