Book II ~ ERNIL

“THE PRINCE”

Chapter 1 ~ Into the East

It was certainly a long ride over the expanse of Eriador.  Day after day they crossed the fields and hills and lightly-wooded forests of that country at a steady but leisurely pace.  The winter weather was quickly melting into spring, and soon there were green buds and young leaves brightening the landscape, new spring grass beneath the passing hooves of their horses.

They rode in loose double file, the men spread throughout the ladies as a traveling precaution.  Oropher led them with Lóriel at his side, followed by the brothers Gwaelas and Erelas upon their woodland horses.  Thranduil held the next place with Lindóriel, Luinlas behind him, Galadhmir with Gwaelin, Linhir with Illuiniel, Anárion with Menelwen, with Baranor and Noruvion taking up the rear.  Their camps along the way were superficial, lacking many of the familiar comforts of home but equal the needs of any single night.  For the most part they slept beneath the stars or amid the occasional grove of trees.  It was becoming a monotonous though not entirely unpleasant routine as days became weeks, and weeks became near a month.  Their pedigreed mounts could have made shorter work of the distance, even laden as they were, but the additional pack horses slowed them considerably, and they maintained an easy pace to better conserve the stamina of the entire party.

Thus far, Thranduil had to admit that this other half of Ennor was well worth adopting.  It had been too long since he had been so far inland, and he was beginning to feel more at home than he ever had on the western shore.  He could only hope Eryn Galen itself lived up to his expectations.  The broken gray ridge of the Hithaeglir loomed large before them now, the final gateway into the east.  They were still snowcapped.

“But the passes should be clear enough,” he was saying.

“I certainly hope so,” Lindóriel said for herself.  “I have already had enough snow for one season.”

Thranduil was about to concur, but slowly the entire line of them came to an inexplicable halt.  He looked ahead and saw that his father had regally paused on the crest of the bluff before them, staring critically at the base of the mountains ahead.  His curiosity quickly won the better of him, and he passed his pack pony’s lead around behind him to Lindóriel.  “Excuse me,” he said, spurring across the grass to the head of the line.

“What on earth is this?” Oropher asked rhetorically as his son reined in beside him.  Thranduil could feel his father’s festering displeasure, and in that moment he could see why.  It seemed a full-fledged settlement was coalescing at the mountain’s foot.  It was still some distance away, but the gentle rise of the land afforded them a clear view, revealing several completed stonework structures and many more foundations.

“Well, it seems we shall not be so far removed from our friends as we thought,” Thranduil observed wryly.  “Do you see the colors?”

“I do,” Oropher replied, his voice flat.  They were small and distant, but Elvish sight could still make out the row of flying heraldry atop the most prominent of the finished structures, notably the flaming star of the Golodhrim and the silver tree of Celeborn.

Lóriel said nothing, but a sidelong glance toward her husband betrayed her misgivings.  Thranduil said nothing more, both he and his mother awaiting Oropher’s final judgment of the situation, be that a curse, a lament, or a full diatribe.

Their lord merely sighed, a look of resigned disgust settling on his face.  “If they believe they will be able to charge me a toll for the use of the pass, they are sorely mistaken,” he said, inciting his horse forward once more.

Thranduil just smiled and pulled back a pace as the others went ahead, waiting for his place in line.  He joined Lindóriel again as she passed and received his pony’s lead back from her.

“What is it?” she asked as they moved on.

“Celeborn,” Thranduil answered her, leaving the rest for her own eyes.  “Father is none too pleased, as you may guess.”

Lindóriel arched her lovely brows as she took in the view for herself.  “And what about you?” she asked as she turned back to him, her voice low and coy.  “Are you truly as much your father’s son as you would have them believe?”

Thranduil felt a grin tugging at the corners of his mouth.  “You lay traps for me, Lin,” he said with a proud tilt of his head.  “What are you trying to do, betray me here in front of everyone?”

She merely laughed, a glad sound that came much more easily to her now.

“Very well, you have discovered me,” he granted her.  The hound, Argeleb, ambled through the grass beside the horses, easily keeping pace throughout the entire journey.  “I am not at all sorry to see Celeborn.  However, his friends the Golodhrim are another matter.”

“I see,” Lindóriel mused.  “And how much do you believe Adar Oropher will object to their presence so far east?”

“I seriously doubt their migration will influence him to immediately abandon the realm he spent the last centuries building,” Thranduil answered dryly.  “Let them stay on this side of the mountains and all should be well enough.  He does not like it, but he will learn to abide them.”

It was still a considerable ride down to the burgeoning city, but it sat near the mountain pass and was not far out of their way.  It would have been insufferably rude to pass by without exchanging greetings at the very least.  Thranduil wondered how his father would manage the inevitable meeting and hoped for the best.  He was looking forward to seeing Amroth again, even if only for a short time.

When they had approached near enough, a herald was sent out to them from the work site.  It was an eager young Golodh by the look of him, leaping onto a horse and grabbing a banner as he passed.  He rode out across the plain to meet them, colors flying in the wind.

“Hail, and welcome to Eregion!” he greeted them, halting his dark mount before Oropher.  The Lord of Eryn Galen regarded him with a rather haughty demeanor, sitting his horse like the king he plainly believed himself to be.  Thranduil again passed his pony’s rope to Lindóriel and rode to his father’s side.

“Seldom have we received such distinguished travelers in our city, unfinished as it is,” the herald continued, bowing again as Thranduil arrived.  “Whose arrival might I announce to my lords?”

“You may announce Oropher, King of Eryn Galen beyond Hithaeglir,” was the imperious reply.  “Who are your lords?”

“Eregion stands beneath the rule of Lord Celeborn of Beleriand, Lady Galadriel Finarfiniel, and Lord Celebrimbor of the Gwaith-i-Mírdain,” the herald informed them.  “Their hospitality is yours to command, King Oropher, if you wish to accept it before you pass the mountains.”

For a moment it looked almost as though Oropher was inclined to let his pride have its way and decline the offer.  Beside him Lóriel shot her husband a silent glance sharp as daggers.  Thranduil, too, dropped his gaze and cleared his throat discreetly.  He knew his mother and the other ladies had been too long away from civilization, and Lindóriel was not the only one who would appreciate a hot bath and a night in a real bed.  The horses would also benefit from a night or two in a stable and some fresh grain.  Overall, the majority of them were strongly in favor of accepting the hospitality of Eregion, whatever it might entail.

Oropher was not so dense as he could sometimes appear, and he seemed to sense that if he made the decision to press on, he would be going alone.  So, in the interest of preventing the mass mutiny of his family, he nodded his reluctant acceptance at last.

“Lead on,” he said, and the herald wheeled his mount around at once.

“Follow at your leisure, my lord,” he bade them before he rode back to rejoin his fellows.  “Another will meet you and escort you to your quarters.  I shall announce your arrival to the Lords of Eregion.”

Thranduil again returned to Lindóriel, crisis successfully averted for the moment.  If he could only keep his father quiet, he might actually be able to enjoy this unexpected visit.

“I am glad we are staying,” Lindóriel admitted with a sigh of obvious relief.

“I knew you would be,” Thranduil smiled.

When at last they entered the confines of the city walls behind their guide, it immediately became apparent that this Ost-in-Edhil, as they named it, would be a city of grand proportions.  Great new foundations were already marked out for numerous other halls and dwellings, and new walls of stone were being masterfully built.  Almost too masterfully, in fact.

Thranduil passed a cool gaze over several Dwarves going about their business amid the Noldorin city as he rode past them.  The very sight of their stunted kind sent a chilling tingle through his blood.  He had seen perhaps two or three of the Naugrim in those parts of Lindon in which he had lived, and the repugnant effect upon him had been the same.  He had never liked the ones who had appeared from time to time in Doriath, and now his most abiding memories of them were of square-bladed axes buried in the broad chest of his grandsire, Thoron, callously lopping off the fair head of his mother’s brother, Glorlas.  Beside him, he felt that Lindóriel had stiffened too, and indeed the whole column of them had fallen eerily silent, no sound but that of the horses on the paved street.  Thranduil could not imagine how Celeborn endured such a strong Dwarvish presence in his city.

“We have received instruction to see you quartered on the other side of the Merethrond,” their guide was saying, indicating what might have passed for a wing of a palace just beyond the great hall sporting the heraldic banners.  The tense note in his voice betrayed his own knowledge of the difficulties between Dwarvish kind and the Eluwaith.  “Your horses will be stabled just across the way.  The Lord and Lady will receive you this evening at dinner.”

Once they had seen all thirty of their horses stabled and were shown to their own rooms, they still had a few hours before their appointed dinner with the Lords of Eregion.  Thranduil set about spending that time as productively as he could.  He bathed and unpacked one of his finer outfits, one of evergreen and white, accented with gray leaves and a short mantle draped rakishly over one shoulder.  If such were to be the colors of their new realm, they might as well begin earning a reputation for them.  He also wore his green sash beneath his belt, adorned with the monogram and so blatantly Sindarin; not the one Illuiniel had first made for him years ago, but the replacement Lindóriel had provided.

His room opened onto an open corridor that extended along the outside of that entire story of the building.  He wandered out onto it with Argeleb when he had finished dressing, and sat down on the long stone bench that stood along the railing.  Leaning against a pillar with his feet propped up comfortably on the remaining length of the bench, he opened Serataron’s book in his lap.  It was the first opportunity he had found in the past weeks to really look at it.

Tales of the Land of the Fence.   It was gratifying to know he had played such a large role in the preservation of those narratives, and it brought a smile to him now to imagine Serataron slaving away at his edited and revised edition, striving always toward absolute perfection.

Just inside the first pages a pressed beech leaf fell into his hand, and on the empty page opposite the chapter Of Thingol and Melian he found a brief sentiment his old master had left him, written in the same elegant hand as the rest of the book.

Thranduil, my friend, though the winding paths of life take us along our separate ways, may this remind you always of a lonely Exile who greatly appreciates the time and effort you deigned to share with him.  Even now, the completed work is not half so precious to me as the memories made in the writing of it.  Your presence in our house is sorely missed, but as time moves ever on, I trust you will always find new hearts to touch.  I may truly say I loved you as a son, and I hope your chosen course will one day lead us to one another once more.  Farewell, my lord, and may the stars of Elbereth ever shine upon your road. ~ SA

Thranduil could not help but smile again, remembering the kind face of the man who had briefly been as a father to him, showing him another and far more pleasant side of the Golodhrim.  It was no secret to him that Serataron had indeed hoped to see him wed to his daughter, a solace for the son he had lost; but it was not to be, and he trusted Malach to be equal the task.

Dwelling for a moment upon fond memories of Elemmirë, he saw that she too had left him a parting thought.

Dearest Thranduil, I shall not pretend to be pleased by your leaving us.  Indeed, I should be compromising the truth if I did less than admit that I shall miss you dreadfully.  Please do not remember us by the bitter night upon the shore when last we spoke.  I do not.  Recall instead our brighter days together.  I shall always remember you as one of the most engaging friends I have ever known, that proverbial woodland prince of Ennor I was privileged enough to meet, and indeed even to love.  May all the blessings of Valimar follow you, my lord.  Namárië. ~ El

Thranduil ran his hand lightly over the page, turning in his fingers the midnight-blue ribbon that he knew must have once been hers.  There was something left in his heart for her even now, as there probably always would be.

“There you are,” Lindóriel said as she emerged onto the balcony.

Thranduil looked up with an immediate smile, placing the marker and closing the book.  “Here I am,” he assured her.  She looked absolutely stunning in her green and white gown, a braided silver cord about her waist.  She knew he liked that dress, and had probably guessed he would be wearing the same colors.  And of course, the emerald pendant at her throat complimented the ensemble perfectly.

“You look wonderful,” he said as she came to sit on the edge of the bench beside him before he could get up.

She smiled demurely, slipping her hands into his.  “You always say that.”  Her smile then became something warmer, and without a word she pulled him closer and bestowed a fond kiss.  She might have meant to draw away then, but Thranduil pulled her back for another.  She accepted it gladly, but then pushed him back.  “I came merely to find you,” she said softly, her hand braced gently but firmly against his shoulder to forestall any further endearments.  “Your father wants us all to be ready for dinner a bit early and to meet with him beforehand.”

Thranduil allowed himself a sigh, mildly annoyed that they had met an untimely interruption, and slightly frustrated with his family.  “Doubtless he wants to instruct us in our respective attitudes toward Celeborn and his lady,” he said, and Lindóriel nodded. 

Thranduil slouched back against the pillar, silently expressing his own disgust with the whole affair, the hollow courtesies, the prickly conversation. 

“I am ready now,” he said, thoughtfully turning her hand over his, her right hand, where he would one day be placing a ring.  “We shall be along in time.”

“Well, I am not ready,” she said, gently pushing him back and standing to leave, shattering his hopes of spending the next hour with her.  “Do not be late.”  She kissed him fondly and swept back inside, the short train of her gown rippling over the stone and tile of the floor.  He quietly watched her go, appreciating the view.

Argeleb suddenly began thumping his great tail against the stones in glad recognition.  Thranduil also recognized the familiar presence approaching him, and reckoned it some small consolation.

“I see you have found a lady love since last we met, Oropherion,” Amroth observed.

Thranduil turned a haughty look upon him.  “And what have you to say of it, Celebornion?” he demanded.

In the next moment they both melted into boyish grins as Thranduil stood and Amroth pulled him into a fierce embrace.

“Well met again!” Amroth greeted him with a brilliant smile and a musical laugh.  “I never expected that you would follow us so soon!”

“That was not exactly our intent,” Thranduil admitted, releasing his young kinsman.  “Indeed, if my father had known he would be constrained to visit this Ost-in-Edhil along the way, he might have taken us through the north pass instead.”

“Then I am thankful to have surprised him,” Amroth grinned.  He sat down as Thranduil did likewise.  “I would not have missed this chance to see you.”

He was becoming an admirable young lord, Thranduil observed, embodying all the best of both his parents.  His hair was tinged with his mother’s golden fire, but his frame was his father’s, the broad shoulders and the strong hands.  Amroth was maturing, he saw, but his innocence remained.  He hoped it always would.

“But come on, tell me about her,” Amroth smiled eagerly, hitching up his robes of white and gray, crossing his legs beneath him.

“Lindóriel?” Thranduil asked.  “You have met her before.  Do not tell me you have forgotten.”

“Ah, yes, Lady Lin!” Amroth nodded.  “Indeed, how could I forget her?  I had always imagined you and Lady Menelwen together.  She is so much like you.”

“She is,” Thranduil admitted wryly.  “And that is precisely the reason we would never get along peaceably.” 

“Yes, that I can understand,” Amroth conceded, perhaps thinking of his own parents.  “But no matter.  Lady Lin is worthy of you.  Was not her mother akin to Beleg Cúthalion?  You must promise to bring your children to Eregion before they are too far grown.  Or might I come to your wood?”

Thranduil could only laugh.  “You seem to have great plans for my family already.”

Amroth smiled resignedly, but there remained a quiet and lingering impatience about him.  “Have you any spare sisters who would like to stay here with me?” he asked.

“I am certain you will find a lady of your own,” Thranduil assured him, “and you will know her when you do.  Surely there are many lovely maids in this world just waiting for a strapping young lord like yourself.”

“Or like you.  I must make certain they do not lay eyes upon you first if I am to enjoy a fighting chance.”

“I have found my lady,” Thranduil assured him.

“I like yours.”

“Well, you cannot have her.”

Amroth merely laughed, flashing a smile very like Celeborn’s but still bright with youth and levity.  “Very well, my friend,” he said.  “I shall stop prodding you.  What do you think of Eregion?”

“It has a fine start,” Thranduil admitted, glancing down from the balcony to the courtyards and unfinished buildings all about them.  “But why here?  What brought you from Eriador?  I dare say my father would especially like an answer in that regard.”

Amroth nodded.  “We thought he would.  It is because the Dwarves are here, Thranduil, and you may believe this alliance was certainly not of my father’s making.  Beneath the peak of Caradhras lies Hadhodrond, Khazad-dûm, the greatest of the Dwarvish mansions.  My lady mother and the lord Celebrimbor are especially eager to befriend them here.”

Thranduil darkened at the mention of the Dwarves, and he trusted Amroth knew quite well the reason why.  If Oropher did not yet know of this Hadhodrond, he did not wish to be the one to bring it to his attention.  Thranduil also knew Celeborn to have as virulent a dislike of Dwarvish kind as any of them.  “I wonder at your father’s forbearance,” he said simply.

“As do I,” Amroth agreed.  “But, if it is any consolation, know that these come of the Dwarves of Belegost.  Does that appease you?”

“Somewhat,” Thranduil admitted, allowing some of his bitterness toward all things Dwarvish to slowly subside.  The origins of this particular branch of Dwarvendom did indeed make a great deal of difference.  Rumor had it that many had fled east of their own accord, fearing the wrath of Doriath after the atrocities perpetrated by their brethren of Nogrod.  He had no crow to pluck with the Belegostrim, though he doubted he would ever be able to deliberately befriend them.  Dwarves were Dwarves.

“But come,” Amroth beckoned.  “Let me show you my home.”

Thranduil allowed Amroth to proudly lead him through the streets of Ost-in-Edhil.  The completed portions were largely the living quarters and the main hall, but everywhere there were other edifices in various stages of development.  They saw the vast site for the library and archives, the growing walls of the southern wing of the palace, and even the intended position of Celebrimbor’s forges.

“But this place is my favorite,” Amroth said, up a stone stairway to a lookout post on the guard wall.  The spring wind was stronger there, and the position afforded a breathtaking view of the northern plains and mountainous foothills.

Thranduil smiled.  “It is a lovely position for a guard post,” he observed.  “Only the city itself obstructs the view in any direction.”

“And what this one cannot see will be duly observed by that one there,” Amroth said, pointing.  “We have not neglected to prepare the city’s defense, little though we expect to be threatened in this day and age.  Still, it has never hurt anyone to be prepared.”

“No, it has not,” Thranduil concurred, his voice trailing off as darker thoughts returned to him.  Each time the attack had come they had been unprepared, and each time they had been massacred.  He had long since vowed never to make the same mistake again.

“Come,” Amroth beckoned again, turning to walk along the wall toward yet another descending stairway.  “I want you to meet the Gonnhirrim.  Father has no use for them, but Mother insists that they can teach me a great deal.”

Thranduil followed his young cousin down to ground level once more, gracefully enduring the extended tour with an almost paternal patience.  He really was not interested in meeting a crowd of Dwarves, but if Amroth wished to introduce him, so be it.

“Nordri!” Amroth called, his clear voice sounding over the stone surrounding them.  “A moment, my friend!”

Thranduil had to suppress a wry smile as he recognized that the great Dwarvish craftsman seemed none too eager to again be called away from his work by this young master.  Nordri was overseeing the laying of a foundation at that moment, a great burly figure with his long brown beard braided and tucked into his belt.  He turned with a weary air, but Thranduil observed the Dwarf take a bit of a start at the first sight of him.

“My apologies, Master Dwarf, for interrupting you at your work,” Amroth began, but I would like you to meet my father’s kinsman, Thranduil, Prince of Greenwood in the east.  He and his father are staying a short time with us as they pass the mountains.  Thranduil, Master Nordri, son of Nirad, the foremost stonemaster of Eregion.”

“Master Nordri,” Thranduil nodded, polite enough but without warmth.  He tried, but he had not condescended to speak to a Dwarf for a very long time.  “To judge by what I have seen thus far, your renown is well-deserved.”

A shadow seemed to pass briefly over Nordri’s dark eyes, but whether that implied a recognition of his Doriathrin accent Thranduil could only guess.  “My thanks to you, Master Elf,” he gruffed.  “Great lords are seldom so kind.”

They regarded one another for a long moment, an unspoken tension between them which existed without cause or purpose, but which could not be summarily dismissed by either of them.  It was a stiffness Thranduil felt would likely dominate all his future dealings with the Stunted Race.

“I shall not keep you longer,” Amroth was saying.  “You must be busy, and we must not be late for dinner.”

Dinner!  Thranduil could have kicked himself as they took their leave of Nordri and turned back toward the Merethrond and his own temporary quarters.  “Late, indeed,” he grumbled, not at Amroth but at all circumstances combined.  “And I was supposed to meet with my father.  Ai, Belain!”

They covered the remaining distance at an easy run before they went their separate ways, knowing they would see each other again shortly.  Bounding up the stairs three at a time, Thranduil flew through the corridor like a scalded cat, rapped politely on his parents’ door and then let himself in.

“Thranduil!” Oropher barked irritably as he looked up, the room crowded with all the other members of their party.  “When I ask an hour in advance that you be here, I expect you to remember!  Where have you been?”

Thranduil paused a moment as he closed the doors behind him, an entire stream of excuses dying on his tongue.  There was no way to make this palatable.  “I was making the acquaintance of a Dwarf, Father,” he said.

“What?”

“Never mind; he is here,” Lóriel reprimanded her husband, gently but firmly.  “You were saying?”

“Yes,” Oropher said slowly, gathering his thoughts again with one last stern glance at his son.  “We have very little time to review, I am afraid, but in a word, beware any near friendship with these new lords . . .”

Thranduil sidled up to Lindóriel as his father lectured on.  Her pale golden hair was put up with a silver comb that glimmered like a tiara, the rest allowed to fall in gentle curls down her back.

“You are so beautiful,” he whispered, playfully curling a soft ringlet around his finger.

She suppressed a smile and would not turn to acknowledge him out of deference to Oropher.  But she did reach up to her shoulder to take his hand.  “Beauty is solely in the eye of the beholder, my lord,” she reminded him fondly.

He smiled and edged even closer.  “This beholder is enchanted.”

“THRANduil!”

He winced, feeling his father’s growing impatience, but Oropher did not waste time reproving him further, despite his keen annoyance.

“You will wear these,” their lord went on, producing a carefully-packed parcel from one of his bags.  Opening the box, he pulled out a slender bundle and removed its velvet wrapping, revealing in his hand a gleaming circlet of silver beech leaves.  It surprised them all, for he had said nothing of such things before this.

The first he set aside for himself, unwrapping another just like it.  “Thranduil, this one is yours,” he said, handing it over.  “I had them made before we left Lindon.  Handle them carefully.  Linhir,” he said, bestowing a similar one upon Lingalad’s son, except that these were now made in the likeness of ivy.  “Galadhmir.  Anárion.”

While the others breathlessly received their crowns, Thranduil paused a moment to consider his own, carefully turning it over in his hands.  It was masterfully made, simple but elegant in its design, the sharp leaf shapes brilliantly reflecting the light.  He suspected it was not truly silver, but white gold.  He also noted that his and his father’s were sparingly accented with diamond amid the branching leaves, an embellishment the others lacked.  The subtle symbolism of them was obvious; he and his father were the anchors of the family, the others clinging as vines to the two trees.

“You are the princes of Amon Lasgalen,” Oropher told them.  “Conduct yourselves accordingly.  Whatever the circumstances of your birth, whatever the station of your father, this is what you have become.  Nothing is of any consequence save the positions with which I invest you now.”

Opening another parcel, Oropher then produced several brooches also in the fashion of remarkably detailed beech leaves, giving them in turn to Luinlas, Baranor, and Noruvion for them to pin onto their tunics.  “You are the lords of Amon Lasgalen,” he said.  “Do not bear it lightly.”

Lastly, he brought to light another of the beech leaf tiaras, one of a distinctly more feminine design, glimmering with white gems.  “Lori, meleth nín,” he smiled, holding it out to her, “did I not promise to make you a queen?”

“Ai, Thranduil, it is perfect!” Lindóriel breathed, tentatively touching one of the sharp leaves with her fingertip.  “Come, let me see you wear it.”

“It has been a long time since I wore one of these, Lin,” he said as she helped slide it into place on his brow, subtly securing it in his hair.  The others were likewise trying their own on for size, Luinlas and Baranor pinning on their leaf badges as Oropher affectionately crowned his wife. 

Lindóriel smiled up at him, a proud sparkle in her eyes as she completed her arrangement and pointed him toward the mirror behind his father.  Thranduil could see his distant reflection from where he stood, and was indeed very pleased with it.  He glanced aside as Galadhmir turned to him, the other attempting to grow accustomed to the unfamiliar touch of the flashing diadem on his brow.  Indeed, it would still be some time before they all grew comfortably into their new roles as lords and princes, but the hierarchy of Eryn Galen was finally taking definite shape.

As Lindóriel contentedly slipped her arm around his own, Thranduil glanced through the whole crowd of them, a tingling excitement growing within him.  This was the new beginning they had dreamed of, the chance to build another lasting name out of the ashes of Beleriand.  They had all worn some kind of green for the evening, which he belatedly realized must have been another directive from his father, the formal adoption of the favorite hue of the woodland Elves.

He paused for a moment, considering who they had once been.  Linhir had been the second son of a lord of Doriath; Anárion was a lesser son of Gondolin; Galadhmir had been of no consequence in Menegroth; Luinlas had been a scout in the wood of Neldoreth; Baranor and his son were healers.  They had been quite a motley group, but now they were all united as a single force gathered beneath a new power in Elvendom, the King of Eryn Galen.

“Know your place,” Oropher commanded them, his own diadem flashing with sovereign confidence.  “Be not intimidated by these lords of Eregion.  You are heirs of my house and of the whole of Greenwood.  You are the Aredhil of Beleriand, and you do not bow before the Exiles of Aman.  Demand as much deference as you give, for as of this day you and all the heirs that follow of your bloodlines shall be named among the Lords of Middle-earth.”

Thranduil glanced back, just noticing that Gwaelas and Erelas were proudly flanking the door in perfect form.  They were identically clad in royal green and gray livery not so far removed from what was worn by their new lords.  It did much to subtly increase their slighter stature, tailored to emphasize a strong shoulder line. 

It was thrilling to see everything coalescing before his eyes.  Those lords of Eregion did not realize what had just taken life in their midst.

“Now,” Oropher smiled, regally taking his queen on his arm, “if we are all sufficiently assured of who we are, let us not keep our hosts waiting.”

Thranduil surreptitiously pushed the remaining food around his plate with his fork.  It was not that he had not been hungry, but after living so long on the simple fare of their journey the lords’ table was suddenly too rich for his tastes.  Besides, the present company demanded much of his attention.

On the opposite side of the oblong table sat Celebrimbor, the sole surviving grandson of Fëanor himself.  His was a daunting presence, to say the least, and Thranduil observed him carefully.  He knew he should not hold the evils of the father against the son, especially since Celebrimbor had been very publicly estranged from his father long ago in Nargothrond, but he could not yet bring himself to fully trust this scion of the most infamous house the Eldar had ever suffered.  His physical resemblance to the elder generation of Fëanorionnath was also striking, stirring unsettling memories. 

Those who had lived to remember the fall of Doriath did not habitually speak of who had slain whom.  Therefore, it was quite possible, Thranduil mused darkly, that no one at the table besides his own family realized that Caranthir Fëanorion had fallen at his hand.  He had not even told Serataron.  It was not a fact he was particularly proud of, for it had simply been the result of a chance collision amid the chaos, but the fact of it remained.

Celeborn was there, of course.  He remained his familiar proud self, but if Thranduil could still read him accurately, Cousin Celeborn was more than a bit dissatisfied with the whole situation.  He hid it well, probably for the sake of his wife.

Galadriel had not changed either since their last meeting in Lindon.  She was the maternal ruler, guiding her new creation of Eregion with a gentle hand of iron.  Thranduil had once wondered whether she ever wore anything other than gleaming white since she had left Menegroth, but tonight she had ameliorated that preference with accents of gray, possibly out of deference to her husband.

Amroth had politely held his tongue for the most part that evening, seeming to know there would be a better opportunity to speak more freely in another place and at another time.

The rest of that side of the table was occupied by minor Noldorin lords Thranduil did not recognize.  They would be the upstarts of this new realm, just as Galadhmir, Linhir, and the others also had yet to make lasting names for themselves.

Celebrimbor was asking his own questions of Oropher, for he had not heard of their plans for Eryn Galen before this.  Indeed, the entire ruling household of Eregion had seemed at a loss at how to properly address them upon their arrival. 

“You realize, of course, the dangers of the pass of Caradhras?” Celebrimbor inquired then.  His voice suited the rest of him, strong and pleasant, though heavily accented.

Thranduil waited as Oropher seemed to hesitate before humbling himself enough to ask the nature of these dangers.  Indeed, the existence of any danger at all did not seem to have entered his mind.

“I was not aware of them, no.”

Celebrimbor sighed, deliberately laying his fork down beside his plate.  “Then I regret to be the bearer of ill news, my Lord Oropher, but in the recent past, evidence has mounted there to suggest the renewed presence of the Urqui; as you say, the Yrch.”

Thranduil suppressed a gasp as Lindóriel’s nails dug into his thigh.

“Orcs!” Oropher exclaimed incredulously.  “The Orcs have been extinct since the harrowing of Angband.”

“So we would all wish to believe,” Celeborn said.  He sounded tired.  “But the fact remains that the abomination has somehow returned with new life.  The traces have been too plain to be misread.”

What was this?  Orcs?  Thranduil held his peace as he tried to fathom what he was hearing.  So, the Armies of the West had not eradicated the enemy as they had thought?  Were the great wars perhaps not ended after all?  The disappointment would be disgusting.  They had already dealt with the Orcs!  Those monsters were a horror that belonged to another Age.

“The Nogothrim of Hadhodrond have taken it upon themselves to discover these trespassers within their mountain,” Celebrimbor went on.  “But first they must discover and penetrate the new and hidden passages.  They cannot yet be certain of the passes above.”

Oropher sighed disgustedly, reluctantly accepting the unwelcome situation.  “We have dealt with the Orcs before, Master Celebrimbor,” he assured him.  “We need not the aid of the Nogothrim to protect ourselves.”

Celebrimbor merely nodded graciously, content so long as Oropher knew what he was facing.  But Thranduil saw an almost wry expression flash across the passive face of Galadriel.  She said nothing, but he could read her displeasure.  She looked at him for a moment, then regally lowered her eyes again.

Some things would never change.

The night was already deep in darkness when Thranduil returned to his room.  Argeleb was there waiting for him beside the door, up and wagging his great bushy tail as Thranduil closed it again behind him.

As much as Thranduil had intended to enjoy this visit, he had not.  He was just glad now to escape the tension in the air, the probing eyes of Celebrimbor, the awkward relations among their own family.  He had spent the last of his evening again in Amroth’s company, which he would remember as one of the few highlights of this encounter with the rising Noldorin power.

Thranduil pulled his crown out of his hair with a sigh and laid it on the bedside table.  There was much more on his mind beyond the uncomfortable aspects of that particular evening, and it all returned to him as he shed his elaborate robes.  He extinguished the lamps and fell back onto the bed, but with no real intention of finding any sleep yet. 

In the dark, he glanced aside to the circlet, still gleaming in the blue moonlight from the window.  It was his first day as a true Elven prince.  His father was a reigning king, and he had his best friends for his peers.  He ought to have been perfectly content that night of all nights.

But he was not.

At last, he rolled back out of bed and walked across the room to the door, pulling on his cloak as he went out onto the terrace.

The stones outside were cool beneath his feet, but the night was overcast.  Great masses of clouds were coming together above him, leaving only opening enough for the magnificent face of the moon.  He sat down again on the bench beside the pillar, breathing the fresh scent of impending rain.  It was a keen disappointment that he struggled with, a discontent that had nothing whatever to do with Celeborn or Eregion or Golodhrim.  He stared up at the dark face of the Misty Mountains, brooding in their shadow.  He felt disregarded, neglected, even betrayed along with the rest of his kind and all the inhabitants of Ennor. 

He was not alone for long.

“Your father wants an early start in the morning,” Galadhmir ventured to remind him.  “You would do well to sleep while you may.”

“Then so would you,” Thranduil sighed.  “But you cannot, can you?”

Galadhmir merely shook his head and sat opposite him on the bench.  He smiled grimly.  “Celebrimbor has set your mind wandering.”

