The Trollshaws
For a heartbeat Cadhrion could not move. The world seemed to tilt beneath him, as if the very roots of the Trollshaws recoiled from what had been wrought.
“Which way?” he demanded, forcing steel into his voice.
Faeleth pointed into the dark between the boles of ancient oak and ash. “Eastward. Toward the old ruins by the river. He walked as one led… not as one leading.”
Cadhrion rose at once, slinging his bow across his back and tightening his grip upon his blade. The camp lay in ruin, embers scattered, bedrolls torn, the night’s fragile peace shattered like glass. The remaining Elf of their company knelt beside the fallen, whispering a soft lament in Sindarin, though his voice trembled.
“Stay,” Cadhrion ordered him. “Guard the dead. Should we fail, bear word to Imladris.”
At the name of Imladris a pang struck his heart, sharp as any spear. He had walked beneath its golden roofs and listened to the music of its fountains. To think of Fangion, steady, unyielding Fangion, bringing corruption to that haven was unthinkable. Yet unthinkable things were abroad in Middle-earth.
Faeleth fell into step beside him despite the wound at her side. “You should not go alone.”
“Nor should you,” he replied, though he did not bid her return.
They moved swiftly, scarcely stirring the fallen leaves. The forest, once alive with subtle murmurings, now lay hushed and watchful. A pale mist had crept between the trunks, coiling low along the ground like a living thing. Soon they came upon signs of passage: crushed bracken, a smear of dark blood upon bark, and deeper still the imprint of something unnatural.
It was no boot-print nor the claw of any beast known to them. The mark sank into the earth as though the soil itself had recoiled. “Valar preserve us,” Faeleth breathed.
Before them rose the broken remnants of an ancient watchtower, its stones half-swallowed by ivy and time. Once it had guarded the road; now it stood as a hollow tooth against the sky. From within its crumbled archway there pulsed a dim, sickly light, green as corpse-fire. A voice echoed faintly from within, it was not Fangion’s voice.
Cadhrion felt it then: the same probing weight that had plagued his comrade earlier, pressing at his thoughts, seeking entry. Whispers curled at the edge of his mind in Black Speech, promising power, promising understanding. He drew a steadying breath and stepped through the arch. Within the ruin’s heart stood Fangion, or what remained of him.
He knelt before the stone coffin, now upright though its lid lay shattered. The corpse stood beside him, no longer inert. Its limbs had straightened, though the flesh still hung in ragged strips. In the hollow sockets of its skull burned twin embers of fell light. Runes carved upon the coffin flared and dimmed in slow rhythm, like the breathing of some great beast.
Fangion’s hood had fallen back. His eyes, once keen and clear, now mirrored the corpse’s glow. His lips moved in chant, repeating syllables older than the kingdoms of Men.
“Fangion!” Cadhrion called. The chanting faltered, slowly, Fangion turned.
For an instant, only an instant, recognition flickered in his gaze. Pain followed it, sharp and lucid. “Run,” he rasped. “It binds…”
The corpse’s clawed hand closed about his shoulder. Fangion convulsed, the words dying in his throat as the ember-light flared brighter.
Faeleth loosed an arrow.
It flew true, striking the creature’s chest. Yet instead of piercing, the shaft blackened and withered, falling as ash before it touched the ground. A hollow laugh issued from the thing’s twisted jaw, though its mouth did not move.
Cadhrion advanced despite the dread clawing at his spirit. He felt then that this was no mere wight conjured by Angmarim sorcery. Something older stirred within it, something that had slept beneath stone and rune until foolish hands had disturbed its rest.
The runes upon the coffin shifted, their glow intensifying. Cadhrion’s eyes widened as recognition dawned, not of the full script, but of a single word repeated again and again. A name, or some form of summons. He could not say.
The corpse raised its other hand. The mist beyond the ruin thickened, seeping inward. Shadows stretched unnaturally long, writhing across broken stone. Fangion cried out once, a sound of torment, and then fell silent.
“Break the runes!” Cadhrion shouted.
Faeleth understood. Though wounded, she darted forward, blade flashing. She struck at the carved symbols along the coffin’s rim. Stone split beneath elven steel, and where the runes were marred their light guttered. The creature recoiled as if struck.
Cadhrion seized the moment. He cast aside sword for bow, drawing an arrow fletched in white, a gift from the armourers of Lothlórien, kept in reserve for dire need. Whispering a plea to Elbereth beneath his breath, he loosed. This time the arrow did not falter.
It struck the creature’s eye. A scream tore through the ruin, shattering what little glass yet clung to the tower’s windows. The green light flickered wildly. Fangion collapsed forward onto the stones.
The corpse staggered, its form unraveling like smoke caught in wind. Yet even as it faded, its ember gaze fixed upon Cadhrion with terrible clarity. The whispers ceased and the mist withdrew.
And with a final hiss, the creature dissolved into nothingness, leaving only the cracked coffin and silence in its wake.
Cadhrion rushed to Fangion’s side. His mentor yet lived, though his breath came shallow and uneven.
Faeleth knelt beside them, her hand trembling upon Fangion’s brow. “Is it ended?”
“For now,” Cadhrion answered.
He looked to the ruined runes, many shattered, some still faintly aglow.
“No,” he amended softly. “Not ended. Merely begun.”
Far off, beyond the dark canopy of the Trollshaws, thunder rolled though no storm gathered. And in places unseen, other eyes opened to a call that had almost been completed. Cadhrion felt it in his bones. Whatever oath had bound the Angmarim to silence, whatever name had been carved upon that stone, it had not been meant for a single corpse alone.
The dead had stirred once. They would stir again.
