Outrun, Outlast by StarSpray

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Chapter 2

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Once in the valley, they were effectively under siege, although Sauron did not know exactly where they were. That did not stop him from hemming them in, however. Even Eluréd and Elurín could not slip through Sauron’s armies to take a message to Gil-galad, and so they could only hope that rumors reached their allies in the West.

“This may turn to their advantage,” Erestor said. He and Elrond stood beneath a tree in which Eluréd had chosen to nap, although that was difficult with all the construction going on just across the river. A great house was halfway completed, and everyone was hopeful that it would have a roof before winter’s first snowfall. “Sauron cannot send his full force against Gil-galad if he is afraid we’ll attack from the rear.”

“But he will not have that worry if we sit here idle,” Celeborn said from Elrond’s other side. With a glance at Eluréd, he continued, “We should send out raiding parties. We’ll win no great victories, but we can be a thorn in Sauron’s side until help from Númenor comes.”

Eluréd grinned. “That is a good plan,” he said. “Are there any among your company who know these lands well?”

“A few,” Erestor said. “None are here now; they’ve all gone hunting and foraging. We need to gather as many supplies as we can to set aside for winter.”

“We can find supplies aplenty in the Enemy’s camps,” Eluréd said.

Erestor wrinkled his nose. “I would not want to eat any food taken from orcs,” he said.

“Sauron has many Men among his servants,” Celeborn said. “From the south and east.”

“And they know this country not at all,” Eluréd said cheerfully. He abandoned all hope of a nap and dropped to the ground. “Their scouts have been having a terrible time, wandering in circles, even losing their own trails! Why, my brother and I watched one disturb a mountain cat’s lair just the other day; he escaped the cat, but tripped into a ravine before he could warn his fellows not to go that way.”

“I don’t suppose he had help finding the cat?” Elrond asked. Celeborn crossed his arms, frowning at Eluréd; it was clear he still did not know what to make of Eluréd and Elurín, and it did not please him.

“Certainly not!” Eluréd raised his eyebrows. “Although he did help us, as now we know where it lives.” He and Elurín had followed many scouts, and had done their best to confuse their trails and lead them astray, but they had slain none. To do so would be to announce their presence, they thought, and that would only lessen the enemy’s confusion.

“Do you know where a Mannish company is that we might raid?” Elrond asked after a moment. “And would you lead a raiding party?”

“We can guide one,” Eluréd said. “But not lead it. My brother and I are not used to working with others in the wood, and we would just make a mess of things.” This admission seemed to surprise the others, but Celeborn immediately volunteered to lead the raiding party, and Eluréd went to find Elurín so they could scout ahead, to ensure there was actually a company worth raiding for supplies close by.

They left the valley in the early evening, the party comprised of Men and Elves used to hunting by stealth, clad in light hoods and cloaks of elven make that would shield them from any unfriendly eyes. Eluréd and Elurín had no such cloaks, but they did not need them. When they did not wish to be seen even the keen eyes of Celeborn could not see them.

A large company of men from far to the south and east had made their camp several leagues from the valley, reached through thick gorse and heather and clusters of tall trees whose canopies cast deep shadows on the ground, made even deeper by the flickering firelight of the men. Eluréd saw their banner with its hideous red eye and curled his lip; it would be a great pleasure to set the thing alight.

When a count was made, Celeborn gathered their party together, and almost silently gave directions—some men were to focus on stealing what they could, while others guarded them; the rest would distract and disrupt the enemy soldiers, killing as many as they could and hopefully frightening the rest. Eluréd and Elurín took to the trees with their bows. The twang of Eluréd’s bowstring could hardly be heard as he killed first one guard, then another, then a third. It was not until Elurín felled his fourth than the soldiers became aware that something was amiss. That was when the calling began, cries that echoed all around the camp, echoing through the trees—Elven voices that wavered and wailed in the shadows, like the wights or wraiths that some Men thought they were.

Neither Eluréd nor Elurín were part of the company that stormed the camp, but he saw Celeborn at its head take the banner and throw it into the fire, his silver hair gleaming in the flames that licked at the eye, before he vanished into the underbrush again.

When they returned with the dawn, they had several large bags of food, and even more good blankets, and even bandages and needles and threads for tending wounds. As they distributed the blankets and found places to store the food, Eluréd felt Celeborn watching them. Elurín grinned at him cheerfully, but Celeborn only looked troubled. Later, Eluréd saw him talking to Elrond.

“I think he’s starting to put it together,” Elurín remarked, slinging an arm around Eluréd’s shoulders. “It’s taken them longer than I would have thought.”

