Fragments of Memory



The scout licked his dry lips as he shifted up, leaning back against his bedroll. He welcomed the fluid put to his lips – warm, yet refreshing, and a subtle hint of floral sweetness. Energy returned to him as the warmth of the fluid spread throughout his body.

As he blinked, images around him focused: Ivorel to his left looking concerned, a smiling elleth to his right dabbing a moist cloth around his brow, and another dark-haired stranger looking intently at him. He exhaled deeply, feeling relieved. Last he remembered, he had been stumbling through the forest, one hand leaning against the cliff wall for support, searching for Gladiel and the rest of the orc party. He guessed that these strangers, or perhaps Ivorel, had found him. But Gladiel…

“We were hoping you could tell us what happened. Anything you could remember would aid us in looking for your friend.” The dark-haired ellon sitting in front of him wore impressive armour and the fire at his back cast a dark shadow before him. His silhouette was outlined by the firelight, but it was hard to make out his features, even during the last couple minutes that he had started conversing with him.

“We were separated. I could not find her after they all disappeared!” His words came out in a jumbled rush. Anything to help them find Gladiel…and the prisoner. Why couldn’t he remember more? “I looked for her until I could no longer.” What else? He wracked his mind. “East of here.” The location…that would be helpful. This, at least, he managed to bite out as a flare of pain returned in his arm. The elleth beside him pressed a cooling salve to his arm and he breathed again as the pain numbed and receded slowly.

Threads of unconnected thoughts criss-crossed his mind like dusty cobwebs, clouding the clarity of what he wanted to convey. Gladiel and he had found the orc party everyone was searching for. They had followed stealthily until the right time and meant to strike, freeing the Tûrdirith’s daughter…but they had failed. The moment they had chosen to attack had been the same one that the orcs had chosen to regroup with another orc party. They were quickly outnumbered and the fight turned against them; they were made prisoners…Dol Guldur was their fate, they soon learned. Yet, these orcs had been unwise, skirting too close to the Scuttledells in an attempt to avoid elven encampments. They were unfamiliar with the lairs of the spiders, which were constantly morphing with newly spun webs blocking old paths and creating new treacherous tunnels.

“How many spiders? And where?” he heard another voice ask from behind the dark-haired ellon.

Not many. There had not been many. Had he not already said that? He panicked as his thoughts whirled.

“I need you to remain calm, Glorhir. Can you do that? You were tracking a group of orcs, when you were attacked by spiders, yes? Only you and your friend were ambushed, or was the orc party overtaken by them as well?”

“East, it was east,” he repeated, swallowing. He hoped he made sense. “There were none more than there were orcs, but the orcs were afraid.” Yes, they had scattered in fear, dropping their prisoners and raising their weapons against the spiders that had descended upon them. Gladiel and he had taken the chaos of the moment to try and escape their captors, fighting…but there were too many orcs frantically hacking at spiders, spiders lunging at orcs. The prisoner’s limp form had been cast haphazardly on the ground near a cliff wall, and he tried to cut his way towards her until he felt a searing pain in his arm. The scene before him soon grew out of focus. Blurs of dark shapes clashed together amongst the trees. Some of them fell to the ground, unmoving. Soon, the cluster of dark figures thinned and he saw the lesser forms scattering away as the larger ones chased after them.

Glorhir blinked to clear his thoughts.

“Thank you. Rest now, you have done enough. We will search for your friend.”

Did he tell them enough? Had his words represented the tumult of his thoughts? Despite his concerns that the elves had not grasped his meaning, Glorhir succumbed to the fatigue caused by blood loss and let himself be reassured by the kind ellon’s promise. He exhaled with relief and let the elleth in grey ease him back onto his bedroll.