We climb back into the boat and I shove the barge back the way we have come, but it is different now. I find myself less enamoured of the beauty of the mountain and more concerned about the water beneath us. When we came here, a part of me truly believed that I would not be leaving again. I had every intention of remaining had our plan not worked, every intention of dying here.
But I am alive, and the Shadow is gone… Eru, the Shadow is gone! I cannot truly wrap my head around the concept, because she has hounded us for so long that I am not sure how to be any longer. Our friends are in danger and we are still far from home, far from safety, but she is gone and all of a sudden my future is secured once more. I have days unlived and paths yet to tread, and I start to imagine them.
"I am not sure it is appropriate to be grinning, Gimli," Legolas chides, and I turn to face him. I had not realised I was grinning, and Legolas eyes me with a fond expression. He is still curled around himself, and he still looks haggard, but he seems different. Lighter, better… more himself. He rummages around where I have stowed away our meagre provisions and finds some lembas – offers me some but I decline – and I watch him eat with the oddest sense of joy. He is eating! He is also tapping his fingers against his thigh, eyeing the stone walls with displeasure, that familiar look of disgust and fear starting to glimmer around the edges.
"You hear the Song again," I realise, and I turn back to what I do because we have just bumped into a wall. I should be paying better attention.
"Not in here," he says, and I can imagine the curl of dislike around his mouth. "No, that is untrue, I hear the Song of the mountain because I have learned it from you. The Song of Iluvatar is calling to me; distant, but it is at the end of this path. I will hear it once there is a sky above my head."
I do not need to look at him to see how he is smiling, because I can hear it in his voice and I can feel it – like the sun against my skin. The Shadow is gone and in its wake the Song returns. I push the boat a little faster.
"Gimli, where are my knives?" he asks me suddenly, and I am completely stumped. I had not thought of it… I legitimately cannot recall where we put them, and I had not expected to be asked. We will need them though, and they are precious to him.
"I am sure they are somewhere," I reply, hoping that I sound more confident than I feel, and he snorts in disgust. It gives me something else to think about. Durin's beard, I will have survived all of this winter only to be murdered if we have lost his knives! I hope they are with my axe, because I realise that I do not have that either, and if the elfling does not kill me then my father certainly will.
~{O}~
"I am only saying that they are important to me," Legolas is saying. We have finally found the hole in the wall where the river meets the tunnels beneath the mountain, although I will admit to having some concerns over finding it at all. "I will let you explain to Ionwë that they are lost, because I certainly will not."
"Legolas," I bite out through clenched teeth. He has been going on at me the whole… cursed… way. "I have told you; when we fled these tunnels I had far more on my mind than where your blades were."
I hop out of the boat quicker than perhaps is necessary, and it makes the barge bob and sway in the river. Legolas pales further, if it is even possible, and clutches the sides urgently. He shoots me a foul look and climbs out once it has settled, dancing out onto the safety of the stone bank with a grace that has been lost to him for a while.
I know that he is only trying to keep his mind off certain things – a great many things, in truth – but I wish that he would find something else to focus on. Something that is not the whereabouts of his knives, or perhaps just not blaming me for their absence.
"I suppose I could pick up some stones to throw," he thinks aloud, and I clench my teeth so hard I can feel them grinding. I turn back to the boat and go to climb back in.
"Perhaps I can call the Shadow back," I decide. "She might take me with her."
Legolas laughs, and grabs at my arm before I can climb into the boat. I roll my eyes hugely and we walk together, back upon our footsteps of only a few hours ago. Eru, has it only been a few hours?
We should be hurrying, we should probably be running, but although Legolas is improved he is still not in good health. I think perhaps we should enter this rested. We should also probably have a plan of some kind, and of course the elfling's thoughts wander the same paths as my own.
"So do we simply run into the fray, our arms waving?" he asks.
"The battle has moved," I say; we should be able to hear it by now, and I try not to think on what this might mean. I will not accept us having come this far only to lose our friends. They have been taken, or they have escaped; these are the only possibilities I will entertain. The Valar have smiled on us, finally smiled, and I will cling to this as long as I am able.
We have come back to the tunnels; those miserable tunnels where I have spent the last few days simmering in unhappiness. They are strewn about with belongings, hastily abandoned, and I kick around cloaks and packs and the mess left behind by men in a hurry.
"We need a better plan than simply running into the fray, and we must find the fray, but first we need to find our… ah!"
I have found our packs, and I groan in relief to find my axe together with Legolas' blades. I feel better with it in my hand – the grain and heft as familiar as an old friend – and Legolas takes his blades thankfully, inspecting them but not as thoroughly as he should. Not the way that he has been trained to. Even I can see the fine film of blood still crusted around the hilt, even I can tell that one blade – the one that nearly killed him – still bears his blood. He sets his jaw and I ignore it completely. He secures the blades at his back, and then he stops. He stills, he faces me, and we look at one another without a word.
There he is… my elfling, my stubborn friend. He looks awful, but then I don't imagine I seem all that much better and there is so much between us now. We have seen too much, experienced too much, and I have much to make amends for. He must heal, and I do not know where he will even begin such a thing.
"Not yet," I say seriously, and he nods. He understands.
There is no time for it just yet, because we still have something to do. Legolas cannot falter, he must fight whatever he is going through, and I must shut out everything that is not in this moment. We must ignore it, we must focus only on the footsteps ahead and the friends that need us, because if we do not then we will fail. There will be time enough for it, plenty of time… we have it all ahead of us.
"I do not know how I will be," he warns me, and again I know exactly what he means. If Legolas is to fight, he has no walls and no control. I have seen him that way before, once or twice, and it is a frightening thing to witness. We have one more thing to consider though, which is the effect this might have on me.
Legolas plucks the iron pendant from where it has been hanging loose around his neck, twirls it around one finger and nearly takes my eye out.
"This is not doing anything any longer," he says, as though I might have missed such a thing. "I can barely tell my thoughts from yours, but to be honest I am also having trouble recalling what battle this is, and what year it might be."
He shrugs, as though this is a common ailment. It is as though everything in his memory is in the front of his mind, with no sense of the passage of time. Every moment he has lived is being experienced as though it is happening now – an odd side effect, truly, and I hope he is not about to race off after imaginary orcs.
"Then I will try to keep my thoughts clear and linear, and you must rely on my eyes."
