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Paths Taken  by daw the minstrel

I borrow characters and settings from Tolkien, but they are his, not mine. I gain nothing other than the enriched imaginative life I assume he expected me to gain.

Thank you to Nilmandra for beta reading this.

~*~*~

5.  A Brother’s Help

Legolas slipped along the last stretch of the path of dreams he had been following and moved slowly into wakefulness.  He lay curled on his side, his eyes focused on the small stretch of woods that lay between the campsite and the path.  Birds twittered to one another with early dawn alertness.  He could hear Ithilden moving around quietly behind him and was careful not to move, unwilling just yet to let his brother know he was awake.

In his mind, he once again went over the events of the previous day.  And no matter how much he thought about it, he kept coming back to one thing: Ithilden had hit him, spanked him as if he were a naughty child.  Although the stinging in his bottom had faded quickly, he found the idea so humiliating that he still could not believe it.  Ithilden had scolded Legolas and taken his dagger, and then he had responded to a harmless joke by spanking him.  His indignation rose again at the thought.

How could he have looked forward to this trip so much?  He should have known that Turgon was right and Ithilden was too bossy to ever allow for a good time.  Ithilden thought he had to be in charge of everything!  Legolas had always found it comforting to have his oldest brother in command of their father’s warriors.  He firmly believed that nothing would go very wrong if Ithilden was in control.  But Ithilden was not in command over him!

He wished Eilian had been the one to take him on this trip. Eilian was fun to be with, and he liked Legolas, liked being with him even when Legolas sometimes did something Eilian had not expected.  Legolas supposed he had done things Ithilden had not expected the previous day.  Ithilden had looked far more frightened when he could not immediately find Legolas than he had looked when he found the snake.  Legolas contemplated that idea for a moment and then pushed it aside.  Ithilden should have more faith in him.  He was not a child.

The noise of several horses drew his attention.  A group of half-a-dozen Home Guard warriors approached from the path, and Ithilden walked from behind him into his field of vision.  Legolas’s interest suddenly sharpened.  There were far more warriors today than there had been yesterday, and they were early.  Ithilden was dressed only in his leggings and grey silk undertunic and his hair was not braided yet, a sign of how early it still was. The leader of the little group greeted Ithilden, who said something Legolas could not hear. They both glanced back at Legolas and then continued their conversation in lower tones.  Legolas watched as Ithilden ran his hand over his hair, looking worried even from behind.  Then the warrior saluted, and the group returned to the path.

Ithilden turned and came toward him.  He stopped inches from Legolas’s nose.  “I know you are awake,” he said.

Legolas turned his head to look up at him.  “Is something the matter?” he asked.

Ithilden sighed.  “Nothing that will bother us,” he said.  Then he crouched down next to Legolas.  “I am sorry I spanked you yesterday, Legolas.  You were being difficult, but I lost my temper, which I should not have done.”

Legolas looked at him in silence for a moment.  He was not sure he was ready to forgive Ithilden for the slap, and he had found Ithilden rather difficult too, but he had to admit that he felt a little guilty about some of his own behavior.  “I am sorry I told you to shut up,” he said finally.

“Are you ready to be careful today?” Ithilden asked. “No disappearing up a tree?  No flying leaps?”

Legolas frowned.  “I will not be careless,” he said.  He did not think he had been particularly careless on the day before either.  Did Ithilden really think that climbing a tree was careless?  If so, Legolas was careless nearly every day of his life.

Ithilden regarded him with serious grey eyes and then gave a little nod.  “Very well.  How would it be if we just ate some waybread this morning and then went scouting for deer paths?  I think we may have made too much noise yesterday to expect to see deer where we were.”  He smiled a little wryly.

Legolas sat up. “That sounds good,” he said cautiously.  He was not eager to do anything with Ithilden right now, but he did want to hunt and he certainly never wanted to go back to the place where they had quarreled the evening before.

Ithilden patted Legolas’s knee and then rose.  “We can go as soon as you are ready,” he said and walked off to pull on his tunic and boots and braid his hair.

Legolas shoved his blanket aside and began getting himself ready for the day.  He crammed the last bit of a piece of waybread in his mouth just as Ithilden returned from the stream with their refilled water skins.  He handed Legolas one of them. “There is another meadow a mile or so west of us,” he said.  “Shall we look there?”

Legolas nodded and picked up his bow.  He and his brother had had very little conversation this morning, but that was fine with him.  Ithilden led him in the direction he had indicated, and the two of them were soon sweeping silently through the woods along the meadow’s edge, with Ithilden in the lead and Legolas to his right and slightly behind.

