Endamir was chilled to the bone. Clothes soaked; hair in disarray and dripping down into the sodden collar of his tunic. He shivered, casting a glance about for some dry blanket or perhaps his cloak. There was nothing; it was all as wet as he.
At the helm he could see Malris gazing round at his crew, a smile of . . . satisfaction, he thought, on his face. The captain’s calloused hand rested lightly on the rudder now, his steely eyes glinting with this little victory. Endamir felt anything but victorious. He was tired and hungry. His hands, which had held nothing rougher than a quill for many years, were abraded and bleeding from helping to bail out the seawater from the ship.
Endamir looked up as Malris spoke. ‘There. A thousand storms are nothing to that sight.’ What had once been the tall, chill peak of Himring now poked its higher reaches above the sea waters. This cold, rough, northern sea whose waves battered at the old peak’s bare, rocky slopes, beating them into a sandy strand.
A scrap from one of the old lays rose in his mind, reminding him of the majesty of the humble isle that lay ahead.
. . . far off, where Himring’s watchful hill
o’er Aglon’s gorge hung tall and still.
The Ghostbreaker was moving steadily toward the shallow sandy shore that passed for the beach on the southern edge of Himling. Malris steered her safely between the few rocks that poked up in the shallower waters extending out from the island. Endamir shaded his eyes with his hand and looked closely at the once familiar sight. The old peak’s wide, flat top looked tumbled with some of the blocks, at least, that had once made up Maedhros’ fortress. It was hard to tell from this distance how much still stood.
As the prow scraped lightly against the sandy shore laying beneath the lapping waves, two of the Elves jumped from the sides to secure the ship with thick rope lines to two of the upjutting rocks. Endamir followed closely on their heels. Wet already, he did not care that the water wicked up his breeches as he stepped into the thigh high surf.
He steadied himself with a hand on one of the rocky sentinels guarding this little coastal strand. The sand beneath his feet shifted with the outgoing waves, making his steps unsteady at times. Still, he grinned . . . the closer to the little beach he got, the firmer the ground beneath his feet. His stomach, empty from the hours on the tossing boat, grumbled with his exertions.
Endamir turned for a moment and waved back at his brother. ‘Bring some food with you!’ he called, cupping his hands about his mouth to make it louder. ‘And tea! And something to make it in.’
------------
--- fragment of poem from
The Lay of Leithian -- Canto X; J.R.R. Tolkien