The Worlds of Christopher Walker

THE INK-BLACK LONGBOATS of the Dagorim snaked their way down the river, oars in the water now, hunting for survivors. Dark eyes peered from beneath steel helmets, scanning the banks for any sign of the shattered skiff.

“Slower, you dogs,” sub-commander Stoarg threatened the boat’s crew. “Look sharp if you value your worthless lives!” He turned on the lead bowman crouching in the prow. “I ordered you to drive them to the bank, not blow them out of the water!”

“The charge was too strong!” said the jumpy archer, jabbing his ebony bow at his cowering pageboy. “Blame this runt!”

Stoarg leaned over the archer and his pageboy, letting his axe blade perch on his shoulder above them. “If we lose them because of you scum, you’ll both spend the rest of this age at the bottom of the pit of woe!” The boy whimpered as Stoarg turned and made his way aft.

A hulking, black-armored figure sat alone in the stern, wielding a long, jagged pike in his massive hands. “Lord Angor,” said Stoarg, dropping to a knee before him, “we have lost sight of the infidels! They could be floating down the river or washed up on the shore nearby. What orders, my master?”

The giant man sat unmoving as a statue hewn out of granite and sealed in iron. “The white wizard is near,” his voice rumbled like thunder on a distant mountainside. “Send the others ahead to hunt.”

Stoarg rose and signaled to the second boat with hand signs to go ahead of them to search for the wreckage of the skiff downriver while they stayed back to scour the banks. The other longboat slid away like oil over the water, around a bend and out of sight. 

Lord Angor stood and rose to his full, towering height. His gray eyes strained over the bank, seeking, seeking, searching. The stench of the explosive hung thick and pungent in the air. He gripped his black-forged pike, mighty Daggoth-dûl. It pulled downriver, seeking its prey, thirsty for blood. “Patience, O blade of reaping,” he said in a language unheard in those lands for ages. “You will soon drink your fill, as will we all, when the Dark One returns to allot our place with the strong.” The pike pulled towards the eastern bank. His eyes stalked the rocky shore. The current could have carried survivors that way. Angor’s pulse quickened. After all these generations, he would be the one to present the sacred jewel at the Altar of Iron. The honor of bringing the Dark Lord the means to return from the eternal void would be his alone.

The haft of the pike shivered in his hands. They were close. The wizard was cunning, but he would be no match for Daggoth-dûl. To offer the long-sought prize along with the head of the Istari infidel would be a gift unmatched.

Sub-commander Stoarg threatened the crew of the longboat from amidships. “Slower, by the Black Lord, slower! Get your cursed eyes on the banks or I’ll have every one of you in irons and thrown overboard!”

“My lord!” A Dagor soldier at the port-side oars pointed to the shore. Angor’s pale eyes snapped to an ancient tree growing out of a boulder split by a fall from the granite cliffs above.

“Move closer!” Angor’s command rumbled through the hull of the ship. His grip on Daggoth-dûl tightened.

“Help me!”

Those were the first words to reach Aragunk after washing up on the eastern shore of the rushing Anduin. He had been flailing and paddling, not knowing which way was up until, at last, his hands had found river stones and he crawled ashore. His head still swam as he climbed up the rocky bank, coughing and spluttering.

“Help me!”

He recognized Beonna’s voice. She was downstream, struggling with something. Aragunk’s gaze shot all around the shore. Where was his friend?

“Come help me! I’m losing him!” she cried again. He sprang up and stumbled over the slippery rocks. Beonna clung to Lumpolas’s wrists, fighting to keep the swift current from sweeping him away. But she kept slipping on the slick rocks and her grip was failing. Aragunk, with little strength of his own left, seized Lumpolas’s arm and together they hauled him to the bank.

“What happened?” asked Aragunk, more exhausted than he could ever remember feeling.

“They destroyed the boat,” Beonna answered, still panting and coughing. “Some evil enchantment.”

Aragunk turned and squinted upriver. “I don’t see them yet!”

“We must have washed around that bend,” said Beonna. “We have to hide before they float downriver and see us!”

Lumpolas sat up, coughing and retching. “She’s right,” he sputtered and crawled to his knees. “We can hide in those trees, there behind those rocks!”

“The brigands!” said Aragunk. “Wait till I get my hands on them!”

“Hurry!” Beonna pleaded as they scrambled and groped their way over the slick algae-covered stones. Any second, the dark boats could round the turn in the river and spot them. Shivering and terrified, they crouched down behind a bushy juniper growing in the cleft of a shattered boulder.

