Hello everyone!
Thank you to all who are still with me on this, especially the kind reviewers. You guys are a treasure, now more than ever, when the fandom is quieter. There's so much going on in my life right now, I thought I might as well move forward with writing and posting this, which is one of the funnest and easiest of the million or so things I need to do lately, so here we are :) When this is finished (and I am only a handful of chapters shy of that), I might be gone again for a brief time, hopefully not too long :) But rest assured, I am committed to finishing this particular tale and am actually almost there :) At any rate, I hope you enjoy the read aw much as I enjoy the writing! Please keep the c&c's coming if you can. And without further ado:
# # #
16: Brutal Complements
# # #
Mirkwood, T.A. 2851
# # #
Like Echador, the other soldiers of the northern outpost were all stirring awake. It deprived Silon of his last case of discouraging Legolas from pursuing the three fugitives: that they needed to stay back and be on the watch.
The elven soldiers were as ill as Echador had been upon waking, which meant that while they were well enough to maintain a lookout on the reasonably secure post, they were not fit for a pursuit on horseback.
Legolas was going to have to go and with him, Glorfindel, as both were able to handle the untamed horses. Istor expressed his duty and desire to join his Imladrian commander, and so he and Glorfindel headed to the stables to see if Istor could work with the wild beasts. Legolas and Silon they left in the commander's talan – Legolas making plans with Echador while valiantly trying to ignore Silon as the latter continued to reason with him.
It reminded Glorfindel of how he first met the pair. Legolas had an arrow on his back and was barking out commands, with Silon trailing after him begging him to have it tended. It was apparently an old dance; Glorfindel left them to it. He had his own tumultuous thoughts, and his own tasks ahead.
"Maybe you and Legolas shouldn't go," Istor commented discreetly, as they walked.
Glorfindel'a brow quirked. "Maybe. But the task should be done, and no one else can do it. As Legolas said himself – 'no one is supposed to be where they are at the moment.'"
Istor grunted in displeased agreement. "You are well enough I suppose, my lord. I know you. And I think I've even seen you fight in worse states than this."
"So what drives your doubts?"
"Maybe fools should be left to their folly," said Istor, "Maybe I lost some of my nerve lately, seeing you with your blood and innards splayed on the ground. If a horse will have me and I accompany the prince, would you consider staying back?"
It was unthinkable, Glorfindel knew right away. But he gave it earnest consideration, out of fairness. He imagined Legolas and Istor riding away without him, and even now his gut churned in fear of what he could lose if something ill befell them. It hurt his heart.
Love and fear, he thought, brutal complements...
He shook his head, unable to word it.
They walked on.
# # #
At the stables, Glorfindel hummed for the horses Yavanna's mesmerizing tune, and ushered Istor to the most responsive of them. Guiding his loyal second's hands to touch the beast at the nose, Glorfindel introduced them, and let them connect through him.
He was in a trance-like state, and startled at a commanding sudden arrival: Silon.
"Can you not talk some sense into him?" the Mirkwood soldier demanded. They both knew who the him was.
Glorfindel sighed, and released his connection to the horse and Istor gently. They had already established some rapport though, and Istor gave Glorfindel a reassuring nod.
"I think I have it in good order now, my lord."
Glorfindel turned his attention toward Silon, and walked to the seething elf. He led them out the stables so as not to disturb Istor's efforts at bonding with his perspective horse.
"How could it possibly be allowed that two elves on the convalescent list, are the ones to go on the backs of wild gods-be-damned warhorses, in pursuit of three mad elves over unsecured territory, bound for Dol Guldur? Where is the sense in all of this?"
"I should not defend your prince to you," Glorfindel said evenly. "That is not my place. But I can tell you some facts you cannot dispute."
"Good gods," Silon scoffed.
"The decision to come after the brothers is difficult to accept but fair," Glorfindel replied. "It is just for those they wronged, that they be pursued and held accountable for their crimes. Think of explaining to Mistador's adar and naneth, if you let his killers run free."
"Mistador's parents are long dead," Silon spat out, bitterly.
