Visions of Betrayal

by Nili

In the middle of an uneventful summer a message reaches Rivendell: There is something amiss in the camps of the Rangers. Aragorn, Legolas and the twins wish to help, but soon they realise that, this time, the enemy might be much closer than they think.

25. Though Shadows Overtake Us

Disclaimer: For full disclaimer, please see chapter 1.

A/N:

Yes, I DO live.

This might come as a surprise to a lot of people – mostly those who have been (politely) reminding me to post already, woman! –, but I really do. I have no idea how I managed a few years back – wait, no, I do know how I managed. I wasn't abroad half of the year and did my final exams during the other half. So, I am back from Israel/Portugal/Italy and have now another two weeks to study for my second oral exam. The last one I'll ever take! Since I just got back about three weeks ago, I am beginning to panic, only the slightest bit, of course. I am still not really done , and I only have another two days! *quivering* But it's only my future that hangs in the balance, so no worries. *more quivering* The review replies I am going to send as soon as I get back home tonight, I promise. They're ready and waiting in my Drafts folder.

But hey, it was all totally worth it. Israel was mostly great, I added Cat Nr. 7 to my mother's household – we named her Emma, since I was reading that when we found her – and our excavation was quite successful. We did find that stupid gate, after all, and only after four weeks of digging our way through over 2 metres of what felt like solid rock. It was ... surprising, to say the least. *g* So, hopefully, that will ensure funding for yet another campaign. That'd be great, because I am beginning to like that particular excavation site.

So, here is the next chapter. I am beginning to suspect that I won't be able to finish this bloody story in my lifetime. But still I persevere! Again, it's a long one, because this is my pathetic way of trying to make it up to you guys. You have to be the most patient people on this planet!

Enjoy and review, please!

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Chapter 25

Waking up to an orc grinning down on you was never a particularly welcome sight, at least not if you weren't a complete idiot. Waking up to an orc grinning down on you who also happened to be dragging you down a corridor was by far worse, as Aragorn found out as he clawed his way back to consciousness.

He wasn't sure why he was doing it. The last thing he remembered – and he was using this term very loosely – was pain, and leering faces and far too many hands holding him down. The details escaped him like fog being driven apart by a strong breeze, and the part of him that was still capable of rational thought considered this a blessing. There were things you really did not want to remember, especially if you were already half out of your mind with fear.

Then again, he always had been a little stupid about such things.

He didn't know where he was being dragged, nor did he think that he really wanted to know. His left hip hit something solid, probably a wall of some sort, and his body seized this moment to shake off the lethargy and numbness that had temporarily smothered the agony consuming every single inch of him. He involuntarily let out a moan, which was immediately followed by a hoarse laugh uttered by the orc who was dragging him. A second later another one could be heard to his left, and Aragorn only now realised that another orc had a hold of his left arm and was helping to drag him along.

"Awake now, are we?" the orc whose face he had seen upon awakening asked, grinning with a mouth that definitely had more gaps than teeth. The creature stopped, jarring every single injury Aragorn had sustained over the past hours, and pain so fierce that it quite literally made it impossible to breathe lanced through the young ranger. It was all he could do not to cry out, and the following words reached him only very faintly. "Listen, maybe we could..."

"Skai!" the other voice exclaimed, jerking on Aragorn's arm to get them moving again. Awash in agony as he was, Aragorn hardly noticed the renewed pain that came from having someone pull at your arms which were quite securely lashed together. "Come on! Skagrosh's gonna have our heads if he finds out that we were playin' with his toy when he wasn't lookin'. Don't know about you, but I'd really not want that to happen."

Aragorn could almost feel the other orc's frustration and disappointment. Or rather, he could have if he hadn't been hurting so badly.

"Right you are," the first orc finally admitted grudgingly. "Don't matter anyways. He's been doin' 'nough screaming to last me a little while."

Aragorn's memory chose this moment to break free, and with his heartbeat racing – the only outward reaction for which he had the strength – he realised that the orc was right. He had been screaming, and had started doing it long before Skagrosh had decided that he had played enough with him lest he break his new toy before the time.

He didn't have the energy to feel shame or self-recrimination, though. Instead he clung to the very simple goal of "Don't make a sound, damn it!" with all the scattered concentration he still possessed. He truly managed not to do anything but moan quietly as his limp body was jostled again and again, even though he was very close to screaming in pain and fear and a strange, boiling anger that already bordered on wrath. It hadn't abated at all when they finally came to a stop.

He had lost the ability (or, really, the will) to keep his eyes open just after he had first looked upon the face of the creature hauling him down the tunnel of the cave, and so he only listened as the two orcs exchanged some words in their hideous tongue with some other, thankfully invisible guards. A moment later the two of them took a firmer hold of him, and before he knew what was happening, he was pushed forward. After a moment, he hit something very hard with a very, very audible thud.

The pain turned into raw, screaming agony that rose up in the exact same moment that coarse, orcish laughter echoed through the small space into which he had been thrown, and Aragorn curled up as best as he was able with his hands bound and his body on fire. For how long he lay there, he did not know, but it was definitely long enough for the orcs to lose interest in him and return to their duties or whatever it was that they did when they weren't torturing people. The faint torchlight he could see even through his closed eyelids disappeared with them, and the blackness of the cave returned to lay itself over everything it could reach. For once, Aragorn did not bemoan it and welcomed it gratefully. If he could not see anything, then nobody could see him either, and see how terrified and in how much pain he really was.

Very slowly Aragorn regained the ability to think clearly or, well, breathe. He had almost opened his eyes halfway – the most energetic action he felt up to at the moment – when something touched his shoulder. It took some more moments for him to realise what that meant, and the subsequent jolt of adrenaline was enough for him at least try and struggle into a sitting position.

He did not get very far. The movement pulled at the raw patches of flesh littering his torso and arms, and the pain rose like a living, greedy creature that consumed him whole. He fell back against the wall with a mixture of a cry and a curse, his voice hoarse from the screaming he could remember only too clearly now.

There was that touch against his bare shoulder again, this time continuing down the entire left side of his body, touching the skinned patches and seemingly every single cut and bruise. Panic bubbling inside of him, Aragorn tried to scramble backwards, but he was too weak and couldn't get any traction on the smooth ground. It had to be another orc, a panicky voice inside of him whispered, an orc that would be able to see him far better and easier in this darkness than he it. Alarm and fear gave him the strength to lift his head even despite the renewed pain pulsing through him.

It was almost too dark to see, but in the end Aragorn made out a small shadow next to his foot. It was a rat. An adventurous rat, surely, but still a rat. He had probably landed almost on top of it when he had been thrown into the cave, so it had a reason to be curious and slightly irritated. Aragorn, however, wasn't exactly in a mood to be understanding, and so he weakly tried to kick the rodent aside, telling it exactly where it could go for all he cared.

He missed by at least a mile. He couldn't see the rat clearly – could see no more than a blurry shadow, really – but he was almost completely sure that it quivered its whiskers in a derogatory fashion while it skittered away. That was all right, Aragorn though, completely disjointed. He didn't like it overly much, either.

The animal scurried over to the entrance of the small cave and turned the corner. Since the room was barely more than six or seven square yards, it needed only a second or two to cross it. It disappeared out of the small space in the moment that one of the orc guards shifted and grunted, momentarily obscuring what little light filtered in through the ragged opening, and Aragorn found himself flinching back unconsciously. The orc didn't make a move to enter the little cell and only seemed to lash out with a booted foot – the resulting squeaking signalled that it had hit the rat and kicked it down the passageway. Aragorn forced himself to relax, aware of the fact that his abused body screamed in protest and disgusted at his own moment of mind-blanking panic.

A noise interrupted his thoughts, then, and for a short, scatterbrained moment Aragorn thought that it was another rat that had started talking to him. Then he thought that he had either been hit over the head harder than he'd thought or, possibly, that he was beginning to go insane. Particularly the latter he would have understood. But then it came again, and through the haze of pain and fear and anger he heard a voice that seemed to come from behind him where there was nothing but solid rock.

"Strider? Estel?"

For a second, Aragorn could only stare at the darkness in front of his eyes, feeling as if someone had just hit him over the head, and with a cudgel at that, or an iron-studded club or something similarly solid. The sudden explosion of relief that threatened to leave him faint came a second later, and he slowly let out a deep breath.

"H-Halbarad?" He hated himself for the weakness and hesitation in his voice, but there was nothing for it. He hadn't lost consciousness again, which was definitely the best he could do right now.

It was silent for a moment, long enough for someone to shrug and and realise that the other couldn't see the gesture.

"Yes, well ... I was wondering when you would turn up."

"I ... what?" Aragorn finally whispered back. It wasn't the most eloquent question he had ever asked, but he rather doubted that his fellow prisoner was in any condition to notice.

He tried to figure out where Halbarad's voice came from (except for 'somewhere behind you'), but he soon gave up. His eyes hadn't got used to the darkness yet and he was in too much pain to move much, and so he decided that it must be some kind of fissure that had split the rock wall between their two cells and that allowed them to hear each other. The orcs standing in front of his cell didn't seem to care that he was apparently talking to himself, and in two different voices at that. For a brief moment, Aragorn was thankful that their captors were, in fact, orcs. The average human guard would have come to investigate a long time ago.

He did have some experience in this area, after all, so he should know.

"These things always seem to happen to you," the other ranger went on. His voice sounded muffled, but not too far away, and so Aragorn decided that he really had to be more or less on the other side of the wall at his back. "Ciryon told me about it. He heard it from the elves."

And because his brothers said it, it just had to be true, a small, sarcastic part of Aragorn noted. Most rangers seemed to think so, however, and who was he to rob them of so carefully preserved illusions?

"Halbarad," he breathed, closing his eyes and silently thanking whichever Vala had seen it fit to be merciful. "I ... we thought you were dead."

"I am not," his cousin's voice assured him. "Not yet, anyway."

"Are you all right?" Aragorn pressed him, wishing he could do something more to express his urgency. As it was, he could do little more than shift slightly.

"No, I am not all right," Halbarad replied with disarming frankness. "I think I should be worried if I were."

Aragorn almost would have shrugged. Halbarad had a point there.

"Where are you?" he asked instead.

"I don't know," Halbarad retorted, quite predictably. Even though his voice sounded hollow and slightly distorted, he also sounded very lost, and Aragorn would have liked to kick himself, if he hadn't been bound, in a cave so small that he could barely turn around and, well, one step away from losing consciousness again. Which, thinking about it now, might be a really good idea.

"I don't, either," he admitted.

"I don't think that I am right next to you," Halbarad went on, sounding as if he was doing nothing more than discuss the weather. "I think this is a crack of some sort, or a fissure. But it is deep and seems to twist, because I can't see you."

"I can't see anything," Aragorn retorted. "Not even my own feet, really."

"You'll get used to it," was the wry answer. "Wait a few days, and you will not be able to comprehend how you couldn't have seen it all in the beginning."

Oh yes, Aragorn thought sarcastically. Something to look forward to.

"Can you move?" Halbarad whispered.

"No," Aragorn had to tell him. "They have done quite a good job tying me up. And there are two guards in front of my cell. Even if I wasn't tied up, I doubt that I would get past even one of them."

"I am familiar with the problem."

"Are you...?"

"I am as well as can be expected, considering the circumstances. I am chained to the wall," Halbarad answered his question. "There is a guard as well. He doesn't much care what I do, though, as long as I don't give him any trouble."

"Ah." Aragorn had to force down a swell of disappointment. Orcs may not be the most intelligent creatures on Arda, but even they knew better than to leave prisoners unattended if there were no sturdy cell doors available. "Still, Halbarad ... you have no idea how glad I am to hear your voice. I would have wished it to happen under more auspicious circumstances, but..."