Aragunk whispered the question that had already risen in the hearts of the others, “What happened to everyone else?” 

Lumpolas shook his head. “I didn’t see them, any of them, not even the boat. They must have all been blasted downstream somewhere.”

“Or drowned,” Beonna said.

“Villains, resorting to magic and trickery!” Aragunk growled through gritted teeth. “They don’t have the courage to fight us like men!”

“Quiet! I see them now,” said Lumpolas, hazarding a peek through a hedge growing next to their boulder. They all peered through it together. One of the two longboats, black and filled with armed warriors, coursed swiftly past.

“There were two boats,” Beonna asked. “Where’s the other?”

A voice pierced the rush of the river, commanding in a language none of them recognized. The three companions scarcely breathed as the second boat floated near, this one much slower than the first. Lumpolas hid down, sure that one of the dark-helmeted men had spotted them. He stood in the rear of the boat, giant and holding a jagged spear that froze his elven blood. The dark-armored giant spoke in words that turned his stomach sour with the evil sound of them. Lumpolas fell against the stone to hide from his gaze. Surely the soldiers could hear the beating of his fluttering heart where he lay shivering in the dirt.

Then, just as he became convinced that they had been spotted, one of the dark warriors stood with a shout and pointed downriver. The longboat surged forward with the swift current and raced out of sight.

The three of them exhaled together.

Beonna spoke first. “They must have seen our skiff downstream.”

“Or what’s left of it,” said Lumpolas.

Aragunk rose to his knees. “Then we have to go help them! We have to fight! Ratface might kill Gandalf while we tarry here!”

Lumpolas laid hold of Aragunk’s elbow. “Gunk, we can’t! There are at least two dozen warriors between those boats, armed with swords and bows and axes, and goodness knows what else.”

“I’m not afraid of them!” Aragunk said. “We can beat them!”

“No!” said Beonna. “If we were captured or killed trying to help them, they would get this!” She held up the locket. “This is what they’re after, Aragunk. Gandalf said our only mission was to keep it safe. That’s what he would want us to do, not go on some foolhardy attack against forces far stronger than us!”

“She’s right, old friend,” Lumpolas said, relieved to have someone else to talk sense into his brave but foolish friend for a change. “Gandalf can handle Ratskin without us. We have to protect the locket, and we’ll need your strong arm. But here, with us, not floating away downriver!”

Aragunk bared his teeth. “Aww! When am going to get to fight a proper fight? We’ve been doing nothing but sneaking around on this quest. It’s embarrassing! No one ever sang a song about a brave warrior good at tiptoeing!”

Beonna patted his shoulder. “Good show, Gunk. You’ll get your chance, I’m sure of it. The songs they sing about you will be more glorious than any sung before. Now let’s go find somewhere to rest and decide what to do next.”

They made their way eastward up the bank, reasoning that the farther they got inland from the river, the better. They were all soaked to the bones and shivering, but the afternoon sun grew warmer. Soon they found a small clearing, well-shielded by trees and rocks where they could finally rest.

“Do you think Gandalf is still alive?” asked Lumpolas, plopping down in the dirt and leaning up against a warm rock.

“He must be,” Aragunk said as he pulled his boots off and poured the water out of them. 

Beonna and Lumpolas each pinched their noses. “Eww! Is that your feet?” Beonna asked with her face all twisted.

Aragunk smiled. “That, m’lady, is the aroma of a warrior who is always ready for battle. One has to be ready to fight at all times, even when he sleeps.”

“Translation: he never takes his boots off—ever,” Lumpolas said. “He even sleeps with them on.”

Beonna shook her head. “I grew up around many great warriors and none of them stunk like that.”

“Then I will be the first. Aragunk the ever-vigilant, the ever-prepared!”

“The ever-stinky with the ever-rotten feet,” Lumpolas chimed in.

“And I suppose you elven-kind are too good to reek of the earth? May all that’s sacred forbid that an elven toe should so much as touch the ground and be stained thereby. We men are born of the earth and we live and we die upon it. It is fitting that we should smell of it too.”

Lumpolas snorted. “Flowers are of the earth too, you know. Do us all a favor and stick some between your putrid toes.”

Beonna laughed and then they all laughed, relieved to forget for the moment how terrified they all were. But a chill silence soon followed. “What do we do now?” she asked.

