I borrow characters and settings from Tolkien, but they are his, not mine. I gain only the enriched imaginative life that I assume he intended me to gain.

Many thanks to Nilmandra for beta reading this chapter.

AN:  At the end of the chapter, I’ve appended a list of OCs who appear in this story.  No new ones in this chapter!

*******

4.  Intruders

Legolas moved silently through the trees, leaping easily from limb to limb.  Although he could hear neither one of them, he knew without looking back that Beliond was right behind him and Amdir was working his way through the branches on the other side of the Elf Path.  They had been sliding through the treetops for almost a mile now, having left their horses concealed in the greenery to the side of the path once they neared the area where the Western Border Patrol had told them the intruders would be.

The faint sound of tramping feet came from ahead, and he halted high in a beech tree.  A second later, Beliond came to rest beside him, bow in hand.  Legolas looked for Amdir, and for a moment, saw nothing, but then he caught a glimpse of movement in an oak.  Legolas took his own bow from his shoulder, and then, for a few moments, the three of them waited in silence.

The noise of heavy feet grew louder, and then, from around a small bend in the path, the intruders began to straggle into view. Legolas watched them come, counting as he did so.  The Border Patrol was right, he concluded at last: thirteen adult Dwarves and a child.  One of the adults appeared to be injured, for four of the others carried him in a makeshift litter they had formed from a cloak.  He must have been heavy, for the four who gripped the cloak’s corners seemed to be straining at the load.

Legolas eyed the child a little doubtfully. He had seen a Dwarf child before, and this one looked quite different, but perhaps these Dwarves were of a different race than the ones he had seen previously.  The child walked at the side of a Dwarf in a purple hood who, beard notwithstanding, was probably his mother.  There was another Dwarf in a purple hood too, who Legolas speculated was the child’s father.

He studied them.  They did not have the look of a war party.  The leader of the group carried what looked to be a very fine sword, but the others had only knives rather than the great Dwarven battle axes. And of course, they had the child with them.  All of these signs indicated that the Dwarves were simply passing through the forest on their way to the Iron Hills far to the east.  At one time, such parties had been more frequent, although they had never been common, but then Smaug had destroyed the Dwarven colony at Erebor, and they had become far rarer yet.

He raised an eyebrow at Beliond, who shrugged and shouldered his bow.  He apparently agreed with Legolas that the Dwarves were not dangerous, at least at the moment. Legolas decided he had seen enough.  He put his hand to his mouth and trilled a bird call that would tell Amdir to retreat, and then gestured to Beliond that they too should begin moving back toward their horses.

When they reached their meeting place, Legolas climbed down to land on the path with Beliond right behind him. Amdir arrived a few seconds later.  “What are we going to do?” Amdir asked, his brows drawn into a frown.

“That will be up to Todith, of course,” said Legolas, “but my guess is we will do nothing.”  He gave a soft cluck of his tongue to bring his horse out of the trees with the other two mounts following close behind.

Amdir’s mouth fell open.  “We must do something!” he cried.  “These Dwarves are in our woods!”

Legolas shot him a warning look.  “As long as they stay on the path and keep moving, we have no reason to interfere with them.”

Amdir looked as if he wanted to protest but then thought better of it.  He pressed his lips together and swung up onto his horse’s back.  Legolas grimaced.  Sometimes he thought that Amdir was more trouble than he was worth as a warrior.  He knew that Todith had lost patience with Amdir on more than one occasion, but Legolas still held out hope that Amdir could learn some common sense, even if wisdom was beyond him.

He turned his horse’s head toward home, and the other two followed.  When they reached the warrior fields, he sent a still sulking Amdir off to care for Legolas’s horse as well as his own and went to report to Todith.

***

“We request an audience with the king,” Todith told the attendant who stood just outside the door to the Great Hall, where the king was still hearing petitions.  The attendant nodded and went inside to consult with one of the king’s advisers.

“Are you sure you need me, Captain?” Legolas asked with a suppressed smile.  “I would not want to interfere in matters of your command.”  He knew perfectly well that Todith had brought him along as much to deal with Thranduil as to be able to give a first-hand account of what he had seen.