A sudden coughing fit shook him, and he broke off, curling up even tighter to protect his hurting ribs and the skinned parts of his chest. His arm let him know in no unclear terms that the part of it that had been skewered by an orc scimitar didn't enjoy such sudden movements at all, joining the cacophony of complaints, and he gritted his teeth against the uncontrollable coughing and the scream that was building at the back of his throat. Speaking was suddenly unimportant and highly overrated, and everything ceased to exist for an unspecified amount of time. When the world swam back into focus, it was to the sound of Halbarad's nervous voice, calling his name.

"Estel? Estel! Can you hear me? Answer me!"

"I ... can hear you," Aragorn gasped out. There was a metallic taste in his mouth, doubly noticeable because he was completely parched, and he closed his eyes. It had to be one of the cuts inside his mouth that had started bleeding again, he told himself firmly. It couldn't be that he had injured a lung, because he absolutely refused to die choking on his own blood. "Just ... need a moment..."

"What happened?" Halbarad asked back. "Are you all right?"

"I am fine," Aragorn assured him, even though he couldn't remember a time when he had ever been less all right in his entire life. "Don't ... don't worry about it."

He couldn't see Halbarad's face – nor would he have been able to if the younger ranger had been sitting right next to him, because it was really far too dark to see anything – but he could very well imagine the incredulous look on his face. His cousin might have inherited his temper from his mother, but sometimes he was so much like his father that it became immediately apparent whose son he was.

"I ... don't worry about it?" The younger ranger asked him predictably enough. His muted voice sounded honestly scandalised. "You ... I – just tell me what they did to you."

Aragorn laughed, no matter what his body had to say on the matter. He couldn't help it, even though he knew that his companion would not thank him for it. Most people tended not to be too thrilled about their fellow prisoners suddenly laughing like maniacs. Objectively, he rather understood.

"Estel."

Halbarad's voice interrupted him in mid-hyena-like howl, sounding very much like the captain when he was especially exasperated, and he forced himself to stop and cling to the last shreds of his sanity. It wouldn't do to convince his cousin that he was a madman before he even knew that he was his cousin. He was sure that there was some sort of logic in that statement somewhere.

"I ... there is nothing you can do," he said, trying to find a way to make his words sound even slightly less hopeless. "There ... really ... isn't."

"I know that." Halbarad sounded flat and defeated, and not only because of the rock that distorted the sound of his voice. "Valar, I do. But ... please, Strider. Tell me what happened. What are you doing here? How did they get you? Tell me the truth. Please."

Aragorn closed his eyes again, finding that he would rather not see the shadows of his guards move as they shifted from foot to foot. Orcs were not the most patient of races, and having to stand still while guarding a prisoner with whom they could be playing if their commander was just a little more generous did not sit well with them. Halbarad knew as well as he did that there was nothing either of them could do but sit back and pray for a rescue that might – couldwouldwill – never happen. And that sat well with neither of them.

"We were ... unlucky," he replied, wondering if this sounded as stupid out loud as it sounded in his head. "Serothlain, Lhanton, Ereneth and I stumbled over some tracks. Before we knew what was happening, we were dragged off our horses and hit over the head."

"Yes," Halbarad said evenly. "They like doing that."

Halbarad did not ask what had happened after Cemendur and he had been taken, or what the others were doing, and Aragorn understood why. The cave he was in was open towards the tunnel he had been dragged down, and even though Aragorn suspected that the orcs standing guard didn't really care what he did as long as he didn't try to make a run for it, they very well might.

Halbarad was silent for another moment before he added, "Did the others...?"

"Ereneth made it back, I am sure," Aragorn assured him with far more conviction than he felt. "Serothlain sent him back to report before we were ambushed. He and Lhanton ... they will have made it, too. Ráca is fast. She would have outrun them. I think."

There were things waiting to be said about inspiration of confidence and the like, but Halbarad never did. That either meant that he had sounded a lot more positive than he had sounded to himself, or Halbarad was in a much worse shape than he let on. Still, there were things that the younger ranger didn't have to know, like the fact that Lhanton and Serothlain might very well have tumbled off Ráca's back in a dead faint before getting anywhere close to the village.

"You sent them back with that horse?" Halbarad asked. There was faint amusement in his voice even despite the echoes being carried along with it through the fissure. "That might have been ... counterproductive."

"Ráca is a perfectly nice horse," Aragorn defended his mount automatically. "A bit ... different, yes, but determined. She will have borne them to safety, even if she had to take them by the scruffs of their necks and drag them."

"That, I do believe." There was a pause, and then Halbarad added, "What did they do to you, Estel?"

"Halbarad," he began, resisting the urge to take a deep breath because he just knew that it would end with him doubling over coughing once more. "There is nothing..."

"Please, Estel. I have to know. Can you walk?"

There was so much raw hope in the younger ranger's voice that Aragorn's heart clenched in sympathy. He knew what he was really asking. Halbarad had been sitting here, in the darkness and surrounded by orcs, and then, finally, came someone who was supposed to be older and wiser than him. Someone who, if one could believe the strangely vague tales of the elves, had extricated himself from similar situations in the past. Someone who represented every last shred of hope he was still holding onto.

Someone who had genuinely no idea how to get out of this cave, except as a corpse.

He thought about the way his left side hurt whenever he took a breath, and the all-too-familiar grating sound that accompanied each inhalation. He thought about the stab wound he had suffered when he had been captured, and the way the world was spinning when he moved his head too quickly. He thought about the agony consuming his chest and left arm, and what they had looked like before he had lost consciousness, just after Skagrosh had ripped off another bit of his skin.

"I ... I don't think so," he finally answered honestly. "Not fast enough to escape. There are simply too many of them. Even if we were both healthy, we would never make it out of the caves alive."

There was nothing but a deep silence to answer him. Aragorn hated himself for having to tell his cousin that there was no easy way out, no extravagant plan that would save the two of them. But there wasn't, and he was in too much pain and too busy trying not to panic – Skagrosh would do what he could to break him, Skagrosh would keep him alive until the Master came, the Master was looking for him – to pretend otherwise.

"Your ... the captain will know what happened," Aragorn said instead, not really knowing if he said it to reassure Halbarad or himself. "And, Valar, so will my brothers. They will find us."

"They won't."

Aragorn looked up sharply; it didn't matter that Halbarad couldn't see him. There was defeat in the younger man's voice, dark defeat of the kind that paralysed you with fear and dread and fatalism.

"They will," he simply repeated, because he couldn't say anything else. If he seriously allowed himself to consider the possibility that they might not be found, he would be lost, and so would Halbarad. He was not prepared to survive all this to have to tell his dead father's best friend that he had lost his only son. "You do not know my brothers like I do, Halbarad. They will not rest before they have found us, and Eru help whoever or whatever gets in their way."

"It does not matter." Halbarad whispered, his voice so expressionless that he might as well have been stating the fact that rain was wet. "Cemendur is dead. They killed him three days ago, I think. It might have been longer; it is hard to keep track of time down here."

Aragorn took a deep breath, the images from his nightmares mingling with the image of the still, broken body they had glimpsed in the clearing before the teeming masses of orcs had blotted out everything else, and for a moment the agony pulsing through his body receded enough for him to truly feel the grief he had had no time to acknowledge. Cemendur had not exactly been a friend of his and would surely have been a thorn in his side in the years to come, but, Morgoth take it, no one deserved to die like this, and most certainly not Daervagor's friend.

"I know," he said softly, wishing he had the strength to do what he so desperately wanted, namely to take his sword and not put it down before the blade was covered with black blood. The rage was once again throbbing through him in rhythm with his heartbeat, and he clung to it with all his strength. "We ... we found his body just before they ambushed us."

"It took him almost a day to die," Halbarad went on as if he hadn't even spoken. "In the end he cut his throat, right in front of my eyes, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. He will do the same to us, if we are lucky."

"'He'?" Aragorn asked, even though he knew the answer in his bones and his very heart. "Halbarad, who did this?"

"I do not know," the younger ranger said, his voice almost dreamy in its disassociation. "He wore a hood every time I saw him, and his voice sounds ... hollow, as if it comes from a long way away."

"When was the last time you saw him?" Aragorn pressed. The other did not answer, and so he added, "Please, Halbarad, it may be important."

"When he killed Cemendur," Halbarad told him after a second. "I have not seen him since."

The mixture of hopelessness and utter expressionlessness in his voice truly began to frighten Aragorn, or would have if he hadn't been feeling so close to fainting.

"What did they do to you?" he asked as gently as he could. "Halbarad, answer me! What did they do?"

This time, it was Halbarad's turn to laugh maniacally.
"Nothing. A few cracked ribs, maybe, and a few bruises and cuts – nothing. Over the past few days they've barely touched me."

"Halbarad," Aragorn began carefully, "You understand that they..."

"I know what they are doing," Halbarad cut him off almost brutally. "They are keeping me in suspense. They are trying to unsettle me, so that they can catch me off balance when they finally do come for me." He laughed humourlessly. "So far, it is working."

"Halbarad," Aragorn said again, wishing that there was a way to reassure him. "We are going to be found. Trust me. My brothers will find us. They will."

"I can't." Halbarad's voice came out of the darkness, hollow and lost and sounding so very, very young. "I wish with all my heart I could, but I can't. They killed him, Estel, right in front of my eyes, and all I could do was watch."

He fell silent after that and would not speak more than a word or two even when pressed, and so Aragorn slumped back against the cold wall, shivering so strongly that the resultant pain made him nauseous.

One by one, the shadows crowding around him seemed to press in on him, reaching for him with dark, wraith-like fingers, and Aragorn closed his eyes, turned his face towards the wall and wished that he could believe his own words just a little more.






Haldar had been staring at the same area of the wall for the past two or three hours, and now knew everything there was to know about this particular stretch of the rough stone wall in front of him. He knew that the stone on the bottom right side was chipped at the corner, that the mortar had been scraped away in several spots (by, as he happened to know, mischievous and far too industrious boys who had been punished most severely as a result), and that years of smoke and use had darkened the once light grey stones to an almost black colour. It was dark in the narrow passage since there were no windows, but it was not too dark for someone as keen-eyed as a ranger.

Still he looked, because there was nothing else to do. Or rather, there were other things to do, but he was willing and prepared to go to great lengths to procrastinate, especially when it concerned walking down the corridor and doing what he should have done hours, if not days ago. It was barely the eighth hour yet, which was why he allowed himself to do this. No one would be going anywhere before the scouts were back and had reported, and that would take at least an hour yet.

He sighed and leaned his head against the wall. He was not arrogant enough to believe that there wasn't someone who, in the entire history of Arda, had somewhere, somehow failed worse than he had. Right now, such a case didn't come to mind, however. Celebrimbor of Eregion was a likely candidate, but, as Haldar had to admit, there had been extenuating circumstances. He had been up against the Dark Lord himself, for one. Sauron in disguise was still Sauron.

Haldar beat his head against the wall not very softly, this time not even pretending that any leaning was taking place. He had failed so badly and in so many ways that he was very, very sure that there was no redemption for him. He had been given a very simple task, both by the captain and Lord Elrond: Take care of Estel. The "and don't lose him" had been left unspoken, but he was rather sure that the elf lord would not react well to a stammered explanation of "...and that was the point when I allowed the Heir of Isildur to be captured by orcs, who killed him in a very messy way."

He wasn't the only one blaming himself. The Lords Elladan and Elrohir, while difficult to get along with before (at least for him), were very close to impossible now. They barely talked to anybody anymore, with the possible exception of the captain. The older twin kept glaring at everybody and everything, but it was clear that, more than anything else, he blamed himself to a degree that had sucked all life out of his usually calm and shining grey eyes. His brother wasn't doing much better, even though he seemed to glare at Hírgaer a little less than at others.

