[Nogrod]

Novgorod had no intention to meet any other old friends around Mirkwood and had turned his face towards the west and the mountains in the morning. He would continue straight over or under or from between the mountains following the first possible path that would show itself. If your friends are like that, what will your enemies be like, he questioned himself with a sarcastic smile, trying not to care of the pain on his right side and left arm. He had found some herbs from near the river early in the morning and their soothing effects were beginning to be felt at noon. But the wounds still hurt.

In the end he was on the west side of the mountains! But as he was totally ignorant of the geography of that region, he unfortunately had trekked to a place where there was a river of which name or nature he hadn’t the faintest, but which he needed to cross anyway. It was a fair twenty yards wide and the current seemed strong enough to call it a challenge. Could I just sleep here somewhere and think about it in the morning? He thought to himself, but after a glance he saw that that would not do. There seemed to be nothing that could be used as a cover of any sort and the Halls of Moria were just too near. He would have to get over before the dark and the sun glowed already from quite low, giving out a bit reddish hue to the western horizon.

There was a great old oak quite near the shore on his side of the river and a couple of knocked over birches on the other. Neither one felt like a tempting idea. Hacking down a great oak with a sword and a longknife would be just too laborous and time-consuming, and trying to rope the felled birches on the other side seemed counting more to luck than on any actual possibilities of success as there were no ready stumps but just knocked down trunks.

But there were rocks in the river. Very sharp and pointy rocks that sticked out from the surface of the water every here and there. I could take that, and then that, ... and possibly that, he thought as he counted a route easy enough over the river. Then he took the Easterling rope and tied a strainable loop to it. After securing his package and his sword he walked into the water. I’m getting soaking wet again! Three days in a row! I would give quite much for one dry day!

After just a few steps Novgorod was already chest-deep in the water. Okay, this kind of a river it is then, he thought and started looking for the nearest rock that pushed a bit higher from the surface. He rolled the rope above his head first carefully and then more comfortably and made the first try. He missed. With the fourth try Novgorod managed to throw the loop around the rock. He pulled it hard to tighten it securely and then started pulling himself towards the rock.

Then the hard part... As Novgorod had pulled himself to the rock he felt the current whirling around him. He would have to loose the loop and be able to throw it to the next one clinging to the rock at the same time. It was too deep and the current was too strong to give him a chance to even try a foothold on the rock. He splashed for a while, holding firmly on the rope, thinking.

Happily his brain still worked and the next rock was not too far away. Novgorod crept to the upstream side of the rock and let the flow of the current press him towards it. That way he could afford a momentarily two hand work with the rope. Fast he loosened the loop and prepared the rope for the second throw. This time he succeeded with his second try.

As he was pulling himself to the fourth – and last rock he would need to pull himself to as it was just a few feet from the western shore – the rope broke from the knot. Novgorod was thrown to the current. Instinctively he tried to turn upwards and was surprised to feel his feet meet the bottom of the river so fast. Just waist deep here! Doggone it! He made some additional and more elaborate curses over the Easterling rope and took the few steps required to meet the shore.

Wet again, but over the river. Novgorod hanged his clothes to a knocked-down birch and cut some branches from both of them to build a humble shelter. The sun was setting as he went to sleep.