((This tale follows on from Seeing Red Already ))
Urging on my mare to a gallop, it took but moments to draw alongside him. Was he yet smiling at me? Nay, by then he wore his usual nonchalant expression. But I knew!
Laying aside our reasoned debate on colour for the moment, I made another point. “Six years? Truly, I wonder that my letter was so confusing to you. You fear almost naught, why were you afraid of meeting me?”
He shrugged. Also a commonly used ‘tactic’ of his. But then drew his horse to a sudden halt, the animal snorting and twitching his ears to pick up what Estarfin had heard.
I halted too. My mare tossed her head.
Then we saw them. Only a paltry dozen they were, crudely armoured but waving jagged swords, and running towards us from the ruins of Pembar.
“Yrch,” Estarfin spat out with disgust.
We charged them as one.
~ ~ ~
Now we had started off our travelling together in a better mood than I had dared hope for. It may have been something I said, it may have been that we found it quite easy to pick up again where we had left off? Nay, it was better than where we parted. For he had still been struggling with wounds that were slow to heal. His mood had been darker than I had known before.
So I abandoned him?
Do I not chastise myself over that thought!
I left Imladris then because of need, and that need of my presence in Mithlond. And he was not left alone.
But I should have made time to explain to him what I was doing and why. There was no excuse for me not doing so. I can understand that being part of his reticence to speak with me again. I had … disappointed him more than once.
I had spoken little in his defense at his trial, though my intent had always been to speak truth. I had not visited him overmuch after that, but partly that was due to my own struggle overcoming my temporary blindness, and partly because his friend, Ruineth, was almost always with him. But I had disappointed him long before that.
I thought back then to an ill-sent letter after our challenging spar in Imladris. That was shortly before we set out on the mission to Dol Guldur,
I had written to him in anger then, though the anger was truly directed at myself. We had both injured the other in that training session, though of course some folk in the valley had seen my wounds and, knowing him as a warrior of much skill, had blamed him. That was not truth. It was I who had asked for his help in improving my skills, he being one of the few I knew would not hold back against me. I had known at the time he was gifting me the best he could. That being skills that could well save my life. Yet my defense of him was silenced by my own shame at the way I had left him lying bleeding on the ground. Not that I had the greater skill by any means, but that I had taken to heart his words to be ruthless.
And I had despised myself for several weeks after. Aye, until we talked at Echad Eregion.
I understand that I can match him in being ‘difficult.’ May it be that one day we speak openly of those times, that he knows I honor his gift..
Even so, it seems we have more understanding between us, that we shall spend some time together, and that as we have never really done before.
Pembar. I had dwelt a decade there when I first arrived in Eregion, living in the household of Suiloron. A fair time it had been, for he was a kindly lord and most knowledgeable in Lore. He also sponsored several promising jewel smiths, I being one of them. We had a forge built for our use, and workrooms of our own. All he asked in return was an occasional commission from us, to please his wife or daughters. And boasting rights, of course. I remember the evenings best, music and dancing under the stars, though I would mostly wander to the edges of the group, to watch from afar. There were a couple of other apprentices who sometimes asked me to dance, or to walk with them, though I was known for mostly keeping my own company, my minds being still on….
“Fight!” Estarfin shouted to me, as he tossed part of a hewn orc off his blade, and moved to the next.
Aye, my mind had even then been mostly on what I thought I had lost.
I swung Sarphir directly at the nearest orc’s head, taking it cleanly off.
‘Be ruthless’ I muttered under my breath.
~ ~ ~
The ruins cleared of orc and worm alike, we took time to rest a little. They would be back. Even as we had cleared that place several years ago, on our journey to Dol Guldor, it never took long for darkness to return.
The horses were grazing lightly, and we two sat on a clean patch of grass near the stream, to check our weapons and armour, and take a drink. An image suddenly came unbidden to my mind, and I chuckled aloud. Estarfin halted in his cleaning of orc blood from his sword.
“What amuses you?” said he, speaking little thus far.
“Do you remember…..when we were here before, and there were far more orcs and wargs here. And we were trapped?”
“I do not recall being trapped” said he, returning to the cleaning.
“Well, we had quite a fight ahead of us, put it that way. And then Parnard ran right through them all, and drew them off.”
“Parnard!” Again Estarfin halted, and looked thoughtful. “I remember. I had thought him a fool but …”,
“He risked his life for us.” I finished the sentence.
Estarfin nodded. “So he did.”
And Estarfin viewed me closely for a moment or two.
“You would have us spend time here, at your old home?”
I shook my head, a sense of sadness clouding the edge of happier thoughts.
“Nay, Estarfin. I only wanted to ride here to remember a short time. I do not intend to drag you on a tour of my Second Age haunts.”
“Then, forgive me, but what do you intend?” He asked softly, genuinely. He wanted to know if I had any plan or aim.
I looked up at the sky. The sun was over halfway through her journey in the heavens. We had a few hours light at least.
“In truth, I have been wandering aimlessly of late, but I have two goals in mind. If you would indulge me.”
He nodded his head in agreement, placing his sword across his lap.
I drew a deeper breath. “I know that all along I really just wanted to see you again. But there are two others I miss, who I would seek out.”
“Speak on. And know I will follow at least for now.”
Rising to his feet, he put the sword back in the scabbard and walked to his mount, checking the horse had had his fill. But he was listening to me.
“Parnard, and Belegos. I would see them both again, and know they are well.”
At that, Estarfin halted, turning back to regard me. He nodded firmly.
“I would see them also, but I fear that finding them….especially Parnard….will not be easy.”
I nodded in turn. “I expect not. But if we do not try, we shall never know.”
“Mirkwood then?”
I rose to my feet and replaced my weapons in their scabbards attached to the saddle.
“I know not where we may find Belegos, for he is also a wanderer. My thought is that if we are searching, he may find us? But Parnard, I know little of. He was going home, that was the last I heard. And I was saddened.”
“There is more.” Estarfin stated, rather than asked a question of me.
I had to think how to phrase my reply. Indeed, there was something more