“Good thing for you I refused the wager, then,” Eluréd said, but his thoughts were elsewhere. “Elurín, I’m worried about Nellas. I spoke with one of the survivors of Ost-in-Edhil today—Aeglessil, her name is. She had met Nellas not long before this mess started. It seems Lady Galadriel departed with her daughter through Khazad-dûm before Sauron’s armies arrived, and Aeglessil thought Nellas might have gone with them, but she couldn’t be sure. And no one else remembers seeing her during the battle, or after.”

“Have you asked Elrond?”

“Not yet. But Elrond wouldn’t know, he’s as lately come here as we are, almost.”

“Ask Celeborn, then. Nellas would have spoken with him, anyway, whether she went with Lady Galadriel or not.”

They waited until Celeborn left Elrond, before following him down to the river, where a handful of children were trying their hand at fishing. Elurín stopped to show one which piece of bait would be better, leaving Eluréd to strike up a conversation alone. But Celeborn beat him to it: “Are you from Doriath?” he asked, turning to meet Eluréd’s gaze. “Your speech tells me yes, but I do not remember your faces.”

“We did dwell in Doriath, but only briefly, before it fell,” Eluréd said. “We went east to the mountains after, rather than following Sirion down to the Sea.”

Celeborn frowned at him. “Only one other has told me that tale,” he said. “Did you travel with Nellas, then? Nellas, daughter of Tinnion the carpenter?”

“Yes.” Eluréd gestured back toward the main camp. “And she was in Ost-in-Edhil, but is not here. Do you know what became of her? Did she leave with Lady Galadriel?” Elurín had come to join them, and both he and Eluréd stood tensely, awaiting Celeborn’s reply. Eluréd had thought they’d long outgrown the idea that their guardian and friend was invisible, yet it seemed impossible to him that she could have done anything but escape.

“Yes, she did,” Celeborn said, and the relief was enough to make Eluréd’s knees feel weak. “Galadriel asked her to go with them, though Nellas was loath to pass through Hadhodrond.”

Elurín bowed. “Thank you,” he said. “We have been worried about her, and it is good news indeed that she is safe in Lórinand.”

“Indeed.” Celeborn crossed his arms. “Yet when she spoke to me of her passage across the Ered Luin after the fall of Doriath, she never mentioned companions.”

“Did she not?” Eluréd asked, adopting a look of innocence. If Nellas herself had been there she would have scoffed and cuffed him upside the head. “How strange.”

“But surely she had her reasons,” Elurín said. He did not try to look innocent at all. They had never taken new names, and it seemed hard to believe that no rumor of a pair of wanderers with the same names as Dior’s sons had reached Gil-galad in Lindon, or Celeborn in Eregion. “Thank you again,” Elurín added, “and if you will excuse us, my brother and I thought we’d explore some of the nooks and crannies in this valley.”

“And what are your reasons for keeping your names a secret?” Celeborn called after them.

“Haven’t you guessed yet?” Elurín called back, laughing.

They spent three days scaling the cliffs and steep hills at the back of the valley, and returned to send back the more adventurous foragers for a great store of nuts and roots and berries for the winter. While they were foraging, Celeborn led two more raiding parties against Sauron’s armies, and their scouts brought back rumor of great discontent among the Men and orcs under Sauron’s command—tales of wraiths and monsters that haunted the foothills of the Misty Mountains.

Elurín bared his teeth in a grin. “Wraiths and monsters,” he said. “I like that.”

“What say we add to the tales?”

It was not hard to find the roaming bands of orcs Sauron had sent into the mountains, and scarcely less difficult to kill. Thus they spent the autumn, and even the winter; one did not leave tracks in the trees, and orcs and Men from the far south were careless—not to mention vulnerable—in the snow. They used nightingale calls for signaling, and did so purposefully though there were no nightingales to be found in Eriador in the wintertime. “Let Gorthaur hear of it,” Elurín said, eyes glittering in the moonlight, orc blood splattered dark across his face. “Let him know it is the line of Lúthien that torments him still.”

The winter was a long one, and difficult for those hidden in the valley. They had gathered as much food as they could, and the large house had been completed before the first frosts, and being of Noldorin design it was sturdy and sound, but there were many children and elderly Men among them, and they could not endure the same hardships that grown Elves could. And even though Sauron did not know precisely where they were, they were still effectively under siege, and even the most patient among them would chafe at that after a time.

One afternoon, Eluréd and Elurín returned to the valley just in time to rescue a child that had fallen into the river. Her parents had perished in Ost-in-Edhil, and her grief had made her wild, unwilling to do as she was told no matter who was doing the telling. Elurín splashed into the water, yelping at the cold, and scooped her out. Eluréd wrapped her in one of their spare blankets. “I am sure someone told you not to venture near the river,” he said mildly as she curled up in his arms, shivering violently. “What is your name?”