Haldar, having had a brother himself, knew that the reason for Lord Elrohir's behaviour had to be a kind of solidarity of someone trying to keep his sibling from messy and not-so-spontaneous combustion. Ereneth was, if possible, even harder to tolerate than usual, appearing torn between anger and guilt and the overwhelming urge to kill the next person who looked at him with dubious eyes. Haldar knew of at least two instances where only Hírgaer's quick and decisive actions had prevented bloodshed. Granted, Ereneth's brother had then gone on to show the men in question just what he thought of people disrespecting his younger brother, but at least everybody involved had walked away from those confrontations. Or staggered, in one case.

The rest of the company had taken a page out of the elf lords' book and was wavering between rage, doubt and fear. Lhanton had regained consciousness, had somehow survived the subsequent questioning by the twins and Captain Daervagor, and had then managed to find a hiding place somewhere in the village where not even Lord Elrond's sons could find him, having been forbidden to join the search parties due to his injuries. The one time Haldar had seen him, the younger man had been mortified, thoroughly disbelieving of what he had done or rather not done. Haldar could have told him that, once Estel had made up his mind, there was nothing any of them – the sons of Elrond included – could have done to stop him, but he supposed he was just petty enough not to.

Serothlain had not regained consciousness at all. Neither the sons of Elrond nor Hasteth, his fiancée who, as Amlaith had already had to find out, was a healer that was unwilling or at least highly ill-prepared to tolerate stupidity or obtuseness, could bring him around. Hasteth had been at her fiancé's side ever since he had been brought to the village, and, as far as Haldar knew, his cousin hadn't shed a single tear. It wasn't her style, or, rather, not the style of most Dúnedenith to break down weeping in such situations. She had been utterly dry-eyed and competent, but there was a brittleness about her that suggested that more than just her composure would break should Serothlain continue to be so idiotically stubborn and keep refusing to wake up.

Serothlain, Haldar had decided a long time ago, was one of the most breathtakingly stubborn people in the world.

"Haldar?" a soft voice asked, and a small hand touched him lightly on the arm. It wasn't a soft hand, though, with calluses that he could easily feel through the thin material of his shirt, and Haldar would have known who was addressing him even if he hadn't recognised the voice.

"Bania," he said, turning his head to look at the young woman in front of him. Knowing that it was a helpless question, he still asked, "Shouldn't you be with your sister?"

The woman in front of him merely looked at him. Even for one of the Dúnedain, she was very beautiful, with light skin, dark hair and the kind of soulful dark-grey eyes that a man could drown in if he wasn't careful. Cemendur hadn't even tried, those few years ago when he had first come to this village. Now, however, the lively spirit that had captivated the commander upon first sight was dulled, and Bania wore her beauty like a mask. Her face was a mask, too, one painted with dark lines that only hinted at the features and expressed no emotion at all.

Bania arched one fine eyebrow in the faint expression of blank incredulity, as if she couldn't quite believe what he had just said. Haldar, who knew that his way of dealing with grieving women was at least slightly questionable, had no such trouble, and was not overly surprised by her reaction.

"I had to get away from the other women for a while," Bania said, withdrawing her hand. In the other one she held a candlestick, and as she brought it up higher, Haldar was once again shocked at how little of her there was left in her once-stunning eyes. "They mean well, but I cannot stand their looks. And besides ... I keep imagining I can see the pyre from the bedroom window, if I only try hard enough."

If Haldar hadn't considered it another point on his "Don't do this when speaking to the widows of your newly deceased comrades" list, he would have closed his eyes and beat his head against the wall, again. He had never really talked to Bania a lot – they were neither related nor hailed from the same settlement, and the commander and he had been neither friends nor close enough in rank to socialise. But he had brought the worst possible news to far too many families, and the look of quiet despair on Bania's face was only too familiar.

"The scouts will return soon enough," he said instead, having decided that stating the obvious was by far preferable to trying to beat himself unconscious. It would be politer, for one. "You will need your strength then, Bania."

Bania smiled. It was a crooked little smile that died as soon as it appeared.
"And then Daervagor will light the pyre and it will be over and you will all leave, and I will never see him again."

Bania had only been allowed to see Cemendur after they had done their best to conceal what damage they could. There had been many more injuries that no one in this world would have been able to hide by whatever means, but they had done their best. Cemendur – or what had been left of him – had looked a little more like a person afterwards, and even though nothing and no one could truly have prepared Bania for the grisly sight of her husband's body, they had at least given her this small, but still unmerciful reprieve. No one should see their spouse like that.

She had been strong, of course, at least when they were there to witness it. All she had done was touch Cemendur's cold, grey forehead with the softest of touches, her fingers barely making contact at all. After that, she had merely looked down on his ravaged face with such chilling calm that the captain beckoned Haldar and the others to leave, and they had filed out of the room, leaving a still Bania alone with her dead husband.

"I am sorry, Bania," Haldar said softly. He had not said it before, unable to speak to this silent, expressionless stranger who had replaced the woman whose beauty and spirit he had admired for many years. He was a happily married man, yes, but, Valar, he had eyes, hadn't he? "I am sorry we didn't find him before..."

"Don't," Bania cut him off, lifting dark-grey eyes to look at him. For the first time since they had brought back the commander's body, there was a sparkle of something in their depths. "Don't, Haldar. I don't blame anybody, not Daervagor, not you or anybody else here. I blame only those who killed him."

"We will find them," Haldar said automatically, but there was barely a hint of conviction in his voice. He had said the words so many times now that not even the stoutest of optimists could have remained convinced of their truthfulness.

"And then you will kill them," Bania finished his thought for him. "And while my husband shall be avenged, he will still be dead."

"Yes," Haldar admitted. "But his faer will find peace in the Halls of Mandos, and he will be able to sit with his ancestors with his pride and honour intact."

"Yes," the young woman said, with a terribly twisted smile on her face. "I do believe that that would please him."

"But it will not please you."

"I am as much one of the Dúnedain as you, Haldar," Bania said, with a calmness that was much more frightening than anger. "Of course it will please me. But it will not give me comfort, nor grant me what I wish for with all my heart."

"I know." Haldar bowed his head. "I know that it is not the same, but my brother..."

"He is one of the ones who disappeared," Bania finished his sentence, sudden understanding in her eyes. Compassion joined it a moment later, and for the first time since he had admitted to himself that Belen was dead, Haldar did not resent it. "I grieve with you, Haldar."

"And I with you," Haldar replied, the formal words bringing him some small measure of comfort. "I promised myself that I would avenge my brother, and I will do what I can to avenge your husband, too. I know that it is only a small comfort, especially right now, but it is all I and the others can offer you."

"It is something I readily accept," the young woman said and impatiently raised a hand to wipe away a trickle of tears that gleamed silver in the flickering candlelight. "Forgive me. I promised myself that I would not spend the last few hours that I have with my husband weeping."

"There is nothing to forgive," Haldar said gently. A part of him was almost disconcerted by Bania's iron composure. "It is more than understandable."

"And it would be pointless," Bania retorted, her voice almost brutal. "There will be time for that later. Should a part of Cemendur still be here to see it, to see me, I want him to see me strong and proud, and not weeping uncontrollably."

Even all things considered, Haldar had a hard time imagining Bania weeping uncontrollably. If she had been a warrior, she would have been of the kind that would barely have blinked if her entire company had been killed and she had been pinned to a tree by a spear. She would have killed those responsible, patched herself up, buried her comrades, made the report to her superiors and then, when all was said and done and she was alone, she would have cried, and not a single second earlier.

"Can I ... help you somehow?" he finally said, when it became clear that she had no intention of leaving. No matter how many times he had had to bring the news of one of his comrades' deaths to a loved one, he still didn't know what to do and say. "We are most grateful for your hospitality, especially now. The elf lords have a lot on their minds right now, so..."

"They do indeed," Bania agreed solemnly. There was that touch of awe in her eyes that almost anybody who hadn't had a lot of dealings with the Firstborn displayed upon first meeting them. Not even two days of being glared at almost continually had managed to diminish the wonder. "And I cannot help but sympathise, now that the boy is missing. I know what they are going through."

Haldar knew that, on an emotional level, she was right, but she couldn't even begin to grasp the true concept of the catastrophe. Lord Elrond's sons had lost a young man they had called their brother for twenty years and undoubtedly loved as such, but they had also lost the Heir of Isildur. If they did not find Estel in the next twenty-four hours, they would most likely not find him alive, and there would be no redemption for any of them, and no hope for all of Arda.

"They are very focussed on their search," he said instead, deciding to phrase the twins' obsessive, frantic behaviour in the most diplomatic way possible. "They have been making some progress."

"I am glad to hear it," Bania replied, that same dull blankness having returned to her features. "But it is not them I am concerned about."

Now that was just not true, Haldar thought absently while Bania hesitated and righted the candle when it looked as if it might topple over. Bania might be fearless, but everybody was concerned about the twins, and with good reason. Elves were intimidating to begin with, but driven elves – and sons of Elrond to boot – were a sight to behold. And not in a good sense.

"I worry about Daervagor," she finally went on, when the candle had been returned to its upright position. There was uncharacteristic hesitation in her voice, and Haldar looked up. "He is ... frankly, he is beginning to frighten me." She smiled thinly. "There is not much that frightens me anymore, Haldar."

Haldar, who, before he had come to Rivendell and seen the last hope of his people look at him with his beautiful mother's eyes, used to think that nothing but a threat to his wife and children could possibly frighten him, could understand her only too well. While there had been a sort of wild, desperate hope to the captain before Aragorn had been taken and Commander Cemendur's body found, there was nothing but blank, utter despair now. Halbarad might not be dead yet – even though many of them thought it better if he were, in fact –, but all hope seemed to have been lost to his father in the moment that he had found out about the second ambush.

Haldar had served under Captain Daervagor ever since the older ranger had stepped forward and taken Lord Arathorn's place, white and with visibly shaking hands, and he didn't for a second think that it was only Halbarad's and Estel's disappearance that had shaken the older man so extraordinarily. The captain was a ranger to the core, and had accepted the very real possibility of losing his only son in the very moment that Halbarad had joined the companies. No parent should have to bury their children, but both Halbarad and Daervagor had known what consequences their duties might entail.

Estel ... well, that was a different thing entirely. Haldar didn't know what exactly it was that stood between the captain and their chieftain and didn't think it any of his business until one of them told him, but he knew that Daervagor loved the boy. He might not be able or willing to show it, but any father would be able to see it. It would have hit the older man hard to lose him, too, so soon after his own son, and he was the Heir of Elendil. To the sense of private loss and guilt and shame there came the mortification of what he, of what they had allowed to happen. The thought of having to travel to Rivendell and tell a grieving Lord Elrond that they had allowed the last heir of his long-dead brother to be taken – to be tortured and killed – was more than he himself could bear. It had to be twenty times worse for the captain.

But that was not all. He might never have truly understood it, but Captain Daervagor and Commander Cemendur had been friends. They had grown up together, Cemendur being only slightly younger, and when the commander had joined his friend's company, it had been impossible not to see the elation in both of them. They had been apart very seldom from that point on, and Cemendur had been the closest friend Daervagor had had since Lord Arathorn's death.

How the man could still function, Haldar did not know. He had lost his brother, and had very nearly been blinded by hate and grief and rage, at least until he had forced them to the back of his mind to make place for the all-consuming need for vengeance. Daervagor had lost his son, his dead chieftain's son and his best friend. All things considered, he was remarkably calm for that.