Glorfindel wisely moved on. "The decision is also merciful – merciful to Agarwen, who would otherwise lose her husband and all of her sons. A most unfair burden that would be, undeserved. It is also merciful to the brothers themselves, who are in deep grief and not in their proper faculties. And so our course of action is both just and merciful – a decision worthy of a prince.
"Second," Glorfindel continued, "tactically speaking, the objective is feasible. Go on horses and catch up to them, and subdue and capture if possible. They are inferior horsemen and inferior fighters on a small lead. The parameters are fair too – do not pursue into enemy lands. Do not risk injury or death. If the brothers are unsalvageable, we have at least done what was within reason to do. Actionable, achievable, and well-defined – a plan worthy of a good commander.
"Third," and with this Glorfindel could not help but sigh. "We are severely undermanned. Legolas is convalescent but he knows the terrain, he can control a wild horse, and you know better than anyone that he will be functional if he needs to fight. That he should go because he has a duty and the only one able to fulfill it – well, that is admirable too."
"Foolish more like," Silon seethed, "and dead if he is allowed into messes such as these. You would put him and his condition on the back of a wild horse? So what if it is fast and powerful and they like him? One misstep and the rider is going to get tossed and break his neck. When you get to your goal, you worry about an altercation with the brothers and you are right to, but they are but one potential danger of many. Legolas plans to ride hard on lands not our own, where orcs from Gundabad have been known to roam and raid. Southbound you will be parallel to mountain lairs of goblins and trolls and the gods know what else too. Reaching the brothers and fighting them before they get to the confines of Dol Guldur, my lord, is the easy part! Tell me, tell me, Glorfindel. Tell me I am wrong. Tell me the danger he means to run headlong into does not terrify you."
"I will not lie," Glorfindel said. "Of course it terrifies me. But can either of us prove his decision is the wrong one, and can either of us point in the direction of anyone else who can do what needs doing? I know I am trying, and I am failing."
Glorfindel winced at the admission, for it was brutally true – no matter how right the decision, no matter how admirable the person's courage and sense of duty to fulfill it... he would keep Legolas safe if he could. But he also knew Legolas was loved because he was this way – and one cannot love him, and then unmake him into someone less. You cannot love him and clip his wings.
"Short of drugging him myself," Glorfindel said dryly, "All I can do is ride headlong into danger with him, and maybe make things better."
Silon was still deeply, deeply angry. But somehow, it turned into anger at himself. "I would kill to go, but none of those beasts are going to take me - not even I think, with your godly interventions."
"I am not a god," Glorfindel corrected him with a quirk of his brow.
"And horses still hate me," Silon said, before he hit upon a thought and he stared at Glorfindel hungrily. "If you let me ride with you, and thus let me ride with my prince to save his pretty head from his own reckless doings, I will owe you a life debt."
"Two riders to a horse will slow me down," Glorfindel pointed out. "This is why you won't ask Legolas, isn't it? He would never allow it because his goal is pursuit and interception."
"It won't slow you much," Silon argued. "I've seen you with the horses. We can keep within a few lengths of Legolas, and we can have one horse on a lead for when the one we are riding tires. Let me ride with you, my lord. Let me. Let me be at my prince's back."
Glorfindel considered. What Silon said was true; he could certainly prevail upon one of the wild horses to have two riders, and with a fresh horse on a lead they could switch at need and not lose much time. Legolas wouldn't have Silon along with him and Glorfindel did not want that either; two riders could increase the risk of an accident, which he did not wish Legolas to be exposed to in his healing state. As for Silon riding with Istor instead, the latter's bond with his horse was too tenuous to risk burdening the beast with one more stranger. If Silon was to go, he could only be with Glorfindel.
He narrowed his eyes in thought, and gave Silon a grave nod.
"If you have no duties here and your commander allows it," he told the younger elf, "You may ride with me."
# # #
Garavon was given another message to release to his birds, which Legolas watched while standing beside Glorfindel. They were both outfitted for their mission, and set to leave the moment the birds take to the air.
They both looked intently upon the gamekeeper's actions, but Legolas' posture beside him was stiff, and the air around him uneasy about something else. Glorfindel could tell he wanted to say something, and he suspected he knew what it was... it's just that they were too hard pressed for time to discuss it in private.
