As nightfall was drawing on, and the mountain valley was almost all in darkness, for the moon had not yet risen, the elves gathered around the campfire and set out thick furs for bedding. Parnard laid out yellow cheese on thick slices of bread beside the fire, dexterously spinning and flipping them around so they would not burn, and when everything was toasted to a turn, he took up the bread and cheese on his forearm, offering it to Estarfin and Danel with a bow. Estarfin ate but little and refused wine, saying that he must keep his wits about him.
Parnard awoke from underneath the pile of furs, hearing Estarfin and Danel discussing the next stage of their journey, and stood up to stretch his long limbs and yawn mightily. Overhead the sky was darkening; the mountaintops were covered with heavy clouds that moved slowly across their wooded sides.
“There may still be patrols, but not a camp,” Danel was saying to Estarfin. “It will take half a day longer if we go that way.”
Estarfin shrugged. “Either way relies on some luck for safe passage.”
“But our luck is more likely to hold in daylight. Parnard?” Danel turned to him. “Do you have a preference?”
“I prefer that we do not lose the path in the snow - again,” laughed the Wood-Elf. “And we shall have plenty of luck, I warrant!”
“I would risk the path nearer the camps,” said Danel, as if she had not heard his reply at all.
“Er…the sun seems to be setting,” observed Parnard.
Danel sighed. “Let us set off, then.”
“Yes! ‘The daylight is fading; we must depart! Away! Away! Thro’ sun and shade,'” Parnard sang out the first stanza of an ancient Nandor traveling ballad, but seeing Danel and Estarfin were already riding away, curtailed his singing, and hopping up on the back of Swan-Hoof, said, “Away! Away! Over the hills and across the snow,” and heedless of any warg, goblin, or orc, trotted after the two Noldor.
“If it strikes, it dies,” he thought to himself, growing grimmer of face. And then his thoughts turned once more to the Greenwood - home! Where the feast-hall tables bristled with row after row of bottles and decanters, and stacks of wooden drinking bowls, and pies of venison and rabbit, soups and fish and giant earthenware dishes holding roasted pig and apples (for Parnard was very hungry) and it was not until Danel had reined in her horse that he stopped cogitating on what was being served for dinner in the Greenwood at that very moment.
“I think they are nearby,” said she.
“Who!” cried Parnard.
“The Falathrim,” she replied, in her most sarcastic tone.
At this Parnard looked very surprised, but only shrugged.
“Cousin, I am of course speaking of Goblins.”
Parnard drew out his sword and looked all around, sniffing the air. “Goblins? I see no Goblins here.”
“Perhaps that is why,” said Danel as they rounded the rocky path and paused. A tall, forbidding figure stood before them. “Well met,” she called out. “Do you remember us from last year, O Guardian of the High Pass?”
“You will not hinder us,” said Estarfin in a low, threatening voice. If the figure heard him, he made no sign.
Parnard dragged out his purse. “How much is the toll,” he sighed, counting only a few coins inside.
“If I command it, we must ride hard. Do not underestimate him; we must slay him swiftly,” Estarfin whispered in Norlomë’s ear in Quenya.
“This is Parnard,” said Danel, turning around in her saddle to point at the Wood-Elf. “He shall not try to kill you.”
Parnard looked up, very surprised to hear his name mentioned in this context, then seeing his sword was still in his hand, re-sheathed it and said, “That is right, ah…” then turned to Danel and whispered, “What is it? Does it have a name?”
“Why do you waste words on it,” Estarfin said to Danel in Quenya.
“He does a service to lesser sorts who take this path,” Danel replied in the ancient tongue.
Parnard looked back and forth in confusion from the strange man-creature (for he had never seen one of the Beorning folk before) to his two companions, who seemed to be having some sort of serious, secret debate, and not liking Estarfin’s tone, suddenly yelled out in a high voice,
“I am Parnard of the Greenwood, a peaceable elf returning to his woodland home who begs safe passage,” and to his relief, the huge man-bear thing nodded, and stood aside to let them pass.