"He frightens me, too," was all he said in the end. And it was true. The captain had never been the most cheerful and positive of people – at least not while he had known him –, but this ... well, this was something entirely different. It made Haldar fear for the future of the company. "He is..."

He broke off. There was no way to describe his superior officer's behaviour that wouldn't sound at least slightly disrespectful.

"He is behaving erratically," Bania said what he could not. "Can you not talk to him? He is ... he was my husband's best friend, and one of mine as well, or so I hope."

Haldar would almost have laughed.
"There is no one he is going to listen to, my lady," he said. "The only one would have been..."

"Cemendur," the young woman finished his sentence. "Yes, I know that very well. And the elves...?"

"Are most likely not going to be much help," Haldar said, deciding to rob her of this illusion as soon as possible. "They are very ... preoccupied at the moment."

He was almost proud of himself. This was a rather nice way of putting it. Maybe he was going to be able to describe the captain in a flattering way in the near future, too.

"I see," Bania said calmly. "Excuse me, then."

Haldar blinked, stunned. Bania would have made a terribly effective commander, if she had ever put her mind to it. To his substantial and guilty relief, she never had. The light retreated as the young woman walked down the corridor, and he hurried after her before the last bit of her long dark hair could disappear around the corner. Knowing that she was doing what he should have done, what he had avoided doing for the past hour or so, did not help either.

He reached the small room a couple of seconds after Cemendur's widow. It had been a small lounge, or rather it still was. But the house was small and somewhat crooked, and there were barely any rooms big enough for more than two or three people at a time. So the lounge was where they had laid out Cemendur's body, and where Daervagor had spent the entire night and the morning.

When Haldar entered the lounge, he saw that the captain had not moved since he had reported to him at dawn, just as he had not moved since he had sat down once Bania had retired yesterday evening. He was still sitting on one of the two chairs that remained in the darkened room, the shutters closed tightly and blocking out the sunlight. He was facing the makeshift bed where they had laid Cemendur, his back to the door.

Bania had stepped forward, unafraid of the captain's unmoved behaviour. In all honesty, Haldar wasn't even sure if the other man had noticed their entrance, so fixedly was he staring at the still, ravaged face of his dead friend. The candle Bania had set on the small table to the right was just enough to cast a faint light over the scene.

"It will be time soon, Captain," she said, stepping around the chair to stand next to the sitting man. Haldar noticed that she very deliberately did not look at the body of her husband, her eyes fixed on the back of Daervagor's head. "They will arrive in less than half an hour."

So they would, Haldar realised. The honour guard would arrive soon, to carry the commander's body to the pyre. It would be Daervagor who would lead them, and who, as his commanding officer as well as his friend, would light the fire.

"Yes."

It was all that Daervagor said, spoken in such an emotionless tone of voice that it made even Bania pause. She took a deep breath, and added, "Will you be ready to lead them, my lord? He would have wished you to do it."

At that a sound broke from the captain's throat that was almost a laugh and almost a sob and still neither.

"He did," Daervagor confirmed. "We spoke about it once in a while, whenever the situation called for it. I never wanted to, but I promised him I would do it. It is the last honour I can do him."

"You can honour his memory, my lord," Bania retorted, her voice soft. "You can avenge him, and return this small measure of honour to his faer."

"No one can do that," Daervagor said bluntly. "Cemendur is dead. They took him, and now he is dead."

"Yes, he is," Bania said in a whisper. "He is dead, and I do not blame you."

"How can you not?" Daervagor finally lifted his head. His eyes were almost wild in his pale face, and there were dark, deep shadows under his eyes that were only emphasised by the heavy stubble covering his cheeks. "I blame myself. I should have given him a larger guard. I should have found him sooner. I should never have sent him here in the first place."

"Only the One knows all and sees all," the young woman said, her eyes downcast. "You did not know what would happen."

"Maybe I should have." The captain had no intention of giving up so easily, Haldar saw. It did not come as a surprise. "I made a mistake."

"Maybe you did," Bania agreed and nodded her head. "Maybe it was a mistake to send him here. Maybe it was a mistake to come here yourself. Maybe it was a mistake that we did not to flee in the first place when the danger became apparent. But it does not matter. You did what you thought was right, and no one could ask for more."

"I do what I think is right, and my best friend and my son are taken," Daervagor said bitterly. "I do what I think is right, and I find my friend dead. I do what I think is right, and..."

"Do not give up on Halbarad and Estel just yet, sir," Haldar said from his position at the door, unable to bear his captain's words any longer. "We have had no word from the scouts yet. They are still alive. I know they are."

He did not know whether or not Daervagor had even heard his words. The older man did not react to his words, and only continued looking at his friend's widow. Haldar, who knew what an intensely private man the captain was, only started to become even more frightened.

"My error of judgement took my best friend from me," Daervagor began slowly. "He always supported and believed in me, and his sound judgement and his strength I shall miss dearly. Most of all, I shall miss him." He paused and swallowed heavily. "But I also took him from you, Bania. I took your husband from you. That, more than anything else, I never wanted to do. He never wanted me to do that, and it is something I will regret to the end of my days."

"He was a ranger, Captain." Now, finally, the tears were beginning to fall again, and fresh grief darkened the dark-grey eyes further. "He was a ranger long before he met me, long before he was my husband. He knew how it might all end, and so did I."

"As did I," Daervagor replied with a tremulous smile. "And now I will do what I always dreaded: I will have to light his pyre."

"He would have wanted no one else to do it," Bania said, tears still streaming down her face. "I will stand by you, and together we will honour his wishes and his memory." She reached out with a small, white hand and placed it gently on the captain's shoulder. "It was not your fault, Daervagor."

Daervagor bowed his head wordlessly, his shoulders shaking the tiniest bit. The two of them remained like this, standing silently in front of Cemendur's body, and Haldar turned around and left. For them, he might as well not have been in the room, but the moment was such a private one and so full of strong, personal grief which he in all honesty did not share that he couldn't help but feel like an intruder. He had not been friends with Cemendur, hadn't even liked him, truth to be told, and he found it hard to watch the captain and Bania – two of the most private people he knew – grieve him so deeply and openly.

He closed the door behind him and slowly walked down the corridor. There were things to be done. He had to decide who was to be part of the search parties today and who would remain behind and guard the village. He had to talk to Lord Elrond's sons to co-ordinate the search, he had to talk to the elders, he had to issue rations and address all the thousands of things that were part of maintaining a group of armed men. Naurdholen and also Lhanton, when he could be found, had been shouldering many of his duties, but it was not fair of him to leave everything to them. Suddenly, he was very ashamed of his brief spell of self-pity.

And if he had anything to say about it, he would make sure that there were no complications with the funeral. Technically, it was the captain's duty, but he would be damned if he burdened the other ranger with any more things.

Later, Haldar would be well-aware of the fact that he, as an experienced ranger of 47 years of age, should have known better. He should have known better than to make plans like "Make sure there are no complications". He had barely stepped out of the house, blinking into the rising sun owlishly while his eyes got used to the sudden sunlight, when the sound of hoofbeat could be heard, and a second later three riders came cantering through the freshly re-fortified gate. The village wasn't all that big and the gate therefore not very far from the village square, and so Haldar had no problem identifying them.

Two of them were rangers, which was a good start, and they had been expected, which was even better, considering how things were going at the moment. The one one of the left was Torthagyl, who was a very capable warrior, his slightly worrying controlling tendencies put aside. Next to him rode Nestir's brother Belvathor, a young ranger who had yet to exhibit the same gruff, healerly attitude as his brother and was considered one of the most easygoing warriors of the company. The two of them had, together with Naurdholen, survived the nightly orc attack in which they had lost the commander and Halbarad without serious injury and without being taken. Haldar still was not sure for which of the two the three of them blamed themselves more.

Yesterday, Belvathor and Torthagyl had been sent back to the camp, to report to Eldacar and make sure everything was all right. Eldacar would send on the – frankly disastrous – report to the rest of the captains, who would in turn warn all villages and outposts they could reach. The situation was spiralling out of control, and no matter how little any of them wanted to admit it openly, the rest of the Dúnedain had to be warned.

That they were back, and apparently in one piece, was a very good thing, and Haldar was glad. That they had brought Prince Legolas with them was not.

Haldar slowly and deliberately closed his eyes and then opened them again one after the other. No, the fair-haired elf was still riding towards him, white-faced and with what looked like a death grip on his horse's mane. He wore a long-sleeved shirt and a leather jerkin which effectively hid the bandages and most other signs of his injuries, but there were still the fading bruises on his face that stood out against his pale skin. Besides, Haldar was one of the few people who had actually got a good look at the elf prince back in that orc cave, and he had a fair idee of the kind of injuries the prince would be recuperating from, miraculous healing or not.

Having ascertained that the elf was, in fact, real and showing no signs of or inclination to disappear in a cloud of pink smoke, Haldar squared his shoulders and took a deep breath. It was not a moment too soon, it appeared, because the Lords Elrohir and Elladan chose this moment to appear between the houses, talking quietly to each other. They fell silent in the moment they saw the fair-haired elf, and if the intensity of their gazes was anything to go by, they had a word or two to say about their friend's sudden appearance. He wouldn't have been surprised if two dark clouds of furious displeasure had suddenly appeared above their heads.

Haldar stepped out of Cemendur's house and gently closed the door behind him. There really was no reason why Bania and the captain had to be disturbed by the yelling to come.






Rivendell, Elvynd decided, was turning into a madhouse.

There were quite a lot of people who claimed that that had happened already, but he had always believed in giving people (or places) the benefit of the doubt. A distressingly large percentage of the people in question were residents of aforementioned place.

But this, he was certain, was the last bit of proof he – or anybody else – had ever needed.

"He is what?" he asked, as close to completely incredulous as he had ever been.

The two elves in front of him looked at each other. Thalar shrugged, while Fêrdhol, who was younger and supposedly more impressionable, looked faintly scandalised. Meneldir, who was standing behind them, only looked immensely amused.

He would, too. He had a strange sense of humour, which unfortunately Elvynd couldn't even pretend not to share. He, too, found it occasionally amusing to scare random humans, especially after he had almost been killed by particularly deranged ones a few months ago. As far as he knew, the other elf didn't have a specific reason for his behaviour, but he was sure there was one. Meneldir was nothing if not a reasonable elf.

Right now, however, Isál's commander didn't look particularly reasonable. He looked like someone who knew it wouldn't be a good idea to laugh but was losing the fight fast.

"Well, sir," Thalar began, "he said that he would not do it."

"In fact," Meneldir added, a smile on his face that was somewhere between devilish and carefully detached, "the captain said, and I quote, 'tell that idiot that there is no way in the world I will do it, and he can have it in writing if he wants to'." He frowned. "Or something very similar to it."

"Thank you, Commander," Elvynd said. He found that he said it in a remarkably civil tone of voice. "You are being very helpful."

"I do try, sir."

Any second now, Elvynd thought darkly. Any second now Meneldir would start laughing, and then he would have a real, official reason to find some sort of punishment for his disrespectful behaviour. Right now, he would enjoy finding it, and it would be something the other elf would not like.

"And he said nothing else?" he asked, mostly to distract himself from rather dark fantasies about putting Meneldir on kitchen-scrubbing duty for the next, oh, twelve decades or so. "He can't have just told you that and thrown you out."

"No," Thalar admitted. He looked very much as if he wished he weren't here, or anywhere close to here, in fact. "In fact, he didn't."

"He also waved his arms a lot," Fêrdhol threw in, looking at him earnestly. Elvynd was reminded strongly of a confused puppy. "And then he threw us out."

