A thick white blanket lay over the land, and it was getting thicker by the minute. The sweeping plains and fissures were covered underneath snow drifts over a foot deep. A squirrel watched from the safety of it's burrow as four travelers on three horses tried to navigate the terrain, their cloaks blowing in the wind.

They had come down from the hills and were walking straight north, not pausing to look for tracks. The sun that had shone so brightly earlier in the day was fast being choked out by falling particles of ice. Even in the midst of this desolation, Nellas saw life. A white fox bounded easily through the snow, chasing an unlucky hare whose fur still had flecks of brown in it, remnants of its summer coat. The two animals zipped through their company and the horses startled, except for Aini who snorted impatiently at the inexperience of the other two. The trees were few and far between, but the ones that had survived were enormous evergreens, their roots expanding into the cracks in the landscape to drink the melt-water when it flowed out during each thaw. She could tell from the boulders lying about and the way the land had buckled in some places that it was volcanic once, long ago.

At last the going grew so difficult that they were forced to dismount, as the horses were stumbling each time their combined weight forced their hooves into the unpacked snow. It was Elden who suggested it, and they all followed his advice. This didn't do much except transfer the stumbling to them, but Nellas didn't mind. Their steeds deserved a rest after what they had been forced to endure, but they weren't going to get one. Not while Ferny still had the ring, at any rate. Elden seemed to be thinking the same thing, and patted Smoke on his skinny flank, as if to thank him. It was one of his quirks, she had noticed. He was constantly aware of the well-being of their horses, far more than any of them. He treated them as closer to friends than beasts of burden.

Surad and Durus bounded ahead of them, tossing clods of snow at each other and giggling helplessly. It was a remarkable thing to see two grown Haradrim warriors behaving like children. Then again, this was probably their first experience with snow.

Elden said nothing as he followed behind, using their erratic boot-prints as places to step without tripping. For him cold had been a reality since birth, a nuisance and a hazard to be mitigated or avoided. It was impossible to avoid this snow. Even as they walked the sky was getting darker and the wind more fierce. At length, he called a halt, and they obeyed.

"The weather is getting worse. We should make a shelter and wait it out."

"Nonsense, it's just a little powder!" Durus said, spiritedly. "We haven't caught Ferny yet."

"Ferny will be finding a dark hole to curl up in, and so should we. If we don't get out of the storm before it goes completely dark we'll get lost and freeze to death."

"He speaks the truth." Nellas added, because Durus looked ready to argue.

The two did not exactly see eye to eye, she noticed. Perhaps it was because they were both headstrong males, or perhaps it was because their masters had once been mortal enemies, but the resentment was there. Elden went over to a particularly large tree and pulled the woodcutting hatchet from the side of his pack. With it he began to dig the snow away from the trunk until he hit the ground.

"Help me make it wider. It has to be large enough for us and the horses as well."

They obliged, using swords and daggers to chop up the frozen water and push it up around the edge of the pit, creating a berm. As it got wider Elden added a cut in the berm wide enough for a horse to pass through without scraping their heads on the thick lower branches of the tree.

His words proved correct. No sooner had they finished their work than the wind began to blast down from the foothills, chilling them all to the bone. The gentle rain of particles turned into a flurry, and suddenly Nellas was reminded of a collection of snow globes sitting on Barliman's counter back in Bree. She tried not to think of warm beds and greasy human food, and instead coaxed Aini and the other horses inside. It was much easier to direct horses to do what you wanted when you had a Maeras as a go-between. Nellas would simply whisper to her in Sindarian, and the other horses would follow her example, as she was undisputed herd-leader.

They laid blankets across the sharp rocks so that the beasts could lie down, and when they did they leaned against them. Suddenly she was very thankful that they had brought the animals all this way; they were very warm, if a little odorous. The sky outside went almost pitch black. The wind whistled eerily as it covered up the entrance with snow. Underneath the rapidly-increasing burden of snow the branches bowed until they touched the ground, completing the shelter. They were now buried.

There was a string of notes on the edge of hearing, like someone singing a snatch of a long forgotten lyric. Nellas's blue light appeared in her palm. She widened it, and gave it the form of fire before flicking it gently from her hand. It floated down and alighted upon the trunk of the tree without scorching it. The light cast by this solitary fire illuminated the faces of the Haradrim, who no longer looked like they were having fun. They did look grateful for the fire, however. Gradually it melted the remaining slush on the floor and dried out their blankets. Nellas had never in her life thought she would be happy to sleep on tree roots, but they were a better alternative than the rocks where the horses lay huddled together, so she placed her blanket beside the trunk and curled up on it.