Lumpolas rubbed his belly, as he always did when thinking hard about something. “Well, we have to go somewhere. I say we make our way back to Minas Tirith. We’d be sure to find help there.”

Beonna shuddered, and her hand shot to the locket. “No, we can’t go that way.”

“Why not?” Aragunk asked. “The hosts of Gondor could more than protect us from a few river pirates, and my brother would know what to do with that jewel.”

Her blue eyes narrowed. “No, we musn’t—it’s not safe and there’s no time. We have to get downriver, to the sea! That’s what Inolduay wants.”

“What if we run into more of those dark boats?” asked Lumpolas. “Without Gandalf with us, we wouldn’t have a chance.”

“All I know is that we must get out to sea,” she said. “Everything depends on it!”

“What does?” Lumpolas asked. “What is depending on us getting out there? No one’s told us anything about this quest!” His gaze drilled into her. She was struggling, but couldn’t quite let herself speak. “You know something about it, don’t you, Beonna? Why won’t you tell us?” She dropped her eyes, trying to make up her mind.

“Aye,” Aragunk said. “We know nothing about you or this quest or what’s going on at all! What are you hiding? And why did that… that necklace choose you instead of me?”

Beonna stood, making ready to move out. “I think we’d better get going. We can’t stay here.” 

Aragunk grinned and leaned back against a rock, hands behind his head, smelly toes pointing skywards. “Nope. Not a chance. We’re not going anywhere with you until we get some answers. We’ve told you who we are, but we don’t know the first thing about you. Satisfy me that you’re not a spy!”

“That’s right,” Lumpolas chimed in. “So far, all we know is that you might be from the North. And that you have a knack for sneaking around and attracting strange jewelry to yourself. It’s time you told us who you are and why you’re here with us.”

Aragunk spat and nodded in agreement.

Her shoulders sagged as she looked away to the North. “Gandalf was right,” she began with a sigh. “I am from the Northlands, but much farther north than you would believe.” She turned back to face them. “Know that I am Beonna, daughter of Beorn. I am one of the Beornings of the lost Northern Kingdoms.”

“You’re a Beorning?” Lumpolas asked, sitting upright. “I thought Beorn didn’t have any daughters. I heard he had only sons.”

“Yet his daughter I am. He had one hundred sons spread all over the northern realms, but I am his only daughter.”

Aragunk scoffed. “That may be so, but there are no Northern Kingdoms. That’s a fairy tale. No one could live that far north. There’s nothing but snow and ice.”

Beonna sat back down on a stone. “I tell you the truth. In the lands above cursed Angbad—the stronghold of the father of evil on Earth before the Valar destroyed it—there dwelled mighty men of the tribe my father descended from. You are right, Aragunk: the land is harsh, too harsh for normal men. But my father and his fathers were not normal men. They too, like your fathers, descended from the Edain. They journeyed to the North instead of sailing into the West—to Númenor—as your forebears did.”

Lumpolas stared at her in surprise. “They say your father was a skin-changer, that all his kind are. Is that how they could survive up there amid the icy tundra where they say the sun seldom rises?”

She nodded. “They did much more than survive, elf. They built kingdoms that would put Númenor’s greatest works to shame.”

Aragunk chuckled. “Now I know you’re lying, daughter of Beorn. What kingdom could rival, much less surpass, Númenor, the jewel of the earth?”

“I knew you wouldn’t believe me. But I tell you that before the black fires of the Dark Lord—whose name we never speak—tore through the land, before his evil spread from foul Angbad, there were towering northern cities carved of solid ice that glistened in the night like jewels in the firmament. Fair Norngalad, bane of evil and crown of Middle-earth—or so my father told us.”

Aragunk sat up. “The Dark Lord? You mean Sauron?”

“I think she means Morgoth, Gunk.”

“Morgoth?”

Lumpolas shook his head in disbelief. “Do you just not pay attention to anything in your studies? Morgoth: Sauron’s own master from before the ages! He’s the one who destroyed the trees Telperion and Laurelin and made off with the hallowed Silmarils.”

Aragunk bristled. “I know that! I just forgot! It’s been a rough day.” He pointed at Beonna. “But one thing I am sure of, though, is that I’ve never heard of any Northern Kingdoms in my studies.” 

Lumpolas turned his gaze back to her. “Well, that is a good point. I’ve never heard of them either. How could such a magnificent place hide from the lore of elves and men?”