He snorts, and makes some comment on how mine are barely functional as eyes, but I know that he is hiding behind this misplaced humour he has dredged up from somewhere. There is a wild and raw cast to his face when he turns away; he is afraid and vulnerable, everything crashing and hammering at him from inside and he is trying to sort it all back into boxes. To put it all back where it belongs, to assign dates and to put the memories together, to remember the lessons he has learned and find the experience he has gained.
He is already trying to build his walls back up… to grow them, because they are living things, but in the meantime I think I may have to become accustomed to this Legolas. This slightly insane version of the elfling I know. I must become accustomed, because it is my fault that he is this way.
"Do you know what time of day it is?" I ask, because it makes a difference. Any approach we might have will depend on whether the darkness is on our side, and for a moment Legolas is lost. His eyes go distant, he tilts his head, and I know that there are a thousand things he is drawing upon: scent, sound, no matter how twisted by the mountain. He can feel it somehow, sense things I cannot, and I give him a moment.
"A few hours from dawn," he decides, finally.
"Then we should hurry. Our best ally is darkness, and it is a few hours out of these tunnels at a run."
"Then we will run faster," Legolas grins, and it is a slice of madness. "I'll wager we can make it."
It is not the madness of the Shadow, although it is certainly madness. I think perhaps I am seeing a younger version of my friend; one wilder and more reckless. I must admit that I rather like him, this Legolas, and I find myself matching his smile. I feel my face break into a grin, wide and without any self-censorship, and I begin to wonder the sensibility of someone like me keeping someone like him in check. I am too easily influenced by his wild moods.
"I would wager it as well, my friend," I smile, "and I think I will get there before you."
I laugh, and he grins all the wider, and we both break into a run. Eru, it is so good to have him back.
~{O}~
We run through the tunnels as though they are lit as bright as day, and the situation is not even slightly the same but I recall another race – similar in part – across the plains of Rohan.
I have been through more in my life than a dwarf my age should ever have to. I have seen things, known such pain, and these last months have all but destroyed me, yet here I am. I am running on nothing but emotion and willpower, but I feel as though I have found my second wind from somewhere. Or perhaps it is my fifth or sixth – I have lost count.
The elfling seems to have found something within himself as well, because he runs as though he is fresh from weeks of rest. He is agile and graceful, and I can feel how overwhelmed he is by sound and sensation – the secrets of how an elf experiences the world no longer a mystery to me – but he fights through it. He finds focus from somewhere, and I hope that I am contributing in some small way.
I try to keep my mind calm, focussed, my heart in check, because if I can feel his mind then he can certainly feel mine as well. Perhaps I can help him.
We run, and it is unbridled and perhaps a little reckless in the darkness. Legolas navigates by an odd combination of sensations: echoes, eddying air currents, shifting sounds that paint a picture of the twisting tunnels ahead. I navigate by the shadows, because I can see just a little bit, but I also have the advantage of the Song of the mountain. It shifts and deepens and fades, it tells me a tale, as clear as daylight. I have never been able to feel it this strongly before, and I do not know if it is a parting gift from the Shadow or whether it is permanent. Perhaps it is because I have heard the full Song, and perhaps it has awoken something in me, I do not know; all I know is that it is new and welcome and beautiful.
We are united and connected, our purpose the same, and after all that has happened between us I had expected us to be fractured and stilted but we are not. We run for hours – tireless and swift – but when we reach the outer edges of the tunnel I am endlessly glad that Legolas pulls us to a stop, because I am about at my last.
He stops us against a wall where we are hidden by a spur of jutting stone, but I have no idea what we are hiding from. Grey light bleeds into the darkness, bright after so long without any at all, but I know this is nothing more than moon and starlight. We have beaten the dawn.
The air smells wonderful, so welcome after nothing but staleness and dry dust. It is sharp ice, river water, frost and a swift wind that carries the scent of leagues. I know that a lot of it is Legolas' influence but I am happy for it, because through him I smell the wildness of the dawn in the mountains… things I never would experience otherwise. I close my eyes and I draw deeply, and when I open them again Legolas has stilled into nothing. His eyes are distant – too distant – and he is caught in memories, deluged by sensation. He cannot focus any longer, not the way that he used to, not to pull himself free when he is captured by the Song, and so I flick him in the arm.
It is probably harder than necessary, and he startles as though I have kicked him in the rear. He gives me a very unpleasant look but I merely scowl and gesture for him to pay better attention. The gesture he returns is far ruder, but he seems to have returned to me.
He turns toward the mouth of the tunnels, where the sky lies so tantalisingly close and yet so far beyond our reach. His eyes flicker shut but he is concentrating rather than lost, relying on senses far better suited than mine now that we are running out of mountain.
Legolas shocks me by slipping away from my side – melting into the shadows before I can stop him.
It is purely experience that stops me from calling out in surprise, and also because I am becoming used to the idiocy of elves – this elf, in particular. It takes a moment for me to gather my wits and follow after him, but when your quarry is a wood elf, a moment can be an eternity.
When I find him he is at the mouth of the tunnel – upon snow with a sky full of stars above him – and there are two very dead men at his feet. I have not heard even a scuffle in the altercation, and I am slightly impressed but mostly annoyed. I had imagined that I knew his ways… how to predict the shifting of his attitudes and moods. It seems that I will have to learn them anew, and although I am certain that I have earned this opportunity to be annoyed with him, Legolas is lost to me again.
I catch some of it: a trace, a phantom, but it is enough to distract me. I can feel the stars singing, and there is a thrill of colour and sound tracing ghostly fingers across my heart. It is calling for me to run, to race the clouds and become lost, and there is that sweet bell-like hum twisting through it all. If I cannot untangle my mind from the after-image of what he is feeling, then I do not know I can bring Legolas back.
He stands with his head tilted to the stars, his nimbus bright and clear so that every plane and hollow of his face is cut in stark white light. He looks hungry and powerful, Valar blessed, and I know that I should bring him back, but I also know how difficult he found such things even when he had his walls. It will be unpleasant for him, and he has been denied the Song for so long that I cannot… Eru I simply cannot do it. We are meant to be searching for our friends, we are meant to be racing the dawn, but I have already taken too much from him and I cannot take this as well.
I should harden my heart to such things, I know that I should. I am quite certain this is going to keep on happening. I stand and I shiver in the cold – far, far colder than it was beneath the earth – and I am caught in an agony of indecision, but eventually it is decided for me. Legolas pulls himself together all by himself, but when his gaze turns to mine it is lost and alarmed, exposed. I quickly tell him the year and where we are, and what we are doing, and I watch him consider it.