The Haradrim remained with the horses and talked among themselves quietly, lying against their dappled mare's warm belly. Occasionally the woman would giggle and the man would smile. She could, of course, hear every word they were saying, but she decided not to snoop.

Something tugged inside her chest.

She had never found the time to fulfill that part of her life. The boys of the Lorien wood in her youth had entertained her, enraged her, and at times thrilled her, but none of them had captured her interest for very long. Her stay at Imladris was a quiet period of study under Lord Elrond, and there had been no time for finding love.

She turned over to see Elden lying on his back at the opposite side of the shelter. Underneath him was a down quilt that he had bought in Bree. His rucksack was lying up against the wall, the bow lashed diagonally along it's length, as it always was. His sword was lying up against the wall, reflecting strange patterns in the light from her fire. As he lay staring up at the ceiling, she saw his lips moving gently, and her sensitive ears caught the words.

Find the cost of freedom, buried in the ground.

Mother earth will swallow you, lay your body down.

One by one the humans fell asleep, and a long time afterward, so did she. As she drifted off into the ethereal world of elvish dreams, the blue fire shrunk and finally went out.

Elden woke to the sound of orcish voices. They were muffled, but audible. He turned over and snatched his sword from where it was leaning against the ice. Nellas was already crouched against the wall, listening. Quietly, he woke the Haradrim and explained what was going on to them as well. They staid silent. During the night the heat of their bodies and the breath of the horses had drastically widened their shelter so that now the berm they had originally created was unreachable. There was barely any light, and what did filter through carried a strange blue tint to it.

Three orcs stood beside the great tree, doing what orcs do best: argue. Shivering and arguing had kept them warm during the cruel winter months, even if it had led to a few more serious scraps. Things were about to go very wrong for these three, however.

An insistent scratching noise carried above their heated discussion, causing them all to fall silent in turn, one by one.

"Do you 'ere that?"

"Yeh. But where's it comin' from?"

As if to answer this question a hole appeared beneath one orcs feet and he fell away into darkness. There was a scuffling noise, then a thump, and then silence.

Now most creatures, even wild beasts, would have taken that moment to get as far away as possible but the orcs, being possessed of both a dim mind and a morbid curiosity, moved closer. One even peered down the cavity that his partner in crime had just disappeared into. A sinkhole, perhaps?

No, thought the surviving orc as an elvish blade whipped out of the burrow and embedded itself in the curious orc's forehead, sinkholes don't have pointy things living in them.

He did not get the opportunity to run far, as an arrow whistled out of the hole and relieved him of his earthly worries. For a long moment after that it was silent. The howling of the wind had died away during the night and was replaced by an unnerving calm. Soon enough, a fist protruded through the snow and cleared a space large enough for a horse to squeeze itself through. Four figures and three horses emerged from underneath the very ground like corpses springing back to life. They all looked a bit like corpses too, pale and clammy from the cold and the damp, stiff from sleeping on rocks and roots. The sky was mostly clear of clouds, and not a single flake of snow fell. The landscape was even more alien than they had left it.

It had gotten cold enough to freeze the top layer of ground solid so at least they were able to walk without tripping over their feet. They made no effort to bury the bodies. Orcs were a cheap commodity, they came and went. No one would miss them. Surad and Durus walked ahead of them. They were packing the snow into balls and tossing them at each other once more, the novelty seemingly undiminished by near catastrophe the previous day.

"Hey, aren't you two supposed to be tracking or something?"

Surad looked at Durus.

"Should we? The trail is pretty damn cold." She said, unable to suppress a snigger at her own pun.

"Honestly, I'm over Ferny." Durus said. "He didn't owe us more than a few crowns anyway."

Elden felt his jaw clench in involuntary annoyance. He stalked forward, and Surad's smile faded quickly at the expression on his face.

"If you're over him then you're welcome to find your way back home or wander off to the next adventure. If you really, truly want to find Bill Ferny, however, you should stop skipping and start putting your nose to the ground."

"You should watch how you talk to my girl-" Durus said, getting in Elden's face. "or I'll make you regret it."

Before any of them could blink, Elden had grasped the man by the wrist, spun him around and had a knife at his throat.

"You want to repeat that?"

"Let go of him!" Surad screamed, drawing her own dagger.

Nellas sighed. No wonder none of them lived past eighty. The elf raised her hand and spat a word that cracked like thunder. All three of them toppled over, limp as ragdolls. She stepped gingerly over their helpless forms until they could all swivel their eyes to see her.

