Chapter Text
“Northwards? Over the mountains?”
“Yes.”
Her eyes fell to the corpse that laid in front of them. The dessicated remains of a pony, torn and left to rot in the grasses that had been stained red and yellow beneath its body. A victim of some foul attack that had come in the night. “... Wargs, no doubt.” She continued, kneeling down and studying some of the wounds with a critical eye. “You tried to track them?”
“They have gone leagues in the night.” He replied, his voice grim and stern. “With the darkness emerging out of the forest, I will not go further. More will come. More will die.”
“I understand.” She said, standing, turning back to the shape-changer that stood behind her, turning her eyes up to perhaps the only man who could dwarf her. “I will follow them west, over the mountains. Something dark has been stirring.”
She watched his grim expression for a few moments longer, the man’s eyes transfixed on the body before the two of them. The sun had hardly crested the horizon, casting them in the pale red light of the dawn as the flies began to gather on the flesh with the warming light. The presence of orcs had grown more frequent, packs of them emerging from the mountains in the north, and descending upon the valley that held the Great River. This corpse had been one of many. Animals, people. She hadn’t been the only one to notice the darkness creeping in. “... Did you want help moving them?” She eventually asked, nodding to the pony.
“No.” Beorn replied gruffly, shaking his head as he tore his eyes away, looking down at Alatar. “Ride your beast, Ranger. Bring me their heads.”
She turned her head, glancing back over to her shoulder at the animal sitting on the edge of the trees. Her eyes lingered there, before she bowed her head in Beorn’s direction, and turned without a word to make her way to the edge of the trees.
Alatar pressed her fingers into the paw-print in the mud beneath her, watching the crust of the soil crack beneath the weight of her hand. It was a day-old, wet in the dew of the morning and crusting over in the warm light of the day. Turning her eyes upward, she noted the still smoldering embers in the firepit, the flattened grass, and discarded bones and other effects from their dinner that night.
They were a day ahead of her; and with the conditions of the mountains ahead, she likely wouldn’t come upon them until after she had descended the western half of the Misty Mountains.
“Come, Teeth.” She called, clicking her tongue, turning her head and watching as the beast crept over to her. The warg was as black as night, and she grimaced as she breathed out a hot puff of air into her face, shoving its head sideways as she stood up with a grumble. It turned then, snuffling around the camp as its lips curled in a trembling growl, showing off the rows of snaggled-yellow teeth.
She walked over, grabbing hold of the harness that sat upon its back, and tugged on it to hold the beast still as she opened up her saddlebags. She pulled her bedroll from it, and the rations she had collected that day in her leather pouch.
The still-smoldering embers of the fire made for an easy fire, and it didn’t take much kindling for the two of them to have a crackling hearth. She sat down, leaning back against the warg as she lowered the mask from her face and chewed on the berries she’d collected. Teeth, behind her, was making quick work of some leftover bones, snapping them open with little effort to lick out the marrow inside.
She pulled out a leather-bound book from her saddlebags, flipping a new page as she surveyed her notes with a critical eye. By her estimations, the pack of orcs numbered just under twenty, each of them riding their own warg. This was a larger pack than most, and it worried her. What was a group of this size doing? What were they after?
She scrawled a few more notes into her journal with thin cursive, letting the ink dry on the parchment before she shut it again, and tucked it away as she leaned back against her companion with a deep sigh.
At the very least, she could send word to the settlements on the western side of the mountains. The elves of Rivendell were steadfast in the protection of Rhudair; it was a possibility that they would have already been intercepted by the time she got over the mountains. The elves weren’t keen on her, nor her odd choice of companion, but Aiwendil’s blessing had gotten her far enough to not be outright killed by their scouting parties when she happened to travel west.
She tilted her head back, turning her eyes up to the black sky above her. The stars glittered above them, set into the sky by Varda, a nightlight for the elves. Looking up at them, they had never given her that same comfort. These stars weren’t for her, nothing was for her. Her place in this world had been carved for her long before she’d entered it, wrought from blood and iron.
Those thoughts, like most nights, were the ones that carried her into a restless sleep.
The snow was both a blessing and a curse, in that it made tracking so much easier, but it was also so damn cold.