I watch him sort his memories back into order, so that the recent and relevant ones are at the forefront. I watch him realign himself with now, remember what he should be doing, and the lost look upon his face does not leave but it fades. He hates this, he absolutely hates it, but I cannot do anything more than stand here uselessly whilst he gathers himself.
"Running off without me," I tell him, once I am sure I have his attention. "Not acceptable. Not unless I know where you go."
"Have you brought parchment?" he asks, patting at his tunic as though searching for some. "You can write me a leave slip if you wish."
"I do not suggest that you need permission, Legolas; I am not so foolish as to imagine you would ever ask it. You have always tempered your recklessness by at least warning me, though, and I am far too old for such surprises."
He snorts, but has the grace to look abashed. It is the closest thing to assent that I am likely to get, and instead of saying anything further he turns to the east. He gazes into the darkness, a wind ruffling his hair, but it is the only movement he makes for a long time. It is the absolute stillness of an elf listening, and I start to feel like a bit of a lump – stood here shivering whilst he stares off to the horizon.
"That way," he says eventually, "although I cannot tell numbers. It is too entangled and muddied together, but there are many men and I smell much blood."
"If the scents are tangled then they are fighting still," I say, and he still looks rather glum so I clap him on the shoulder. He barely looks like himself with such an expression on his face, and I hate it. "Knowing our friends, Legolas, they are fighting, and I very much doubt that it is they who bleed."
He makes an odd noise – half between a grunt and a snort of disbelief – and for a moment I think perhaps he doubts it, but then he turns back to me suddenly. He is agitated, his movements sharp and jagged, and he stands a bit too close to me. I do not like the way that his eyes are now; oddly distant and yet too intense. Flickering, distracted, as though I am a ghost to him or he is not completely here with me.
"Can you stop me, Gimli?" he asks seriously, and he focusses on me until I am ready to shrivel up into ashes. It is horrible! If I had thought an elven regard uncomfortable before, an elf without any boundaries is unpleasant indeed. "Do you think you can stop me if you had to?"
I consider it, because I know why he is asking and I know that he needs this. He is worried – he knows that he is different now – and I am glad in some way that he is willing to discuss such a thing. I tilt my head.
"I cannot fight you, but I am heavier and stronger and also lower; I have knocked you down many times. I know that I could restrain you, but the hardship is in the catching…"
He looks up to the fading stars, but it is because he is thinking. He makes a decision, takes a deep breath.
"I need you to stop me, Gimli," he says seriously, and I had not expected this conversation right now. I open my mouth but he holds one hand up to silence me, carries on as though he is worried he might not be able to start again. "I need you to stop me, not just today but all of the days until I am better again. In word and action, watch me if I am careless or unkind or mad. I feel it in me, disordered and uncontrolled. If I lose myself in the battle, you must stop me if I cannot."
And then he tells me things I had not known, and that I imagine very few know.
Legolas' hearing is weaker on his left. He has a nerve that pinches in his left knee sometimes, and his right arm does not have complete mobility in the shoulder. He has a tendency toward turning to the right, and he also is weaker in his left hand after our encounter with the Shadow that first spring.
Legolas tells me his weaknesses. Tells me how he can be predicted and how to find an advantage over his thousands of years of compensating for such things. Old injuries that never truly healed, bad habits he has never been able to entirely eradicate, things I would probably have never discovered on my own. Legolas has covered these things so entirely I might never have realised – his form is all but perfect to me – but then elves have many years to learn ways around their own weaknesses. Many indeed.
It is a show of trust I had never expected, not again, and I listen carefully and I do not interrupt. He is giving me the key to his defeat, he is teaching me how to hurt him all over again, and although I find this very difficult to listen to I say nothing at all. This is harder to tell than it is to hear, and when he is done I simply nod. Gravity is needed right now, and I am as respectful as I can be, but once he is finished the silence stretches out a lot longer than I am comfortable with.
"I have a problematic knee," I offer, wondering if I should be reciprocating right now, and Legolas bursts into a laugh. It certainly breaks the intensity of the moment.
"Oh Gimli," he claps me on the shoulder, and we move on. "You creak and groan with every movement. I am sure I know where to jab you if I want your whole body to seize and fall down."
I scowl up at him, because I am sure that I neither creak nor groan, and I feel strangely affronted that he has known these things all along. He simply chuckles to himself and starts to run, I must run as well – because I learned long ago to never let him get a head start – and then there is no time for talking.
~{O}~
We find ourselves flat on our stomachs in the snow, the ice crunching wetly and the seep of frigid melt water sinking into our clothing. I have a stone in my ribcage, a spindly and dead twig of something poking into my hair, but this is a good hiding place. We peer carefully over the rise to where our quarry clusters together at the bottom of a hill.
They are heading back toward the Standing, I realised this a while back, but although I am thankful for it I am not entirely sure why. Our friends should be dead, there is no reason to hold them captive at all, but no matter my confusion it is no less true. There is a straggling band of bound and tied prisoners, and with them a huge group of men. I can pick out my friends in the crowd, because I know them well enough to identify them just by how they stand or walk. I watch as some huge brute shoves Faelwen, and is head-butted squarely in the face for his trouble. I try to stop my snort of laughter, but I am unsure how successful I am.
"She is going to be unbearable about this," Legolas murmurs to himself, and I hear a hint of amusement in his tone. Captured by men. How mortifying.
I am still wondering why they live, still trying to decide what benefit there might be in such a thing, and although I have not said it I think my words are loud in my mind, because Legolas hears it in any case.
"Ransom, perhaps," he muses. His voice is barely a breath, low and careful. "Or perhaps there is little impact in a massacre that nobody can witness. I cannot imagine everyone in the Standing is dead – what point is there in invading a town and leaving no one in it?"
I make a noise of agreement. I do not believe this was anything more than a particularly horrifying change in leadership, because the men living in the mountains will be no better off with a dead and empty town. I think perhaps Legolas is correct… we are granted time, but not very much of it. Killing Marcus and his associates will be of greater impact if it is witnessed, and I do not think these men know what to make of our elves, so they have been taken along in the wake of this coup.
I think, I feel my forehead screwing together and smooth it out. That really is a lot of men.
"So, will you take the thirty on the left, or the twenty on the right?" I ask carefully. Legolas huffs a laugh but shakes his head.
"You are meant to be stopping me from impulsive behaviour," he chides. He slides back, away from the edge of the rise and I mirror him. "I have had a thought, but we must be swift."