“I thought the wars were over,” Thranduil said bluntly.  “I thought Morgoth and all his creatures to be but a black memory.  I thought the Lords of the West knew their business better than this.”

“You are angry with the Belain?”

“I dislike to say it in so many words, but yes, I am.”  His lip curled bitterly, remembering the great relief it had been after the Armies of the West had defeated Morgoth and destroyed Angband, presumably ridding Middle-earth of all such horrors.  At the time it had seemed recompense enough for the cataclysmic violence which had broken the world they had known and drowned Beleriand.  Now it seemed that hope had been in vain.  “If they are the guardians of the world, then why do they not guard it?  If the Orcs managed to survive their purge, what and who else might have slipped away from them?”

Galadhmir was silent for a moment, regarding him coolly in the half-light.  “I am the last one you should ask, Thranduil,” he replied.  “When we have ceased to loathe the Naugrim and learned to abide the Golodhrim, then we may ask questions of the Belain.”

Thranduil was not satisfied by that answer, but the question had been rhetorical in the first place.  He remembered Lindóriel’s fears and wondered now that he had been blind to them.  “Now it seems the wars will never end,” he murmured darkly, almost to himself.

“I wonder now that we ever thought otherwise,” Galadhmir said.  “The earth is marred beyond hope of that.  There will never be lasting peace, not this side of the sea, at least.”  He sighed.  “And with that cheerful prospect, I am going to bed, and so should you.  I shall be glad of at least one more restful night if I am to meet Orcs tomorrow.”

ERNIL

Chapter 2 ~ Into the East II

The stone beneath his feet was worn by years of use, but still steep enough to be perilous footing.  Thranduil placed each step carefully, keeping a firm hold of both his horses as the whole column of them wound their slow and deliberate way up the western side of Caradhras.  They had ridden a long distance already, but now it had seemed more prudent to get down and walk until the path leveled.

The slopes were rapidly cooling in the higher altitude, and Ost-in-Edhil had dwindled to no more than a distant speck below them.  Thranduil turned his eyes back to the path at his feet.  These were really the first mountains he had ever crossed.  He had never been across the Ered Luin before a harbor was cut into them, and they were not so grand as the Hithaeglir anyway.  In any event, he trusted he had done enough climbing in his day to outlast these peaks.

Up and up and up they went.  Gradually the trails flattened only to rise again later.  Oropher drove them on with hardly a pause, understandably wanting to leave the mountains behind them as quickly as they could, mindful of Celebrimbor’s warning.  They had set out with the dawn, and now that the day was drawing on to evening Thranduil glanced upward to see that they had come an impressive distance.  The sunset was staining the snowy horn of the mountain a brilliant red, the feature that had given the mount its name.

It was only when nightfall veiled the way in darkness that Oropher reluctantly called a halt.  The path had straightened into a wide shelf and a narrow corridor, following the side of the mountain before it turned back up again.  Surveying it in the dark, Thranduil was satisfied that it would accommodate all of them for the night.  He brought his horses up to stand with the others, the rest of their party doing the same behind him.

Supper consisted of dry rations of waybread and fruit, their first real meal since breakfast.  It was not much, but under the circumstances it was greatly appreciated.  Taking his portion, Thranduil wandered to the edge of the precipice and looked back out over the expanse to the west.  Only an occasional star pricked the cloud overhead, and even the moon was gone.  The warmth of the day fled with the light, leaving the surroundings cold and cheerless.  The air tasted different up here, he noticed, and the sounds were different.  The world around him felt so new and so old at once, new to him but every bit as enduring as Beleriand had been.  He was standing far beyond all the maps he had ever known, an unnerving and exhilarating thought. 

He turned from his empty watch and found Lindóriel.  “How is Caradhras treating you, Lin?” he asked pleasantly, sitting down on a rock near her.

“Well enough, I suppose,” she said.  “I shall always prefer trees to stone, but I can appreciate these mountains.”

Thranduil smiled.  “The lords down there would be pleased to hear you say it,” he said, nodding toward the city far beyond them.  “I believe Celebrimbor has as much a love for these peaks as do the Nogothrim of Hadhodrond.”

Lindóriel almost laughed, but it seemed her mirth was dampened.  “Really, Thranduil,” she said, “is that all you can think about?  Or is this banter merely for my sake?”

He declined to answer, his silence lost in the background of other murmuring voices.  He suspected she knew the truth already.

“I am rather worried by all this talk of Orcs,” she confided to him.  “I have never seen them, but I have heard quite a bit.”

Thranduil had seen and slain what he thought to be more than his fair share of Orcs on the borders of Doriath.  “They are hateful little things,” he confirmed vaguely.  “Hideous, but most are lacking in size.”  He deliberately put a slightly flippant air in his voice, hoping to reassure her.  The truth of his concerns he would keep to himself.

Even then, Thranduil could not help but see the tragic irony in her words.  She had never seen an Orc, yet three times she had been assaulted by her own kind.  He trusted they would not have to relive that portion of the old Age as well.

He eventually left her with Argeleb as the night deepened, wandering alone among the standing crowd of horses.  Almost half their party was already attempting to take some rest, the others somehow unable to find that same peace of mind.  Thranduil finally sat down against the hard and uneven cliff wall.  He crossed his arms over his chest, debating whether or not he would even attempt to sleep that night.  The fleeting hours would pass all too quickly before his father would want to resume the march.

Then his eyes caught a fleeting glimpse of movement.  Alert in a moment, he peered intently through a dark thicket of horses’ legs.  But the alarm faded as he recognized Galadhmir’s careful tread.  The other was leaving the ledge and heading into the narrows when he disappeared from sight, and Thranduil found he was unable to resist going along.

Gathering his feet beneath him, he followed where Galadhmir led.  The walls of the pass encroached closer around him, opening again as he passed the tallest and darkest crag.  The entire place was veiled in shadow, dormant but unfriendly.

“It reminds you of the old times, does it not?” Thranduil asked quietly, laying a steady hand on his friend’s shoulder.  “I never thought we would be waiting like this again.”

“Nor I.”  Galadhmir sighed, his arms crossed as he gazed away into the darkness.  “We sit here like birds on a roost simply waiting to be ambushed.  I do not like it.”

“I cannot see that we have any great choice in the matter.  We cannot go on, and we cannot go back.  The horses need rest.  We shall not wait here long.”

“Even this is too long.”  Galadhmir was agitated, grinding rock chips to dust beneath the toe of his boot.  “I do not like these mountains, Thranduil.  I do not like our position, and I do not like the shadows, the stillness.”

Thranduil sighed heavily, listening as Galadhmir voiced his own thoughts and fears.  In the end, he said nothing.

“You have heard what I have heard of Orcish raids,” Galadhmir said at last.  “And do not pretend that you are not thinking of it now.”

“Very well,” Thranduil glowered.  “What shall I say?  That we shall be killed, the horses slaughtered and the ladies savaged?  Very well, consider it said.”

His acrimony silenced them both for a time.  The chill wind moaned through the barren crags around them, accentuating the great emptiness of the place.  They had kept their heads down as best they could during the War of Wrath, so Thranduil had not seen an Orc since before the fall of Doriath.  It was eerie to imagine one might come bounding around a rock at any moment.  But how likely was it that they would be discovered during the first night?  He wished he could easily dismiss the possibility, but Galadhmir’s anxiety had already affected him.  He almost imagined he could see dark forms crouched in every shadow, waiting around each bend.  He shook off the thought, not wishing to encourage it.

“Come, Galadh,” he said at last, giving his friend’s shoulder an encouraging jostle before turning away.  “You need your rest as much as any of us.”

“You expect me to sleep on a night like this?” Galadhmir whispered incredulously.  The thin starlight glinted in his eyes, almost begging Thranduil to stay.  “I may not be the bravest among us, but—”

A smattering of gravel skittered down the wall beside them.  In that one moment they both shrank into the shadows against the rock like shadows themselves, every nerve pricked.  No more sounds came, but now they felt certain they were not alone.  Meeting Galadhmir’s gaze, Thranduil read in his eyes the thought that they should return to warn the others.  Instead, he silently commanded him to wait a moment.

Slowly, Thranduil slid a step beyond their cover of shadow.  Whatever it was, beast or foe, it already knew of their presence there.  Dagger in hand, he turned about smoothly on his heel, searching out the dark crevices beside, beyond, and above him.  At one time he had trusted his instincts completely; he had been able to feel the presence of danger.  But here the land did not know him.  The mountain would not speak to him, silent and surly.  At last, he stopped his prowl, placing his feet lightly in a ready position, listening.  There was nothing, nothing at all, merely the lonely moan of the wind.

Galadhmir had not yet dared to move.  Even the slowly drifting cloud was against them, veiling now what stars remained and plunging the mountain into absolute darkness.

Thranduil sighed at last, though his fears did not escape with it.  “I can see nothing,” he said.  “I suppose we imagined too much.”

“But what else could it have been?” Galadhmir whispered uneasily, slowly venturing from his retreat.

“A bird?” Thranduil suggested, his eyes still roving.

“No,” Galadhmir insisted, grasping his wrist.

Then Thranduil smelled it, too.

The black shadow fell upon them with a screech, taking them both to the ground.  Thranduil rolled and was up again in an instant, tearing the Orc away with him and slashing across its throat. 

Kicking the disgusting corpse away, he and Galadhmir ran back through the narrows toward the ledge.  The horses were already screaming wildly amid the crash of steel and iron.

They came from above, descending the rock face like a wave of cockroaches.  Lindóriel stifled a shriek as Oropher cursed and the entire scene dissolved into chaos.  She quickly drew her sword as Gwaelin did the same beside her.

Orcs swarmed over the ledge, their dark scimitars clashing against Elvish blades in a tangle of weapons and limbs and maddened horses.  It was too close to shoot them, even had she the time.

She turned and braced herself as a pair of them leaped toward her.  She deflected the first weapon, turned, and stabbed into the throat beneath the neck-guard.   She stepped over the body just in time to throw aside the attack of another, swinging around with a quick backhand stroke to rake head from shoulders in a black spray of blood.

She stood back-to-back with Illuiniel, Orcs screaming and shrieking all around them.  Again, she brought up her sword, bringing it down hard on the next neck.  There it lodged, caught in the jagged metal armor.  Clawed hands immediately swarmed over the blade, wresting it from her grasp.  Lindóriel tripped on the corpses behind her, falling against the wall with a cry.  They were already upon her, but she had drawn her knife and furiously drove them back.

She was prepared to do more, but then Thranduil crashed into the fray.  They leapt at him in a concentrated attack, clawing onto his back, but he was everywhere at once, slaughtering them in a bestial fury, throwing them away from him with sweeping strokes of his blade.

Lindóriel saw the mass of Orcs was dwindling, but one of them grabbed at her as it passed.  Before she could stab it, Thranduil ripped the devil off her with one hand, hurling it from the cliff.  Its companion recognized a bad business and retreated up the vertical rock face as Thranduil gave chase, pursuing the terrified creature up the wall.

Then, as suddenly as it had begun, the attack ended.  The Orcs were gone, and their intended victims were slowly gathering themselves.  Lindóriel stood and saw Thranduil still braced against the rock face above her, the clouds parting to admit the moonlight at last.  The Orc had outrun him and disappeared, presumably into the same hole that had brought them.  She blinked as a warm splash fell across her cheek.

Thranduil let himself down, falling into a soft crouch on the ledge beside her.  He looked terrible in the truest sense of the word, spattered and stained with Orc blood and viscera, the same way a ill-tempered bear on a kill was terrible.  The stench was almost overpowering.

“Are you hurt?” he asked, seeing the blood on her face.

She simply looked at him there, standing amid a wreck of dead Orcs.  He was his familiar gentle self again, but she could not yet forget the ease with which he had made the disturbing transformation from the living terror she had seen only moments before.  “No, I am all right,” she assured him at last, steadying her voice and bringing his hand down from the stain on her cheek.  “This blood is yours.  Come, let me see it.”

Thranduil obligingly sat on as clean a rock as he could find, allowing her to remove his leather vambrace and have a look at his arm.  Lindóriel winced in sympathetic pain as she revealed his sleeve already dark and thoroughly saturated.  Gently she pulled it up, uncovering a stab wound on his forearm, bleeding more heavily now that the pressure had been lifted.  “Oh, Thranduil,” she breathed.  “And none of us are clean enough to be tending wounds!”

“It is all right,” Thranduil dismissed it.  “I shall not die, anyway.”

He sounded flippant, but she could see by the fine lines about his brow and the determined set of his jaw that he was in considerable pain.

“Is everyone still with us?” Oropher called over the ruin, a disgusted note in his voice meant to conceal what must have been a private dread.

“Lin and I are here!” Thranduil answered for himself.

“I have Illuiniel!” Luinlas confirmed.  “The other two ladies are there.”

“Anárion is faint, but he shall be himself again before long,” came Galadhmir’s voice, hopeful but cheerless.

“Gwaelas and Erelas?” Oropher concluded.  “Baranor and Noruvion?  Linhir!”

They all confirmed their presence to the relief of everyone.  Noruvion and his father were busiest of all, their skills as healers in great demand at that moment.  Lindóriel accepted a bandage from them, but assured them Thranduil was already in capable hands. 

There was silence for a time as everyone dressed their wounds and tried their mobility.  Lindóriel bound Thranduil’s arm as tightly as she dared, gratified to see the bleeding slow considerably.

“Do we still have the horses?”

“Most of them.  Galadhmir, Luinlas and the wolf have gone to find the others.”

Oropher was wandering among them, disgustedly kicking dead and dismembered Orcs off the cliff side, pushing at them with his blade.  He sported three raking cuts across his eye, but no other obvious injury.  It was a superficial wound and would not trouble him long.  Gwaelin had suffered a grazing blow to her neck, miraculously spared what could have been a killing stroke.

Finishing her task as well as she could, Lindóriel moved to stand, but Thranduil gently took her wrist, bidding her stay.  She did not resist him, and indeed was reluctant to go.

“Were they as terrible as you imagined they would be?” he asked with the barest hint of a smile.

Lindóriel could not help breaking into a nervous laugh that could have easily become a sob, the belated effect of the terror she had suppressed before.  “They were dreadful!” she said.  “And indeed, you look horrible yourself!”

Thranduil merely smiled around the gore crusting all over him and fondly stroked her face with his wounded hand, the cleanest of the two.  “So do you, Lin,” he said.  But he pulled her close and kissed her anyway, all the grime forgotten.  She snaked her arm around his shoulder and held him there longer, gratefully accepting the solace he offered.

When at last he released her, Thranduil made no move to draw back, still holding her face in his hand.  “I am so proud of you,” he said at last.

“One finds it easier to kill an Orc,” she explained, “if one has already been subjected to the slaying of Elves.  I will do what I must, but I would prefer not to do it again.”

Thranduil smiled that same weary smile.  “If my prayers carry weight before the Belain,” he promised, “there will never be a need.”

Morning dawned upon a scene that was not much more bearable than it had been during the night.  All the carcasses, whole or otherwise, had been dumped, pushed, or thrown from the ledge in an attempt to keep the stench down.  Thick black blood was caked on everything, including their whole miserable party.  They had been able to change their clothes, but there was nowhere to bathe.  They did not at all regret leaving that place behind them.

Thranduil felt wretched.  The throbbing pain in his arm was punishment enough without having to wear dead Orc through the rest of their passage.  He had tied his matted hair back, dismissing it as a hopeless case.  Everyone was irritable and with good cause.

A brief breakfast was issued for those who could find their appetites, and before they could be off there remained some reorganizing to be done.  Two of the pack horses had been killed in the mayhem, and another was too injured to bear its full allotment.

“Examine your loads,” Oropher commanded them all.  “Choose something you can bear to be parted with.”

Resignedly, Thranduil located his horses and began probing through the contents of his packs as everyone else did the same.  The first choice was easy, and he tossed his soiled clothes from the night before into the pile without a second glance.  There was Serataron’s book, but there was no way he was going to discard that here.  He pulled out another thick roll of clothes, one of the finer outfits from Lindon.  He hesitated a moment, then yanked the gem from the collar and tossed away the rest.  He grabbed his silver flute, ready to part with that as well, but stopped himself.  It had been far too long since he had played it, but it was not useless to him yet.  He put it back, reserving bittersweet memories of Lúthien and Daeron for another time.  But he did pull out his old sketch book and reluctantly consign it to the ever-growing pile.  There was no point in holding onto it, he supposed.

When he turned again, he saw that Lindóriel had taken it up and begun flipping through the pages, past the sun on the ocean, the beech grove, the springtime garden, and the Ered Luin at dawn.  “You would leave this?” she asked, aghast.  “They are wonderful!”

“And useless,” he insisted.  “I do not need them.  My memory serves me well enough.”

“But do you not want them?”

“No,” he said, rearranging the remaining contents.

“I do.  I love to see you paint.”

“Well, if you enjoy it so much, Lin, I promise to paint more for you in Greenwood,” he said, gently plucking the book from her hands.  “But we have to get there first.”

She scowled at him, but seemed to accept that offer as satisfactory under the circumstances.  “At least let me keep this one while I may,” she insisted, snatching it back and carefully tearing out a rendering of the autumn gardens strewn with roses.  “One page will not break my own horse.”

Leaving the others to their packing and unpacking, Thranduil wandered over the bloodstained ledge to the corner where Anárion sat languidly against the rock face.  He still looked weak, but he seemed to be coming around.

“You worried me last night, my friend,” Thranduil said, crouching beside him.

“There is no need to rub it in,” Anárion groused, but with a tepid smile.

“Well, there is no use being embarrassed now,” Thranduil grinned.  “Can you stand?”

A flicker of silent dread crossed Anárion’s stoic face.  “Perhaps, but it will certainly not be pleasant.  Baranor stitched it in the hopes that I could ride.”

“We shall not leave you here, but it will be a great relief to all of us if we are able to be gone within the next hour,” Thranduil said, offering his hand.  “Come.  Let us give it a try.”

Dourly setting his jaw, Anárion took the proffered hand and with Thranduil’s help laboriously hauled himself to his feet, heavily favoring a torn leg.

“There you are.  See?  That is not so—Ai!   Yes, please, mind the arm.  I am not entirely well myself.  Can you walk, or no?”

“I would rather not,” Anárion confessed, his voice thin.

Thranduil frowned.  “I fear even riding will be a trial for you.”

Oropher was redistributing the contents of the extra packs among the thirteen others that had made way to accommodate them.  The great pile of rejected paraphernalia was not tossed over the side as the Orcs had been, but rather shoved away into a crevice in the forlorn hope that someone might discover it and find something useful.

“I suppose I should not complain this time,” Thranduil grumbled, “but just once I would very much like to reach my destination with everything I had intended to bring with me.”  He flexed his arm, frowning at the stiff pain the action brought. 

“Patience,” Lindóriel insisted, gently catching his arm in her hands.  “Do not make it worse.  From what I hear, you have already been fortunate enough that the weapon was not poisoned.”

“Are we not all ready to leave this miserable crag?” Oropher demanded, holding the reins of his techy stallion.

A wordless roar of accord rumbled in answer.

“Very well, then,” he said.  “Take your mounts and fall in line.”

The march continued, steadily but slowly on account of several smarting wounds.  Lindóriel felt that her mare was every bit as glad as she was to be on their way again.  The path had still not evened enough to allow everyone to ride comfortably, but there were those like poor Anárion and Erelas who had no alternative.  The rest of them continued to walk, leading their horses along the ascending trail.  When they had successfully stemmed the tide of the Orcs, she thought, the Nogothrim of Hadhodrond should consider doing something to make the pass more easily traveled.

“Lin,” Thranduil said from above her, making casual conversation as they trudged along.  “I have decided that I do not care for Caradhras.”

“You do not care for it merely because your arm hurts and your hair is full of filth,” she teased him.

“That is reason enough.”

 “Before we reached Eregion you said the mountains were beautiful,” she quipped with a grin, stepping over an ill-placed stone in the path.  “Now you suddenly carry a grudge against them.  I do not blame you,” she added, “but it is hardly just cause to despise the mount itself.”

“I think it just cause,” Thranduil maintained, picking his way over a rise.  “If Caradhras will spew Orcs at me who stab me, kill my horses, destroy my possessions, and render me irremediably filthy, I reserve the right to despise it.”

Lindóriel laughed, amused by his dry humor.  Somehow, no matter how miserable he was determined to be, Thranduil always seemed to make the best of the situation.  She really did not blame him at all.  She lusted after a bath every bit as much as he did, and although they were nearing the peaks now, they would likely have to descend into the eastern valley before they found a suitable stream or pool, another two long, foul, nauseating days.  She tried not to dwell upon it, for she did not know if she could bear the thought.

But, as they climbed, she had noticed Thranduil beginning to eye the snow banks on either side of them.  For the most part they were unreachable, taunting them with their cold, white purity.  But as they neared the very summit of the pass, the walls fell away to reveal a crystalline valley gleaming beside them.  The sight of it stole their breath away for a moment, the column slowing almost to a halt.

It was a lovely view, its frosted surface completely undisturbed.  The sun was indeed almost blinding in the flash and sparkle of new snow, so cold and fresh they could taste it in the air.

“That is beautiful,” Thranduil stated at last, letting his voice carry all along the mountainside.  As they watched, he summarily dropped his reins, vaulted over the rocks, and went walking out over the first great snowbank.  Roughly twenty paces out, he stopped, dropped to his knees, and scooped a great double handful of snow onto his face.

The temptation was irresistible.

“Very well, everyone,” Oropher laughed.  “Do what you must!”

It was as though he had loosed a stampede.  Everyone who was fortunate enough not to be momentarily crippled scrambled for that inviting expanse of white as quickly as wounds or weariness would allow.  It did not stop with merely washing their faces and combing snow through their hair, for soon they were all laughing and rollicking like children again in the giant drifts.  They were tumbling down banks, burrowing through sinkholes.  Someone began throwing snowballs.  It was cold, but absolutely wonderful!  Lindóriel dared to pack a handful of snow herself.

Thranduil smiled at her, but was momentarily stunned as the icy missile exploded against his jaw.  He shook it off in a moment and then surged toward her with a wicked grin.

She turned to run, but his wound had obviously not slowed him.  He caught her in a rowdy flying tackle, the snow giving way to send them rolling down the other side of the bank in a powdery spray, laughing all the way.  Thranduil came out on top when all had settled, kissed her playfully, but then was violently bowled over by Argeleb.

Lindóriel was still laughing as she pushed herself up on her elbow, watching the two of them wallow in the snow a stone’s throw away, Thranduil apparently fighting for his very life against the smothering affection of the massive hound.

This was not how she had imagined the end of a day that had begun so miserably, but perhaps their prayers did carry weight before the Belain after all.

ERNIL

Chapter 3 ~ Into the East III

The first bloom of summer was upon the wood when they reached it, displaying its best colors to welcome its new sovereigns, bright with birdsong and dappled with shadow.  Thranduil could barely contain his mounting excitement as they rode ever deeper into their new domain.  Eryn Galen was everything he had hoped it would be.  The wood was old and full of peaceful memory, but also full of fresh life.  A healthy growth of saplings stretched their slender limbs amid their tall sires, oak and beech and a scattering of pine.  The familiar echoes of his father’s presence were already established, and after the ocean shores of Lindon and the plains of Eriador, Thranduil felt more and more that he truly belonged amid the trees.  The gentle path through the brush was shaded and quiet, muffling the passage of the horses in the soft layers of spent leaves and scrub and occasionally on a green stretch of sun-warmed grass.

They went on and on into the bright reaches of the wood, past idyllic paths and clearings, streams and waterfalls.  Bright-eyed deer crossed their way, and squirrels chattered in the branches above.  Everything was so alive and so content, far from the festering cares on the western shores.

Then the wood seemed to erupt in a growing roar of glad shouts and cheers, and their whole party was inundated in crowds of Elves singing and welcoming them all to Eryn Galen in playful lilting voices.  They came from all sides, hanging even in the trees, waving garlands of wildflowers down at them.  Oropher spoke to them in what must have been their own tongue, and several capable hands took charge of the pack horses, letting their lords and ladies ride into their new home properly.

For a moment, Thranduil was rather shocked by the striking informality of the people, but he quickly decided it was endearing.  The noise was deafening and the road grew ever more crowded, leaves and petals flying.  Already three festive garlands had been thrust around his horse's neck.  The general shouting coalesced into joyous singing, and a few spontaneous dances had begun inside the clearings along the road, rings of barefooted maidens with flowers in their hair.  There were also more children scampering about than they had seen in many years.

The path itself had widened into a royal woodland corridor carpeted with grass, huge and stately oaks standing like sentinels in regular formation.  Thranduil guessed his father had planted those in the first years after he had come there, and he had the odd feeling of finally coming home to a place he had never seen before.

As impressive as the approach was, it in no way prepared him for what lay in the valley.  At last they reached the timberline, emerging into the vast clearing, and as all voices came together in one mighty song Thranduil at last beheld Amon Lasgalen in all its woodland glory.

The huge cluster of hills rose majestically amid the forest, ringed by a lightly wooded stream with six bridges for each of the six roads.  Following Oropher’s lead, they rode across the first of these and over the great stretch of lawn on the opposite bank.  From there they began their ascent by way of the gently sloping road built around the side of the mount.  This way was wooded as well, rows beech trees planted in precise order, but allowed to grow as they would.  On the wide summit grew a grove of mighty beeches.  In and around them were built the halls of Oropher.

Tingling with an almost youthful excitement, his pack in hand, Thranduil bounded up the open stairway onto the first terrace amid the trees.

“Follow me, my lord!” Gwaelas offered with a beaming smile as he darted ahead of him.  “I will take you up!”

Thranduil followed gladly, and it seemed Gwaelas was simply bursting with pride as he led him through that leafy maze of arboreal halls.  If Amon Lanc had previously been the name of this mount, it was certainly no longer appropriate.

“Here is the King’s Hall,” Gwaelas announced as they entered the most spacious room yet, built on many different levels to accommodate the natural growth of the tree.  It was without a doubt an impressive construction, though there was nothing of gold or jewels adorning it.  Elaborate carvings and living branches made up for the lack.  At the far wall stood a royal dais with three thrones, twelve others standing against the walls.

“The royal chambers are above this.  Come, I will show you!”

They left the hall, and Gwaelas nimbly scaled yet another open staircase leading up and around the great bole of the tree.  Amid the higher branches was built what Thranduil guessed to be his father’s room.  Gwaelas turned aside and walked over a bridge of wood and rope to the next massive beech.  There was the mirror image of the king’s quarters, and over the door was carved and painted the initial, “Th.”

Gwaelas held the door for Thranduil as he stepped inside.  He took it all in at a glance, and immediately loved it.  It was a large room, fully furnished, rounded in shape with the tree towering through the middle.  The scent of green life permeated everything, and as much as he had learned to appreciate the smell of sea rain and salt, Thranduil knew it was this he loved best.

He strode across the floor and set his bag down on the bed.  He could hear familiar voices sounding through the trees as the rest of the family found their own quarters.  He pushed open the tall latticework shutters and looked out across the way to another room nestled among the branches, apparently Galadhmir’s.  Life actually amid the trees was one thing he had not yet experienced fully, but he already felt as though he had been born to it.

“Do you approve, Thranduil?”

He looked back to see Oropher in the doorway, wearing a self-satisfied smile.

“Completely!” he replied, allowing his father the triumph that was his due.  “I could not have done better.”

“Well, I am glad,” Oropher said, stepping inside to make way for his silvan companion, a surprisingly noble one.  “Thranduil, this is Brilthor, the chieftain of the Danwaith of Eryn Galen.  He has been the spokesman of his people and I have maintained him in his position.  Lord Brilthor, my son, Thranduil.”

“Indeed, I have heard much of you, my prince,” Brilthor said with a bow in as perfect Sindarin as he could manage, though his gravity was lightened by a smile.  “We have long expected you, so I fear you may find the exuberance of the people overwhelming for a time.”

“It will be a pleasure, my lord, I am sure,” Thranduil assured him.

“Make yourself presentable, son, for I doubt you will have any sleep tonight,” Oropher instructed.  “You will soon have the entire local population clamoring for a piece of you.”

“We are celebrating already?”

“Of course!  Dress up; you will be receiving your crown from Brilthor’s hand.  I shall expect you down in time for supper.”

When his father had gone, Thranduil was left alone again with Gwaelas feeling as though he had landed atop this new plateau at a running pace.  It was wonderful!

“Come, Gwaelas,” he said amiably, putting on his new role as he began emptying his things onto the bed; “what does one wear to his own coronation?”

ERNIL

Chapter 4 ~ Over the Mountains

“They are a fine-looking brood, my lord,” said a stable hand.

“They had better be,” Thranduil smiled.  “I have been perfecting them long enough.”

It was an impressive litter, Thranduil had to admit, one of the best yet.  He crouched down on his heels again, and another of the wolf pups bounded clumsily toward him.  That one at least showed the dark silver coat of his sire of long years past, the hound Argeleb.  Perhaps Thranduil would pass the name on to him.  He seemed to have spirit enough.

He rolled the pup onto its back with a playful swipe of his hand, and he was rewarded with a great deal of rowdy growling and wriggling.  Soon he was surrounded by the rest of the litter, their dam panting contentedly in the corner.

“I could well spend the rest of the day out here,” Thranduil said aimlessly, his lap filled with young hunters.  “But I suppose it would be too much to expect.”

“Undoubtedly, my lord.”

“Thranduil!”  Galadhmir’s voice rang from the edge of the glade as if in timely answer to his wry prediction.  “Your father expects you back!  There are guests on the way!”

With a reluctant sigh, Thranduil managed to extricate himself from the fluffy pack and climb to his feet.

“Who has come this time?” Thranduil asked as he joined Galadhmir on the forest path.

“Golodhrim,” Galadhmir informed him.  “The Noldor of Eregion, and even a few of their Dwarvish friends.”

“Really?”

“Yes.  You might want to find a change of clothes before you meet them if you know what is good for you.  One can only guess what they want.”

The last of summer’s vibrant green was just beginning to fade into the onset of autumn, and Lindóriel’s yellow roses were in early bloom everywhere.  They grew thicker as one approached the grounds of Amon Lasgalen, making its landscape of autumn glory one of the many wonders of Greenwood.  Thranduil was privately pleased that these Golodhrim had chosen so opportune a time for their visit in that regard.  He drew out his knife and cut a young bloom in passing, swiping off the thorns as he walked.

It was a brisk climb up the shaded backside of the hill.  Thranduil continued up the neat stone pathway at a leisurely run into the forested depths.  He slowed as the population grew denser, partly out of desire and partly of necessity lest he outrun the children flocking from the trees to meet him.

“Prince!  Prince!  Prince Thranduil!” they chorused, each competing to be the first into his waiting arms.

Thranduil obliged them in this almost daily ritual, sweeping up the winner who giggled ecstatically, while the others still clamored around him.

“Can you stay out with us?” another asked, grabbing hold of his other hand as they walked.  “We want to ride with you again.”

“I am afraid not,” Thranduil apologized, truly sorry to disappoint them.  “The king and I have some immediate business to attend.”

Six small voices were raised together in frustrated lament.

“Do not carry on so,” Thranduil laughed.  “There is always tomorrow.  And I am sure that by then I shall find some convenient opportunity to take you all for a turn about the valley.”

They shouted gleefully, raising a song and dancing around him as though he were a pole for spring streamers.

Their group elicited many smiles from the people about as they neared the palace.  Lasgalen had grown steadily stronger amid the prosperity of the last years and its more efficient organization.  The steady growth of a new generation was a telling sign of it.

“Here I must leave you,” he said eventually, setting the one child down among the others beside the bole of the beech tree beside the ones which held Oropher’s hall.  “You are all too young yet to follow me this way.  Go see if you can charm the stable master into giving you some treats for the horses.”

With that, he gathered his legs beneath him and gained hold of the lowest branches in one easy bound.  Up again, hand over hand, one smooth branch after another, Thranduil thrust himself up through the leafy boughs.  At last, he had come near enough to grab hold of the sill of the open window and haul himself inside, landing in an elegant heap on the floor.

