Nerwen the Green and the Search for the Entwives #wattys2019

Chapter XL: Friends Who Haven't Yet Met

Chapter XL: Friends Who Haven't Yet Met

On the fifteenth day since they left Orrodal, as Zagal had foresaid, they reached the city of the Ironfists. Aryon and Nerwen cast the first glance on it from the crest they were crossing and were struck: none of the two had ever seen a city of the Dwarves, not even Nerwen. Indeed, during the First Age, the Maia never got beyond Ossiriand, the easternmost region of Beleriand, where Lúthien and Beren had fixed their abode after their great ordeal and had lived to the end of their days; this land had been located to the west of the Ered Luin, where Belegost and Nogrod stood, the most ancient Dwarven settlements together with Moria, but Nerwen never had any reason to go there, during her only time in Ossiriand as a guest of her niece and husband.

The façade of the city, dug in the living stone of the mountain, was decorated with colossal statues of ancient Dwarven Kings and with green and grey banners waving in the wind; a gigantic staircase with three flights led to the entrance, opening in the beard of the face sculpted over it, probably the one of the king who founded Gatholubizar during the First Age.

The view was so majestic, Nerwen was speechless, as well as the Avar prince. The Dwarven art didn't have the lightness and the elegance of the Elven one, being its lines more massive and squared, but nonetheless, it possessed an equal beauty and grandeur. In a flash, with her mind's eye the Maia saw Menegroth, the dwelling of her sister and Thingol in Doriath, which the Dwarves had helped to dig.

Fortvalley was located on the northern side of a narrow dale, on which bottom a swift river flowed, and it was right in front of the road coming from Orrodal. It was late afternoon and the shadows were lengthening in the vale, while the caravan was descending slowly along the road, full of bends to avoid excessive steepness. On the flat bottom, the road went on, straight and well paved, heading for the city, jumping over the river with a slender, single-arched bridge of stone.

As night fell, hundreds of lights appeared on the side of the mountain, where windows and balconies were set, rivalling with the splendour of the stars twinkling in the darkening sky.

Zagal noticed satisfied her guests' astonished faces.

"It's quite a sight, isn't it?" she observed, the ghost of a smile on her bearded lips.

"Absolutely," Nerwen confirmed sincerely; Aryon, too, nodded slightly, a little reluctant to express praises about anything crafted by Dwarves; but he couldn't deny the grandeur of what he was seeing.

They reached Fortvalley when the night had already fallen, but the innumerable lanterns lighted the entrance to the city like broad daylight; Zagal stopped, and with her, her two foreign guests. The caravan of the Ironfists marched past them to pass under the immense entrance gate, while the Stiffbeard's one stopped outside, where they would spend the night and then leave again in the morning, heading northwards for Silverdwelling.

"I don't think they have here beds long enough for you, Lord Aryon," Zagal pondered with an amused grin, watching the very tall Avar sitting on his horse, "even if they will do for Lady Nerwen. I'm afraid that, even if our inns are well-equipped and rather beautiful, you'll have to keep on sleeping on a pallet, on the floor."

Nerwen chuckled: sometimes, the noticeable stature of her husband-to-be generated jokes between them, as much as her short one.

"I can't deny it," the prince admitted, reluctantly amused, lifting the corners of his mouth just a little in his characteristic half-smile, "Where do you suggest us to stay?"

"Surely at The Amethyst Vessel," the chief merchantress answered, "They have very large rooms with private baths and an internal thermal bath, which I advise you to try: it's very relaxing, after a hard day. Besides, it provides great food, at least for our tastes, particularly grilled meat."