Culufinnel

This Angmar place was not growing on me one bit. Covering me in dust, yes, and making me cough and sneeze like I really didn’t want to. I didn’t like it. Any of it. Oh, how I longed fer me own bed, be that in me Ma an Pa’s house in Glenwood, in me burrow near Michel Delving, or me new room at The Bent Elbow. A proper bed, with pillows and blankets and a fluffy down cover. Ah, that be the life. 

Henepa looked apologetically at the elves. They were not unmoved by her predicament, her ragged and filthy clothes and her pain shadowed eyes, but they had their own quest, their own folk to rescue urgently. 

The Captain nodded at the water skin. “Keep it,” he said to her.

Estarfin halted beside the bodies of the other Men. Dismounting briefly, he took up two half-filled water skins and a handful of gold coins from the corpses. He took a cautious sip from one water-skin then, with a look of unexpected surprise, drank a mouthful or two. He held the skin out to the others. 

Estarfin nodded as the houses behind him went up in flames. The village of dry wood would burn until nothing was left but a pile of ashes, and perhaps a poisonous haze.

Estarfin turned and began to carefully scramble down the rocks. His hair and armour were covered in a fine dust, his expression set and determined. 

“We find them,” he said, as if it were an irrefutable outcome. 

Nan Amlug East was a long vale that bordered on the foothills of Angmar. A land of rolling hills and thick forested groves, it was home to many a warg pack and herds of aurochs. But there were other inhabitants too, one of whom had given the area its name. 

It rained a little, of course. How could it not rain on them? But they kept up a good pace over the farm and grasslands of Annundir, into the gently rolling hills of the West. It was a trail Yrill had only followed a few times before, being far more a haunt of Men than of Elves. She knew the way, but not much of the surrounding land.

Thoughts were racing in Yrill’s mind. Looking down from her vantage point it was obvious that neither captive was badly injured. Both Danel, and what she could see of Parnard, appeared dirty, tired, frustrated, but neither were bleeding, nor had visible damage. On the other hand, many of the Men looked worn to exhaustion, and moved slowly, with eyes dull and weary. Were it not for the two Southrons, she would have thought to attack the group alone.

Yrill rode ahead as they crossed the High King’s bridge yet again. Her heart was still beating unnaturally fast. She still felt like retching. They had the information they needed, but would she or Culufinnel have been capable of attaining it? The Captain of Celondim was a staunch soldier, but he had turned aside. She herself would only have acted so under dire need. And had it not been dire need? All she knew was she was thankful Estarfin had been with them.