“Thranduil, my lord!” Gwaelas gasped, apparently a bit cross with him, and already holding an appropriate change of clothes as though he had been waiting an intolerably long time. 

“Well, you did not expect me to present myself downstairs looking like this, did you,” Thranduil asked, shaking the leaves from his hair.

Shortly thereafter, Thranduil descended from his room more formally attired.  At any rate, he deemed it formal enough that he would not shame his father before their guests, whoever they might be.  He wrinkled his nose a bit as he reached the level of the main hall, for the distinct smell of Dwarf was in the air.  It was absolutely the first time the Naugrim had set foot in that place.

Just as he was about to enter the hall, a gentle hand snagged his mantle and held him back.

“Wait a moment, Thranduil,” his mother said, keeping her voice low.  “Let me explain.”

“Who are they?”

“They are Noldor of Eregion.  They come bearing gifts and overtures of goodwill from Lord Celeborn and his Lady and ostensibly from all of Eregion.  But their true purpose, it seems, is to establish a definite alliance with your father.”

“Have we grown so much that we merit the regard of the great Golodhrim?” Thranduil asked wryly.  “I cannot imagine they fear us.”

“Perhaps not,” Lóriel continued grimly, “but I can imagine their wish to command our armies at need.  An ally who offers no aid is no ally at all.”

“Father does not enter alliances lightly.”

“I know he does not, but neither will he be inclined to let their gifts slip away once they have entered his hall.”

“I see.  And you fear the affront such uncultivated behavior would cause.”

“I fear it is unavoidable now.”

Thranduil nodded.  She was probably right.  Then he rounded the corner and entered the hall.

As he had expected, there stood three resplendent Elves and three Dwarves before his father’s throne, and there before them stood three open chests bearing all manner of treasures from the Noldorin city.  All seven of them looked up as he entered, and Thranduil paid no heed to Oropher’s glare of paternal annoyance.  However, he did graciously acknowledge the greetings of the ambassadors before taking his place, standing at the king’s right hand. 

After the appropriate pleasantries, they returned to the business at hand.

“And so, before you, King of Greenwood, lie these small tokens of the esteem of all Eregion,” the first of the Noldor continued, very graciously.  “It is the hope of my lords that an understanding of friendship be established between Greenwood and the city beneath the mountains.  What answer may I bring to them?”

Thranduil said nothing, holding his peace while Oropher considered his answer.  Now that he was in front of them, he could see just what those small tokens of esteem entailed.  It was a generous overture, certainly, enough to easily double what the treasury of Lasgalen possessed.  But, in practical terms, he had no greater hope than his mother that the matter would be resolved favorably for all concerned.

“You may convey to your lords our great appreciation for their attentions,” Oropher said at last, a pleased but guarded tone in his voice that confirmed Thranduil’s suspicions.  “But if it is a firm alliance they seek, we do not enter such confines lightly.”

A pall of general discomfiture descended upon the hall.  Thranduil felt for the envoys and their suddenly awkward position.  What exactly did such an answer truly mean, and were they then to take back the proffered gifts?

“But my lords merely ask—”

“My answer is no,” Oropher interrupted imperiously.  “Eryn Galen will never bind itself in obligation to another realm.  That has never been its purpose.”

The Elves seemed perturbed by the refusal, but the Dwarves were genuinely insulted.  Thranduil suspected this offer of alliance had carried no great goodwill from Hadhodrond in the first place.  As one, they moved to pack up the chests and be gone.

But Oropher was quicker than they, planting one foot on the nearest chest.  At his full height, he towered menacingly over the Dwarves with what could at best be called a hostile smile.  “Rather than seem boorish, however, we do accept the gifts of the Mírdain,” he said.  “Please convey to our kin in Eregion our heartfelt gratitude.”

Thranduil simply closed his eyes, and his mouth, for it was not his place to censure the king, at least not publicly.

The Dwarves, given license to be just as offensive as they pleased, turned and trooped out of the hall entirely.  The Noldor were not far behind them, though they took their leave with somewhat better grace.

When they had all gone, Oropher at last removed his foot from the collection of gold and silver, his smile melting into a look of profound disgust as he turned to leave the hall in the other direction.

“Father!” Thranduil insisted sharply, hurrying to follow him out.  “That was uncalled for.”

“Oh, yes?”  Oropher disdained to turn as he continued to climb the curving stairway toward his own chambers.  “If they want to send their treasures to me, that is their affair.  But they will never succeed in bribing me into their power.”

“I do not care what their intentions were,” Thranduil maintained, continuing the pursuit two steps at a time.  “All of Eryn Galen speaks with your voice.  You cannot go about giving offense wherever you please!”

“Do not presume to lecture me, Thranduil,” his father growled, gaining the topmost stair outside his door, looming like a cloud.  “I may give offense where it is due.”

“I fail to see how that was due a moment ago.”

“They cared nothing for us when they deemed us nothing,” Oropher complained, apparently annoyed that he should have to defend his behavior to his own son.  “Now they would snare for themselves a piece of our prosperity, milk our resources and command our armies.  It is merely the first of their efforts to draw us into the troubles of their circle, and their loss is their own.  I did not come two hundred leagues from Lindon to fraternize with the Golodhrim!”

“Must you estrange Celeborn forever?” Thranduil demanded angrily, cutting at once to the heart of the argument.

Oropher glared down at him, but could say nothing for a moment.  Thranduil stood his ground with a bitter glare of his own.  On this point, he would have an answer.

“Celeborn does not concern me,” his father said at last, but the words seemed wrung from him with an effort, and carried no passion.

Thranduil could not wholly disguise his disappointment.  There had been a time when Celeborn and Oropher had been the best of friends, difficult as it was to remember now.  The jealous chasm that had torn between them was deep indeed, but some kindred feeling had always remained, even if it inspired nothing but frustration.  If Oropher was determined to throw off even that, their separation had never been so hopeless as it was now.  But it was a tragedy Thranduil would endure no more.

“Let me go to Eregion,” he said.  “I, at least, have not disowned him.  And though I am your son, he and his family are no less my kinsmen than they are yours, and you will not keep me from them.”

He had expected a bitter refusal, or at the very least a violent lecture.  He was prepared for it all and would endure it without complaint if such was the price he must pay.  To his surprise, Oropher merely looked down on him for a long moment more, then turned and stepped into his room.

“Very well, then.  Go,” he said simply, closing the door behind him.  “I apparently cannot stop you.”

ERNIL

Chapter 5 ~ Over the Mountains II

The mountainous path finally opened to release its travelers onto the fading green foothills, presenting a magnificent view of Ost-in-Edhil glowing in the sun.  Thranduil reined his horse to a momentary halt just to appreciate the sight.

“There it is once again, Gwaelas,” he said, smiling to himself.  “They certainly have not been idle since we first passed this way, have they?”

Behind him, Gwaelas was just emerging from the pass, devoting more attention to the task of remaining mounted than did his lord.  He was not yet entirely accustomed to the tall, silver-dappled horses they had brought from the coast, but he was catching on.  Such great mounts were not always the most practical in the lush heart of Greenwood, but Thranduil was still much too fond of them to let their line fade.

“Are we to enter directly, my lord?” Gwaelas asked.

“I see no reason why we should not,” Thranduil said, urging the horse forward again.  “Come on.”

Together they crossed the foothills at an easy gallop toward the wooded footpath approaching the city from their direction.  Thranduil had purposefully avoided the more heavily traveled route linking the Elvish realm to the Dwarves of Hadhodrond.  This way was a bit more roundabout, but it afforded a more serene ride.

The thinning leaves overhead were bright with autumn color, and they caught and scattered the light as they passed beneath them.  The ripe scents pervading the air were a welcome change after the barrenness of the mountains, different from those of Greenwood.  Thranduil slowed his horse to a plodding walk, quite willing to take his time.  Soon he began humming to himself, a light silvan tune, enjoying his extended turn of high spirits.  Gwaelas was glad to pick up his part, singing a counterpoint and allowing his lord to supply the familiar words.  But, all too soon, their music ceased.

“Yes, come out.  I see you.”

This last Thranduil directed at the lurking guard he saw crouched beside the road, and he halted in front of him.

It was a young Golodh who emerged from the leaves, arrayed in orange and saffron so tailored as to make him almost indistinguishable among them.  Almost.  The boy could not have seen more than sixty turns of the sun in his lifetime.  It was good to know that children were springing up throughout Elvendom in those days.

“I am to ask you for your name, my lord, and what brings you to Ost-in-Edhil.”

Thranduil excused the somewhat clumsy execution of his instructions, for he doubted this post afforded much practical experience.  “I am Thranduil,” he replied easily, “Prince in Greenwood beyond the Mountains.  I have come to call upon my father’s kinsman, Lord Celeborn, if he will receive me.”

“That I am not competent to judge, my lord,” the sentry replied, apparently reassured by Thranduil’s casual air, though obviously not without his own misgivings regarding the infamous name of the Greenwood royalty, “but you may pass, and discover it for yourself.”

The city itself was lively and bustling with activity.  Thranduil gained the gate after a brisk trot over white cobblestones, passing beneath the flying colors.  He was rather under-dressed for his rank, and so was not overly conspicuous.  He announced himself once more to the gate guards, their horses were led away to be stabled, and they were given an escort to the palace.

The homes of the nobility were open and spacious, a collection of balconies and terraces interconnected in many places to form its own community within the community.  Thranduil entered by the Gate of the Setting Sun, the path illuminated by an impressive array of mosaics depicting the flaming star of Finwë’s house with a lordly face, radiating in curling tongues of fire from one wall to the other.  Thranduil deliberately planted his heel in the tiled eye as he passed, quite at his ease.

He heartily approved of Celeborn’s new abode thus far.  It was almost as though a memory of Menegroth had been built above ground, like but unlike.  There was certainly more stone than greenery, but even here the walkways were lined with planted shrubs and adorned with small lawns of grass.

Just then an august but exuberant figure rounded the corner ahead of them.  He spread his arms wide and loosed a smile that made the entire corridor seem brighter.

“Thranduil, you renegade!” he beamed, greeting him with a fierce embrace.  “I never guessed you would actually come, though I suppose I should have known better!”

“Yes, you should have,” Thranduil agreed, releasing him.  “It does me good to see you again, Amroth.  Tell me, how do you occupy yourself these days?”

“Not here, more often than not,” Amroth explained, relieving their escort and leading him further into the labyrinth of a palace.  “I am building a realm of my own now in Lórinand over the mountains.  I would have ridden across the way to Lasgalen, but I did not know how your father would receive me.”

“You need not worry about him so long as I am around,” Thranduil protested.  “So, those were your people in the Lórinand woods?  They seem a likely bunch.”

“I have not been disappointed thus far,” Amroth smiled.  “Oh, and my father sends his regrets that he could not come to meet you; he could not escape the meeting of the council.”

“I understand.  I look forward to meeting him as soon as he is free.”

“You will soon be able to meet the whole family.  Ah, yes!  You have not yet seen Celebrían!  I have a sister now, Thranduil, and you have another lovely cousin.  I think you will like her.  Everyone does.  Here are your rooms.”

He opened an elaborately-carven door into a suite fit for royalty.  There was a sumptuous Noldorin air about the place, though it was not unpleasant.

“It is more than adequate, Amroth,” Thranduil nodded.  “You may give my thanks to your father if you see him before I do.”

“Indeed.  But I shall leave you now, as you will want to get settled before dinner.  You arrived with remarkable timing, for tonight we celebrate the commemoration of the city’s founding.  I hope we shall have the honor of your presence among us.”

“You may expect me,” Thranduil assured him. 

Amroth bowed out gracefully, closing the door behind him, leaving his two guests to settle themselves in their new surroundings.

“They seem as hospitable as ever, my lord,” Gwaelas said, his voice colored with a note of relief.  “After our king’s less than gracious reception of their emissaries, I hardly knew what to expect, if you will pardon my saying so.”

“Do not underrate them, Gwaelas, my friend,” Thranduil advised him gently.  “Fortunately, I may often expect better behavior of Celeborn than I can of my own father.  He will understand my coming here.”

“I pray you are right, my lord.”

Thranduil bathed quickly and exchanged his dusty riding tunic for more formal attire.  He was debating what to do for the next few hours when he was distracted by the sounds of laughter wafting in through the window.  Outside, he could see several maidens playing a game together on a grassy terrace.  One of them was distinctively crowned by long tresses of silver, gleaming in the sunlight.

“You stay here and rest, Gwaelas,” he instructed.  “I shall go have a turn about the city.”

It did not take him long to find them.  It was a group of six, at least three of whom were plainly ladies-in-waiting.  A lively game of racquetball was underway on the lawn between two of them.

“Pardon me, ladies,” Thranduil addressed himself to the four spectators, “but might I find Lady Celebrían among you?”

“Is Lady Celebrían a personage of so little consequence that she is not known to a lord of the Eldar?” the silver beauty asked, turning her racquet to deflect the ball into the air to land in her left hand.  There was an edge in her voice that was endearingly insolent.

Thranduil, of course, had known her at once, and now could not help smiling to himself.  “Please forgive an errant stranger at the court of Eregion,” he said with a deep and mockingly penitent bow.  “Since Lady Celebrían is reputed to be gracious, I presume she cannot be here.”

There was a collective gasp from the other ladies present.

“I am Lady Celebrían, sir,” she said, indignant now, a flash in her eyes.  “Has any particular purpose driven you here, or have you come merely to be impudent?”

Thranduil made no effort to hide his amusement.  “Merely to make the charming acquaintance of a cousin, my lady,” he corrected her. 

She met the remark with a decidedly ill-favored look.  “I know who you are,” she said at last.  “Your audacity betrays you, Thranduil Oropherion.”

“As does your own, Celebrían.”  He disarmed her baleful stare with a smile.  “But do forgive me; it would not do for us to make enemies of one another at our first meeting.”

She seemed to consider him for a moment, then laughed ominously to herself and tossed the ball to her opponent.  “You are a man of many contradictions, Cousin Thranduil.  Those who know you have said as much.  But I will confess I have long desired to meet you.  Will you stay with us long?”

“As long as you desire it, my lady.  Within reason, of course.”

She came and slipped her arm around his in the familiar Sindarin fashion, offering to show him what he wished to see of the city before the festivities that evening.  If he had not yet decided, he knew then that he would not regret his journey to Eregion, despite his father’s misgivings.

ERNIL

Chapter 6 ~ Over the Mountains III

“So, tell me, Thranduil,” Celebrían inquired as they walked together through the open corridors of the palace, her arm still curled around his.  “What impression have you of Eregion thus far, and how does it compare to your Eryn Galen?”

“I may truthfully say that it has made quite a favorable impression on me,” Thranduil replied.  “There is much of Menegroth in it, and for that I believe I may credit your father.  As for a comparison to Lasgalen,” he went on, running his fingers over the pointed leaves of a potted plant as they passed, “there is not much of one.  You who were raised in this city of exalted stone would doubtless find our ways rather savage.”

Celebrían arched her brows incredulously.  “I have heard as much about your wood and the ways of your king,” she said, “but you certainly do not look like a rustic.”

“Perhaps not.  Lasgalen remains an enigma to those who have not lived it.  I find it is best to let it speak with its own voice.”

“That is what my brother says of his people in Lórinand,” Celebrían said.  “I have yet to see them, but he has told me so much about them that I believe I understand your meaning.  Will you make a great people of them, building new cities of renown in your wood?”

“What is made for the woodland is best left in it,” Thranduil replied.  “The Galennath have no taste for great cities.  Their concerns are their own.  We shall only refine them, not redirect them, and they will determine what they make of themselves.”

Eventually she turned him aside and led him onto an open lawn far above the rest of the city.  “You need not be long without green things beneath your feet,” she smiled, turning and clapping her hands for a ready servant.  “Two chairs, at once!”

“No need for that,” Thranduil assured her, countermanding her request.  “Do you never sit upon the grass, Celebrían?”  He folded his legs beneath him, just as comfortable there as he would have been in his throne in Oropher’s hall.  “Come.  I believe you will like it.”

She looked at him, bemused for a moment as though it had never occurred to her to do such a thing.  But then she obliged him, pulling aside the train of her gown and seating herself beside him.

“Already I begin to understand what you say of Lasgalen,” she observed wryly.  “Does King Oropher habitually reign from a seat upon the ground?”

Thranduil laughed.  “No, not always,” he said, “but the Galennath would think no less of him if he did.”

A falcon swept past the balcony, only to soar skyward a moment later, probably a common sight in that city of stone.

“Now you tell me, Celebrían,” Thranduil said, beginning an inquiry of his own.  “How has the general consensus of Eregion informed your opinion of me before today?”  His wry grin told her he did not fear the truth.

She returned the expression.  “I trust you may guess what they say without being too far wrong.  But for myself, I reserved my judgment.  My brother has always spoken well of you, so I assumed the Oropherionnath could not be so crass as some would have it.”

“I am glad to hear it,” Thranduil smiled, gently falling back to lie in the grass.  “I am sure the same may be said of the opinion of Eregion throughout the Wood.”

He paused a moment, his mind wandering away as he considered this new cousin of his.  Her eyes were a cool gray, bright and clear as she returned his steady gaze.  She was everything he would have expected of a daughter of Galadriel, but he had the satisfaction of seeing that superlative Western beauty remade in the form of her father.  Then he hitched himself up on his elbow.  “What of your father, Celebrían?” he asked earnestly, Oropher’s harsh words returning to him.  “What has he to say?”

Celebrían seemed to appreciate the significance of the question, and her smile faded.  “Father does not speak of it,” she said simply.  “I believe the matter saddens him a great deal.  But I do not think he will regret your coming here,” she added encouragingly.

“Certainly not,” came another voice from behind them.  “And nor will I.”

Celebrían’s smile returned, as bright as before.  “Ah, Lord Gildor!  Thranduil, may I present Lord Gildor Inglorion, one of my mother’s kinsmen.”

Thranduil returned to his feet.  The august Noldorin lord who had joined them on the lawn was an impressive figure, his thick golden hair tied loosely behind his shoulders.

“Good day, my lady,” he greeted Celebrían with an easy smile, closing the distance between them in a few strides.  “And you must be Thranduil,” he said, bowing slightly as a lord ought when greeting a prince.  “I have long wanted to meet you, my lord.”

Thranduil was momentarily at a loss, unable to make any immediate reply.  “You have wanted to meet me?” he asked at last with some measure of disbelief.  He had not thought he or his family would be the object of any great interest to the great lords of the Noldor, especially not after Oropher’s very public rebuff.

Gildor laughed.  “Yes, Oropherion, I have.  The tale of your family intrigues me, you as an individual not least of all.  Do you intend to stay long with us?”

“I would not wish to overstay my welcome,” Thranduil answered, purposefully vague.  “If the weather holds me, I may perhaps winter here.”

“At least,” Gildor insisted.  “I would have you longer than that, but perhaps your father has need of you?”

Thranduil nodded.  “I expect so.  It was only with his reluctant blessing that I came at all.”

The golden lord seemed to realize the full implications of the statement.  “I thought as much.  But let us not speak of your leaving; you have only just arrived!  And not a day too soon.  I trust Celebrían has informed you of the occasion this evening.”

“Her brother invited me.”

“And you will honor us with your presence, Prince Oropherion?  Oh, you must!” Gildor insisted, detecting a hint of hesitation.  Have no fear of looking out of place; you may borrow whatever you like from me.  I could not abide the thought of so distinguished a guest sitting alone in his room during one of the city’s highest feasts.”

Thranduil could not help but smile.  Gildor’s enthusiasm was irresistible, and in any case he seemed ready to command him to make an appearance and enjoy himself.  “Of course, I will come,” he said.  “How could I refuse?”

An hour later, Thranduil returned to his quarters, new clothes draped over his arm courtesy of Gildor.  A few comfortable hours remained before the festivities officially began.  That was time enough to change and adopt his official persona.

“Gwaelas,” he called, knowing his woodland companion was lurking about somewhere.  He was rewarded by his appearance in the doorway.  That one’s tread, already silent over brush, was imperceptible over stone.  “There you are, my friend.  Come, we have a celebration to attend.”

In no hurry, Thranduil donned Gildor’s ensemble.  It was much finer than anything Lasgalen could currently offer.  Gildor had searched his wardrobe for something suitable in green and brown to gratify Thranduil’s preferences, but they had compromised on a combination of deep green and red.  The robes almost reached the floor, falling in a jaunty cascade from his shoulders, but they did not restrict his movement at all.  They would also have politely concealed the dagger at the back of his belt had he chosen to wear it, but for once he deemed it would be better left behind.

“You do not seem especially eager, Gwaelas,” he observed dryly as the other handed him his silver crown.

“I must confess I am not, my lord.”

Thranduil turned to him, momentarily concerned.  “What troubles you?”

Gwaelas merely shook his head.  “I cannot acclimate myself to cities of stone, my lord.  And the thought of a crowd of enormous Noldorin lords is more than a bit daunting to me.  But I will follow if you command me.”

“You know I would not,” Thranduil assured him.  He truly did not enjoy trying Gwaelas’ endurance beyond reason.  Any of the Galennath would be beyond their element here.  Besides, it had been a long journey over the mountains.  “You may stay here if you wish.  A restful night will do you good.”

“But, my lord—”

“I will hear no more of it,” Thranduil insisted gently.  “To bed with you.”

Gwaelas nodded, obviously relieved despite his objection.  Thranduil turned back to his image in the mirror as his companion slipped away into the shadows, feeling strangely ambivalent towards the whole event.  He neither especially anticipated nor dreaded the occasion, a compromise he suspected to be the result of two strong sentiments in perfect opposition to one another.  He could understand Gwaelas’ reluctance to mingle in a foreign crowd by which he was, at best, mistrusted.  However, Celebrían had already won his heart and Gildor his friendship.  He looked forward to rejoining them as much as he wished to avoid Celebrimbor and the Dwarf-friends.  There was probably no separating one from the other and he might as well make the best of it.

The enormous hall where all the lords gathered was already milling with an impressive gathering when he arrived, mingling and dancing in a swirl of constant motion.  The walls were elaborately festooned with the heraldry of many houses, and the air was full of music.  Thranduil slipped in quietly, drawing no special attention to himself.

Despite the disparity of culture, he was determined to enjoy the evening.  Yet he could not seem to dismiss the slight but persistent discomfort growing deep within him.  He was unable to identify the cause, but it was akin to the instinctive revulsion he suffered in the presence of deliberate kinslayers.  He had not experienced it for many years, and he attributed it now to the general unfamiliarity of the city and its inhabitants.  It would doubtless leave him as he grew more accustomed to the setting.

It was not long before Celeborn and Galadriel made their formal entry with Amroth and Celebrían, but the festivities were not delayed long for the purpose.  Other great lords were arriving every few moments.  Thranduil still did not proclaim himself, but he saw Celeborn’s eyes deliberately seeking him out.  A nod was all they exchanged for the moment.  The time to speak would come later.

Thranduil preferred that time to be not long delayed.  There were a great many things he wanted to discuss with Celeborn while he remained in Eregion, but he must first establish the terms of his visit.  As soon as the opportunity presented itself, he negotiated his way through the crowd and approached him over a table laden with beautifully garnished morsels of food.

“Good evening, cousin,” he began in a low but pleasant voice to be heard over the timbre of the entertainment.

Celeborn, in his gray and blue, did not appear to have been changed at all by the centuries that had passed since last they had met.  He hardly looked up, continuing to fill his plate with fruit.  “Good evening, Thranduil,” he said at last.  No smile touched his lips, but a subtle gleam in his eye betrayed his kindred affection.  “I trust Eregion has received you well.”

“Quite,” Thranduil answered.  For a moment they just looked at one another.  Doriath would never be completely banished between them.  Even now there was a twinge of vivid memory as their eyes met beneath the crowns of two very different realms, the foundation of the kindred friendship which was frayed to a single unbreakable thread.

“Good,” Celeborn replied in blunt approval, breaking the spell and turning back to his food.  “That is more than I can say for the guests I sent to your father.”

Thranduil grimaced, recognizing the sharp irony in the elder lord’s tone.  “For that I truly have no excuse,” he said.  “But I cannot adequately apologize, for I had little part in that affair.”

“The most generous one of them admitted that you might not have shared your father’s decided position,” Celeborn informed him with a shade of a smile, “but since you said nothing to that effect in their presence, none of the others were inclined to share his opinion.  I am surprised that you were brazen enough to follow them after that incident, and indeed that Oropher would allow it.”

“I did not want you to surmise that we had all disowned you,” Thranduil said dryly, filling a plate of his own.  “Father gave me leave to go, but only because I demanded it.”

Celeborn seemed to understand the guarded emphasis of the first statement, and he stopped a moment, his expression distant and rather pained.  But only for a moment.  “I shall not lie to you, Thranduil,” he said, “if I say that I am often driven to imagine how Eryn Galen would fare better beneath your hand.  Oropher can be rather wanton in the exercise of his own power.”

Thranduil said nothing for a time, but could not help smiling to himself as he considered how calmly Celeborn made his crushing statement.  That he even admitted such unbecoming thoughts said much about his own frustration.  Ironically, the similarities shared by the two cousins were still evident; Thranduil had known Celeborn himself to be quick to judge, slow to be reconciled.  Neither one had ever ceased to criticize his own faults in the other.  Celeborn, however, seemed to have his own failings well in hand.  The exercise of sovereignty had made Celeborn cautious, as Thranduil feared it had made his father capricious.  After so many years of almost absolute rule, Oropher was admittedly a bit drunk on it.  Perhaps the difference between them lay in the particular setting.  Oropher was unchallenged in his position, the woodland Elves rather in awe of him.  What did Celeborn face in Ost-in-Edhil?

“Do not live hoping to see me rule,” Thranduil advised, good-humoredly.  “Father seems quite content where he is, and though he tries me at times, I am not driven to leave him.”

“Amroth has decided at last to leave us for the trees.”

“So he told me.”  Thranduil frowned a bit.  “I wonder that I had not heard of his work on our side of the mountains before this.  I had not thought our realm was so introverted as that.”

“Let it remain so, if you wish to live a quiet life,” Celeborn advised wryly.  “The less Oropher knows of his neighbors, the more content he will be.”  He paused for a long moment, looking at Thranduil distantly, even wistfully, but his thoughts remained his own.  “A pity,” he said at last, shaking his head.  But then he returned his attention to his food.

Thranduil could not decide whether Celeborn meant Oropher’s isolation, the fact that his more amiable cousin would never be king in Greenwood, or both.  He did not ask.  Indeed, Celebrían took his arm before could.

“Come, Thranduil,” she smiled.  “You must not allow Father to monopolize you while you are with us.  There will be other occasions for gloomy talk.  Tonight you must both forget such things and enjoy life.”

Now a genuine smile did illuminate Celeborn’s grave features.  “Life always feels so much lighter on the young,” he said.  “Let her rejuvenate you, Thranduil.  You are not quite so far gone as I.”

And without further debate Celebrían claimed him as her own for the duration of the evening.

She said it would be insufferable of him to pass the night without dancing at least once with her.  Almost an hour later she was still in his arms, though the time passed without notice.  The group dances had broken up into individual couples once more, an arrangement which facilitated easier conversation.  So far as Thranduil could determine, Celebrían seemed quite taken with him, but in a healthy way.  He was very pleased with her himself, his good opinion strengthened by every moment spent in her presence.  As with Amroth before her, he was determined to make the most of his rare opportunity to meet with the younger members of his generation. 

“I must say, I am pleasantly surprised by you, Thranduil,” she said at last.  “So honest and so sincere.  A more selfless lord I have seldom met, who doubtless has no interest in the courtly frivolities which abound here.”

“Oh, do not mistake me, Celebrían,” he smiled, mildly amused.  “I am dreadfully selfish and I take pleasure in many frivolous things.  Doubtless, when you truly know me you will not like me so well.”

“Oh, doubtless,” she agreed, all in good humor.  For a moment she lay her jeweled head against his shoulder, perfectly content.  Well-accustomed to playing the part of the elder brother, Thranduil did not mind in the least.  He looked up to see Amroth beaming at them from the crowd.  He smiled back, grateful that at least the three of them could get along peaceably together.  Despite their almost blissful existence in Eryn Galen, he could not help feeling alienated from some fundamental part of himself while they remained sundered from the nearest living branch of their old house.

The softer music ceased, drowned in a new dramatic fanfare announcing the late arrival of some other noteworthy name of the city.  Thranduil gave Celebrían his arm and led her from the floor, taking little notice.  Everyone else seemed to at least look up to observe this new entry, many celebrating it enthusiastically.  Such lofty sentiments, however, were not unanimous among those gathered in the hall.  Celeborn had stiffened where he stood, his face like a frozen winter morning.  Thranduil looked for himself, critically appraising the mysterious figure and his entourage.

“Who is he?” he asked Celebrían, keeping his voice low.

“That is Annatar,” Gildor answered for her, standing behind them, “one it would be well worth your time to meet.  He has honed the skills of the Mírdain here as no others east of the sea.”

“I should have expected he came bearing gifts, considering his epithet,” Thranduil observed, instinctively suspicious.  “Is that his true name?”

“If he has another, he has reserved it to himself,” Gildor answered, “as is best.”

Thranduil was not satisfied with that cryptic statement, but he silenced his questions for the moment to form his own first impressions.  This Annatar was an incredibly handsome lord, pale and fair and to all appearances Noldorin, meeting the favored Mírdain with gracious smiles as he moved catlike through the crowd.  The festivities resumed all around them, save for those caught within the captivating aura of Annatar’s presence.

Thranduil watched with a keen interest but also with great reservation.  But he froze when that piercing gaze fell upon him.  The uncomfortable twinge in the pit of his stomach flared ten-fold beneath the steady regard of those fathomless eyes, distant though they were.  The encounter lasted for only a single drawn moment, but with it came the distinct impression that Annatar already knew him for who he was and had deliberately taken his measure.

“He is gracious enough when it pleases him, but in truth he has an insufferable pride,” Celebrían was saying, rather indiscreetly.  

“My lady,” Gildor reprimanded her sternly.

“It is no secret to anyone,” she stubbornly insisted.  “You would not believe the contempt in which he holds your royal person, Thranduil, nor his disdain for your silvan realm.  Those who do not deal in jewelcraft are of no use to him.”

“Every lord holds his own prejudice,” Gildor reminded her, which was certainly true enough.  “But justice demands that one judge not by hearsay.  Many duties press him, Thranduil, yet I am sure you will make his acquaintance in good time.”

“I, too, my lord,” Thranduil concurred, yet not so robustly.  His attention was still drawn elsewhere.  That there would be another meeting he was certain, but he knew not whether to anticipate or to dread it.

ERNIL

Chapter 7 ~ Over the Mountains IV

The chill of winter swept down abruptly from the mountains that year, dusting all Eregion with snow only a few weeks after Thranduil had arrived.  Celeborn’s household did not seem to object to his presence, and the mountain passes would soon be closed, so he resolved to stay the winter.  At present, he was taking the opportunity to enjoy a leisurely walk through the elaborate maze of gardens behind the palace, dormant now but for the evergreens.  In some ways it reminded him of their old home in Lindon.

Winter was by no means his favorite season, but the cold did not trouble him beneath his heavy cloak.  Gwaelas had come with him, mostly for his own comfort.  Thranduil could not help but be concerned about him of late, for he seemed to be pining for his woodland home.  The more he stayed outside the better.  The open air would do him good.

Besides that, Thranduil had worries enough of his own.  Over the past month he had observed the extent of the cult of Annatar.  The Noldorin jewelsmiths had nothing but praise for him, bordering on reverence.  It was not for nothing that he was named lord of gifts.  The secrets of their craft were strictly guarded and any attempt to pry them out was strongly resented.  Thranduil had no right idea what they were creating, but somehow it made him uncomfortable.  He felt no less than Gwaelas the need to escape the crowd for a time, to mull over his misgivings in silence.  He must justify them to himself before he could even begin to consider acting upon them.  Gwaelas needed only his company, and that he freely offered, but he did not burden his silvan friend with the darker suspicions dominating his mind.