Beonna narrowed her eyes and glared at them. “It was the war, the great clash of fire and ice, between Angbad and Norngalad that purged her memory from the tongues of men and elf-kind! The treacherous one attacked first, sending rivers of molten lava from Thangorodrim against the great Ice Wall of the Northern King’s realm. Their siege was fierce, and we lost many lives. The Northmen fought with honor, but they were a solitary race—they had no allies and there was no one to come to their aid. And yet they almost won, and would have but for the treachery of a few black-hearted traitors within their walls. Their betrayal breached the ice wall and rivers of magma poured through her streets. Shining Norngalad was at last overrun. Her cities shattered and wiped from the earth by the black hatred of the Evil One. But for a few survivors, exiles fleeing south, there would have been no trace.”

“Beorn descended from these exiles?” asked Lumpolas.

“Yes. My father’s fathers were strong among the remnants of the Nornians that remained, but their numbers were few and their lives very hard. My father found his way south to the lands above Mirkwood and there he dwelled for many centuries. Now, we few who remain of that mighty race are little more than guardians of remote roads and villages. We spend our days fighting petty thieves and brigands; the same as your own brother, the ranger Strider, did before his glorification as High King. But now, as the time of Gondor has returned, so too our time must return.”

“That’s all well and good,” said Aragunk, “but that doesn’t explain why you’re here, daughter of Beorn. What is your part in this quest?”

Anger flashed in her eyes. “I’m here, son of Gondor, because those same Dagorim criminals that attacked us on the river treacherously killed my father!”

Lumpolas’s eyes shot wide. “Killed? I heard he had died before the war, but not that he had been killed!”

Aragunk’s hand went to his sword hilt. “How? Who among those cowardly brigands could have the strength to kill a man who could turn himself into a towering bear?”

Beonna grit her teeth to fight back her tears. “It was their leader, a black Dagor sorcerer named Angor. He hunted my father down and brought him low.”

Lumpolas rose to his knees. “But why? Why do this thing to a man so feared and honored by all?”

She dropped her gaze to the ground. “This evil sorcerer captured and tortured my father because he sought knowledge of something stolen from my people long ago when our great cities were sacked. But my father was no coward. If he had what they wanted, he would not have given it to them no matter what they did to him!”

“What was it?” asked Aragunk. “What was stolen away?”

Beonna paused, regarding them both again. “I overheard the white wizard Gandalf speak of it when he passed through our lands two months hence to pay his respects to my late father. He took council with my eldest brother, Grimbeorn, the head of our clan, when—”

“You overheard?” interrupted Lumpolas. “You mean you were eavesdropping on him!”

“I did no such thing! I just have very good hearing!” she fired right back. But then her cheeks turned red. “And I suppose I also happened to be hidden nearby,” she conceded with a shrug. Lumpolas rolled his eyes and crossed his arms over his round belly. “In truth,” she continued, “the wizard claimed he had been traveling in the far North after the coronation of your brother. He said ‘time was short’ and that ‘he had many loose ends to tie up before he sailed into the West.’ He spoke to my brother of a jewel found far away to the south and sought my brother’s council to seek it. A jewel of purest ice beyond price. It is known by my people as the Glacenstar—formed of water so pure that it can never melt, though it were thrown into the furnaces of Moria itself. It was the heart of my people. With it back in our possession, we could restore our kingdom and return my people to their birthright!”

Aragunk sat up and slapped his knees with his enormous hands. “So you’re here to be revenged on this villain Angor and retrieve this magic ice-jewel? Why didn’t you just say that in the first place?”

Beonna sighed and shook her head.

But Lumpolas yet scratched his chin. “Wait, you overheard Gandalf say he’s on a quest south to find this Glacenstar? But if that’s true, then why was he bringing the Deathless Boy with him?”

“Yeah, and why did he pick you to bear him? I’m the strongest one!” Aragunk said.

“And who are the Dagorim and why are they trying to kill us?”

Beonna’s fingers went to the locket again. “I don’t know the answers to those questions. I really don’t. But Inolduay trusts me. And maybe you should too. Now, I’ve answered your questions. It’s time we got moving. It won’t be long before the Dagor hunters realize we weren’t on that boat and come looking for us.”

To their great relief, Aragunk pulled his boots back on. They departed, tracking southwards along the ridges and forests above the Anduin basin, trying to stay out of sight of the river as much as possible. But they couldn’t help but look for a sign of the fate of Gandalf and Captain Yorlov from time to time.