"He ... I ... what?" As much as he tried, Elvynd still couldn't make sense of this whole thing, and Meneldir grinning in the corner didn't help in the slightest, either. "But why would he do that?"

"I couldn't speculate, sir," Thalar said, also very earnestly. Elvynd, who had always had a rather high opinion of his commander, shot the other elf a sharp look. "But if I were to do it, I..."

"Yes?" Elvynd asked. He was losing his patience, fast.

"I would say it has something to do with Lady Gaerîn's wedding dress. Sir," Thalar went on bravely. Seeing the look Elvynd shot him, he hurriedly added, "Not that I would know anything about that, of course."

"No, you wouldn't," Elvynd told him, fixing him with a glare that would have frozen a snow hare. "And the first warrior I hear gossiping about it – or about anything else connected to Lady Gaerîn – will find himself with more extra duties than he has ever imagined in his worst nightmares."

"Oh, I don't know," Meneldir said introspectively. "There was this one time I dreamed about accidentally burning down the library and Lord Erestor assigning me..."

"Meneldir," Elvynd began, with exquisite composure, "I may not be your commanding officer, but I do outrank you, so rest assured that I can have you assigned to a very lonely, very cold place for the next yén or so."

"Yes, sir," the other elf said, bowing his head. Elvynd suspected that he was less chastened than trying to hide a grin. "I am sorry, sir."

He was most definitely not, but Elvynd decided to let the matter rest. It would do him no good having to explain to Lord Elrond just why he had killed one of his commanders, no matter how justified the action might have been.

"So," he went on, in a last attempt to regain control over this conversation, "to make a long story short, you came to Captain Isál with a completely innocent request, and he waved his arms, insulted me, and then threw you out."

"Well ... yes."

"Exactly, sir."

"That would be accurate, sir."

Elvynd closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. This day was getting worse by the minute, and it had started with Gelydhiel's father asking him a lot of uncomfortable questions pertaining to his intentions concerning his daughter. Gelydhiel – who happened to be a distant cousin of Gaerîn – and he were ... well, what were they, exactly? He didn't know an answer to that, just as he hadn't known an answer to it when Gelydhiel's father had cornered him behind the stables. It hadn't made the discussion any easier.

His first commander had always told him that there were going to be days like this, but he had never really believed it, fool that he was.

"Is there any reason why I shouldn't go insane right here and now?" he finally asked, opening his eyes.

The other three warriors were silent for a moment.

"In order not to give him the satisfaction?" Thalar finally offered.

"Good answer," Elvynd said. "Now, please, leave me before I change my mind." The three others didn't even look at each other before they edged towards the door, looking faintly as if he was going to turn into a swarm of flesh-eating killer bees any minute now, and he added, "Thalar, could you stay for another moment, please?"

Meneldir and Fêrdhol looked at their companion with commiserative eyes, but it did not stop them from leaving the room as quickly as possible. As soon as they had closed the door behind them, Elvynd turned to his commander, an almost pleading look in his eyes.

"Is he serious about this, Thalar? Because if he is, Lord Glorfindel is going to have me for breakfast."

"I trust you are speaking figuratively, sir?"

"I am not entirely sure anymore, Thalar."

While that may have been slightly exaggerated, Elvynd knew one thing for certain: Their lord's seneschal was not going to be happy with him. Sighing, he allowed himself to drop into his chair, nearly sending a haphazard stack of reports and rosters from his desk to the floor.

"This is all Lord Erestor's fault," he complained. "He created a monster."

"And, knowing him," Thalar said wisely, "He knew it, too."

Elvynd couldn't help but agree, at least inwardly. Ever since Lord Erestor had tricked Lord Glorfindel into re-doing that inventory – or, as was the official version, had convinced him –, things had taken a turn for the worse, at least for the higher-ranking officers. After the first few days of not-so-subtle grumbling, Lord Glorfindel seemed to have been inspired by his appointed task, and had decided that if he had to suffer, his subordinates had to, as well. It was an attitude that was as evil as it was commonplace in this world, and so the captains – and through them, the commanders – had started to re-inventory anything their commanding officer could think of.

And, considering Rivendell's strategic position, namely on the outskirts of the civilised world, there were more than enough stockpiles and stores of supplies and weapons, in and around the settlement.

This, of course, was the reason why Elvynd had sent, after almost a week of tireless work, his commander to his fellow captain, with a sketched report on the general state of their northern outposts and a plea for his input and opinion. And Isál, fiend that he was, had all but laughed in his face.

Oh, he was going to pay his so-called friend back for this, Elvynd vowed silently. Even if Isál was holding him responsible for the whole debacle with Gaerîn's wedding dress, there was no reason to throw his oldest and best friend to the wolves, or, in this case, Lord Glorfindel.

Ha, Elvynd thought. Give him a wolf any time. A wolf he was allowed to kill if it attacked him. Lord Glorfindel ... well. He really thought that Lord Elrond would have strong opinions about people killing his seneschal. More than that, he would probably never even get close to the golden-haired elf lord. A lot of people had tried in the past few millennia, and unless they were demons of the deep and had whips, they hadn't succeeded. The story of how Lord Glorfindel had confronted the Witch-king and turned him to flight was still told with a substantial amount of glee in the Hall of Fire.

"I am doomed, am I not?" he asked, not really expecting an answer. "I won't have the report ready by tomorrow. I therefore won't be able to hand it over to Lord Glorfindel in time. Considering that he's only just finished re-inventorying the armouries, he will not be in the mood to deal with any excuses." He let out a deep breath and shook his head. "Is there any way this is not going to end with me floating in the Bruinen with a quill in my back?"

"Hard to say, sir," Thalar said earnestly. "You might try and take Dólion's place and deliver those messages to the Golden Wood. That might buy you some time."

"True," Elvynd admitted. "But to be serious: Did you leave the draft with Captain Isál? I hope so, because I know you have faced more terrible things than an arm-waving Captain Isál."

Thalar raised an eyebrow at him, but did not disagree. He had survived far more terrible things, though, among them Elvynd himself in a temper, and Elvynd simply couldn't imagine him being overly intimidated by Isál, yelling and arm-waving or not.

"Of course I did, sir," his commander reassured him. "I think he is going to look it over, too."

Elvynd tried not to look too hopeful. Isál was beginning to ... well, not scare him, but at least to annoy him just the tiniest bit. He hadn't really understood the whole wedding dress thing – he had most certainly never said he would organise the order and delivery of the fabric – and he was beginning to lose his patience with him, wedding or no wedding.

"Well," he said, picking up an old, broken quill he used as a bookmark. "There might be hope yet, then. Do you..."

There was a knock on the door, and both of them looked up to see Annorathil poke his head into the room, looking his typical, unruffled self. Suddenly Elvynd felt intensely jealous of him for looking so unconcerned by the madness that seemed to have enveloped Rivendell.

"Excuse me, sirs," the older warrior began, "but Lord Glorfindel would like to see you at your earliest convenience, Captain."

Elvynd, who was trying very hard not to look too much like a rabbit faced with a mongoose, did not even doubt that Lord Glorfindel had indeed phrased the "request" just like that. The golden-haired elf lord was nothing if not polite, right up to the point where he lost his temper in a spectacular fashion, and in some of his more light-hearted (read: drunk) moments, Elvynd had had the vision of him asking the balrog politely to leave before trying to chop it into pieces.

"Does he now?" he asked faintly. Annorathil smiled one of his rare smiles, one that very clearly stated that he knew exactly in how much trouble you were and was very, very happy not to be in your position.

"He does indeed, sir," Annorathil assured him. "He was quite firm in his request."

"He would be, wouldn't he?" Elvynd muttered as he tried to figure out just what he had done to be summoned by his commanding officer. The report wasn't late yet, and his little disagreement with Isál wasn't serious enough to merit intervention from above. The only reason he could think of was Gelydhiel's father accusing him of having sullied his daughter's honour or something of the like, and, Valar, wasn't that an unpleasant thought.

"Very well," he added, when Annorathil only kept smiling at him and Thalar looked at him a way that quite clearly spelled 'There he goes to his doom, alas, I knew him well'. "Thalar, I would like you to finish the inventory of the stables. And try not to step on too many toes; the last thing I need is the stable hands mad at me."

Thalar's look of commiseration turned into a barely-veiled glare. It looked rather like he intended to personally seek out any and all toes he could find and stomp on them.
"Yes, sir. Of course, sir. I will take care of it, sir."

Elvynd, who knew that, no matter how excellent and loyal a commander Thalar was, he was entering dangerous territory when the other elf was beginning to attach a 'sir' to every sentence, only smiled at him blandly. A few seconds later he was standing outside of his office and half-closing the door in the vain hope that that would provide him with some cover from Thalar's dark looks. He wasn't better than Lord Glorfindel, though, and so the thought that he wasn't the only one who would spend the rest of his day (presumably) in misery cheered him up considerably.

"Lord Glorfindel is waiting for you in his office," Annorathil told him, looking even more amused now. "I am on my way to the storerooms, so..."

"Oh, yes, Annorathil, do accompany me," Elvynd said glumly as he started down the corridor. "It is always nice to have company on one's way to the gallows."

"Quite so, sir," Annorathil agreed, placidity personified.

"What is the emergency that requires your presence in the storerooms, then?" Elvynd went on, determined to distract himself as long as possible. "Has one of the cooks locked himself in?"

"Out," the other elf answered solemnly. "And, of course, the key is nowhere to be found. It is the room where the flour is kept, so unless we want to have a mutiny on our hands because the promised cherry cakes are not ready by dinnertime, I think I should go and open the door."

Elvynd couldn't help but smile. Annorathil was, as some of the older, more respectable denizens of Rivendell would say, one of the main corrupting influences of the Last Homely House. In his long life the dark-haired elf had seen – and picked – most of the locks in existence, and his skills were approaching awe-inspiring. Elvynd had seen him open even complicated locks with nothing but half a scrap of metal in under half a minute, and while such a disreputable skill caused some to frown, Elvynd had very often been very glad to have the older warrior with him.

He also was rumoured to get along with locks and locking mechanisms better than with actually living, breathing creatures, but Elvynd was willing to overlook that. For one, he had never said it himself, and besides, if it was the case, he did have a point: Locks were a lot easier to deal with than people, especially if you had a picklock and knew how to use it.

"That would be unfortunate," Elvynd said, nodding. "How have they managed to lose the key?"

"Eru only knows," Annorathil said, sighing and rolling his eyes in disapproval of any and all reckless behaviour that resulted in lost keys. "They probably baked it into one of the pastries last week."

"That would explain a lot," Elvynd said. "I thought I saw Ingvaer spit out a tooth or two."

"Ingvaer's teeth are fine," Annorathil informed him. "At least until that boy in your troop finds out about his latest 'ingenious idea'."

Ingvaer was Annorathil's nephew and the ultimate proof that some things just ran in certain families, among them ingenuity. While Annorathil was a genius when it came to locks, Ingvaer was ... well, a genius. In a way, that was. He had the strangest ways of extricating himself from uncomfortable places and situations (or, occasionally, repair and fix things), mostly with the help of a piece of string, a scrap of metal and, occasionally, some glue. No one had ever really understood how, but most of his ideas actually worked, against all probability and laws of nature.

"What boy in my troop?" Elvynd asked against his better judgement.

"The one he is always spending time with, sir." Annorathil could be quite unhelpful if he wanted to. "Forgive me, but I cannot recall his name."

"Fêrdhol?" Elvynd offered, after having cast his mind about for a second or two.

"That is him, sir," the other elf confirmed calmly. "And I think you don't want to know the rest of it."