“Good morning, Thranduil,” Celebrían greeted him, meeting them around a bend in the frosted landscape.   “I thought I would find you here.”

“I am often predictable that way,” Thranduil smiled.  “Will you join us?”

“There is nothing I would enjoy more,” she said, “but my father has asked me to fetch you.  You are summoned by Lord Annatar.”

“What does Annatar want of me?” Thranduil asked as they walked briskly through the corridors, his inquiry almost a surly demand.  He pulled off his winter cloak and gave it to Gwaelas.

“What does any lord first want of you?” Celebrían asked rhetorically.  “First, he will become acquainted with you, and he will decide what he wants afterward.  Few dare to oppose him in anything.”

“Why?” Thranduil demanded.  “How did he come to command such influence?”  He felt a private dread growing, as though he were being brought down into the lair of the spider who had already woven his web over the whole city.  Beside him Gwaelas seemed to share the sentiment, his eyes flitting nervously from the lady to his lord.

“He is almost an authority unto himself,” Celebrían answered, the hem of her gown rippling like quicksilver over the stone floors.  “Lords choose of their own will to follow him.  Yet I see you have already developed a hearty dislike for him.”

“The sight of him upsets my stomach,” Thranduil complained, quite truthfully.  “And I have already gathered he has an equal dislike of me.”

The hall rang for a moment with Celebrían’s musical laughter.  “Come now, Thranduil,” she chided, “in this city that should be no novelty to you.  It is true that Annatar certainly does not yet respect you, but I seriously doubt he means you harm.  You need fear no ceremonial backstabbing.”

Her tone was flippant, yet her words sent a bitter chill along Thranduil’s spine.  Her youth betrayed her.

“We are not going directly to the forges, are we?”

“But, of course,” she said.  “Annatar rarely receives anyone elsewhere of his own accord.”

The forges of Ost-in-Edhil were as Elvish as anything else in that city, yet they were also host to the thickest traffic in Dwarves.  The presence of the Naugrim did nothing to lighten Thranduil’s spirit as Celebrían led them ever deeper.  The architecture rapidly lost any resemblance to Menegroth, imagined or otherwise.  It became utterly foreign, the lair of the last of Fëanor’s house.  The light assumed a fiery glow, glinting off the walls magnificently tiled in great curling images of flame.  Gwaelas followed ever closer, until he was almost clutching at Thranduil’s mantle lest he be lost in that great and imposing edifice.

The passing Noldor afforded them only so much notice and deference as their combined rank demanded, and even then Thranduil was sure it was more for Celebrían’s sake than his own.  He felt the corridors to be confining amid all the coming and going although the grand ceilings were well overhead.  At last, they passed through a huge doorway framed by enormous pillars of red marble.  Beyond it lay the more intimate work spaces and antechambers, almost alternate living quarters for the noble craftsmen.  Buried in the heart of these was their destination.

Celebrían informed an attendant of their arrival.  They were admitted inside, and the heavily emblazoned door shut behind them.

“Greetings, Prince Thranduil Oropherion of Eryn Galen,” Annatar purred, standing to receive them in his splendid quarters.  “I thank you, Lady Celebrían, for bringing him to me.”

Celebrían returned the pleasantry, but Thranduil hardly heard her.  He had eyes only for Annatar, watching his every move.  At such proximity, he felt overwhelmed by a feeling of . . . something.  Was it apprehension?  Perhaps, but more.  It was not quite a sense of danger, but rather a constant sense of tension.  Annatar seemed suave enough yet the tension remained, invisible, like a weight suspended on a rope or the acrid tingle before a strike of lightning.  Thranduil himself was tense but he was unwilling to attribute the entire experience to his own uneasiness.

“I am told you came here against the will of your father,” Annatar smiled.  “Is that so, my lord?”

Thranduil did not appreciate his manner even from the beginning.  “I requested my father’s leave, and he did not oppose me,” he returned, rather tersely.

“You would not have allowed him had he tried,” Annatar insisted, seeming mildly amused by the whole affair as he poured himself a slender glass of wine.

Thranduil did not know what to say, and so was silent.  Celebrían, too, seemed nonplussed, but she did not presume to interrupt.  Gwaelas was making a conscious effort to will himself invisible as his kind were wont to do in the forest, intimidated by the looming tension he could also feel, but there was nowhere to hide.

“A divided house is bereft of half its strength, Thranduil,” Annatar lectured on, almost inconsequentially, almost as though he was pleased by it.  Was he gloating?  “I have already made myself familiar with many great houses of Middle-earth and the lords that rule them.  Now I would know more about yours.” 

His eyes seemed dead by their chill, yet they were gleaming with an incredible power that would not be hidden.  Their gaze was hard to endure for long.  His hair was plaited and accented with silver ornaments that Thranduil suspected to be mithril, remembering Annatar’s rumored preference for that most precious of metals.  He was taller than Thranduil, and the beauty of the West was in his face.  But what was he?  Was he simply an especially gifted Noldo of Fëanor’s like, or was he more?  The strange aura of Annatar’s presence was almost a perfect inversion of his memory of Doriath’s Maia queen.  That alone was enough to incite his suspicions.

“How long has your father reigned in Eryn Galen?” Annatar asked casually, stalking around him in a slow circle.

“Four hundred and ninety-six years,” Thranduil answered flatly.

“And the people of the wood accept his rule without rebellion?”

“They do.”

“And how far does the influence of Oropher extend?”

“Far enough,” Thranduil quipped, tiring of being made to answer such obvious questions, yet feeling they would soon probe deeper if he did not stem them there.

“Far enough for what, Thranduil?” Annatar persisted, a cold insinuation in his voice.  “To ensure his dominion?  To secure his borders?  To wage his wars?”

Thranduil merely set his jaw and did not answer, somehow transfixed by that gaze.  Despite the incessant questioning, he could not help feeling that Annatar attended the conversation with only half a mind, that his purpose was to take the measure not only of Lasgalen but of Thranduil himself as one might a potential foe.   How many others had endured the same inquisition?  Did Annatar’s allegiance truly lie with any of them?  Thranduil closed his mind against it as best he could, yet felt himself uncomfortably transparent before a superior light.

“This, I presume, is one of your silvan subjects,” Annatar went on, turning his dread attentions upon Gwaelas.  He seemed intensely interested, taking Gwaelas’ chin in his hand that he might look him in the eye.  Gwaelas was petrified, and Thranduil had to suppress his initial instinct to cuff the foreign hand away from his friend.  “A domestic and pliable race, I see.  Subtle rather than courageous.  This one has been trained well enough.”

Thranduil grew more resentful with every word that fell from Annatar’s mouth.  There was a silent but obvious mockery about his entire presence that could scarcely be borne.  He especially did not appreciate the intensity with which he regarded Gwaelas, as though peering into the very depths of his soul.

“Are they all like this one?” Annatar asked at last, eyes narrowed.  “Are your subjects all of the same race?”

Thranduil snapped his fingers sharply, giving Gwaelas excuse to pull away from Annatar’s grasp and retreat to his lord’s side, badly shaken.  “And why should the racial constitution of our people be of interest to you, lord of the Mírdain?” he demanded.  “It is of no concern.”

“Oh, it is of great concern, my young prince.  You know as well as I that peace will never endure in Middle-earth.  When war comes to your gates, how will you defend yourself with shrinking soldiers such as these?  Will Oropher humble himself enough to call upon Eregion in his need?”

The mockery was only thinly veiled in the guise of concern. 

“We have no need of Eregion’s forces,” Thranduil stated bitterly.  “We know how to defend our own.”

Annatar laughed softly to himself, but the sound carried a hauntingly malicious edge which cut to the heart.  “Oh, of course.  Perhaps on the next occasion your people take arms, Thranduil Thalion, you will not allow yourselves to be ingloriously slaughtered as you have thrice before.  Your people excel not in saving lives, but in lamenting them.”

Outraged, Thranduil would have forgotten himself had not Gwaelas caught hold of his wrist.  The callous truth silenced him, but it angered him beyond words.  Annatar continued to stare placidly down his perfect nose at him, dark brows arched, despising the petty threat that rose and fell before him, daring any of them to contest his words.

“Look at me and tell me, Prince of Lasgalen,” he said at last, a smile of prideful triumph suggesting itself on his pale face, “that all of your Galennath would not be utterly routed if a hostile army presented itself this very day.”

“Even if we are, it will be no concern of yours,” Thranduil bit out.

“Many things are my concern, not least of all the balance of power among the present dominions of Middle-earth,” Annatar said, his voice deep and ageless.  “I have witnessed the rise and fall of many realms, little prince, the comings and goings of one king and then another as each comes to inevitable ruin.  The weak perish and the strong linger, but all is overturned in time.  When you fall, I shall know it.”

Thranduil was hardly able to speak now.  His blood was up and he no longer cared who or what Annatar may be, but knew only that he hated him.  He met those cold and cruel eyes unflinchingly, though he felt maddeningly powerless against him.  “I shall never give you the satisfaction,” he growled, half mad with rage.

Annatar arched one brow, intrigued but disdainful.  “So you say, Oropherion.  I shall not forget it.”

It was a tense and silent walk back to Thranduil’s guest quarters.  He was so furious he could have spit, but somehow he managed to contain himself in the corridor.  Celebrían followed resolutely, determined to let him spend his anger harmlessly upon her if he was to spend it upon anyone.  He allowed her inside when at last they reached his room, slamming the door behind them.

“Curse him!” he roared at last, and slammed his fist against the unyielding hardwood.         

“Thranduil!” Celebrían protested.  “You will hurt yourself!”

“I will hurt myself,” he repeated derisively.  “What is that to me now?”  He threw his head against the door as well, though with only half the force as before.  He had endured over a dozen insults in that brief encounter, and each one carried a barb he could not be rid of.  He turned then and saw Gwaelas lean shudderingly against a table.  “Look!  Look what he has done to him!”

Thranduil went to take a firm hold of his companion’s trembling shoulders.  “How did he hurt you?” he demanded.  “I know that he did.”

For a moment Gwaelas could not answer.  “He . . . he saw me,” he said at last, his voice as unsteady as his posture.

“How deeply?”

Gwaelas closed his eyes tightly against the memory and looked away.  “Do not ask me.”

Thranduil sighed resignedly and left the matter alone.  Had he suspected Gwaelas would be so violated, he would not have taken him along.

“Even I am surprised at him,” Celebrían said.  “I have never seen such brazen discourtesy at an introduction, even from him.”

“He knows he has nothing to fear from me,” Thranduil observed bitterly.  “No one here values my good opinion.”

As his anger lost its fire, growing cold and deliberate, he was at last capable of rational thought.  He would be thinking long and hard about what had just transpired.  What it meant he did not yet know, save that it did not bode well for anyone.  There was too much he still did not know.

“Celebrían,” he said at last.  “What are the Mírdain creating?  What has Annatar taught them?”

She seemed a bit taken aback by the question.  “I . . . I do not know,” she said at last.  “They do not speak of it save among themselves.”

“Please, Celebrían,” he insisted, seeing more behind her eyes than she would say.

“I know nothing of the masterworks of the Mírdain,” she said again, more forcefully.  “I have only this, given to me by Lord Celebrimbor some years ago.”  She lay in his hand a slender ring of silver from her finger, set with a single green stone.  “Its power is bound within it,” she explained, “and can be made to govern green and flowering things.”

Thranduil scrutinized the trinket, but he could see nothing remarkable about it save the slight but distinct power elicited at his touch.  He could feel it against his hand, lending the ring itself a greater weight than would be expected of its size.  Its influence was meager, but he was sure the concept was of far greater consequence.

“Are they making greater ones?” he asked, returning it to her.

“I have not heard,” Celebrían said, closing her fingers around it.  “But even if they were, what ill could come of them?”

It was true that the power in question was pure enough, and well-intentioned.  Logically, the greater power would therefore bring about the greater good.  But while Annatar dominated the forges of Eregion, Thranduil was not inclined to trust anything they produced.

“I do not know,” he said at last.  “But I have much to consider.”

After dinner that night, Thranduil sought out Celeborn.  Annatar had also enjoyed a seat at the highest table, wearing his charming façade once again, and his presence had been nigh intolerable.  Thranduil was haunted by the echo of his snide laughter.  Now at last the ordeal was ended and he was conscious of many burning questions on his mind as he hastily donned again his green cloak and cap.

“Celeborn!” he called, bounding down the white stairs of the rear entrance into the snow-covered gardens, his breath frosting mightily on the frozen air.  The gray light was steadily fading, yet he was confident of finding him.  Nothing seemed to move, yet a silent twinge in his thought beckoned him.

He strode purposefully through the garden paths in the growing darkness, silent over the crisp snow, past many dormant hedges and cold, white-capped statues.  The gardens themselves were all but deserted at that hour and in that time of year.

At last, he came upon a wall partitioning the higher gardens from the lower.  Atop its moonlit battlements stood Celeborn, gazing away to the mountains in the east, weighed by many cares of his own.  Seeing him there, the gleam of his hair in stark contrast to his dark raiment, Thranduil was strikingly reminded of the melancholy aspect of Elu Thingol.  His own father seemed too often to personify the rash and choleric nature of the old king, the opposite side of the coin.

Celeborn was aware of his presence, and glanced back to acknowledge it.  A nod of his head summoned Thranduil to join him on the wall.  It took only a moment to find the stairs.

“You wished to speak to me?” Celeborn prompted when the other had joined him at his vantage point, his steady eyes never leaving the eastern frontier.

“I do, if you will permit me.”

Now he did turn to look his cousin profoundly in the eye.  “Come now,” he said, “when have you ever needed permission to speak to me?  I expected you to voice your concerns at some point during your stay.  Say on.”

“Thank you,” Thranduil said, discreetly lowering his voice.  “That Annatar is a menace; how do you tolerate him?”

Celeborn sighed, visible in the night chill.  “I have little choice,” he admitted, putting a brave face on an unpleasant reality.  “Already the city is nigh out of my hands.  Despite the pomp and ceremony, the factions that have formed within these walls are impossible to rule.  The Mírdain effectively hold the scepter now, and Annatar holds the hearts of the Mírdain.”

“But how can they abide him?” Thranduil demanded, hushed but vehement.  “How does anyone in this city abide him?”

“Yours and mine are the eyes of another race,” Celeborn reminded him.  “Celebrimbor’s people see no less than we, yet the light in which they see it remains quite different.  The ways of the Noldor already repel you, Thranduil, so it is little wonder that Annatar did not captivate your mind.  Your loyalties are unconfused, your interests undivided, and thus you have quickly surmised what others will not.  Annatar himself is not one to be trifled with, and it is for Celebrimbor to remove himself from his influence when the time comes.  I believe he still has strength enough to do so, but he must will it of his own accord.”

There truly seemed little chance of that, yet perhaps it was the single hope to which Celeborn was able to cling.

“But what of Annatar himself?” Thranduil asked at last, his words falling softly lest they break the snow-muffled stillness.  “What is he?  Whence did he come?”

Celeborn would not look at him, and for a moment left the grim question unanswered.  An unnatural apprehension descended upon the entire landscape as though it, too, dreaded to hear.

“You already know or suspect as much as I,” Celeborn said at last.  “Do not press me to speculate further.”

Thranduil said nothing in answer, feeling the winter chill settle around his heart.  Perhaps he had hoped for a harmless and convincing explanation.  Perhaps he had wanted some reason to doubt his own conviction.  But instead, it seemed his worst fears were rapidly being confirmed.

“How long has he been here?” he asked.

“Too long,” Celeborn hissed with a rueful curl of his lip.  “He is firmly entrenched now.”

 “And what of Galadriel?  Is she, too, blind to what passes among her kin?”

“Galadriel opposes the presence of Annatar in this city as strongly as do you, Thranduil,” Celeborn said, rather sharply.  “Yet Celebrimbor and his following will have him stay, and their influence is not lightly cast aside.  He has taught them much, yet I would say it has been too much and too quickly.  For the sake of their craft, they will not be parted from him.”

For the sake of their craft.  And what was that?  Thranduil still had no satisfactory explanation of the nature of their crowning masterpieces, so jealously guarded.  There was little enough he would be able to learn on his own, yet something was afoot and he was determined he would not return home empty-handed.

“Thranduil,” Celeborn said at last, planting a hand on his shoulder with the strength of a vice, as though he had heard or guessed his thoughts.  “I cannot forbid you, but guard yourself if you mean to walk in Annatar’s shadow.  This quarry may well prove darker than you dare to imagine.”

ERNIL

Chapter 9 ~ Over the Mountains VI

Thranduil woke the next morning to pain.  He was amazed he had been able to make himself sleep at all, but previous wounds had taken the novelty from the experience.  Somehow he had managed to suppress for a few hours not only the trauma to his arm but also the torments in his mind.

He sat up under the sheets, careful not to move too suddenly.  Gwaelas had cleaned and bandaged the wound upon their return to the room, but it was still far from healed despite his efforts to mend it during the night.  Even now the bandage was dark with blood.  They would have to do away with it and Gwaelas’ ruined mantle before either could be questioned.  He was reluctant to allow anyone knowledge of the incident, let alone the circumstances of it.  He was at Annatar’s mercy in that regard, but he was under the chilling impression that the lurking devil would be content to hold his peace for reasons of his own.  An insidious doubt was growing within him despite his rejection of Annatar’s insinuations.  He was uncertain of whom he could trust.

Gwaelas approached him softly with a wan attempt at a smile, apparently still weary and unsettled.  It was certainly not a good morning, and he made no pretense of calling it such.

“Help me with this,” Thranduil bid him, waiting grimly while the other tore the remainder of a shirt into strips, and then proceeded to undress the wound.

The torn flesh had attempted to close itself, but any abrupt movement would pull it apart once more.  Gwaelas’ smaller hands made swift work of rebinding it, as gentle as possible while making it firm enough to hold together.

“Wrap it thickly today,” Thranduil instructed.  “I cannot have it bleeding through.”

He felt odd, perhaps a bit lightheaded and sluggish.  He attributed it to the recent bloodletting.  His arm was not entirely functional, yet he would have to make as good a show of it as he could.

Making his way into the heart of the palace, he managed to accost one of his higher-ranking acquaintances over the casual breakfast laid out in the dining hall.

“Gildor,” he began abruptly.  “Of all the Noldor in Eregion, I feel I trust you most.  May I confide in you?”

“Certainly, Thranduil,” the golden lord assured him at once, a slight shadow passing over his face.  “Please, sit.  And do eat something; you are as pale as the moon this morning!”

Hunger was indeed gnawing at his stomach, but the fears preying upon his mind had an ill effect on his appetite.  Still, Thranduil made a conscious effort to make himself comfortable and take at least a fashionable helping of the fruit and pastry there on the table.  He would probably be glad of it later.

“Now,” Gildor prompted him, “what troubles you, my friend?”

Thranduil pushed a slice of apple around his plate on the end of his fork for a moment before he dared to begin.  “My lord,” he said at last, “what is your true opinion of Annatar?  How does he present himself to you?”

Now Gildor did frown a bit.  “I heard that you were summoned by him yesterday,” he said.  “The meeting did not proceed favorably?  I trust he is not responsible for your condition this morning.”

“I confess my own impression was decidedly less than favorable,” Thranduil said guardedly, declining to acknowledge the rest.

“Lord Annatar has had nothing but courtesy for me,” Gildor offered, seeming bemused.  “I cannot imagine what it is about you that offends him.”

“I offend him?” Thranduil protested.

“Forgive me.”  Gildor frowned again, seeming concerned.  “Are you certain you are well?  You look faint.”

“Do you truly see nothing odd about him?”  Thranduil persisted.  “Can you not feel the shadow in his presence?”

Gildor’s eyes narrowed.  “Just what are you saying, Oropherion?”

“I am saying,” Thranduil hissed vehemently, suppressing the urge to shout, “that he bodes no good for anyone.  He prowls around the forges like a demon, and I for one am convinced that Eregion harbors him at its peril.”

“And what have you to prove this amazing accusation?”

“I have only the assurance of my own heart.  I come from the realm of the Maia Queen; I can recognize a Power incarnate when I meet one!”

“And I come from Aman, Thranduil.”  Gildor arched his brow, his tone still tolerant but decidedly superior.  “Of course, Annatar is not only as he seems.  The Lords of the West may send us Maiar for heralds if they wish, and indeed he has intimated to a few that such is his purpose here.  But whatever you think of Annatar, Celebrimbor’s craft is his own and he will manage it well.”

Thranduil sat sullenly for a moment.  “Do you truly believe that?” he asked at last, disgusted.  “Because I cannot.”

“You do not know Celebrimbor as well as I.  You must trust the master in his own field.”

“I cannot,” Thranduil snapped again.

“You must.”

Thranduil glowered.  “I gather there is nothing more to be said.”  Pushing back from the table, he threw down his napkin and strode back through the hall toward the door.

Black thoughts clouded his mind as he descended the white marble steps, barely lighting upon each.  He had hoped Gildor would be distant enough from Annatar’s devilry to see it for what it was, or at least to consider the possibility.  The enemy’s charms were apparently more pervasive than he had imagined.

“Thranduil!”

He turned to see Gildor descending after him.  Without a word, the golden lord took a stern hold of his shoulder, pulled him to the bottom of the stairs and behind a pillar.

“A word to the wise, my friend,” he advised firmly, holding him against the wall.  “Do not imagine Eregion has turned only blind eyes upon the forges, or that you are alone in your suspicions.  Lord Celebrimbor knows more of the mind of Annatar than any of us, for he is deep in his counsel.  If there is evil afoot, we shall soon know it.  I recall how the house of Oropher regards the kin of Fëanor, yet Celebrimbor is no more an enemy than you would make him.”

Thranduil regarded him with a passive scowl which elegantly simplified the brewing storm of thought behind his eyes.  He was still uncertain whether he dared to make known to Gildor the incident of the previous night.  Would that gain him any support, or merely warrant further restriction of his movements?  Would his silence make him more vulnerable?  Was Gildor truly as deep in Celebrimbor’s confidence as he supposed himself to be?

“I know you are a creature of action, Thranduil,” Gildor concluded, more gently.  “Yet in matters such as these, we must leave the work for those who know it best.”

Leaving the main hall, Thranduil turned in the direction of the library.  This was not the privileged archive of the smiths, but the one intended for the public.  There would be nothing odd about his presence there, and if he were to fully understand the situation in Eregion in a timely fashion he must begin his studies without delay.

The ornamented corridor was crowded at that time of day, yet Thranduil stiffened to see Annatar striding towards him amid the thin crowd.

He summoned Gwaelas immediately to his side, and together they passed their mysterious enemy without a second glance.  Annatar seemed not one whit more interested in them than he was in anyone else present, yet new pain lanced through Thranduil’s wounded arm beneath his fleeting shadow.

“Stay with me,” he instructed Gwaelas, not wishing to allow his thoroughly intimidated companion out of his sight during the remainder of their stay within those walls. 

The library itself, like most everything in Eregion, was a masterpiece in its own right.  Its walls were traced in sculpted gold and silver and boasted a vast collection of literature and history on its gleaming shelves.  It would require several long and tedious years to read through all of it, yet Thranduil hoped to gather the significant highlights within the next week.

But he could not start immediately.  The library was occupied with a public reading of Noldorin poetry.  The listeners were seated on the floor in various attitudes about the reader, some more attentive than others.

Celebrían and Amroth were among them, and she silently beckoned for Thranduil to join them.  He could see no harm in obliging her, so he gently waved Gwaelas aside to an inconspicuous corner and took a place on the floor beside his cousins.  Celebrían took his hand warmly in her own, a gesture he truly appreciated amid all the conflicts preying upon him.  Yet her ring still held a dark intrigue.  He could feel its happily benign power there against his fingers, of no harm and certainly of some limited good.  But the mystery of it still unsettled him.

Thranduil paid very little attention to the sonorous Quenya recitation as he sat there, but rather allowed all his agitated thoughts to collect into some semblance of order.  He must begin by first taking note of everything commonly known about the Mírdain themselves, their leadership and influence, their previous accomplishments, their aspirations.  Who were the most influential members, and whose favor was Annatar actively courting besides Celebrimbor?

When the reader ceremoniously concluded the selection of the day, the knot of listeners began to disperse.  Thranduil rose as well, and helped Celebrían to her feet.

“I cannot stand to be shut up inside on a clear day like this, Thranduil,” Amroth said with a mischievous smile.  “Come out with me and my friends.  Or can you resist the call of new snow on the hillsides?”

Thranduil returned the smile, but grimaced inwardly.  His injury certainly forbade any physical exertion, even if he had not already made other plans for himself.  Now it remained for him to bow out gracefully.

“Perhaps another time, Amroth,” he said as pleasantly as possible.  “I had intended to take advantage of your archives here sometime before I returned home.”

“That does not sound like the Thranduil I know,” Amroth challenged him, planting his hands on his hips, but all in good humor.  “Very well, I shall not press you.  Yet I accept your flimsy excuse on the assumption that you obviously did not rest well last night.  Your face betrays you.  Go on, do your studying.  We shall have our fun without you this time.”

When they had gone, Thranduil turned to the enormous collection of volumes, scanning title after title for something of interest.  His search was still hamstrung by his ignorance of written Quenya, but not nearly so much so as in the deeper archives.  He began at last with a book of daunting size entitled The Founding of Eregion, cradling it on his left arm while flipping through the close-written pages with his barely-functional right.

It would be a long road from there, but he felt a stubborn determination growing upon him to see it to the end.

Several hours later, Thranduil was still in the library, his only companions a growing stack of books and Gwaelas.  He was reclined on the couch now beside the burning hearth, unusually lethargic.  Mealtimes had passed unnoticed, but the household had provided him a modest serving of wine that he had readily accepted, hoping to take the edge off the pain in his arm.

He had barely scraped the surface of the available reading, yet he felt he had reconstructed in his mind the circumstances of the city’s first span of years with considerable accuracy.  But the lesson had been a dry one, and to that he attributed the dull stupor of mind in which he found himself.  He had discovered nothing of any great import, though the basics of the history would be indispensable.

It must be wearing on to evening.

Eventually, he was again distracted by the soporific warmth and golden light of the fire, falling back into a world of grim daydream.  Gwaelas had been quietly busying himself on the opposite side of the room, still within sight but endeavoring not to be a distraction, waiting with infinite patience.

Soon Thranduil found that his eyes would not resume their focus on the page, nor would his mind make sense of the writing.  Mildly frustrated with his entire quest, he lay back for a moment, letting his eyes fall closed of their own accord, surrendering to his own weariness.  It seemed too much of an effort to even lift his hand from where it lay on the open face of the book in his lap.  It stirred fonder memories of another place and another time, sitting beside the hearth with Lindóriel in the depth of the woodland winter.  He imagined he could hear her musical laughter, feel her head on his shoulder.   He was suddenly quite content to remain unmoved for the duration of the evening.

But it was then that he began to suspect.  His eyes flew open as a cold fear shot through him.  Why was he so exhausted?  It was unlike him, unwarranted, unnatural. 

With a desperate effort he tried to force himself upright.

“Gwaelas . . .”

But he fell back gently, unable to resist or say more before the darkness took him.

Lindóriel left his side and turned back with a merry laugh which echoed eerily through the air.  Oropher’s hall was transformed into Menegroth around them, infested with ravaging Orcs, but she took no notice.  One charged toward her from behind.  Thranduil was powerless to move and his cries were mute.  The Orc seized her by the hair, but its aspect changed at the touch, becoming a terrible prince of the Noldor as it tore its dagger across her throat.  Thranduil was unable to scream, feeling her pain as his own. 

The Hírilorn was burning, and the Esgalduin ran red.  The bloodied ground yawned open and the black sea came rushing in to drown it in a roar of choking foam.  Dark mountains were thrust upwards to the clouded sky in the east, their shadow falling unnoticed over his father Oropher, an arrogant light in his eye and a blinding gleam of silver on his brow.  Ships came from the West, only to be lost in the mist. 

The walls of Menegroth fell around him again, reforming themselves as the hall of Amon Lasgalen; the Orc who had murdered Lindóriel leapt upon him in turn, ripping something from his arms and bearing it away as a child screamed madly for its father.  Smoke rose from the south, and the howling of the wolves heralded the coming nightfall.  Cries of pain and the ring of steel echoed through the dark of the wood.   He felt an iron collar close roughly around his neck, heard the rattle of chains and a fey warrior’s laughter behind him.  He pulled mightily against them, angry now, but then watched in horror as his mother was impaled upon a Noldorin sword in their home by the sea. 

Shackles closed upon his wrists.  His father was turned to stone and shattered upon the rocks like a forgotten monument.  The forest grew up around them as though a century passed in the blink of an eye, and a rumbling black mountain spat fire above them.  The cursed Elves who bound him fell howling into the shape of Orcs, grasping at him with their claws, and in a swirl of black that became bronze Annatar towered before him.  In his hand, the dark lord clutched the blond hair of a trembling Elf child.  The young face was somehow familiar, streaked with frightened tears. Thranduil’s heart turned to ice, helpless as Annatar wrapped a crushing hand around the boy’s throat.

“Thranduil?” the dark lord asked, smiling maliciously as the child writhed in his grasp.

“Thranduil . . .”

Thranduil? . . .  Thranduil!”

As the horrible voice softened, Thranduil dragged himself back to consciousness despite the painful constriction in his chest.  He opened his eyes to find Amroth hovering over him, and then Celebrían, both seeming momentarily concerned until he was truly awake.

“There you are!” Amroth smiled.  “It would seem that study takes a heavy toll upon you!  We wanted to wake you for dinner, but you looked so content we dared not disturb you until now.”

Thranduil did not answer him at once, aware of more immediate concerns.  He found it difficult to breathe.  A weakness had taken his entire arm along with shivers of pain that penetrated to the center of his chest.  Something was horribly wrong with him.

“Thranduil?” Amroth asked, concerned again.  “Are you all right?  You look positively ill.”

“I . . .”  At last many things were falling into place—his festering wound, the sleeping draft in his wine, his sudden shortness of breath—awakening a horrible suspicion and a barely-suppressed panic.

One glance was enough to confirm that his companion was gone.  With his good arm Thranduil seized Amroth by the sleeve, sick with fear.

“Where is Gwaelas?” he demanded, his voice thick and rough.

ERNIL

Chapter 10 ~ Over the Mountains VII

Gwaelas set his book down, hearing his master call.  In a moment he had left his corner and stood beside the divan at the hearth.  He smiled, for it seemed his prince had fallen asleep before he could make his request.  Gwaelas did not wake him; Thranduil needed sleep, especially after last night.  Instead, he gently lifted his lord’s injured arm, pulling away the open book and replacing it on the table with the others.

He sat down on the floor beside him, resolved to wait with good grace.  It was worth it just to see Thranduil enjoy some peace, even if unconsciously.

Gwaelas had been taught to read Sindarin well enough, but in that vast collection of books there were few that interested him.  He perused the titles Thranduil had gathered and decided it was no wonder that he had lulled himself to insensibility.  He looked up at him now and knew in his heart that he would never live to serve another.  Even asleep Thranduil shone with a natural majesty that was at once beautiful and awful, the firelight playing over his features.

The people of Greenwood still remembered in the deepest traditions of their history that all rightful authority sprang from the Creator of the world, and that His creatures shared that authority inasmuch as they shared His likeness.  Therefore, the Belain were the images of the All-Father on earth, and kings in their own way images of the Belain who were the images of the All-Father, and so forth.  Gwaelas fancied that he could see much of the Belain in Thranduil.  He had only to look at him to convince himself that a world had once existed in which the immortal paradise and Middle-earth were wondrously mingled, that the Powers had walked the earth and dwelt with its people.  From that world came demigods like the Iathrim, like Thranduil.