“What do you think happened to them?” Lumpolas asked once while they gazed down at the river. “Were they all drowned?”

“It’d take more than that to do in the white wizard,” Aragunk said, but not sounding too sure of himself. A pall fell over them as the thought that they might truly be alone settled among them.

“What’ll we do when we get to the sea?” asked Aragunk. “What if there’s no one there to meet us?”

“Part of me hopes there isn’t,” said Lumpolas. “What if it’s this Lord Angor waiting for us?” 

“I hope he is,” growled Aragunk. “We can end this right away!”

Lumpolas looked Beonna’s way, but her gaze roamed far distant. “Is he telling you anything?” he asked, indicating the locket with his eyes.

She came back and shook her head. “No, he doesn’t speak to me exactly. Not in words, anyway. It’s rather hard to describe.” She stopped. “It’s more like pictures and feelings. I see that we have to take him south and that not to do so would cause great evil to come into the world.” She shuddered even though the late afternoon sun beat down on them. “Come on,” she said, picking up the pace.

They walked in silence for several more minutes when Lumpolas stopped short and listened with all his attention. “What was that?”

“Probably just your stomach growling again,” teased Aragunk. “Listening to it is making me hungry.”

Beonna shushed him as she listened too, her fingers taking hold of the locket. “There’s someone close by. I can feel it.”

Aragunk grabbed the hilt of his sword. “Is it friend or foe?” 

“If it’s a friend,” Beonna answered, “they would reveal themselves to us. If it’s a foe, we should keep moving so they can’t.”

“I’m not afraid of anyone, friend or foe,” said Aragunk as he drew his sword.

“We know, Gunk,” sighed Lumpolas. “We know. That’s what makes us afraid.”

“Let’s keep moving,” Beonna said. “We’ll see if they follow us or not.” They both nodded and picked their way through the tall evergreen forest with her. Their ears strained away into the trees. They were all but tiptoeing when laughter came tinkling down from the trees above them.

“Did you hear that?” asked Aragunk.

Lumpolas gulped. “Perhaps it was only a bird. Sometimes birds sound like they’re laughing when they sing.”

“Yes, perhaps,” said Beonna. But they all knew that no bird had made that sound.

They quickened their pace, trying to be quiet. For Lumpolas and Beonna, being quiet wasn’t difficult, but for Aragunk it was hopeless. If there was a stick to snap or a pinecone to crunch beneath his big boots, he always managed to find it. SNAP! POP! CRACK! He lumbered through the underbrush, trying to sneak along behind his stealthier friends. Lumpolas and Beonna winced with every step he took. At last, Beonna could stand it no more and whirled about on him. “Can you at least try to be quiet?” she hissed. “You sound like a kitchen fire burning popwood!”

Aragunk’s eyes shot wide. “I am being quiet! No one can move more silently than a ranger of the North! It’s you two who need quiet lessons! You sound like a herd of wounded donkeys!”

Beonna and Lumpolas stared at each other in disbelief. “You mean to tell us,” said Lumpolas, “that you couldn’t hear yourself breaking every single twig in these woods?”

“Twigs? So what? Twigs break in the woods all the time. That’s what twigs do, they break! No one pays any attention to a twig breaking in the woods. But you two, tiptoeing and sneaking, that’s odd; that’s what somebody’s going to notice, not a twig or two out of place!”

It took Beonna a moment to recover her speech. “Twigs do not lie around snapping themselves, you lumbering bull! Listen!” She picked up a stick from the ground. “Do you hear anything? Do you know what I hear when I listen to this stick? Nothing! Sticks don’t make noise… until you break them!” She snapped it in two and hurled the pieces at him.

“Oh yeah?” Aragunk said with a big crazy smile, holding up one of his feet. “You see this? This is a foot! And can you tell me what kind of sound a foot makes? That’s right, it doesn’t make a sound, it’s just a foot! So if it’s not my foot making all the noise you’re complaining about, then it must be the twigs, right? So stop blaming my feet for all the racket and lay the blame where it belongs—on the twigs!”

“You’re right,” Beonna said with a smile almost as crazy as Aragunk’s. “You are so right! These dumb twigs and all these pinecones are too stupid to realize how noisy they are. Maybe if you ask them nicely, they’ll stop being so loud so we can get on our way WITHOUT EVERYTHING IN THE WHOLE FOREST KNOWING WHERE WE ARE!”

