“Lost?  What do you mean – lost?”  Strider leaned forward in his saddle and squinted into the murky shadows of the forest ahead.

          Legolas cast an irritated glance over his shoulder at the ranger.  The young man’s incredulous expression was not lost on the Elf and he turned back to the tangle of woods confronting them without speaking.

          “Legolas, this is Mirkwood.  How can you be lost?”

          With an exasperated sigh the slender Elf prince dismounted from his horse and knelt down upon the mossy earth.  Slowly he ran his fingers over the ground, searching the dirt and dried grass for signs of the well-trodden roadway.  Where a highly traveled road should have been, only scant evidence of a trail could be distinguished amid the leaves and soil beneath his fingers.   The anger he felt at himself for somehow missing the trail and leading them astray was now turning to confusion and bewilderment.  He finally arose and pointed toward the woods in front of them.

          “I have traveled this way for millennia,” Legolas replied.  “The gates of my home should be visible through those trees ahead, flanked by those white oaks.”  He turned back to Strider with an annoyed frown.  “Do you see any gates?”

          Strider peered into the gloom ahead and shook his head.  “No.”

          Sensing his friend’s distress, he continued.  “I’ve ridden this path more times than I can count, many alongside you.”  He gazed back the way they had come, only minutes before.  “And, up until you said we were lost, I thought we were approaching our destination.”

          He dismounted as well and pulled the reins over his horse’s head.  Suddenly an eerie chill crept over his spine and he found himself staring over his shoulder into the dark bushes and trees, fearful of a threat as yet unseen.  He glanced uneasily at Legolas and noted that the Elf was also scanning the trees as if sensing something menacing in the forest, watching them, yet hidden.

          “What is it?” he asked the Elf.

          “Uncertain,” came Legolas’ cryptic reply.

          Strider frowned.  “Care to elaborate?”

          Legolas turned back to face the ranger.  “There is something out there watching us, but I do not know what it might be.”

          Although Strider was an accomplished tracker and quite at ease in the wild, he knew his familiarity with Mirkwood was limited.  This was, after all, Legolas’ home.  The Elf knew this forest with an intimate knowledge that Strider could never hope to attain.  The fact that Legolas admitted to being lost was disconcerting to say the least.  And now, some being lurking in the shadows that the Elf could not identify.

          “Suggestions?” he asked his friend.

          Legolas had just completed another circuitous inspection of the area.  It had proven no more helpful than the first.  He turned steely blue eyes toward his companion, his jaw set and his lips a thin, determined line.  “We should go back,” he replied.  “The only logical explanation is that I made a wrong turn somewhere along the way.”  He shook his golden head in bafflement.  “But I do not see how.”

          “Nor I,” Strider agreed.  He looked back behind them at the heavy woods to their rear and his frown deepened.   The daylight was quickly fading and afternoon was turning to dusk.  The deep shadows and dark curtain of leaves and boughs appeared to be closing in around them and the huge, ancient and gnarled trees seemed to lean in toward them.

          “Legolas,” Strider’s voice held a hard, brittle edge.  “Nothing about this place seems familiar to me now.”  He threw the reins back over his horse’s head and quickly vaulted into the saddle.  Unexpected and overpowering, an intense feeling of sheer panic swept over him, controlling his limbs and forcing the young man to mindless terror and an all consuming urge to flee.  “We must get out of here!  Now!”

            The panicked tone of the ranger’s voice spurred the Elf to movement as well, and he, too, remounted his Elven steed.   It took him only a moment to swing up onto Astalder’s back, but when he glanced up, Strider had already disappeared into the surrounding trees, presumably headed back the way they had come.

          Legolas dashed forward, urging his mount to hasten its speed in order to catch up his friend, but after he had traveled some distance at a reckless pace through the ever darkening woods, he pulled up on the reins, halting his wild-eyed horse.  He searched the woods about him, turning left and right, trying to penetrate the murky twilight as his own fear grew stronger.  Strider was not galloping through the trees ahead of him.  In fact, he did not appear to be anywhere in sight.  Just as the gates of Lasgalen had seemed to vanish into the trees, so too, it appeared, had Strider.