Part Eleven

Howl Among Wolves

Haldir waited, listening to the return of one search party and the departure of the last, the familiar murmurings and rustlings as the camp bedded down,. Rolling onto his side, he slipped a hand inside his satchel and felt around until he found the little folded bit of paper at the bottom. He craned a wary glance over his shoulder at Aragorn's back. He had woken once, just long enough to inform his companion—in a tone of supreme high dudgeon—of his disapproval at being drugged and left out of the search for Brenn.

The note burned like a live coal in his hands. He read it through once, memorized it and, cautiously rising among the sleepers, poked it into the dwindling fire, watching the corners brown and mar the neat, elvish script.

"What're you…doing?"

Haldir raised his eyes with studied slowness so as not to appear startled. "Tending the fire." A quick double-check reaffirmed that only a bright flare swiftly dimming was left.

Zaren's eyes were still hazy. He couldn't speak well without pain yet and he had to be easy of reopening the wound. He didn't say anything more but watched the elf for a while, intent but glazed. Haldir's eyes dropped to the white bandage under the man's throat, wondering if Zaren knew more than he was letting on.

The man followed the elf's gaze with his fingers and rasped, "Lucky twice."

Clouds loomed unbroken overhead, an opaque ceiling of late duskiness. It was time. Haldir eased silently to his feet, letting the fire burn out. He went back to his bedroll and picked up his saber. Still crouched, he scanned the camp. Nearly everyone was asleep. From sheer exhaustion and low spirits, they had set no watch.

A prickle of officer disapproval shaded his relief at an easy slip-out. He'd have to talk to the woman later about proper vigils and how a single lapse could cause the entire company more grief than they were already suffering.

A flicker of movement over by the hedge entrance made him pause and dart into the shrubs, ignoring the thorns' bite as they brushed dangerously close to his skin and pierced his outer tunic. The last search party returning? No. too soon. They'd be at it for longer than that. Or maybe just a startled bird. It was there and gone so fast Haldir hadn't had a proper look. But he wasn't about to leave it to chance; the woman would surely have his head if she discovered him sneaking out.

Anxious now, he cast about for another way. Maybe this wasn't going to be so easy after all. Another thorn raked his wrist and he winced, scowling at the offending growth. Then his eyes narrowed speculatively.

Using some of the more determined saplings for leverage and disregarding the thorns that snagged viciously at his hair and clothes, he climbed nimbly up the green wall. His hands and face were both scratched and bleeding by the time he reached the top but he was fairly certain the darkness and his cloak had concealed him from anyone's seeking eyes.

Aragorn would be furious if he found out the elf had left him behind again if the earlier evening's bristling lecture had been anything to guess by. He dropped lightly down on the other side and nearly ran smack into Aragorn himself who had been waiting at the hedge's foot. Haldir pulled back with a sharp hiss of surprise as the tall, shadowy shape rose from the tangle of roots.

"What are you doing?" the elf snarled, frustration taking over the startle-reaction when he separated the ranger's distinctive features from the hood he'd pulled over his head.

The ranger smiled in an altogether too self-satisfied manner. "Did you really expect me to let you go off again without me?"

"You were sleeping. How did you—? I—" For once the elf captain was quite lost for words as he looked over his shoulder then at Aragorn who, despite looking a little groggy, wore a slowly spreading grin. The ranger's unconcealed smugness made the elf flare indignantly. "I will drag you back into that camp and drug you again if you won't go willingly."

Aragorn folded his arms resolutely in spite of the pain still ricocheting around his head. "I wanted to know why you were trying to sneak out again particularly when we've already lost Brenn. Wherever you have to go, at least don't go alone. Let me come with you."

"No."

He had expected a refusal but he could be just as stubborn as the elf when he chose to be. "Why not?"

Haldir didn't have time for this. He couldn't stand here all night arguing with the stubborn, stubborn ranger.

But the ranger intervened before he even opened his mouth. "You cannot go alone. Who else will excuse you if Carlóme finds out you left against her orders?" He met the elf's irritated gaze steadily, his face stamped with the persistence of his race.

He had would argue until the night was gone. And if Haldir dismissed him, he'd only follow. The marchwarden found he had no choice and, disdaining even to reply, started walking.

Pleased with his success, Aragorn followed in his friend's shadow as they skirted the hedge and climbed down into the pathless woods. An owl glissaded on soundless wings and something deep in the shadows snapped. The human stretched his eyes wide to catch the least bit of light as he edged forward after the more sure-footed elf, one hand always on his sword.

But the elf captain did not make it easy for him and set a pace Aragorn almost couldn't match, his head still swaying between pain and sleep. He clamped down on a groan as he tripped over an upthrust root and slammed shoulder-first into an unseen tree trunk.

Haldir didn't even break his stride.

