Túrin

It was snowing again, Túrin noticed, lifting his head aloft towards the sky and shaking off from his nose a large flake, that melted anon in his fingers. The cloaks protected them and kept them warm, yet the endless white drifts made their path even slower and more arduous than Brandir's limping. If I at least knew whither we fare or whether wading through these snows have any meaning at all..., he thought sullenly, having glanced fleetingly at his sister, sitting on the elk's back with her eyes only partly open, and Brandir, looking around whilst walking about two yards behind him.

"Heavy snows fall here, heavier than I remember from my lands," he said then to Torandir, as Nienor kept naming him. "And they seem unfailing, as if they were never going to end."

The black man turned his hooded head to look at him, and gave a nod. "Winter is heading for the lands south of the Wall as well, far faster than any maester might have predicted."

Túrin furrowed his brows. "Brynden has told us the same. What do you mean by that?"

"In the world which you come from, the seasons came and went, one after the other, regularly and invariably like the moon rises at night and the sun by day. Here it is different. The seasons change as they will, at times lengthy as gossamer threads, at times short as summer nights."

Túrin frowned even more, befogged. "Wherefore is it so?"

"I know not," Torandir answered, having fixed his gaze somewhere in the sky, that, to be truthful, was barely visible amidst the mighty boughs of the trees, watching perhaps as the snowflakes were dancing lazily in the cool air. "What I do know is that this is not Yavanna's doing, and that the evil grows here, old or new, known or unknown to us."

This seasonal cycle was hard to fathom, yet it was something else that made Túrin wonder far more now. "You wost a lot of my world... or the old world I ought to say, perhaps... And Yavanna's name seems no stranger to you. Who are you truly? You are an Elf, are you not?"

"Elf, Man..." Torandir said blankly. "In the end, we scarcely differ. The same tosses us and rules."

Túrin managed not to answer, for suddenly, Brandir caught up with them and spoke, anxious, "Something is amiss. I like not this air and this silence anymore."

Túrin tensed in the blink of an eye, scolding himself that the talk had absorbed him so and he had allowed his vigilance to leave him, if only for a moment. He anon gripped Gurthang's hilt, ready to draw the blade, and noticed Torandir doing the same. Brandir was right and something was wrong. The silence of the wood had grown heavy, it seemed that the forest had congealed as though gasted, and the air... The air smelled of blood, fresh and horridly sweet, and Torandir's crows became stirred and impatient.

Nienor, from the elk's back, covering her mouth with her hand and letting out a stifled cry of frightened surprise at the sight, was the first to descry what the birds had already known and Túrin might only see as he ran to the edge of a gentle slope.

There was a small settlement yonder, in the basin of a shallow valley, a few houses and backyard sheds... or rather it had been before, for now there was nought left. The houses had been burnt to the ground, their black, charred remains shining here and there through a layer of fresh snow, light and airy as a silk cloak. Among the ruins of the settlement lay bodies, about ten or a little more, men, women and children, as still as wooden logs, their blood blooming red flowers on the whiteness of the snow.

All dead, Túrin became convinced as he and his party made their way down the valley and looked around, following the swarm of crows that were cawing loudly as they began to wheel wildly above the bodies, pierced with arrows and cut mercilessly like hunted meat being prepared to be eaten.

"They are all dead," Nienor echoed aloud Túrin's thought, crouching beside one of the women's massacred body and covering it with a sheet of cloth she had found.

"Taken by surprise," Torandir was wondering. "And not just a simple killing it was. Someone was taking delight in causing pain."

"Who slew them?" Brandir asked him. "The wights?"

Yet Túrin had already known, and he felt as rage filled him. He had known all along! He had been assured!

"Wights!" he snorted contemptuously, fiercely pulling an arrow from the chest of the lying man and moving it under Brandir's nose. "Do you not recognise?" And to Torandir he hissed, "Obviously there are more of us striving for food here than wildings and wights, and rangers, methinks, and the evil also seems far more known than I would have wished."

Having taken the arrow, Brandir examined it carefully, and paled.

"Father had several of these in his chest when they brought him dead to Ephel Brandir," he whispered. "And many others I later healed... Orcs!"

Túrin snatched the arrow from Brandir's hand and threw it away in disgust. "Morgoth!"

Afterwards, with a machinic gesture of anger and despair, he pulled Gurthang from its scabbard. Erelong, however, he subdued himself, knowing that there was now no one to direct the sword against, therefor he stuck it into the ground, and himself sank helplessly against the remnant of house's timbered wall, and, having leaned with his hands on the hilt, hid his face in the darkness of his own arms. To melt, to shed like water or blood, to dissolve into a black and empty abyss, to feel nought, to know nought, to be aware of nought..., his thoughts were repeating feverishly and steadily to the rhythm of the intrusive cawing of the crows.

