The trek through the Drúadan forest to the Mouths of Entwash had been long and arduous. Radawen had rummaged through Gulim’s saddlebags and found the letter supposedly written by the dwarven King Thráin II himself, but apart from the rare opportunity to study a letter written in Khuzdûl alphabet she had not managed to get much out of it. She had not had a lot of opportunities to research the letter and its contents remained indecipherable to her.
Radawen had appropriated Gulim’s pony and tied it to Rohiril’s saddle with a rope. She had never heard Gulim call the animal by any name so she had not named it either. She took turns riding both ponies so they got plenty of rest, allowing Radawen to make progress faster.
The map of Gondor and Rohan she had taken from the Houses of Lore was old and vastly inaccurate, but following the Great West Road had not been difficult at all. After Gulim’s death there had been no other attacks or incidents in the Drúadan forest, but Radawen had been immensely relieved when she had finally emerged out of the woods into sunlight in the area marked in the map as the Beacon Hills. She could see Amon Dîn, a rocky and barren hill standing out against the southern sky, isolated from the heavily wooded hills of the forest. After the oppressive green darkness and sleepless nights in the Drúadan forest Radawen had been able to breathe easy for the first time in days.
A few days later, after passing the beacon of Min-Rimmon, Radawen had decided to follow a small road forking northwards from the Great West Road. The unpaved road was barely more than a dirt track, and it was not depicted in the map. The road had led her to a small hamlet named Bâr Nadhron by it’s occupants, a few dozen farmers and their families. Bâr Nadhron had never had any visitors from Minas Tirith before, and the sudden appearance of the tall, red-headed beauty caused quite a stir upon the hamlet. Radawen’s overnight stay in Bâr Nadhron had upset the womenfolk, but the men did not seem to mind her. They had told her that she would find the delta known as the Mouths of Entwash not far north from Bâr Nadhron and that the water on the river channels was shallow enough to wade across them on foot, but it baffled them why anyone in their right mind would want to venture onto that reedy, swampy marshland, and tried to advise her against it. The ground was very boggy this time of year and there was a very real danger of drowning into a quagmire, not to mention freezing to death.
According to the map Amon Hen was located on the other side of the delta, more or less straight north of Bâr Nadhron. If she could only cross the Mouths of Entwash, finding the hill should be relatively easy. She could follow the mighty Anduin until she came to the Falls of Rauros, and there, on the western shore of the lake Nen Hithoel, she would find Amon Hen – if the map was accurate.
Crossing the Mouths of Entwash had taken her several days. The journey had been one of the most unpleasant and difficult ordeals Radawen had ever had to endure in her life. The water on the channels was shallow and never rose above her hips, but it was winter and the water was freezing cold. The soil was muddy and sucked onto her boots like the ground was trying to swallow her whole. One time she had lost a boot to a boghole and had to struggle for an hour to yank the boot out of the muddy quagmire. Losing a boot this time of year would have cost her a leg and most likely her life as well, for the nearest human settlement was leagues away. When she had finally managed to salvage the boot, her left foot had already turned bluish and her toes had gone numb with cold. Wading through jungles of tall, man-sized reeds made her lose her sense of direction several times.
But she had made it across eventually. Radawen cut a wild, almost feral figure in her dirty, muddy and ragged dark green winter-cloak, hood drawn over her head, walking two ponies along the banks of Anduin in the last light of the setting sun. She could see and hear the Falls of Rauros rushing in the distance, but she would not be able to reach the falls tonight. She would have to camp at least one more time before reaching her final destination – Amon Hen, and whatever she would find there.
Would Thráin II really be there – the legendary dwarven King, alive and in flesh?
What if there was nothing at all for her to find but old, decaying ruins? Somehow this prospect scared her more than anything else after all she had already endured to get there. What if it had all been for naught – a fool’s errand after all? Had she been a fool for embarking upon this journey at the behest of a nutty old dwarf?
”Stop right there.”
Radawen blinked. Who had spoken? It was a soft, thin, rather high-pitched voice speaking in Westron, but Radawen could have sworn that the accent she had heard was similar to Gulim’s. She cursed. She had been daydreaming again and forgotten to take notice of her surroundings. The long, tiresome and monotonous journey alone through the wilderness had worn her out and dulled her mind.
She blinked again and spotted a figure standing in front of her maybe fifty feet away in the fading light of the evening. It was a very short and stocky figure with bright blue eyes, ginger beard and fiercely curling mustache. A dwarf, wielding a fearsome-looking double-headed battleaxe in his right hand.