Todith looked at him a little sourly.  “I think this will be valuable experience for you, Legolas.  Ithilden may some day decide that you are ready to be a captain yourself, and you will have to be able to explain your actions to the king.”

Legolas grinned openly.  “I believe I already have as much experience in explaining my actions to the king as anyone might wish for.”

Todith could not help laughing. “I expect you do,” he agreed. He paused.  “Have you heard from Ithilden?” he asked hopefully.  “Do you know if he will be home soon?”

“We have heard nothing,” Legolas answered, smiling sympathetically when his captain’s face fell.  Difficult as it was to believe, Legolas thought that Todith might actually be more eager for his brother’s return than Alfirin was.  She had begun to despair that Ithilden would be back in time for Tonduil’s wedding and was clearly not happy about it.

The attendant returned. “Follow me,” he told them and led them into the Great Hall.  “Lord Legolas and Todith are here to see you, my lord,” he announced and then bowed his way out the door.  Legolas could not help noticing with some embarrassment that, here in his father’s Hall, his name had preceded that of his captain.

The two of them advanced halfway toward where Thranduil sat in his carved oak chair and then they each dropped to one knee.  The king waved them forward, and they rose and approached him.  “You wished to speak with me?” he asked Todith.  Thranduil obviously remained aware of his son’s place in the military scheme of things, even if his attendant had not.

“I need to tell you what the Western Border Patrol saw a few days ago and one of my patrols confirmed today,” Todith said and launched into a description of the Dwarves who had been seen following the Elf path.  As he spoke, Thranduil’s face darkened into a frown.  “Legolas led the patrol that observed them today,” Todith finished.  “If you have questions, he will be able to answer them.”

Thranduil’s eyes shifted to Legolas, who felt himself straightening even further from his normally erect posture.  There was no trace of the father in the keen, intent face now looking at him.  Rather he found himself pinned in place by the gaze of his king.  “Do they appear at all threatening?” Thranduil asked crisply.

“No, my lord,” Legolas answered.  “Only the leader carries a weapon, and a child travels with them.”

Thranduil looked at him thoughtfully for a moment and then nodded. Legolas relaxed and felt pleased with himself.  His father had decided to accept the judgment of the Dwarves that he and Todith had voiced.  Thranduil turned back to Todith. “What do you propose to do?”

“I will have the patrols that normally guard that path check on them several times a day,” answered Todith.  “But unless they leave the path or appear dangerous in some way, I do not think we need to do anything further.”

“Very well,” Thranduil agreed. “Keep me informed.  You may go.”

Legolas bowed and followed Todith out of the Hall. The captain turned to him.  “See to it that the patrols know enough to check on the Dwarves without being seen.”

“Yes, Captain,” Legolas responded, already thinking about balancing vigilant searches for spiders against the need to keep an eye on the Dwarves.

***

With an arrow nocked in his bow, Eilian slipped silently along between the dark fir trees that crowded in on one another. He seldom scouted from the ground like this, but moving through the trees here was difficult, despite how close together they were, because many of the trees’ branches were rotten and likely to give way without warning.  The trees near him now called to him with faint voices full of anguish and longing.  I hear you, he assured them, silently, and perhaps this time I can even do something to help you.

He drew a deep breath, trying to loosen his diaphragm.  The thickness of the trees made the forest here dark and somehow heavy, even now, in the late afternoon.  He found that the place weighed on his spirit.  He was not surprised. He had been here before on a scouting trip.  His companion on that trip had not returned, and Eilian had suffered months of despair afterwards, brought on both by the sight of the forest in such a plight and by the shadowy atmosphere that had somehow crept into his very fëa.

They had been lucky so far.  They had been traveling for a week down the east bank of the Anduin, moving under cover of the short summer darkness and seeking what shelter they could find during the day.  To Eilian’s dismay, they had seen four separate large bands of Orcs moving west toward the Misty Mountains, but Eilian and his scouts had always spotted them in plenty of time to warn the group to conceal themselves. Eilian was not sure they would have eluded the enemy so easily except for the fact that the Orcs had been intent on their own business and none of them had stopped to scout or hunt at all. Eilian thought that Elrond in particular had been alarmed by the sight of so many Orcs moving west, and indeed, letting the creatures pass unmolested had gone against Eilian’s grain too. He could not help but feel that the Orcs he let go now would come back to swing a sword at him later.

