Thranduil wiped his shoulders with a towel and glanced over his shoulder towards the door as Bregon's second-in-command entered.

'Ah, Thiriston. Your choice of weapon is axe, I believe?' He paused to look the fellow over… he was unusually big, huge even, wide of shoulder and almost hulking in stance. 'I have to say, you're rather tall for a dwarf!'

Thiriston bared his teeth in what might have been meant to be a grin.

'My king is most amusing.'

'Am I? It was not intentional, I assure you. Well. What is your weapon of choice? Long knives? Empty-hand? Quarterstaff? Lhang or lhaing?'

'I would feel uncomfortable fighting my king, sire. I might find myself charged with treason.'

'Very well, then. Target practice, throwing knives if you fear to face me in combat. What say you?'

'I do not… Very well, my king. Since there is no room here for archery, knives will do.'

There were two targets at the far end of the practice chamber and Thranduil went over to the weapons racks to select half a dozen bone-handled throwing knives.

Almost casually Thranduil tumbled a knife through the air to land in the inner red of the target. 'Of course, I have the advantage of knowing these knives and this target.'

'I learn swiftly,' Thiriston said, grabbing a random selection of knives and coming to stand next to the king. His first practice throw tumbled a half-turn too far, and rebounded off the target, causing him to swear.

'Take another practice throw,' Thranduil said. 'We have the time.'

The king's condescension annoyed Thiriston Cut-Face and he bit back the growl that threatened to start in his throat. He readjusted technique and the next knife hammered home to the outer yellow.

'Excellent,' Thranduil said, his voice almost a purr. 'Five knives each. By turns, then, or at will?'

'As my king pleases.'

'At will, then.' Thranduil tugged his practice blade out of the target and retreated behind the throwing line. He arced a knife through the air where it lodged in the inner red, waiting for Thiriston to be ready to launch before addressing him. 'You know something of queens, largely due to your partner, I understand?'

The knife flew wildly, just clipping the edge of the target and hanging in.

'Your meaning, my king?' Thiriston hissed.

'The arachnids. The egg-bearing queens; you know a lot about them? The one you work with, you have a partnership where you distract the queen and he harvests the silk so prized by our healers?'

'I see your meaning.' Thiriston launched another knife which this time hit the inner red. On the next target along, Thranduil's knife hit the bull. 'Yes, we hunt the cauls…'

'It must be a great source of comfort that you can share work as well as whatever else it is you do.'

Thiriston bridled, and for a moment imagined the knife in his hand heading straight for the king's heart, if he even had one.

'My king…?'

'To have a specialist knowledge to set you aside from the rest.' Thranduil's knife hit home in the bull. 'There is not necessarily anything wrong with knowing your own worth.'

Thiriston prepared another knife and hurled it wildly at the target. It hit the outer red, and the whole target rocked dangerously from the force of the throw.

'It is about Canadion I wish to speak.' Thranduil's fourth knife tumbled easily into the inner red once more.

'My king?' The repeated words were icy as Thiriston replied. But at least this time he'd held his throw, and managed to make the inner yellow.

'Yes.' The king's last blade tumbled gracefully into the bull. Thiriston managed the outer red again.

Thranduil stood back and looked at the wreckage of the targets. His own was fairly tidy; he'd tried not to be too good and so his five blades, while clustered, where spread modestly through the bull and the inner red.

Thiriston had fared otherwise. Had he been throwing at an enemy, only two of his blades would have done more than slightly alarm the opponent.

The king hid his smile as he pulled Cut-Face's blades from the target, returning to the warrior's side. He'd been enjoying himself hugely, baiting the hulking Thiriston, provoking, pushing at his temper and had not been disappointed; Thiriston had the heart of a dragon, but had managed to keep his anger in check.

Thus far.

'Perhaps you were unfortunate in your choice of knives, Thiriston?' he suggested and lobbed the first blade at the target. Inner red. 'Now, while I have you here, I wanted to tell you I will be seeking an interview with your pretty-faced Canadion.' The second blade hummed the air, came to rest a hair's breadth from the first. 'He is not a warrior, though, and so he will be brought to the throne room.'