"I think I don't, either," Elvynd agreed, with the firm conviction of someone pulling a blanket over their head so the monster couldn't find them. "Do you have your tools, then?" he changed the subject. "To open the door?"

'Picklocks', as he had learned some time ago, was a term an artist like Annorathil did not appreciate.

Annorathil looked at him as if he had just suggested bludgeoning the lock with a mallet until it fell apart.
"Please, Captain," was all he said. "It is a storeroom."

After that, Elvynd was silent, not wishing to further insult what Annorathil probably considered professional honour. Annorathil could probably open that kind of lock with a tooth pick and one hand tied behind his back. In far less time than Elvynd would have liked, they had reached Lord Glorfindel's office, and Annorathil took his leave, still looking faintly disapproving.

"Good luck," Elvynd told him in a last attempt to stall, even though he knew that if Annorathil needed luck when faced with a storeroom lock, the end of the world might very well be at hand. "We wouldn't want to have the Great Cherry Cake Revolt on our hands."

"Indeed we would not, sir," Annorathil agreed, that hint of a smile once again on his lips. "I still remember what happened when the honey-cakes ran out."

"That turned ugly," Elvynd concurred with an a not-very-exaggerated shiver. Two companies had returned from patrol at the same time – in the middle of a deluge that had already lasted for more than a week –, and the cooks simply hadn't counted on so many starved, honey-cake-crazed warriors. The cakes had been gone within minutes, and after that things had turned ... well, decidedly un-elvish. It had been almost hobbit-y. "Well, the fate of Imladris rests in your talented hands, Annorathil."

"Again?" The dark-haired elf merely raised an eyebrow. "This is beginning to become distressingly familiar."

Elvynd looked after him until he had turned the corner, and he was still shaking his head when he was raising his hand to knock on Lord Glorfindel's door. Mad as a hatter, everybody was. Before he could knock, his superior's voice could be heard from inside the room.

"Come in already, Captain!"

Yet another thing he had never understood, Elvynd mused as he opened the door: How Lord Glorfindel always knew who stood in front of his door. It was Lord Erestor's spy network that was to blame here, he decided.

"My lord," he said as he entered the room, bowing slightly. Lord Glorfindel sat behind his disorganised-organised desk, barely looking up as he closed the door behind him. "You sent for me."

"I did," the golden-haired elf lord affirmed. "Sit down, Captain."

Elvynd looked from the pile of papers stacked on the only chair to his commanding officer and back again.
"Uh..."

At that rather ineloquent sound the other looked up.
"Oh, they're just some of Erestor's files. You can put them on the floor."

Elvynd hoped that he didn't look quite as horrified as he felt. Everybody – and Lord Glorfindel especially – knew what happened to people who laid hands on Lord Erestor's files.
"My lord?"

Lord Glorfindel arched an eyebrow at him, clearly amused.
"What is it, Elvynd? Are you afraid of our lord's esteemed chief advisor?"

Elvynd shot him a look that suggested to the other elf that he had gone insane sometime between breakfast and lunch. It was a look that the golden-haired elf seemed to receive quite frequently.
"Of course I am, sir."

"Fair enough," Lord Glorfindel allowed. "You can put them on the table there."

Elvynd spotted a small table that was almost invisible under the load of papers covering it, and gently deposited the stack of files on top of it. The heap of parchment listed slightly to the left but seemed to hold, and with a small sigh of relief Elvynd went back and sat down.

"Before you say anything, my lord," he began, when it became clear that Lord Glorfindel wasn't about to start speaking immediately, "let me assure you that Captain Isál and I will most definitely hand in the reports tomorrow and that anything you might have heard to the contrary is..."

"Calm down, Captain," the other elf interrupted him, having pushed back the list he had been perusing and studying him with intense eyes. "I don't care what insanity Isál has concocted this time. He is going mad, isn't he?"

Elvynd tried to find a more flattering way to put it and finally gave up.
"I think so, my lord. It might get better after the wedding."

"So there is hope," Lord Glorfindel said with an amused quirk of his lips. "That is good to hear."

"We captains await the day with anticipation, my lord."

"Don't we all," the blond elf muttered. Elvynd couldn't help but smile. He loved Isál, had known him for practically all his life, but right now he would gladly have lashed him to a tree and left him there until he regained his common sense.

Lord Glorfindel shrugged, clearly dismissing all thoughts of insane captains. This was Rivendell, Elvynd reasoned, so the other elf had probably got used to insane subordinates about ... oh, about three thousand years ago. And that was a conservative estimate.

"I want to ask you for a favour, Elvynd," Lord Glorfindel finally said with uncharacteristic hesitation. Elvynd thought he might have blinked. Hesitation was something he didn't exactly connect with Lord Glorfindel. "It is not an order, so I would simply consider it an act of kindness."

"What can I do for you, my lord?" Elvynd asked, trying not to let his confusion show.

"Have your company ready to move out at a moment's notice," the other elf replied promptly. He raised his hand and began to count on his fingers, "Besides the basics, rations for at least two weeks, medical supplies, entrenching tools and all the weapons you can carry. And hay for the horses, in case we don't have the time to let them graze."

Elvynd hoped he didn't look quite as wide-eyed as he felt. Rations for two weeks? Hay? Entrenching tools?

"My lord, I don't..." he began, but broke off. "Why would we need entrenching tools?"

That wasn't what he had really wanted to ask, but it was at the forefront of his mind. The last time he had taken entrenching tools with him on a mission, he had been a lieutenant and they had been sent to the aid of an outpost under immediate threat of being overrun by orcs. It had ended in a disaster. His commander had been killed almost immediately, and the responsibility of getting everybody out of there alive had fallen to him. He hadn't done a terribly good job of it, and what had remained of his troop and the guards of the outpost had escaped by the skin of their teeth.

"The fact that I just told you to take as many weapons as you can carry doesn't worry you, but the entrenching tools do?" Lord Glorfindel asked, amused. There was something in his eyes that didn't quite fit his amusement, though, and Elvynd realised that the older elf was in fact uncomfortable. The concept was almost as strange as him being hesitant.

"My men would be thrilled to be allowed to take as many weapons as they want," Elvynd said wryly. "The problem would arise if I tried to stop them. But yes, the tools do worry me, my lord," he admitted. "The last time I was ordered to take entrenching tools with me was several yéni ago. And it ended very badly."

The other elf nodded solemnly.
"I remember. It did end badly."

"But if you and Lord Elrond deem it necessary, I don't see any problems. I will inform my commanders," Elvynd went on bravely. Yes, so he was fishing for information, but it was understandable, wasn't it? Because ... well, really, entrenching tools?

Now, Lord Glorfindel actually looked slightly embarrassed.
"Well ... fact is that Lord Elrond doesn't exactly know about this. Yet."

Elvynd gave up any and all attempts to make sense of this.
"I don't understand, my lord. Why would you need my patrol made ready and not tell Lord Elrond about it?"

"I am not talking about your patrol, Captain. I am talking about your entire company."

Elvynd's brain seized this moment to retreat out of his head via his ears, whimpering in confusion.
"I am sorry, sir, but I'm afraid I don't understand. What does this mean?"

Lord Glorfindel sighed and leaned back in his armchair. The fabric of his long robe rustled as he ran his hand through his hair, a small crease appearing between his eyebrows.

"I have a bad feeling, Elvynd," he admitted quietly, tilting his head to look Elvynd in the eye. "I might be seeing shadows where there are none, but I do not think so. Elrond has it, too, but he isn't sure what exactly it means." He paused, a hard gleam entering his eyes. "I don't particularly care what it means. I want to be prepared, and if that means packing huge bags with anything we can think of – including entrenching tools –, then I'll do it. If word reaches us that something has gone wrong, I want to have a company ready to go."

Things suddenly became a lot clearer. Elvynd might be a lot of things, but stupid was not one of them.
"You think Estel has found trouble once more, my lord?"

"Let us just say that the chances are astronomically high, yes," the other elf said dryly. "And the twins and Prince Legolas won't have helped."

"Not necessarily, no," Elvynd agreed. "Thinking about it, you might want to consider informing Captain Isál, too. We might need two companies at the ready. The four of them..."

"Five," Lord Glorfindel interrupted him gloomily. "Don't forget Captain Celylith. Considering who his father is, it is not surprising. I know for a fact that Erestor almost strangled Lord Celythramir once or twice during negotiations, and we all know how notoriously hard it is to get him riled up enough to try something like that."

"The five of them, then," Elvynd admitted. "The five of them never do anything halfway."

"They don't," the elf lord agreed. "If I know anything at all, this is going to end, if not in bloodshed and thousands of men trying to kill them, then at least in complete chaos. If Elrond is worried – and, Valar, he is –, I am very worried. I think you are right, though. Two companies sounds like a very good idea. We might be able to minimise the damage if we prepare accordingly."

Privately, Elvynd thought that, if Lord Glorfindel was worried enough to make preparations without informing Lord Elrond, it was most likely far too late for that.

"We can try, my lord," he still said. "I will inform my commanders, and I can vouch for their silence. Shall I inform Captain Isál or would you like to do it yourself?"

"Oh, please, you do it," Lord Glorfindel hurried to say. "I have to admit that I am reluctant to immerse myself in – how to put this? – in Captain Isál's special kind of insanity."

"It does seem to be catching," Elvynd agreed.

"And spreading," the older elf added. "I..."

Before he could say more, the door opened. Elvynd briefly wondered who would enter Lord Glorfindel's office without permission or even knocking, but then Lord Erestor's head was poked into the room. That explained it, of course. There were only two people who could get away with behaviour like this, and the other one was deliberately being kept in the dark about this.

"Lord Glorfindel," he said, nodding at the older elf lord. "Captain Isál."

"My lord."

"Erestor!" The golden-haired elf exclaimed in the tone of voice of someone who has just been caught in the act. "You are late."

"Librarians are never late," the dark-haired elf corrected him. "We lack the necessary ability to be distracted."

"Ah," Lord Glorfindel said. "I see. So that incident a few days ago..."

"Doesn't count," Lord Erestor interrupted him. "There was Darwinion wine involved."

Elvynd had to concede the point, whatever it was. He, too, loved the potent, red wine, and had done a few interesting things under its influence.

"May I trouble you for some minutes of your time, my lord?" Lord Erestor went on, looking as placid as ever. He had this particular way of asking a question that only allowed for two possibilities: One, a positive answer, or two, a quick jump off one of the balconies.

"Always." Lord Glorfindel smiled, a wide, genuine smile that lit up his entire face. "The captain was just about to leave."

Elvynd wasn't only not stupid, he was also quick on the uptake.
"I was. Good day to you, my lords."

He stepped to the side to let Lord Erestor pass, who swept past him with barely a backward glance. While he was closing the door, he heard him ask, "Did you tell him?"

"Of course I did," Lord Glorfindel retorted. "He will tell his commanders, and inform Captain Isál, too. Two companies are better than one."

Lord Erestor sighed, relief clearly audible in his voice.
"Thank the One."

Elvynd closed the door firmly behind him, cutting off all further sounds. For a few seconds, he remained where he was, standing just outside of Lord Glorfindel's office and staring off into empty space.

Lord Erestor, who was not exactly known for public displays of emotion, was worried. Openly worried, so worried in fact that he came to Lord Glorfindel's office to press him for news. Lord Glorfindel was past worried and had entered the territory of "Let's prepare for the worst; don't forget the weapons and, yes, the entrenching tools". Lord Elrond, by extrapolation, had to be almost frantic.

This was not good. This was, in fact, not good at all, and might actually be bad enough to tear Isál out of his temporary madness. He'd better make sure that his men did indeed pack all the weapons they could carry, Elvynd decided.

