The “journal” is a stack of rolled sheets of vellum in a waterproofed scroll case. The handwriting is childish and blocky, and the writing contains numerous errors in spelling and grammar. The transcription here omits the errors for clarity.
(The Beacon-Hills. A camp of the Variag mercenaries stranded after the war, who were confused to find I spoke their tongue.)
I left the girl and the knight in Minas Tirith, and no small sum with the master silversmith there. If my gut leads me true, she will visit there to rid herself of the last vestige of her old oath, and when she does, she will find it paid for. I will consider it a betrothal-gift, for I believe her to no longer be a danger to herself, and him, solidly in danger of being lovestruck. Perhaps when I pass through Dol Amroth there will be a wedding to hear of.
For now, though, a homecoming in Gondor is not to be. I am not superstitious or paranoid — one cannot afford to be for long in this sort of work. And yet, something stalks me that I cannot seem to shake from my back. I had thought it was the blood-money from the last job, but I have rid myself of that and still the feeling persists. There has been no sign of his trail for many months, and I begin to think the sea has swallowed him back. If it has, it has finished my work for me. Even so, my dreams are strange.
[Here there are several very rough sketches: two faces, a one-eared rabbit, something that looks disturbingly like a hunched-over, bipedal wolf, and what seems to be a forest.]
I believed my travels finished in Eriador, but it seems there is something there which is not finished with me.
I am too old to cross a continent because of a bad dream. D. would laugh at me, and say I have grown soft to be doing anything that I do not directly profit from. Perhaps he is right, but I have not felt right since the hunting business.
There is some fear that has lodged itself below my ability to pull it out into the light and speak its name -- but no dark thing may stay hidden forever. It will reveal itself, or it will be found.
The mercenaries have begun a drinking-game, and so I will prepare to be gone in haste.