As Garavon and his apprentices prepared the birds and cooed encouragements at them, Legolas finally murmured at Glorfindel, "Would I be able to persuade you to stay here?"
Glorfindel could not help it, he gave out a soft snort. "That you of all people, should ask me this question..."
Legolas would not be steered away from the seriousness of his message. "To come after Rochanar's sons is my responsibility, not yours. To navigate this particular terrain is my expertise, not yours. Neither of us are back to optimal fitness and ideally we would both stay back, but I do not have that option. You, however, do."
"I do not have that option," Glorfindel murmured back.
"Why not?"
You know why not...
... I do not have the desire or ability to leave you alone.
"As surely as your dutiful heart binds you to this path," Glorfindel said carefully, "Mine is bound not only to you, but to doing the right thing. And I believe you are doing the right thing."
"I refuse to have you risk yourself on my behalf," Legolas retorted, "trying to solve my problems, sharing the burden of my responsibilities."
"Why not?" it was Glorfindel's turn to ask. "You do it for others readily enough. Why not, Legolas? You do not need it? That is arrogant. You do not deserve it? You are far more worthy of love and life and light than you know. So - why not?"
"If you get hurt I will hurt," came the embittered reply, for clearly Legolas knew now that he would not be able to shake off Glorfindel's company. "But if you get hurt because of me... I wouldn't be able to bear it. Do you understand? I may need your help, I may even deserve it. But I do not want it."
"The generosity you are so willing to give," Glorfindel told him quietly, "you must also have the humility to accept. That is the burden of, of caring for someone. To love and let the self be loved in return."
"So far it is all burdens, isn't it?"
"I wouldn't disagree."
Legolas sighed heavily, but his lip quirked in a dry grin. "At least in this we are aligned."
Glorfindel took a deep breath, and he remembered they were not alone only when the birds took to the skies with the furious sound of a flurry of flapping wings. Garavon likely did not hear their conversation, though his younger, more grounded apprentices likely did. Legolas did not seem to care much.
"We leave now," Legolas declared.
He walked to his wild red horse, the one he had taken a liking to immediately. Glorfindel whistled for his own preferred steed, a mighty white warhorse with a broad back. Istor arrived at their party, already mounted. Silon took his seat behind Glorfindel after the ancient warlord settled atop his horse.
Legolas, who had approved the arrangement earlier, was unsurprised by it. But a plan in concept was different in actuality, and he looked at Glorfindel and Silon on a horse together with a tilt of his head and a thoughtful look on his face.
Glorfindel raised an inquiring brow at him, which Legolas responded to with an unreadable expression. He said nothing though, and led the group of four soldiers into a hard run, southwest.
# # #
The horse beneath him was born for a wild chase.
Glorfindel barely had to spur him on, and he was seemingly, astoundingly unburdened by the two elves on his back. Legolas and Istor, each riding solo and the latter leading a spare horse forward for Glorfindel and Silon, were just a few strides ahead of them and the distance stayed that way. They were moving forward so forcefully that Glorfindel could feel Silon's grip tighten on his waist, and they both stayed low and centered, close to the warhorse's mighty back.
Glorfindel almost laughed aloud, enjoying the feel of the warm power that thrummed beneath his body.
The hooves thundered mightily on the ground, for they left the outpost like shooting stars in the night sky. The horses and their riders were equally restless.
Before him, Glorfindel watched Istor to make sure he was handling his new ride safely; the Imladrian did not have his usual ease, but he had balance and security and for now, that was enough.
The Prince, on the other hand... the earthy colors of his soldierly wares were almost a match for the horse he rode, and he sat on the steed so naturally that they looked one. He resembled the fabled centaur, half-man, half-horse. His hair streamed behind him in the wind, that mane of pale gold, barely restrained by warrior's braids.
As the journey progressed, Legolas at the head slowed their pace to a more sustainable canter. Still, the scenery went by in a flurry of colors and shapes.
