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Then Turambar with Dorlas and Hunthor went away hot-foot to Nen Girith, and when they came there the sun was westering and shadows were long; and the last two of the scouts were there awaiting them.

‘You come not too soon, lord,’ said they. ‘For the Dragon has come on, and already when we left he had reached the brink of Teiglin, and glared across the water. He moves ever by night, and we may look then for some stroke before tomorrow’s dawn.’

Turambar looked out over the falls of Celebros and saw the sun going down to its setting, and black spires of smoke rising by the borders of the river. ‘There is no time to lose,’ he said; ‘yet these tidings are good. For my fear was that he would seek about; and if he passed northward and came to the Crossings and so to the old road in the lowland, then hope would be dead. But now some fury of pride and malice drives him headlong.’ But even as he spoke, he wondered, and mused in his mind: ‘Or can it be that one so evil and fell shuns the Crossings, even as the Orcs? Haudh-en-Elleth! Does Finduilas lie still between me and my doom?’

Then he turned to his companions and said: ‘This task now lies before us. We must wait yet a little; for too soon in this case were as ill as too late. When dusk falls, we must creep down, with all stealth, to Teiglin. But beware! For the ears of Glaurung are as keen as his eyes – and they are deadly. If we reach the river unmarked, we must climb then down into the ravine, and cross the water, and so come in the path that he will take when he stirs.’

‘But how can he come forward so?’ said Dorlas. ‘Lithe he may be, but he is a great Dragon, and how shall he climb down the one cliff and up the other, when part must again be climbing before the hinder is yet descended? And if he can so, what will it avail us to be in the wild water below?’

‘Maybe he can so,’ answered Turambar, ‘and indeed if he does, it will go ill with us. But it is my hope from what we learn of him, and from the place where he now lies, that his purpose is otherwise. He is come to the brink of Cabed-en-Aras, over which, as you tell, a deer once leaped from the huntsmen of Haleth. So great is he now that I think he will seek to cast himself across there. That is all our hope, and we must trust to it.’

Dorlas’ heart sank at these words; for he knew better than any all the land of Brethil, and Cabed-en-Aras was a grim place indeed. On the east side was a sheer cliff of some forty feet, bare but tree-grown at the crown; on the other side was a bank somewhat less sheer and less high, shrouded with hanging trees and bushes, but between them the water ran fiercely among rocks, and though a man bold and sure-footed might ford it by day, it was perilous to dare it at night. But this was the counsel of Turambar, and it was useless to gain-say him.

They set out therefore at dusk, and they did not go straight towards the Dragon, but took first the path to the Crossings; then, before they came so far, they turned southward by a narrow track and passed into the twilight of the woods above Teiglin. 26 And as they drew near to Cabed-en-Aras, step by step, halting often to listen, the reek of burning came to them, and a stench that sickened them. But all was deadly still, and there was no stir of air. The first stars glimmered in the East behind them, and faint spires of smoke rose straight and unwavering against the last light in the West.

Now when Turambar was gone Níniel stood silent as stone; but Brandir came to her and said: ‘Níniel, fear not the worst until you must. But did I not counsel you to wait?’

‘You did so,’ she answered. ‘Yet how would that profit me now? For love may abide and suffer unwedded.’

‘That I know,’ said Brandir. ‘Yet wedding is not for nothing.’

‘I am two months gone with his child,’ said Níniel. ‘But it does not seem to me that my fear of loss is the more heavy to bear. I understand you not.’

‘Nor I myself,’ said he. ‘And yet I am afraid.’

‘What a comforter are you!’ she cried. ‘But