As the creeping tendrils relaxed, Haleth slumped wearily to the ground. Duin let out an alarmed yip, and Kryssta, already in the doorway watching the lumbering tree-thing rumble into the distance, reluctantly turned and went to Haleth. I might have used fire on it, taken advantage of its state, but there is no time. I was sent for Haleth, and she needs me now.
The woman had clearly been hurt by the creature, but also kept alive, barely. Now, the last of her life was ready to drain away. To come so close and lose her to her injuries was unthinkable; Kryssta threw herself into tending the woman with drink and comforts, healing salves and a precious handful of dried berries. Then when her rest seemed easier, Kryssta lifted her, not easily, and brought her from the unwelcoming chamber. As she hoped, the pricker-bushes had also lost their animation when the tree-creature fled, which was fortunate, as she could not have passed through their gap while carrying the larger woman. When she found a reasonably sheltered spot a half-mile downhill, she finally allowed herself to rest alongside Haleth.
She had not meant to sleep; someone must keep watch. But when she started awake, there was the faint pink of sunrise over the hills, and Haleth's haggard smile. "Karissa, is it?" she asked. "That was quite brave."
"Kryssta. I do not think it was as much about bravery as having no other choice."
"You could have escaped, at least two times, and did not."
"But what that creature did to you before it used you to trap me, it would have done worse had I left you there."
Haleth smiled again, then took a step, almost stumbled, and stopped herself. "And therein is found courage. Alas, for me, I have not the strength even to go to the river for water." She sat down heavily. "I must rest."
"I was sent to find you by the Grey Wizard. Now I will bring you back to the safety of the island, and--" Kryssta's words faltered at the expression on Haleth's face. "What is it?"
"Girdley Island. That is where they are going. That is the farthest place from safety." Kryssta only stared, so Haleth went on, at a more measured pace. "The tales are passed down of the creatures of Yavanna who is called Kementári. The shepherds of the trees, and those trees they herd, the huorns. We pass these stories mother to daughter. You would have heard them in your time, if your mother had not been lost to us tragically." Haleth offered a warm, sympathetic smile. "But the huorns are slow and placid creatures. I do not know, but I believe that what you saw, what took me and wrung secrets from me…" Haleth's countenance darkened with shame, but for a moment; then the urgency of need hardened her as fire makes ready the spear's tip. "It is my surmise that this thing was a huorn, somehow twisted and corrupted, by what evil presence I cannot guess. The native amiability of treeish life to all that lives beneath its sheltering branches has been turned to hatred, flamed by the conviction that we who walk under the boughs bring death with axe and fire.
"This consuming abhorrence has been fixed on the Dúnedain, no doubt by the sweetened lies of whatever wrought this corruption. From me, with patient cruelty, the huorn learned of the work we have done on the island, and many more of our secret places, our places of gathering, our refuges. O, how my failure pains me! Even now two of them make by unhesitating stride for Girdley Island, and as sure as the seven-pointed star, I would wager the third makes to join them now, having failed in its purpose of killing you and myself, and thus ensuring their attack on the island, and all of our other refuges in turn, might come unheralded and unwarned." Haleth took Kryssta's hand and held it tightly. "I cannot aid you in this. My wounds and hurts are deep, deeper than your eyes can see. I shall be well in time, but time is not with us. Leave me. I can tend to myself now that you have freed me. Go as swiftly as your feet can carry you back to Girdley Island and find some way to stop them."
"But there is nothing there," Kryssta protested. "Nothing worth protecting, nor destroying, at least. Some excavation uncompleted, a storehouse of supplies now all but drained, a camp I maintain. The work on the hidden haven was all but abandoned. I am nearly the only one who goes there now."
"A regrettable oversight," Haleth said. "We are few, and there are many things that call upon our time. An oversight that will be rectified. If you can save the island, and our people, we will be building again next year. But there is more there than you know. More that might be put to use to our people's downfall, by the shadow whose lies, whispered into the breezes of night, turned those huorns to a course of ruination for themselves and mayhap for us. Go! There is no time. Stop them, and I will find you there when I am well enough to travel." Every protest Kryssta tried to raise was insistently pushed aside by Haleth, and before the sun was fully above the horizon, the young Dúnadan was retracing her steps southward along the river, making for a home that had now become a mystery to her.