I am starting to feel it – starting to feel these last few weeks weighing on me. I am exhausted, my limbs leaden and numb. I am not ready to take on an entire invading force, I am not ready to fight, I am not entirely sure that I can make it down to the Standing without a nap first but then I look at the elfling. He is bright and upright in the pale grey of the dawn, he is exhausted too, and he feels all of the things that I feel but he means to push onward.
Legolas has not lost everything. That will of his – that irrefutable force… that endurance – is still there. It is not his walls or experience or time that has made him that way, it is the very core of him. He is bravery and stubbornness, and I see it right there in the set of his jaw and the challenge in his eye. It gives me strength, just as it ever has, and when he turns and slinks away down the hill I follow him without any complaint at all.
~{O}~
"Caligan," I say suddenly, and it is unexpected enough to have the elfling falter for a moment.
"What?"
"I have been trying to recall his name," I explain. "Einan told us his name, I had forgotten."
He eyes me oddly, scowls.
"You could have just asked."
I stifle a sigh, cast my gaze toward the distant outline of our quarry: a ridiculous number of men, a sad and sorry line of prisoners. If they have taken this many men on a sortie, I shudder to imagine how many might have been left behind at the Standing.
We are up high to the west, we have circled around them so that we are in the lower foothills of the Hithaeglir, far enough away so that we can see them – or at least, Legolas can see them – but they cannot see us. They are kept firmly in our sights, and we will circle Burned Sycamore Standing from the north, should we ever actually get there.
Caligan is the name of the leader of these men, but this is all I know about him. I have no way of knowing whether he is down there: what he looks like, how I might pick him out. We are going into this almost entirely blind, but I am starting to wonder whether Legolas and I are as catastrophically unlucky as I once imagined we were. We have survived and I had never expected to… I will try my hand at one more impossible thing today.
The wind is still swift – it drives ice into my eyes and stings into my exposed skin. It lends a different wildness to Legolas' eyes, because the wind has always had him in high agitation, but this time I feel the benefit of it. It takes my breath away, aye, but it also has my blood burning like fire. The wind stirs something in me that it never has before: visceral, urgent, powerful… with every howl and pull and heave of it I feel bright and alive. It is not an entirely unpleasant sensation.
We drop onto more level ground and now we are hidden by trees. They are winter bare and skeletal – they provide poor cover indeed – but now we are hidden by the wall. We run as fast as we can, because we cannot be far ahead of them by now, but we are almost where we need to be and I start to feel nervous. No matter how old or experienced I become, I have never stopped feeling nervous before battle. I hope that this means I have not lost my mind entirely, because the day I start to approach such things without any worry or fear is the day I hang up my axe.
Legolas leads me to a small hole in the wall – one that I would never have spotted had I been on my own. It is very small indeed, and after Legolas slips through I heave and squirm until I am on the correct side, minus a layer of skin. We crouch, holding our breath, but there is no shout of alarm and so we ghost our way to the cover of the buildings as fast as we are able. We are in the Standing, and suddenly things seem so much more immediate.
The house we hide behind is sturdy and large, on the very outskirts of the town. If we peer around the edge of it, we have a nearly unimpeded view of the road that runs right through the centre of the Standing. It is quite a distance from here to where we need to be, but we can make out the most of it and we spend a moment just watching.
I was right, in part; there are far too many men here. This is the better part of an army! I cannot imagine how they have remained in the mountains – there must be at least a hundred and fifty men here. For a second I quail, because there are so few of us to fight them, but then I remember who we are… it is they who should be worried.
I tell myself this, and for a moment I almost believe it.
Caligan and his men – or at least I assume he is here – have herded our companions into the centre of the town. There is nothing there at all, it is not even paved, but it is a good place for a market and a good place to hold meetings. It is also a good place to hold an execution, apparently, or at least these men certainly seem to think so.
The prisoners are forced to their knees, lined up in a row, and now I can see each of them clearly. Almárean, Idhren, Faelwen. The brothers Calder and Callen. Einan, Minara and her father right at the front, with the few surviving men shoved into the mud at the rear. These survivors are a potential resource, they are the most likely to survive this morning, and a part of me is glad for them but I have little time to think much on it. There is a gibbet being erected in the centre of the square, and Caligan's men are dragging the survivors of the Standing out of their homes.
Old and young, injured and healthy, Caligan's men are rough and violent as they herd the town together. I see men kicked to the ground and dragged forward by their jerkins, helped quickly to their feet by their friends. I see them beaten, I see them shoved along and screamed at until they are so cowed, any form of resistance melts away like snow in spring.
I have seen things like this before: bullying men, cruel men of violence, who use numbers and force to quash any fight in their captives. The men of the town are not armed, they are simply trying to survive this coup, and as they are shoved and jostled into a rough audience I feel for them. There is no shame in this, none at all, and I feel my heart turn to ice.
I think we can do this. I truly think that we can give them a chance to fight back – to give them the opportunity they have not had since those boats crept like thieves in the dawn. The men of the Standing have numbers, they are mostly in fair health and this is their home. They need only courage and hope, and someone foolish enough to start things along.
"We do not have much time," I murmur, barely a breath, eyeing the men digging the post hole for the gibbet. We have perhaps half an hour, possibly less. "Can you do this?" I ask.
My words are met with silence and I tilt my head toward the elfling, reassured by what I see. He is firm and resolute, clear in mind and heart.
"For now," he nods. "Perhaps not later."
I understand what he means; his control is not infinite. He does not know how long he will remain Legolas, and I look again at the battalion in the square before us. I take a breath. Eru… this is a longshot.
"Are you afraid?" I ask, and I am pleased to hear that my voice is level, if not particularly strong.
"No," he replies after a while, but he does not sound so certain either. "Are you?"
"Certainly not," I reply back, but I feel a smile slip across my face. I clear my throat. "I will meet you at the square."
I slip my hand around his wrist and grip it tightly. It is reassurance for both of us, in truth, and he uses his other hand to grip my shoulder but then he is gone. He slips into the morning like a shadow, I feel the whisper of his mind trailing away like spider webs and it is strange to find myself alone again. I have become accustomed to the constant hush of another's thoughts, to the urgent wildness of the Song stroking at the edges of my mind, but as much as I miss it I am grateful for the clarity granted in silence.
I take one last look at our friends: bound and trussed like game, guarded as though they are a hundred in number rather than just eight. I cannot see much of them, but what I do see makes me fit to burst with pride. Even on their knees they are straight and brave, defiant and bold, and I am absolutely intent on saving each and every one of them.
I turn, and I run in the opposite direction.