Lumpolas looked forlornly at the two of them, wondering if he was going to have to get between them to break up a fight when behind them a big stick broke with a tremendous CRACK! They all froze in fear.

An unearthly, high-pitched voice jangled from the trees behind them. “I’m afraid it won’t do you any good, girl. The entire forest already knows everything about you!” They spun around together and stared in surprise at what they beheld.

A long, gangly man perched on a low tree branch eyed them with piercing, deep blue eyes. His bony frame was draped in a bright blue cloak made entirely out of feathers. And on his head hung a long headdress, also made of blue and red feathers. He had the longest arms and legs any of them had ever seen. And with his unnaturally long fingers, he gripped a staff made from the leg-bone of some enormous creature.

Aragunk whipped his sword back out with his heart pounding and pointed it at the bizarre man. “Who are you?” he shouted. “If you’re the one that’s been pursuing us, you had better have good reason!”

The strange man smiled through his long wispy beard with a mouth full of dark crooked teeth. He uncoiled one long, impossibly thin leg from the branch down to the ground. “Who am I?” he answered in a high-pitched voice that sounded to them like a gargling raven. “I am known by many names here and there. Some call me friend—to others, I am a terrible nightmare!” Terror gripped them as he lowered himself limb by lanky limb from the tree branch. Though he crouched in front of them, his eyes yet remained level with theirs. His long, bony fingers wrapped around his staff, and his knobby knees jutted up higher than his ears. “I can help or I can hurt. Some I hasten and some hinder if I find fault. But I do not need to ask who you are, for that is clear.” His cackle froze their hearts in their chests.

“What do you want?” asked Beonna. “We’re just three travelers, trying to get to the sea.”

The feather-clad man fixed her with a blue gaze that drew the breath out of her. “Travelers, eh? To the sea, eh? But whether traveling for good or for ill, she does not say. If you bring good through these lands, then may your steps be swift, travelers. But if evil…” he trailed off into another terrifying cackle. His eyes fixed on Lumpolas. “What do you say, elf? Do your feet bear you through these woods for good or for ill?”

Lumpolas’s stomach fluttered. The arms and legs of this creature reminded him of the long legs of the spiders of Mirkwood. He stammered out a reply, “I suppose every traveler believes his feet bear him to good, if you please, sir. Our feet do not differ from yours.” They all glanced down at the strange man’s feet and saw that Lumpolas couldn’t have been more wrong. If his toes were long, his toenails had grown even longer: sharp, pointed, ready to tear like the talons of an enormous vulture. Lumpolas quivered and prayed that he wouldn’t fall into the grip of those fierce claws.

“Evil fears the good, young travelers. Is that why you fear me? Do your hearts harbor evil? If they do, then you have great cause to be afraid,” the bird-like man said, taking a sudden long hop towards them. The three of them stumbled backward despite themselves.

Aragunk kept his sword pointed at him. “We fear nothing!” he said, though the tremble in his voice said otherwise. “Our business is our own, and whether you judge it good or ill is no concern to us. Help us if you will, but hinder us at your peril!”

The feather-clad man sprang up to his full height and glowered down at them like an enormous bird readying for the kill. “Peril is it? And what do you know of peril?” he asked with teeth bared in a terrifying smile. “You who live in a palace with servants and soft beds? The only peril you understand is using your wet brain for anything other than sleeping until noon! And you!” He poked Lumpolas’s belly with a sharp nail. “You with your fine foods and soft jowls. What do you know of peril? The only peril you feel is when your gut is growling for you to feed it!” His fierce eyes flew to Beonna and ignited with blue flame when they landed on the locket. “Oh ho! But you, foolish girl, you think you have learned something of real peril in your short life, don’t you?” His long nails reached out to the locket.

Her hand grasped it. “Stay back!” she said, pulling away from him.

The birdman cackled. “Oh, you mean to protect that from me, do you? So confident for one so young. Much too sure of herself. Thinks she can accomplish everything alone. But how would she feel if she watched her friends suffer real peril?” He jabbed his staff into the ground. Immediately, Aragunk’s sword flew out of his hand and clattered away on the dirt. With a lunge, he snatched both Lumpolas and Aragunk by their throats and lifted them high above the forest floor. Their legs dangled and kicked beneath them.

“Stop!” Beonna cried. “What are you doing?”