Well, he thought as he walked down the corridor into the direction of his office, at least one group of people would be happy. Fêrdhol had been asking for years to be allowed to bring his mace.






"You are being an idiot."

"Yes, Elrohir."

"You are being an incredibly big idiot."

"Yes, Elladan. Oh, and you get extra points for special eloquence."

"Cumnacár."

Legolas wrinkled his brow.
"That just means 'idiot' in Quenya, Elladan."

"Yes, well, you are," the older twin stressed. "Did I mention how big an idiot you are?"

"Yes, Elladan." Legolas sighed. "About ... oh, a thousand times or so?"

"Some people," Elrohir said pointedly, "need to be told things repeatedly to understand them. I am not quite sure yet if it has something to do with you being a wood-elf or not, even though I am leaning toward a positive answer."

"Oh, so this is how this is going to go?" Legolas asked, honestly intrigued. Elrohir was his father's son and his grandmother's grandson (and Lord Erestor's ex-pupil), and it was always interesting watching him in moments like these. "Cleverly pointing out that I am Silvan and then, maybe, calling me names?"

"Well," Elladan said, frowning, "we could always wave our arms a lot and yell, if you would prefer."

Legolas barely kept a smile off his face.
"No, I think I would rather have you as calm as possible."

"Too late," Elladan said curtly. "About ... oh, two days now."

It was silent for a while after that, because, well, what could you say to that? Legolas, who knew what the twins were not saying, couldn't think of a single thing, mostly because he was just as paralysed by fear and panic as they were. But he had also been told how stupid he was for the past day – more or less non-stop, too –, and so he was also the tiniest bit annoyed.

"I am sorry," he said. "I am sorry for not complying with your wishes, nay, your orders, like a meek child. I am sorry for believing that I can decide for myself what to do or think. What a foolish assumption of me, I know."

"It isn't about that, Legolas, and you know it," Elrohir told him in his patented No-I-am-not-angry-please-relax-while-I-tear-off-your-head voice. "We are worried about you."

"I can worry about myself," Legolas informed the twin, far more heatedly than he had wanted to. Out of the corner of his eye he saw that the rangers, who had surreptitiously fallen back as soon as they had left the village, were beginning to slow their horses even more. One could say a lot about rangers, but oblivious they were not. "I don't need you to do it."

"Apparently, you do," Elladan snapped back. There was a dark cloud of anger almost visibly hanging over his head, and Legolas half-expected it to be dispelled by a low-hanging branch any second now. "You should be lying in a bed somewhere, preferably somewhere safe like, oh, Rivendell. You are not fit to ride around and be attacked by orcs."

"Now you are getting ahead of yourself," Legolas said mildly. "I've been here a whole day now, and I haven't been attacked by anything or anyone yet. It has to be some kind of record for these parts."

The part of his character that seemed to have been handed down rather directly from his father to him bristled at Elladan's tone, but he forced himself to keep calm. The twins were frantic and desperately worried, and he was the most convenient target. It was understandable. But, he added inwardly, if they kept on going like this, he was going to explode in a spectacular and very messy way.

"You haven't been outside of the village yet," Elrohir reminded him before Elladan could say anything. "This is your first chance to be attacked. Wait for it."

"Thank you, Elrohir."

"Don't make this into a joke," Elladan all but hissed at his younger brother, dividing his glare between Legolas and Elrohir now. "It is not. We have been looking for them for days now, and we have found nothing. Nothing. The last thing we need now is having to take care of someone who should by all rights be in bed and not moving."

Legolas slowly let out a deep breath, forcing himself not to start yelling immediately. This was it.
"Be careful what you say, Elladan. I just may be able to show you just how quickly I can still move."

Elrohir looked from Elladan to him and back again, wearing the faintly resigned expression of someone who is preparing himself for having to break up a brawl really soon.
"No one is going to do anything, Legolas. You may be an idiot, but provoking a diplomatic incident is not going to help anybody."

In all honesty, Legolas had long ago resigned himself to the fact that their fathers knew just how harebrained their sons were and wouldn't declare a diplomatic incident even if they tried to disembowel each other with blunt kitchen knives. A small part of him was firmly convinced that they had been waiting for such an event for a long time already. The public addresses full of remorseful, resigned understanding were probably lying in a desk drawer somewhere.

"I know that," he retorted as calmly as he could. "Tell your – yes, I'm saying it – your idiot brother that."

"The idiot brother can hear you very well, you know," Elladan snapped back. "We have everything under control here. We don't need you to drop off your horse in a dead faint and break your neck."

Legolas just barely refrained from pointing out how very, very far away from 'under control' this all was.

"I am not going to fall off anything, least of all Rashwe," he said, patting his horse's neck with his un-bandaged left hand. The white horse tossed its head for a moment before it returned to its earlier pastime, namely staring evilly at Elrohir's horse. If horses could sweat like this, Legolas was sure there would have been a bead of moisture forming on the poor animal's brow. "He would never allow that. And even if, I would never break my neck. Wood-elves don't do such things."

"If he had any sense, he would," Elladan retorted, clearly refusing to be mollified. "And what about Celylith? I cannot believe that you just left him behind to fend for himself!"

The 'This is going to end in bloodshed' look on Elrohir's face intensified, and Legolas had to use most of his self-control to remain calm, or something similar to it.

"Do you wish to repeat that, Elrondion?" he asked, in that particular, dead serious tone of voice that his father used to banish people or declare wars. "Because I am convinced that I did not hear you correctly."

"Elladan..." That was Elrohir, who was shrewd enough to see a catastrophe when it walked up to him, tapped him on the shoulder and inquired in an interested voice what was happening. "Gwanûr, ú-be...."

"I will say what I wish, Elrohir," his brother informed him. His tone of voice was very much like the one Legolas had always imagined the Noldorin princes of old using, when they were informing their men that yes, a lot of people would be killed, but that a Silmaril was worth any number of lives. "How could you leave him behind, Legolas? You can't do anything for Estel, you know that as well as we do. Celylith, on the other hand, is lying barely conscious on a bed roll somewhere, among people who don't really understand or know him, and you, his prince, just ride off into the sunset to..."

"You want to be silent now." Legolas' voice was barely above a whisper, but it was such an icy one that even the most enraged troll would have been checked in mid-swing. "You really, really want to be silent now."

For a moment, no one said a word. Even Elladan's panic-driven anger was helpless against the ice-cold rage in the elf prince's words.

"Legolas..." Elrohir began, giving his two furious companions helpless looks. The wish for someone sensible – someone like Celylith, who knew just what to do and say to calm everybody down – to be here and help him stop this from descending into bloodshed was very easily visible on his face.

"How dare you," Legolas said, purposefully not looking at either of the twins and just as purposefully ignoring Elrohir's words. His voice wasn't particularly loud, but the raw, incredulous fury in it cut through the air like a whip. "How dare you use Celylith like this! You of all people should understand! To you of all people I shouldn't have to justify myself!"

Elladan glowered at him. Elrohir looked unsure, as if he didn't know what he could say that wouldn't make this any worse. Legolas didn't feel too inclined to help him, too furious to do anything but glare daggers at the two of them.

"And let me make one thing perfectly clear," he continued, clinging to the furious calmness that opposed his more violent impulses that wanted him to reach for a weapon. "You don't have anything under control here. You have been searching for days and have not found them. If there is a more perfect definition of 'not under control', I don't know what it is."

Elladan slowly cocked his head and looked at him, and if Legolas hadn't been so far past caring, he might have felt a short stab of fear.
"You insult us, son of Thranduil."

Legolas could only laugh, a short, hard laugh of anger and disbelief.

"I insult you?" he repeated, incredulous. "You insult me, Elladan. You implied that I was stupid, and thoughtless, and selfish. You implied that I would leave Celylith – my father's captain, for whom I, and no one else here, am responsible –, that I would leave my friend behind in order to chase shadows like a flighty child. You implied – and still imply – that I would leave Estel to a fate far worse than death without trying to do anything." He paused for a moment. "If things were different, if I didn't know you as I do, I would demand satisfaction."

"And I would gladly give it to you," Elladan said, refusing to back down. Noldor were nothing if not persistent, and to get one of them to admit that he or she was wrong was almost as impossible as convincing a hobbit to go on a diet. Silvan and Sindarin Elves just might be similar sometimes, but that was entirely beside the point. "Under different circumstances, of course." He paused for a moment, the strain of the moment making the very air around them crackle, and then added, reining in his horse, "I wouldn't hurt a wounded, unarmed person. Not even an annoying wood-elf."

"Oh, please, my lord, don't make an exception for me." Legolas' voice was arctic, and it wouldn't have surprised him at all if a cold breeze had started to blow. But of course the sun was shining and it was hot and dry, and somehow that infuriated Legolas even more. The least the weather could do was accommodate his mood. "If you..."

"Stop it, both of you!" Elrohir had finally lost his patience and stopped his horse, seething. Secretly, Legolas had wondered how long it would take him. "Listen to yourselves! You are doing their work for them!"

"We are not..." Elladan began indignantly.

"Elladan, you know that I love you, but if you are not silent right now, I will clobber you over the head."

Elladan closed his mouth. So did Legolas. It was the only thing to do when Elrohir spoke to you like this. It was the vocal equivalent of a fire-drake taking a deep breath.

"I am very disappointed, in both of you," Elrohir went on. "But probably more in you, Elladan. Legolas did get hit on the head lately, after all, so he has at least some excuse."

Legolas blinked. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Elladan do the same. He had always thought that, even though they were twins, Elladan looked more like Lord Elrond. How it was possible for one of the twins to look more like his father than the other, he had never really understood, but Elladan just did. It was the little things, the mannerisms, like cocking his head or pinching the bridge of his nose when he was one step away from getting up and disemboweling someone for pure stupidity. Elrohir, however, was very much like his father in spirit: It took a long time for him to lose his temper, but when he did ... Valar. Then it was rather like watching Mount Doom erupt, and intelligent people tended to get out of the way of flowing lava.

Legolas liked to think that he was intelligent, and so wisely decided to be silent. Elladan, stupid Noldo that he was, wasn't half as clever.

"Elrohir, I really..."

Elrohir's eyes quite literally seemed to catch fire. If Legolas hadn't had stopped his horse already, he would have done so now out of pure shock. There was something truly frightening about one of Lord Elrond's sons glaring at you with those cold eyes that seemed to mirror every single bloodthirsty Noldorin prince in his family tree.

"Have you not been paying attention, Elladan?" Elrohir asked, a cold fury in his voice that Legolas was quite sure he had never heard from him before. "Estel is out there. Estel has been out there for more than two days now. And you know what? He was taken from us. We allowed him to be taken, and taken by orcs, no less. We lost him like we lost so many of his forefathers, like we lost Arathorn, and what do you do? You argue with a friend, first with Daervagor and now with him! I can honestly not remember the last time I was so angry with you!"

This time, Elladan did the intelligent thing and joined Legolas in chastened, contemplative silence. Behind them, the rangers had found a sudden interest in the lush, green foliage of the trees around them. All of them were more or less successfully pretending not to understand a single word of Sindarin.

"And you!" Elrohir turned on Legolas, who knew that he was probably looking like a startled rabbit but couldn't bring himself to really care, being far too surprised. "You come here, wounded, and expect us to greet you with open arms? We know what Estel did to heal you, what he risked to heal you. And you think that a few days' rest are enough and come here to throw it all away? You can hardly stand without swaying. We know it, and you know it. Do you really think that you could stop an orc if it is really bent on killing you?"

