The Last Ring-bearer - Kirill Yeskov [167]
…In the meantime, Kumai's Dragon glided invisibly through Lórien's night sky along the dimly reflecting meanders of Nimrodel. Once he saw a large spread of bright bluish lights forming a pretty good star map in the middle of a valley, the engineer relaxed and guided the glider down; so far everything was going according to plan. He located the Dipper, for some reason called the Sickle of the Valar in those parts, among these 'constellations' – good, just where it belongs in the real sky, with the Polar Star in the right place. Wonder what those lamps are made from? The light is obviously cold – perhaps the same stuff that luminesces in rotting mushrooms? The Dipper was growing fast; Kumai felt on the bottom of the cockpit for the sack he had extracted last night from its hiding place in the back of the Dol Guldur fireplace, and suddenly cursed through clenched teeth: "Damn, he never told me the actual size of that thing – how am I to figure my altitude in this dark?"
Haladdin had originally asked him to just retrieve the sack from the hiding place and drop it somewhere far away from the fortress during the next flight, so he could pick it up and get away. Then the doctor cut himself off in mid-sentence and asked, amazed: "Listen, maybe you can fly all the way to Lórien from here?"
"Sure, no sweat. Well, not exactly no sweat, but I can."
"What about at night?"
"Well, I haven't flown such distances at night before – it's hard to navigate."
"What if it's the night of the full moon, and the target site has guiding lights?"
"In that case it will be easier. Do you need aerial reconnaissance?"
"No. You see, I remembered how good you've gotten at dropping shells on ground targets. That's exactly what you need to do in Lórien."
Kumai had justified a night flight to his Dol Guldur superiors with a suggestion to practice night bombing. "Whatever the hell for?" "To drop incendiary shells onto enemy camps. If you have to put out burning tents on the night before a battle rather than getting some sleep, you won't be in good shape to fight in the morning." "Hmm… sounds reasonable. Very well; try it, engineer." He took off at sunset ("I'll fly around a bit until it gets dark"), made a wide turn so as not to be seen from the fortress, and only then headed west-north-west. He found the place where Nimrodel emptied into Anduin while it was still light, the rest was fairly routine…
Kumai let go and the sack disappeared into the 'star'-studded darkness below. Two seconds later the glider's nose covered the Polar Star: all set. If he wasn't off by much figuring his altitude, the target has been hit. "Is it some sort of poison?" "No, magic." "Magic?! You got nothing better to do?" "Trust me: the Lórien dudes won't like this sack at all." "Well, well. When things are really bad, people always swap magicians for physicians…" Whatever – he did his part, it's the commanders' job to know what all this is for. The less you know the better you sleep. Time to turn around and go home; it's a long way, plus the wind is getting stronger.
When Kumai took a habitually daring turn over the sleepy waters of Nimrodel, he failed to take one thing into account: the height of the mallorns. Or, rather, he had no idea that such tall trees even exist.
There was a crash when one of the branches touched a wingtip, seemingly lightly, turning the glider into a spinning winged seed like those that the mallorns drop by the hundreds onto the wilted elanors in the fall.
There was another crash when the helpless Dragon spun right and slammed into the neighboring tree, tearing its skin, breaking its spine and bones.
Finally, there was a third crash when all that debris fell down along the trunk and onto a talan full of stunned Elves, almost right at the feet of the clofoel of Tranquility.
Strictly speaking, Kumai had done his job by then and could have been written off as an acceptable loss, with an appropriate mention of the omelet whose