The vulture-like man bared his teeth in a cruel smile. “What am I doing? Can’t you see I am teaching peril and harm to you? Yes, harm them I will, proud young lady of the North, if you don’t yield to me what you carry around your neck!”

Aragunk flailed in vain, trying to strike at their captor while Lumpolas wriggled with all his might, trying to get free. “Don’t do it!” Lumpolas gurgled, his face turning purple as the claw-like hand gripped his neck. “Don’t give it to him!”

“Run!” said Aragunk. “We’ll take care of him!”

Their ears rattled with the crow-like cackles of the man. He lifted them even higher, as if preparing to smash them to the ground. “What will it be, girl? Your friends or the locket?”

Beonna watched helplessly as Lumpolas and Aragunk struggled to free themselves. She squared her shoulders to him. “I can never give you this locket. I’m sorry Lumpolas. I’m sorry Aragunk. But this cannot fall into his hands!”

The birdman’s eyes popped wider, and Beonna’s heart quailed under his hawkish gaze. Then, his grip relaxed, and he lowered the two friends to the ground and set them gently down. “That was the correct answer, young lady. Now I see, in truth, you are journeying for the good. But beware, girl, I foresee your overconfidence will bring much danger to all.”

“What?” Lumpolas asked, gasping for breath. “This was all just a test?”

The man crouched back down again, still smiling his horrible grin. “We had to learn if she is worthy of what she bears, and if you two are worthy to be her companions. And now that we understand each other better, I offer you my friendship and my helpship.”

“Friendship?” Aragunk asked. “After what you just did to us? Scaring these two out of their wits and half-strangling me? Well, no thanks to friends like you! And we never asked for your help, anyway! We were getting along just fine without you—whoever you are!”

“Oh, but my friendship you will need, young one, to get where you are going with what you are carrying. Yes, very much, you will need my friendship and my helpship. For foes you do not understand, who serve a master whose evil you do not fathom, pursue you. Without me, you will die. And that,” he said, pointing a long nail at the locket, “will fall into hands that will be far less friendly than mine.”

“How can we trust you? You still haven’t even told us your name,” asked Beonna, gazing in shock at this strange creature.

“My names are many, child, too many. Even I cannot remember them all.” His gaze shot skywards and he tapped his narrow forehead with his long nails. “Let us see. In this age, I have sometimes been called Crowfoot, or Alarin, or Cloudbreaker, Eastrandine, Bluehaven, and Glorobane. Many are my names that still live on the tongues of the East, and many more that live only in the nightmares of the evil dead.”

“So, what should we call you?” asked Aragunk. His head was spinning with all this talk of names, dead and living.

“You may call me friend. Or you may call me Alatar, as I was once called in these lands long ago, if it pleases you, Aragunk son of the fair Gilraen.”

“How do you know my name?” Aragunk demanded.

“I know more than your name, brave one. Much more. I know you journey to the port city Larrola southwards and there you hope to ship out to a fate that you cannot yet see. And I see you will die before you set eyes on the sea if you leave here without me.”

Lumpolas stood up, still rubbing his throat. “But why should we trust you, Alatar Crowfoot? For all we know, you’re the Dark Lord who’s after the locket! Perhaps you’re going to trick Beonna into giving it to you. Is that it? Maybe you can’t take it with your own hands and this is all a trick to get us to trust you and then you’ll take it.”

The strange feather-clad man, Alatar, laughed his high-pitched cackle and held out his hand. To their shock, the necklace lifted off of Beonna’s neck and sailed through the air straight to his bony grip. “Is this what you fear? Now you see, nothing could prevent me if I wanted it for myself.” He held it before his fiery blue eyes. “Hello, young friend,” he said to it. “It has been an age since last we spoke.” He held it to his ear and listened. “Yes, but they are naïve,” he said to the locket and then held it out to Beonna. The three adventurers stared with their mouths hanging open as Alatar dangled the locket in front of them. Beonna took a wary step forward and snatched it away from his long claws. “There,” Alatar cooed, “now you have less to fear than you once did. But now, too, you have more cause for haste. The day grows old and many leagues remain to travel. Come, slowfeets, and be brave!” He sprang up and, with two long strides southwards, was twenty feet away.

They all gaped at each other, hardly knowing what to do. “Come on!” Beonna said and hurried away after their new guide. Lumpolas and Aragunk fell in behind. After a few minutes of running, they finally caught Alatar, who was striding with purpose on his long thin legs. “Be quick, shortlegs! Be swift!” he admonished them with these and many other such barbs as they struggled to keep up.