They moved forward wordlessly as the night deepened, casting long shadows on the ground. The shadows lengthened and contracted with their movement and the direction of the light – first by the moon overhead and then later, in the small hours, by the dim and distant but imminent sunrise.
There were brief, forced stops for the horses to eat and drink or take rest, but the entire party for the most part did not stop.
# # #
The group crested a small hilly incline, and spotted the first traces proving they were traversing the same path taken by Rochanar's sons: two tamed horses and one lying on its side on the ground.
They all dismounted to inspect, and it was a good opportunity for their horses to rest anyway. Silon and Istor quickly secured and inspected the two idling, rider-broken horses. If they were functional, Glorfindel knew they would now ride them.
Glorfindel and Legolas squatted before the horse on the ground, taking in his condition from opposite sides. Glorfindel grimaced at the sight of its badly broken front legs. The horse was clearly suffering, and has been suffering for some time. He laid a hand on its head, and offered it what comfort he could.
In the fringes of his senses, he could hear Legolas speaking with the hurting beast in the gentle lilt of his archaic Silvan tongue. Glorfindel sank into the sound, letting it engulf him and magnifying it for the horse.
And then suddenly, his connection to it was terminated.
He opened his eyes – the horse was dead, by a swift, clean knife to the heart. And Legolas hadn't even bloodied his hands. The Woodland prince pushed restlessly up to his feet.
"They ran it ragged," he said in a low, dangerous voice. His chest was heaving with anger, "And did not even have the courage to end its misery. What makes them think they can walk into Dol Guldur and... their father..."
He shook his head in disgust.
Glorfindel rose too, and watched as he gathered himself.
"Silon," Legolas called out, changing the subject altogether. "Those horses are functional?"
"Yes," Silon replied. He took on a clipped, official tone as well, knowing as Glorfindel was learning, that it was what Legolas needed. "I suppose when this horse fell the brothers switched rides to fresh ones and left the injured and tired horses here. But these are well rested now. We can move out."
He and Istor took over the abandoned, tamed pair with much relief, leaving unoccupied two spare wild horses: the one Istor had been riding, and the spare one he had on a lead for Glorfindel and Silon. To give his horse a rest, Glorfindel transferred to that one. Legolas showed no need or inclination to change from his, but he did keep Istor's former horse on hand for later.
With the new arrangements made, they continued on their journey.
# # #
The sunset was magnificent, as the party traversed the rolling fields with mountain ranges at their back and to the west on their right, as they ventured southwards.
They rode at sensible, sustained speeds but barely stopped, only doing so for periodic checks and rest for the horses, or switching mounts as needed. The wild ones were unsurprisingly hardier, but the tamed horses were better at restraint. They all had their strengths.
There were no occasions for conversation, so Glorfindel let himself slip into introspection. How would they find Rochanar's sons, he wondered, and how amenable would they be to a peaceful surrender? He pondered these things as he slowed his breathing and gathered his strength. If a fight was to erupt, he had to be as rested as possible.
Twilight came, and then the deepening night.
They went on. When Glorfindel switched to the white, broad-backed horse of his first preference, he had even drifted to a light, restful, sleep.
But then, he was stirred awake by Silon exclaiming, "Blood has been spilt this night!"
Glorfindel's eyes snapped open. In the east, the first strains of morning could be seen in the lightening skies.
It was dawning red.
And before he could ponder on the brutal possibilities of this ominous sign, the sound of an orc horn pierced the relative quiet of the small hours.
Legolas looked at him grimly, and spurred his horse forward faster. He released the horse he held on a lead so as not to hamper his movement, but it followed after him anyway.
"Legolas!" Silon hissed disapprovingly from behind them, and was either unheard or ignored.
Glorfindel paced the elven prince easily. "Restraint, captain." He used the military title to invoke order and control.
"That was a call for reinforcements," Legolas called out to him in justification, over the roar of horse hooves. But he did slow down, marginally. "If Rochanar's sons are fighting and that enemy call is heeded, they won't stand a chance. They are there – look!"
Glorfindel, admittedly, strained. The Woodelves' eyes were more accustomed to the dark, and the sun was barely dawning. But there! near the edges of the woods to their left, in the visible distance, was indeed, a skirmish.
