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Emissary of the Mark  by Soledad 3 Review(s)
DeniseReviewed Chapter: 3 on 12/25/2007
Love the horses, and the human/horsehair bracelet. I was very glad to finally have a description of Elfhelm (!), and I am eagar to learn more about Elfhelm's mother and father, and how they met.

I was trying to use Fonstad's Atlas of M-e to puzzle out Elfhelm's route, but I think your vision is a bit different? (It's all speculative, to be sure.) Did Elfhelm cross the southern part of Mirkwood to reach the East Bight? And the Mountains of Nimvarkinh are the same as the Iron Hills? Or something different? Just ignore my questions if you answer this later on, of course!

Author Reply: He rode on the outskirts of the Brown Lands. The Mountains of Nimwarking are actually the mountain range that lays on the western shores of the Sea of Rhun. That was the shortest route to reach them (I used the map of Middle-earth from the German edition of the Unfinished Tales because it has the size of a bedlinen and I can actually *see* where my people are going).

Elfhelm's mother came from an Easterling tribe that had fled across the Brown Lands and a great many of them died there. The rest got picked up by Elfhelm's father - who was hunting for wild kine as a young man - and granted asylum in Rohan.

MattReviewed Chapter: 3 on 11/30/2006
This is a really interesting story and though I know you've got many projects in hand I hope that you are able to get chapters done on it soon. You've got a very interesting take on the pre-Ring War world and some of the marginal but yet important characters.
Great job and thanks for this entertaining tale.
Matt

Author Reply: Thank you. :))
I'm glad you like the story. I was a bit afraid that the ungodly amount of background trivia in the first chapter would frighten potential readers away - what can I say, world-building is my secret vice.

I promise I'll post more as soon as I've found time to type up the finished two chapters. For the rest you'll have to wait a little longer. Strangely enough, translating is a lot worse than writing directly in English.

BodkinReviewed Chapter: 3 on 11/28/2006
I wonder if Strider can offer more information than that he left with Aelfgifu - he might have had the chance to learn considerably more since those days! And he is another one who has to get out of this - like the elf. (I do like not having to worry about the survival of my heroes, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that nothing too dreadful happens to them along the way.)

I love the horses - definite characters of their own. And poor Elfhelm is quite indignant that they fall for the charms of the elf. It must have been pretty staggering to be the first of the Rohirrim in who knows how long to meet an elf and have it proved to him that they do exist! I wonder what preconceptions he will have to lose next!

Somehow, I'm very relieved that Strider is going along with him. I'm sure the small sneaky creature will still be around when Strider resumes his search - and Elfhelm needs him at the moment.

I'm looking forward to seeing more of this story.

Author Reply: Well, I have two more chapters finished, I just need to find the time to type them up - while busily writing the next Halabor-related story for Xmas.

Actually, the rest of the story is written already - but I need to translate it from Hungarian and adapt it to the Tolkienverse. It's a lot harder than writing something entirely new directly in English, I swear.

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