Chapter Text
The Angle, autumn, Third Age 2980
He searches for them among the tattered camps of the Dúnedain and does not find them. He has not eaten in four days, or slept in three, or cleaned the black blood from his uniform, or lain down his guard for so much as a second, though it slips a little when he sees the old man standing in the mud.
Dírhael says, “What is your report,”
He gives it. Tharbad overrun. The Rangers routed. Men left behind unburied to rot. Their enemies in the riverhills, in the fields, in the forests, thick as maggots on a corpse. Their war-wagons rumbling inexorably northward. Dunlendings and orcs and uruk-hai. Wolf-riders. Their fell birds a fog above them. Where is Thárien.
The old man grips his shoulder. “I don’t know, son.”
Collamath will go, and Coru, and Feridir. Talvard wishes to and in the end Halbarad relents. He gives them an hour. They will meet at the Narrows.
No horses. Stealth will serve them best.
He can feel the ribs give when he bends that way but there is nothing for it, they will just have to float around, he has no time.
At the meeting place he is the last to join them.
Elrohir is there. His family made it out? They did. Safe in the encampment.
Halbarad says, “I don’t know how long this might take.”
Elrohir slaps him high on the arm. “I brought clean underwear, don’t worry.”