Gwaelas would never quite understand what had caused that idyllic world to collapse into self-destruction, but he would ever count himself and his people blessed that the wheeling stars had brought a remnant over the mountains to brighten the shadows of Greenwood, to share with them a shard of the magnificent era they had never known.

Suddenly, Gwaelas was surprised to see Lord Amroth standing over them both.  It was incredible that he had not heard him come in, for there was no one else about.   Amroth lay a hand at Thranduil’s throat as if to determine that he was truly asleep.  Thranduil stirred as if the touch pained him.

“Please, my lord,” Gwaelas asked.  “Do not wake him.”

“Certainly not,” Amroth obliged, straightening.  “But if he insists upon sleeping away the afternoon, my good cousin cannot object if I borrow you for a short time, can he?”

Gwaelas was reluctant to leave Thranduil alone, for his own safety as much as for his lord’s.  Besides, Thranduil had instructed him in no uncertain terms to stay with him.

Amroth saw him hesitate.  “Come, it will be all right,” he insisted with a smile.  “I shall return you within a few moments, and he need never know.”

Gwaelas was still loath to go, but surely he could trust Amroth of all people in Eregion.  The other lord was leaving now, giving him little choice in the matter.

“Come, come!” he called from the doorway.  “Lady Celebrían awaits us.”

Against the protest of what was probably his better judgment, Gwaelas leapt to his feet and followed Amroth into the corridor.  He looked back at Thranduil before he turned the corner, dead to the world and completely unattended.  He resolved to make it a swift errand indeed.

The many winding halls and passages of the city still confused him, and he could only trust in Amroth’s lead.  He gathered that it must be nearing time for dinner, for there were few people about anywhere.  His suspicions were stirred again only when he realized he was being taken higher and farther into the palace than ever before.

“Where are we going, my lord?” he ventured to ask.

“Not much farther,” Amroth assured him, climbing another stairway.  “I shall not take you to the ends of the earth to do the job.”

Gwaelas was by no means satisfied with that answer, yet even if he turned back now he doubted he would be able to remember the way.

“My lord?” he called.  Amroth had rounded a corner and disappeared from sight.  “My Lord Amroth!”  He stopped, unwilling to go farther.

All at once every lamp in the corridor was extinguished, plunging him into darkness.  Immediately he tensed, his heart hammering against his ribs.  He could not help crying out as a murderous hand clamped around his throat from behind.

A growing rumble sounded in the deep places of the hall, the growling of the dogs.

Thranduil rushed back to his room, haunted by the grim suspicion that it was already too late.  How had he been such a fool?  They had been taken far too easily.  But how could he explain it all to Amroth in a single moment?

“Are you certain he has gone missing?” Amroth was asking him, genuinely concerned.

“Gwaelas would not leave me of his own accord,” Thranduil insisted, inexplicably hoarse.  He burst into his room, already convinced that Gwaelas was not there.  Before he left, he took up his winter cloak.  “Did you see him at all after you returned to the city?”

“I must say I did not,” Amroth admitted.

“Thranduil!” Celebrían protested.  “Do you mean to search this entire city alone?”

“Are you suggesting that I should not?” Thranduil barked, and he could not help falling into a fit of hollow coughing.  An agony of debilitating pain had claimed his right side, and seemed intent on clawing its way through the rest of his body.

“Absolutely!” Amroth agreed with his sister.  “I shall go with you.  Or perhaps in place of you.  Thranduil, sit down; you are not well.”

“Never mind!” Thranduil commanded with greater vehemence.  “I shall not rest until Gwaelas is accounted for.”

“But he could be anywhere!”

“Amroth,” Thranduil demanded, “take me outside the walls.”

Night had fallen and the vicious winds of a blizzard whistled over the city with teeth of ice.  Snow had already gathered in great drifts in the street, and most of the population knew better than to venture outside.  Thranduil stood for a long moment on the palace steps, striving to clear his mind of the pain and the smothering stones.  He could not hope to locate Gwaelas with pinpoint accuracy, but now even a general direction would be invaluable.  Time was of the essence.  “Toward the gate,” he decided.

Amroth knew the city like the back of his hand in daylight or darkness, so he led the way.  Thranduil strove to keep pace with him but his feet were sluggish and his breath was coming in ragged gasps.  His lungs were soon frozen, burned by the cold, much more easily than they should have been.  Was he seeing things, or was it merely a trick of the snow and wind?  There were faces on the air, diaphanous forms that were distinct one moment and obliterated in the next.   Snow pelted him in the face, but he did not feel it.  He felt no cold, no wind, nothing but the pain blossoming like fire behind his heart.  His arm was already dead.

The voice from his dream returned to him in his growing deafness.  It called to him again, patient but menacing, as if taunting his inability to resist it.  The graying world began to spin before his eyes.

“Thranduil!”  It was Amroth calling him now, shouting to be heard over the howl of the storm, and shaking him sensible.  “They say they have found him!  He is in the gatehouse!”

Thranduil allowed Amroth to drag him along behind as his cousin elbowed their way through the attentive crowd.  What remained of Gwaelas lay on a table inside, frightfully torn but bandaged and with a splinted leg, his face ashen.

“Valar above!” Amroth exclaimed, horrified.  “Is he dead?”

“Dying, my lord,” the guard confirmed darkly.  “If you had not come, we would soon have sent for you.  It was only a moment ago that he was recognized as belonging to Lord Thranduil,” he explained, bowing appropriately.

There was no time.  Desperately gathering every ounce of strength that remained to him, Thranduil forced life back into his limbs and scooped Gwaelas’ prone form into his arms.  Way was made for them as they turned back toward the palace.

The vicious weather did not concern him.  He could not feel it.  But all the while, Thranduil was aware of a presence brooding over him, weighing him down, urging him without words to abandon his struggle for survival.  He merely grit his teeth and forced his feet forward with all the speed he could manage, angry tears freezing on his face.  But he could not breathe, and at last the palace steps proved too much.

“Give him to me, for pity’s sake!” Amroth insisted, relieving him of Gwaelas and then flying up the stairway.

When at last they burst into his room, they found Celeborn and Galadriel with their attendants already waiting for them.  Concern was written on their serene faces, growing ever deeper as they saw the extent of the injury.  Amroth bore Gwaelas to the bed, and at once they surrounded him, quickly unwrapping the wounds to probe their severity, demanding to know what had become of him and where they had found him.

Thranduil did not join the knot of attendants at the bedside.  Indeed, it was all he could do to drag himself inside and close the door after him.  He was barely aware of the particulars of the conversation; Celeborn’s firm inquiries, Amroth’s swift answers, Galadriel’s low conjecture amid the flurry of activity.  It all sounded so distant, as if he heard it through glass.  All color was rapidly fading from his vision, and his perception had become so unsteady that he could no longer be entirely certain of his bodily presence in the room.  He fell against the nearest piece of furniture, coughing sepulchrally and retching blood onto the table.

“Thranduil!” Celeborn exclaimed, turning at last.  “What in heaven’s name is afflicting you?”

He could not answer.  He barely heard him.  Nor did he feel the impact as his head hit the floor.

“Oropherion!”

The last thing he dimly recognized was that a pair of strong arms began lifting him from where he had fallen, and that Galadriel’s voice was calling his name from across the great black chasm that was swallowing him.

Then nothing.

ERNIL

Chapter 11 ~ Over the Mountains VIII

The darkness had smothered him, denying him any return to life.  He had been aware of nothing, insensible to the passage of time and to what must have moved around him, conscious of nothing save the intolerable agony that paralyzed his every nerve as though his spirit were slowly being ripped free of his body.  Apparently, that was exactly what had been happening. 

In an effort to forget the pain, his mind had all but ceased to function.  Consequently, his memory of the event was all muddled, but it had seemed that he was called back by familiar voices only to be driven away again by a malevolent snarling that protested each effort.  It was only when he felt that his mind would soon no longer be his own that he rediscovered his will to resist in his own way.  He pulled away as he might, though it was like twisting a knife in his chest.  When at last he had awoken, exhausted but whole again, it was Galadriel whom he had seen standing over him.

Now he was seated beside Gwaelas’ bed, more or less recovered though still voiceless and rather weak, confined within the royal comforts of Eregion during his convalescence.  His voice was one of his particular vanities, so until it was restored he would sooner be silent than attempt to speak like a crow.  His arm was healing again after being reopened and properly cleaned and dressed.  Poor Gwaelas had not yet woken, yet Thranduil was assured that he was out of the worst danger.  Two of Galadriel’s maids hovered about giving him every care and attention.

Thranduil watched them, protectively maintaining his place at the bedside.  He had admittedly done a poor job of protecting him before this, but he was determined to better his performance on that score.  It still was not clear what had induced Gwaelas to wander from the library in the first place, but all evidence would suggest that he had been severely and inexplicably attacked by the household dogs, driven at last to leap from the walls to what should have been his death had it not been for the snow.  His leg had been broken and both ankles were injured, but the greatest danger had been the same contamination Thranduil himself had suffered.  Those dogs were somehow tainted by a curse of their own.  There was but one factor in common between their cases, yet Thranduil would have maintained a sullen silence on that point even had he not lacked a voice.  His mind was dark with churning thoughts.

“You do not acknowledge your suspicions, Oropherion,” Galadriel observed solemnly, her eyes trained steadily upon her needlework, “yet I know you must think of nothing else.  Shall I air them for you?”

Thranduil merely glanced her way.  He did not protest, but he still sat beneath the lingering shadow of a foul mood.

“I have no more love for Annatar than you do,” the Lady went on, “and I would consider you a simpleton indeed if you had not yet surmised his purpose in striking against you.  You have obviously firmed your own opinion of him, as Lord Gildor has confided to me.  I, too, am convinced that he comes with conquest in his heart and not benevolence.  Were my words heeded, he would be expelled from Eregion as from Lindon.  Yet he has ensconced himself here among those more willing to give him ear, those disposed to disregard the warnings of Gil-galad, of Celeborn and myself.

“No conqueror comes without a strategy,” she went on, “and even the simplest can still be employed to great effect.  Divided, Elvendom cannot stand, yet the three greatest realms in Middle-earth are far from united.  Failing to seduce Gil-galad, Annatar seems content to isolate him for the moment.  Lord Celeborn, I hear, has already admitted to you the extent to which we have been undermined in this city.  If he ever gains complete hold in Eregion, Annatar’s eye will turn to Eryn Galen.”

Thranduil followed the patient discourse silently, thinking it amazing that not many months ago he had never heard the name of Annatar nor suspected a dark power was again at work in the world.  To imagine Greenwood blissfully unaware of the growing shadow until it was too late was chilling enough, yet to be made to sit aside and watch it grow would have been intolerable.  In Celeborn’s position, his will to be silent would have broken long ago.

“You, Thranduil, are our link to the heart of Greenwood,” Galadriel said, looking at him and holding his gaze.  “Annatar knows this.  He knows that you are in many ways the wiser of the woodland princes.  He plainly intends to drive the wedge ever more deeply between us by either eliminating you or merely alienating you with your father by the infliction of some grave offense—for example, the unpardonable demise of your companion.”

Gwaelas moaned in his sleep, and Galadriel was called by her maids to attend him, hopefully to lead him out of his dark dreams at last.  Thranduil watched her work, profoundly resentful of the casual way in which both he and Gwaelas had been compromised like pawns on a chessboard.  There was also some indignation left for Galadriel herself, for she had not warned him upon his arrival of what to expect of Annatar, an omission not entirely redeemed by the fact that she had now saved their lives when circumstance required it.  Everything he had learned about Annatar he had been made to discover for himself.

“How do you abide this?” he rasped at last, unable to hold his peace.

“What evidence do I have?” the Lady asked imperiously, glancing over her shoulder.  “But I know the truth of it.”

As he suspected.  It was no more than he had himself.

“My own children do not yet know what to make of Annatar,” she assured him, somewhat tersely.  “Our hopes were to resolve the matter quietly, yet your continued presence here seems to be forcing many hands to act at once.  I can only pray that this ill-advised attempt fails in both its objects.”

Gwaelas was quiet again, and in the intervening peace Galadriel rose again to face Thranduil directly.  The grim ease of her manner had become something more solemn.  “Lord Celeborn finds himself further isolated each day,” she said.  “His true friends grow few.  To return to Eryn Galen only to forget the troubles of Eregion would be to accomplish what Annatar intends.  You cannot deny that reason will fail to sway the obdurate heart of your father the king.  It falls to you then to remember the people of Eregion in their need, and to be our advocate in the court of Oropher should the worst befall us.”

Thranduil said nothing, merely held her gaze.  His father’s warning against the lingering Curse of the Exiles was very much present in his mind, yet neither could he forget his obvious kinship to the Lord and Lady of Ost-in-Edhil.  In that light, they could rightfully expect Eryn Galen to be attentive to their plight, whatever it may be. 

The world is changing, Thranduil, his father had told him so long ago when they had sat together on a pier on the shores of Balar.  Now he feared it was changing again, cycling back into the darkness they all knew far too well.

A few days later, Thranduil wandered the halls of the palace alone, finally dressed in a manner fit to be seen outside his bedchamber.  He was aimless, but unable to be still.  Gwaelas remained in the care of Galadriel.  He was awake now, and his tale of the demon in the shape of Amroth was more than unnerving.  Could they afford to trust anyone anymore?

Walking silently over the polished marble of the corridor, Thranduil’s eyes drifted dourly over the images carved into the wall, representations of the major battles of Beleriand.  He could not help but feel a tingle of strange nervous energy as he imagined the advent of another dark age, the oppression of Middle-earth beneath a foul power like Morgoth, larger than life and against whom all efforts were ultimately in vain.

His old sense of history had just fallen shatteringly into perspective.  His early years had been characterized by the traditional milestones of youth.  Later, the fall of Doriath and the ruin of Beleriand had been more clearly demarcated than he would have wished, and the years afterward had been saturated with their own defining moments.  But ever since they had been absorbed into the tranquil peace of Greenwood, he had hardly noted the passage of time.  It was as though they had stepped outside the march of years and the wheeling of the seasons, so much so that it had all seemed to drift along in one great contented blur.  There had at last been nothing to upset the order of their lives.  Now that blissful oblivion had dropped him unceremoniously back into the racecourse of life.  Nothing enjoyed the permanence intended for immortality, nothing was invulnerable, no one could afford the perfect isolation they had enjoyed.  A realm without allies would be easily crushed, and it was no comfort to know in his heart that Greenwood was essentially defenseless.  Annatar already realized their weakness.

A more sobering thought was the realization that they were also essentially alone.  All his life, Thranduil had been accustomed to looking to a higher authority to bear the brunt of the wars that rocked the earth.  Thingol, Dior, Eärendil, Gil-galad.  Who would he look to now?  His father still stood over him, yet Oropher did not seem disposed to take the obvious pitfalls of his isolation seriously, and Thranduil had begun to quietly entertain his own doubts concerning his father’s practical ability to rule at all.  He did not question his authority, and so did not oppose him, yet Oropher seemed hobbled by an extreme narrowness of mind that a king could ill afford.  That bitterness had already borne bad fruit in his rejection of Celeborn’s recent overture, the reason Thranduil had come to Eregion in the first place.  Already he was taking it upon himself to repair the damage his father left in his wake.

Suddenly he questioned his own ability, regardless of his father.  Who was he to appoint himself responsible for so many lives?  Eryn Galen was teeming with a massive population of happily simple Wood-elves, raw, untrained, and entirely too trusting.  Gwaelas himself was an almost typical example of his race.  Could they endure trials as had been inflicted on Beleriand?  Would that break them?

Despite their simplicity—or perhaps because of it, he reminded himself—the Galennath were likely to exhibit a tenacity that would be strength enough to build upon.  They needed only a leader from whom to draw their courage.  Could he and his father fulfill that purpose for them?  Thranduil remembered the bristling outrage that had seized him when Annatar had dared to torment Gwaelas in his presence.  He had no way of knowing the dark lord’s ultimate ambitions, but he was determined now that Annatar would have to walk over the body of Thranduil Oropherion before he would lay hands on any of the woodland people again.  His lingering fear made his heart beat faster, but it had no voice in his final resolution.  They were his people now, and he would not abandon them.

He wandered further down the corridor, letting it lead him where it would.  The timeline of artwork on the walls was nearing its end, leaving off at the point where history was presently being written.  The double doors directly ahead of him looked intriguing.  Opening one of them, he found himself looking into a sort of gymnasium, a great high-ceilinged room where several old warriors and a few younger ones were maintaining their own disciplines despite the luxurious peace of Eregion.

“Thranduil!” Amroth rushed to meet him with a brilliant smile, shirtless and with his pale hair charmingly disheveled, quarterstaff in hand.  “I am glad to see you up and around!  I should have known you would not stay down for long.  Can you speak yet?”

“Tolerably,” Thranduil answered him.  His voice had indeed returned, but he still kept his words few.

“So, you finally found your way into the arena,” Amroth congratulated him.  “While you are here, I might as well spar with you.”  A shadow of concern crossed his face.  “Unless you do not think you have the strength yet.”

“I shall oblige you, Amroth,” Thranduil assured him with a tired smile of his own, “for old times’ sake.”  Stepping aside, he removed his belt, pulled off his tunic and knotted his hair into a loose ponytail.  He took up a staff from where they stood against the wall.

Amroth set upon him at once, hardly waiting for a challenge.  His eyes were bright with the memory of his youth in Lindon, and Thranduil found his enthusiasm infectious.  Contrary to what he had said, he had not felt completely up to a rough-and-tumble, but within the first few seconds he felt his strength flowing back.  After a few thrusts and parries, he easily kicked Amroth into a heap on the floor.

“You have lost none of your touch, I see,” Amroth laughed before leaping at him again.

The battle resumed with greater gusto, and swift hits were given and taken.  Amroth had become quite an athlete, and though Thranduil had to admit that he had neglected his own training of late, he could still hold his own well enough.  Their staves met with growing force as they attacked each other like overgrown boys.  Ducking beneath a whirling blow, Thranduil swung at Amroth’s legs, but the move was anticipated.  Overhead and under, to the left, right, and the left again, unable to afford a moment’s distraction.  Meeting both staves in the middle, Thranduil thrust Amroth back, throwing him off his feet and to the floor.  One more whirl and thrust would cement his victory, but his final blow was obstructed far short of the intended target, and he found himself crossing staves with someone other than Amroth.

“Excellent form, Oropherion,” Celebrimbor smiled.  “You know your business well.  You will not object to obliging me while good Amroth recovers himself?”

Thranduil met the renewed opposition with well-placed parries, but he was already giving ground.  This sparring match was perhaps meant innocently enough by the Noldorin lord, but his own mind was in turmoil.  How much did Celebrimbor know of his recent exploit into his sanctum?  If he knew, then why did he not speak of it?  Why was he smiling that way?  Annatar’s mention of the Kinslayings would not be quieted, and Thranduil had enough black memories of his own to make his position now uncomfortably familiar.

Celebrimbor did not spare him the intensity of a serious attack, and Thranduil was hard pressed to meet it, thrown off balance.  The blows came so swiftly that he had not time to think, and soon he was drawing desperately on every skill the marchwardens of Thingol had instilled in him.  Blinding flashes of memory plagued him unbidden.  Celebrimbor crossed staves with him in a moment’s stalemate, and his face was suddenly that of Caranthir.  Numbed by old fear, Thranduil’s legs were easily swept out from under him, and he crashed to the floor.  Several vicious swipes to the left and right saved him from immediate defeat before he tucked in and rolled back to his feet.  Celebrimbor was back upon him in the same moment.

Do you truly imagine all thought of kinslaying is past? 

Do you imagine . . . ?     

Unable to rightly distinguish Celebrimbor from the specter of Caranthir in the heat of the moment, Thranduil at last firmed his own defense and moved to the attack.  He smelled the blood again, and it was almost enough to drive him mad.  His opponent responded to his renewed fury with equal force, and again Thranduil fell beneath a shattering blow.  But as he fell, he caught himself on his arm and swung his leg around, striking the other cleanly across the knees.  At once he curled upwards, planting one foot firmly on the Golodh’s wrist and thrusting the end of his staff to the hollow of the other’s throat.

All was still then, but after a moment of breathy silence Celebrimbor laughed lightly.  “Very well, Master Oropherion; I allow you your victory, if only for the moment.”

Thranduil obligingly released him, stepping back with an effort to calm his racing heart as the illusions vanished.  Shaken as he was, it was not easily done.

He remembered nothing of the next few moments, only that he and Amroth were soon preparing to leave, and he was taking up his shirt and tunic again.

“What came over you?” Amroth asked him, his concern almost overpowered by his wondering admiration.  “You attacked him like a wildcat!  I dare say you put the fear of defeat into Celebrimbor; I do not think he knew quite what to make of you.  Thranduil?”  His smile vanished.  “You are going pale again,” he said.  “You have already overtaxed yourself.”

Thranduil let him ramble on, striving only to draw steady breath.  His mind was flooded with voices from the past, voices he would not hear again this side of the dread threshold of death.  Memories he had buried now would not be quieted.  In a moment he felt he would break out in a cold sweat.  His hands were shaking.

“Thranduil, what—?”

“Nothing,” he assured him, forestalling any further questioning.  “Just . . . just a memory.  It will pass.”

Amroth’s face turned grim, suddenly seeming to understand the unspoken implication.  Thranduil shut his eyes before they could play any further tricks upon him. 

ERNIL

Chapter 12 ~ Over the Mountains IX

For weeks after the frightening chain of events which had followed Thranduil’s first meeting with Annatar, all had been quiet within Ost-in-Edhil.  The monotony had been maddening.  His every nerve had been pulled taut, jumping at shadows, waiting for something definitive to befall Eregion and hoping against hope that the winter would break and he could escape back to Greenwood, back to his own side of the mountains.  But nothing did happen, and as the days wore on it seemed less and less likely that anything would.  Annatar had withdrawn into his own affairs and no longer even acknowledged Thranduil’s presence in the city.  Thranduil himself gradually grew weary of worrying over something he was powerless to address.  These were not his affairs, and Galadriel seemed to have them more in hand than he ever would.  There were many things he intended to immediately change in Greenwood when he returned, but those would have to wait a few months more.  Winter was now at its deepest, and he was almost able to truly relax again beside a fire, taking certain obvious precautions, reasonably content in Gildor’s assurances that sharper eyes than his own were trained upon Annatar.

That day he was relaxing in other ways.  He was on a mountain cliffside with Amroth and his friends, because it was much easier to temporarily forget his troubles outside the city.  The snow was thick and soft with a glistening crust, and its appeal was irresistible.

In their company, Thranduil had learned the nuances of a casual sport that had allegedly been discovered accidentally by the Elves of the foothills in their observations of the Men who made their home on the Eregion borderlands.  Travel over snow was ordinarily no difficulty for an Elf on foot, but those of mortal race had redeemed their inability to tread lightly by wearing wide netted frames on their feet for walking, or long boards like sled runners for swifter travel.  The latest development involved only a single board, roughly the size of a small infantry shield, and was more pleasurable than practical.

The obstacle course they had set up involved first a running leap from a crag into a stomach-fluttering drop during which one tucked the board beneath his feet and hit the snow at speed, then a row of staves planted at irregular intervals around which he navigated while plummeting down the slope, pulling his legs up at the end to clear a frosted boulder—taking care not let the board get away, of course—and sailing into another free fall with the hope of making a graceful landing below before hitting the ice.

Thranduil, handicapped by his status as a beginner, had suffered his share of spills the day before, but now he flattered himself that he had almost succeeded in mastering the course.  Today, he lived for the bite of the wind in his face, the satisfaction of slinging up great sheets of powdered snow at every rapid turn.  Up here he could almost forget Annatar entirely for a few precious moments.

“All right,” Calanon was saying, whose father was originally of Gondolin.  His tireless grin was infectious as they all stood together at the summit, overlooking the drop below.  “This next course will determine once for all the grievances between the Wood and the City of Stone.  Tonight, this crag will fly either the banner of Oropher or Celeborn!”

“And will you be reckoning the best two of three?” Thranduil laughed, taking note of his opposition.  “It seems you have an advantage in numbers.”

“Surely that need not concern you,” Meldarion snickered, all in good fun.  “We have not been able to intimidate you thus far, have we?”

Amroth had trained his keen eyes on the ground far below, beyond the frozen stream.  “Look there,” he said, pointing.  “It appears that we shall have some fair spectators after all.”

The music of small silver bells had come to their ears, and there were Celebrían and her ladies drawing up in a white sleigh, waving up to them in greeting.

“The last one on the ice need not hope to find the ladies waiting!” Thranduil taunted, seizing a board and vaulting himself over and away before the others could object.

After landing the first fall, the rest of the course was straightforward enough.  They had replaced the staves in a new pattern, as always, so it was not devoid of challenge.  He could not afford a stumble now; he would never hear the end of it.

Over the rock!  He drew himself up and prolonged the flying leap as long as possible, just to add another unnecessary but showy element of risk.  As a result, he deliberately overshot their landing site and skidded out onto the ice, crouched in a rapid spin before at last slowing to a stop.

“Why, Thranduil, that was quite daring of you!” Celebrían congratulated him as he climbed up the snowy bank to join her and her maids.

“Nonsense,” he smiled.  “It was far more daring the first time when I had not the faintest idea what I was doing.”

Amroth was coming down now.

“We brought you some sustenance,” she said, proudly lifting the covered basket from beneath the furs in her sleigh.  “We expected that you might be enjoying yourselves too much to return to eat, so I asked the kitchen to set these aside for you.  Now, if only we could get all four of you down here while they are still warm!”

The sleigh could almost seat the seven of them quite comfortably.  As it was, Calanon agreed to sit on the floor, giving deference to the rank of at least two of his companions.  After the nipping cold of the mountain, a warm meal was an unexpected extravagance, and it was greatly appreciated by all.

“You seem to be enjoying yourself more these days, Thranduil,” Celebrían smiled.  “Has Eregion begun to show you a better face?”

“Perhaps,” he freely admitted.  “My knowing it better seems only to improve my opinion of it.”

“That is the most praise I have heard you grant our city since you arrived,” Meldarion jabbed.  “I am at a loss to understand how your precious Wood could begin to compare.”

“When you come to Eryn Galen, I shall show you,” Thranduil replied simply.

“His lady friend still graces the Wood, Mel,” Amroth explained knowingly.  “Surely that would be reason enough to prefer it.”

“Another one?” Calanon laughed before Thranduil could say anything.  “I do not yet concede the point, my lord.  Good Thranduil seems to create lady friends for himself wherever he may be.”

“A dastardly lie,” Thranduil dismissed the accusation, although he laughed with them. 

Why could not all of life be like this?  Here he was, at the foot of a snowy mountain, leagues away from home, having a grand time with two cousins he had hardly known.  His two newest friends had last week been perfect strangers to him, and yet already they were as affable as Galadhmir and Linhir.  The issues of race and kindred barely crossed their minds, and only in jest.  He glanced aside where he could see the city itself standing tall over the white-blanketed landscape, so foreign and yet already so familiar.  Celeborn’s old banner, stubbornly unchanged since Doriath, fluttered proudly over the rooftops.

But wait . . .

“Thank you, sister,” Amroth was saying to Celebrían.  “This delicious surprise of yours was a great pleasure.”

“You know you are welcome to it, brother,” she smiled.  “Of course, we must show Cousin Thranduil every courtesy, or he may not be inclined to ever return to us.”

But Thranduil was no longer paying attention.  “Amroth,” he said, his voice suddenly hard as he took his cousin by the shoulder.  “What do you make of that?”

He indicated the distant banner flying over the palace.  They watched as the blue and silver tree of Celeborn slowly dropped and was finally pulled from sight.

Amroth’s dark brows had fallen as well.  “Perhaps it is only—”

But all mundane explanations died in his throat as in its place rose very different colors, the star of Celebrimbor presumptuously unfurling against the gray sky.

The cold wrath on Amroth’s face knew no words, and Thranduil quickly surmised the grim reality of the situation.  The banners over the gates were being exchanged as well.

“Stir the horses,” he said.  “We’re doing no good just sitting here.”

The city itself was contained in an atmosphere of false calm.  Everyone knew what had happened, yet no one seemed to know how to react, and many chose not to act at all.  Many waited for instructions from their own lords.  No one wanted to be the first to unleash strife on their city, yet the whole place was charged with a nervous energy, and one word from Celeborn would set it off.  But no word came.

“There is little time,” Celeborn was saying as Thranduil, Amroth and Celebrían burst into his quarters.  “Amroth, you will take your mother and your sister through Hadhodrond to Lórinand.  Thranduil, you will take Gwaelas and accompany them.”

“Gwaelas is still unable to walk,” Thranduil said flatly.

“That is your affair, Oropherion.  It would be best to take yourself back to Greenwood while you still can.  I do not know how Celebrimbor will be disposed to deal with your presence here.  The Mírdain are in power now, and I cannot guess what Annatar will induce them to do.”

You will be fortunate indeed if you escape this city with your life.   That was probably not what Celeborn meant, yet it was disturbing to hear Annatar’s words echoed. 

“And what of you?”

“I will not pass through the mansions of the Dwarves,” Celeborn said darkly.  “I remain here.”

“What?”  Thranduil could not find it within himself to be tactful at a moment like this.  Galadriel seemed displeased, to say the least, but she did not gainsay her husband.  Perhaps they had already argued it all out before this.  “If you will not come to Eryn Galen, at least go as far as Lórinand.  Perhaps you can no longer be Lord of Eregion, but you are still lord of your own household!  Your place is with them!”

“The Dwarves bar my way!” Celeborn insisted, in an equally august rage.  “I will not pass through the Dwarvish mansions.  It is impossible; my sentiments forbid it.  I will not endure the indignity of begging their kind for sanctuary.”

“Yet you will endure the public disgrace to remain here?” Thranduil scoffed in disbelief.  “You will cast yourself on the magnanimity of the man who dared to displace you?”

Celeborn looked away, avoiding the issue.  “I have every hope that Celebrimbor will be good enough to ignore me.”

Thranduil could already see that argument was futile.  A thousand bitter things rose to his tongue, but he bit them back.  It was like this every time Celeborn and his father argued, a great deal of shouting to no effect.  Perhaps it did not have to be that way this time.  “I shall stay with you,” he said at last.

Celeborn could not conceal that he was taken aback by that statement, but he refused the offer.  “You cannot.”

“Why so?  It is no more ridiculous than what you propose, and I will not leave you here alone.”

“You must consider your duty to your father before entangling yourself needlessly in any foreign political feuds.”

“I do not see that it is needless.  It is my kinsman who has been wronged.  If I do not stand with him, who will?”

“You forget your place, Thranduil.”  Celeborn’s voice had deepened to a growl.

“My place is with my family, as is yours!  It is not I who insists upon scattering it to the winds!”

“Enough!”  Celeborn silenced him with a glare that would have made even Celebrimbor think twice had he seen it.  “There is no time for this nonsense.  Thranduil, your concern is touching, but you must return to your father.  I am not your only kinsman here.  See my family safely to Lórinand.  Gather Gwaelas and be ready within the hour.”

Thranduil sighed, recognizing the impasse.  “Very well.”

He left the room, striding purposefully down the length of the gleaming corridor, suppressing the instinct to run.  He passed Gildor, exchanging merely a glance.  That brief look carried great import, yet it remained unintelligible to both.  Had Gildor known that this was brewing?

“Gwaelas, we must be gone from here,” Thranduil informed him as he closed the door and quickly gathered up his things.  Fortunately, he could be packed in a moment; all that remained was to separate borrowed clothes from his own.

“But I have not yet regained my feet!” Gwaelas protested.  He was not indignant, merely concerned.  “You will not leave me!  Why must we go?”

“Lord Celebrimbor has only this morning deposed Lord Celeborn.  The Mírdain are seizing the rule of Eregion.  It would be unwise to remain until the spring and risk being caught between factions.”  Would Celebrimbor actually try to prevent their going?  He did not intend to remain long enough to find out.  “Of course, I will not leave you.  What do you take me for?  Even if your back were broken, I would find a way to bundle you out of here.”

