Chapter Text
The air in the southern reaches of Mirkwood is even closer than you remember. Even in the years you lived here before beginning your travels, you did not often venture this far south. Few did, and even of the ones who went well-prepared, fewer returned. Some among your circles called the avoidance of the southern forest fear, though others named it prudence. You cross the Anduin with your cousins from the Golden Wood and think this is necessity.
The first battles under the trees are short, vicious, and bloody. You help prepare the way for the vanguard of the Golden Host while your friends from the Iron Garrison skirt the edge of Lothlórien with their prisoner and the Hidden Guard assembles in Caras Galadhon. Issuriel and the dwarves that accompany Bróin you are familiar with already, but Raddir and the others you have only just met. You are wary of Achardor. His grief for his brother is still near and his anger loud. His animosity for the dwarves does not help either. You wonder why he so wished to join this company.
You are not sure which grates more on your nerves- Achardor’s repeated denouncements of near every aspect of your task or the Greyhammer brothers’ self-proclaimed expertise on all things orc. You spend as much time as you are able with either Bróin or Issuriel and find that their expressions often echo yours. Raddir declares that it is time to take the Downholt path and you are relieved. It is time to move at last.
This swamp is perhaps the most treacherous that you have seen- and you have seen quite a few swamps now. Mazog struggles against his shackles as the swamp creatures close in on you and Issuriel, but the dwarves of Nâr-khelab did their work well and he resorts instead to shouting for their attention. You are not quite sure if he is trying to get himself killed before he can be delivered to Dol Guldur or to set the creepers on the Hidden Guard and escape in the confusion. He gets neither result, and he mutters in his own tongue as you escort him to where Cúcheron waits.
Raddir is unbalanced when he meets you in the tunnels. The uncertainty in his face as he spins to face shadows is familiar to you. He has seen something, though he know not what. Your steps are ever warier as you bring Mazog through the tunnels to Sigileth.
“I would give much to have Corudan with us right now,” she says quietly to you. She has told the Hidden Guard some few stories of her archer brother. You would not turn away another companion on this dangerous road. Sigileth’s knives spin in her hands as you lead Mazog on.
Raddir is dead at the edge of a stinking pool. You stop short when you see him. Mazog, too, is taken unawares by the sight. There is neither wound nor sign of poison and his face is peaceful. He might seem gently asleep were it not for the paleness of his lips and your uncomfortable surroundings. You are still trying to process the scene when Mazog laughs and sprints into the swamps. Towards Achardor.
Desperation gives you wings and your feet barely touch the muddy ground. You call out for Achardor and he just barely turns in time to meet Mazog’s feral assault.
“Raddir is dead,” you tell him between great breaths. Mazog lies dazed on the ground, though it will not last. “I don’t know…” anything. You do not know anything of what passed.
The survivors make their way to the scorched ruins of Audaghaim and cannot agree what to do next. You would almost call it bickering, but the stakes are far too high. So too is the cost, now. Raddir’s death still does not seem quite real to you. It is as if he is simply out scouting. You expect him to return any moment now. When you can stand the arguing no longer, you leave the basement for what had once been the common room of the inn, made habitable again by the Malledhrim for their own use in this campaign. You distract yourself herding the Greyhammers who have now more than once lost their way in the swamps. Rósar swears he saw the brothers’ departed grandmother and Stígurd claims a dozen dwarves of the Iron Garrison fallen in the orcs’ offensives. You saw nothing in the fog. You may have heard voices, familiar but long since gone, but you cannot be sure.
The rest of the Hidden Guard is no closer to agreement. You consult with the two rangers who have accompanied the Golden Host, but Prestadír and Idhrenfair have little experience with the darkest reaches of Mirkwood. You gain little information from the conversation, but it has been some time since you saw any who were not elves or dwarves and it is a welcome change to speak with Men- and Dúnedain at that. You cannot place, exactly, the difference between them and your more recent company, but you are certain it is there.
Cúcheron does not hide his frustration with his friends. Neither do you. You leave to scout the proposed paths yourself. If none of them will decide, you shall.
They do decide. You think you would much rather brave the orc-camps of the southern road than the Scuttledells, but Issuriel is right. Your strength still lies in secrecy and if you are discovered, the spiders at least will not report to masters in the tower. Or maybe they will- this task has gone poorly enough already.
“Not this way!” Cúcheron cries, running for you and Achardor. He is pursued by many spiders, but they fall back at your united front. The Hidden Guard bunches closer together as you forge deeper into the winding valleys until Mazog once again attempts an escape. Issuriel is the only one of you able to pursue him. It takes the rest of you too long- Issuriel and Mazog both are dying now.
