‘They were probably more concerned with meeting a host of Elf soldiers,’ one of the Thane’s captains commented.
‘Perhaps,’ the Thane replied, noncommittally.
Now that they were forced to turn back, the number of refugees that travelled with the Elf army grew steadily, like an accumulation of responsibility that couldn’t be met under such circumstances. Their presence worried the Thane, yet he was loathe to send them away, for fear that they might fall prey to the Goblins that now roamed the countryside with impunity. He considered sending them away with an armed escort, but that would weaken his army, and there was no telling how many more refugees might yet turn up.
At the beginning, the worst of it was that their progress was made that much slower, for
he could spare horses for the civilians without seriously hindering his army. The soldiers, for their part, were now forced to ride in rotation in order to keep the footsoldiers as fresh as possible.
When they came upon a number of abandoned Goblin wains, the very ones they’d passed by before, they immediately repaired and made use of these with a feeling of great relief, setting in them the women, children, elders, the wounded and their provisions.
The next day, as the evening sunset turned the leaves of the forest to the left of them the colour of blood, two scouts arrived, newly returned from the south, and reported that they had been following Prince Cir’s army, which in apparent great haste had left the Eastland Waik area where it had been resting, and was now, at this very moment, making for Mirrindale with all speed, giving chase to a roaming band of vengeful Humans and Dwarves who had savagely ambushed the Goblin army’s unprotected rear shortly before dawn.