Suddenly Legolas froze, and then, holding his breath, he inched a little to his right.  There, just as he had thought from the glimpse he had seen, he found a single, large hoof print.  Excitement flared within him.  This deer would be big, bigger than the one whose shed antler they had found yesterday. He looked up quickly, intending to tell Ithilden, but his brother had moved some distance ahead, and he did not like to speak above a whisper for fear of alarming their prey.

A pleasing thought occurred to him. He could prove to Ithilden that he was not the child his brother thought him.  He would scout this deer for just a minute or two on his own and then catch up with Ithilden and tell him about it.  There could be no harm in just following the tracks for a short distance.  After all, they had come here to scout and that was what he would be doing.  Yesterday, he had promised Ithilden that he would stay near him, and he would.  He would go no more than a short distance. He did not want to frighten Ithilden, just show him what he could do on his own.  And he would be careful.

Eyes cast downward, he concentrated on the track, trying to see where it led, and to his delight, he soon found a second print.  He moved quickly, conscious of the need for haste, studying broken tips of bushes and disturbed fallen leaves.  This was certainly a track that a deer was using regularly.  He would follow it just a bit further and then go back.

Suddenly, the hair on the back of his neck lifted, and he came to a quick halt. It took him only a second to realize what the matter was:  The trees had fallen silent, as if they were holding their breath in the presence of an enemy.  Something hissed softly overhead: “Young and tender.”

Legolas froze.  Then, with his heart pounding wildly, he looked up, and as he did so, he felt something sticky brush against his face.  He slapped at it in alarm, and then, paralyzing him again, he caught sight of a large, black shape scuttling along a branch overhead.  He saw another, and another, and still another, all of them moving toward him. Spiders! he thought incredulously, seeing yet more of the beasts in the shadows overhead.

For a second, he had to fight for breath. Then he sucked in air and suddenly heard himself shrieking: “Keep away!”  Of course, he knew about the giant spiders that fouled his father’s woods, but he had never seen them before and somehow he had not realized how repulsive the things would be. He backed away and started to turn to run, but thick, sticky strands of web now dangled behind him, and when he looked up, he could see a spider on a strand as thick as his arm, floating down toward him.

“Small,” the creature mourned.

Belatedly, he seized his bow, nocked an arrow, and shot, aiming in unconscious obedience to the endless hours of training he had received.  His arrow pierced the underbelly of the spider, and stinking black fluid spurted down onto his upturned face, making him cry out again, before the creature lost its hold and tumbled to the ground at his feet.  Behind him, he could hear clacking, as the things scurried toward him, but he was now too tangled up in the strands of web either to shoot at them or to run.  He tried to turn to look, but his attention was caught by a black form on a limb directly over him, busily spinning and dropping more webs.

“Food for the babies,” it hissed. “Juicy food.”

They mean to eat me, he thought incredulously.  He was going to die in the forest, being eaten by these creatures of Shadow.  In his panic, his vision began to blur, and the trees swam in front of him.

Suddenly an arrow sailed over his head, and behind him he heard the sound of a heavy body thudding to the ground.  The spider overhead also tumbled to the ground with an arrow through its thick carapace.  In rapid succession, more arrows whistled around him.  And then Ithilden’s strong arm was around his waist, and he was hacking with his knife at the webbing holding Legolas.  If the webbing had not been holding him erect, he would have fallen in relief into his brother’s arms.

“Run as soon as I get you loose,” Ithilden commanded, sawing frantically at a strand.

“You come too!” Legolas cried, digging his fingers into the sleeve of his brother’s tunic.

Ithilden shook his head. “There are probably more of them that I have not seen yet. I need to make sure they are all dead.”

The idea of running off by himself struck Legolas as both terrifying and shameful.  He wanted to stay by Ithilden, and he knew that was because he wanted Ithilden’s protection. But also if he wanted to be a warrior like Ithilden was, then surely he should not abandon his brother if he could help him.  He knew in his bones that Ithilden would never abandon him.

To his horror, a spider dropped to the ground behind Ithilden and scuttled toward him. “Look out!” he cried.  In a single blur of motion, Ithilden drew his sword and whirled but not quickly enough.  Before he could do anything, the spider had darted forward and bitten him on the left calf.  He grunted, as if in surprise, and then drove his sword into one glowing red eye.  He yanked his sword free and spun, scanning the trees, looking for more spiders.

“Run!” he commanded.

“No!” Legolas cried, averting his gaze with a shudder from Ithilden’s sticky sword.  Suddenly realizing that he was now free of the webs, he jumped toward his brother, instinctively seeking safety in Ithilden’s large presence.  He turned to help Ithilden search the trees.  “I do not see any more,” he said and realized that he sounded as if he might be crying.