She grimaced and reached into her saddlebag for a pair of leather gloves, leaning back as Teeth picked her way carefully along the rocky trail descending into the valley west of the Misty Mountains. Even in the height of summer, snow clung stubbornly to their jagged peaks. They had gained on her, and the thought filled her with bitterness. These mountains crawled with goblins. Perhaps it was Teeth’s scent that had kept them off her trail. More likely, the orcs had used the tunnels, either their own or the goblins’. She had lost the trail more than once. Only now, as they descended into the valley, had she found it again. The wind whipped cold over the ridges, carrying the promise of storm. Rainclouds gathered ahead, sweeping in from the west on winds off the Belegaer. It would rain that night, perhaps snow, and she needed to reach lower ground before the clouds swallowed the peaks in fog.
At least Teeth could travel by nose, even if the damned beast was as easily distracted by the scent of a rabbit.
Rabbits…
Something burst out of a bush to their right. Teeth careened sideways with a snarl, snapping at the air. Alatar yelped, staggered by the motion as she nearly lost her balance upon her mount. One gloved hand shot for the saddle while the other dropped to her hip, drawing her blade in one smooth motion.
“Alatar! Alatar!” That voice, that-
… Aiwendil. Of course.
The wizard leapt from his sled, his rabbits thumping and twitching in alarm. She stared at him in disbelief as he hurried toward her, heedless of the snarling warg beneath her.
“Are you mad?” She asked, frustrated, sliding off of Teeth and pushing the uneasy beast to the side. “Sneaking up on us- I’m tracking a pack of orcs!”
“Orcs? Oh, yes, yes. But I know of which orcs you speak!” The wizard continued hurriedly, leaning against his staff. “A great darkness is emerging, Alatar. An evil that has not graced this world in many an age. I was looking for Gandalf when I- I-!”
Alatar watched as the wizard paused, holding up a hand as his bushy brows drew together. “Well now I- see, it was-”
“... The orcs, Aiwendil.” Alatar said after a few moments, her words careful to try and guide the eccentric man back onto the right track. “This pack of orcs, where did you see them?”
“Ah! Yes, they were after Gandalf and his company.” The wizard said, meeting her eyes with more certainty. “Near Rivendell! The elves set upon them, yes, that’s what it was!”
Alatar’s shoulders slackened, and she shook her head. “... Beorn will be all the better to hear it. Their wargs had slaughtered one of his ponies; he asked me to bring him a head.”
“These are unruly lands, Alatar.” Radagast replied, looking up at her. “A darkness has come, the likes of which I have not seen. The forest is sick, Alatar, very sick.”
“... So you have said.” She replied, glancing past him towards his rabbits. “You found Gandalf?”
“Yes.” He turned abruptly back to his sled, and she followed as he rummaged through the basket mounted at its front. He withdrew a bundle wrapped in buckskin.
“What is-?”
He unwrapped it.
Alatar recoiled, stricken with a horror she had not felt in many years. The blade within bore strange markings, its metal dark and slick with an unnatural sheen. She had only heard of such weapons, but the aura emanating from it was unmistakable. “This did not come from the world of Men,” the wizard said quietly, studying her expression before wrapping the blade once more and tucking it away. “A necromancer has taken root in the abandoned fortress of Dol Guldur. I am certain of it.”
“That is a bold claim,” Alatar replied, unsettled, taking an unconscious step back. “One who can raise the dead.”
“But I have seen it, Alatar.” The wizard insisted. “I came west for Gandalf’s council, yes, we must go North, to the High Fells of Rhudaur.”
“You think it is…?”
“There are few who could summon such power.” Radagast insisted. “We must be sure.”
Alatar let out a sigh, looking sideways towards the approaching clouds. It would explain many things; the packs of orcs, the death and decay that had taken hold of the land, the unease that she felt in the night. A wrinkled hand settled on her arm, and she looked down at the wizard before her with muted unease, the only hint of it behind the mask on her face the slight furrow of her brow. “Bring Beorn his head.” He said. “Then meet me at the edge of the forest. I will have more information for you then.”
Without a word from Alatar, he turned back to his sled, standing upon it and waving to the stunned woman a few feet away. “I will see you in a moon!”