“I dare say news of this will upset my lord the king.”

“I dare say it will,” Thranduil agreed grimly, stuffing his clothes into his pack.  Despite showing little or no concern for Celeborn’s well-being before this, Oropher would undoubtedly be greatly incensed by the injury done his cousin.

Within a quarter hour they were ready.  Thranduil had already been dressed for a rugged day outdoors.  He helped Gwaelas into some sturdier clothes, carefully lacing his boots over half-mended ankles.  Getting it all down to the stables may prove more difficult.

Slinging his own pack over his shoulder, Thranduil handed the other to Gwaelas.  “Hold this,” he instructed, and Gwaelas obliged.  With that, Thranduil hefted Gwaelas in his arms and left the room.

They met Amroth in the stables.  “I need not take much,” he explained.  “Lórinand is already my home.”

“See Gwaelas comfortably mounted,” Thranduil instructed him, securing his pack behind his light saddle and swinging astride. The Ladies Galadriel and Celebrían joined them before long.  Gwaelas was mounted as well as he could be, though Thranduil saw that he did his utmost to put a brave face on his own pain.  Amroth looked to him, and he nodded.

Without a word, they rode for the gate.

The passage through Hadhodrond, Khazad-dûm, was long and oppressive.  The Dwarves were not without their own forms of hospitality, and their halls were certainly grand, but the atmosphere was a foreign one.  Even their Elvish pleasantries were tailored to please the Noldorin ear.  Thranduil did not shun them entirely as Celeborn did, but he could not deny the tense tingle of apprehension which seized him when he considered the reality of being surrounded and even imprisoned among an entire horde of the stout warriors.  He could not sleep at night.  The six-day journey seemed like ten.

He and Gwaelas stayed a few weeks in Lórinand with their friends.  Despite the growing beauty of the young wood even in midwinter, Thranduil was eager to return to his own people, but he thought it best to give Gwaelas’ bones a chance to mend themselves properly before they continued.  They resumed their ride as winter was near to breaking, harried by wretched weather all across the plain.  They were glad to pass beneath the borders of Greenwood at last, though it was still another day’s ride to Lasgalen.

They were met by several sentries and other ordinary people along the way, and so word traveled on ahead of them.  Thranduil felt an immense relief as they rode up the winding approach to the crown of Amon Lasgalen amid the glad welcome of their people.

Lindóriel was waiting for him there, the first to greet him as he wearily dismounted.  “You have returned prematurely, my lord,” she said, but smiled.  “I am glad of it.”

Thranduil did not bother making a reply, but simply opened his arms to her.  She leapt into them gladly.

“Come,” she said, making as if to lead him away.  “Do not go to your father just yet.  You will soon be so busy again.  Can you spare a moment for me?”

“Always,” he smiled.  “Gwaelas, report to the king.  I shall follow shortly and give a full account of things.”

“As you wish, my lord.”

Lindóriel led him away to the branching tree house adjacent to the King’s Hall.  It was one of her favorite places on the grounds, particularly when the weather dampened their many woodland retreats.  Some might have called it a library, but there were not enough books present to do the title justice.  It did contain an extensive archive of written records of Greenwood’s rule and maintenance, but they were only consulted on rare occasions.  What it did provide was a sense of peace and order, a place where one could come to clear one’s mind.  It was bathed in warm candlelight now.

When he had discarded his cloak and gloves, Thranduil sat down on the large cushion.  Lindóriel took her place beside him, contentedly laying her head against his shoulder.

“Tell me of your journey, Thranduil.  What did you see, and where did you go?  Who did you meet, and what did they say?”

“It taught me many things, certainly,” he began, putting his arm around her.  Yet as he remembered everything that had transpired over the past months, all the fantastic and disturbing incidents that had befallen him and which he had yet to recount to his father, he found himself at a loss for words.  Here in a familiar room with Lindóriel at his side he was suddenly acutely conscious of just how grateful he was to be home at last. 

Perhaps he should never have left at all, yet then he would still been ignorant of the timely lessons he had learned, unpleasant though they were.  He held her tighter, fearing the upheaval that seemed to be already growing like a canker in Eregion.  It was unbearable to imagine the waves of destruction rippling through Greenwood as they had through Beleriand.  He would shield her from it if he could.

Lindóriel seemed to notice his sudden unrest, and looked up with concern.  “What is it?” she asked.  “Tell me.”

Did he have to?

“All in good time,” he promised, willing himself to forget for the moment every rumor of the growing darkness as he gathered her into the first deep kiss he had enjoyed in far too long.

ERNIL

Chapter 13 ~ The Shadow Falls

Years passed, many quiet and uneventful years that left little or no mark on life within Eryn Galen in their turn.  No word came of either Celeborn on the far side of the mountains or of Galadriel in Lórinand.  Thranduil had long awaited it; he at least would have expected some indication from Amroth of how they were getting on.  During the long silence it had been tempting to trust again to the barrier of oblivion that had seemed to shelter Greenwood up to that point, as though Annatar had been little more than a bad dream.  The voice of his better judgment had forbidden such naivete.  Still, he had made very little mention of his private fears to either his father or his peers, save to insist that the military capabilities of their realm be not neglected.

All the Galennath were admirable hunters and foresters, but they had previously lacked the necessary organization and discipline to make respectable soldiers.  Now it was evident that the time and resources Thranduil had seen allocated to that purpose had been well invested.  Their small army was deployed as a standing guard for the woodland borders, and a greater number of reserve ranks were presently undergoing their training.  He privately suspected that if Oropher knew his true motivation for strengthening their defenses he would have been less supportive of the effort, and so he found himself playing several metaphorical games of chess at once to achieve his ends.  It was well that he had begun when he did because the storm in Eregion finally broke.

Thranduil stood on a lower balcony of the King’s Hall, leaning sullenly against the lattice.  The clouded sky threatened a good rain, and a fresh, wet smell was on the air, but what arrested his attention was another straggling group of families being led into Lasgalen by the palace guard.  Old men and boys in little more than rags, bereaved women and children, they were doubtless among the few who survived the periodic destruction of the rude but industrious villages clustered along the shores of the Anduin, adrift now in a wide and hostile world.  The momentous war that had engulfed Eregion in the flames of Celebrimbor’s forge had begun inflicting decidedly hard times on the rest of Middle-earth, destroying the countryside and worsening the current dark age of Men.  These were not the only desperate exiles who had come to Greenwood in their need.

Rumor from Lórinand had served well enough when official news did not, and Thranduil was already aware of the basic particulars of this new war, the first since the War of Wrath.  It would be called the War of Sauron and the Eldar by the historians, regardless of who emerged the victor.  Sauron, Gorthaur the Cruel, Master of Werewolves, adjutant of Morgoth, the adversary who had uncloaked himself at last and taken his right name, had devastated Ost-in-Edhil with a host of creatures almost as demonic as himself, and now seemed intent upon dragging the Second Age back into the dark chaos of the First.  The warning of Eregion’s fall had been far from unheeded there beneath the trees, for Thranduil could not believe that “Annatar” had forgotten him and his wood.  The mark of the hound’s jaws on his forearm had long healed, yet a persistent scar remained to remind him. 

Oropher did not yet seem disposed to take the situation wholly seriously, but he had not looked the fiend in the eye and felt naked beneath his scrutiny.  The king still trusted in the barrier of the mountains to shelter them from the woes of the west.  Despite their recent efforts, Lasgalen could not yet muster half the defense the Noldorin city had boasted.  They could not commit themselves to the field even if Oropher had been disposed to consider such intervention.  It had become a quiet race against time to prepare themselves for the worst.  Thranduil himself had seen to that, and Oropher had not objected.

Compulsively, Thranduil fingered the silver ring on his hand, finding some comfort in the thought that it was pure and powerless.  Made of the mithril of Celeborn’s gift, his father had presented it to him upon his return from Eregion long ago, a visible indication of his office.  It was inscribed for the Ernil o Eryn Galen, the counterpart of the one marked for the Aran upon his father’s hand.  He much preferred it to any of those complications of Celebrimbor’s making which had allegedly been scattered to the winds.

“Who are they?” Lindóriel asked him regarding the people in the courtyard below, slipping her arm around his.

“More of the same,” Thranduil told her.  “They have nowhere else to go.”  He felt a profound pity for them, for he understood what it was to be worsted from his own home and driven into exile.  They all understood.  “I fear the world is no longer a safe place.”

“It never truly has been, has it?” she said, turning her lovely eyes to his.  “I wanted to believe it could be.”

“So did I, Lin,” he said, pulling her closer against him.  “We must make the most of what we have, and if we truly value it, we shall know how to defend it when the time comes.”

“Do not speak of that now,” she pleaded, burying her face against the soft green of his shoulder.  “I know the day must come, but do not speak of it.  I cannot bear to think of war yet.”

Nor could he, but he could not afford to forget it.  Even so, he did not want his princess to lose sleep over the world’s instability just yet.  She held him as though she were afraid he would slip away from her again.  Thranduil did not let on that her embrace was as much a comfort to him as it was to her.  He maintained a show of strength for her sake, yet admittedly there were times when he, too, simply needed to be held.

He lifted her face and gazed at her for a moment, letting his fingers trail fondly along the edge of her features, into her hair.  She would be nothing to the great ladies of Elvendom, yet her simple and perfect beauty was still enough to take his breath away.  Perhaps, if Sauron’s war left them untouched for a time, he would finally make her his wife.  At the very least, it was high time they were formally betrothed.  It seemed they were already indelibly part of one another, for their love had deepened with every day.  But now he also saw a fear behind her eyes that he would banish if he could.  She had already seen too much of war.

He wanted to tell her that her fears were groundless, that the disaster in Eregion could never affect them, that Gorthaur would vanish into thin air and that the earth would swallow his Orcs once and for all.  He wanted to tell her that he would never need take up a blade again, that they would raise their children in the peace and rich heritage that had been stolen from them in Beleriand.  But he would not lie to her, and she knew it.

Instead, he kissed her, slowly, firmly, once, twice, again and again, driving all thought of war from her mind with the silent promise that she would be his own and that nothing would take her from him.  Could he even consider life without her?  The black ruin of Middle-earth could be yawning just beyond the wood, but they would meet it together if they condescended to meet it at all.

When at last he released her, he was gratified to see that the fearful gleam in her eyes had been quite overpowered.  She regarded him for a moment in lover’s adoration before contentedly wrapping herself around him again, her head against his heart.

He gladly held her there, needing to be needed.  They might have lingered a long while had not Thranduil felt eyes upon him and glanced back down into the courtyard.  The king himself, standing before his wretched crowd of suppliants, was looking up at him with controlled impatience.

“Excuse me, Lin,” he said, reluctantly pulling away from her.  “I believe I am being summoned.”  He left for the stairway at once, and she followed him.

As the scene before the palace presented itself, Oropher was attempting to extract brief particulars about the recent raid or battle from the old man who was apparently the appointed spokesman for the ragged band before even beginning the arrangements for granting them sanctuary.  Elven maids were already cooing in pity over the children, watched narrowly by suspicious mothers.

Thranduil had already surmised the reason he was needed, namely to overcome a communication barrier.  Although an admitted master of his own native dialect, Oropher had little mind for any other.  These people of mortal race knew little enough of the Elvish tongue, and the language of Men remained essentially unknown to any in Lasgalen.  The Men could follow Sindarin tolerably, but at present only Thranduil could affect enough of a Noldorin accent to make himself intelligible to them.  It was a regional issue.  Soon Gwaelas would be competent enough to assist them.

Thranduil was able to relay his father’s inquiries with little difficulty.  It had been a small raiding party of Orcs that had burnt their homes, but many of the men had been absent from the village already.  They could not hope to fight so they had fled, and more than a week ago.  They were tired and hungry and some had fallen ill.  These answers he returned to Oropher, who seemed satisfied.

“The children must have slowed them up,” the king observed, almost to himself.  “A wandering band of Orcs will never penetrate the western marches.  Erelas, tell Rochendil in the stable to shelter these people until we can find them a more permanent arrangement.  They will each bathe and receive new clothes.  Thranduil, deliver that to them in a palatable manner.  Guards, you will return to your posts.”

And so life went on.

ERNIL

Chapter 15 ~ The Shadow Falls III

They filled the valley around Amon Lasgalen in ranks, row upon row of the new army of Greenwood.  Today they numbered exactly three thousand, roughly a sixth of the force that had been thoroughly trained thus far.  Fully armed, they stood irreproachably beneath the scrutiny of their lords and commanders.  They were the best of the best, drawn from the most promising warriors the wood had to offer, and they were gathered on this occasion to officially form the newest and most prestigious legion recognized beneath Oropher’s banner.

Their growing forces were organized into four distinct legions based upon merit, ability, and accomplishment.  The Brown, Green, and Silver legions were the largest and exacted a grueling standard for advancement.  The most exemplary among them were now set aside into the Royal Legion, the King’s Guard, into which only absolute perfection gained admittance amid fierce competition.  A kind of militant enthusiasm had been kindled in the hearts of the silvan people, who were now willing to take up arms in the service of their lord the king.  To be numbered among the King’s Guard was a much-coveted honor.  A Guardsman was not a Guardsman for life, but only so long as he remained equal to the standards by which he was admitted.  They would never number more than three thousand.  Each one would be willing to sacrifice his life without hesitation for that of his sovereign.

Mounted upon Elurín, his great gray stallion, Thranduil was as fully armed as they were, but with a royal flair.  He rode down the line at a restrained canter, his diadem glinting on his brow, green and red ribbons streaming from the horse’s mane and tail. 

It was full morning when they had all assembled, and several hours of that day were spent in high ceremony.  Oropher and Thranduil stood together in all the majestic trappings of their office, flanked by Queen Lóriel and all the royal household.  Thranduil knew he would never remember all the Guardsmen today, proudly wearing the red collars on their tunics which distinguished them from the other divisions, but he did make an effort to associate some names with faces.  A few of them he already knew, the children of Lasgalen who had once sought him for a playmate and now pledged their lives to him unreservedly.  Their loyalty was touching.  He could find no fault in their will to serve, yet all of them were still raw and untried.  They had never yet seen a true battlefield.  That would have to come in time.

One, however, he was certain to remember.  His name was Dorthaer, and both his excellence in arms and fanatical devotion to his king were unsurpassed.  He stood patiently at the side now, hands clasped behind his back in a posture of relaxed attention, the red collar of his tunic generously embellished in silver.  He was the senior commander of the entire Royal Legion, and therefore the epitome of Greenwood’s soldiery.  He looked on with tireless patience, his keen eyes taking the measure of each Guardsman as though committing him to memory.  His fine black hair was bound in a heavy ponytail, a bow and laden quiver rode easily on his back, strapped to his well-muscled chest and shoulders.  A hint of a contented smile touched his lips now, despite his naturally severe expression.  He was well suited for the tasks at hand.

After the ceremonies, Luinlas and Dorthaer partitioned the ranks and delegated the particular duties the Guardsmen were obligated to fulfill.  Several of them were to be stationed in Lasgalen itself, others would be sent to various patrols.  The majority would wait in reserve, stationed in a protective ring around Amon Lasgalen at a league’s radius when they were not rotated off duty and granted leave to return to their own homes for a time.  Their responsibilities were heavy, yet while quartered at Lasgalen they would be treated almost as nobility themselves, the envy and admiration of the others. 

The entire population of Amon Lasgalen came parading down the winding path and into the valley, each singing, playing music, or bearing great dishes of food prepared for the occasion.  They came from the wood as well, watching the ceremony from afar before joining it now.  Within moments long tables were erected throughout the field, bearing the celebratory feast.

“Come, Thranduil,” Oropher smiled as organization completely dissolved into general merrymaking.  “Standing in the sun all day has given me an appetite.”

It was an idyllic afternoon, and Thranduil found that it gave him greater peace of mind to be surrounded by competent soldiers.  He and Anárion discussed the rotation schedule with Dorthaer, an arrangement that seemed as reasonable as it was practical.  Dorthaer’s daughter, a child of no more than six summers, maintained a possessive hold on her father’s leg throughout.  Only half of the Guardsmen were fathers of growing families, but all their children were there that day.

As afternoon was wearing on to evening, Thranduil turned to find Gwaelas at his elbow bearing a sealed document.  “Another courier has come from Lórinand, my lord,” he said, extending the letter to him.  “I have seen him quartered in the city to await your convenience.”

“Thank you, Gwaelas,” Thranduil said, turning it over in his hand.  His father would doubtless want to know of this immediately, despite the festivities.  It was not addressed in Amroth’s hand this time.

“Very well, what have we now?”  Oropher opened the letter with a deliberate air.  The family had been hastily gathered in impromptu council to witness its contents.  They were all together in one of the guardhouses at the edge of the wood.

Thranduil sat with Lindóriel, their hands fondly twined together as they waited for the king to share the latest report.  After only a few moments, however, Thranduil knew something was wrong.  He could read it in his father’s changing expression.  The blood drained from Oropher’s face and a fearsome anger was growing behind his eyes.  They could all see it.  The fragile silence was increasingly uncomfortable.

“Malgalad!” the king roared at last, slamming the letter to the table.

The name struck Thranduil like a blade to the heart as well.  “He is alive?” he gaped, leaping up to snatch the letter for himself as his father began pacing furiously.  It was impossible; Malgalad had died in the Kinslaying in Doriath almost two thousand years ago.

“He is Amdír!” Oropher snarled bitterly.  “The mysterious lord of Lórinand, all these years my own cousin!  I wonder how much young Amroth knows of his silvan companion.  Has Celeborn ever set foot in that wood?”

“Are you certain, Oropher?” Queen Lóriel asked, concerned.  “Perhaps it is merely a coincidence of name.”

“I have no doubt whatsoever,” Oropher snapped.  “In his own hand he owns himself my kinsman.  What I cannot understand is why he chose to forget that until now!”

“What could possibly induce Malgalad to hide himself from you?”

“Ill will?  Cowardice?  Shame?  How am I to know?  He does not explain himself.”

Thranduil was furiously reading as his father continued to rage.  As strange as it was to rediscover a long-lost relation under their very noses, the letter bore other tidings than the identity of the sender.

“Imladris is besieged,” he said at last.   “Amroth has not adequate force to move north and secure the High Pass so he writes to beg our assistance.”  Amroth, Celeborn, Elrond, they all flashed through his mind in a single moment, and suddenly he could not bear the thought that he would be made to sit by, empty-handed, as Sauron moved to crush them.  “Father, give me leave to go.”

“Absolutely not,” Oropher forbade him without a moment’s consideration, already hot with ire.  “You will remain in Lasgalen and attend your duties here.”

“The decrease of a mere thousand will by no means cripple your defenses now!” Thranduil persisted.

“It is out of the question,” Oropher maintained sharply, silencing any further requests.  “I forbid you to leave this wood with so much as a horse that owes itself to me.  You will not run here and there as you please, wasting the lives of my men in ill-advised and hopeless warfare!”

Thranduil could scarcely contain his raging frustration.  “Hopeless?” he shouted.  “Certainly it is hopeless so long as friends and kinsmen are content to do nothing!”  He was too agitated to consider the consequences of his own contempt and too angry to care.  “You have made it hopeless!  Am I to bear the stigma of your indifference any longer?”

Oropher turned on him with a black glare and an equally black temper.  “I am your father, and your king,” he rumbled fiercely.  “Do you dare defy me?”

A thorny silence was his answer.  Almost trembling with fury, Thranduil could do nothing but crush the letter in his fist and throw it at the king’s feet.  Without another word he strode out of the guardhouse and leapt astride his horse, turning sharply toward the dense forest.

Everyone else was afraid to speak as Thranduil disappeared into the wood at a furious gallop.  Each looked to the other, stunned by the swift but incredibly bitter confrontation they had just witnessed.  Tears glistened in the queen’s eyes as though her heart would break.

Oropher was standing as stiff as marble where Thranduil had left him, but at last he sighed heavily, lowering his eyes.

“Shall I go after him, my lord?” Galadhmir asked hesitantly.

“No, let him go,” the king advised softly.  “He will return in his own time.”

Elurín’s great strides struck thunder from the ground as they flew over the woodland path.  Thranduil cared little for where he went so long as he was some distance removed from his father.  The wood always welcomed him.  He had not stormed away to be petulant, but rather to let his frustration rage in solitude before he could say or do anything else he would regret.

He finally slowed to a halt in a small clearing beside the ancient willow tree overlooking the stream.  Lindóriel often took him here to talk together and watch the birds flit through the swaying branches, all the while listening to the soft but restless voice of the water.  It had always been a very calm place.  Perhaps part of him was seeking that calm now, though the rest of him seemed quite content to burn for a while yet.

He dismounted heavily and leaned against the tree for a moment.  Heaving a deep sigh, he hoped to release his anger with it.  The wood itself was silent, seeming to sense the unrest among the powers that governed it.

Thranduil sank to the ground to sit against the willow’s generous trunk.  After a moment, he wearily pulled off his diadem and pondered it a while, turning it to glint and gleam in the dappled sunlight.  Oropher Thoronion was indeed his father and his king, and he owed him his obedience no less than did Dorthaer or Erelas.  He could no more defy his commands than he could remove him from his own blood.  He had always known that.  But it was difficult to remain calm when lives hung in the balance.

Thranduil could still remember a time when he would have never dared raise his voice against his father.  When had that changed?  Possibly it was after he had lived so long without him in Lindon.  He had allowed it to develop into a real vice in recent years.  Perhaps it was a result of the growing stress he had scarcely acknowledged even to himself.  He had lived all his childhood in a pocket of peace surrounded by evils, yet he had not been aware of it at every moment, for it had not been his responsibility to maintain that small and almost unnatural peace against the forces that would destroy it.  His role was very different now.

He sat there brooding until dusk began to fall over the wood, and the fleeting lights of fireflies danced just above the ground.  It was then that he heard the snort and plodding approach of another horse.

“They are waiting dinner for us, Thranduil,” Oropher informed him flatly, dismounting and coming to stand beside him.  “Will you be joining us tonight?”

Throwing down the twig he had been twisting, Thranduil just sighed and looked up at his father in the deepening twilight with an expression which eloquently explained the situation.  He was relieved to see much of the same mute but apologetic sentiment on his father’s face despite the initial tone of his voice.  A slightly uncomfortable silence followed, during which they both looked away.

Oropher shifted where he stood, propping his foot on a large root.  “Am I forgiven?” he asked at last, broaching the subject with an effort.

“Of course,” Thranduil said, rather pathetically, staring blindly ahead.  “Am I?”

“Yes.  But I must confess that you worry me.  Too often I see you look askance at me now.  You know I am only trying to protect you and all you love.”

“I know, but . . .”  Thranduil still would not look at him.  “I know.”

“When are you going to marry her?” Oropher asked at last, almost pleading.  “You should, you know.  Lindóriel has waited for you long enough.  You should have seen the look on her face when you jumped up to march into Eriador.  All the world is crumbling, I know, but I try to hold this peace for you in a world that will never truly have peace.  It is not much, but I had hoped it would be enough to let you claim the woman you love and experience fatherhood for yourself.  None of us are getting any younger.”

“I am sorry, Father,” Thranduil said, feeling rather helpless, “but I cannot so long as Gorthaur is bent upon continuing this war.  We would want children, Lin and I, certainly.  I do not think we would be able to resist them.  But if I am to bring a child into this world, I will do it when I no longer believe the world to be in imminent danger of complete destruction.”

“Thingol managed to keep the peace in Doriath even with a demon running amok in the world, and Luinlas was correct to observe that it was not Morgoth who wrought our ruin in the end.”

Now Thranduil did look up, his voice assuming a respectfully condescending tone.  “Take no offense, Father, when I say that you are not Thingol.  Eryn Galen has not the strength of Doriath, and even Doriath was not invulnerable.  And if worse comes to worst, I would sooner have Lindóriel preserve her full strength for defending her own life rather than sap her prematurely through childbearing.”

“An admirable purpose, but where would you be if I had taken that attitude?”

“Morgoth was at least established in Angband when I was born,” Thranduil insisted.  “Let Gorthaur settle himself somewhere, preferably far away, and Lindóriel will be hard pressed to prepare her wedding gown before I will be willing to relieve her of her maidenhood.  But not now.”

Oropher seemed willing to take that for an answer, at least for the time being.  “Very well, then,” he said, showing him a wan smile before turning back to take his horse in hand, “so long as you are thinking of it.  Come, the family is waiting.”

ERNIL

Chapter 16 ~ Echoes in the Dark

Lying on a flet high in the boughs of a beech, Thranduil looked down through the dark of the night to the ground below.  He had picketed one of his wolves there and now it remained only to wait for the sire he had chosen for her next litter of pups to show himself.  He hoped he would not have to ward off any less desirable competitors, for that was always difficult.

The legacy of Celeborn’s hound had grown to majestic proportions, and Thranduil had governed and recorded the pedigree in as much detail as he had been able.  The wolves of Eryn Galen had added a wild touch to the bloodline, but through careful selection the royal hounds had grown larger and sleeker than their free-roaming brethren.  They were bred for power, stealth, stamina, and beauty.  They were also more than simply a hobby; the practice of distributing Thranduil’s half-grown pups to the border guard had already met with great success.  As the dark age beyond the wood deepened, it was wise to take every precaution.

A low rustle in the brush caught his ear.  “Look, Galadh,” Thranduil smiled, nudging his friend in the ribs.  “There he is.”

“Magnificent,” Galadhmir agreed, as the massive wolf presented himself to his waiting mate, gleaming silver in the moonlight.  “I suspect he may already have your stamp upon him.”

“Perhaps,” Thranduil conceded.  It was becoming much harder to manage lately.  He could hardly account for everything his dogs did while they were out.  They had probably spread their paternity all over the wood.  It was not good for his records, but the quality of the wild wolf population was certainly improving.

The mating proceeded without incident, and indeed with great success.  This would be a handsome generation.

All at once, the great wolf tucked under with a nervous snarl and slunk away into the brush.  The female wanted to follow, but the picket restrained her.  The nocturnal sounds of the wood were suddenly hushed save for a single strident howl raised to the north.

By now both Thranduil and Galadhmir were aware that something was amiss.  It was a tension, a spine-tingling brooding in the darkness.  For a moment they simply lay there, hardly daring to move in the stillness.  The picketed hound grew more restless, shying about to the left and the right, whining plaintively.

Spurred by a distinct but nameless sense of peril, Thranduil thumped Galadhmir on the shoulder and slid down the rope to the ground.  The phantom wound on his arm had begun to ache as it had not since he had stood beside Sauron himself, and that was warning enough for him.  He quickly unleashed the dog as Galadhmir made landfall behind him.

“Go!” Thranduil hissed, shoving Galadhmir ahead.  They both plunged headlong into the brush, instinctively avoiding the path, running back toward Lasgalen.

A painful howl was again raised to the moon, a howl of fear, sounding eerily throughout the wood and echoed by every canine throat within earshot, creating a dreadful cacophony of impotent protest.  Thranduil felt more than heard the pursuit behind them, the rapid pounding of horses’ hooves.  He was very conscious of a black power there, and the fact that he could never face it alone made him desperate.  Elbereth, what was it?   Would it dare to enter Lasgalen?  The bridge over the gorge into the valley lay so close, yet though both of them ran as though their hearts would burst, they would soon be overtaken far short of Oropher’s stronghold unless they quit the brush and took to the open road.  He would have dismissed the idea as madness, but somehow he knew he could never hide from them.

Yanking Galadhmir aside by the sleeve, Thranduil bounded back up the bank and onto the path, refusing to glance behind him.  He saw only the bridge, and now they approached it hard and fast.  Galadhmir sprinted ahead, gaining the first wooden planks.  Thranduil was not three steps behind him, yet a chorus of horrible shrieking paralyzed him in sudden agony.  Icy talons tore through his arm and into his heart.  His legs gave way and he fell with a cry, tumbling to a cruel halt on the road.

He would never forget the three black and faceless horsemen bearing down upon him, their cloaks billowing behind them like smoke, a dull gleam on their upraised swords.

His hound stood over him, bristling and snapping, half mad with fear.  The black horses balked at the wolf and came to a halt.  The first of the three phantoms rasped something Thranduil could not understand, nor would he ever wish to hear such a hideous thing repeated. 

With a vicious shout, Galadhmir threw his knife, which buried itself into the shoulder of the first horse.  Arrows then came whistling from the trees, passing harmlessly through the black robes but eliciting more angry screams.  An order was given to aim rather for the horses, and just as the fearsome steeds were mortally wounded Thranduil felt his father’s regnant power surge to life throughout the valley.  Elvenking Oropher could not be present, yet he was awake and aware of what moved in his domain.

Recovering himself, Thranduil tapped deeply into that reservoir, felt it tingling at his fingertips.  A great silver light leapt up around them, shooting in bright and terrible shafts from each leaf of every tree like captive moonbeams.  This light transfixed the riders on all sides like blades, growing ever brighter until the intensity had invaded and almost dispelled their inmost shadows beneath Thranduil’s onslaught. 

Unearthly shrieks shattered the night once more, wrenching him again.  The light failed and faded, and what remained were only three slain horses, three torn and empty robes.  The faceless riders, whatever they may have been, had fled.

Thranduil was exhausted by his effort, still tingling as his own aura gradually faded.  For the moment he lacked the strength to stand.

“What in Elu’s name was that?” Galadhmir demanded.  A lingering tremor in his voice betrayed the fright he had taken.  He crouched by his brother’s side to assure himself that he was not seriously hurt.  “What happened?  You are not bleeding at all.”

“The horses were real enough,” Dorthaer decreed grimly.  He was already inspecting the wreckage with a severe eye, carefully probing the remains with the tip of an arrow as his troop lowered themselves from the trees.  Two Guardsmen among them moved to help their prince to his feet.

Wrapping his hand in a rag, Dorthaer took reluctant hold of one of the three evil swords, throwing it heavily into plain sight.  The notched blade was already stained with drying blood.  Disaster had doubtlessly met the guard at the northern marches.

“Imrathon and Nedhudir,” Dorthaer commanded, “accompany the prince and the Lord Galadhmir to Lasgalen and attend them.  Andaer, go ahead to Lasgalen and request a new guard be sent to this position in doubled force.  Make a full report to the king.  Beriadhren, take the remainder of the guard forward to secure the northern positions.  Attend the wounded and the dead, and send one to report back to me so I shall know how to reinforce you.”

Numerous lights had appeared in the wood along the valley and on Amon Lasgalen itself, the inhabitants aroused by the hellish noise.  By now, Thranduil had regained strength enough to walk on his own, though Imrathon hung by his side with great concern.

The king was waiting for them when they returned.  He heard Andaer’s report in silence, Thranduil supplying what was lacking in the details.  Oropher’s face remained grave, even as he dismissed Andaer to rejoin his patrol.  It was a gravity that always suggested unpleasant and radical change.

“Mark my words, Thranduil,” he said at last, “this is yet another consequence of Celebrimbor’s war.  From the moment I saw it below the mountains I knew Eregion boded no good for us, but I had not imagined it would prove to be the willing plaything of Morgoth’s successor.”

“I would say unwitting, Father,” Thranduil corrected, remembering the master wright’s fate.  “Whatever Gorthaur’s plan, I doubt this was Celebrimbor’s intention.”

“Perhaps not,” Oropher conceded.  “But what does it matter now?”

ERNIL

Chapter 17 ~ The World Is Changed

Not long after the unsettling breach of the northern guard, King Oropher came to the staggering conclusion that Amon Lasgalen had to be abandoned.  His justification was that the dangers of the world outside Greenwood were growing too great, and that a position so near the western timberline was not as defensible as he would like.  Thranduil suspected that it also had at least something to do with the fact that the influence of Gil-galad and Galadriel had been growing both in Eriador and Rhovanion ever since Sauron had been defeated and borne away to Númenor.  He would never understand what had possessed Ar-Pharazôn to take such a captive as that, yet he had his suspicions.  Still, surely the Men of Númenor retained wisdom enough even in their mortal race to guard themselves against what had been the undoing of Eregion. 