Grabbing Legolas’s arm and hauling him with him, Ithilden ran forward into the grove of trees where the spiders had been, searching as he went.  Suddenly, he faltered and his left leg buckled under him, sending him to his knees.  Legolas grabbed Ithilden’s right arm, trying to steady him.

“No! Get up!” he wailed. His brother’s weight was dragging ever more heavily on his hands, and the idea that Ithilden was about to fall over nearly stopped his breath.  And then, to his despair, Ithilden slid from his hands to lie on one side on the ground.

“Get the antidote from my pack,” Ithilden said, his voice calm.

Yes! The antidote!  Why had Legolas not thought of that?  He opened Ithilden’s pack, which was still on his back, rummaged for a moment, and then pulled out the emergency healing kit. His hands shook slightly, and he fumbled at the tie but finally managed it.  Then for a minute, he stared at the supplies in front of him. “I do not see it!” he cried.

“Not there,” Ithilden said, his voice a little blurry.  “In packets.”

Legolas pawed frantically through the pack again. “I still do not see it!”

“Four little packets.”

Suddenly, Legolas froze, and a vision of four small paper packets swam before his eyes.  In horror, his gaze met Ithilden’s.  “I took them out,” he whispered. Ithilden frowned.  “I took them out,” Legolas choked. “I was making room for the snake, and I took out the things on top.”

“Where are they?” Ithilden asked, and although his voice was still calm, Legolas could not help thinking there was an edge of desperation in it.

“In our camp, behind a log.”  Legolas had put the things he took from Ithilden’s pack carefully out of sight and had not thought of them since.

Ithilden looked at him for a long minute, and now anguish was clear in his face, even to Legolas’s eyes. “Go get them,” Ithilden finally said.

“And leave you?” Legolas was appalled.

Ithilden nodded. “Go,” he commanded. Legolas hesitated. Was he brave enough to do this on his own?  Then he looked at Ithilden’s pale, sweat-sheened face and suddenly felt nothing but resolve.  He had to be brave enough.  Ithilden needed him.

He tried to jump to his feet, but Ithilden managed to raise a hand and grasp his wrist. “Careful,” he warned. “Stay out of trees.” Legolas glanced at the web-draped tree overhead and shuddered.  Then he snatched up his bow and took off at a run.

He ran back toward camp with terror-driven speed, ignoring the burning in his lungs and the pain that bit at his side.  In his head, he saw Ithilden lying alone and helpless.  He saw great, black shapes creeping near him, reaching out to touch him, to bite him, to kill him.  Suddenly, his foot caught on a tree root, and he sprawled full length on his belly in the dirt, knocking what little breath he had right out of him. He lay in shock for a second, drawing in great ragged gulps of air.  Then he scrambled to his feet and ran on again.  Calm down, he told himself in Thranduil’s voice.  And now he pictured his father’s calm, strong presence.  It is normal to be afraid sometimes, said Thranduil’s voice in his head. But your fear should not control you.  My fear will not control me, Legolas vowed, ignoring the fact that he had begun to cry.  Ithilden needs me.

~*~*~

Trying not to think about Legolas, Ithilden lay quietly, husbanding his strength.  Once again, he tried to count the number of spiders he had killed and compare that with the number of spiders he thought there had been.  Had he gotten them all?  And once again, he realized that he was not sure.  He had not been as careful as he usually was to assess the number of spiders in the trees because he had been so panicked at seeing Legolas caught in the web.

He could no longer move his legs or even feel them, and he knew that only the fact that he was unusually large for an Elf had kept the spider venom from rendering him unconscious.  The antidote might get him mobile again if Legolas got back with it soon, but even with it, he would not be able to move very far or very fast. What was he going to do?

If he could get back to camp, he and Legolas might be able to wait for a Home Guard patrol to come and check on them. But even as he thought that, he knew there were problems with it as a solution.  The patrol that had stopped by their campsite early that morning had been on its way to check on a report of more spiders further west, inside the Home Guard’s territory.  Judging by what he and Legolas had just found, the chances were good that the reports were correct, and everyone would be busy searching for the spiders and driving them away.  No one would come to check on him and Legolas until very late tonight and possible not even then.

For a moment, he considered waiting for the Home Guard no matter how long they took to appear. If he were not placed in the healers’ hands soon, he would be very sick for far longer than he liked to contemplate, but he probably would not die.  He could just wait the Home Guard out, and if he had not had Legolas with him, that might have been an option. But he did have Legolas.  And antidote or no antidote, he was eventually going to be unconscious, and that would mean leaving Legolas on his own, a possibility that Ithilden rejected immediately.  He had seen warriors rendered unconscious by spider venom, and to all intents and purposes, they looked dead.  Legolas would be terrified, and Ithilden had enough doubts about his little brother’s judgment already to be unwilling to imagine how Legolas would act in a state of such fear.