"You cannot go alone," the human muttered self-deprecatingly under his breath, his shoulder now a counterpoint to his head. "Me and my big mouth."

He caught up to the elf a couple dozen yards on but by this time he could barely see two feet in front of him and didn't dare ask where they were going. Haldir had stopped and was gazing down at something. After squinting sharply, Aragorn made out the pale fringe of a road.

A tributary of the North-South Road it was no more than a shallow dirt track, just wide enough for a horse and cart though far too rutted for anything with wheels to manage easily. Long ago in the heyday of the little town when bandits and ghosts were rare, masons had built a bridge over the much thicker and faster stream to allow the road passage as it swung south towards the River Isen.

Both road and bridge were deserted as they stepped cautiously onto the muddy corridor.

On surer ground and not struggling through trees anymore, Aragorn drew up his courage. "Where are we going?"

Perhaps not unexpectedly, Haldir gave him nothing more than a withering glare and said in a hard whisper. "You wanted to come. I let you. I am not obligated to tell you more."

Aragon nodded ruefully, supposing he'd deserved that. Still, though Haldir was caustic he usually didn't sound so sharp. Hesitantly throwing a sidelong glance, he realized his friend looked uneasy. He kept edgily to one side of the road nearly nudging Aragorn off it. Every third or fifth step, he checked over his shoulder but whenever the ranger followed his glance he saw nothing but shadowed undergrowth.

"What's wrong?"

Haldir seized the ranger by the collar and thrust him roughly off the path, up against the bole of a sycamore with what he felt was supreme self-control when he felt like strangling the ranger.

"Listen," his voice dropped to a dangerous, authoritative growl Aragorn had never heard before. "I need you to be silent. Absolutely silent. Do not talk. Do not move. You will stay here until I come for you. Is that understood?"

Aragorn nodded. Haldir's eyes narrowed suspiciously. The ranger had given in far too easily; but he would have to trust him to do as he was told. For once. Releasing him, Haldir resumed his path without a backward glance.

The human obediently scooted further back and crouched in thigh-high dead bracken, just within sight of the road as Haldir stepped onto the bridge. He could only see him by the dusky shimmer of star and moonlight that fell about his boots. The man waited for something to happen but Haldir just stood there resting his elbows on the parapet, as though waiting for something.

Or someone.

Curiosity warred briefly with obedience before curiosity won out. He wanted a closer look. Haldir would very likely make Fedorian's inflictions insignificant if he caught him but then, he reasoned, he'd just have to not get caught. Picking a stealthy way towards the bridge, Aragorn kept one eye on finding scant growth for cover and the other on the bridge.

Dark water, swollen from the last melt, lapped furiously at the abutments on either end, devouring them and smearing their stone with yellow-green algae. Dead driftwood and other refuse torn up by the melting snows littered the embankment.

The pebbly bank was slick with nightly dew and damp still in the twilight. Aragorn gingerly edged his way downward, glancing upward every couple of paces to make sure he hadn't been heard. Unfortunately he forgot to check his footing.

His boot hit a slick patch of moss and skidded right out from under him. He flung out a hand to catch himself and managed to stay partially upright. But his left knee scraped the rocks hard and the clatter of stones clamored as loud as an alarum in his ears. Scrambling into the bridge's shadow, he pressed his back against the wet stone wall, listening so hard his chest hurt from lack of breath.

But Haldir didn't look over the parapet. After a tense minute, the man released his breath softly and inspected himself. His trouser leg was streaked with mud all the way down and his knee was torn from the landing. Great. Just great.

At least he hadn't rolled into the stream. Two yards below him, the bank evened out and water, black in moonlight, rolled sluggishly past, the speed of its current revealed only by the dead leaves in its foam. It flowed out from beneath the bridge like a black tongue from a gaping mouth. Aragorn narrowed his eyes at the far bank but saw nothing more than the shadowy snare of willows. The reeds on his side of the river bent and whispered in a nighttime breeze.

Suddenly he realized that it wasn't the wind but voices, voices speaking up on the bridge. He quieted his breathing and strained his ears above the river-lapping.

"I am glad you came, mellon nin," said a voice Aragorn only vaguely recognized. The fact the speaker did so in elvish did not hinder him.

"Alone as you asked," Haldir's reply was a little stiffer, more formal. "What do you want, Arenath?"

With a chill, the man realized Haldir was talking to one of the elves he had seen in the clearing that night.

"Did you burn the letter?"

Haldir must have nodded because the voice said, "Good," a sigh. "I…I wanted to talk to you alone."

"And Fedorian?"

"I—I cannot stay. He'll know. He was already displeased when I stayed overlong to follow you."

"You were in our camp today."

A light laugh. "The skinny human was missing his cloak? I saw him—he was angry with you."