'My king tells me this because…?'

'Oh, not to ask permission.' The third blade made the bull. 'But don't fear; I have no intention of castigating him for spreading tales that his cousin was afraid and Canadion made the kills properly attributable elsewhere…' A second bull from blade four. 'Nor is it to tell him to keep his unnatural proclivities away from my family.' The fifth blade slipped between the inner reds and the bull. 'Ah. Perhaps it was not the blades after all, perhaps you may have been distracted by something? In short, I wish to question your bed-friend about his kin. That is all.'

'I will tell him, my king,' Thiriston said, his fury at being outmatched with the knives only further whetted by the king's casual acknowledgement of the relationship. He ought, perhaps have been relieved that Canadion's talking hadn't got him into trouble, but it was difficult under the constant needling.

'Indeed, I doubt you will be able to, since by now he is probably already kicking his heels outside my throne room. And the longer I delay here with you, the longer he will wait.'

It wasn't quite a dismissal, so Thiriston bowed.

'Perhaps your majesty would be so gracious as to offer me a rematch? The short bow, outside?'

'Oh, I do not think so!' Thranduil laughed. 'With the short bow, I cannot hit a cow at five paces; I do not like how the strings tug at my fingers and so I never practiced. Do not let me keep you from your day, Thiriston! And send Rawon in!'

Thranduil had cooled off a little now, and shrugged his way back into his shirt, replacing the knives in their rack as Over-Captain Rawon entered.

'My king requested my attendance?'

'Indeed, Captain. An interesting fellow that Thiriston, is he not? The captains despise him, the warriors fear him, and yet he's earned the faithfulness of the tawdriest little slut in all of Mirkwood and made him behave himself for the last ten years or more. I pushed him to the limits of his temper and he did not offend me. What's more, his commander defends him.'

'He does, sire. Even to me.'

'Do you have a weapon of choice, Rawon?'

'Single lhang, if my king permits. I didn't bring my own, I have it with the armourer being reground.'

'Very well.' The king unstrapped his double scabbards and set them to one side, choosing a lhang from the rack and trying the air with it while Rawon selected one for himself. 'I sent for you last since I wanted to gather what information I could from Bregon and Cut-Face first. And now I will tell you what I want, you will tell me it is impossible, and we will eventually come to an arrangement.'

Thranduil moved to the edge of the practice circle, presented his shoulder towards Rawon in classic stance and touched the tip of the lhang down, waiting for the captain to join him.

'My king?' Rawon mirrored Thranduil's stance and made the same touch. 'What do you need?'

Thranduil lifted the lhang and advanced, Rawon met the blade and the dance of steel began.

'I need a large patrol to go out to ensure a clear route to the Great River. It needs to be free of arachnids and the forest needs preparation. Scope out campsites, assuming a large party of dignitaries who are not used to walking more than three miles in one go or riding for more than half a day without the need for embrocation.'

The lhaing clashed and met and parted.

'This can be done, sire.'

'They need to leave within two days. And at the same time, another large party needs to follow the trail of the arachnid migration. Bregon did well, destroying many spiders, eggs and queens, which should make next year easier, but I need to know where the survivors are, what they are doing, and at all costs they must be prevented from returning to their own territory.'

'But, my king…!'

Thranduil sighed and turned in an elegant spin to flick the tip of Rawon's lhang so that he was almost disarmed.

'That is to say, my king, I understand the need. If the arachnids have willingly left the territory…' Rawon twisted and attempted to get under Thranduil's guard; it looked as if he might succeed but at the last minute the king's supple wrist twisted his blade around and under Rawon's guard. '…then it would be folly to allow them back in. Very well. I will see what may be done.'

'And double the guard on the flets.'

'Double? There's hardly room for three to a flet as it is!'

'Then have them install double levels as they go. This last is not negotiable, Rawon.' With an easy circle, the king's lhang pushed Rawon's blade to the ground and he stepped away and bowed to the captain. 'Thank you. Most entertaining. See what you can come up with and report to me tomorrow… perhaps in my study, the hour after breakfast.'

'Thank you, my king.'

'Send my advisor in, will you?'