Only when the shaking of the ground ceased and the echoing of the heavy footsteps started fading did the old elf stop running and allowed himself to catch a breath. Despite his prided agility one of the trolls, whom the group encountered, had managed to hurl him at quite a distance. He was badly bruised from the impact with the tree, and the pain was slowly emerging now that the immediate danger was over. His silver hair had turned almost completely dark red. There was a bad throbbing in his thigh, and when he checked on it, he noticed he was so profoundly bleeding the entire leg and shoe were soaked. A branch from the tree must have penetrated his high, when he had fallen on the tree trunk, and had caused a deep gaping wound. A strip cut off from his jacket made for an improvised tourniquet, but it was only prolonging the inevitable, and the elf became painfully aware of that. To his own surprise he was not terrified or even grieved, just exhausted, so very exhausted. He sat on the ground to rest for only a few minutes, then got up and headed for the meeting place. The thought of dying alone, his body left for beasts to feed on, was unbearable, and this gave him strength to reach his destination.
"Nergon! Rhaich! Delos!" - the curses of his captain were quite audible, when he finally approached the location.
"The teryg still have ears," remarked the injured elf, and stepped into the light of the campfire. A third elf, youngest of them all, no more than 500 years old, with dark brown hair and bright eyes, was sitting relaxed with his back at a tree trunk, but jumped worriedly to his feet when he saw the new arrival. The captain stood silent, his anger gone and replaced by deep grief, eyes set on his subordinate.
"By dawn I will be walking the Halls of Mandos," sighed the warrior while sitting slowly down. He made himself as comfortable as possible and then looked up to his two companions. "At the long last I will see my family again," he tried to smile, but the pain was too much, and the smile morphed into an ugly grimace.
"No!" shouted the third warrior who had been silent until now. "We have to stop the bleeding, you will recover, you must!" He was frantically rummaging through his backpack but the captain stopped him with a touch on the shoulder. The youngling looked up at his captain, then he turned his gaze towards the dying maethor who nodded weakly.
"Lost.. too much blood... nobody can help... Where the others?" His speech was getting broken and fragmentary, he gasped for air and his voice was much weaker; nevertheless he remained true to himself, always concerned about his friends first.
"I saw Lithwen fleeing, and Anáwiel was covering her escape. Then one of the trolls hit me and I was too busy defending myself to see what happened to them."
The two ladies had joined the patrol for their own purpose, hoping to discover some rare plant in the region. The commander hadn't met them before that but his comrades had known them literally for ages and had been very glad to have them along.
"And... the boy?"
The captain said nothing, just gnashed his teeth and shook his head. The elf in question had been a mere recruit, had just completed his training, and this had been his first mission in his life, and as fate turned out, it was also his last.
"At first light we will go and collect his body, and find the ladies." The young elf's voice sounded both resigned and determined.
"Bones..." corrected him the dying warrior with a sigh, "his bones."
The captain nodded gravely, and the young elf paled upon realising the meaning. The three soldiers stood silent during the rest of the night.
The sun came up but neither hope nor joy came with it. The old elf was lying motionless on the ground, his eyes fixated on the flowing river nearby, his face frozen in a smile. He was in the Halls of Mandos now. The youngling wiped a tear, then started digging a grave, while the captain went about gathering stones for a cairn.
...
When the captain and his companion were ready to start the search, the sun was high in the sky. Easily they located the small clearing, where the ambush had taken place, and first searched for any trace of the two ladies. Soon they found their footsteps, and followed them for a few hours through the forest until it abruptly ended, and a rocky ground followed, where it was impossible to pick up any trace. They spent some more time trying to find any sign, anything to indicate where the ellith or their bodies were. Hope was scarce, but after some time and a lot of effort they discovered a large seemingly untouched patch of grass which seemed quite out of place among the barren rocks, like an oasis in a desert. In the middle of it there was a puddle of blood, which had already started to clot. The captain stared at the unusual scene with unbelieving eyes, as there was something serene and beautiful in this gruesome place. If he didn't know better, he would say that the greenery grew overnight around the puddle, so fresh and pristine it looked. Under the shining sun the bright green colour of the grass contrasted heavily with the shimmering dark red in the middle, but both formed a beautiful flash flood of colour in their bleak surroundings.
Suddenly a glint caught his eye, and he dared step into the eerie place to pick up the object. It was a golden locket, shaped like a water landing swan with eyes made of diamonds. Even though it was stained with blood, the captain didn't wipe it for fear of damaging it, so soft and delicate it looked. He just wrapped it in a handkerchief and put it carefully away in his pocket. His young companion didn't say anything, he had recognized the locket and knew it belonged to Anawiel, the raven-haired lore-seeker and his friend of old.
...
In silence the two elves turned back to the ambush place to find and retrieve the bones of their fallen comrade, thankfully without further incidents. The trolls' lair nearby was empty and from the direction the footsteps were leading in it looked like the foes were retreating back to the Ettenmoors where they had probably come from in the first place. With their ghastly task done, the two headed back to Imladris to report the close encounter.
"This was supposed to be a trivial scouting mission," mumbled the young soldier miserably. His captain didn't even look at him, nor gave any indication that he had heard, his gaze was fixed forward and only a barely discernible sigh betrayed his feelings.
