Leoffrith

When morning came Trevadiel were waiting outside the pavilion. "You are expected," she said to me. "When you have refreshed yourself, Ingarthael will speak to you. I will show you the way."

"Ingarthael?" I said, no doubt mispronouncing the name badly. "Expected?" I wondered if some mistake had been made. Who could be expecting me?

We rode for what felt like just an hour or two, and then we stopped, I figured maybe to rest. Then my blindfold were being taken off. The first thing I noticed was the sun was much lower in the sky; it'd felt like only a few hours but it'd been most the day. Then my jaw dropped.

The climb from the Hollin side up the Redhorn Pass had been a struggle to keep away from the sheer drop to the right; but at the peak, the pass met one of Carrot-thras's brothers and became a narrow cleft with cliffs rising above on either side, and remained thus all the way down, which made the way much easier and less fraught.

As Miss Adri and I edged the horses up the slope of Redhorn Pass, which started with gentle rumpled red-stone hills, but grew stark black-grey and steep fair soon, the rain felt colder, and it met the wind coming down from the peaks, blowing it into our eyes. The welcome that Hollin had shown us started feeling like a dream.

Folks always talk about travel through the wilds as if there's some menacing creature behind every rock and around every bend in the path, and that's what the journey is about. Thing is, the wilds are mostly empty, and wild critters have more important things to do than bother folk passing through. You might get eyed by a bear at a distance, but they're like to avoid you afore you can even avoid them. No, the real hardship of travel is the discomfort.

I've lost count of the months, but it was about half a year ago, late summer or early autumn, when I were first in Bree and starting to think about the trip back to the Mark, and now, at last, we're taking the first steps. Today will be an easy start to the journey, as me and Miss Adri only mean to make the camp-site below Weathertop, by the spring, same as last time.

It's near on two weeks since I thunk as we were about to start on our journey, and I'd made arrangements for Miss Inayat to take care of the stable, but here I am still in Hookworth, up on the stable roof, watching spring-melt drip down the hillsides. There's hardly any snow left even on the highest hills now, and the grass is starting to green up. Was a big rainstorm few days ago with wind blew branches off the trees.

There wasn't a mound to be raised, as there was no body to bury. And even if there were, the man they mourned was no prince, to be buried in a place of honor, his mound covered with evermind or any other flower. Nor was he a warrior whose mound should be ringed by spears. He was nothing but the son of a crofter, sent over the edge of the wild, far out of his depth. Gone too long in lands too dangerous, with no word heard.

Even though the Elves of Mirkwood do trade in Lake-town, a lot of their trade happens without them visiting. They float goods down the river on barrels just so they can avoid having to come in their own selves. But once in a while they got to, to secure prices, to make arrangements for deliveries, and the like.