For a long time he sat like this, knowing not how long precisely, only partly hearing and partly aware of how the others were gathering the bodies to raise a barrow. He only lifted his head whenas Brandir and Torandir stood back not far from him, their voices awaking him as though from a dream.

"Take this!" The black man handed a sword to Brandir, who was seemingly trying to find himself some weapon of those left by the slain.

Brandir's eyes widened. "It is orkish!"

It was indeed, Túrin recognised as well, and furrowed his brows, wondering wherefore any of the Orcs had left a sword behind. He must have been wounded and perchance his... companions had taken him along with them. Had he been dead, they would certainly have left him here, and there was no trace of an Orc's body.

"It is," Torandir nodded. "Yet it is also a weapon like any other, and its steel still far better than most you would find in this world."

Brandir took the sword, albeit hesitantly, as though it nettled.

"I shan't ever release myself from his bounds," Túrin muttered then, returning to his own grim thoughts. "Always accompanied by his shade!"

"It is now not the time to mourn yourself," Torandir said to that as though he wanted to scold him, his voice suddenly astonishingly steely and commanding. "For you are here for a reason, even if one unknown to you. We both are, and I have slept for too long as well."

"Who are you to speak to me like that?" Túrin snapped angrily, raising his head again. "What may you know?"

Then something astounding chanced, for Torandir's eyes glittered under his hood, blue as the serene sky, though Túrin would have sworn that they had been black as coals all this time, and the black man said, his Sindarin fluent and smooth, "Underestimate me not, Túrin of the House of Hador, for like you I have lived and seen much!"

Túrin froze, and out of the corner of his eye he noticed as Brandir sat down on the wooden balk as well, equally surprised.

"I have lived long enough to be able to hear first-hand of your erstwhile deeds and, astonished as I have been, it did not take me long to guess who you may be," Torandir answered his questioning gaze.

"Fear not, though, son of Húrin," he went on thereafter, his voice gentler now, "for as I have said, I am not your foe, and save me, there is no one in this world anymore mighty of recognising you. Even Brynden has no idea who you are, and he will not have."

"You know who I am, give me your true name as well therefor!" Túrin demanded, yet Torandir only sighed, shifting his now thoughtful gaze to a clump of pines that towered over the valley like gloomy elders. "Don't make me go back to my name, which I have struggled so hard to erase from my memory and which has brought me nothing but doom."

Túrin insisted not, his anger fading slowly, leaving nought behind. "I care not nonetheless," he said, and true it was. "I wish only to be left in peace."

"That shall not be, can you yet not see it? They will not allow you that: neither the world around, nor your own heart."

Now Túrin's heart could only sink, though, and his chin fell back on Gurthang's hilt miserably. Torandir watched him closely awhile till Túrin's silence seemed to encourage him to speak further, "You must fare to Winterfell. Find a way to win Brandon Stark's friendship, or at least a hint of his trust, and when you do, you must warn him, albeit not outright, of the evil that lurks in the north. Men are weak, so very weak, and Starks are as cold as snow, but if there is still anything like honour left among the Men, they have it. If Brandon Stark's banners are not ready betimes, I know not where else you might seek support."

"The dragon king," Túrin snorted quietly and scornfully.

"Yes, the dragon," Torandir agreed. "And although dragons are no more the same ill they used to be in the olden days, and Rhaegar Targaryen is not such an evil he may seem in thy sight, I doubt any use could be made of him, and were I to counsel, I would advise against going near his court. Not yet. As far as I know, Rhaegar is a wrack of a man and it's not him who truly rules beyond the Wall, but Tywin Lannister, his Hand. And he will not listen to you."

"Also, Brandon's younger brother is on the Wall," he seemed to muse aloud thereafter as Túrin was already scarcely listening, immersed back in his own dark and bleak thoughts. "Yet I'd not counsel you to head for Castle Black as well nevertheless. There are easier ways for you to cross the Wall, just as I have told you."

"You counsel us - are you not going to accompany us further?" Brandir, silent hitherto, asked, raising his eyes at Torandir.

The black man hesitated for a moment, then said, "I would accompany you gladly, if only to the Wall, but my destination seems other now."

"Whither will you go?"

"North. Farthest I've ever been."

Thanks for reading! :) Next POV: Gerion, then Ned or Rhaegar (have not yet decided)