The Rescue of Celebrian

When dawn broke, the party woke with it, the captives feeling much better for their rescue the night before. Only the little girl remained mute with shock, though at least one of the other captives said that she had been that way for quite some time.

“Her folk brought her to us a few weeks ago,” one of the men said over his breakfast. “They had all had a rough fortnight, at least. I think that’s why the orcs took them first.”

“They knew Fanye and Taro would not make the journey and be fit to work at the end of it,” another man growled bitterly.

“I’ll never eat meat again, after that,” the woman who sat with him said softly, her face drawn.

“You mean, their meal was…?” Elrohir yelped, disgusted. The woman could only nod, her peculiar indigo eyes shining with tears of rage.

Elladan looked down at the left-over venison on his plate and pushed it aside with his knife. “No wonder the child does not speak.”

“Thank the stars she slept with grandfather and grandmother last night,” Elrohir added, gesturing to the front of their grandparents’ tent where Celeborn shared out a bowl of porridge between himself and the child, a spoonful for her, then one for himself. She would not eat otherwise.

“My lord sons of Elrond,” the first captive said finally. “We are not as a rule prone to irrational behavior, or acting out of anger or hurt. But what those goblins… those… beasts have done, will keep doing… it cannot go unavenged.”

“I wish, once I am recovered, to take a party after the rest of their kin, but I will need far more warriors. May I ask your help in this?”

“It is known among the Wandering Companies that your hunt for the goblins has been fierce this last year,” the woman added. “We would… ask your help.”

“What are your names?” Elrohir asked, his appetite seemingly unaffected by the knowledge of what the goblins had killed the day before in that cave.

“I am Eruindil,” the first man said. “With me are Rusco and Filit.”

They nodded each to each as Elrohir swallowed his last bite. “Then Eruindil, you will be our third in command, assuming Grandfather does not go as well.”

“This pack of abominations came across our sights at an opportune time,” Elladan added. “We shall ask grandfather to divide the group and send a party of warriors north, then send for more Wardens from the Golden Wood to accompany the travelers by the southerly road. Since they are only a day to the east, there will be little delay.”

But as word spread through the morning of how the captives had been found, and what had been found with them, the twins discovered that even among the women there were few who wished only to flee.

“What if there are more?” a woman from the Greenwood said over the section of a creek being used to clean their cookware. “I can’t bear the thought of another little child like Veon or that girl being dragged into the mountains and never seeing the sun again. Someone should go after them.”

“The journey is shortest through the pass,” another one said. “If we could get past the goblins.”

“The best warriors of the three elvin realms are here with us now. If ever there was a chance of it, this is it,” the first concluded, surprised to notice she’d been speaking around the bent golden head of the Lady of the Golden Wood as the latter washed the bowl from which her husband had coaxed the captive child to eat.

“I will tell your thoughts to my husband,” Galadriel said, rising. “If the general sentiment is such, we shall go north and rout the goblins, or at the least, subtract a few from their numbers before the snow falls.”

With mouths agape and eyes wide, the women watched Galadriel turn immediately to Celeborn, who sat on a folding camp stool with the captive child in his lap and a flannel in his hand, cleaning her face and hands.

“The breaking point has been reached, I think,” she said, sitting gently in the grass by her Celeborn’s feet and stroking the little girl’s hair. “Even the women of the Greenwood despair for this little one’s fate, and of the potential for others like her.”

“They do not wish to turn back?” he asked, handing Galadriel his comb.

“They would go north to rescue more, should there be any.”

“Then we shall turn north,” Celeborn decided, folding aside the flannel. “And I think Losse fits her well.”

“She is still and quiet and soft and cool. Losse, then,” Galadriel agreed. “Very well.”

So, the party that set out that morning had a decidedly different purpose than the one which had departed from Lothlorien the day before. Instead of flight, they had on their minds instead strategy, and rescue, and hope, which had been missing from some of their lives for a very long time. The little foundling girl, Losse, rode with Celeborn or Galadriel, and once notably, on the wagon beside Veon and his pony, who treated her as one would a fragile baby bird fallen from its nest. He spoke quietly as they rode, pointing out to her the beauty of the first turning leaves they passed and the gleam of apples and pears on occasional wild fruit trees near the edge of the forest. When they stopped near evening to rest the horses, he climbed one of these and brought back two juicy, sweet green pears. It was the first food she took of her own volition since her first capture by the goblins, one of the former captives said. It was a good sign. From her seat beside the wagon box, Ninde kept a watchful eye on the forest around them, and hid a fond smile for her little almost nephew. Caring for others seemed almost as much a part of his personality as his curiosity. For a moment, she felt a twinge of jealousy that he was not truly hers. But, she reminded herself, she was blessed to be the one that took care of him in place of his parents. That was, perhaps, the greater honor, for unlike being born into a family, being chosen spoke to the child’s own heart and preference.

The party stopped early to rest that night, and those who were not regular users of weaponry gathered together by Elrond’s sons, Veon among them, to see where their aptitudes might lie. For no one, not even the children, would go unarmed from that day forward. There was no telling where goblins hid, or indeed if a group of them would find the obvious sign the party left behind, and track them in the night.

Their first problem came from an old man, loremaster of old to Orophir, who had lost most of the use of his left hand in the battle with the spiders. With only one hand, books and scrolls would still recognize his skill, but fighting knives were best used in pairs, as were most other common weapons.

“I just drove, before, with the goblins,” he said quietly. “I am content in that now. My usefulness is past.”

“There’s the thrown dart,” Ninde said quietly from the edge of the circle. “If he could have time to practice it.”

“You mean that old hunting dart of yours?” the loremaster asked, his eyes brightening. “Yes, I could… I could manage that, one armed.”

Seeing Galadriel’s eyes light up as well, Elladan found himself curious. “I do not recall hearing of this. Do you have one, Lady Ninde? May we see it?”

Nodding, Ninde went to her pack, tucked deep inside the wagon bed, and removed from it first a cupped piece of wood, then a quiver, the side of which housed a second storage space of smaller, unflighted darts. Removing one of these, she dropped it tip up into the cupped implement, then drew back her arm, took careful aim, and flung the dart overhand with surprising speed. It struck a fallen log some half a furlong away, and stayed there quivering.

“It may be used for rocks as well,” Ninde said, handing Elladan the throwing device while Veon ran to retrieve his auntie’s dart.

Exchanging looks, Celeborn and the twins nodded their approval. “How long,” the Lord asked, “would it take to make enough of these for the two children and the women that do not already use bow or staff or blade?”

“If we could find the wood, and set those who ride to work as we travel, a week, perhaps,” Elrohir guessed. “Oak?” he asked Ninde. “Or maple?”

“Oak was sufficient for my uncle’s,” Galadriel said, taking the tool from her grandson’s hands. “I have not seen one of these in… quite a long time.”

“I think mine may be the only one still used on this side of the world,” Ninde agreed, sharing a secret look with the Lady of Light. “It was my father’s, for his trips into the woods without the dogs.”

“And from these,” Galadriel concluded, handing the weapon back to its owner, “was the long bow conceived.”

The party’s second problem arose shortly thereafter, when it came time to convince the already trained fighters of the party that they did not also need a throwing dart, and that this newly introduced old weapon should remain the realm of those who had no other means of self-defense.

~*~
A.N.: The weapon here called a thrown dart is known as the Atlatl. More information about it is available here: http://www.worldatlatl.org/WhatisAtlatl.html

Chapter title taken from the poem Kubla Khan by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, lines:
"And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war !"