Then the trio resumed their journey with good spirit, and soon found themselves on the eastern side of the Misty Mountains. Here the air was clearer, warmer - and, as they descended down the mountainside, the elves’ keen eyes could make out a dark line far in the distance. On they went, the horses quickening their pace as they scented fresh grass.
“Behold! The tall eaves of the noble Greenwood lie before us!” cried out Parnard, and laughing with joy, slid off Swan-Hoof’s back to run across a field of flowers and delight in their sweet perfume. Then he saw smoke rising up from the chimney of a squat-shaped wattle and daub house and paused, feeling his elation sinking a little. Who lived there?
Then he heard a grunting from behind, and before he could turn around, he was knocked to the ground. His cloak was caught; he was flung up high in the air and then trampled hard into the dirt. Parnard cried out, and rolling to his feet as best he could, laid a hand on his sword, warning that he would do a bitter injury to whatever it was that swept him off his feet, and it was then that he beheld Estarfin holding his bloodied sword over the inert form of one of the largest harts he had ever seen.
“They do not call it the Wilderland for nothing. Ha ha!” Parnard laughed, not quite as vigorously as before, and limped away to prop himself against an oak tree. Nothing seemed broken, he thought as he flexed his arms and legs. Never in his life had he been attacked in such a singular manner by a deer: it must be some sort of portent that the enormous hind had chosen him in particular to trample under foot, but what could it mean? He searched his scanty stock of wisdom for answers. “It must be rutting season in the High Pass,” he concluded, and took off his heavy fur cloak. Its shining white fur lining was too thick to be torn easily by the deer’s antlers, but the back was covered in muddy hoofprints and a long streak of blood seemed to divide the cloak in two halves. Parnard frowned. He had borrowed the garment from Sogadan.
Estarfin began to drag the deer away down the hill. “Wait!” Parnard cried out, and running after him bid him pause so that he could cut off a haunch to roast over the fire.
“No. This meat might be tainted from the Wood. We will not eat it.”
“Oh! Is that why the deer attacked me? Foul sorcery of the wicked Necromancer?”
“Quite likely, Cousin.”
“Well, well, then we will lie down and rest. Soon the stars will rise again, and we shall be all right. We have been very lucky,” said Parnard, rubbing the bump on the back of his head and stretched out on the ground, reaching for his wineskin. “You must forgive me, eldest, for betraying custom and drinking first this time. I need it to adjudge if the pain in my head, or my foot, is worse.”
“We will all drink again when we can celebrate reaching Felgoth, Cousin,” Danel told him. She had long since learned that if Parnard could drink wine, he was all right.
“It is good to be past the snows, at least,” said Estarfin, and wiped blood and gore from his sword.
Danel held her arms wide as if to embrace the sky. “I would make the most of this night of stars before we are underneath the trees’ canopy. It feels - almost as if a curtain has been drawn back - and I can see some things more clearly…I was saying do not hate the Secondborn - but the more I ponder, the less truth I see in them. Do you know what I mean, Parnard?”
Parnard blinked and stared up. The Swordsman swung high overhead. “Indeed I do! They cannot be trusted,” he replied after a few moments.
“Once I thought some fair of heart, but I do not know. I think it unwise to spend any time with them. I do not hate the Secondborn - but they only bring trouble.” Danel turned to Estarfin. “I come to see your arguments more clearly, and feel a fool for nay-saying them.”
“It is not foolish for wishing the world was better than it is.”
“We were created a people apart: thus we should ever remain,” said Parnard with a yawn, and putting away the wineskin, laid his head on his arm.
“Rest if you must: I shall not sleep, not with them so close by,” said Estarfin, and he sat down with his sword across his lap, facing the direction of the strange low house, which was hidden from their sight behind a hillock. Parnard had no such qualms, and fell asleep immediately with his cloak covering his face.
