It was not yet dawn when the entire mass of them left their protected clearing.  It was again snowing heavily, hopefully enough to obscure the trail they were making as they walked the long and weary way to Nivrim through the deepest stretches of the Region wood.  They maintained the silence as best they could, ever watchful for unfriendly eyes.  Those wounded who were not yet able to walk were carried on crude stretchers fashioned of sticks and cloaks, though there were already few enough of the latter to go around.  There was no time to stop or make a real camp.  Whenever a likely game animal was flushed into the open by their approach, it was killed and butchered on the spot.  Everyone ate standing. 

Their numbers continued to swell as other displaced stragglers fell in with them.  Rumor of Lady Elwing’s march had quietly spread throughout the wood.  Whole villages were emptied as the inhabitants deemed flight to be the better part of valor.  They were welcomed gladly, bringing with them whatever provisions they could carry and every weapon they possessed.  Whatever could be spared was distributed among the survivors of Menegroth, who were by far the most ill-equipped.  The greatest luxury of all were the horses.  These were laden with the lame and those other wounded who were able to ride, speeding their progress significantly.  By some grace, the sun never pierced the clouds, cloaking their progress in gray twilight. 

They dared not stop that night, so the next day began almost unmarked, blurred into the misery of the first.  The silent drudgery was beginning to wear on them all.  The only animals to show themselves that day were a pair of snowy hares, hardly enough for three, let alone three hundred.  They were forced to fall back upon whatever dry provisions they had left.  Once again, they pressed on through the bitter cold and dark of night.

The weather at last turned against them on the following morning.  The quiet snow turned into a horrible drizzling rain.  Those without winter cloaks were soon soaked to the skin and shivering, and even those with greater protection did not fare much better.  Any available game had wisely taken shelter, and they had run out of all other food.  It seemed no one would eat that day. 

At last, Oropher called a temporary halt.  The whole company was on the brink of exhaustion, several of the wounded had succumbed during the night, the horses needed rest, and it seemed best to wait out the inclement weather.  Moreover, they had at last reached Nivrim and the fens of Sirion, and soon they would no longer be able to count on the wood to conceal them.  They camped on the rocky banks of a stream, which the rains and the unseasonable thaw had swelled into a gently roaring torrent.  With any luck, the sound would muffle any evidence of their presence there.

With the company stopped, Oropher dispatched scouts in a wide perimeter.  They had not the strength to fight, and so could ill afford to be taken by surprise.

Far from the camp, Thranduil stood against the bole of a large tree, silently enduring the incessant rain as dusk fell once again.  His wet clothes clung uncomfortably to his skin, and hunger gnawed at his stomach.  The cold and fatigue were greater than any he had ever experienced before.  His only comfort was the powerful woodland bow in his hands.

Everything began to freeze again in the growing darkness, and the pelting rain once more became silent white flurries.  Thranduil could feel ice forming in his hair.  He could scarcely keep from shivering. 

He flexed his stiff hands, the jeweled cuffs of his torn and bloodied tunic glinting incongruously.  He was not supposed to be here.  He was supposed to be in his own room in his father’s house, sleeping under furs on a goose down bed.  It almost seemed that if he closed his eyes he might wake there, relieved to find this whole ordeal had been nothing but a terrible nightmare.  But if he closed his eyes now, exhausted and at the mercy of the ice, he might never wake again.

These familiar woods seemed strange and foreboding now.  Everything that had made this place his home was utterly gone.  Suddenly he was nothing, no one, adrift in a wild and hostile world with only the clothes on his back. 

Even now, Thranduil felt a deep and visceral betrayal he was unable to quell.  That these evils had been deliberately perpetrated by Eldar, by the “Elves of Light” as they had the audacity to call themselves, was almost inconceivable.  It was grotesque.  Even though the Iathrim and the exiled Golodhrim had never been on the most cordial of terms, he had never expected to be utterly brutalized by them.  He was haunted by the murderous intent he had seen on their faces, the depravity which had more in common with Orcs than Elven-kind.  If the old tales were true, perhaps they all had the shadow of the Orc somewhere deep in their hearts.

The muffled sounds of hooves in the wet snow brought Thranduil abruptly out of his miserable reverie.  Immediately he shrank closer against the tree, bringing his bow to bear and nocking an arrow with nearly frozen fingers.  Be it game or foe, he would probably need it.

