Nimuviel’s Diary: Pages 17 – 20

Iavas day 49, Weather Hills The most extraordinary things have passed. Two days after my last entry and some way further to the east, I chanced upon a dwarf with the most fiery red beard I have ever seen in my life. He was carrying some leather bags around, almost as big as he, and was muttering to himself and would never have noticed my presence if I had not made myself known to him. I approached him cautiously, though not carrying my weapons in hand, for I know that to introduce oneself to a stranger at the point of a dagger may do much more harm than good in a strange land, and greeted him in the tongue of Men, for I do not know that of the Naugrim. He turned to me with some degree of surprise, though his attitude was not hostile when he saw my shape and knew me to be no enemy, and he greeted me too and told me his name, which was Gorgan Crimsonbeard. I then gave him mine, and he took me to his camp so that we might exchange food and news, and I helped him carry one of his bags. At his camp, we were met by four others of his folk, and their names were Thosur, Khlasi, Kím and Bors. They were warriors, for they were clad in the heavy iron that their kin are so good at casting – but not Gorgan, who was wearing a robe in hues of green and yellow – and they, too, carried bags with them, though these were not so large as the ones that Gorgan and I carried thence. They asked me after my business and whether I was alone, and I told them, for they were kind to me and shared their food and ale with me. Then I asked their business, and they told me what it was: they were with a larger group of dwarves and were delving in the ruins some ways further to the south and east of where we were, and had found both stores of uncut jewels and a large administration that dated back many years. It had been a dwarf settlement of old and now they intended to delve and carry back to their halls what had been dug up by their ancestors. But goblins had interfered and had attacked the party at the delving site, and had spilled much blood and run away with sacks full of jewels and valuables. Now these dwarves with me had been sent out to follow them and take back what was theirs. They had found some things in their pursuit that the goblins had dropped in their flight: the paperwork, that they evidently deemed to be of no value, and which Gorgan had been collecting when I met him, and some sacks of uncut jewels, that are worth less for their unpolished shape. They told me that they intended to pursue them to the ruins of Minas Eiriol, there to take by force what had been taken from them before. Upon hearing this, I offered them my aid, for it would allow me to enter these ruins under the safety of a larger party – and one skilled in battle as well – and because I felt that they had been wronged and wished to help them get back what was theirs. We rested a night and set out for Minas Eiriol early on the following day, and reached the western entrance to the ruins the same evening. It was a cleft hidden in the rock wall, but the dwarves knew to find it nonetheless, and we went up some old steps and hid the bags that they had reclaimed between some rocks. We had our food by the last rays of the sun and rested some hours until the light of Anor was truly gone from the sky, for the dwarves wished to enter the place under cover of darkness. The four warriors urged me to stay behind them together with Gorgan, for he was not skilled in battle but in healing, and my arrows would strike with greater force from a longer distance, while they needed space to swing their axes and their shields. So it passed that Thosur, Khlasi, Kím and Bors entered the ruins first and Gorgan and myself some way behind them, and by the light of Ithil’s half sickle we saw that the ruins on this side consisted of many rooms with crumbled walls, linked together by narrows aisles and bridges, and when we looked down the bridges we saw that beneath us were deep and sheer cliffs, and in the darkness that stretched out beneath us we could see the cobwebs that were the homes of hundreds upon hundreds of spiders, and the stench of their rotten preys met us even up where we were. The first two rooms only held two goblins each, and Thosur and Khlasi made away with them before they could sound the alarm. Then the next space was a long aisle, and goblins walked it from one end to the other, so that our four warrior stormed in to engage with those closest to us, and I could shoot the ones at the other end with my bow, for the aisle had no roof so my arrows could fly freely. In this manner we made our way through the entire complex, and whenever we crossed a bridge we dropped the bodies of the dead goblins over the edge, so that if enemies came in behind us they would not be alarmed except by the quiet in those rooms that would normally be filled with goblins, and when we dropped the dead bodies into the depths the spiders came scurried towards them quickly and started to weave their nasty webs around the bloody flesh of the fallen. We passed a number of rooms, and crossed two very long bridges that but hardly seemed able to support the weight of the five dwarves, and Gorgan fretted much, for he feared that they would all fall to their deaths before they had even reached the centre of the place. Then we came to a large fort that was erected in a square in the middle of the ruins, and it was several stories high and guarded by many goblin guards, and all of them bearing an image of a white hand upon their armour or their helmets or shields. Khlasi and Kím were most eager to go in, for they suspected that their treasure must certainly be held in a place this heavily guarded, but Bors