Eilian’s eye was briefly caught by Maltanaur moving along off to his right, scanning the trees for danger, but also keeping one eye on Eilian, who was his primary responsibility.  Eilian might be trying to find a safe place for the White Council to spend the approaching night, but Maltanaur was trying to make sure that Eilian got back from this mission with his skin intact.  And to Eilian’s left, Glorfindel’s blond hair glimmered through the dusky light, reminding Eilian suddenly of Legolas. It was too bad Legolas was not here, he thought. His younger brother would enjoy meeting Glorfindel.  And then he thought that he could conceive of few things worse than Legolas being here.

Ahead of him, the quality of the light seemed to change a little, and he moved forward to find himself standing on small ridge, with the ground dropping away sharply in front of him.  Maltanaur and Glorfindel came to stand on either side of him.  “This might do,” Glorfindel said in a low murmur.  “The ridge would guard our backs and there is enough underbrush to offer some shelter.”

Eilian nodded.  “We had better make sure that nothing else decided to sleep here first.” They separated and began slowly searching the underbrush, making sure that no Orcs had chosen to go to ground in it during the hours of what passed for daylight here.  A quarter of an hour later, they rejoined one another.

“Nothing,” Glorfindel said.  “I think we can go back and tell Curunír that we have found a safe place for the night, or at least,” he added, “a place that is as safe as anywhere could be here.”

Eilian grimaced. Curunír was in charge of this mission, and while Eilian had nothing against the wizard, he hated to trust the success of their efforts to someone he did not know.  He wished that Ithilden were in command.  For a task such as this one, he trusted no one as much as he did his older brother.

Suddenly, to his surprise, the song of the trees around him shifted slightly, and the anguish in it was overlaid with a note of warning.  Without hesitation, Eilian leapt into the nearest tree and began to climb, testing each branch as he went.  Maltanaur’s head jerked around to see what Eilian was doing and then he followed, scaling a tree that was near enough that he could reach Eilian if he had to, assuming that the interlaced branches did not give way beneath him.

Eilian hastily looked to see what Glorfindel was doing.  He was not exactly worried about Glorfindel.  He would never be so presumptuous as to think that Glorfindel needed his advice in dealing with the creatures of Shadow.   But he found that he could not predict what Glorfindel would do in the same way he could predict what his own warriors might do.  Glorfindel seemed to use a different style of scouting than the one used by the Wood-elves.  And one of the things that meant was that he did not always take to the trees when doing so seemed to Eilian to be the only logical course of action.

Now, for instance, Glorfindel had taken shelter beneath a dense grove of evergreens whose arms swept to the ground to conceal him.  Eilian bit back an impulse to try to summon him.  He could hear heavy steps approaching and could not afford to risk making a sound. Eilian had seldom encountered Orcs during the day, but the dimness of these woods was apparently sufficient that what sounded like three of them were coming his way. He turned his attention in the direction from which the footsteps approached and waited, immobile, peering through the thick branches with some difficulty to find the ground below.

Then, tantalizingly, first one Orcs, then a second, and finally a third appeared in the narrow spaces between the branches.  Eilian’s fingers twitched on his bowstring. The temptation to shoot at the creatures was almost overwhelming, but nonetheless, he held his fire.  Their goal now had to be to keep their presence here hidden, and killing these guards would not serve that end well at all.

Eilian could hear the three of them grumbling to one another.  They were speaking in Westron, which probably meant they were from different tribes and could not understand one another’s native tongues.  “I want to go too,” one of them said.  “We need vengeance for the slaying.”

“He would not like it if you left without permission,” responded another, with an emphasis on the “he” that made it all too clear whom he meant.

A sudden movement in the branches of the next tree made Eilian jump slightly and sent his heart racing, as he jerked his bow around to find himself aiming at a black squirrel racing away through the branches.  And then, unexpectedly, the branch onto which he had intuitively stepped gave way beneath his foot, letting go with a loud cracking noise and tumbling to the ground below. Eilian pulled his foot back quickly to regain his balance, but as he did so, he heard one of the Orcs give a warning cry, and he looked down to find the three of them all drawing their bows to send arrows his way.

