[Ealasaide]

Kaldir

Left behind by the others, Kaldir followed at a distance, his pale blue eyes following the movements of both the young stranger he suspected of lying to Mrs. Banks and of the two Rangers, Rauthain and Amandur. He pretended not to notice when the two Rangers suddenly hustled the young man off the path into a rhododendron thicket, but the significance of their action was not lost on him. Obviously, his former brethren felt some of the same suspicions he did and, perhaps luckily for the young man, had decided to address their concerns forthwith, rather than leave the fellow for Kaldir to question on his own. Kaldir had noticed as the stranger passed him on the walkway that the young man's footprints matched those he had been tracking alongside Naiore's since they had left Chetwood, and, Kaldir imagined, that fact had not been lost on the Rangers either.

He paused on the walkway, fighting the temptation to listen in on the tete-a-tete taking place within the rhododendron thicket. Finally, deciding against it, he turned away and walked back in the direction of the stairs and the battlefield. Whatever they were talking about in there was Ranger business, something he had turned his back on years ago in favor of business of his own. While it might be to his advantage to know what was discussed, he still felt a peculiar sort of loyalty to his former brethren. Let them handle their affairs. After all, where Naiore was concerned, they were all basically on the same side. He could always corner the fellow later for a chat of his own. In the meantime, Kaldir felt the urge to go back to the battlefield. His head had cleared somewhat and there were things he needed to look into, namely the whereabouts of his missing sword and horse. He looked down at the bloody orc's blade in his hand. It would not do to enter Imladris carrying the sword of an orc, even a slain one.

The slash across his chest and shoulder had stopped bleeding, but continued to throb with a dull ache. He found the pain helped him to concentrate, keeping him alert, his senses on edge. Besides the matter of his missing belongings, he also wanted to see Naiore's tracks. Elven trackers had no doubt already found them and gone off in pursuit of her, but Kaldir felt a need to look at them himself, to see where she had gone once she had leapt down from the rock shelf upon which he had seen her standing. Her forces scattered and slain, anyone else but Naiore might have fled the area, but Kaldir knew her too well. She still had unfinished business. She might lie low, but she would not be far off. He knew that she would strike again, but where and how remained to be seen.

He continued on down the stairs, stepping out of the way of the elves who still worked at retrieving their dead and wounded from the field of battle. Once he reached the bottom of the stairs, it did not take him long to locate his sword where he had dropped it, half-concealed under the corpse of a stout orc. He picked it up and, giving the blade a quick wipe, slid it back into its scabbard. As for the orcish blade he had picked up when he had lost his own, he added it to the pile of orcish armor and weapons that the elves had begun to assemble near the ford. Those things would be disposed of later on the far side of the river, along with the bodies of the dead orcs, as soon as it was deemed safe enough to cross the river.

Having retrieved his sword, Kaldir walked back once more in the direction of the stair, hoping to pick up the trail of his horse, Nico. Not only was the gray stallion a very good horse, but strapped to the horse's back were most of Kaldir's worldly goods, including everything he owned that wasn't physically attached to his person. While there was nothing of any particular monetary value in Kaldir's missing pack, it did contain all of his extra clothes and traveling supplies, some items of which would be much missed and very hard to replace. Studying the ground, Kaldir criss-crossed the part of the battlefield in which he could last remember seeing his horse, but the ground had been too badly disturbed and what tracks could be seen were unclear. Shaking his head, he walked to the edge of the field. Placing two fingers in his mouth, he whistled loudly, but there was no answering whinny from Nico. He waited a short while, then tried again, but was again greeted only by silence.

"Strange," he said aloud. "He's always come before." He looked around the emptying battlefield again, but there were no dead horses or even any hints of dappled gray to be seen in the shadows. The pack pony who had carried Mrs. Banks so faithfully across the countryside could be seen wandering about a short distance downstream, but there was no sign of Kaldir's own horse. Plainly put, the animal had vanished. Puzzled, Kaldir walked over and picked up the trailing reins of the pack pony and led the sturdy little animal back toward the stairs.

Tying the pony to a tree near the foot of the stair, he left it there and moved on to the rocks where Naiore had been standing. For the second time that morning, he came away disappointed. If she had left any tracks at all, they had been all but destroyed by the chaotic flight of the orcs. With no trails to follow, Kaldir decided it was time to return to the stair and the entrance to Imladris. There was a time when he might have simply taken his sword and the supplies still strapped to the pack pony and gone on his way, but things had changed with Kaldir. There were a number of people within the Elven refuge that he needed to speak with, many issues that needed to be resolved. And there was still the matter of that young fellow Amandur and Rauthain had hauled off into the rhododendron patch. If he had been traveling with Naiore, as Kaldir strongly suspected he had, then the two of them would have quite a lot to talk about as well.

In the meantime, though, bleeding or not, he would have to attend the wound to his chest. While the wound itself was not life-threatening by any stretch, more messy and inconvenient than anything, the danger of infection was ever-present. It would have to be treated. Taking one final look around for his missing horse, Kaldir returned to the stair and for the second time began the ascent toward Imladris, this time bearing his own sword and leading the little brown pack pony behind him.