It had been expected that most families would be inclined to remain where they were, and that the royal household would establish itself among new intimates in the deeper regions of the wood.  Yet half of the population surrounding Lasgalen were more willing to follow their king than to see his banner leave them.  Oropher had been constrained to order them to remain where they were, at least until the new capital was firmly established, and he left Brilthor to govern in his name.  The only ones permitted to travel with them would be the King’s Guard, the master builders, and their families.  Thranduil gathered his wolves, and Lindóriel her roses. 

Several temporary moves in slow succession brought them nearer the center of the great wood.  The ways of their people who had been far removed from Lasgalen had not yet changed in any significant way, and thus were as rustic as they had been at Oropher’s first arrival.  Wearied of wandering, the king chose to establish himself for the moment, yet because he was still unsure exactly where he wished to remain, the new royal city was in truth no more than a grand cluster of pavilions.

For some years they lived that way, adjusting to what had become an almost nomadic lifestyle.  The people welcomed them with open hearts for the most part.  Thranduil was quietly dissatisfied with the arrangement, not because he disliked living in a tent, but because he had not easily left Amon Lasgalen and he did not appreciate being set adrift in the world.  Moreover, since the war had ended, he had finally been preparing to wed Lindóriel, but now they found themselves with no home and an unbelievable amount of work to do.  The summer months were pleasant enough, but the winters were a bit harsh, though the silvan people made certain their king did not truly want for anything.

It was there in the heart of the wood that Galadhmir and Gwaelin were betrothed and wed at last, heedless of the circumstances.  Theirs was the first marriage among Oropher’s chosen children, and the great occasion seemed to rekindle an old spark of hope amid the increasing gloom of the world.

The king finally selected a suitable site for his next abode, but the household was still obliged to wait several years more while he prepared it.  This time Thranduil was able to help him in the endeavor, growing and conditioning a beech grove of majestic proportions for the purpose of bearing yet another arboreal city.  It was a slow and steady task, though the royal trees grew with greater alacrity than their wild fellows.  It was positioned almost in the foothills of the Emyn Duir, the pine-forested Mountains of Greenwood, just north of the road that had been cut directly through the heart of Oropher’s domain.  The king expressed a wish to regularize the management of the traffic on this road which had been created without so much as his consent or leave.  It lay due east of the ford over the Anduin and the High Pass through the Hithaeglir, rendering the position of even greater importance.  It was an unfortunate location if one’s goal was to avoid familiarity with the world outside Eryn Galen, but perhaps Oropher’s purpose was not to avoid the growing influence of Gil-galad, but to counter it. 

When the king’s house was built, the place was given the name Galadhremmen Lasgalen.  The rest of the city was soon built up around it, and word was sent back to those who were willing to follow their king into the north.  It was difficult to begin again, yet time would reward the patient among them, and within a few seasons life had almost settled back into the familiar routines that had characterized their first city on the hill.

Yet not all would be as it had been, for the family was growing.

“After you, Thranduil,” Galadhmir smiled, standing aside to allow his prince the use of the stairway.

“As you wish,” Thranduil replied with equal banter, accepting the gesture and bounding upwards around the trunk of another beech, slightly removed from the King’s House.  At long last Galadhmir had built a home of his own for himself and his wife.  It had been a project Thranduil would have very much liked to share with him in memory of the many things they had built together in the past, yet the royal headaches and hassles of the move had required almost every spare moment he possessed.  Therefore, Galadhmir had refused to let him see it unfinished, waiting to impress him with the final masterpiece.

Lindóriel and Gwaelin already awaited them when they gained the first apartment and entered the modest reception hall.  Thranduil stopped to take in the architecture.  The house occupied a picturesque position near the stream, and its general appearance inside suggested a noble but comfortably informal air.

“Well done, Galadh,” he nodded approvingly.  “Very commendable.”

Galadhmir put on a face of mock offense.  “Oh, now, is that all you can say?”

Thranduil could not help smiling broadly.  “It is wonderful,” he said, obliging him with a more earnest voice.  “You should be proud of him, Gwaelin.”

“Indeed, I am,” Gwaelin assured him, bearing a tray of refreshments to the table.  “He never fails to exceed expectations.”

“Please, allow me,” Lindóriel insisted, relieving her of the tray.  “You sit.”

The fact that Gwaelin was now with child had only recently become obvious, though the happy news had been announced to Greenwood long ago.  The new family had become quite the pride of Oropher’s house, and the king had already proudly claimed some measure of a grandfather’s right.  In truth, only Lindóriel could boast a true blood relation to the child, but Thranduil already considered him a nephew.

“Excuse me,” Galadhmir said, moving to follow Gwaelin from the room.

Lindóriel smiled at him when they were alone.  “It makes me so happy to see them together,” she said.  “I cannot imagine another couple so perfectly suited for one another.”

“Yes, I know,” Thranduil agreed, sitting on the divan and beckoning her to his side, “although I would like to imagine that we are at least as well matched ourselves.”

“Nonsense,” she smiled, sitting beside him and letting his hand claim her own smaller one.  “I hardly deserve you.”

Thranduil sighed contentedly.  “Do you know when I first began to love you?” he asked.

“When?”

“After much reflection, I have decided that it was the time I caught you watching Lúthien’s celebration from that tree.”

“When my slipper fell?” Lindóriel asked, still mortified by the memory of the incident.  “You certainly did not let on about it.”

“Do not think too ill of me.  I am not certain I was entirely aware of it at the time.  But I could hardly help but notice when it fell on me that its companion had to be nearby.  You looked as though you would faint when I looked up.”

“You were with Lord Maeron’s daughter at the time.”

“She was nothing to me.”

“But she was a lady with diamonds in her hair.  I was only a child.”

“A lovely one,” Thranduil insisted.  “I would hardly notice diamonds in your hair, Lin.”

“I was watching you, of course,” Lindóriel admitted.  “My father never did approve.  He always promised that a prince of my own would come for me, that I would not care that he came without crown or lineage.  He would build for me a house of our own in the wood, and I would happily be his queen.”  She sighed.

“I am sorry, Lin,” Thranduil apologized, “but when we marry, I am afraid you will simply have to resign yourself to living in the King's House with me.”

“It will be a terrible trial, I am sure,” she agreed, the light in her eyes telling him it would be paradise.

A low rumble like thunder shook the house.  Thranduil’s brow darkened, and Lindóriel turned to him with the same expression.  Leaving her side, he stood and peered out the open window.

 “There is hardly a cloud in the sky,” he protested.

But the rumble was growing.  It grew until all the ground began to shake as it had not since the War of Wrath.

The entire earth lurched sideways with enough force to slam him against the wall.  Lindóriel shrieked and jumped into his arms as the next roaring tremor shook the house in violent rippling waves.  Then everything was falling sideways, and they were falling too, caught beneath an avalanche of furniture as the massive tree toppled, meeting the ground with a shattering crash of broken woodwork and snapping branches.

Aftershocks continued to shake the foundations of the wood for a time, gradually weakening.  When Thranduil at last dared to open his eyes, he found himself lying painfully on what had been the wall, holding Lindóriel in a crushing grip against his chest, shielding her as best he could with his shoulder amid the haphazard ruins of Galadhmir’s house.  He was pinned beneath an overturned table, and its oppressive weight suggested that much more debris lay on top of it.  All around them was the tinkling of broken glass and the creak of splintered planks.

Hardly daring to pull her face away from his shoulder, Lindóriel looked at him in mute terror.

“Are you all right?” he asked anxiously.

“Yes,” she answered, her voice shaking.  “Are you?”

“I believe so.  Bear with me a moment.”

Much to his relief, Thranduil heard Galadhmir calling Gwaelin.  Even more gratifying was her answer, for she did not seem to be hurt.  But he and Lindóriel were trapped.

Thranduil shifted as best he could with that weight upon him, striving not to crush her as he moved to brace the precarious table fully against his back.  It all shifted downwards for one frightening moment, pressing them nose to nose.  Planting both hands firmly on the ground, Thranduil thrust himself upwards, pushing it all back with a loud screech of stressed wood.  It was a strain, to be sure, but he could manage for a moment.

Lindóriel crawled out from beneath him, scrambling away to safety.

Another rumbling aftershock rippled through the ground, shaking everything again.  Thranduil grimaced as he worked to free his legs while still holding up the ruin.  Lindóriel did what she could, helping to brace the table in place as he squirmed his way out, and at last they were both able to let it fall with a final crash.

Thranduil simply held her for a moment, taking some advantage of a lover’s privilege to gently probe her for injuries.  “You are certain you are not hurt?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said, still shaken, “but I may say I am certain of very little else.”

“I, too, Lin.  But come.”

The door was too far out of reach.  Therefore, Thranduil took up a broken plank and knocked the remains of the latticework out of the nearest window.  He climbed through first, then helped Lindóriel to pull herself out onto the grass.  They were on the wrong side of the stream now, the huge tree lying over it like a bridge.  An entire shelf of the bank had given way in the upheaval which had fatally weakened the hold of the roots.

“Thranduil!” Galadhmir was above them, still helping Gwaelin negotiate her precarious way down to the ground.  “I was just about to come looking for you!”

Everywhere it seemed people were picking themselves up and sorting through wreckage.  Somewhere a panicked horse was squealing.  The entire world felt different somehow, as though his sense of balance was skewed.  Thranduil looked over the smashed edifice they had been admiring only moments before.  “A pity about the house,” he said.

“Nonsense,” Galadhmir insisted, catching his wife in his arms as they both reached the ground.  “All five of us are still alive and well, so what does the house matter?  Belain, we could have all been killed!”

At that moment, a smaller room that had been hanging above at an unintended and very precarious angle broke loose and fell crashing into what remained of the main hall.  All of them quickly turned away, shielding their faces from the wreck until it had resettled itself.  It was strangely chilling, Thranduil thought, to see the new ruin only compacting the destruction from which he had just freed himself.  Simply imagining the crush made his ribs hurt.

“Yes,” he said soberly, answering Galadhmir and holding Lindóriel close against him.  “We very well could have been.”

ERNIL

Chapter 18 ~ The World Is Changed II

The long-awaited day had finally come.  When every tree had burst into spring bloom and all Galadhremmen Lasgalen was bedecked in banners and flowers, Prince Thranduil Oropherion of Eryn Galen was to be formally betrothed to Lady Lindóriel Dorlassiel Oropheriel.  All agreed that it was high time it happened, and the king spared no expense on the ceremony and celebration.

High in her chamber, surrounded by her friends, Lindóriel was anxiously preparing herself, scarcely able to contain her glowing happiness.  She wore an exquisite gown in the delicate green of the youngest spring leaves, and the emerald he had given her so long ago still hung at her throat.  She was presently sitting and examining her reflection in her hand mirror as Geliriel her maid plaited her long hair into a masterpiece befitting a princess.  What would her parents say if they could see her now, prepared to become a lady of Greenwood second only to the queen? 

“You see?” Gwaelin smiled, taking the mirror in her own hands to afford Lindóriel a fuller view.  “You are the princess among us, I said, and promised that one day we would be your maids.  I knew Thranduil would not disappoint you, even if I can be a maid no longer.”

“I love you more the way you are, sister,” Lindóriel assured her, accepting a fond kiss, unable to move while her hair was yet unfinished.  “I would sooner have your darling Celebrin running underfoot than an entire train of maids.”

“As it is, I shall be glad to fulfill my part while I may,” Illuiniel assured her.

“And I,” Menelwen said.  “I dare say you may count upon me for a good many years yet.  There is hardly a suitor to be found in all this wood.”

“None that suit your fancy, you mean,” Gwaelin amended.

“They are all frightened of you, my dear,” Illuiniel informed her serenely, but with a lurking smile.  The same was probably true of herself, cool beauty that she was, but she seemed more content to accept it.  “I hazard to guess that there are dozens of young Galennath who are absolutely smitten with you, yet without nerve enough to approach the king’s daughter.”

“I would appreciate a husband who stands at least as tall as myself.”

“In that case, you may choose between Anárion and Noruvion.  Take your pick.”

“You do not name Linhir,” Lindóriel observed.  “Is it true, then, that he is growing fond of you?”

“Perhaps I of him,” Illuiniel condescended to admit, smiling demurely.

A thin veil held in place by her jeweled comb lent an additional glimmer to the thick blond hair that fell in waves as far as her girdle.  The final preparation was a touch of the precious perfume made from her roses.

“Perfection,” Illuiniel decreed.  “Come now, we have all been waiting long enough to see this happen.  Go enamor him before he receives any more bad tidings from Dorthaer and changes his mind again!”

Descending from her chamber with all her entourage of maids and ladies, Lindóriel was suddenly a child again, if for only a moment.   She remembered her father, his soft admonitions to her.  Do not climb toward the stars, child, he had said; you cannot reach them, and they cannot see you.  She did not hold it against him.  Who, indeed, could have foreseen this?  There was but one among all of them who was most responsible for her startling change of fortune, and he had not truly come down to find her but had lifted her up so that now she found herself among the stars that had once been so hopelessly beyond her grasp.  And even if she did not quite belong there, she would always belong at his side.

As they entered the crowded and gladly festooned hall, she saw him again with the eyes of her childhood.  The king’s son awaited her wearing a full mantle over his broad shoulders, a magnificent figure of gray and green accompanied by an immaculate honor guard of six.  There were diamonds on his collar and the sharp flash of silver on his brow.  He was still the most beautiful man she had ever known, glowing with a vibrant and virgin strength that had preserved him in a second youth, even as hardship had aged him in other ways.  Thranduil turned to her and smiled, and she almost felt her heart would burst for joy.

Gaining the dais, she took her place opposite him.  What truly pleased her, despite the elegant trappings of royalty, was that she could feel that his heart was as deeply aglow as her own, that there was no condescension in his affection, honestly excited and generously bestowed.  It was all she had truly wanted.

The actual ceremony passed in a lovely haze of fine words and pleasant memories.  She and Thranduil exchanged their silver rings just as Galadhmir and Gwaelin had done, and the king and queen blessed them and their eventual union wholeheartedly.

The celebration that followed below the trees was meant to last all day and possibly far into the night.  In addition to her ring, Thranduil could not resist proudly presenting her with a wolf pup to commemorate the occasion, a snowy white one she immediately named Fanuilos.  Yet the one among them who probably received the most loving attention that day was Galadhmir’s son, Celebrin.  Now almost a year old, he was walking and talking admirably for his age, and the little princeling had easily won the hearts of all Lasgalen.  Oropher was openly pleased with the silver hair on the boy.  His presence added the much-appreciated spice of youth to their lives.

Lindóriel swept her nephew into her arms as he tried to run past her.  “Grant me a kiss, little one?” she asked fondly.

“If he will not, I know someone who will,” Thranduil assured her, tousling Celebrin’s already unruly hair.

Their eyes met in a moment of pleasing intimacy, each imagining that someday the child between them would be their own, someone who was at once both of them and neither of them.  Lindóriel would wait while Thranduil asked it of her, but more than anything else she looked forward to bearing him a son of his own.

“Oh, there were times I thought I would never see this day!” Queen Lóriel confessed as she embraced her son.  “You have been alone too long.  You hardly know what it is you have been denying yourself.”

“I shall find out soon enough, Mother,” Thranduil promised.  “You know I could not bear to disappoint you.  But where is Father?  I expected him to have a great deal of advice for me at least.”

“Erelas whispered in his ear and he got up at once,” she told him, obviously dissatisfied.  “You know he cannot forget his affairs for even a single evening.”

“Well, if it is as important as all that, it may be best if I look into it as well.”

“No, do not trouble yourself,” his mother pleaded.  “This day is for you.  All else will keep until tomorrow.”

“Ah, but you see,” Thranduil smiled, “now I shall be consumed by curiosity until I see for myself.  I shall only be a moment.”

Leaving the clearing, he went in search of the king.  Oropher’s most likely retreat would be his study above the hall, so Thranduil climbed the stairway again into their world amid the branches.

He rapped at the door.  “Father?” he called, already certain he was inside.

“Yes, come in,” was the almost reluctant response.

“What calls you away this time?” Thranduil asked lightly, closing the door behind him and nodding to Dorthaer.  “Has word come again from Lórinand?”

“No,” Oropher said heavily, seated at his desk and holding several sheets of a closely written letter.  “This comes from Gil-galad.”

“Does it?” Thranduil lifted his brow expectantly and leaned against the window frame.  “It has been too long since we heard from him.  What is it he asks now?” he smiled.  “To annex the east marches?”  Looking down from the window, he could see Lindóriel walking across the lawn below, laughing with her friends.

“He writes to inform us that all Númenor is destroyed.”

Thranduil felt he had been kicked in the stomach.  “What?” he demanded, turning back.

It was a rhetorical question, yet Oropher answered it anyway.  “Entirely destroyed,” he said again.  “Lost to the depths, as was Beleriand.  Few of that people were fortunate enough to survive its ruin.”

For a moment Thranduil was at a complete loss for words.  So, another great civilization had been summarily effaced from the earth.  Ai, the earthquake . . .  Just imagining the cataclysmic devastation and sheer loss of life left him lightheaded.

“Elendil, the leader of the Númenórean remnant in Eriador, has given Gil-galad the sordid tale of his homeland’s final years,” Oropher went on soberly.  “You know I would have kept this from you, Thranduil, especially today, but some things cannot be silenced.  What occurred in Númenor defies belief.”

“Gorthaur wrought this?” Thranduil guessed ruefully.

Oropher nodded.  “Sauron, uncloaked and revealed to all for what he was, still successfully seduced the mind of the king, Ar-Pharazôn.  The Law of the Belain was rejected by the heirs of Eärendil.  In time they turned wholly to darkness, even to the public worship of Morgoth.  In their madness they expelled the Eldar from their shores, and subjected to persecution those few who resisted their perversions.  Elendil tells of a temple where those Faithful were slaughtered and burned like cattle in blood sacrifice to the name of Morgoth.  We had heard of their pillaging the Men of Middle-earth in those years, yet at the time I found it difficult to believe.  What we did not hear was that they hunted their brethren here like game, took them for slaves, and burnt them upon their monstrous altars.  At last, Ar-Pharazôn dared to style himself the King of Kings, presumed to usurp the throne of Manwë and seize immortal life by force of arms, sailing with all his army to rape the Blessed Shores . . .”

“Enough,” Thranduil insisted, lifting a hand to forestall any further horrors.  He already felt sick.

Oropher sighed and lay down the letter, looking sick himself.  “Whether by the Belain or by Eru Himself, Númenor and its corruption is destroyed.  The Dúnedain are dispersed.  Elendil and his sons fled to Middle-earth with those of the Faithful that would follow them.  They are establishing themselves in both the north and south as kings of Men.  Gil-galad deems it to be in our best interest that we introduce ourselves into their good favor.”

A laden pause hung over the room like a pall.

“And Sauron?” Thranduil at last dared to ask.

“You might have already guessed that he escaped the ruin which ought to have claimed his wretched existence,” Oropher confirmed, “yet again.  He has returned to Mordor and resumed his rule in the South and the East.  Whether he will be content to remain there, none can say.”

Thranduil let the uncertainty go unanswered.  Instead, he turned back to the window and cursed bitterly.  Númenor, at the height of its glory, the power of the sea, kings among Men, noblest and wisest of all their mortal race, suddenly so perverted in their own nature that they would scarcely recognize themselves, destroyed by venomous words and their own lust for what was best left beyond their grasp.  Who would be next?  There would be no more turning to the sea for aid when Sauron again unleashed his terror on the world.  The Days of Flight had already depleted the population of Eldar in Middle-earth. 

He had been so blissfully content only a moment ago, and yet again Sauron had somehow managed to reappear to crush his happiness.  Now their situation was worse than it had been in all the previous years.  Now the fiend had planted himself in Mordor, not a hundred leagues from their southern border.

“Dorthaer,” the king was saying, “double the standing guard and the active scouts.  Mind in particular the southern road.  I will not be cut off from my people around Amon Lasgalen.  Send word that their king strongly encourages them to move as far north as possible.  Also, see that a guard is maintained on the southern marches with an eye towards Mordor.  I want them to report frequently to you, and you only to me.”

“At your command, sire.”  Dorthaer bowed smartly and turned immediately from the room, leaving his king and his prince alone in pensive silence.

“Thranduil, help me understand,” Oropher said at last.  “I can hardly stomach this myself.  How am I supposed to explain it to your mother?  How are you to look your Lindóriel in the eye and convince her that we can go on as we were?  Gil-galad is not blind; I can see that he is leaning toward meeting Sauron in open war before each of us can be taken piecemeal.  I have long avoided it, but now what else can we do?”

Thranduil could say nothing.

“We shall do what we must,” his father concluded grimly.  “I, at least, shall not wait to be sacrificed on a pyre.”

ERNIL

Chapter 19 ~ Banners Unfurled

“Perhaps in the spring of next year?” Lindóriel suggested hopefully, running her fingers through her mare’s white mane.  “Everything could be prepared by then, and it is such a beautiful time.  It always reminds me of you.”

“Why not autumn?” Thranduil asked, turning his stallion aside from the beaten path.  “Your roses would be out.”

“Very well,” she smiled.  “If you wish it.  Next year?”

Thranduil sighed, idly reaching out to touch a leaf as they passed.  “Let me consider it, Lin.”

“You have been considering for a very long time,” she protested softly.

“Yes,” he admitted.  “But you know that whatever I do I am thinking only of us.”

“Yes, I know.”

Together they reached the small clearing in the wood and dismounted to allow the horses to rest and water there beside the stream.  Meanwhile, Thranduil took Lindóriel aside to sit with him beneath the tree.

It was true that he had been “considering” the date for their marriage for a very long time since their betrothal.  He had not yet admitted that he was deliberately stalling, but she had long guessed it.  It was not that he did not share her glad expectation, but rather that she obviously did not share the strong sense of foreboding that had hung over him like a cloud since the demise of Númenor.  She did not feel it, so how could he justify it?

Marriage was in the air.  Everyone expected Linhir to propose to Illuiniel any day, and Anárion had begun making fond overtures to Menelwen.  Lindóriel had contained her impatience admirably, but now even that was beginning to wear thin.

“I do not know, Lin,” he admitted as she sat down beside him.  “The world is simply not a safe place at present.”

“Has it ever been truly safe?” she asked pointedly, smoothing his hair away from his face.  “Ever since Gorthaur returned to Mordor you have distanced yourself again.  Is that the reason?”

“I must confess it is,” he said.  “Can you think of a better one?”

“You should not allow Sauron to govern your life, Thranduil,” Lindóriel admonished, settling nearer him in the shadows.  “He has not yet troubled us here.”

“What of the wraiths?” he reminded her.

“Have they ever returned?”  Lindóriel sighed and lay her head against his shoulder.  “I know you think only of me,” she said, “but it will be a grief to spend our lives apart, waiting for a perfect peace that may never come.  Are you truly content in that?  Are you content to be alone?”

He had to admit he was not, which was probably why he sought her company in every spare moment.  It had been enough for a time, but now such light intimacies could not satisfy his deepening need for her.  He did not know how much longer he would be able to deny himself her love, yet he was prepared to endure anything for her sake.  Still, in moments like these he could not help but wonder if he was being overcautious.  Why, indeed, did he allow Sauron to smother his happiness?  The Dark Lord held a great deal of Middle-earth in his iron fist, and it was presumed that war was imminent.  But how imminent?  They had received no summons, and only seldom did official word come from Gil-galad.  Any war could be years distant yet, barren years spent waiting, and waiting, and waiting.  For what?  Must he spend that time alone?

In answer he simply slid his hand around hers, reluctant to commit, yet unable to set her aside.

“Can we not stop this waiting?” Lindóriel pleaded.  “What good has it done us?  We could be so much happier if we would not await the whim of Mordor.”

“And what if the worst should happen once we disregard it?” he asked, his will weakening.

“What will happen will happen,” she said.  “We cannot hope to anticipate everything, but at least we should be together when it comes.”

He looked at her there beside him, her lovely mouth set with determination and her eyes full of love.  Thranduil silently cursed Sauron and kissed her.  Just that was enough to lighten his burden of worry for a moment.  For good measure, he kissed her again.  She seemed a bit surprised by his sudden vehemence, but by no means displeased, and she settled herself contentedly against his shoulder when he released her.

There was a peace there, an unmistakable sense of belonging.  He felt he had been wandering from a home he had never known.  Suddenly he had lost his will to wander.  It had been slipping away from him for the past several years, but now he freely let it go.  The release was beautiful.

“Very well, love,” he said at last.  “You have conquered me.  Shall we tell the household to prepare for this autumn?”

In the next moment he was enfolded in her gleeful embrace, and they were both laughing.  Life seemed so full of promise.  Yet life was still full of many other duties besides the planning of a wedding, and soon they went back to gather their horses.

Rather than ride back, they walked hand in hand, leading the horses behind.  The voice of Thranduil’s better judgment spoke in feeble dissent, but he refused it.  He was sick of living with the specter of Sauron haunting each day.  For the moment he had chosen to be rid of it.  Let Sauron rot; he would finally take a wife and make up for lost time.

They had not gone far when he recognized the sound of another horse preparing to overtake them on the road.  They saw a rider approaching in the growing shadows of dusk, a travel-worn Elf bearing the mark of Gil-galad.

The messenger drew up his winded mount at the sight of the two of them.  The border guards had been commanded to stay at their posts, so he was yet unescorted.

“Greetings, my lord and lady,” he offered them, bowing slightly in the saddle.  “I bear tidings for King Oropher and Prince Thranduil.”

“I am Prince Thranduil,” he said, stepping into his official role once again.

The courier dismounted then, and offered a proper bow.  “I bring word to your father the King of Eryn Galen from the Kings Gil-galad and Elendil,” he told him again.  “It is most urgent.”

“You may give it to me,” Thranduil said crisply, holding out his hand for whatever message it was.

The courier seemed reluctant to do so, glancing uncomfortably at Lindóriel.  “I have already intruded upon you, my lord,” he apologized.  “Permit me to leave you in peace and bear this to the king.”

“You will bear it to the king,” Thranduil assured him, desperately afraid he could guess its contents, “but you were also empowered to give it to me.  Tell me what I am to expect, and I will be more inclined to take you directly to him.”

Squaring his shoulders, the courier drew a steady but unhappy breath.  “The Kings Gil-galad and Elendil call the Galennath to war,” he said at last.  “An alliance of the Edain and the Eldar marches upon Mordor.”

Galadhremmen Lasgalen was at once thrown into a frenzy of activity.  It would be a sleepless night.

“You wanted to go to war, Thranduil,” Oropher said as they walked together through the trees to the armory.  “I fear I must oblige you at last.”

Dorthaer was waiting for them there.  Hastily assembled with him were a scattering of gray, green, and brown-collared commanders.  They must begin standing the army at once.

“Beriadan,” Oropher addressed the latter, “Cull only a sixth of the Brown legion to remain and fortify Lasgalen.  Faeron, leave also a sixth of the Green, and Dorsidhion, a full third of the Silver.  Those with children under the age of ten years should be first among those exempt.”  He turned to Dorthaer.  “But I want the entire Royal Legion.  Spare only an honor guard for the queen.  Go, all of you, and report back to Lasgalen with your command in no more than six days’ time.”

“At your order, sire,” they answered, immediately going their separate ways.

“In the meantime,” Oropher mused when they were alone again, “we ought to look to our own preparations.  We have copious details to attend, and little time to do so.  Gil-galad must be assured that we have not forgotten how to fight.”

“You did make yourself his ally in peace and peril,” Thranduil remembered.  “He seems to be counting upon that now.”

“And I am determined that he will not be disappointed,” Oropher said, “provided, of course, he remembers that I am his ally and not his vassal.  It makes an amazing difference.  Go on; we are at war, so let us look the part.”

Leaving the armory, Thranduil turned back through the evening gloom toward his own room.  He probably should have expected Lindóriel to be waiting for him along the way.  She fell into step behind him, a thousand protests on her tongue.

“Thranduil, you are the king’s heir,” she said.  “You should not go to war with him.”

“Perhaps,” he admitted flatly, paying her little attention, “but nothing will stop me.”

“Not even me?” she pleaded.

He stopped and looked back at her for a moment in the dark before turning away again.  “Forgive me, no.”

She hurried after him, catching at his hair as though to catch at his affections, yet he pulled it from her hand with a brusque toss of his head.  She grabbed at his sleeve, but he brushed her off.  She was doubtless seeing her dreams poised to be shattered so near to fulfillment, and though he felt keenly for her he could not afford to indulge those sympathies.  He was by no means pleased by this turn of events, but wars waited for no one.

“This is my responsibility, Lindóriel,” he argued as they ascended into the king’s beech.  “Unpleasant though it may be, I cannot shirk it.”

“But you have other responsibilities as well!” she persisted.  “What of me?  What of your mother?  What will become of everyone here should both you and your father be lost?  Stay here and rule in his stead.”

“At the worst, Brilthor may easily resume the leadership of his people,” Thranduil said, growing impatient. 

“Do not brush me aside so callously!” she protested, a tremor in her voice.  “There is time yet.  Perhaps we could be wed now before you must leave.”

“No!” Thranduil snapped at last, rounding on her on the stairway.  “I will not cheapen us that way.  This is exactly what I feared from the beginning.  Consider Celebrin.  We might have had a child caught up in this!”  He stopped for a moment, realizing that he was shouting.  “If you were to convince me to remain behind, to betray my trust and stay here with you while the others walked into the jaws of hell, you could no longer love me.”

She looked up at him bitterly, her eyes glistening in the dark.  He saw her breast rise and fall with her labored breathing, yet she returned no answer.

“This is of you,” she accused him at last, unable to contain her hot tears.  “It would have been far better if you had taken me long before this!”

The anger in her voice cut him to the heart, yet Thranduil gave no sign of it, standing over her with as impassive a face as he could manage in the uncomfortable silence. 

“Yes, I know,” he said desolately.  And there he left her, turning to mount the final steps and disappear into his room.

Once inside, he closed the door, lingering against it for a moment.  He conquered the urge to strike it.

“Lady Lindóriel is grieved by the war?” Gwaelas inquired, stating the obvious.

“Worse,” Thranduil groaned.  “I had only just promised her a wedding in the fall.  Ai, it is quiet for years, and then everything must happen at once!”  Now he did hit the door, but not so hard as he would have liked.  “I imagine you are little pleased yourself, Gwaelas.”

Gwaelas offered a wan smile and a shrug.  “You command me, my lord,” he said.  “I go with you.”

“Very well,” Thranduil said in return.  “The king has ordered us to turn out in military form as soon as possible.  Come, and I shall cut your hair.”

All the warriors of Greenwood would soon be shearing off their hair, a practical and militant sacrifice.  In the heat of battle, it was best not to allow one’s foe too convenient a handle to grab hold of, and a glossy cascade that had been a personal glory in peacetime easily became an unnecessary hazard on a battlefield.  Just keeping it clean would be trouble enough.  And once it was shorn it was not discarded.  In addition to its other virtues, Elven hair made superior bowstrings.

Gwaelas was at first reluctant to do the same for him, but Thranduil himself was unmoved, and presented a measure of at least two feet that he must be rid of.  Off it went, at once a wrench and a relief.  He felt slightly denuded for a moment, but he would grow used to it.

Tying what remained of his hair back out of his face, Thranduil folded his great severed braid into a box.  “Give this to Lindóriel,” he instructed Gwaelas.  “Tell her I would like at least ten bowstrings made of it, and she may do what she likes with the rest.”

He retrieved his sword and belt from the wardrobe and secured it around his waist.  He must grow accustomed again to wearing it.

Descending from his room, Thranduil returned to the King’s Hall, brightly lit in the night.  There on the long tables Illuiniel and her maids had laid out the banners the ladies had already made for their men at arms and were discussing the design for several more.  Galadhmir was there as well with Linhir.

“Father!” Celebrin called, finding them there and proceeding without preamble.  “If you are to march to war, I would go, too.”