"We cannot approach in stealth," Legolas called out, "not coming from these plains. But a shock attack, a hard, open approach – it might disperse them. They might think there is more of us. We can sweep in, rescue the brothers and make our own escape, before their reinforcements come."
Glorfindel could only agree, and he spurred his horse forward.
# # #
It was a mild torment, how the eyes can see so much farther than speed could reach. It lasted a seemingly long, torturous lifetime, how they could see the fight and yet be kept by the natural laws of the world from reaching it as quickly.
They rode the horses hard and unforgiving now, with Legolas and Glorfindel at the head, being the fastest. Beside him, starting at a good shooting distance, Glorfindel could see Legolas with his bow and arrow. Shaft after shaft in quick succession he released them, and was shortly after followed by Silon's efforts once he had crossed the same closing distance.
As they thundered closer, Legolas shifted weapons to his twin, slim white knives. Glorfindel readied his sword.
It had taken an eternity to reach the fray, but the suddenly it was just a handful of leagues away, all blur and color.
From the corner of Glorfindel's eye, he saw Legolas brace himself on the back of his half-mad wild horse, and then vault himself up into the sky. Thus, he entered the battle at a fierce angle from the air, knives drawn, golden hair flying behind him.
It was, Glorfindel realized, the first time he had seen Legolas fight.
And then there was little else to look at beyond his own foes.
# # #
The battle raged in Glorfindel's veins.
He entered the fray fighting, but took stock of the situation calculatingly too. First, to note they were fighting uruk-hai – enemies more skilled, more calculating. Second, the battlefield looked like the remnants of a camp for there was a fire, and a miscellany of living detritus. Rochanar's sons had apparently engaged a band of uruk-hai during a camping stop. Third, a half dozen bodies littered the ground – most of them uruks, but two of them, not.
He fought his way to the closest one. It was an elven soldier, one of Rochanar's sons. Glorfindel dispatched a foe promptly, and quickly squatted to the ground and laid a hand on the elf's neck.
Glorfindel felt Silon and Istor arrive behind him. Istor shifted and stood to cover him as he checked on the fallen elven soldier, while Silon ran past him to fight his way to the other body.
Rochanar's son already looked dead, but Glorfindel had to make certain.
He was.
Glorfindel moved on, as he had to.
He rose promptly and readied his sword. He and Istor stood back to back as a hungry pack of uruks gathered around them. They swung and hacked at their bloodthirsty enemies. These were more skilled than orcs but easy enough to dispatch if one was well-trained, experienced and in control, but there was many of them. More would be coming too, if that orc horn was heeded by someone nearby.
Glorfindel worked faster.
He and Istor were well on their way to completely clearing their immediate area when he heard two words that would brand into his mind for ever.
"Legolas, no!"
It was how Silon had said it, the impotent desperation of his cry.
Glorfindel had the deeply-ingrained military discipline - just barely – to try and rid himself of the opponent in front of him before he turned to look at the cause of Silon's jarring exclamation.
He slashed upward and deeply at the uruk, and drew out his sword while kicking the body away. Another took its place, but in the brief space of time between the fall of one enemy and the rising of another, Glorfindel laid eyes on a sight that made his breath catch, his heart drop to his stomach, his extremities turn ice cold, his blood stop. The world, it froze.
Legolas was on his knees on the ground.
Glorfindel could only see him from the left side, in profile, before his sightline was blocked. He focused on killing his next foe, quickly. As a seasoned warrior, he knew that if he endangered himself, he would be of no use to anyone. He went for the uruk's neck, and he jumped over its collapsing form to fight his way to Legolas.
The elven prince was still where Glorfindel had seen him. Legolas was kneeling by the tree line, half-shadowed. His body was tensed and slightly turned away, and his arms were strained to shaking, holding back something Glorfindel could not see from where he was coming from.
Around Legolas, the uruks he had felled lay, including two still-twitching bodies that each sheathed the twin white knives he favored in a close-contact fight.
