Chapter 29: "Run"
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Kasslad's heart never pounded so fast, but neither had his feet.
He flew down the curving road back toward the palace, cursing himself for ever letting Legolas walk away from him. But his brother had looked so forlorn, so changed, so gone from the image Kasslad had always harbored of him and he didn't know what to do, how to bring him back or if bringing him back was ever going to be an option.
He had been wandering through the celebrations, bracing to reacquaint himself with his brother, to love him no matter who he had become, when it happened.
The roar.
"Out of my way!" Kasslad shoved an ellon from his path, sword lifted over their heads as he hurtled past him and through another rushing elf family where a naneth carried a wailing infant. He couldn't stop, couldn't care, couldn't be their crown prince right now.
That roar.
It had shattered fine glass flutes, decorated in gold glaze on display next to him in a vendor. That glass had spilled onto the cobbles around his feet like the rush of a river, spilling with it all the fear he and the rest of the kingdom had packed away from the beast's last visit.
He had been out on the road as well, in front of the palace, but with Oroduil. They had been looking for ale to settle a bet on who could beat who in a sword fight, of which Oroduil had won easily. Then the roar came, shattering windows, spinning them around to scan the skies.
"Move!" he all but screamed at an elleth, who sobbed and shielded her ears with her hands, ducking her head as she fled with the crowd away from the palace, so many headed for the east gate. They would be bottlenecked there. They would be sheep for the slaughter.
It was the same fear Oroduil had when Kagnirrok flew in on blue skies. He had sent Kasslad to ease the crowds, direct them to other exits, to the underground tunnels, anything to stop the trampling and the congestion that would leave them trapped.
Which is what Kasslad had done, while Oroduil turned and ran toward the beast in search of Legolas, to save their elfling brother.
Which is what Kasslad did now.
The people were on their own.
As he flew through the panicked mobs, he wondered if Oroduil ran the same road, carrying a sword, thinking the same fears.
Kasslad wondered if he would be eaten alive too.
O
Pelorian pushed off the wall in the hallway outside of the courtyard of the royal dead. He had followed Legolas here alongside Rugon, but had let his old friend follow the elfling inside by himself. He hadn't wanted to overwhelm the tithen pen.
But as he laughed and clapped along with the songs of a lost prince returned, a roar made the musicians drop their flutes, elves flinch, and Pelorian to look south. Though all he saw was polished marble, the dragon was coming from the same direction as last time.
Once the roar ended, a chill settled. Pelorian watched the window next to him frost over and he exhaled a cloud.
The next roar made everyone move.
O
The cold air shivered in the deafening, bellowing thunder, the kind that can only come from a dragon's giant lungs.
Elrohir stared at Elladan in shock. That sound was nothing like the kind Indari, or Dekreim, ever made. He turned to face Thranduil, for once looking to see what the elvenking would do, trusting that he would know what to do since he chased this beast off before . . . but he wasn't comforted by the look of fear he saw.
Elrond turned to him, grasping his arm and Elladan's.
"Find Legolas," he said just before that same painful, shuddering blast ripped across Mirkwood.
Elrohir and Elladan moved in sync, something they hadn't done since hunting orcs together decade after decade. Now with the same frame of mind, the same focus once again, they flung cloaks out of the way of their sword arms and moved in-step into the palace.
No one stopped them.
Once inside, they broke into a sprint, faced by a horde of sweating, terrified elves. They met the mob head-on, shoving their way past the screams, the tears, the faces of elves who were not just running from a dragon, but memories. Those were faces Elrohir would never soon forget.
He felt their panic and it brought his own to the surface. Sweat broke out across his brow, trickling in front of his ears. He pushed against the crowd, a mob that wasn't thinning, wasn't ending. A boot got him in the shin and halted his forward movement, stalling him. He looked for Elladan, turning, but couldn't spot him.
"Elladan!" he called, suddenly afraid he fell, trapped beneath the horde. "Elladan!"
O
The first time Thranduil heard that sound, that bestial scream, he had been in a council meeting. The elves had turned to him to protect them, to stay where they were, but once the beast screamed for his youngest son, he had abandoned the council, the dragon rage bleeding into his veins.
