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Neither the Smith nor the four Elves of the search party could know of the desperate straits Malris now faced; his companion slumped on the subterranean shingle, a horror he could scarcely put into words lurching towards him.
It was such a thing as the tales scarcely hinted at; the abominations of Nan Dungortheb, the vast gnawing Things that the Dwarves cursed in their sagas, the serpents commanded by Osse in the heights of his fury...it had something of all these, but it could not be precisely identified with which.
Its flesh was to look at like that of a garden slug, foulest of kelvar, loathed even by the Laiquendi, devourer of nature. Yet when Malris, his sword in both hands, swung it into one of the limbs that approached, he felt endurance he had only known in Trollflesh. He wrested Cirlach, burning and whirring crazily, from the mollusc-wound...the limb retracted, but was replaced intstantly by another.
The lake-Thing was bloated, obese, and as the Elf fought against it it seemed to him that it fluctuated like a whirlpool, points in it sinking deeper into itself, dragging in the filth of the lake, compelling even he to edge slowly closer, though he resisted it with haughty power and contempt. The enemy had no head that he could discern, no part of it more crucial than another. Malris even wondered if it was not one monstrosity, but many bound together.
"Maedhros!" he yelled, the old battle-cry pouring out with ease. "Maedhros! Take that..."
For a moment he felt It touch his flesh glancingly, and he felt as if everything wholesome was draining out of him, leaving him to become another hopeless, half-dead fish being. Then he slashed Cirlach down on the nearest length of Its invasions, and he sprang higher up the lake's bank, pulling Tasa along by the arm.
"Ulmo! Uinen who ever knew mercy!" he shouted, tears in his eyes, scarcely feeling his voice his own now, his left hand continuing to strike in defence against the tentacular pursuit, while his right gripped Tasa firmly.
And to his unending amazement, he saw a slightly darker, solider shape some distance away; no rock, he realised, but a raft of dark wood. If he could reach it they might yet cross the Lake and find a way to the light and the rest of the company...
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