Lumpolas, with the shortest legs of the three, panted and wheezed as he stumbled along behind everyone. But, worst of all, his stomach was empty. He prayed they would stop or at least slow down enough so that he could dig into his rucksack and see what he had left. But his chance never came. For the next two hours, all he heard aside from Alatar’s “Faster!” and “Swiftly now, snail-legs!” was the sound of his pounding heart and his own desperate breathing. 

At last, they came upon a small mountain lake. Lumpolas’s thighs had turned into two over-cooked hams and he couldn’t feel his feet anymore. Alatar stopped and dropped into a crouch. Beonna and Aragunk crouched behind him, breathing hard but alert. Lumpolas collapsed to his knees, more dead than alive, too tired to do anything but be miserable. “What is it?” Beonna whispered to Alatar, her ears straining.

“Is there danger or some dread foe?” asked Aragunk with his hand on his sword.

“Hmm? No, no! It is time to rest, my sweaty little friends. Take your ease and find your breath.” They rejoiced and sat down, except for Lumpolas who fell over like a wet sack of flour. He was too tired even to care about eating. Alatar remained crouching, listening, watching, his head darting about like a hunting bird.

After Beonna recovered herself a little, she asked, “Is it much further now—to Larrola?”

“Not as the crow flies,” Alatar said, winking at her. He cast his eyes down at Lumpolas lying prone on the ground. “But as the snail slides, it is still hours away.” They all groaned when he said that. “Fear not, young ones. Is not Alatar your friend? We don’t have hours, thus we must be swifter still. Can you not smell anything?” he asked, just as Aragunk pulled off his boots and dunked his smoldering feet into the lake. “Something is burning. There is evil ahead. Look there!” He pointed above the trees where a dark plume of smoke far distant to the south rose into the late afternoon sky.

“What is it?” Beonna asked. “Is it Larrola?”

Alatar sniffed the air, licked a long finger and held it up to the wind. He brought it back to his lips to taste it. “Not Larrola, too much salt in that smoke. This smoke comes from the sea beyond Larrola. But now we have less time than we had before, and our legs are growing no longer. Come!” He pulled a large sheet of hempen cloth from somewhere under his blue-feathered cloak and spread it out on the ground. “Come, slow-worms, sit here!”

They all stared at him in confusion. “What are we doing?” Aragunk asked. 

“Sit here. Quickly! Sit, sit, sit on the cloth!” 

Aragunk reluctantly pulled on his boots and he and Beonna dragged the wheezing Lumpolas across the ground onto the thick, rough fabric. Alatar pushed his arms under his feathery cloak and spread them out. In an instant, he had what appeared to be two great blue wings. He flapped them twice and the wind from them blew dust into their eyes. With his clawed feet, he reached down and gripped each corner of the heavy cloth, gathering them together. Before they could protest, Alatar took off from the ground like one of the Great Eagles. They tumbled together in a sling, dangling below him, skimming the treetops as Alatar’s mighty wings flapped thunderously above them.

Beonna screamed in terror as they rose higher and higher above the trees. Lumpolas, though, curled up and steadfastly refused to open his eyes. But poor Aragunk had it the worst—he moaned and his pallor turned green as pond algae. High above the Anduin Valley, they soared and dipped. They flew over the delta, splaying out through the marshy lowlands below them. Then they swept out from the rocky river valley toward the great southern sea beyond. They could feel the air change from mountain and forest air to sea air, salt and fresh except for the acrid taint spreading from the dark cloud of smoke rising beyond the shore.

Beonna saw all this as she peeked over the edge of the sling, but she couldn’t make out where the smoke was coming from. She turned to Lumpolas and shook him by the shoulders. “Lumpolas, open your elven eyes and tell me what you see! What is the source of that cloud of evil-smelling smoke southwards?” But Lumpolas would only shake his head, his eyes clapped firmly shut beneath his doughy hands. Aragunk groaned as his stomach surged and dropped with every wingbeat.

“There lies Larrola below us!” Alatar said. It could have been a jewel ringed with tall ships set in the blueness of the bay. “And behold, its doom approaches from the South Seas!”

Beonna squinted, trying to make out what it was as they drew closer. She could just descry a hulking black shape on the horizon, massive with tall spires. And that whatever it might be, it was moving inexorably towards the city.