Behind Legolas and under his apparent protection was one of Rochanar's sons, the youngest, the one Glorfindel had met. This Rochanarion was incapacitated but still somewhat alive - Glorfindel could tell by the wide, darting, fearful eyes and the blood that gushed out in spurts from his body. He did not look as if he would be much longer for this world.
And beside Legolas, on the right side away from Glorfindel's limited, profile view, was the only one left of the uruk-hai Legolas had been fighting...
... the beast was holding the hilt of a vicious, curved blade that did not stab or skewer Legolas as much as it, it hooked him.
Its tip had entered the Woodland prince's stomach near the navel at an angle and curved into him until it came out of his back, near his side.
It was a bad wound now, but one pull – one pull – from the uruk's powerful paw and Legolas would be as good as cut in half.
One pull and he would be dead.
Legolas' straining arms were holding tight to that of his uruk-hai attacker's, to prevent that very outcome. The uruk was growling and hissing as he fought for purchase, and Legolas was trembling, weakening, losing. His hands began to slide from the hilt to the blade itself. His palms were cut, red blossoming anew from his body.
Glorfindel knew he was not going to be fast enough. His eyes, again, held the cruelty of being able to see that which he was powerless to stop -
"Stop!" Silon screamed, sounding like Glorfindel's own's soul's cry. He had said it with such manic desperation that the uruk, for reasons all his own, did.
"Stop, stop..." Silon said quickly, tossing away his weapons and opening his emptied arms wide to show, in the best way he possibly could, that he was now unarmed.
The uruk looked at his surroundings sharply, quickly coming to the conclusion that all his compatriots were dead. He was the only one left alive.
A dangerous glint entered his eye. It was a look that Glorfindel read easily, for the uruk braced to resume and strengthen his attack on the waning elf he had stabbed and brought to the knees. The uruk knew it had nothing left to lose, and would kill this being brutally before its friends.
"That is Thranduilion," Silon said quickly, breathlessly. "That is the Elvenking's only ch-"
Legolas growled at him in visceral but ultimately futile command for silence. His bleeding hands slid from the curved knife in his body, strengthless. He was shaking badly from shock – not yet it seemed though, from pain. The adrenaline was still shielding him from that. He glared at Silon venomously. His chest heaved up and down, up and down from exertion. He was breathless from the exertion of the fight and the untold inner effects of his injury. Every breath was fought for, hard won. His steely eyes were glazing. Still, he glared.
"Liar," he hissed at his friend. The word was delivered as if it was a curse, and not in the definition of an exclamation. It was an invocation of ill will. "Liar."
The uruk thought Legolas was calling Silon a liar for making the royal claim, but Glorfindel knew differently. He remembered a talk he and Legolas had some time ago.
"A lot of my soldiers have extracted this promise from me: death before capture, and a quick, merciful one," the prince had claimed.
"And have you extracted this same promise from others?"
"I do not believe them," the wood-elf admitted.
Legolas was calling his friend a liar, for a broken oath: death before capture.
By Silon's flinch, he knew it too. But he was undeterred. He refused to even look at his prince. He was resolved, Glorfindel could see, to save Legolas' life even if it meant betraying Legolas' wishes. Even if it meant betraying their kingdom. Even if it meant betraying himself - for certainly Silon must have known that in breaking his word, he would never have the chance to be loved back. This was love at its hungriest and most merciless, where it consumed itself, killing off its own possibilities.
"He is the Elvenking's only remaining child," Silon said. "Look at him, for godssakes."
The uruk was intelligent; many were bred to be so now, in these dark days. It saw quickly a narrow window for survival. He slid to his own knees behind Legolas, making the prince his shield. With his left arm, he hooked Legolas about the neck, and he held a slim dagger to it. He kept his right hand on the hilt of the menacing blade hooked to Legolas' side.
One push on the dagger at the neck and Legolas' throat would be slit. One pull on the curved blade and he would be cut to half of his stomach.
Glorfindel was still armed, and so was Istor near him. But from where they were, there would be no way to hit the uruk without him first making either of the slight movements that would end Legolas' life.
They were at an impasse, and the elves had more to lose.
TO BE CONTINUED...
'til the next post!