Now, that sound sank fear into him.
He looked to Elrond just as his twins ran into the palace. Together, he and the Rivendell lord turned to see black smoke begin to rise from the forest surrounding the palace and the elven city. Great heaves of smoke billowed into the sky, darkening it. Ash drifted down, white and grey, onto their shoulders.
A shadow crossed overhead.
Another roar shook his bones.
Elrond stepped up beside him as soldiers from both Rivendell and Mirkwood gathered. The Mirkwood elves looked solemn, almost prepared, while those from Rivendell had wide eyes and trembled.
Vilya on Elrond's hand began to glow a white so pure that Thranduil had to turn away. He drew twin swords from the sheaths at each hip, Dae and Calad, or shadow and light in Sindarin.
The weight of the straight swords steadied him.
He searched the skies for the beast as the flames raged through the forest from the south. Kagnirrok circled, lost in the suffocating smoke.
"Legolas," came the graveled, deep call, rumbling through Thranduil's chest. "Legolas."
O
Legolas used his naneth's headstone to pull himself to his feet, legs shaky as the roar thundered on. Oak branches trembled as the sound reverberated.
He looked at Rugon, who rose to his feet, looking heavenward as muscles jumped along his jaw. Oh how he must feel like an angel ripped down to hell. . . Legolas swallowed his guilt, cursing the Valar if it was true, if they had brought Rugon back just because they had been friends and now he had to go through all of this again.
But it wasn't just like last time. The dragon rage was gone.
And yet. Legolas felt nothing like the four-year-old he was back when Kagnirrok first swept into Greenwood the Great, bringing filth with him from the south near Mordor.
A second roar.
The dragon tattoo on his back burned as though fresh again. Every whip from the Terkmar soldiers screamed at him now. He wasn't the same elfling. He could fight this time, face the beast before it killed anyone else in its search for him.
As if sensing this, Rugon reached out to grab him. Legolas ducked his hands, too quick and still too small for the knight to catch.
"No!" Rugon cried.
The door back into the palace opened. Pelorian saw Legolas running and moved.
"Grab him, Pel!" Rugon shouted and the sniper's demeanor changed in an instant. The willowy elf dove for him, but Legolas was already out of reach.
Legolas slipped into the crowd rushing for the exit. In everyone's panic, no one saw him. As it was, he was lucky not to fall and get trampled. He barely kept up with the horde, rushing down stairs, pushing for the exit into the main courtyard.
Legolas struggled to see where he was through the elves, cursing his height, when he reached out and clung to a doorframe. His nails dug into the stone as he held on, pulling himself from the river of people. As more pushed past, he changed hallways, headed to the back exit, the one he always used.
Elves flooded that route too, but not as many. He feared less for his safety here, trotting along and keeping his eyes low, not keen for anyone to recognize him. He was lucky no one spotted him already.
He burst from the exit onto tilted cobbles, running in the gutter to stay out of the main onslaught of elves as they fled screaming. He turned the corner and just as he spotted the squatty barracks, he smelled burning. Looking up, his stomach dropped as flames engulfed the forest. The sky darkened in that moment to smoke, billows of black clouds erasing the blue sky.
"Legolas," came a voice he knew from his nightmares.
"Legolas!" Rugon and Pelorian came tearing around the corner behind him.
"Legolas!"
In front of him, from the barracks, poured Mirkwood's army, outfitted and armed. Iros stood at the front, pointing right at him. Legolas wasn't sure if he had seen him or heard Rugon's cry, but he ran from all of them.
"Legolas," came Kagnirrok's call.
"I'm here!" Legolas called back, his voice so small in comparison as he ran into the city. He had to reach an open space for the dragon to see him and before the kingdom burned, before anyone else died. "I'm here!"
"No!" Iros shouted, answered by a war cry from hundreds of throats, angry and full of new life. Legolas looked over his shoulder once and saw the army swarming behind him, led by Rugon, Iros and Pelorian. "Prince Legolas, stop!"
A darker shadow pressed overhead.
Legolas looked up and saw the outline of the enormous beast through the smoke, following him, its chest reddening to hot flame.
