Lathrandir had slipped past the Gauredan scouts and into their camp with ease, but the tunnels were proving more difficult. He'd crept up, down, left, right, the pitch-black passages crossing and circling back on themselves, and he was no longer entirely sure which way the entrance lay.
So far he'd been lucky--though there seemed to be a Gauredan around every corner, he'd encountered no wolves, which would have easily sniffed him out. Indeed, he'd taken every Gauredan so far by surprise, slipping a knife or an arrow in their throats before they could sound the alarm--
There was a howl, just behind him.
He froze.
One howl was joined by another--and another. And soon there was an echoing chorus, coming from everywhere at once it seemed, and the sound of pounding paws and running feet.
He ran.
Something caught his boot-heel. He stumbled but kept moving, half-falling and half-running down the rank, steep tunnel. He turned a corner and found himself on a ledge, facing one of the Gauredan shaman.
The shaman raised his staff. Three wolves burst out of the tunnel behind him. He was trapped.
Lathrandir flung himself down as the wolves leaped, and rolled off the ledge into the blackness below.
It was a short fall into a shallow pool. He landed hard on his left hip, felt something crack against his skull. Dizzy, he staggered to his feet.
He remembered this--it was the cavern he'd come in through. The entrance wouldn't be far, but it was surely guarded against his escape.
Sure enough, as he limped through a low arch, he found himself facing two more scouts. He put an arrow through one before it reached him, but then the second was on him, snarling and clawing. They grappled--he felt claws, or something like it, graze his side. Lathrandir twisted, dropped, and slipped out of its grasp--through the tunnel mouths and out into the main encampment.
Howls and cries as they spotted him. Blindly, he ran. There were far more than he'd expected--more than he'd anticipated.
Dodging and weaving among the pines, he plowed down the steep slope, heading east towards the Bruinen. Eventually the cries behind him faded. They wouldn't give up, surely, unless--
He saw lights up ahead--the fires of Echad Candelleth.
***
"...forty or fifty, by my count," Lathrandir told the other scouts.
One chuckled and handed him a flask. "I thought you said your time in the Northern Downs had honed your skills, not dulled it."
"Next time," another said, "don't go alone."
Lathrandir felt his jaw tighten, but he nodded.
"Believe me," he said, "I've no desire to go back there, in any company."