and Thosur held them back and suggested to us that the goblins’ leader would be there as well as their gemstones, and he would be stronger and fiercer than any adversary we had met so far, and likely be surrounded by other strong guardsmen. Then Gorgan came up with a plan, and suggested that we set fire to one of the smaller watchtowers, so as to distract them and divert the attention of the greater horde of the goblins away from the fortress itself. It was decided that Gorgan and I should climb some way up an old wall, from there to shoot an arrow unto the wooden tower, so that it would catch fire. And this we did: Gorgan had some flammable oils with him, and we attached them to the tip of my arrow in a small leather pouch, and we climbed up the wall while the others watched our back. The goblins never saw us up there, for it was now in the middle of the night and with so many campfires burning around us we were able to pass them all unnoticed. Then when we were up on the wall, Gorgan made some sparks with his flint box and we set fire to the pouch, and I shot it and it landed halfway into the watchtower, which immediately caught fire. It took a few moments for the goblins to realise it, though, so that Gorgan and I were safely back on the ground with the others before they sounded the alarm, and we were all able to make our way towards the entrance of the fortress while most of the guards hurried here and there in a panic to douse the flames. We entered the fortress and for a while it was very quiet. But when we started to climb the higher grounds of the hill upon which it was built, we noticed a great fire in the centre of the fort, and when we reached it we saw that the goblin leader sat by it together with some of this guardsmen, amid sacks upon sacks of gold and treasure. And our warriors thought not for a moment but stormed in! They raised their axes and banged them on their shields, then ran towards the enemy with a terrible war cry, and stood back with Gorgan and tried to fire my arrows but dared not for most of the duration of the fight for fear that I would hit one of our own. Khlasi gave the goblin leader a blow on the head with the blunt end of his axe, and he fell down and lay stunned for some time, while our warriors dealt with his guardsmen. Then finally he came to and ran for Khlasi with his sword raised, but by this time I had found a better position along the wall and was able to fire an arrow at him, and it hit him in the calf so that it slowed his pace, and the dwarves saw him in time and took him down together before he could bring any harm to us. Of course, at that moment we were in the centre of the goblin fortress surrounded by the dwarves’ gemstones and treasures, and the dwarves’ attention diverted to their riches straight after the direct dangers had been dealt with. They started to gather as many things as they could possible carry, and I began to worry somewhat because there were still vast numbers of goblins without, and the dwarves would not be able to fight them well if they had their hands full of gemstones. But they gathered all they could and took sacksful of precious things upon their backs, and back we went the way we’d come. Before we reached the entrance to the fortress again, Kím pointed out a narrow passage he had noticed on our way in, and we took the passage and found a dark way that led us out of the ruins via the north and east. But the dwarves decided that it was not enough for us to disappear into the night. So we put the sacks down for a moment and Khlasi and Thosur went back into the fortress, and they took torches and set fire to the fort before coming back to us. And when they crossed the last bridge that led out of the ruins of Minas Eiriol, they threw their last torches down so that the spiderwebs far, far beneath us caught fire, and we could see the foul creatures skitter away in an attempt to find safety; but there was none to be had, for their webs burnt quickly. We picked up our sacks again and carried the treasures to our camp, where we had buried the other sacks between the rocks. By this time we could see the glow of dawn beyond the hills in the east and we decided it better to lay low for a while, so we hid between the outcroppings of rocks and lay still for the rest of the day that followed, and we could hear the tumult in the ruins of Minas Eiriol, and could see the black clouds of smoke for most of the day. We rose again when night had fallen and set to bringing the treasures back to the settlement of the dwarves. Our progress was slow, for we had so many things to carry, so that we had to stop again at dawn to hide and to rest, and had to continue our journey the night that followed. Then finally we reached their settlement halfway through the morning, and their friends and brothers were most joyed to see them again, and with so many treasures recovered as well. They were even more pleased to hear our story and how we slay many of the goblins and set fire to their fortress, for it gave them the satisfaction of revenge for the wrong that the goblins had done them earlier. We then rested a few hours and in the evening we had a small feast, and the dwarves generously shared their food and their drink with me, and the group was so merry that I smiled more that evening than I have done these past two seasons together. Yesterday I looked over a few maps with them and they drew the White Hand encampments on it for me, so that I may take them home to show to my Company. I feel confident now that I may return to them, for I have completed my Task and helped my dwarf friends – for feel I may call them that – and think that Aldalin and Liwurien and all the others can be proud of me for it.