Part 3

By the time they had eaten their bread and cheese the rain had eased off a little, and they decided to press on, since Arador would need to take his samples in the daylight; they entered the forest an hour or so later, just as the shadows were starting to lengthen.

Here, the road reverted to a muddy trail, flanked either side by scrub and, beyond that, by trees—larches, cedars, and tall pines—close packed, and dark. The air was still, and deeply quiet—there was no birdsong, and no animal sounds—and, now that the rain had stopped, the forest seemed like a world apart, completely detached from the reality outside.

“It is so eerie,” said Arador, in an awed whisper.

“Yes...” replied Eowyn.

“It feels as though danger were lurking behind every tree.”

“That is your imagination working, Arador,” said Legolas, smiling. “I do not sense any danger, although...” He broke off, suddenly, and became very still, as if he were listening hard—Or, thought Arador, reaching out with some other Elven sense. Even his horse, feeling his sudden disquiet, had stopped walking. “Over there,” he said, at last, pointing to the east. “That is where the trees are ailing.”

Arador immediately dismounted and, shrugging off his pack, retrieved his leather satchel.

“Can I help?” asked Eowyn, dropping to the ground beside him.

He pulled out one of the glass vials. “Take out the stopper, my Lady, and use this,”—he showed her the tiny glass spoon attached to it—“to scoop up a little bit of soil without touching it—because the soil could be poisonous,” he added.

“Ingenious,” said Eowyn.

“Master Eldacar thinks of everything,” he said. “If you do the soil, my Lady—and take a sample of anything that looks strange—I will do the rest.”

Eowyn nodded. “What will you do when you have the samples?”

“Test for salts,” said Arador, handing her several vials. “If there is too much of the wrong salt—”

“I understand. We will have to work out where it has come from, and stop it.”

Feeling like a teacher with an exceptionally gifted pupil, Arador couldn’t help beaming at her.

...

Legolas, having pushed his way through the bracken at the trail’s edge, had entered the trees, and was striding away purposefully—presumably towards the affected part of the forest.

Eowyn hastily stowed Arador’s vials in her jerkin, and followed him.

Lacking an Elf’s powerful grace, and having to trot to keep up with her husband, she soon found herself bedevilled by clumps of bramble, and snared by tough, low-growing ivy, and tripped by wandering tree roots, so that she had to fix her eyes upon the ground and when, suddenly, she realised that Legolas had stopped walking and she looked up, she was taken by surprise.

There could be no doubt about it. All around her, the trees were dying—standing, it seemed, like a crowd of grey-robed ghosts, their drooping branches trailing sheets of pale, brittle needles.

Legolas placed his hands upon one of the tree trunks and, standing close, rested his forehead against its peeling bark.

Remembering her own task, Eowyn blinked back a tear, and crouched down to take a sample of the soil.

The ground here was bare of undergrowth but covered, instead, with a thick crust of greyish filth. Recalling Arador’s warnings about poison, Eowyn pulled out one of the vials, drew the stopper, and carefully spooned up a small quantity.

And, as she did so—from the corner of her eye—she saw someone move.