With nimble grace, he scrambled around the branches seeking for shelter.  An arrow flew past his head, missing by no more than a foot as he dodged, and he heard the twang of Maltanaur’s bow and the thud of an arrow embedding itself in a body.  When he found a perch and whirled to draw his own bow too, he found one Orc sprawled on the ground and the other two ducking for cover. They plainly had not seen Maltanaur until his arrow came flying toward them.

The denseness of the branches made it hard to get a clear shot, and Eilian had to adjust his aim before he managed to send an arrow into the neck of a second Orc.  But the third one was lost to sight, at least so far as Eilian was concerned. He looked over at Maltanaur, who was holding his drawn bow and scanning the ground anxiously.  Eilian began cautiously working his way toward another tree, hoping that a different angle would give him a glimpse of the missing Orc.

He reached a new perch and then froze, cautiously scanning the area. Suddenly, he heard a guttural “oof,” the unmistakable sound of someone’s life’s breath being driven out of them.  Glorfindel! Eilian thought.  He looked over at Maltanaur, who looked back at him with startled eyes, and the two of them began hastily working their way to the ground again. 

They came to earth at the same second, grasped their bows, nocked arrows, and ran toward where the Orc had disappeared.  “Wait!” Maltanaur commanded, but Eilian ducked beneath the spreading evergreens without pausing.  If Glorfindel was in trouble, Eilian had no intention of leaving him on his own.  The scene in front of him brought him up short.

I should have known, he thought in some amusement, as Maltanaur raced up behind him.  Glorfindel had his foot braced on the body of the third Orc and was just pulling his sword out the creature’s back.  He looked up and smiled blandly at them.  “This spot would appear to be on the Orcs’ patrol route,” he observer. “Perhaps we should not recommend that the White Council spend the night here after all.”

Eilian grinned, his spirits lightening a little from the oppression these woods caused him.  Glorfindel was a warrior after Eilian’s own heart.  “Perhaps not,” he agreed.  He shouldered his bow and steeled himself to seize the Orc’s feet while Glorfindel grasped its hands, and the two of them began dragging the body toward the top of the rise so they could tip it over the edge.  Eilian could hear Maltanaur give a small snort as he went off to drag a second Orc’s body to the same fate.  Maltanaur would probably have something to say to Eilian later, but for now, he would hold his tongue.

Eilian helped Maltanaur with the second body, and then they stood at the top of the rise as Glorfindel brought the third one.  “How did you know they were coming?” Glorfindel asked, as he dropped the body and then shoved it with his foot to disappear into the dense trees below. “Did you hear them?”

Eilian looked at him in surprise. “The change in the trees’ song told me,” he said.  Eilian knew that he was more attuned to the song of the trees than most Elves were. In fact, that was one of the abilities that made him an exceptional scout. He had always assumed that being Thranduil’s son made him unusually sensitive to the forest. But surely Glorfindel had heard at least some of the trees’ warning.  Every Elf Eilian knew listened to them.

Glorfindel blinked, looked as if he would ask more, and then shrugged.  “I will have to listen more closely,” he said with a small grin.  He looked around.  “We must be at the perimeter that their guards patrol,” he said.  “I suggest we find a place outside that area for tonight. They will become more active as it grows darker, and we do not want to have them stumbling over us.  We can move closer again tomorrow. What would you say to that rock-filled little valley we found earlier as a place for the night?” 

Eilian considered and then nodded judiciously, and they turned to start back the way they had come.  He touched a tree trunk sympathetically as he passed and glanced over in time to see Glorfindel looking bemused.

They were approaching the area in which they thought the rest of their party might be when Galelas and Tynd materialized from the woods around them, faces tense and bows in hand. They were scouting the way ahead of the rest of the group.  “Ithilden is just behind us,” Tynd told them. “He has been looking for you.”

Eilian shrugged. “We were delayed,” he grinned, and both of his warriors raised their eyebrows. They knew perfectly well what kind of “delay” Eilian was likely to encounter.