“Absolutely not,” Thranduil interrupted before Galadhmir could answer.  Celebrin embodied the first bloom of a new generation, all their fondest hopes.  Thranduil could not bear the thought of risking that young life within ten leagues of a battlefield.  “You are much too young yet.”

“I am grown!” Celebrin protested, an indignant flash in his eyes.  “I came of age ten years ago, if you will remember, and I will not be left here like a child while you go to conquer the Dark Lord.”

There was so much confidence in that voice, bright and untried, untouched by the shadows that weighed upon the rest of them.  The thought of defeat had evidently never entered his mind.  In truth Celebrin was indeed grown, a child only in their hearts.  Thranduil could feel that Galadhmir would greatly prefer to leave his son safely behind, yet only a royal decree had weight enough to make that possible.

“You know nothing of war, Celebrin,” Thranduil said darkly.  “If you did, you would be grateful to be excused.”

But Celebrin was not to be so easily put off.  “Would you be, my lord?” he asked pointedly.  “That is not what I gathered from your bickering with Lady Lindóriel.”

Thranduil glanced aside to Galadhmir with a look of pained frustration.  War never seemed so ugly as it did when one had to commit the young.  A father’s fears were written behind Galadhmir’s eyes, but also a resignation.  There was nothing they could say that would truly justify excusing Celebrin from his military duties.  He had applied himself well and already attained his silver collar.  Their one hope now was that he would be chosen among the third of those left in Lasgalen in an official capacity.

“Very well, Celebrin,” Thranduil said at last.  “You may go if you are called to go.”

The boy beamed.  “Thank you!  I will not disappoint you, Father.”  And he turned on his heel to go set his affairs in order.

Galadhmir looked after him despondently.  “And I have only the one,” he sighed.  “What must Adar Oropher feel?”

“We shall look after him, Galadh,” Thranduil promised, though he shared the same dismal helplessness.  This war would be a trial for them all.

ERNIL

Chapter 21 ~ Dust to Dust

Mordor loomed before them in all its grotesque majesty.  Its fortified peaks were thick with Orcs, the sky above obscured by the dark fume belched from the fiery mountain.  Inflamed by their victory on the plains of Dagorlad, the massive armies of the Last Alliance lay camped at some distance, preparing the assault upon the great black gates which barred their entrance.

As gray afternoon wore on to gray dusk, Thranduil walked Maethor slowly through the dust around their crowded camp, trying to disregard the ominous and incessant rumble that issued from that great mountainous fortress.  The stallion was recovering well from a severely bruised foreleg, but could still endure only gentle exercise.  Horses were too scarce in that place to be ruined lightly.  His wolves patrolled the horizons against skulking skirmishers.

The swollen army of Eryn Galen had been joined to the smaller forces that had issued out of Lórinand.  Thranduil had not been present at Oropher’s first meeting with Malgalad.  He gathered that it had not been bitter, yet he also noted that his father still made no great effort to share their cousin’s company.  Thranduil himself had seen him only once and spoken to him only briefly.  It had been strange to see him again after thinking him dead for so many years, yet on closer study Thranduil had realized that this was hardly the Malgalad he had known in his youth.  The luster had long ago left his eyes, and he was a shadow of his former self.  He had fled into the east at the fall of Menegroth, leaving Beleriand and Curse of the Exiles.  But rather than finding solace among the silvan people of Lórinand, he had allowed his despair to consume him.  He had wished only anonymity, peace and obscurity in which he could bring himself to forget his sorrows.  Yet the world he had left had rediscovered him, and now he had been constrained to return to war.  He had fully expected Mordor to be his grave.  Now he had his wish at last, lost with half his command in the marshes beside Dagorlad.

That initial battle of Dagorlad had shaken Greenwood’s ranks considerably, yet in the end it had strengthened their confidence.  Oropher had rallied them beautifully and the Alliance commanded the field in the end.  Their casualties had not been heavy in relation to their numbers, yet any loss was hard to bear.  Thranduil himself had emerged essentially unscathed, though knocked around quite a bit.

Dorthaer had all but claimed their portion of Dagorlad for his own, proving his worth ten times over.  It seemed that nothing would frighten him, and Thranduil was often tempted to forget the commander’s relative youth.  Like many others, Dorthaer did not remember the dark days of Greenwood, yet they were enduring these new horrors as best they could, taking them in their stride.  He moved now among his wounded, attending them tirelessly before he returned to the field.

Leading Maethor to his picket, Thranduil found Celebrin giving the horses their water rations.  It seemed that the battle had aged him, purged him of the last of his boyhood.  The shadow of war was upon him now, but it had been a relief merely to see that he had survived.

“Thranduil,” he asked thoughtfully, “did you truly slay your first Orcs when you were as young as I?”

“No,” Thranduil admitted, tying Maethor in his place.  Water was too precious in that land to allow horses free rule of it.  “I was younger.  My father released me to the marchwardens when I was but half your age.”  He sighed wearily.  “There are times when I doubt the wisdom of that decision.”

“I cannot believe they were sprung from Elves.”

Thranduil heard the deliberate incredulity in that voice, and remembered a time when he would have shared it.  “I can,” he said heavily.  “One kinslaying is enough to confirm many unpleasant truths, Celebrin.”

The other said nothing for a moment, then elected to change the subject.  “It seems the Noldorin armies do not think too highly of us,” he observed indignantly.

“That is to be expected,” Thranduil said, gazing out over the plain thick with soldiers.  “I am afraid they have never been disposed to hold a high opinion of us, which is why it will be doubly shameful if we should fail.”

“We repulsed Sauron’s army once,” Celebrin insisted.  “I am certain we can do it again.”

Thranduil had no desire to burden him with his own streak of pessimism.  “You go on believing that,” he said fondly, leaving him to his work.

In the heart of their post, Thranduil found his father enduring the attentions of Noruvion as he had his bandage changed.  Oropher had been mildly wounded in the last battle, suffering a slight gash in his side, but that was no great grievance considering the many Orcs and wicked Men that had fallen to his blade.

“Are you all right, Father?” Thranduil inquired.

“You may say so,” Oropher replied, easing painfully back into his tunic.  “It is impossible to keep wounds clean in this wretched country,” he complained.  “Filth everywhere, and hardly enough water for drinking.  They are likely to scar terribly.”

“Perhaps,” Thranduil agreed, finding that his father’s familiar irate voice afforded some relief from the growing strain upon his nerves.

“Come,” Oropher beckoned at last, donning his sword belt.  “Gil-galad has given us our placement for the assault.  I would acquaint you and the others with it before the hour is out.  Imrathon!”

“Yes, sire?”

“Summon the other princes to my pavilion at once.”

ERNIL

Chapter 22 ~ Dust to Dust II

Filthy clouds rumbled with thunder overhead, but it could hardly be heard over the appalling din which drowned the barren plain.  It seemed that all Mordor was emptied, and in that seething host each throat was shrieking its scorn for the invaders of the Black Land.  The forces of the Alliance were arrayed before the gate, Greenwood, Lórinand, Lindon, and the Númenórean remnant, all awaiting the signal to charge and let come what may.

Thranduil grimaced beneath the rain of wretched black arrows.  A thicket of them were already lodged the face of his shield.  Those shields were the only things protecting them, armorless as the woodland forces were.  Those in the first rank held theirs out in front to catch the flying shafts, those behind lifting theirs overhead to create a protective canopy.

His ears rang with the hideous noise, and the stench of death carried by Mordor’s host would have made him retch were he not so accustomed to it now.  He could feel that around him all nerves were wound tight before the onslaught, and only his presence and that of their commanders restrained the mass of the army.

The fall of arrows thickened uncomfortably, and wounds were being taken.  Thranduil constantly battled the reflex to blink merely to keep his eyes open. 

What in Elu’s name was Gil-galad waiting for?

Glancing aside as best he could, he saw that his father’s division was enduring an even greater pummeling than his was.  It galled them all to stand and do nothing.  Casualties were already beginning to thin the ranks, and the shrieking rose to an unbearable roar.

At last something snapped.  There was no signal, yet Thranduil watched in horror as Oropher’s formation collapsed and rushed forward, alone, straight into hell.

“No, no, no!”

Belain, what should he do?  They obviously trusted the others to follow; King’s Guard or not, they would be cut to shreds without support.  Would his joining them only make matters worse?  Would Gil-galad abandon them all to be killed?  Could he do nothing as his own father was slaughtered?  

Thranduil pushed his standard bearer forward and his entire command surged toward the Orcs with a vengeance, the might of Greenwood close behind them.

ERNIL

Chapter 23 ~ Dust to Dust III

The Orcs were worsted and those that escaped fled once more behind the obdurate Black Gate.  The immediate danger passed, yet the assault had not achieved its object, and all the Alliance had to show for its effort was a morbid field of death.  A drizzling rain had begun, making ashen mud of the ground already saturated in blood.

The might of Greenwood lay in carnage.  Galadhmir wandered amid the devastation in a daze, tattered and disheveled, one hand pressed firmly against a bleeding shoulder.  The cries of the wounded were all around him, mingled with the moans of those in their last agony, all strangely swallowed by the enormous silence of the dead.

How had this happened?  An hour ago, their army stood defiantly against the hordes of Sauron.  Now that same force was utterly prostrated.  The healers were overwhelmed, and many of the wounded went untended.  For the moment Galadhmir felt nothing but numb, but he shook himself from his stupor and searched the fallen for the once brilliant green and white garb that had indicated the other members of Oropher’s house.

The mire underfoot only deepened as the rain continued, and growing streams of blood and water flowed aimlessly from the piled corpses.  Galadhmir trudged through it doggedly, his stomach turning cold as he spied a touch of green and white beneath a crush of Orcs.

Rushing to it, he hauled aside the loathsome carcasses, forgetting his own injury as he discovered the face of his fellow.  It was Baranor, horribly disemboweled and already long dead.  Dozens of broken shafts were embedded in his chest, but his sword lay still in his hand.

Unable to do more at the moment, Galadhmir located Baranor’s fallen standard nearby and staked it in the ground beside his body as an indication for those others who would be looking for him.  He would be much mourned, but a thousand other griefs weighed upon Galadhmir’s heart.

He continued his morbid search with a greater sense of urgency.  Of the third of their army that had remained in reserve, many were combing the ruin with him, the others presumably managing the wounded as best they could.

There.  Something else distinctive caught his eye.  Dropping to his knees, Galadhmir felt the breath go out of him as he gently brushed aside the begrimed silver hair and revealed the lifeless face of his son.

He had known this would happen, but that made it no easier to bear.  He felt his heart breaking as never before as he gathered what remained of Celebrin up from the mud.  Suddenly all his strength was sapped, leaving him exhausted and sick, overwhelmed in the flood of his own grief.

It was a mere moment and yet an eternity before he felt a hand on his shoulder.  Linhir said nothing for a time, sharing in some measure his crushing sense of loss.  In many ways, Celebrin had belonged to all of them.

“I am truly sorry,” Linhir said at last, a tremor in his voice.

Galadhmir nodded, unable to reconcile his own raging emotions.  “I know very well that there was nothing I could have done,” he said, feeling his own bitter tears mingling with the rain on his face.  “Why, then, do I feel at fault?”

Linhir could give him no answer, could only kneel beside him and offer what poor solace misery could find in company.

A Guardsman approached them there, yet hesitated at a respectful distance.  “Lord Linhir,” he called.  The weary voice was that of Dorthaer.  Even he seemed overwhelmed by their disaster.  Bidden to report, he stood before Linhir and lay something in his hand.

It was Oropher’s mithril ring.

Linhir closed it in his fist, saying nothing.  That blow, too, had not come unexpectedly.  Each of them had come to love Oropher as a father, and they would mourn him as such.  He had been so vibrantly alive that morning.

“What of the others?” Linhir brought himself to ask.

“The Lords Luinlas and Anárion have been recovered alive,” Dorthaer told him.  “I regret the prince remains unaccounted for.”

Galadhmir moaned, still clutching the body of his son.  How much more could he endure?

“Thank you, Dorthaer,” Linhir dismissed him.  “Resume your search.”  He stood in silent thought for a long moment after the bloodied silvan commander left them.  Then he turned to share a pained look.  “I go to join him,” he said.

“Wait,” Galadhmir asked, finding somewhere in him the strength to tear himself away and leave Celebrin to the care of others.  His son was beyond all pain now.  “I shall go with you.”

The task before them was morbid and daunting, but they could not leave Thranduil undiscovered, be he alive or dead.

“He would have come from that rise.” Linhir observed, singling out the most likely portion of the battle plain.  They waded through mud and blood up to their ankles, working their way back along the corpse-strewn path of that ill-fated charge.  Some faces would never be recognized, completely crushed by trolls’ maces.  Many of the dead no longer had heads at all, stolen for grisly trophies.  All around them were Elves and Orcs tangled in the hideous embrace of death, but nowhere could they find any indication of their royal brother.

At last Linhir stooped down to drag up a barely recognizable shred of a royal Elvish standard.  They both looked about them anxiously, but it was Galadhmir who finally saw the bedraggled wolf clawing and whining plaintively at a black heap of Orcs.  They came to his aid at once, recognizing a filthy streak of golden hair among the maimed dead.

Beneath three fallen Orcs and one smothering black standard they found him. 

Galadhmir felt sick all over again.  Thranduil’s body was bent backward at an almost unnatural angle, stained black with Orcs’ blood and red with his own, motionless and deathly pale.  There was a gaping wound in his side, and at least five broken arrows.

Already several others had begun to congregate around them.  “Belain above,” a soldier gasped.  “Is he dead?”

Galadhmir was at his side.  Unbelievably, a pallid flutter of life remained in that tortured body, enough to bring tears of both relief and worry again to his eyes.  “He is alive,” he sighed, “but fading.  He cannot die now.  I will not let him!”

“Is his back broken?”

“Perhaps.  Handle him carefully.”

Linhir was standing over them, his arms crossed, pensively fingering the ring in his hand.  “Bear our lord the king back to the camp at once,” he said, pronouncing the words deliberately as though he were unused to them.

Indeed, the reality of it struck them unexpectedly.  Oropher was lost.  Thranduil, if he survived, would now be required to assume the throne of Eryn Galen.

ERNIL

Chapter 24 ~ Dust to Dust IV

Thranduil woke slowly, and at first was aware of nothing but pain.  It was so intense he could not even begin to isolate particular wounds.  For all he knew, he could have been missing every limb on his body.  His only certainty was that he was not dead after all, yet he almost wished he was.  Then he heard and began to recognize low voices over him as the dim and dismal world swam in his weakened vision.  He closed his eyes again, preferring to see nothing.

He was vaguely aware that they were cutting away his armor and tunic.  Now he could not help but notice several places where the pain was worse, notably in his left shoulder and chest, over several ribs, and raging through his lower back.  He endured it all in silence, still too weak to bring himself to scream.  They probably did not even realize he had come around.

“Removing the arrows will renew his bleeding.  I shall need all your hands to compress it.  He has none to spare.”

“What of his back?”

“I do not believe it is truly broken, though I dislike to leave him lying on it.  But if we cannot manage what he has lodged in the front of him, that will be the least of his worries.  The wrap should hold it well enough for the moment.”

“Elbereth, he looks terrible.”

“He cannot help that, and I do not blame him.”

“This mud gets everywhere.”

“Clean it as best you can.  Gwaelas, press this over the chest wound, and be thankful we have no barb to address there.  Galadh, be ready to hold him here.”

A horrendous pain shot through his side.  Thranduil cried out and convulsed in spite of himself, his entire body exploding into new agonies.

“Thranduil!” Noruvion gasped, quickly moving to hold him down, his hands warm and sticky with what Thranduil presumed to be his own blood.  “For your own sake, be still!”  His face was lined with a friend’s grave concern, yet he spoke with a healer’s voice.  “Be still, or it will be your death.  You may scream if you wish, but be still.  Linhir, take his shoulders.”

Thranduil braced himself as well as he might as the torment began again.  It was almost more than he could do to simply breathe as three arrows were pulled, twisted, and ripped out of him.  The two in his leg had to be pushed through, yet the one in his side was apparently shallow enough to risk pulling back.

“Galadh, staunch the bleeding, but be mindful.  The rib is broken.”

It felt broken!

Noruvion straightaway went to work on the second arrow in his chest.  That one must have struck a nerve, for the wound flared excruciatingly at the first touch.  Thranduil gasped, trembling violently as a white haze clouded his vision.  “Is it broken, too?”

“It glanced off your rib and broke it, yes,” Noruvion explained, his voice terse with an impatience that reflected his worry, “and you are fortunate that it did or it would have shredded something more important.  Be still.”

He pulled on it again, and Thranduil felt the claw of the barb hung fast upon the bone.  “Stop! Stop!” he roared, and tried to heave himself upright.  Linhir forced him back down and pain shot through his back.

Quickly realigning the barb, Noruvion worked it free at last with as little new damage as possible and stood back for a moment as Gwaelas applied the necessary pressure to the wound.  After that Thranduil felt he had strength left for nothing, drawing sharp and shuddering breaths that were the nearest thing to sobs he would allow himself.

“As I expected,” Noruvion observed.  “The shock is taking him.  Never mind the rib, Gwaelas, only stop that bleeding!  This is when we may well lose him, so brace yourselves.  Linhir, stay with him.”

Galadhmir watched with untold sufferings of his own as Thranduil’s eyes once again lost their brilliance and faded to sightlessness.  The table glistened red despite their best efforts to curb his bleeding, and ugly purple bruises surrounded each of the entry wounds.  He felt powerless, yet he was determined that Thranduil should not die.  He could not bear it.  He thought not only of himself but of his sister.  How was he to face Lindóriel if they returned without their father, without his son, and without her betrothed?  Without Thranduil their house would be irreparably crippled.  If he could not take up Oropher’s fallen crown, none of them could.

Noruvion was grimly examining the four extracted barbs, still red with gore.  “Tainted,” he pronounced.  “These two.”

“What of that one?” Galadhmir asked, indicating the black shaft still firmly embedded in Thranduil’s shoulder.

The physician sighed.  “I do not know how much more he can endure tonight, yet it only does him more harm the longer it remains.  Perhaps it is too late.  Look, he is dying already.”

“He is not dying!” Galadhmir snarled, but without a single proof of that assertion.  “Never tell me so again!”

“I will tell you the truth!” Noruvion spat back, his dark eyes aflame with despair.  “Do not think I would not give my own life in this moment to save his, but I cannot, and death will have its way despite you!”

“Stop it!” Linhir snapped.  “Do not make me ashamed of you both.  If Thranduil is to die, Belain forbid, let us be certain that none of us is to blame.”

Noruvion sighed curtly.  “Very well,” he said, taking up his knife again.  “The arrow must come out.  I left it for the last because it will be the most difficult.  At least he is lost to us for the moment.  Linhir, hold him firmly anyway.  He must not tear himself if he wishes to retain the use of his arm.”

Noruvion attacked the offending shaft with intense precision, but it was deeply embedded.  Pulling it back the way it had entered carried many of its own risks, but they were all agreed that to break the bones of Thranduil’s shoulder to allow the shaft passage was unnecessarily brutal and would probably be enough to kill him in his present state.  So, they were obliged to widen the entry wound and pry it open deeply.  He began to bleed again, which he could ill afford.  He was already so pale as to be colorless, and though his insensibility was a blessing, it was so complete that it gave them all cause for anxiety.

After a long and careful struggle, the barb at last came free with a wet sucking sound, and Linhir immediately covered the wound.  Noruvion cleaned each one again and quickly stitched them closed, swathing them in bandages.

“There is little more I can do for him,” he said when he had finished.  “Take him and lay him down, but under no circumstances is he to be moved again.  It would be best if one of you would remain with him,” he added.  “I will be amazed if he lasts the night.”

Galadhmir stayed with him, attended by Gwaelas.  He sat beside Thranduil’s cot in somber vigil until the gray dawn of the next morning.  He held his hand all the while to be certain life remained in it, and to make Thranduil aware in some unconscious way of his continued presence during the darkest hours.  He spoke to him softly, saying things he did not expect him to hear, but that helped to lighten the pall of loneliness that seemed to hang over them.

It came as some surprise when Thranduil opened his eyes as though he had been listening all along.  He looked up at him with a calm intensity that almost recalled his former self, and when he spoke his voice seemed steady enough.

“My father is dead.”

It was more a statement than a question.  Galadhmir would have preferred not to tell him until he had recovered himself, yet he knew Thranduil wanted nothing but the truth. 

“Yes,” he brought himself to admit, the thought tearing again at his heart as well.  “Yes, he is.”

Linhir had given Oropher’s ring into his keeping, knowing Thranduil would ask for it.  He produced it now, and after a moment Thranduil languidly extended his hand to allow him to replace his with that of the king.

Even that effort seemed to exhaust him.  Galadhmir took hold of him again as he faded.  “Stay with me,” he pleaded, unable to do more.

The noise of a horse outside the pavilion drew his attention, and soon he heard someone speaking to the guard.  After a moment the red-collared Guardsman slipped inside and touched him on the shoulder.

“My lord,” he said softly, “a messenger from Gil-galad.”

“No,” Galadhmir shook his head firmly.  Thranduil had hardly escaped the shadow of death yet.  “Not now.  Send him to Linhir.”

“Wait,” Thranduil insisted, mustering what little voice he could.  “I will see him.”

Galadhmir was inclined to object, for it was certainly against his better judgment, but he merely nodded to the guard, who left them to return to his post.

To Galadhmir’s mild surprise, it was Elrond Halfelven himself who appeared in the doorway, but Thranduil seemed to have expected him.  Whatever formal address had formed itself on Elrond’s tongue, it was quickly forgotten in the face of the severity of the woodland king’s condition, brutally undisguised as it was.  Thranduil’s face was so white it was almost gray, his eyes sharp but haunted by pain.

“Yes, Elrond,” he said at last, “you need not stare.  Why have you come?”

Elrond returned to himself, remembering his errand.  “My lord the king has instructed me to inform you that in consideration of the losses sustained by Eryn Galen in this assault, your command will be removed from the front and committed to the rearguard.”  He paused for a moment, perhaps finding that too terse a message.  “He also sends me to convey his profound condolences to you, and that he owns Oropher’s pledge to him honorably fulfilled.”

Thranduil merely stared at him with an unpleasant look.  “He despises us, does he not?” he asked bluntly.

“No,” Elrond denied it at once.  “The king does not.”

The obvious and perhaps unintended implication was that there were many others who did.  Thranduil looked away to the canvas wall, his strength ebbing again.

“Thranduil, I . . .”

“Leave me,” he commanded, his voice breaking with weakness and pain.  “Leave me to die in peace.”

Galadhmir looked back to Elrond with a silent plea of his own.  “Go,” he advised him.  “Make your report to Linhir and Luinlas.  They are better able to address it.”

Thranduil did not watch as Elrond left.  Indeed, he was hardly conscious of it.  He felt too crushed to take any notice.  He was drifting in a grim world of his own, tired of the pain, tired of the agony that would not allow him a moment’s rest, tired of the disgrace and the tragedy and the ruin of life.

“You are not dying,” Galadhmir insisted vehemently, clutching his hand when they were alone.  “What of Lindóriel?  I will not be the one to face her and say that you spent your life needlessly!”

He heard Galadhmir’s voice, but words came less and less clearly to him.  Oblivion beckoned, dark and painless, calling him away from the filth and unbearable suffering that gripped him now.   Slowly he consented to abandon the tormented prison of his body.

He was slipping . . . the pain was dulled . . . the world blackening around him in the sudden heavy quiet of death.  Nothing mattered anymore.

The soft darkness was violently shattered by a desperate flare of life, the pain overwhelming him again with new and awful clarity, choking off his breath in his throat.  Galadhmir still had his hand, draining his own life’s force to anchor Thranduil’s wavering spirit in his body where it belonged.

“Do not leave me here to mourn all three of you,” he pleaded tearfully.

ERNIL

Chapter 25 ~ Dust to Dust V

Lord Luinlas was given effective command of the stricken army while King Thranduil remained incapacitated.  Their losses were more than sobering.  The King’s Guard was shattered; only a handful of their number remained.  The others could boast little more than a third of their original strength.  Their removal to the rear was humiliating, yet there was little else they would be good for at present, and the population of Eryn Galen could not safely endure any further losses.

When at last he had abandoned his brief dalliance with death, Thranduil was back on his feet as soon as possible, long before his time.  He was still lethargic and weary of life, a quiet shadow of himself, but painfully aware that he would now be expected to wear a brave face for the benefit of the entire army.  He endeavored to walk without a limp, but was not entirely successful.

That first day he left his bed—to Noruvion’s consternation—a summons arrived at their position for the king or his representative to appear before Gil-galad to receive their new assignment.  It was clearly expected that he would send a representative, yet Thranduil was stubbornly determined to go himself.  Galadhmir and two attendants would accompany him.

It was impossible for him to mount or ride a horse, and he refused to be carried.  It was not an unbearable distance to walk between camps, yet it was slow going, and Thranduil felt his limp worsen along the way.

Gil-galad was surprised to see him.  “Thranduil!” he said, jumping up as the guard admitted him and Galadhmir to the king’s pavilion.  “I hardly expected you, my lord.  Come in, come in!  I must say that you have been a serious concern to me since I received Elrond’s report.  He was convinced that we should soon lose you as well, yet I see you are recovering.”

“As well as can be expected, my lord,” Thranduil said.  Throbbing waves of discomfort continued to afflict him, aggravated by the walk.  He also felt rather faint.  Perhaps he had not yet entirely recovered from the blood loss.

“Now that Mordor itself has been breached,” Gil-galad was explaining to him, moving a finger over a hastily sketched map, “I have elected to move your command from the outlying border and station it at Morannon, both to manage the gate and to act as a reserve rearguard.  Those divisions which have endured a more recent bloodletting will take your current position.”  He looked up and frowned, the light flashing off the jeweled stays in his hair.  “You are going terribly pale.  Are you all right?”

“It is nothing,” Thranduil lied, trying to shake off the unfortunate mention of bloodletting.  The ordeal was so recent that the very thought still nauseated him.  “Go on.”

Gil-galad continued to explain the strategic value of their position and their attendant duties, almost as if to assure him they were not being summarily discarded.  He could very well have delivered a biting lecture on the importance of military cohesion and the value of following orders, but he did not.  That was fortunate, for Thranduil did not know that he could have borne it.  He could scarcely bear to stand there any longer with his back aching the way it was.  The open wound had largely healed, but something had not yet been set right.

“From here your sentries will protect the backbone of our supply line . . .”

Ai, Belain . . . 

A strange twisting pain shot through his spine.  His stomach turned, his vision blurred, and he would have fallen had Galadhmir not caught hold of him.  The force of that was enough to jar him back to full consciousness, but everything still hurt.

“Thranduil, you are unwell,” Gil-galad insisted, laying a steadying hand on his shoulder.  “Please stay here and allow my people to attend you.”

Gradually, Thranduil was able to stand again on his own.  Gil-galad was looking at him as a friend now rather than as the High King.  “No, my lord,” he declined at last.  “I shall stay with my own.”

“Noble of you,” Gil-galad said, a grim approval behind his eyes, “and so like your father.  I expect I may trust your people to look after you.”

“Always, my lord,” Galadhmir assured him.

Gil-galad dismissed them with a weary smile and a final caution.  “We have lost too many valuable lords already, Thranduil,” he said.  “Do not spend yourself cheaply.”

On their return to their own camp, Galadhmir demanded an explanation for his fainting spell.  Thranduil put him off as best he could, his mind elsewhere.  So like your father, Gil-galad had said.  He did not feel like his father.  He felt hopelessly inadequate in his new role, exposed and abandoned.  He could barely walk, and they expected him to shoulder his father’s obligations. 

They were passing through a cheerless field hospital, the wounded and dying strewn all about them.  Thranduil glanced aside at Galadhmir, wondering at his quiet resilience.  He had said nothing of the death of his son save once, and Thranduil knew it must have devastated him.  Sauron would have a great deal to answer for by the time the war was over.

Glancing aside then, he felt a sudden constriction in his chest that had nothing to do with his wounds.  He stopped at once and limped aside into the mass of the wounded, falling painfully to his knees beside a familiar figure that in any other circumstance he would have been very glad to see.  Now it brought only more heartbreak.

Serataron was on the point of succumbing to his wounds, too far gone to speak.  Yet as Thranduil hovered over him and took his hand, he saw that he recognized him.  It seemed almost another lifetime when they had known one another so well, an age ago on the shores of Lindon before either of them had heard of Greenwood or Mordor.  It all ended here, slain in the dust.

Thranduil remained with him as he died, closed his sightless eyes, strained to the point of despair as the last father he had known was cruelly reft from him.  He lingered a moment longer, hardly aware of the great tears rolling down his face.

At last he stood, but it was the last thing he knew.  The whole world turned white before it was swallowed again into blackness.

ERNIL

Chapter 26 ~ Dust to Dust VI

When he finally woke, they were evidently already in their new position.  Gwaelas was there beside his cot, relieved to see him conscious again.  Night was falling on yet another costly day on the plains of the Black Land.

Lying in the dark, Thranduil’s tortured mind wandered in and out of waking dream.  He remembered his father as he had last seen him, presiding in council before the assault.  He had been so assured, so competent, with as firm a grip on life as any of them.  That he could possibly be lost to him now seemed incredible.  He could not completely fathom it, no matter how much he tormented himself with the reality.  He had not even seen him buried, and when he had asked for details Dorthaer had been sparing with them.  He had said only that they had found him beneath the body of his standard bearer, and that it was a sight best forgotten. 

King Thranduil.  What a strange and hollow sound it had, as though he were a boy playing at his father’s work.  He did not feel like a king.  He felt like a failure.

The others had lost their natural fathers long ago, but he had never known that desolation.  They all expected him to wear Oropher’s crown as his own.  They all said he was like him, but Thranduil could never be Oropher.

He closed his eyes and could not help but remember his father’s words on Balar where it had all begun.  They will hear our names again before the end.

Was this finally the end?

He suddenly felt stifled there inside the tent, desperate for the open air.  He knew that what he would find outside would not satisfy him, yet he pushed himself up anyway.  He moved slowly, enduring the awful protest of his wounds.  Somehow he managed to haul himself upright under his own power, meager though that was.

He limped outside, wandering almost aimlessly toward the edge of their camp.  He had to reassure a few guards, but they let him go once they were convinced that he was still in full command of his faculties.  Apparently, he had been rather delirious before, and they were taking no chances now.

As he looked once more over the interior of Mordor, he was suddenly unsure whether he had gone of his own will or had been summoned before the Enemy even as he had been summoned before Gil-galad.  The plain was strangely quiet, the endless ranks of Orcs regrouping and rearming within the distant fortifications.

You are summoned by Lord Annatar.

The memory returned to him in a startling flash, Celebrían leading him in from the gardens of Ost-in-Edhil in the days before its destruction.  A dry and stale wind as from a tomb blew now over the abandoned fields of ash and death.  Thranduil could feel the Dark Lord regarding him now from his mighty black tower.  It was the same cold shiver he had suffered in Eregion so long ago.  Yes, the Dark Lord remembered him, and now he laughed.

Your people excel not in saving lives, but in lamenting them. . . . When you fall, I shall know it.

It was not an audible laughter, but a grim and heartless derision Thranduil could feel piercing him to the core.  Sauron was presumably well pleased with the bitter ruin of the house of Oropher, broken against his gates like waves upon the rocks.

It angered Thranduil, bitterly, so that he trembled more in impotent fury than in pain.  It was a mockery he was powerless to protest, but he at least had not yet succumbed to the ignominious fate Morgoth’s lieutenant had intended to mete out to him.  The might of Eryn Galen had been scattered like chaff in one burning sulfurous breath of the Black Land, just as Annatar had threatened it would be.  But he remained, even if only to face their shame.

He started at the soft touch of a hand on his shoulder which was immediately made firm.

“Thranduil,” Galadhmir frowned, “what are you doing?  Are you trying to cripple yourself?  Back to bed with you.”

~: Continued in Book III :~