The elves splashed their way across the frosty fen, over mud and through waist-high water. Unlike the nimble hobbit they followed, Estarfin wore only his long shirt, and soon his bare feet were aching and heavy, the blood congealing in them as his veins turned to ice, the big muscles of his legs shaking with the effort of putting one foot in front of the other. He clenched his square jaw to keep his teeth from clacking together, knowing that if he fell into the mire he would be unable to get up again.
Alfwread halted. There it was ahead of them, the big old oak. He crept forward, setting the half-eaten chicken pie on a root, and pointed at the base of the juniper bush with a look of triumph. This was the place where he had left the raggedy elf.
Estarfin suspected trouble. “Show yourself,” he declared in Quenya to the bush, and drawing his sword, somewhat wobbly, readied the blade to stab. The little bog-trotter turned pale and pelted away, running as fast as his feet could carry him across the countryside, and that was the last the elves ever saw of the River-hobbit.
The sudden disappearance of their halfling guide went entirely unnoticed by the elves, who were still peering ahead. “You are outnumbered, and outclassed,” warned Danel, now poised on the balls of her feet, and feeling ready for anything. Estarfin nodded to her. In unison they raised their weapons, and the big Noldo crashed forward.
“Estarfin, hold!” she cried. “It is Parnard!”
The Wood-elf snorted awake at hearing his name called. A thrill of fear ran through him, and upon seeing two dark figures looming over him, made an unintelligible gasp, scrambled to his feet, and ran off.
He ran as far as he thought was best, considering that it was dark and he had no idea where he was going. He stopped short, panting, and taking cover behind a boulder, listened to his name being called, over and over again. It sounded like Danel!
“Parnard, please do not run,” said the voice.
“Who is there?” he yelled.
“It is Danel…oh, hurry! This way, Parnard!”
Parnard peeked out from the rock. “Stay where you are! You cannot fool me!”
“Are you unhurt?” The voice was closer.
“Stay back, fiendish female!”
Danel sighed. “Very well, but Estarfin is sitting over here, freezing. Come, quickly! I need your help.”
Parnard tossed his hair back. “‘Estarfin’, is it? Ha! What tricks you have played upon me! I shall not be your unwitting dupe!” Yet he stepped out from his place of concealment and crept closer, saying, “I have two eyes on you now.”
“We play no tricks. I am glad we found you, but now I must find a way to warm Estarfin before he freezes. Do you need your coat?”
“What! Estarfin freezes? Here? Now?”
“Do you not recall last autumn, when he swam in the cold waters of the lake at Númenstaya, and we had to thaw him out by the fireside?” Then she turned away, and began wading away at as rapid a pace as her shift (the hem of which was drenched and heavy with mud) would allow.
“Where! Where is Estarfin!” Parnard did not immediately follow after her, but paused for a moment to consider how he might best ascertain if these were really his friends, or if it was another beguilement of the Sorceress Zairaphel. Then he saw him through the fog, standing waist-deep in the freezing water, shirt and hair dripping, his face pale and blank of expression, not realizing that the spot on which he stood was beginning slowly, but decidedly, to sink as his weight pressed it down. Parnard looked at Danel, then at Estarfin again, uncertain.
Danel waded over to Estarfin and laid a hand on his shivering arm. “Meldanya...can you at least sit on the bank?” she said, pushing him towards dry land.
Parnard shook his head back and forth, still looking from one Noldo to the other, but ventured a little closer. “Here is our friend,” he heard her say. He was close enough to see tears in her gray-blue eyes.
“S-ss is-s the b-b-bank,” Estarfin managed to utter before collapsing on firmer ground.
Parnard cried out, and sprang lightly over the bog, his feet choosing the firmest spots by a sort of instinct common to Wood-elves, especially those who are familiar with treacherous terrain and quaking quagmires from their earliest infancy. In no time at all, he reached Estarfin, and would have knelt beside him, but suspicion held him back.
“Parnard, please. Give me your coat,” Danel said.