"They are all angry with me," There was a hint of weariness under the sarcasm and Aragorn felt it slice him keenly. Obviously he had missed something important while he slept; all this about a letter and missing cloak confused him. But Arenath was speaking again and he sped his memory forward, trying to catch on what he'd missed.

"…this time? We would both have you if you like. You would have certainly better company than staying among the humans."

Cold coiled around Aragorn's heart. Was the elf suggesting what he thought he was? He knew Haldir hadn't been happy staying with the humans but he wouldn't really consider…?

Haldir did not reply immediately and Aragorn suddenly had the uncomfortable suspicion the elf captain was aware of him and didn't want to say anything the ranger might overhear.

"I have watched the nightfall and found I have no love of the dark," he answered cryptically.

Arenath sighed as though he'd been expecting that answer. "It is not a pleasant place." There was a quiet clink of steel scraping on the stone parapet as though someone had set down a blade.

The other elf's voice was so quiet Aragorn had to hold his breath to hear him. "He is not who he was, Haldir. I mean you know he was never really the same after…after what happened. But it's gotten worse. The things he's done… the things he's made me do… Children, Haldir! Boys younger than…"

"Children like Brenn," Haldir interrupted just as quietly.

"He wants to goad that dark huntswoman. He tires of her interference," Arenath's voice quavered. "The boy is so young, Haldir… Fedorian will make him last as long as possible before…"

Arenath's voice tailed away, his eyes fixed on something at the other end of the bridge.

Haldir turned.

When he had heard the murderous elf had Brenn captive, Aragorn couldn't keep still anymore, regardless of what Haldir would do to him. He leapt up from his hiding place before clearly thinking it through. But by the time he decided that this might not have been a good idea, the elves had already spotted him.

Arenath leapt a step back and snatched up the knife he had dropped on the parapet. Haldir's eyes were murderous.

"Who is he?" There was accusation in Arenath's eyes when he switched gazes with Haldir.

The marchwarden was very tempted to say he'd never seen the boy in his life. "He is one of the huntswoman's band. An unfortunately most…persistent one."

"You told him of this meeting?" Arenath scanned the woodlands over Aragorn's shoulder, looking ready to either flee or lunge at the ranger who shot an imploring glance at Haldir.

"He followed me. But he will say nothing of you being here," he granted the ranger a quelling glare Aragorn knew he would feel later.

"You know I trust your judgement, Haldir, but he is human and my own judgement has erred before," Arenath said, still eyeing the man with distinct uneasiness.

Courteous even in the face of a potential enemy, Aragorn bowed, fingers touching his sternum in an elven gesture of respect. "I apologize for listening when I should not have," the man said fluently. "You have my solemn word of honor your whereabouts are safe with me."

If Arenath was surprised by the man's noble and undeniably elvish greeting, he showed no sign of it.

When the silence grew too protracted for comfort, Aragorn hesitantly ventured, "Please, the boy is dear to us. Can you tell us if he's all right at least?" He was too afraid to look Haldir in the face at the moment to worry about meeting Arenath's eyes which were distinctly less alarming than his confederate's.

"Please," he entreated, spreading his unarmed hands wide, wanting to seem earnest without further alarming the strange elf. "Is he alive?"

Arenath took several paces back as the human moved closer but nodded. "For now."

"Can you help us? Can you tell us where he is?" He disregarded the warning step Haldir took in his direction

Arenath was already shaking his head vigorously before the ranger finished. "I cannot betray him."

"But you obviously don't want him to succeed if you're willing to come to us for aid," Aragorn kept his voice low and un-accusatory but Arenath still bristled.

"I did not come for aid! I came...I came to see Haldir, to get news of Lothlórien, nothing more. I care not if the boy lives or dies," but there was no conviction in his voice. His pale eyes were wide. "I just want him away. His mewling keeps me awake at night."

"So, what would you have us do?" It was Haldir who spoke this time, silencing Aragorn with a look and an outthrust arm that kept him from moving any closer.

Arenath toyed with the pommel of the knife thrust back in his belt. "I—I do not know. Something must be done."

"Yes," Haldir said with such sharpness both Aragorn and Arenath stared at him, startled. His eyes were glittering. "Yes, something must."

"You sneak out without telling anyone, drag Strider into your scheme and then you come back with this dashed harebrained idea that you expect me to go through with," Carlóme grunted, looking particularly disheveled after having just been woken. "And you wonder why I think you're hiding things from us."

Haldir bore the brunt of her ire with limited grace. "My 'scheme' as you so call it may be the only way we can get Brenn out alive."

"But it's madness," Zaren croaked, propping himself up on his elbow "You're absolutely mad. There's no way this is going to work. Strider, come on—tell him, he's mad."

"I already did. It didn't do any good."

The marchwarden threw a sarcastic "you're-so-helpful" glance at his friend. "This will work. But you need to trust me," His eyes rested heavily on Carlóme. "We can play cat and mouse for another seventeen years if you like. I have that time but Brenn doesn't. We have a chance this way."

