Parnard slipped the sword from its leather sheath and held it in his upturned palms, studying the blade from hilt to tip in a complacent rapture. The blade’s mirror-like surface reflected the firelight in dazzling prisms of bursting color. Its hilt was wrapped with supple leather and intricately etched with a silver filigree pattern of leaves and twisting branches. STEEL-THORN was inscribed on it in Tengwar characters. It was a sword made just for him - and he was more than a little proud.
He began twirling it around in big lazy figure eights, delighting once more in hearing the shrill whistling sound as it sliced through the air, then he leaped and hopped around stabbing a quick succession of mock feints and lunges, finally whirling the sword around his head three times and snapping it to his nose in a sharp salute.
“Do not cut off your nose,” cautioned Culufinnel, sleepily watching him. “How you managed to lose your sword in a tree I will never begin to guess.”
“You heard the Captain," Parnard said, holding the sword high overhead so the blade flashed orange and white, as if showering sparks from the smith's hammer. "We were surrounded! The sword knew we were outnumbered, so it stayed behind to watch. Ha! Ha! Altogether it was a very lucky thing to have happened, just like Captain Landir said."
“Such utter nonsense!'” snorted Culufinnel. "Did you fall on your head and rattle those loose wits of yours? I would not call being disarmed on the field of battle 'lucky,' but I will not argue with you: I agree, you are lucky, very lucky, my brother, to be on this side of the Sea, and not begging at Mandos' feet.
“What swords like most is to be well-used, and I have never seen it used for any purpose but your mad sword-dances. Perhaps the sword wants a new owner, one that will use it for what it was made for, and that is why it left you to hang,” Culufinnel said, yawning, and turning over fell asleep.
Parnard felt a chill wash over him and froze in mid-twirl. Surely it could not be so! - could it? He pondered deeply on what Culufinnel said, and the more he thought about it, the more it made sense.
Like any fine object made by a master crafter, the sword must remember its maker, the taciturn Estarfin of the Bloody Spear. Possessor of a prideful and vengeful temper, he was humbled after falling off a mountain hunting goblins, and when Parnard last saw him, before he left Imladris, he was still unable to pour water from a pitcher without spilling it. Like the swordmaker, so goeth the sword: both must live in the shadow of memory, in idleness, purposeless, and that brought no honor, and no satisfaction.
Culufinnel was right! Steel-Thorn wanted to be made useful, and Parnard suspected that it would not be satisfied with just any old spider, or a black orc, or even a troll. Perhaps they will find a hill-giant! Or perhaps even a - Parnard shook his head. No, that is too formidable a thing to attack; he is a peaceable elf and not a warrior - but when his wrath was raised, watch out! After all, do not elves tumble over each other in their haste to get out of reach of his blade, when he flourishes it?
"Steel-Thorn, I do not want to run hither and yon looking for something when I do not know what it is that I am seeking," he told the sword. To his disappointment it said nothing in reply. He needed a sound plan of attack, starting with a current map. From what he had gathered talking to the Malladhrim the southern forest had grown wilder and darker than he remembered. It was entirely possible that something worse than a troll would find them before they reached the Narrows. He shivered.
The autumn nights were growing cold. Outside the ring of firelight, nothing moved at all in the gloom under the trees; there were no nighttime sounds, not even a faint scuffling of black rabbits in the undergrowth. The forest was definitely changed.