"Now that all of you are properly relaxed, you should listen very closely to my words."

They didn't have much of a choice, although she saw Elden roll his eyes defiantly. It made her want to laugh, but that would ruin her demeanor so she suppressed it.

"Bill Ferny is carrying something that is very, very dangerous. If it were to find it's way into the hands of the orcs there is literally no limit to the damage it could cause."

"The ring?" Surad sputtered, regaining some control of her face. Nellas lowered her hand and they all sat up, panting slightly and rubbing their arms. It was a strange feeling, to have your limbs betray you.

"Yes." Elden said. "The ring."

"I knew there was more to that thing then you were letting on." Durus said, still eyeing Elden reproachfully. "What if I want that as payment?"

A dangerous look came into Elden's eyes.

"If that is indeed what you want, you should keep it to yourself, because if I hear the words "I want" and "that ring" in the same sentence, I will kill you and your female companion and leave your body here to be incorporated into the next glacier that comes along. Is that clear?"

Durus turned to Nellas in disbelief.

"And you won't stop him?"

Nellas shook her head.

"I am sorry, it is too important. We will reimburse you fully for your services and then some when this is all over, but you cannot have the ring."

They all sat silent a while, mulling over their situation.

"You could turn back. Elden will give you twenty gold and you can be on your way back to Archet." Nellas said, cutting off Elden's protest with a raised hand. There wasn't any "magic" in the gesture, as the humans called it, but the mere threat of another paralyzation was enough to silence him.

She could almost see the cogs turning behind Durus' thick brow. He turned to Surad, who shrugged.

"I... I think we'll stay with you. We don't know our way back well enough to do it alone, and besides, this is the most fun I've had in ages."

"Well I'm glad SOMEONE is having fun." Elden said, getting up and shrugging off his pack.

"Where are you going?"

"I'm going to hunt. We won't last long on stale crusts and snow."

"No need." Nellas said, reaching into her own pack and producing several parcels wrapped in grean leaves which she handed to each of them.

The leaves were dried and they crackled as they were removed, but the contents were still as good as they day they were baked over a month ago. Even Elden, who was normally a meat and potatoes kind of person, sat down and ate with gusto.

"This is the best bread I've ever tasted!" Surad exclaimed.

"Thank you. It is lembas bread. I cooked it myself before I left Imladris."

"Where ish tha?" The Haradrim asked, between bites.

"You might now it by a different name. Rivendell?" Nellas said, the human name rolling strangely off her tongue.

Surad tapped her head in a sign of recognition.

"Oh yeah. They told us to steer clear of that place. Is it true that it's haunted?"

Elden and Nellas shared a knowing glance, and he gave her the first grin she had seen on his face since they started their trek. For some reason it made her cheeks feel very hot, and she looked away. Too late. The grin was on her face too.

"Yes, it's absolutely infested with ghostly presences." She said, barely able to contain her mirth.

If the Haradrim detected a joke, they did not inquire further. They all crunched away happily. The bread seemed to be able to reach inside them and pull their spirits up by their stomachs.

The magic of the elves indeed. Nellas thought, somewhat proud of herself. A moment ago these same people had been about to scalp one another in front of her very eyes. Then again, perhaps they still could. You could never tell with humans. Especially humans named Elden.

Surad had dropped a piece of bread and had leaned over to pick it up, but she was no longer grasping at that. She was tugging on a small piece of something black that was sticking out of the snow.

It turned out to be just a scrap of oily cloth, but Surad regarded it reverently.

"What?" Nellas asked. "What is it?"

She could see nothing special about the object.

"Ferny came this way, and this is proof." She said with a certainty that seemed to excite even Elden, although he remained outwardly skeptical.

"How is that proof Ferny has been this way?"

The warrior held the scrap gingerly to her nose and sniffed it before recoiling.

"Because it reeks of piss and cheap beer."

"Could be an orc." Elden said.

"Orcs don't wave on looms. Most of their clothes are patched together from things they stole."

Durus gave her head a kiss.

"A good find, my sweet."

"A lucky one, at any rate." Elden said. "I suppose it does mean we're heading the right way."

"What do you think of them?"

Durus was busy scouring the ground, and so did not react immediately.

"Huh?"

They had split up into two groups to do a brief circle outwards in a search for tracks. Surad had tried to tell them that the storm would have wiped clean any trails, but Elden seemed convinced that they would find something and she had no desire to make him angry again. He was a fellow that struck her as being, well... not wrapped all that tight, to put it politely.

"What do you think of them?" Surad repeated.

The elf and the human were picking through a stand of brush next to a shallow ravine.