~{O}~
The man who guards the horses is easily dispatched, as is the man inside the barn and also the one having a nap in one of the stalls. I am not particularly proud of my achievement – because if they have been left guarding the horses whilst such a spectacle goes on elsewhere, then they cannot be the pride of this invading force – but it cannot be avoided. These men made their choices, and so must I.
Once I am alone I waste little time in searching out Naurwen, and I am overjoyed to see her. I have been afraid for her, I truly have, and the sight of her curmudgeonly and stout little figure fills me with far more joy than I ever expected a horse might. She peers around the edge of her stall, her neck straining and ears upright, and she whickers a happy greeting to me. I am nearly butted to the ground once I reach her, and I spend a moment just fussing her because she is quite dear to me. We have a thing to do though, and I scrub my knuckle against her cheek.
"What do you say, my girl?" I smile. "Are you rested? Do you feel up for a fight?"
I know that she cannot understand, but I imagine that she does. She grumbles deep in her cavernous chest and it sounds like assent to me, so I get back to my task with a final pat at her neck.
There are a lot of horses here – enough for a whole town of men. Rugged ponies and rangy coursers, a few magnificent beasts that tower over me and horses for running over long distances. Roans and chestnuts, skewbald and piebald, grey and midnight black and one little horse of red. They are nervous, agitated, and as I release them from their stalls they mill about – some biting at one another in temper, some stood quite still awaiting instruction, all of them free and loose. Horses are far bigger up close than they ever look from a distance, and there is a fine crowd here. I push past them, haul open the barn doors, and they simply stand there looking at me quizzically.
I sigh. They are also not that clever.
I heave a breath, give a mighty battle cry, and I run at them with my arms waving. I feel foolish but it certainly gets my point across, and with a few slapped rumps for the sake of clarity, they realise their purpose and set to it with enthusiasm. They squeal, they cry out, they start in fright and as one mighty herd they all thunder out of the stables. The noise is deafening, the ground actually trembles, but I feel a grin spread across my face. It is certainly quite a sight to see!
The horses burst from the stables, a veritable sea of muscle and hide, and the herd spills out down the main street… right toward the crowd gathered at its centre. I can barely hear the shouts of dismay and alarm, the cries of fright, but it is music to my ears and I cannot help but laugh aloud. I watch for just a second as men fall about, scrabbling in panic to get out of the way of the stampede, and with a final grin I run out of the barn. I slip back into the deserted streets. I am gone.
I run as fast as I can through the empty town, just one row of buildings between myself and the chaos. I can hear it, I feel as though I can almost touch it, but as much as I want to – and ai do I want to – I do not stop to take a peek at what I have wrought. I need to be elsewhere, and I move as fast as I am able to without falling flat on my face.
I skirt the smithy, cold and reeking, creep around it and run at a crouch through a melee of men. I have little time left – Caligan has started to coral his forces together again, and I can hear him: a deep voice, huge and commanding. He has a foul mouth on him, that can certainly be said, and his men respond to it like whipped dogs. They beat the horses, chase them away and start to drag the frightened men back together again. I am satisfied to see the briefest glimmer of Naurwen kicking a scrawny little man into a wall, but I do not have much time to rejoice.
I dodge and duck and weave, and I begin to wonder where Legolas is. He is meant to have joined in by now, I should have some form of cover, but I cannot pause or doubt… Legolas has never let me down before, and if anyone can find the weapons store then he certainly can. He has an uncanny knack for searching out dangerous things.
I am knocked flat and sent sprawling, but I pick myself up quickly. I will be spotted soon, but I am quite short and there is a lot going on, and so I make the most of the way unhindered. It is not until I am close – so very close to my goal – that I am seen, and when the shout goes up I simply force my legs all the faster. With a last burst of speed I reach my friends, and I land in an ungainly heap right by their side.
"Good morning!" I grin up at their astounded faces, scrabble to my knees and get to work cutting their bonds. I free Idhren first, simply because he is closest, and before I have even a second to start freeing Faelwen he drags me into an embrace that nearly severs my spine, yanks me back again and grabs me by the arms. Shakes me until my teeth rattle.
"Gimli," he insists, "Legolas…"
He cannot finish, and I twist my arms free and pat his face quickly. I do not have to answer though, because right then an arrow whistles through the air and the first man falls with a cry of surprise. It is followed by another, and then another – each one perfect, each shot true, and Idhren staggers weakly and sinks to his rump. I am certain that his question has been answered, but I have no time to enjoy the looks of joy… of overwhelming relief that pass across their faces.
They have just gone from facing their deaths, to our resurrection and their rescue in a very short space of time. I allow them a moment to gather themselves, and begin sawing at Faelwen's bonds.
"The smithy," I point urgently, releasing the elleth and passing the blade to a newly released Almárean. "Your weapons are there, or at least they should be. I hope they are. I am not sure I gave him enough time…"
Idhren and Faelwen race off, a streak of forest green, and the Sindar works at releasing the other prisoners. He is not armed but I am, and so I turn to protect him whilst he works and am barely in time. I meet the blade aimed at Almárean's head and twist, turning its course awry. I elbow the man in the face, I feel his nose crunch satisfyingly and hook my foot back around his upper calf so that he drops to the snow. It is a simple matter of a killing blow of my axe, and all the while Almárean does not even flinch. He trusts me absolutely, and it gives me the strength and resolve I need.
Legolas continues to rain death from wherever he has squirrelled himself away, but the men are surprisingly well trained and there are a lot of them… an awful lot. They do not run and hide, instead they dash to where a pile of shields lie stacked, and they put them to very good use indeed.
Legolas has managed to thin the crowd out, but nowhere near as much as we had hoped. Caligan's men fight well, they are clearly soldiers, and now they are better protected from the sights of an archer. The arrows stop, the fighting starts in earnest, and I feel myself slip into the battle as though I have come home.
My friends are all free now, each one of them, and I see Idhren and Faelwen returning, laden down with blades. They do not waste much time – depositing them in a pile – and the men scrabble for something with which to arm themselves. The elves are once more armed with twin silver blades, Marcus and Einan have a sword quickly in hand and Minara picks up a stave, of all things. She ties her hair back quickly, and now that I can see her face I am surprised by the clarity in her ocean-blue eyes. She and Einan share a glance, a smile, and then they are both off to write a tale all of their own. I am not worried for either of them. Not whilst they are together.
