In the foredawn, the sudden ringing of hammer on forge woke the roosters at the fortress of the eglain, Ost Guruth. Once a lynchpin in a chain of garrisons built to safeguard the great road twixt the Misty Mountains and the sea, the armories, barracks and feast halls were now give over to a mix of refugees and mercenaries. The high desert uplands all about were near overrun with orc-folk and packs of wargs. The clusters of trees that offered what little shelter there was against the late summer sun were habitations of horrid spiders that snared any living thing, orc or man that lingered beneath their branches.
The hammerblows brought one of the master smith's apprentices who appeared scratching his hairy belly and blinking with annoyance at the figure at his forge. A tall youth, he thought at first. No...a woman it was who had woken him so early. Comely and supply limbed, her form pleased his eye as he approached her from behind. She wore a battered hat that struggled to contain a thicket of sandy blonde hair. The tips of her gently pointed ears brought home to him straight away this was no mere early riser hoping to use the forge without paying. She wore a heavy leather apron but he saw the haft of a knife in her left boot. Harness, a rucksack a bow and a fine looking sword lay atop a nearby table the smiths used for their lunch. He appraised her anew. Bloody elves. No one of his acquaintance had ever laid eyes on an elf until the last two years. Many had thought them to be phantoms of the woods and mountains, yet now troops of cataphracts in shining gilt armor and tall helms traveled not only west but now east as well on the great road. Those rarely spoke to any he knew tell of, but of late, elves in small groups and even singly at times as now visited Ost Guruth. Most simply spoke to Friderick and left. Others spent hours in the tower occupied by the old wizard Radagast.
The help was welcome despite the complaining about elves and their aloof manner. Because the orcs seemed to be everywhere. Often lurking round the fortress by night, sending black feathered arrows at the guards on the walls. But elves were strange folk and made him uneasy, however pleasing this one's rump might be to stare at...
Despite the din of the hammer and the bellows, she spoke clearly as he came near.
"Your tuyere is leaky, smith."
The apprentice stopped, smarted by the icy tone. "What business is it of your'n, girl? And who give you leave to use the forge, anyhaow? And what are you doing at it so blasted early?"
Morwen stopped just long enough to speak this verse:
"Who wins wealth by iron/ Right early must rise/ Of the sea's breezy brother/ Wind-holders need blast./ On furnace golden-glowing/ My stout hammer rings/ While heat-feeding bellows/ A whistling storm stir."
With that, she returned to her work. The chastised apprentice set muttering to work repairing the tuyere, chagrined and deprived of his last hour's sleep and his breakfast.
At length, the master smith rose and found Morwen finishing her work, pounding out the tang of a knife. The table nearby was set with long sword blades she had made, with a surety and art that the apprentice could but wonder at. For his own part, he had made good his repairs and himself set to work, helped by a cup of watery ale and some bread. He found the girl willing to talk and got some news of events in Breeland from her.
The apprentice shrugged at the approach of his master. "She has left a basket of good ore in payment, master. And she's an elf," he added needlessly.
The master smith scratched his beard. "It is said the forges of the hidden vale are like unto those of Aulë. Why then does an elf use such a poor fire as ours? And to what end do you make a sheaf of sword-blades? To whom will you sell them here, in the house of the dispossessed?"
Morwen frowned. "Sell them? At what profit to me to carry away a handful of silver coins of a dead realm when war threatens us all equally?" She gestured to the blades. "These are all yours-my gift for thee to finish according to the manner of thy people. But I tell thee that my blades will cleave orc-necks in hands that would wield them. And orcs there are in plenty. And there will be more still ere all is done for good or ill. "
The master smith sat heavily on his chair. "Many have fled to Bree, but folks say Bree is full up and 'tis better to stay here and die amongst good company, sons and daughters of old Arnor than to live like unwanted porch dogs in Bree. What counsel would an elf-smith give an old man who has been harried from three homes by brigands, orcs and cairn-dwellers?"
Morwen gathered up her harness and paused as the sun crested the walls of Ost Guruth's eastern rampart, speaking these staves at last:
Wolf-battening elves/ Wield we high gleaming brands/ In drake fostering summer/ Such deeds well beseem/ Lead up to Mordor / Let laggards be none!/ Spear-music ungentle/ By sunset shall sound.
With that, she made for the stables. The master smith felt a pride within him unbidden and an unlooked for hope as though a spell had swept away the last few grim years and he was standing inside one of the stories the travelling Dwarves loved to tell in the feast hall. He summoned his apprentices. There was much work to be done.