"I think they're fucking crazy." Durus replied, echoing her own thoughts.

"Obviously, but I mean what do you think of them. Together. As a couple."

Durus snorted.

"How do you figure? She's an elf. He's a human."

"I've heard of it in stories before." Surad replied, defensive of her theory. "Just look at how she acts around him. She's the most powerful creature for a hundred miles in any given direction and yet she hangs on his every word."

Durus shrugged noncommittally.

"Pretty weird relationship if you ask me."

"No kidding."

They worked in silence for another few minutes, but soon Surad sat down to rest on a rock.

"This is useless. If he did leave a trail it's buried under several feet of snow by now."

Durus plopped himself down next to her and threw his arm over her shoulder. Together they watched the elf and the human perusing the ground.

"What do you think they're talking about?" Surad asked, absentmindedly.

"Probably what to do with us."

"What are we going to do with them?"

"Nothing." Nellas said firmly. "They're good people. It doesn't matter why they're following us."

"It's pretty obvious why, though. They want the ring for themselves."

"You don't know that."

"You heard- hey, what is that?" Elden said.

Nellas whipped around. Not many things warranted enough importance for Elden to stop mid-sentence to address them. Her eyes followed his finger, which was pointing down at the bottom of the ravine.

"Well I will be damned..." Nellas said, awkwardly deploying another one of the human expressions she had picked up.

Elden led the procession, now on horseback. They no longer needed to stop to allow Surad and Durus to survey the trail, it was as clear as day for anyone to read, and it said in very large print that Bill Ferny was in trouble. There was fresh blood in the footprints, which meant he had worn through his shoes, and furthermore that they were only a few hours behind him, if that. He didn't say it aloud, but it also meant that Ferny knew they were coming and knew he did not have time to stop and bind up his feet properly.

Elden was itching to break into a full gallop and run the bastard down, but Nellas had restrained him with the advice that Bill had already made an escape once and was perfectly capable of doing it again if he so chose. Elden had to admit, even with their advantage in numbers and locomotion, they were on Ferny's turf. These mountains were his stomping ground and he knew them well, or he would not have been able to hide from them for this long.

He had realized that the shallow ravine they were traveling in was the remnants of a dried-up stream bed that once rang alongside the main causeway to Fornost. The only evidence left of this causeway was a slight smoothing in the natural contours of the ground as all folds of the land steadily converged on the ancient fortress. It was much closer now. They were only a league and a half away as the crow flies, but a crow had wings and horses and humans had to rely solely on their legs.

And elves too. He corrected himself.

He stole a glance at Nellas when he thought she wasn't looking. What lay behind that permanently detached expression? He had seen it lift several times, more often in recent days as the stresses of travel had mounted and mirth had forced its way to the surface. They all had to laugh occasionally, or they would be at each other's throats, and she was no different. He was suddenly struck by how beautiful she was. Even wrapped in a traveling cloak and carrying forty or fifty pounds worth of kit on her back, she still cut a striking figure.

She turned her head and their eyes met briefly, before they both looked away. Elden felt himself blush deeply. He felt like a lowly apprentice all over again, catching peeps at the farmer's daughters as they passed by the door of his father's shop.

It seemed fitting that they were approaching by way of a ditch. An inglorious path for a city that had lost its glory long ago. He had heard rumors about the place the Breelanders called "Dead Men's Dike". Some said that King Ellesar planned to reclaim it in the name of the newly reunited kingdoms of Gondor and Arnor, but from where they stood there was no sign of civilization, or at least, human civilization.

The blood in the footprints was getting smaller in quantity. What remained gleamed in the late afternoon sun. The trees were beginning to get thicker again. Someone had been busy cutting them down in the valley, but farther up the hillsides the forest was thick with proud evergreens, trees that had probably stood for centuries and witnessed this place in its halcyon days. With less than a league to go, they halted. The trail led up to a large cluster of rocks on their right. The rocks leaned against one another and created a natural hollow large enough for several people to sit in. Here the tracks doubled over each other, once, twice, three times, and then... vanished.

Surad immediately jumped off her horse and began unwinding the tangle of footsteps, holding up a hand to tell them to stop.

"Wait, don't step on it. I can figure this out."

They waited a few minutes while she and Durus scanned the terrain like bloodhounds. Eventually Surad clambered up onto one of the rocks and looked around. When she slid back down, her face was grim.

"He's tried to confuse us, and for the moment I'd say he has succeeded. There are more pressing problems headed this way."

"What?" Elden said, feeling his impatience rise once again.

"Trolls."

