“There!” Parnard cried, as the broken cart came into sight.
Estarfin approached the first body on the path, kneeling down to look closer. It was a red-haired elf clad in leather armour - likely a guard of some kind. Danel nudged the body with her foot.
Two men huddled a short distance from the path, with eyes wide and staring, and trembled at their approach.
“Ahh…” Parnard began slowly, trying to recall words of a seldom-used language, “What happened here?” he asked, keeping his voice as calm and level as possible. He smiled a thin, stretched smile at them, a little too toothy, perhaps. “Parnard,” he said, pointing at himself. Then he pointed at one of the men and raised his eyebrows expectantly, opening his mouth in silent response. But it was no use. The man was cowering. Was he afraid of him? Never in all his days had any Man been fearful of him! “I think his brains are addled,” he said, turning towards Danel. “When this cart wrecked, he must have been flung on his head.”
“No. This was an attack,” she replied, searching the nearby ground, “but there seems to be naught nearby.”
“Oh - of course, Cousin, ” said Parnard, nimbly revising his theory. “Attacked, yes, but by what? Spiders who kill and leave their supper warm on the ground? It seems unlikely.”
Estarfin rose to his feet. “Are these people dressed in the livery of your soldiers?” he asked.
The Wood-Elf, his thoughts elsewhere, said to half to himself, and half to Estarfin, “The man is an imbecile; I do not know his business here. I will not be a party to any mischief!” In an instant Estarfin rushed forward and tripped the man over with his boot, shoving him down to the damp leaves with the hilt of his sword.
“Ai! What is happening now! Did he insult you?” cried Parnard.
“You did this?” Estarfin said in Quenya to the man.
“How is this elleth dead and these two men are not?” Danel asked.
Estarfin kicked the man in his side. “Queta!” he yelled in his face.
When the man resisted, pulling back in fear, Danel laid a light hand on Estarfin’s arm. “He will not understand our words.” Then she addressed the second man in the common tongue, and said: “Tell us what happened here, that a woman of our kind is dead, and you are alive? Speak, quickly, if you would live.”
The man seemed to recognize his peril, and spoke in a quavering voice, “Something came out of the woods - I took my club and swung at it - arrows did no good - “
“Yet you live?” Estarfin said to him, again in Quenya. “You lie, like all of your kind!” he spat out and kicked him. The man curled up in a ball, whimpering.
“He cannot understand you, Estarfin,” said Danel. In response, Estarfin kicked the man harder in the ribs.
Parnard winced at the snapping sound. “I know not what is happening,” he said, eyes wide.
“QUETA!” Estarfin yelled at the man.
“Then die,” said Danel. Estarfin grabbed the man by the hair, and yanking his head backward, drew out a long dagger from his belt.
“He is struck dumb by some affliction - would a murderer have stayed here?” cried Parnard, thinking to stay his hand with sensible speech. “Why would anyone wish to stay here quaking in his boots when - ohhh!” he wailed as Estarfin slashed his dagger across the man’s throat. In ghastly echo, Danel’s sword flashed out, stabbing the second man through the heart. Blood spurted up like a fountain and splattered across the front of Parnard’s doublet. “When help was just a little ways down the path,” he breathed. The swiftness with which the thing occurred, the suddenness of it, left a thrill of terror in the Wood-Elf’s heart. For a moment it seemed to stop beating, then he burst out, “I said not to draw the guards’ attention!”
“I doubt this will trouble them greatly,” said Estarfin, wiping his dagger clean on the leaves.
“But - what is it that they did?”
“They played part in this mischief.”
“They were Men,” Danel answered matter-of-factly, as if he had forgotten this, and marked how little blood flowed out.
“We must go, before the carrion eaters approach,” said Parnard, shaking his head. Unable to endure the place any longer, he was fain to leave, but the two Noldor stopped him, saying that they must bear his kindred back to Felegoth, with all the honours accorded to those who fall in battle, and so that their families could give them a proper burial.
It took longer than expected. One of the elves had been torn to pieces, a livid tint mottling his handsome face. Estarfin took off his long black cloak, and in this they gathered the pieces together, binding all up tightly using a length of twine. Gently did they lift the remains and place them onto the backs of their horses; and when all had been secured, Danel sang a song of farewell. Then they continued on their way to the Elvenking’s Halls in silence, clothing and hands red-stained with blood.