Callen is the last to be released – I personally would have left him bound – but Calder unties him and I see something very strange before I am forced to turn aside. The ranger lad is having trouble with the rope, struggling to cut through it, and one of Caligan's men breaks through our defences to rush at Calder. The moment his hands are free though, Callen twists upon his knee and hisses at his brother's attacker… hisses like a cornered cat, an animal, and it is a vicious and beastly noise.
The man stumbles, drops his weapons. He is still and silent for a moment and then he screams... claws at his eyes and drops to the ground, writhing and sobbing and tearing at his own face. I have no idea what the lad has done to him, and I do not wish to know. I know only that he has protected Calder: he is on our side – in his own way – and so I leave him to his brother's care. I cannot keep an eye on everyone.
I hear Marcus roar, I hear him call out to Caligan. I hear him shout his challenge at the top of his voice and it cuts through the battle like a blade – clean and true, furious and righteous. I have just a moment to pause, because I am fairly sure that every single man upon this square pauses at the sound of his voice. I see Marcus – beaten and bloodied, upright and strong – and then I see Caligan for the first time. Eru they could be brothers!
Caligan is larger, broader by far, but they have the same dark hair and sharp features, the same eyes. Marcus has a limp, that same uneven gait even more pronounced now, and Caligan looks as healthy as an ox but there is something lacking in him. He is large, aye, and he walks as though he commands the very ground he steps upon. He is arrogant, he proud, he is a leader of men and I know that in another age, Caligan could have commanded armies. But there is also something wrong in him.
There is a glint of madness, a glimmer of frenzy… men like Caligan are difficult to beat, but a canny man can triumph if he fights with his mind as well as his sword. They are evenly matched, and I wish that I could simply stand and watch this but I cannot. There is more going on here than simply Caligan and Marcus settling this feud of theirs; we have become tangled in their story, become a part of it somehow, and I have a battle all of my own to fight.
The men of Burned Sycamore Standing watch their leader fighting for their home, and in it they find their hearts. They are not all armed – we could not find weapons enough for everyone – but they have every intention of remedying this. With a surge of noise they lift their voices to the dawn, they raise their fists against blades of steel, and they fight an army for the right to live in the home they have built.
Two boys, four elves and a dwarf are swept along with them, and it is a battle to rival any. The town square of Burned Sycamore Standing is filled with men, each of them fighting for their lives, and I join the fray with a battle cry right from the very depths of my heart. There is no sign of my earlier exhaustion, no hint of it at all, and I feel my nerves sing with the heat of the battle.
I fight better than I have in my life: my movements sparing and concise and elegant, my blows strong and swift. I fight with my friends at my side and a lightness in my heart that has been missing for far too long, and when Legolas joins us, we have come full circle. And Ai, when Legolas joins us!
He appears like a sylph, out of nowhere as though he has simply appeared in the fray. Silent, a dance of gold and green in the dawn, carried upon the wind and fighting as though he is a part of it. Legolas has not lost himself, not the way I was worried that he might, but he is right on the very edge of it… the outward edge of madness, teetering upon the precipice. His eyes are wild, fever bright, and his face is frozen in a snarl – vicious and dangerous, revelling in the slaughter. He has blood upon his snow pale skin and none of it is his, and I do not think that any of us could stop him if we tried.
Legolas fights as though every enemy he has ever faced is here before him. He fights every battle he has ever fought: every tussle and skirmish, every bloody rout and desperate brawl, every conflict he has ever known in his centuries. He sees orcs and men and goblins, spiders and ghouls and he meets them with silver blades, fast as the wind and summer storm. He is in control, but he is also beyond us, and all I can do is watch his back and try not to be swept away. I feel the madness of him beating at the edge of my mind, I do everything I can to block it out, but it is like holding on to a stampeding horse. I have no control over it, but for now I remain Gimli. I do not know how long I can stay this way.
We do not fight back to back, but we all stay within sight of one another. The elves cut through men as though they are nothing, a mere inconvenience, but there are so many of them it is difficult to keep track. It is difficult to protect your back when there are ten men at your front, but we do our best to protect one another. Callen and Calder are slightly further away, and it is because we wish to grant the younger brother some element of distance. I certainly do not want him watching my back.
He uses his ability – that strange power he has over the hearts and minds of men – and he is tearing their minds apart rather than their bodies. Wherever he has been, there are men lying screaming in the ice and mud. They claw at themselves, shrieking their throats raw, utterly broken but still breathing. It is cruel, a terrible way to fight, but I do not have the luxury of such thoughts right now. There is simply too much going on, too many men to fight. My hands are quite full.
I kill men, and I try not to think too much on the fact that they are not monsters or creatures of the dark, they are simply men who have made poor choices in life. I feel my axe sinking into flesh, I feel the impact of it up my arm and into my shoulder, I smell the iron tang of blood on the air and I hear the strange and oddly intimate sounds a man makes when hurt. It is terrible, all battles are terrible, and as always I try to ignore everything that I am doing, but I am finding such things more difficult as I grow older.
My arms are starting to ache, and I feel myself slowing down. Is there no end to them? I am also starting to find it difficult to block out Legolas, and I do not know whether it is because I am weary or because he is losing that delicate control. It feels like burning in my lungs: the wheeze of a long run in the cold, a raw and desperate sensation that cannot be soothed or ignored. I am becoming distracted, and I take an injury to the hip – a slice from a blade that draws blood, hot and painful. I stumble, and it is Idhren who notices.
"You are distracted," he accuses, shouting at me where he grapples with a tall man with black hair. He twists and stabs and another man takes his place. I do not reply; I stand gasping with my hand over the wound, feeling warm wetness seep through my fingers, and I look over at where Legolas still fights alone. Idhren should be too busy to notice my distraction but he has… he is watching out for me.
"He is losing himself," I say, and it was meant to be far louder but Idhren hears in any case. He does not understand what is happening with his friend – there has been no chance to explain things – but he has known his prince since they were children. He has known him for endless years, knows him absolutely, and he knows that something is wrong. Something is different.
"Can you bring him back?" he asks, and his voice is serious and insistent but I cannot reply for a while. I am entirely taken up with fighting two men, one of whom is well enough with a blade to have me concerned. I take another injury, a slash to the shoulder, but I am the victor in the end. I do not know how many more I can fight.
"I do not know," I admit. "I do not know how sensible such a thing might be."
I mean that we still have a long battle to go, a lot of men still to fight, and Legolas might be losing his mind to the blood-rage but he is certainly a better fighter when he is like this. He is cutting through these men like wheat. I look around, and I am surprised… there are far fewer men left than I had imagined.