They were huge. Bigger than normal trolls. Bigger even than mountain trolls. The armor they wore was thick and complex, composed of many interlocking plates that allowed them a full range of movement. They tramped past, talking in their own tongue which sounded like rocks being smashed together.

"How is that possible?" Elden hissed. "Trolls turn to stone in sunlight, everybody knows that."

"These are no ordinary trolls." Nellas said. "They are Olag-hai. Sauron bred them for endurance, cleverness and cruelty."

It was not the end of the parade either. A whole regiment of orcs followed behind, hooting and cackling, their cleavers cutting long, squiggly patterns in the snow as they were dragged carelessly behind them. The group moved straight south, down the causeway that would in some miles turn into the Great North Road.

"They're heading towards the Bree," said Durus. "I hope the watch is ready for them."

Reluctantly, Elden abandoned the idea that they were going to catch up to Ferny today. They would certainly catch him tomorrow, though. There was only one place that scoundrel could be heading, and it squatted on their northern horizon like a gargoyle. There was a great frozen lake to the east of the city that he suspected led out to the sea in spring. The walls were tall and thick, but had crumbled in many places, and were tunneled through in others. He had no doubt now that it belonged solely to orcs, but what manner of orcs? He had seen the procession of trolls on the causeway carrying a banner, but there had been a grey troll skull on a black background rather than the red eye of Sauron or the white hand of Isengard.

"We should make camp. It is getting dark."

Nobody seemed to want to argue, even if they were as keen to nab Ferny as he was. Durus helped him lay the blankets out, and they draped one over the entrance to the hollow. On top of this he placed branches that he had hacked from the lower parts of a tree, to camouflage the fact that they were sleeping there. Try as they might to accommodate, there was only really room for three people once the horses had lain down.

"That's alright." said Elden, when Nellas pointed this out. "Someone needs to keep watch anyway. I'll go first and wake Surad at midnight."

Surad agreed, and Elden went a little ways off to find a good hiding spot. The small hill on which the rocks stood was covered by trees, and it turned into a steep slope to the north towards Fornost, and the west side which abutted the causeway. He chose a likely spot between two massive tree trunks and sat himself down facing the opposite direction, southeast, as that was the place where some inquisitive orc might wander up in search of a place to relieve himself. It was strictly against the code of a sentry, but he light his pipe anyway. He felt after all this fuss and trouble over that damn ring he had earned the right to indulge in his creature comforts.

The heat from the bowl kept his nose warm, but the rest of his body was severely wanting. He pulled the edges of the cloak tighter and tucked them underneath him, but that was about the most he could do. His collar and hood were already up and he had two pairs of socks on. If there was a way to get warmer without doing a jig, the method was unknown to him.

He thought he heard a twig snap somewhere, and he covered the glowing bowl for a moment, but after a minute of silence he relaxed. There was still a dull ache at his neck line where the ring had been. He wanted it so badly he felt he could burst at any moment. Gruesome portraits of all the things he wanted to do to that thieving wretch Bill Ferny danced in his head. Then, however, another thought occurred to him. They were both thieves. Wouldn't he have done the same thing, were he in Ferny's position?

When he looked down again the pipe had gone out, so he tapped the contents on the ground, stowed it safely in his pocket and wrapped his arms around himself in an attempt to keep the shivering under control.

He nearly jumped out of his skin when he turned to see Nellas sitting right beside him.

"Fuck!" he said, as quietly as his surprise would allow.

His hand dropped from the handle of his sword, and he made to reprimand her, but something stopped him. She was looking directly at him, and there was a strange look in her eyes, like she was trying to see directly through him. Was it anger? No, it was... longing?

He noticed that she was very close to him. He also noticed that her hand was resting on his.

"Erm..." was all he could think to say, and then she kissed him.

Shock gave way to warmth. She was incredibly warm, and as he returned the kiss her other hand grasped his cheek, pulling him further into it. A bolt of lightning was ricocheting up and down his spine, and each time her lips brushed against his it unraveled another coil. For some reason he got a distinct taste of... Barliman's ale? He was too dazed to be angry that she had rummaged through his pack, or to even make that logical conclusion. When they broke apart it was as though he had come out of a deep sleep. They both sat in silence a moment, staring at each other as fiercely as two beings with eyes have ever beheld one another. Their breath misted in the frigid air, joining to form a single cloud that drifted up through the branches.

Then she got up, and walked back to the shelter.

Elden was warm for the rest of the night. Warm, but also confused.

(A/N: I hope you're enjoying the ride so far. It's about to get even bumpier.)