Legolas, who, in the long years before he had received his first command, had been dressed down quite a few times, knew very well how to deal with this kind of reprimand: Do nothing, say nothing, and, for Elbereth's sake, don't blink. He very carefully and deliberately stared at a point just an inch above Elrohir's shoulder and asked himself just when he had turned back into a sixty-year-old recruit and Elrohir into his drill sergeant.

"Estel is out there somewhere, and so is young Halbarad," Elrohir went on, using that particular, half-threatening, half-disappointed tone of voice that Legolas had always connected with his basic training. His spine automatically straightened another inch or so. "Eru alone knows what they have done to them by now. Eru alone knows if they are still alive. You know as well as I do that if we do not find a trail today, the chances of them being alive when we finally do find them drop precipitously. Daervagor buried his best friend yesterday, and I will be damned if I bring him back his son to bury next. And I absolutely refuse to bring Estel home in any other way than whole and healthy."

"So," he paused, fixing first Legolas and then Elladan with a look so dark that Legolas was impressed anew, "if either of you utters another word to each other that isn't helpful, I will personally see to it that you spend the rest of the day tied to a tree. Do you understand me?"

Legolas was quite sure that he could hear a cricket chirp. It might have been a bird, too, he was slightly too stunned to pay attention, but it didn't really matter. It was the sound of a random animal emphasising the uncomfortable silence that had fallen between them.

Elladan and Legolas looked at each other, all former enmity forgotten, and simultaneously and without words decided that only complete and utter agreement would do.

"Yes, Elrohir."

"Of course, gwanûr."

Elrohir gave them a dark, searching look before he nodded his head.
"Very well. I am glad to hear it."

He spurred on his horse, and Elladan sighed as he did the same. He turned back to gesture at the rangers to pick up the pace once more. When Legolas caught up with him, the older twin was staring morosely at his brother's back, who was riding a few paces ahead and was clearly refusing to acknowledge his presence, at least judging by the rigid set of his shoulders.

"He can be really scary when he wants to be, can't he?" Legolas finally asked, after a few moments of silence.

"That was nothing," Elladan said dismissively. "He is too frightened and panicked to get really angry."

"Oh." Legolas, who had thought that Elrohir had been quite impressively angry, smiled nervously. He added, "He is right, you know."

"Of course he is right," Elladan said curtly. "He usually is when he is using that kind of voice."

"You two have been spending far too much time in Erestor's company," Legolas accused him.

"Maybe," the twin allowed. "But I think it's genetic. Even grandmother freely admits that it might be their side of the family."

Legolas, even though he had never seen the Lady of the Golden Wood with his own eyes, had to agree. Lord Celeborn was, of course, no Noldo, but that didn't mean anything. His father wasn't, either, and, Eru be his witness, couldn't the Elvenking lose his temper in a spectacular fashion.

"I am sorry," Legolas said finally. "I shouldn't have lost control like this. And I wouldn't have come if I thought I jeopardised the safety of any of you."

"I know that," Elladan assured him. "I do. I just..."

He trailed off, and Legolas nodded ruefully.
"I know. I understand."

"And I am sorry for bringing Celylith into all this," Elladan went on, determined. "I shouldn't have said it. He is one of your captains and your friend, and I know you would never abandon him."

"I would not," Legolas said. If he was honest, this was the one thing he had really taken personally, and the one thing he didn't know if he could forgive Elladan for just now. "He made me go. Or," he frowned, "as much as a half-unconscious person can."

"He would, wouldn't he," Elladan retorted with a faint frown. "Sometimes I think that he is frighteningly like Grandfather. In a far more subdued way, of course, but still. The underlying menace is always there."

"Well, two of his grandparents are from Lothlórien," Legolas told him. "It might be the environment."

"It might."

"Indeed."

"Legolas," Elladan went on, turning to look at him seriously, "We have found nothing over the past few days. Nothing. By rights, it should be impossible. But they are good. They are very, very good. Whoever leads them knows how to make tracks disappear."

"But orc tracks?" Legolas asked, not for the first time since he had arrived at the village. "They don't know the meaning of stealth. They wouldn't know stealth if it hit them over the head! You just can't hide the trail of that many orcs."

"Maybe not," Elladan agreed. "But if you are clever, you divide them into small groups, no more than maybe five or six, and have one of them stay behind and erase every sign of their passage."

"That would be clever," Legolas admitted. "There is one problem, though: Orcs don't do clever."

"These ones do," the older twin told him curtly. "We would have found a normal orc trail a long time ago, Legolas. Daervagor and the others would have found a normal orc trail a long time ago, for the eyes of the Rangers are sharp and not easily deceived. They have been specifically trained to leave no trails behind. That is why the Rangers have not found them before. That and the fact that..."

"Someone is supplying them with information," Legolas finished his sentence. His voice was barely more than a whisper, and he found that terrible rage once again rising inside of him. "Before this is over, I will find out who that is, and then I will show him just how angry I can become."

"You'd better get in line."

"Just the thought of staying at the camp doing nothing while Estel is out there in some orc cave ... I just couldn't bear it," Legolas said, swallowing heavily. "Even if I can't actually do anything to help him, I need to be here. I would go mad otherwise."

Elladan looked at him in a way that quite clearly suggested that being here was no protection against going mad.

"We appreciate your help, mellon nín," he said, in a surprisingly earnest tone of voice. "It is just ... we already lost Estel. Neither of us can bear the thought of losing you, too, again."

"You won't," Legolas promised him. "I have no intention of being lost. The only thing I want is find Estel. And," he added, "kill some orcs, if possible."

"Oh yes," Elladan said, brightening. "Killing orcs sounds like a very good idea. We should concentrate on that."

"First we have to find them."

"We will," Elladan assured him. "They may be clever – or maybe not quite so stupid – orcs, but they are still orcs. They cannot hide forever."

And they couldn't, both of them knew that, but they could very well hide long enough for them to get there too late. They could hide until they would find nothing more than a pair of lifeless corpses, or, worse maybe, two men so thoroughly broken that death might very well be preferable.

Legolas knew all this, and couldn't help but mutter a Dwarvish curse that condemned all orcs ever spawned to the deepest pits. The Dwarves, who had no love at all for the Orcish race, were very inventive when it came to curses, Legolas had to give them that.

Behind them, hoofbeat heralded the arrival of the leader of their ranger patrol. It was Naurdholen, the ranger who had brought the news of the first attack to the ranger camp. He and Belvathor and Torthagyl – the two rangers who had (completely voluntarily, of course) escorted him to the village – were the only members of Cemendur's troop who had survived the nightly ambush. They were rather ... focussed, one could say, but only if one was a blind idiot. They were vengeful, and Legolas would have hated to be someone they decided stood between them and the orcs who had killed their comrades.

"Excuse me, my lords," the ranger said, in the tone of voice of someone who knew very well that a few minutes ago the three of them had come rather close to strangling each other. "But the men and I were wondering if you were planning to keep to this route? Because if we do, we'll end up in Haldar's sector."

Legolas didn't really see a problem with that, but then again, he had only been here for a day. It seemed that everybody here – and he included the twins, Haldar and Daervagor – had reached a whole new level of nervousness and panic.

"And that would result in us finding ourselves with a few arrows in various body parts," Elladan said, nodding. "I will ask my brother, but..." He interrupted himself as a low, but still very audible growl could be heard from Elrohir's direction. "I think he will agree to turn north soon. We would not want to intrude on Haldar's search area."

"Very good, my lord," Naurdholen said smoothly. "If I may say so, I think that is an excellent idea. I would hate to end up like Tarcil." He sighed over-dramatically. "The lad has good eyes, but he sure didn't see that sword hilt coming."

"Sword hilt?" Legolas asked, intrigued against his will.

"Yesterday Haldar's and Hírgaer's troops ran into each other," the ranger explained. "They weren't exactly aware of the fact at first, which led to ... complications."

"It was almost a brawl," Elladan said with a certain amount of glee. "Who was the one who hit Tarcil over the head?"

"Ereneth," Naurdholen admitted with a small wince. "He feels very sorry about it."

"I am sure," Elladan said archly. Legolas, who had not been here for the confrontation between the twins and the two half-Rehír but had heard about it from several people, decided that there was definitely still some bitterness between them. "Have your men close up, Naurdholen. The captain impressed upon me the importance of staying together."

"Yes, sir."

Naurdholen fell back slightly, gesturing at his men to close up. Legolas mused that he very much doubted that Daervagor had impressed anything upon the twins. Even he, who didn't know the man well and didn't particularly care to, could see how ... changed he was. Losing his son and Cemendur had been a hard blow, but Aragorn's capture and Cemendur's death seemed to have broken the captain.

No, Legolas thought, that wasn't true. Daervagor was one of the people that quite literally could not be broken. Oh, of course, under torture he, too, would eventually cave in and tell his tormentors what he thought they wanted to hear. Everybody did, after all, sooner or later. But to break his spirit, his soul ... Legolas didn't know what it would take, and he shuddered to think about it. Daervagor was one of the men who, even in the face of certain death and doom, would still do his duty, and possibly mock his enemies until the very moment he fell.

"We will follow the road for another half-mile or so," Elladan interrupted his musings, immersed in the logistical problems of their search. "We have searched the south already, and Haldar has the east. If we turn north here and spread out slightly, we should be able to cover ... what?"

His question was understandable, since Elrohir had suddenly stopped his horse in the middle of the road. His head was turned to the left, turned north, and he stared into the brush next to the road with frightening intensity. The twin's hair gleamed in the light, the sun lending it red highlights, but then Elrohir turned back to them, his eyes huge and unreadable in his pale face.

The two of them reined in their horses, too. For a moment, Legolas did not understand what was going on. At first he thought that Elrohir's gloomy prediction had come true, that there were orcs near and they were surrounded. But there was no sense of menace in the air and no sounds to be heard expect the hoofbeat of the rangers' horses as they hurried to reach them, and he knew that no enemy was near. Pushing aside the pain and weakness that was still clamouring for his attention, he strained his ears, but a deep, peaceful silence was all there was to hear.

He was about to ask Elrohir why he had stopped, but then he saw it. He did not understand how he could not have seen it sooner, but later he blamed the after-effects of his head injury and his overall poor physical condition.

It was totally unexpected. It was perfect. It was the most glorious thing Legolas had seen in several days.

It was a trail.

TBC...

Dúnedenith (pl. of dúnadaneth) (Sindarin) - 'Women of the West', (female) rangers
faer (S.) - spirit, soul
yén (pl.: yéni) (Quenya) - elvish unit of time, equivalent to 144 solar years
cumnacár (Q.) - 'empty-head', *idiot
Gwanûr, ú-be... (S.) - Brother, don't sa... (or something like it. Elladan interrupted him in the middle of the 'say' *g*)
gwanûr (S.) - (twin) brother
mellon nín (S.) - my friend

Yeah, well. Angst? Who, me? I don't even know what that word means... Anyway, Annorathil's little guest appearance is for ... Gods, I have forgotten who asked me for it. Still, it's for someone! *bright smile* So, Aragorn's still in trouble, but The Ingenious And Timely Rescue can finally happen! Or can it? *evil cackle* We'll see in the next chapter, in which there will also be more torture, blood, and mayhem. Probably in that order, too. So, stay tuned! I know that I don't deserve reviews, but they'd make me happy when I'm once again spending a whole night in the library ... and since I have the keys, I am NOT kidding. My life is sad, I know. *g*

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Additional A/N:

Sincerest apologies to Ilaaris, Tink, XoLikeWoahxO, Asdfjkl, Firefly-Maj and Christine, for not including them in the group review replies. If you wish to be included the next time, remember to leave a valid email address (in the correct space, because otherwise FF-net eats it) or to log in before reviewing. Thank you, and sorry again for any inconvenience this may cause.