Coming hither from the ruined wood of Taur Morvith, eluding the orcish outposts under cover of the pervading darkness, we crossed into the Vale of Ash, and passed round its western side, the tower being on the hilltop in the eastern end of the wood. In Mithechad we ate and rested, and in the morning, I wandered around the camp, talking with the soldiers, and asking for report about the lands around, but our purpose I revealed not, it being a wish of the Lady Danel that our errand remain a secret. Very unsafe it is to walk here, they all told me, which was not news.
Then one of the folk of Mithechad came up and handed me a letter, and said that the Lady Danel left it for her friends before departing during the night, but where she went nobody knew. Her letter mentioned this, and that she left the camp, alone, to find her father’s sword. Hereupon we set out to find her, but as the half-gloom faded and night fell, there was still no sign of the Lady Danel. Below us, down the barren land a little was an old place in ruins, its name long forgotten, here and there a stretch of scant coarse weeds poking out of the broken foundations. Serpents dwell within the holes made in the stones, that none of my people durst approach nearer to it than half a league, excepting during the winter, when the serpents never stir out of their holes.
Perhaps she is where our eyes cannot see, I fretted as I searched, for there are those things in the wood that leave no trace of their prey, not even a gnawed finger-bone. Then a howl of a wild beast floated through the dismal dark, a howl of challenge, and it was answered. A clear voice, fearless and strong called out in defiance, and running towards this, down to that evil place my people call the Warg Pit, we found Lady Danel beset by a pack of these foul beasts that surrounded her, and gaped upon her with mouths red and ravening. Her blade dripped with their blood, and I do not think anyone was more startled than the lady herself at my loud cry of astonishment and alarm at her predicament: the beasts were about to tear her into pieces! I rushed down and hewed the warg before me, and Lord Belegos felled many with his arrows, and we did not stop until all were dead; not a single one escaped. As Master Elloen tended to her wound, I began to lecture the lady, and told her that she is lucky she still had two feet to walk upon, but she looked so weary and melancholic that I refrained from saying anything more. She is become very reckless in her desire to regain her father’s treasured sword. Her setting out alone displeased the Lord Estarfin, though he spoke nothing against it, which did surprise me. He is not the same warrior that left Imladris, and I wonder if this is a mark of his illness.
But we are all changed, methinks, by this journey, and as we are no longer a numerous people, and we cannot clear the place out by force of arms, we must slink in the shadows to chase this rumour of a sword long missing. We are fools for leaving the Valley unsatisfied, unhappy, discontent. I was not so when I left it, but I am made so now. The sword that we seek must be a very fine sword, no doubt. Are there no other swords in the world but this one? And if, by some strange peradventure, the lady doth lay hold of it, then will this sweeten her cup? Fine swords are fine things for fine folk, but if we are relying on finery, we are relying on vanity. Or will she take it up, if we find the sword, and say, I do not see that it will suit me. Then our errand will be in vain. Well, a little folly outweighs wisdom, and what a loss it will be for us if what we do is in vain, if Lady Danel doth lay hold of this fabled sword, and it is not enough! Our lives are not things to throw away and hasten to an end, as she almost did by setting out alone to find her way inside the tower. We must not be foolhardy, but shrewd as snakes, and clothe ourselves with the filthy rags that we plundered from the usurping Men. Then the spirits will mutter and wail, and the Warg shall cry and howl, but it shall avail them not, for we shall pass unnoticed, and take the secret way the Lady discovered.