Of course, Legolas was already afraid.  Ithilden had heard him shriek at the spiders’ approach, had seen him trembling even after Ithilden had arrived.  And then Ithilden had had to send him off alone into who knew what danger.  If he had not been struggling for breath, he would have laughed at the irony.  He had spent what seemed like every minute of this trip so far trying to protect his little brother, trying to control his erratic behavior so that Legolas would be safe.  And in the end, he had had no control at all over what had to be done.

It seemed to Ithilden that Legolas had been gone for a long time already.  What if something had happened to him? For an awful moment, he was reminded of how he had waited at home in increasing alarm on the day his mother had failed to return from a visit to her family. He closed his eyes as if to shut the memory out.  Had he failed once again to protect someone he loved?

Suddenly, a soft rustling sounded in the leaves overhead.  His heart began to pound and his eyes flew open again, searching frantically for what he hoped he would not find.  The noise came again: clickety-click, clickety-click.  His eyes darted over the trees, and there, directly overhead were two spiders, inching their way along the branch.  Even as he watched, one of them began lowering itself toward him on a thick thread.

“Tougher,” it hissed mournfully.

He groped feverishly for a weapon.  His hand closed on the hilt of his sword, but with a rush of despair, he knew almost immediately that he was too weak to lift it.  Involuntarily, he drew his hand back, trying to raise it as if to ward off the spider, and as he did so, his hand brushed something tucked into this belt.  Legolas’s dagger!  He had kept the well-sharpened little weapon with him out of fear that Legolas would find it and squirrel it away again.  Now, with a last flare of hope, he slid it from his belt and held it ready.  With self-control born of centuries of battle, he waited until the spider was within six feet of him. Then with a flick of his wrist, he sent the dagger into its belly.  The spider hesitated and then, to his relief, dropped, landing a foot to one side of him.

A hissing noise came from overhead, and he refocused his attention on the remaining spider, which now swung to the ground and skittered toward him, pausing in apparent fear that he had another weapon, which, to his despair, he did not.  For a second, he and the spider stared at one another, and then it ran forward and bit him on the right arm.  A shock of pain ran through him, making him shudder.

Almost simultaneously, an arrow struck the creature and bounced off its hard shell.  The spider turned to see what new danger had approached, and Legolas came running out of the trees, nocking another arrow.  Ithilden wanted to tell him to stay away, to run, but he had no chance.  Legolas stopped, came to a full draw, and loosed the shaft straight into the spider’s face, knocking it back a good three feet.  The spider staggered for a second and then its legs collapsed under it.

Legolas ran to Ithilden’s side.  “I am sorry to shoot so close to you, but it was after you! Did it bite you?”  Ithilden could feel hysterical laughter bubbling up at the way Legolas was apologizing.  As a matter of simple self-preservation if nothing else, the archery master had probably drilled it into the heads of the elflings he taught that they were never to loose an arrow anywhere near another person.  Legolas could have no idea how welcome his arrow had been, despite the fact that Ithilden had not wanted him near the spider.

His vision was blurring slightly.  “Mix it,” he gasped.  Legolas apparently understood what he meant well enough because he seized his water skin and then tore open one of the paper packets.  He tried to pour the antidote into the skin, but his hands were shaking so badly that most of it went onto the ground.  He gave Ithilden an agonized glance and tore open a second packet. This time, the powder seemed to go into the water skin.

He turned to offer a drink to Ithilden.  “More,” Ithilden said.  The extra antidote would probably make him sick, but he had been bitten twice.  He could not possibly get even as far as their camp without a powerful dose of the stuff.  Legolas opened his mouth as if to protest but then obeyed and opened a third packet of antidote.  He funneled it into the water and then put the skin to Ithilden’s lips.  Ithilden drank as much of the water as he could get down, paused, and then jerked his head for Legolas to give him the rest.  When he had drained it, he collapsed.

“It did bite you!” Legolas exclaimed, seeing the wound on his arm.  He reached out to touch it, but Ithilden pulled it sharply away.

“No!  Your hand is scraped.”  All they needed was for Legolas to get some of the spider venom in the scrape on his hand.  Legolas drew his hand back and sat huddled against Ithilden’s hip, where Ithilden could feel him shaking.  He focused on Legolas’s miserable face, which was streaked with spider blood, and he could see that his little brother had been crying.  Indeed from the way he was biting his lip, he was still ready to break into sobs.

What have I been thinking? Ithilden wondered.  Of course he does not follow orders.  He is a child.  A brave child, true.  He has just proven that. But a child nonetheless.  He does not understand a great deal of what he encounters, and he does not even know he does not understand.  Ithilden raised his hand and rested it on Legolas’s knee.  “You will have to help me get back to camp,” he said.

 





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