Note: I started this in Notes on my iPhone in October of 2016; it was last edited in December of 2017. Tolkien has influenced the language, and Dungeons and Dragons has influenced the characterization. I think of him as half orc. (DL, Sept. 18, 2021)
He moved through the deep woods like one long acquainted with dark places, for so he was. As always, he carried with him the same sort of kit he had carried in the armies of Dar Sheiling, although time and experience had taught him the best substitions to make in keeping with his current life.
The pair of Dar Sheiling javelins–short, heavy, cruelly barbed, and cast in the hundreds by the front ranks to break the shock of enemy assaults–he had replaced with a single, long spear. The hard, heavy, iron-soled boots so apt for wearing out many leagues on imperial roads and for treading down the fallen he had replaced with supple doe-hide boots for more nimble footing and greater stealth in dangerous places. “Besides,” he said, “If they fail me in battle, better to lose my feet all at once than to grind them to stubs day after day.”
But the great shield, burden though it was, he had retained. It was an unsurpassed friend at need, and need there had been often enough on the dark paths he hunted. The short and brutal sword was the same he had carried in the wars; it bore the blood of many enemies. For the rest, his cloak and cooking gear, the water skin, spade, and small wood axe, the satchel and food bag were all packed and hoisted over his shoulder after the infantry manner. But to all he had added a fishing line and hooks, and a sling with sling stones.
Hung round his neck and hanging at his chest was a soldier’s helm, and he wore a banded cuirass.
In this manner he could travel long in any land, enduring cold and heat, plenty and dearth, not as fleet and silent as woodland scouts, but far hardier, enduring in his pursuit, and able at the end to match his strength against fell foes.
At day’s end, as somewhere out beyond the thickness of the wood the sun was setting, he came to the door he sought. Deep in these southern reaches of the forest where no wholesome dwelling could be found was a small hill, or rather rising of ground. It started from the south, nearer the mountains, and over the course of half a mile the ground rose up some ten fathoms, till it ended abruptly in a sheer cliff that faced north, a mile wide and sixty feet tall. At the foot of that cliff the irregular mouth of a cave opened, beyond the leaping reach of a man at its highest point, and broad.