[Anguirel]

Even as Khandr was wondering how to make contact with the Elven ambassadors, the same Elves were attempting to find the Borrim diplomat's tent.

Lachrandir had ridden in pursuit of boars in the marshes and copses of Thargelion. He had pursued and slain fell creatures on the outskirts of Neldoreth. He had scoured plains for Orc fugitives after the Dagor Aglareb. He had seen fortifications rise from empty vales, and helped Caranthir to plan the severe sword-strokes of Noldorin roads.

But searching for Khandr was proving a greater challenge than any of this. The cobbles had long since given way on the paths to mud; the dwellings and the air grew more unlovely; the streets harder to define; even the widest tents and most tall-gabled houses were difficult to distinguish from each other.

"Stange, the beauty of this eve's sky," he muttered to Tathren, "and then these mud-spattered homes beneath it, animals and beasts, leather hide and mud brinks, all illluminated by Arien's bronze rays..."

Tathren looked slightly surprised, but did not comment. Clearly he had never seen his adopted uncle in such a poetical mood before. Lachrandir had apparently also been alarmed at his own words; he shook his head, as if to clear thoughts that disturbed him.

"We have long past the smithy the Ulfing back yonder told us of," he concluded. "One of those two larger homesteads must be the...house...of Khandr. "

"Perhaps both," Tathren suggested.

"That's a sharp thought, boy. These men are not as we are, nor do they observe the customs of the Edain in the north; I have heard of some with more than one household, to keep up more than one wife, though it is a thing I understand little of."

An agreement silently passed between them, and they walked quickly up to the opening which served as the threshold of the left-hand building. No attendant seemed posted at it, but voices could be heard, and a dim firelight glimpsed within.

"Am I now at the House of Khandr?" Lachrandir called in the Ulfing dialect, which he spoke with facility if little formal mastery of intonation...