Elwil ran as far as she could go, sometimes stumbling and falling down on the uneven ground. When the stinging pain in her flank forced her to stop, she leaned her hands on her knees and panted, tasting blood in her mouth. For a moment she thought she would pass out of exhaustion, but when the blurry cloud gradually shifted and her heart was not trying to climb out of her mouth anymore she stretched up and noticed the ruins to her left. She also saw a narrow path, nearly overgrown from lack of use, leading to a crumbling, ancient stone bridge over the brook.
She could not stay where she was. On the other side of the bridge there were more ancient ruins. There was a dilapidated wall that provided at least cover from anyone who might be looking for her from the road.
She crossed the bridge and hid beneath the walls of the ruins, sitting on something that might once have been a capital of a collapsed pillar. Or maybe a pedastal. She knew she could not stay there for long, but she had to rest a little while; just a few moments before she would carry on with her escape.
She took out the little bag she had brought with her and checked it’s contents. There was very little of use in there; very little that would help her against the elements. She had expected to return to Bree in a short while. She had some money, but money would not keep her safe, warm and fed in the wild. Flint and steel. She could make fire at least. If she dared make fire.
Gently she took the parcel from a padded compartment and unwrapped the painting from the cloth. She looked at the little boy who looked so much like herself. Mîwon. Her son. Her dead son. Then she thought about Delioron again. It was the one thing he had allowed her to keep, the only thing he had not destroyed. The picture of her dead son.
She wrapped up the picture and gently put it back in the compartment. She stretched her back and wiped her hair off her face with her fingers. It was glued on her forehead with sweat. She looked around. The only other living creatures she could see were those black birds that continued their wheeling and circling in the air. Their ugly croaks grated her nerves. What were those birds? Crows? Ravens? Elwil had never seen birds like that in Gondor.
She had to get away but she felt so tired, so empty. Drained out of everything but the will to live. How could she get away? Where should she be going? There was no going back to Bree now. The men who served the false Parthadan wanted her dead, and so did those who served the real one, including Delioron. Were they all working together now, or against each other, both sides nevertheless hunting Elwil too? In her current state of mind it did not even occur to her that Delioron might not have been behind the trap at all; the stress and horrors of past days had been too much for her mind to handle; all the lies, all the betrayals, all the sudden violence had injected her with paranoia and now she could not allow herself to believe anything other than that everyone was out to get her.
But she would not let them. Somehow she would survive.
In the west there was the Shire. It had been her desire from the start to visit the Shire, the Brandy Hall of Buckland, the Great Smials, and the Mathom-house. As one of the very few Gondorian scholars of the hobbits Elwil knew more about the creatures than most people down south, but she had never seen those places with her own eyes, she had only read about them.
She would go to the Shire. The hobbits were shy, gentle creatures; they would not turn their backs on a person in need. They would help her, protect her, give her food and shelter. But first she would have to get there, and it was a long way from Bree to the Shire. About fifty miles to the Brandywine Bridge. She would have to survive at least one night out in the wild, perhaps two, with no food, water, or shelter. It would be a harsh trek, the hardest thing she’d ever had to do in her life, but she would make it. She had to.
But there was no time to waste, so after a while Elwil stood up and started walking along the crumbling walls of the ruins, heading approximately northwest. She was hungry, but there was no way for her to hunt anything, and it was too late in the autumn for most fruits to grow. She tried to keep her eyes open for any winter berries, but she could not waste time to forage. The sun would set soon and she had to get as far from Bree as possible and find a sheltered place to spend the night before it got too dark to see.
By sundown she arrived at the edge of a wooded dale, still bordered by partially collapsed wall on the southern side. It was getting too dark to see well, and she tripped onto a stone and tumbled down the slope. It was time to find a place to camp for the night. There was not much to protect her from the elements; only the crowns of the trees gave shelter against the winds and rains and the crumbling walls against prying eyes from the Great East Road, which was not far to the south. She had nothing to eat and she could not afford to sleep, but she had to stop for the night.
Darkness in the wild, out of the artificial light of cities and towns, is truly dark. You can not see your own hand in a dark forest at night, and the night has a thousand eyes. Those eyes can all see better than you in the dark and they are all watching you, hungry. The only thing that scares the eyes is fire.
Elwil spent a couple of hours collecting firewood and birch bark to make fire once she had found a good place to spend the night. She would have to stay awake and keep the fire burning. The nights were very cold this late in the year. If she fell asleep, she risked freezing to death or getting eaten by wild animals. Or both.
Later in the night it started raining. It was very hard to keep the fire burning when it was raining and the firewood was getting wet. The tree crowns didn’t give much protection at all. But at least it gave her something to do. At least she could collect the raindrops and drink it. At least it kept her too busy to think about how hungry she was, how far away the morning.
It kept her from hearing the sounds of boots crunching against the ground, and the occasional snort of a horse.
Something was approaching in the dark. Something predatory.