“Unavoidably delayed,” Glorfindel agreed with a matching grin, and Eilian shot an amused glance his way.  He could hear Maltanaur grumbling slightly behind him without being able to make out what he was saying.  The three of them slid past the two scouts and within a moment or two, they met Ithilden and then the rest of the party strung out behind him and moving as silently as possible among the thick, dark trees. They had left their horses in the grasslands in order to make their passage less visible. Eilian glanced back at them now.  They looked tense, which was natural given where they were and what they were about to do, but they also looked determined.

“Did you find a place for the night?” Ithilden asked, and Eilian nodded.  Glorfindel described the small valley to him, and Ithilden seemed to approve.  “Did you run into any trouble?” he asked.

Glorfindel and Eilian looked at one another. “Three Orc guards on patrol,” Eilian said, “but we took care of them.”  Ithilden made a wry face and nodded again, and Eilian was absurdly flattered by the fact that he asked for no details but rather accepted Eilian’s claim.

Glorfindel clapped Eilian on the shoulder and then went off to speak to Elrond.  He said something that sounded distinctly like “Wood-elves” and then laughed.

Curunír joined them. “Well?” he asked a trifle imperiously.  Neither Eilian nor Ithilden blinked at his manner. They had both spent too many years dealing with their father.

“We have found a place about half a mile ahead,” Eilian told him.

“Good,” said Curunír.  He looked thoughtfully toward where they could see the tower of Dol Guldur just appearing over the tops of the dark trees.  “I believe that we are almost close enough.  I think we should plan to engage Sauron during the day tomorrow, when his creatures are less able to move about.”

Eilian caught his breath. Even after a week with these people, he could scarcely believe that the White Council was about to try to cast Sauron out of Thranduil’s realm.

“Show us the way,” Ithilden bade Eilian, and the two of them began walking together, leading the group toward the site that Eilian, Glorfindel, and Maltanaur had found.

“Can you imagine how those at home will react if we succeed in this?” Eilian asked.

Ithilden gave a small smile.  “I fervently hope we do and not just for the obvious reasons. Tonduil’s wedding will be tonight.  I will need to have a very good excuse for missing it if I expect Alfirin to let me sleep in my own bed again.”

*******

OCs:

Ithilden: Legolas’s oldest brother

Alfirin: Ithilden’s wife

Sinnarn: Ithilden and Alfirin’s son. Appears in “One Year in Mirkwood,” “The Tide of Times,” “The Warrior,” and “Fire and Shadow”

Nithron: Sinnarn’s bodyguard. Appears in “Fire and Shadow”

Eilian: Legolas’s second brother

Celuwen: Eilian’s wife

Maltanaur: Eilian’s bodyguard

Gelmir: Eilian’s best friend

Beliond: Legolas’s bodyguard.  Appears in “The Tide of Times,” “The Warrior,” “Fire and Shadow,” “Sacrifice under Shadow,” “Spring Awakenings,” “Question of Duty”

Annael: Legolas’s best friend

Emmelin:  Annael’s daughter, a forester. Mentioned in “Spring Awakenings.”

Tonduil: Alfirin’s younger brother. A horse master for the troops.  Roughly the same age as Legolas. Appears in “The Novice,” “One Year in Mirkwood,” “The Tide of Times,” “Paths Taken”

Todith: A Mirkwood captain.  Appears sporadically, including in “When Shadow Touches Home” and “The Warrior”

Thrior: Thranduil’s chief adviser. Appears in “Question of Duty” and very briefly in “Spring Awakenings”

Calith: Ithilden’s chief aide. Appears by name in “The Warrior” and “Paths Taken,” and in glimpses in other fics

Tinár:  Boastful warrior.  Appears in “One Year in Mirkwood,” “The Warrior,” “Growing under Shadow,” “Spring Awakenings”

Galelas:  A warrior.  Was a novice with Legolas. Has the great misfortune to be the younger brother of Tinár.  Appears in “The Novice,” “One Year in Mirkwood,” “The Warrior,”  “Fire and Shadow.”

Tynd:  A warrior.  Was in his last year as a novice when Legolas was in his first year.  Appears in “One Year in Mirkwood,” “The Warrior,” “Growing under Shadow”

Amdir: The best friend of Ithilden’s son, Sinnarn.  Also younger brother to a dead friend of Legolas.  Appears in “In Mirkwood/Prodigal Sons,” “Question of Duty,” “Fire and Shadow”