The square is littered with bodies, absolutely thick with them, but the men of the Standing are fighting like wild-men and Caligan's army are running decidedly thin. Their leader still battles with Marcus – both of them barely dragging their swords upright now – and I catch a glimpse of something that would explain matters. They are running away!
There are perhaps fifty men, all running out of the Standing and back toward the mountain. I feel surprise, disgust, endless relief all at once and I realise Idhren is right; I must bring Legolas back now. There are enough men of the Standing left to fight without us for a while, we can afford a moment, and I think this might be more important.
I nod over to Idhren, who moves toward me just as I move toward Legolas. The archer will be my lookout whilst I am otherwise engaged, and I take a deep breath as I near the elfling. I am nervous, far more nervous than I possibly should be. It is like approaching a skittish horse that has taken fright – powerful and dangerous and unpredictable. I did not think that I would ever be afraid of the elfling this way.
I come near him and I stop, I call his name and he is cogent enough to pause at the sound of my voice. The men are starting to realise that they are losing this battle, are starting to think a bit more, and they are avoiding him like he is plague ridden. It gives us a small element of safety, even if it is for a moment, but there are always men who would make a name for themselves… always men who imagine their bragging rights more important than their safety. Always plenty of men who would attack a battle enraged elf.
"Legolas!" I call out again, more insistently this time. "You must stop now, the battle is all but won."
He looks at me, but his eyes are blank. They do not recognise me at all. I have just a moment to realise my idiocy, to truly realise how stupid I have been, and then I let out a stream of curse words that would shame my mother. Legolas hisses, twitches his blade lightly upon elegant fingers and then starts toward me. I recognise his footwork: those light steps upon the balls of his feet, that slight shift of his hip – he is going to attack me!
I stumble back with a cry, but when Idhren moves toward me I have just enough time to stop him with a more aggressive gesture than I had meant. I cut him off, I regain my footing and I meet the elfling head on, because I think perhaps a part of me had expected this. I think I have been expecting it for a while.
I must be careful, because although I have fought Legolas before, it was under the influence of the shadow. This is him, truly him, and he is not impervious to harm. This is my friend, he has only forgotten it for a moment, but I have to be careful. I do not think I can beat Legolas – I truly do not, not without killing him – because there cannot be any uncertainty in my hand. If I am to fight this elf it must be with everything… but I simply cannot.
Eru, he is going to kill me, and it will break him completely, but as much as I do not wish for that to happen to him I am more concerned about the prospect of my own fate. Killed by an elf? My father will burn me in effigy and renounce me as a son if I let such a thing happen.
Legolas comes at me with his blades. I have watched him carefully since I have known him – watched him in battle and in practise and in play – and I can predict him in some small way. It gives me just enough of an edge to survive the attack, turning his blades aside and ducking beneath the spin that I knew he would recover with. I know how he fights, I also have the entrusted knowledge of his weaknesses, and I begin to use it as best I can. It helps, in some small measure, but not as much as I think he expected it to. He is a far better fighter than I am.
I can hear Faelwen shouting at him, telling him to stop, but Idhren holds her back as I continue to stumble and fall away beneath the elfling's attack. Legolas' face is a rictus, cold and awful, and it has my blood running as ice; I am quite frightened of him right now. He goes to twist – the slightest shifting of his hip – and I know his movements enough to predict it. I do not give him time, I barge my shoulder into his side when he is slightly off balance and he staggers, but it is not for long. He cries out in frustration, anger, his face twisting even further and he bares his teeth at me, but I have not paused.
I barrel into him and try to knock him down. I grab at one of his wrists – the weaker one, the one that was broken the worst last year – and I wrench it horribly. I feel sickened, right to my stomach, when I feel those delicate bird bones grind and give beneath my hand, but I would prefer his wrist broken than my throat cut. Legolas makes a soft sound of pain, drops his blade, but recovers. He changes his dominant arm, shifts and twists in a movement I could not emulate if I tried, and now his arm is locked straight across my throat. He is going to snap my neck! I panic then and hammer back with my elbow, and it is only because I am shorter than him and stronger in upper arm that I manage to hurt him at all.
Legolas' strength is mostly in chest, sinew and back – he is an archer after all – but although his grip is like oak, mine is iron. I hammer backward, I feel a soft exhalation against my neck as I feel at least one of his ribs give, and his grip weakens just for a moment, just long enough for me to twist free.
He is furious now, utterly livid, and although one of his hands is useless the other is quite fine… he is battle ready again in just moments and by Eru, I am almost at my last! I can feel blood running down my arm, soaking my side. My arms will barely rise, I cannot catch my breath, and although the elfling should be all but dead on his feet right now there is no sign of it on him whatsoever. He has been trained for this – to fight past exhaustion – but I am spent.
He twirls the blade, a lazy flourish, because he knows I am done in. I call his name again, but this time I call with more than my voice. I call with my mind, my heart: I reach out to him and I batter at the haze that clouds him. I call him with memories, I project them like a shout. I send him fear and desperation, but the fear is for him and the desperation because I cannot lose him this way… not after everything we have done. I call to him, I beg for him to listen, and finally he falters.
Legolas stumbles, frowns… looks away and down as though he is momentarily lost. Confused.
I continue, heartened. I send him our memories, I send him friendship, I send him understanding and support but I also send him a hint of annoyance now. He is better than this, stronger than this, and if I know my elfling at all I certainly know the stubbornness of him. I suggest that perhaps he cannot fight his way free of this, because Legolas would rise from the very grave if someone suggested that he was not capable of it.
I step closer, careful and slow but no longer ready to fight. I can feel the Song receding, clarity returning, and as I talk to him – both in voice and heart – he glances down at the blade in his hand, unsure as to why it might be there. He looks around him as though surprised to see himself here, looks at me, and I speak to him constantly. It is a jumble of nonsense, I am not even sure what I am saying, but when I lay broken upon a ledge last year, Legolas talked to me until his voice gave out. I remember it: comforting, a lifeline, something to hold on to. I do this now for him, and just as I stop and stand before him recognition flickers in his eyes. I take the blade from his hand and he allows it, his fingers lax, and the look he gives me is nothing but trust.
He is back. My friend has returned, and although he looks as though he has been asleep for an eternity I see the elfling there in his eyes again. He is confused, numb, horrified and exhausted… he is done fighting.
I hear an urgent and desperate cry of warning, I see a flicker of movement, and a lot passes through my mind in a very short time. We are stood like dolts in the middle of a battle that is still ongoing, still happening around us, and there is a man that would take advantage of such a thing. He sees us, unmoving and injured, and takes us for an easy target. He is bearing down on us with hatchet aloft, mere moments away.