He became absolutely motionless when he saw the horseman, a stab of panic coursing through his veins.  The imposing figure came slowly through the gloom on a black horse, the Fëanorian star on his dark tabard. 

Thranduil immediately thought of his parents, of Galadhmir and Lindóriel.  Enduring another slaughter would be unbearable.  Frozen in place, he still had enough of his wits about him to notice this lone horseman did not yet seem to be aware of them.  Would it not be better to let him pass undisturbed?  Otherwise, he would have to kill him.  The thought made him sick, even after all the brutality of the past few days.

Thranduil remained intensely still as the soldier drew closer, almost completely concealed behind the tree.  For a moment it seemed the scout might pass by without incident.  He looked young, perhaps little older than Thranduil himself, his features drawn and haunted.  What madness had brought him to this place?  What perverse loyalty had driven him so far from home?

The horse suddenly snorted and balked, and Thranduil knew it had smelled the old blood on him.  The rider was immediately alert, searching the growth.  Their eyes met through the icy branches.  He reached for his horn; Thranduil loosed his arrow.

Struck full in the chest, the Golodh was thrown into the snow as his horse reared and bolted.  Thranduil approached him quickly but cautiously, another arrow ready.  By some miracle of Golodhrin craftsmanship, the wound was not immediately fatal.  The shaft had not penetrated deeply enough, but it had driven with it the bent links of the masterful chain mail which had foiled its progress.  The scout was crippled for the moment, gasping for breath and bleeding.

Thranduil hesitated.  Before this nightmare had begun, he had never even considered turning his weapons upon a kindred foe, no matter how foreign.  The Fëanorian looked up at him, at once wondering at the delay and hardly daring to hope for some shred of mercy.  Thranduil could not help but search his mind for some alternative, but there was none.  Released, this rider would be obliged to report to his lords.  They had no resources to support wounded prisoners, and taking any would serve no purpose but to betray the location of their company.

His hand trembled as he held back his bowstring.  “Curse you for bringing this upon us!”  he said at last, and loosed his arrow.  The other’s head flew back, pinned to the earth through the left eye.

At once, Thranduil set off at a run through the dark wood, following the fresh trail of the runaway horse.  He could not afford to waste more time.  The frightened animal had run straight away for some distance before nervously pacing back and forth through the unfamiliar forest.  At last, he came upon it, huffing and snorting in a clearing. 

Thranduil approached with as much calm as he could muster.  He had to gently pursue the animal for a long while before he managed to grasp the fallen rein.  The mare squealed and shied, but did not bolt again.  The process was taking longer than Thranduil would like under the circumstances, and she seemed to be able to sense the impatience and roiling emotions beneath his touch.  Unable to spare more time, Thranduil leapt into the saddle.  She reared in protest, but he held his seat and turned her south whence they had come.

He felt even colder than the unforgiving weather warranted when they arrived back at the grisly scene, already thinly veiled in snow.  Tying the horse to a stout branch, Thranduil knelt and set about despoiling the body of anything of value.  He wrenched out the first arrow, snapped off the second, and stripped off all the clothing, particularly the fine woolen cloak, tunic and leggings.  He also lay aside the belt, sword, dagger, bow and quiver, doeskin gloves, boots, the damaged mail, a silver ring and a jeweled hair stay.  He clad the body again in the Fëanorian tabard, not only because he had not lost all decency, but also because—desperate though they were—no one in Oropher’s company would want it.

He heaped some snow over the corpse before he left, trusting the weather to conceal the scene more thoroughly overnight.  He wrapped his spoils in the cloak and mounted the horse, turning back at once to warn his father.

He approached the camp by the river with some trepidation, sounding their nightingale call several times, trusting the secreted guards to recognize him.  They did and let him pass before immediately obscuring the hoof prints with pine branches for brooms.

Thranduil dismounted and found his father and mother sleeping beneath a tree.  He shook Oropher awake.  “I have had to kill a scout,” he said flatly.  “We must recall the others and leave this place.”

Oropher gave him a terse nod.  “See to it at once,” he said.

The silent alarm was passed through the enormous company like ripples in a stream, from one to another.  Runners were dispatched to gather the remaining guards on watch.  Thranduil roused Galadhmir and Lindóriel.

In a few moments they would begin to slip silently into the night, and the snow would conceal any sign that they had been there at all.