He unbuttoned the long tattered surtout, cut from black velvet and lined with the finest white silk, now split up the back and bespattered with black mud, and handed it to her. “My thanks,” she said.
“That - that is not mine,” Parnard said at last, as he watched her wrap the garment around Estarfin’s neck and shoulders, like a kind of shawl, and start chafing his limbs.
“No? But it is the one you wore, and anything warm will do.”
“You f-f-found him,” murmured Estarfin. He clutched the surtout close around his neck.
Parnard narrowed his eyes as he surveyed the pair of Noldor. “There were two Men pursuing me,” he said.
“Why do you doubt us? What has happened? Long have we been searching for you,” Danel said.
“And the Woman,” breathed Parnard in a hushed voice, “is plump-full of tricks and treachery…” He glanced around. The marshes seemed quiet enough, except for the lowing of the wind through the rushes and the lapping of the river against the shore. Danel slipped off her wet shift and sat beside Estarfin, hugging him close to warm him.
“You speak of Zairaphel, of course,” she said, not taking her eyes from Estarfin. “And of the two Umbari men.”
“We s-s-saw a Man. Remember?” Estarfin burst out, and flinging the ragged surtout away, began to strip off his wet shirt.
“One must not always trust with his eyes what he sees,” said Parnard, peering closer at Danel, in the way a jeweler peers at a diamond to find flaws.
“That is true enough,” answered Danel. “Those who captured us had some sorcery.”
“You know about that?”
“Of course I do: we were both captured near Duillond, and taken by Breelanders.”
“Naturally you would say that,” scoffed Parnard. “And then what happened?”
“We were taken on a boat nigh Lake Evendim.” She shook her head. Estarfin needed a fire. Where was that halfling, and his flint and tinder?
Parnard's eyes glinted at the memory of the capture. “Yes! We were taken unawares, but most of the Men were killed: killed dead!” He threw his head back and made a wild laugh, then stopped laughing all of a sudden to gauge Danel’s reaction.
She continued on in a calm voice, still not taking her eyes off Estarfin, “We were taken north from Annúminas to Angmar, but you kept escaping the Men –”
“The High Lord killed them,” interrupted Parnard.
“Yes. So the Men said.” She chuckled a little.
“So ‘tis said,” repeated Parnard, creeping even closer.
“You seem like your true self to me, Cousin. I call you my ‘cousin’ because when I said I had no cousins, you offered to be mine.” Then Danel looked up and smiled through her tears. He gazed fixedly at her, and he recalled a night in the Hall of Fire, not so long ago, when she asked for his aid to guide her to southern Mirkwood. She was not like the other Noldor maidens of Imladris, not as distant and coldly prim as some, but in her eyes lurked a firmness that would not be gainsaid, and yet, for all their cold beauty, like frost on steel, there was a warmth underneath, a tenderness, and again he was gladdened that such gracefulness could be in the world, and felt a burgeoning delight to look upon her face and carriage, and bask in her refined beauty. Sooner or later, he thought, in a few short months, perhaps, she would wed Estarfin; for Fate has decreed it and they are born one for the other. Parnard asked her no more questions, and sat next to Estarfin, a little dumbstruck and dazed by relief.
“Did you climb a tree?” Estarfin said to him in amusement, and then in his cold-brained confusion decided to dangle his bare feet from the bank in the icy-rimed muck.
“Yes, I climbed a tree to escape a pack of ravenous wolves, as well as to see the lay of the land. And there I stayed for three days and three nights. There is not much to see hereabouts but a boot-wearing pot-bellied halfling - nice enough fellow - and this accursed deceitful mist-filled boghole - ah, but I can point out a safe and easy path on the other side yonder, but you two were in such desperate haste, and no wonder! It is a long tale to tell - shh! I hear something!” He leapt to his feet.
“Be at ease, Parnard. You are found now.”
“No, no, no! They are still searching! We must away!”
As if she did not hear him, Danel said calmly, “We were in the ruins of Tharbad, and that dwarf Duzir turned up, but he left. I dare to think any pursuit of you has been abandoned.”
