|
“I am well,” Vaele Andarion said brightly, in his calm, unruffled manner.
“May I ask what you saw ahead of the contingent?” asked Gilduin hesitantly.
Vaele laughed. “No few miles, to be sure. There’s a fine site for a camp a ways ahead.” He paused, gauging the angle of the sun. “We should reach it by sunset or the hour after.”
Gilduin nodded and was silent for a moment. At last he cleared his throat. “Vaele…why do the Galadrim march? I know that we go to the aid of our brothers and sisters in Eregion, but what foe do we face? What enemy assails the Mírdain?”
Vaele did not reply immediately, and his expression was troubled. When he spoke, it was without his usual cheerfulness. “The Mírdain are beset by one they once counted a friend,” he said quietly, and related the tale of Annatar’s treachery as the sun sank in a firey crimson sky.
As Vaele had predicted, the company halted shortly after sunset, in a sparsely wooded area with a small stream running through it. The ranks dispersed, but all the elves remained close together, and Eldegon posted a guard. Celeborn ordered that no fires be lit. The night was surprisingly mild and there was no sense of evil in the darkness, but the commanders seemed uneasy. Gilduin felt a growing disquiet within him, which had begun when Vaele told the story of their enemy. It was less a fear of present danger than a foreboding of troubles to come. He could envision the journey beneath the mountains in his mind, though he had never traveled that road before. Beyond the mountains, though a shadow obscured his thoughts. He could not visualize the city of the Mírdain, nor the battle they would face when they reached it. In years past he had often imagined the fair buildings of Ost-in-Edhil, but that time seemed long ago. Now all that remained was an unseen future, at once inaccessible and inescapable.
|