Silver had spent half the day searching the hillside, every nook, every cranny, every den, and overhang. She had found nothing. There were no signs that he had come this way, not a single scrap, print or drop of dried blood. The only bones she had come across were old ones, brittle, yellowed and gnawed upon again and again.
Refusing to allow her frustration to surface, she made her way back to the carcass of the mare.
Which way?
Humming a cheerful tune beneath her breath, she ignored the stench of death as she scanned the misty mounds for direction. If not up, to a relative, if temporary, safety, then where? Down would have been easiest to achieve, which would have put him back on the path. Would he have stayed upon it? There was only one way to find out.
An eerie silence descended upon the area as she rode along. A silence broken only by her humming and the thud of Steel's hooves which served as percussion. Nothing came close. Nothing paid attention. A good sign; either their passage was unnoticed or the denizens had been called elsewhere. The latter theory, of course, might not bode well for someone or something else, but that was not her problem. Her problem was.... that.
A half-mile further on, she spotted it. A rusty-red patch to the side of the road.
Dismounting, she took a closer look. It was definitely blood. Damp. Almost dry, but not old enough to have been washed away by any recent rains or the water inherent in the mist itself. It took some searching, but she eventually found a small trail leading off toward the south-west, naught more than a drop or two every couple of feet. It wasn't particularly easy to follow, especially when it veered off more toward the west again, but follow it she did, with Steel trailing in her wake.
Another quarter mile passed before she found him – it – lying in the hollow beneath a tree. Silver grimaced. She hated fresher corpses and this, grim as it was, could not have been more than a day or two old. She had to look closer though. She needed to be sure.
The face had been ripped clean away, leaving a bloodied skull to grin madly at the sky, but some wisps of deep brown hair remained; the right colour and of a very similar length to his. The general size and width was correct, though it was difficult to be utterly certain given how much had already been consumed. The clothes, though shredded, were close enough to his travel gear as made no difference to her eye. There were no weapons, no sign of his trademark pink quiver, and she was not going to paw over the corpse in the hopes that some familiar scars might remain uneaten. Despite these minor uncertainties, she was sure. After all, what were the chances of two men of similar height, build, dress and hair colour having been lost in Fornost within days of one another?
Slipping free one of her kukri, she took a deep breath to steady herself before swinging it down with all her might, causing the head to part neatly from the shoulders. Having to desecrate his body was bad enough. Doing a piss-poor job of it would have been unforgivable!
She took two of the extra blankets from Steel's back. One she used to wrap the masticated head. The other, she rolled the body up into. Rope secured them both, binding the wrappings in place, and the smaller package to the larger.
That should stop it rising for long enough for us to get back to the Downs.
But how, exactly, to get it there? Had her leg been stronger, she may have been able to wrestle the corpse up onto Steel's back, but all the travel, rough sleeping, damp and now the effort needed to secure the corpse itself had taken its toll. Manhandling wasn't an option here. Nor could she bring herself to drag him along behind them like a sack of dirty linen. She needed another idea.
Making use of her kukri again, she cut down two branches of the skeletal tree. A blanket was tied between them to form a makeshift stretcher, and more rope utilised to tie the corpse to that. Another section of the rope gave her something to hold onto as she mounted her horse once more and steered him back to the path. Dragging it like a sled was only marginally more dignified than dragging it like a sack, but this was the best she could do under the circumstances.
* * *
Swift but steady, staying doggedly upon the path, Silver and Steel had conveyed the mutilated cadaver back through the Fields of Fornost and to the Greenway. They had ridden long into the night, wanting to be as far away from that place as possible before they stopped for rest. The further they were from its influence, the less chance of the remains reanimating whilst they slept.
Still, she had breathed a sigh of relief in the morning when she had found the package unmoved from where it had been left. Her back ached, her leg ached, her heart would ache if she let it, and she could feel a bruise forming across her shoulder and chest from where the rope had bitten into her through layers of leather and cloth. That couldn't be allowed to stop her, though. The job was not yet complete.
This day would be spent in the arduous task of gathering enough wood to build a pyre. It was hard work even with Steel to drag the severed branches, harder still for one who ached all over, but she grit her teeth and pushed through it. When had she ever let such a little thing as pain stop her from doing what had to be done? Never before, and certainly not now. This would be the most important undertaking of her life thus far. She would not be beaten, not be betrayed and not be prevented from its completion by her treacherous body. It would obey her. She would see this through!
* * *
As sunset settled over the gentle hills of the North Downs, Silver stood back to survey her work. It wasn't perfect, it wasn't pretty, but it would serve its purpose well. With flint and knife, she brought fire to the tinder. With the descent of darkness, the flames rose high.
“I'm sorry,” she whispered. “I should have just let you go to Erebor. I shouldn't have gone camping. I should have found you sooner. I should have...”
She trailed off. It was too late for apologies, too late for anything now but goodbye.
With that realisation, her walls came crashing down. All of the emotions that she had tangled into a ball and hidden away whilst searching now unraveled, overwhelming and unrelenting. For a moment, she considered jumping into the flames too, even if only to make it stop.
Her legs buckled beneath her. Her backside landed down hard upon the damp grass. She barely felt her physical pain anymore, too consumed with emotional agony. She did feel it, however, when Steel lay down behind her and insistently nudged her arm with his nose.
Gratefully, she leaned back against him, her beloved companion, her most steady and devoted friend. She took some comfort in his presence, some strength from his warmth and unquestioning loyalty. Together, they would hold vigil through the night.
“I'll always love you,” she said softly. Then, after a brief pause to collect herself, she began to sing. Just as she had with the ones she had sung upon the Fields, she channeled her all into it. Unlike them, this one was not a song of defiance or joy or freedom. This one was not designed to keep her heart light or to subdue the dead. This was of sorrow, of regret, of guilt and affection once held, now forever lost.
She sang her goodbyes to the man she had loved. She sang her farewell to the one she had cherished above all. She sang her valediction to the one that she believed she would never meet again.