He is close enough that I can see each drop of blood on his face; the sprinkling of grey in his hair; the fact that his boots are too small for him and that he has a broken tooth.
Legolas barely reacts; he is sluggish and numb, his mind is all but absent right now and I have his only blade in any case. He is defenceless, possibly for the first time in a thousand years, but although I am done in, out of the two I am the only one with an in-tact mind. I have a heartbeat to react, a single breath to make a decision, and so I make it.
I duck low, I grab Legolas around the waist and spin. I throw him aside, I tuck him beneath me and I cover him with my own body. I turn my back to the oncoming hatchet, I protect Legolas just as I always have… as I have always tried to, so desperately… and I close my eyes tightly. I am ready.
I feel a heavy weight fall upon me, driving the air from my lungs, and the light of the dawn goes black.
~{O}~
I remain as I am for a long time, waiting for the pain to come and for death to take me. I am ready – frightened, aye, but I am ready – but it does not come. I am still being crushed, I can still feel Legolas beneath me, and I can smell an odd mix of things: unwashed man, blood, ice and a familiar forest scent that is entirely the elfling. He shifts uncomfortably.
"Gimli," he wheezes, "I can hear you breathing; I know that you live. You are crushing me."
So I wriggle and heave, and the weight above me shifts a little before it is suddenly dragged away and I am free. I sputter and gasp, I fall onto my rump in the mud and snow and blink in the light. Almárean is there – right there in my face – and he manhandles me terribly until he is certain I am not stabbed or dying. He pats me on the face, and then I am forgotten. Legolas is all he is interested in, and I understand. I truly do.
I consider getting up for a moment and then discard the idea. I spend a good while staring at the man who almost killed me – tossed aside now with an elven blade in his back – and I wonder how many times I might be expected to almost die this winter. Indeed it is the second time today.
The battle is all but over. There are only a few remaining tussles and they look as though they will be over soon. We are victorious, but the number of lives lost over a muddy Standing on the Anduin is utterly astounding. Incomprehensible.
This is not my story – not the tales that will be told of today, not the work that must start to find a new normal here. I will not be here to make a list of the dead. I will not have to redistribute workloads amongst the living, I will not have to catalogue what was wasted or destroyed by the invaders, or try to work out whether what remains will feed the survivors through the winter.
I will not be here to sing songs of the battle between Marcus and Caligan – indeed I barely even saw any of it – but I think it was a mighty one. I am sure that there will be songs written, I am sure that Marcus will never be questioned as leader here. I saw none of it, I missed the final confrontation and subsequent battle. I do not feel what these men are feeling.
But they have won the right to live in their own home, unmolested and free. They have fought an invasion and been victorious. Somehow, whilst they have been doing all of that, my own ordeal has ended as well and I feel absolutely and utterly drained. I do not feel anything at all; I am utterly numb. Hurt, exhausted, wrung out into rags. I should be rejoicing, but all that I can think is that I could sleep for a month.
I look at Legolas, just enough to be sure he is well, but Almárean is holding him so tightly I can barely see him. Once Idhren arrives the three of them are all barrelled over into the mud and I roll my eyes. He will live a while longer.
A hand appears in front of my face and I look up to see Faelwen. Her hair is an absolute mess and she has blood all over her, but I think this is how Faelwen looks more often than not. Her eyes are bright and alive, joyful and happy, and there is something else there as well. Something I had not expected to ever see again.
I take her hand and she hauls me to my feet, where I stagger for a moment but remain upright. She stares at me, but I am far too exhausted to care.
"You would have died for him," she says softly. "You would have taken that blade in his stead – you simply acted, you did not think."
"No," I sigh, and this time I meet her eyes completely. I match her stare. "Not when it comes to Legolas. I acted, and I did not think."
We are not talking about the same thing any longer.
She holds my stare for a moment longer and then deflates, closes her eyes and sighs. She rakes her hair back so that it is at least out of her eyes and rubs her face, wiping a smear of blood across her cheek.
"Oh Gimli," she breathes. "I held you to blame."
"You were right to," I shake my head. "I would regain your trust Faelwen, if I can."
She smiles, grips my wounded shoulder so that I grimace terribly, but she does not say anything. I am glad. I do not think that anything would sound genuine right now, but I know that I have been granted my chance. Faelwen and I are still friends, and sometimes friends stumble with one another. We will make this right somehow.
I can hear Legolas now, complaining that his friends are crowding him and insisting that he is quite fine. He is getting annoyed, I can feel it flickering on the edge of my own emotions. I wonder whether this will ever fade.
"My hand is broken," Legolas cries out suddenly, absolutely outraged. "Again!"
He shoves Idhren to one side so that he can glare at me, and I really am far too tired for this.
"You were trying to kill me… literally trying to kill me!" I shout back. "I brought you back from the madness and saved your life – you are welcome, by the way – and your hand is what you focus on?"
"I just fixed that hand," he scowls, then frowns even deeper. "You are bleeding an awful lot."
He makes it sound like an accusation – as though I am doing it on purpose – and I stare at him, aghast. I can find nothing to say at all. Of all the moods he could be in right now, this is the one that he has settled on… the difficult version of him, the one I often struggle not to throttle.
I cannot cope with it right now, I truly cannot, and when Calder finally joins us – his brother unfortunately alive and trailing after him – I throw my hands into the air. Calder is looking at us as though we are ghosts, unable to comprehend the state we are in, but I have no words for him either. I spin on my heel and find energy enough to storm away.
"I am going to the inn," I call back over my shoulder. "Who knows, perhaps I will bleed to death. I can only hope for it."
I trip and stumble, my feet lead weights, but I continue off in a huff and after a while I know that they are following me. We are an intrusion here, we are not a part of this story, but we have our own to conclude. We will nurse our injuries and find solace in our friends, but we will do so in private. I feel only a tiny amount of guilt in presuming to take refuge in the inn, but I have played a part in saving this town. I feel that I have earned it.
Eru, have I earned it.
TBC
The Shadow is defeated, the battle is won, the gang are back together and here we are... two years and ten months after I started posting this fic and it's finally all over. There is still an epilogue, because there's always that end scene where the heroes part ways, and I will give you that soon. Probably next week. It's all done and edited and ready to go, and I will post a proper A/N at the end of that as a fitting farewell.
I'd be delighted to hear from you, just as always, and it'd be nice to know that you're still here with me at the end. I bid you a wonderful weekend :)
MyselfOnly