Bíld son of Bóurr to Bóurr son of Bíld of Erebor, greeting and warmest affection.
I write from an Elf-camp in the Trollshaws, just off the Road that has begun to bear our caravan, slow-rolling with its cargo of many Dwarves and ladies’ trunks, back East, towards those warm halls where you and Mother created me. A long journey in leagues and weeks it will yet be, particularly if we must wait some time at the Valley for the High Pass to melt enough to be safe for our waggons. But no fear have I of becoming bored; at Rivendell I will have much to study, and if these early days on the road are any judge, when I am not at study I will be at the writing-desk, sending many letters!
No complaint is carried by my exclamation, as I could not be more touched and honored to have met so many in the West who wish still to communicate with me. Friends I grew up with in the Lonely Mountain of course, familiar beards that I long to see again — but that my name became memorable and meaningful to a few in these lands, especially Bree-town where I was but one Dwarf indistinct from all the others taking the trade-road through, moves me deeply.
The pace of Men’s lives moves fast, and perhaps soon I will be forgotten; I will be unoffended, even unsorrowed, if so, for that is no more than the natural rhythm of life. But just to have brushed up against those lives and changed them, and to have been changed by them in turn, is to me a wonder, I who has flown over the Misty Mountains just this one time.
Everyone in our party is more-or-less well, though if I called our journey safe and untroubled so far I would not be wholly honest. But let me give my accounting here in order of chronology.
We departed from Bree-town as planned, untroubled on the road through Chetwood — Maurr had heard of some trouble on that stretch of late, but for us it was quiet, which was a relief not only to our party but I am sure any foolish brigands who might be tempted to pull back the sheet covering a Dwarvish waggon, only to find more, and angrier, Dwarves beneath. We visited, but did not stay at, the Forsaken Inn; four walls and a ceilings its rooms (not commons) do boast, but the risk of acquiring and bearing untreatable lice to Erebor was judged too great, so we encamped at our favorite spot in the wilderness. There we checked upon a treasure-cache we laid six months prior and stowed more amusements for adventurers to find; we departed then for Ost Guruth, perhaps the safest place for travelers across the Lone-lands owing to the stewardship of the Men there, who call themselves the Eglain, a doughty folk who refuse to abandon their yellowed hills for easier ones and, by such stubbornness, make the passage of Dwarf-caravans such as ours that much more feasible.
While resting there I had the privilege of accompanying Lady Cyanite, the master of lore, in the investigation of a mysterious tablet fragment, along with her guard Thrufi and my Finnric. Of ‘Dwarf-treasure’ it spoke, writ in the style of Eregion, a strange inscription and stranger find in the Lone-lands of all places; that mystery was for all of us a far greater draw than the promise of gold, which affects all my friends’ hearts little. We were joined by a Noldo, one Master Gaeron, and ultimately we were led to a high and secret place, built into the hills long before they were Arnor’s. There lay the treasure, evidence of friendship between Dwarves and Elves in days long past; it lies there still, as enriched enough we were just by gazing on it, the remnant of ancient craft-skill, brilliance, and sorrow.
Not long after, we entered under the shady boughs of the Trollshaws. It was there that we met the slight trouble to which I before alluded: a patrolling Elf fighting an ambush of evil Men (their ilk unknown to me, though Maurr and Rofda believe they have some association with Angmar, in which case it is no wonder they were felled shortly after setting foot into an Elvish forest). The Elf — Hîr Celebrinnir — we helped to this camp, where Maddoct and I tended his wound. We invited him to travel up to Rivendell with us once it had fully closed, and now that it has we are like to depart for the Ford tomorrow morning.
In the meanwhile a few of us walked the short distance to gaze upon the Stone-trolls of the Quest. My first time to see them it was not; nevertheless, the experience was again moving, to stand beneath the fearful shadow of those creatures and imagine our King — your King, the Oakenshield — staring down the extinction of Erebor’s hopes at such an ignoble crossroads. But that dark night has turned to this bright day, when all Men and the Dwarves of my generation take for granted that the Lonely Mountain stands, prosperous and unyielding, as the shield of the North; we were even able to celebrate the triumph of that tenuous Quest with song and feasting in the circle of the Trolls, which must surely have bemused the Elf who stumbled across us there.
And I am told that a night or two later my brother took my honor-sister and Finnric to the Bruinen to ‘wrestle Dire-frogs’, though the details of that I know not and am not entirely sure I wish to.
So soon, if fortune is kind, we will be in Rivendell again, for a few weeks at least. There are many I hope to meet there — an Elf who gave us a treasure of Khazad-dûm in exchange for information I may now deliver the first among them, but many others besides — though I know not how many from iavas shall remain there in ethuil or even on this side of the Sea. Though one being a Woman, at least I may be assured that if I missed her, she is not gone quite so far!
I must write her and other friends, including some I worry about greatly. Word was recently had by one of almost his whole family’s violent demise; any Longbeard can understand the pain he suffers now. I would like to tell him such, but any Longbeard also knows that such pain is complex, lodging deep and jagged, and that there may be made no honest promise that the wound will heal swift, or ever.
I think about that, also, as I gaze East to Erebor. And I will think on what to write him and his lady wife on the waggon-ride tomorrow.
But to you, beloved Father, no more at this time but my affection and joy and hopes that you are still well safe and content in Mother’s company beneath that high roof that I long again to see.
I remain, of course,
Your loving child,
Bíld.