“Why should I tell you?” she asked, defiant to the end, although the effect was somewhat lost behind blue lips and the way her voice shook. “You won’t tell anyone your names.”

“Yes, but we are much older than you,” Eluréd said. “That allows us a bit of mystery. But,” he added, “I shall make you a deal, shall I? Tell me your name, and I will tell you mine, and I will teach you to use that knife my brother has just taken off you.”

She twisted so hard he nearly dropped her. “That’s mine!” she cried, seeing the blade in Elurín’s hands. “Give it back!”

“Your name first, young mistress,” Elurín said. He tossed the knife into the air and caught it by the handle. It was a fine blade, of Elven make, with a handle of intricately carved bone. He had also fished a small pack of food out of the river, which did not speak well of the girl’s intentions, or her sense. Eluréd adjusted his grip and continued up the snowy, slippery path toward the house.

The girl hunched her shoulders. “Hulda,” she said finally, grudgingly. “Daughter of Gunnar and Hilda.”

“Ah, you come from the lands around the Long Lake, don’t you?” Eluréd asked. Elurín opened the door for them, and they took Hulda to one of the smaller rooms that Elrond had given to them for their own use. It had its own hearth, though it was empty and cold yet. While Elurín busied himself with the fire, Eluréd briskly stripped Hulda of her wet things and bundled her in a new, dry blanket.

“Yes. Papa was a trader.” Hulda frowned at him as he rubbed the damp blanket over her hair, which had long since come loose of its braids. “Now you tell me your name.”

“I am Eluréd, and my brother is Elurín.”

To his surprise, she scowled at him. “Those aren’t your names!” she said. “Those are from a story! One of the older Elves told it last night, about Lúthien and Beren and the Jewel they stole! It all happened a long time ago!”

“Then do you not believe that Master Elrond is the son of Elwing the White, who took the Silmaril from Doriath to Sirion when it fell, and thence to Eärendil’s ship Vingilot and on to Valinor?” Elurín asked.

Hulda looked uncertain, but only for a moment. “But the story said Eluréd and Elurín died,” she said, narrowing her eyes at them.

“Yes, so all the tales say,” Eluréd said. “And that is why Lord Celeborn, who was there, does not believe what his eyes tell him, and why it amuses us so to keep him guessing.” He tweaked Hulda’s nose. “Now sit by the fire, Mistress Hulda. You’re still a bit blue around the edges. Have you any extra clothes?” She shook her head, which was unsurprising. There had not been ample time to pack for those fleeing the city. “Then you’ll have to stay here until they’re warm and dry as well, and until you discard such foolish ideas of running away home. Lucky for you we were coming back today; if you had not drowned or frozen, you would have been caught by orcs for certain.” Hulda blanched. “But of course you have learned your lesson well,” Eluréd continued, “and will certainly not try anything like that again. Now. How shall we entertain you?”

She scowled at him again. “You don’t have to entertain me. I’m not a baby.”

“Very well, then. Elurín, how shall we entertain ourselves?”

In reply, Elurín brought out his flute, and so Eluréd dug out his lap-harp. They sang a long and slow hymn to Elbereth that had Hulda sighing and yawning, before Elurín struck up a lively tune, one they had heard often in the Withywindle river valley. Eluréd laughed and sang what he could remember of Iarwain’s nonsense, and of the busy badgers that liked to torment him, and of the wind in the willow trees and the heather, and of fair Goldberry in her lily pool. Hulda was delighted by all of those, although at first she tried very hard not to show it.

“Where did you learn all that?” she demanded as soon as the tune ended. “That’s not like any music I ever heard. Not from Elves. The ones from Eregion all just like to sing about starlight and sea foam and Elbereth, for all the good that does them.”

“You should not speak so lightly of Elbereth,” Elurín said gently. “She is not deaf to our songs, and that brings comfort, especially to those Exiles who remember what it was to dwell in Valinor under the Light of Laurelin and Telperion.”

“But she won’t do anything,” Hulda grumbled, huddling in her blanket, the scowl back, it seemed, to stay.

“No,” Eluréd said slowly, exchanging glance with Elurín, “the Valar will not march upon Middle-earth again—the last time they did so nearly all of Beleriand was sunk beneath the Sea. No, if they send help it will be more subtle—but Gorthaur is not his master, no matter how large his power seems at the moment.”

“And he has been defeated before,” Eluréd said. “And not by any of the Valar.”

“But to answer your question,” Elurín said before Hulda could start arguing again, “let us tell you of Iarwain Ben-adar and Goldberry the River-daughter!”