Parnard settled back again on the riverbank and ran a hand through his unkempt hair with a distracted air. The Noldor did not seem particularly worried. He allowed himself a broad smile. “I knew you would find us!” he said to Estarfin.
“Not only was Estarfin looking for us, but Yrill, your brother, and a small halfling maid,” Danel corrected. “Culufinnel has been rather concerned. Even now, he rides along the river north, looking for you.”
“Then he will not find me.”
“He will find you soon enough. We will ride to meet him.”
Parnard watched the rushes sway back and forth. He was crestfallen to learn the elves had not brought any food with them, nor did either of them carry a comb. It reminded him of his own losses: his armour, his sword, his rings and necklace, and, as the elation of finding his friends ebbed away, and the cold wind bit through his thin shirt, sorrowful indignation stung his heart, and he began to sing a lament:
Oh, the thieves of the night, so cunning and cold
Stole treasures more precious than stories untold
Sword, armour, rings, and leaf necklace bright
All vanished like whispers, into starless night.
“I got back my betrothal ring from the dwarf,” Danel exclaimed, her face bright with jubilation.
Parnard stopped short in his singing. “What?”
Estarfin pulled out his sword. “Lingwë,” he observed, upon seeing a fish dart past his feet, and stabbed at the water.
“You nearly speared it,” said Danel. She splashed around to try to scoop up a big speckled trout. “I have it now!” she cried out in glee, and flung the flopping fish on the bank. “Parnard, build a fire.”
“Bushes do not usually burst into flame of their own accord,” said he, and feeling very low in spirit, and very weary, put his head in his hands, and muttered, “A fire may attract unwanted guests.”
“We will have a fire, Parnard.”
At the insistent tone of Danel’s voice he roused himself, and sitting back on his heels looked around scowling. “Very well, I shall spin up a flame with a stick and a bit of wood, but it is not easy, nor will it be quick. How is it that you two Noldor have no clothes, no victuals, no flint and steel, and no wine?”
Estarfin saw another trout before him in the shallows. He held his breath, crouching low, and just when it seemed to have drifted too far, made a wide, clumsy slash, and dropped his sword. As soon as the fish felt the cold steel smack its fin, it darted away, zig-zagging away from the bank and disappearing into the reeds. Estarfin stared at his empty hand and then into the dark water. “It took my sword,” he whispered to Danel in Quenya. “Something is in there that took it!”
After a long while a cheerful fire blazed, and the fish was gutted and set over some leaves to roast. It was not very flavorful, but it was sustenance. One season, Parnard recalled, he dried over a thousand fish and that took a lot of work, as there was only his mother and himself. His father was dead and his brother Culufinnel was far away, serving the King in the outward reaches of the forest. They traded the fish for other things they needed: flour and flax, and other items not readily available to the Wood-elves, such as fleeces and milk. His mother took the juice that dripped from the roasting fish and saved it in a large earthenware crock with some salt, and it would be used to flavor eggs and other dishes. She would also reserve the fish heads and cook them with wild currant leaves, and the dish was a special delicacy, food fit for a king’s table, he thought at the time.
“Now that Estarfin is warmed, and we have eaten a little and rested, and our clothing is dry, let us wade out, and return to the horses,” said Danel.
“It would be better to carry our clothing in bindles on our heads, until we ford the river, or it will only get wet again,” said Parnard, who was practical-minded when it came to hard traveling.
Danel laughed. “Why did we not think of that?”
“Because you are Noldor.”
She smiled in tolerant amusement. Some other elves might view this remark as disrespectful, but she was very fond of Parnard. “We did find you, though, and most glad I am of that.”
“So you did, Cousin, and right glad I am, too! Now it is time to return home, and leave off wandering.” He glanced at Estarfin, and added, “Are you ready, Estarfin-friend? Soon it will be mid-winter, and there is much to do.”
Estarfin reached out and grabbed his shoulder, giving it a firm shake, and not knowing what to say, smiled and patted him on the back. Parnard, startled at first, grinned up at the big Noldo.
“We are as family, Parnard,” Danel said, “and now we go home.”