"How do you know Brenn was even taken by those rogues? We don't know for certain," Kari who had been awakened by her leader's loud voice interjected.

Haldir darted a glance down at her. He'd been wondering when someone was going to ask that. "We have not found him. He left his knife behind—I think that's—"

"What I want to know," Carlóme said as she shrugged her cloak on over the long tunic that served as her sleeping clothes. "Is where you were tonight. You seem to know an awful lot about Brenn when you didn't mention anything of the like to us a few hours ago. Why didn't you say any of this before?"

Aragorn cast a meaning-laden glance in his friend's direction before saying quietly, "We found some new… hints of where Brenn might be. If we presume the worst and Brenn has been taken, that leaves us with too little time for argument."

Far from assuaging Carlóme's misgiving, all the old suspicion crept back into her eyes as she swiveled to face Haldir. "What new hints?"

"You told me that I was the only one who could bring him down," Haldir's eyes bored into hers, forgetting the others who were now wide awake and listening closely. "This is a chance for me to do just that. And every hour you waste arguing with me means all you will have left of Brenn is his broken body."

It was a cruel thing to say but forcing her to think of Brenn instead of his suspicious behavior would make it that much easier. Arenath wouldn't wait all night for him. And if Fedorian discovered him gone too long, the game was up before it began.

"There is no reason for Fedorian to keep him alive save for his own…ends," Haldir trailed his sentence off abruptly as Carlóme stepped in front of him, her face rigid and twisted with a mixture of pain and rage.

"I want Brenn back. Safe. But it's your business if you want to get yourself killed going off by yourself."

It was the only kind of permission he would get. And that was all Haldir needed.

Aragorn fell into step beside him as he walked back towards the bridge, Arenath joining them once they'd left the camp at a discreet distance. The two did not speak, driven by the inner fire of urgency, until they reached the road and gone halfway over the bridge. Arenath stopped and directed his eyes only on Haldir.

"It is better if you do not go overly armed. If you want to get the boy free, you're going to have to be able to move fast and unhindered." When Haldir nodded his acquiescence he moved off to the other side.

Shedding his grey outer tunic, Haldir folded it with exceeding care and slipped it into his satchel on top of his cloak. With Aragorn watching, he unraveled the warrior braids in his golden hair and let them fall free for the first time in years before binding it all back with a strap of humble leather to keep it out of his face. Last, he slipped his sword off its belt, taking with him only a long knife.

"I leave these in your keeping," he handed over the satchel and, after hesitating a moment, the sword as well. "Keep them well for me for I will not appreciate their damage."

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Aragorn asked, disregarding the attempted levity as he hefted the strap over his shoulder and cradled the ancient elven saber against his other side. There were so many questions he wanted to ask his friend, so many things he still didn't understand. But he knew now was not the time or place to ask them. Maybe he would get the chance later—when and if his friend was there to answer them.

Haldir didn't answer and glanced critically at his reflection in the stream far below them. Do I want to do this? It was question he was still wrestling with. His watery image stared back at him, unrecognizable and distorted by the current. One part of him admitted, guiltily and only in the silence of his own mind, that he had missed his friends of old, the company he had not realized he'd lacked until he saw them again. Another part of him feared how much had changed in that time. There was a very good chance Fedorian in particular remembered their bad parting whatever his words. He couldn't be sure what he'd do.

"I must," he cleared his throat slightly, gathering the invisible cloak of an officer close about him once more, giving the ranger his final instructions. "Do not stray from the camp, whatever you do. I will send word when and if I can…"

"You know if you need help, I will be near," Aragorn said, trying to catch his friend's eyes away from the water.

"I do not want you near." but he nodded nevertheless. He did not want what might very well be their last moments with one another to be tainted ones of hurt. "Would it do any good to try to dissuade you otherwise? That this is by far too dangerous for you and you are likely to be killed if you stand in his way?"

"No."

"And you do know that it is no good to dissuade me of the same?"

For the first time a somewhat bitter smile passed across the man's face and drew the elf's eyes at last. "You have made up your mind. I know well enough by now I cannot change it. Good luck, mellon nin. I will look for you."

"I will return as soon as I can—with news if not with Brenn."

Taking a deep breath, Haldir sprang away from Aragorn's side. The ranger watched from the middle of the bridge as the two elves slipped wraithlike up the further bank and soon vanished among the thick, shadowy tangle of unknown darkness.

Deep night eased its hold around the small figure standing alone on the bridge. The swift-flowing water beneath him began to glisten as tiny pinpoints of sunlight bled through the tops of the trees and edged the stream with glittering crimson facets. Aragorn remained there, motionless, until the first racket of the morning larks startled him as though out of a deep dream.

Then with heavy, measured steps, he turned and strode back along the dusty, pale road.