This is not something you have power over. Ordinary venoms and those of the lesser of these great spiders your runes may cast out, but there are many good reasons to fear this part of Mirkwood, and the venom of its spiders is prominent among them. Rare flowers and pieces of the deadly spiders would make it difficult enough, but the preparation must be done just so or else it will do nothing- or, if muddled badly enough, prolong the victim’s suffering. Issuriel refuses the single dose you scrape together and you think that you are getting very, very tired of friends choosing not to protect themselves. Mazog recovers, and he watches Issuriel curiously. Achardor rages.
You understand it as well as any of the others, truly you do. So many troubles have befallen the Hidden Guard already and still you have so far to go. It seems an impossible task. But Achardor is not the only one here who carries grief caused by Mazog and his folk, nor is he the only one who fears for Issuriel. He rails at fate, at the spiders, at the dwarves on whom he blames so many of your troubles. You know Bróin far better than Achardor does or cares to- you know that if he is not here he has good reason, though you might wish he had shared it. You know he is not fleeing, whatever Achardor thinks, and you know that he will not turn aside, not now. He too has put much into this mission.
“We should never have come here. You should have just killed this one and be done with it,” Achardor spits, glowering at Mazog. Mazog laughs.
You should let it go. You should ignore Achardor and find Bróin. You don’t.
“If you think all this the height of folly, and have since the beginning, why then did you beg Lord Celeborn to send you?” you demand. “So that you might be the one to claim his death?”
Mazog is laughing still.
Bróin bursts into the storeroom before you or Achardor can worsen the argument. He has another dose of the antidote, though Issuriel is barely conscious enough to drink it. Mazog is scowling and Achardor is dazed. Issuriel will recover, but for the time being she can barely walk. She watches the Hidden Guard depart with heavy eyes.
You are not yet calm enough to be more than polite to Achardor, even when he begins to speak well of Bróin and of dwarves in general. You wish, later, that you had teased him perhaps. That you had responded with something more than simple nods.
Bori is not among the dwarf captives presented to you. Gorothúl laughs but Mazog, for once, is silent.
You feel the cold creeping up on you, like fingers sliding around your neck from behind until you think you cannot breathe. “What is this?” Bróin asks beside you, shivering. The others are looking around too for some source to this chill. You know what this is. Nazgûl. Not one, weakened, but three in all their dreadful glory.
You were fools to come here, you think as the weight of their presence nearly drives you to your knees. Achardor was right.
And yet, it is Achardor who throws himself at the Nazgûl that the rest of you might escape. You run, and you do not stop running until Ost Galadh rises before you. You collapse beside Bróin, gasping for every breath. Sigileth tips her head to the trees and screams. Cúcheron curls into himself at the foot of a large tree and you cannot tell if he is sobbing or recovering his own breath. Issuriel hobbles out of the outpost minutes later. She meets your eyes and you can see the pain in them. She knows something terrible has happened.
The remnants of the Hidden Guard, Bróin included, sleep tangled together and exhausted on the floor of the storeroom. Your mission has failed. You decide, come morning, that you must do what you can to aid the Malledhrim with their larger goal.
You do not rightly expect that in so doing you will rescue Bori- indeed, you believe him in your heart to be dead already. And yet, by some miracle, you find him still alive in the final assault on Dol Guldur. You think to place your ward on him for the escape, but you have already placed it on Sigileth. Her dream was too foreboding for you to let her go unprotected. You feel the tether between you and the ward snap and you fear for Sigileth, but you see her among the wounded after the battle and not the dead.
You are welcomed into Lórien and you know you may stay, but you are not quite done and this was not quite a victory. The dwarves of the Iron Garrison acknowledge this, but few of them truly understand. Bori and Bróin do, but even their words do little to settle you. Zigilburk is sealed and you think you might be allowed some rest, but you find instead that you are restless. You make your farewells to the Iron Garrison and laugh at the party they throw for you. You have learned enough Khuzdul to thank them properly by now, and they cheer your progress. Bori and Bróin have learned a formal Sindarin expression of thanks when you were not paying attention and you are too shocked to hear elvish words from dwarven lips to properly respond for some time.
You think you will return here eventually. There is still much to be done and to see in the depths of Khazad-dûm. You wander again, and though the thought crosses your mind you do not set foot in the northern reaches of the Greenwood. You do not know what you would do if you went home. You are less than sure that it still is home.
You receive a letter of summons from Lord Elrond. So much for rest.