Thranduil, Hyrondal, Onyx, and Sapphire rode into view of the Mirkwood Royal Summerhouse. A low stone wall ran around it and the house was sharp in its angles, poking with bay windows. The garden flowered with beds of asters and hydrangeas against the white walls of the house attempted to bloom. The paths through the garden that wrapped around the house were made of smooth white stones, and any number of nooks and crannies dripping with honeysuckle offered shade.
Thranduil shifted as his horse stamped a hoof on the ground. "It struggles to be inviting."
"It is too white," Hyrondal agreed.
Guards stood outside the house at the gate in the stone wall, perhaps baking in their steel shirts for the sun was hot overhead and the trees cleared too far back to offer shade.
Thranduil drew himself up. "I am Prince Thranduil and I demand an audience with the King."
The guards bowed to him. "You are expected, my prince." They opened the gate, and one elf took the bridle of Thranduil's horse. "You will forgive us, my prince, but the house is not fully complete. We cannot greet you with due respect nor offer the comfort you are used to."
At his gesture, Thranduil and his party dismounted and left the horses in the care of a servant who rushed from behind the house. A second servant hurried forward and requested, "If you will follow me, my prince."
The elf led the way through the gardens onto the white terrace before the summerhouse front doors. The guards in green there opened the doors by their copper handles.
Thranduil and his friends passed into the care of a maid, who ushered them through a hall with floors of checkered marble and walls polished to a deep, dark brown and portraits framed in grey. She left them in an expansive parlor with low windows overlooking a clear blue pond in the northern circle of the garden. Yellow and orange fish glittered in the water. The room was furnished with plentiful plush furniture around a coffee table near an empty fireplace.
Hyrondal flung himself upon the closest sofa and put his boots up on an ottoman, wrinkling his nose as the abundance of pillows around him threatened to bury him. Thranduil perused the portraits on the walls with his hands behind his back until the parlor door opened and two maids came in to supply the coffee table with tea and cookies.
As soon as the maids left, an elf strode into the room. Dressed in a brown robe with embroidered sleeves and collar, Thranduil recognized him as Cayl, one of Oropher's council members.
"My prince," the elf bowed. His dark hair and eyes matched the shadows in his robe. "I regret to inform you the King is out hunting and thus cannot grant your request for an audience. Please, make yourself at home. I will personally inform you of the King's return."
Thranduil waited until Cayl had left the room before he growled, "We will be waiting a long while! No, I do not want tea."
Sapphire shrugged and poured herself a cup of the dark red liquid from the teapot spattered with flowers.
"I am willing to bet Cayl will not inform us when Oropher returns," Thranduil said. "In fact, he might not even be out hunting. I cannot stand to sit here. Come, Hyrondal, if Oropher is hunting, we will find him."
"I will stay here in the event Oropher returns or makes his presence known," Sapphire offered.
"And I will not leave you alone in this nest of serpents!" Onyx cried. He upended the teapot over his cup. "I will stay with nana; you two find the King. I advise caution."
Thranduil and Hyrondal left the room. Their last look backward was of Onyx flinging his knees up onto the sofa and reclining back. They found their horses in a stable hidden behind a hedge of hydrangea bushes. The horses were unsaddled and, as they tacked up their mounts, Hyrondal asked of the hovering stable hand, "Where might we pursue the choicest game?"
The elf looked at him sharply. "Go west. The King is hunting in the east and does not care to be interrupted."
Hyrondal smirked at Thranduil as the stable hand pointed them down a path winding out behind the stables. The horses passed through a gate and raced across an open meadow before entering the forest. Instead of following the faint path to the west, Thranduil and Hyrondal rode straight on, guiding their horses along a path marked by snapped branches and hoofprints.
As Thranduil and Hyrondal rode with intention in the free world, Queen Natelle sailed into the parlor of her domain. Her golden hair curled high; she wore a sleeveless peach-colored dress. Its shimmering folds sneered.
Sapphire rose gracefully to bow. Onyx took his feet off the coffee table and stood to his duty.
"Well," Natelle said, and trailed her hand along the wall as she walked around the room. "No doubt you have come to bargain for your husband's freedom."
"What have you done with my father?" Onyx exclaimed. His hand clenched.
Sapphire held up a hand to silence him. "I have not come only to barter for my husband's freedom, but for the sake of all you so readily disregard, my queen."
"A high order," Natelle sneered. "I am disappointed the brat I birthed has put you up to it. But, come, entertain me in the garden."
"How dare you address my mother," began Onyx, but Sapphire put a hand on his arm, and he finished by bowing. "My Queen."
"I should be delighted to walk with you in the gardens, my queen," Sapphire said. "I am sure there is much to be admired."
Sapphire knew, like Onyx knew, there was little she could hope to say to sway Natelle's mind but, like Onyx, she was tired of drinking tea.
Onyx stood to attention as Natelle and Sapphire glided out of the room. He waited. Then he rose and stalked after them.
Back in the forest Thranduil and Hyrondal heard squirrels skittering in the leaves above them as they rode.
"I let myself be carried away," Thranduil admitted. "I could not stand—I was afraid of what I might do if I encountered Natelle. We have no hope of finding Oropher when Mirkwood stretches on forever."
Hyrondal grinned at him. "You needed some peace. One ought not approach a bonfire with a torch in hand." He twisted in his saddle and gazed about. "I knew that when I rode out with you. I do not see signs of a path."
Thranduil paused to lay a hand against a tree trunk. The bark tickled his palm. He recoiled with a start as Ailunai's face morphed out of the wood and stared at him. Her face vanished the moment his hand left the tree.
Thranduil drew in a breath and tried again, feeling her presence in the wood. He saw Ailunai standing as if in front of him with her hand to a tree though she was miles away. Her voice came distantly, as if it carried in the wind all those miles, but her words were clear. "Hurry, Thranduil! The King is in danger."
And she offered Thranduil a brief glimpse of her vision; Oropher beset by orcs.
"Thank you," Thranduil breathed. He wheeled his mount and Hyrondal followed without question. The horses galloped through thickets of small bushes and leapt rotting logs sticking out of the ground until they came up short at the edge of a swarm of orcs.
Oropher's horse lay dead with its neck cut open and whatever hunting party there had been lay in bloody heaps between elf and orc bodies alike. Only a few elves stood among the orc mob but, as Thranduil approached, the elves were chopped down. Oropher turned, streaked with blood and grey, the last elf standing.
"Thranduil!" he screamed. "You fool! Run! If we both die today, Mirkwood is doomed!"
Beside Thranduil, Hyrondal drew in a breath, connected himself to the trees, and entered the fray with as much grace as a stag leaping a log. Thranduil met Oropher's blue eyes in disgust as he followed Hyrondal. He heard the song Hyrondal heard and, in harmony with the same tune, the elves moved in sync.
The forest lent its roots and branches the fight, helping to carve a path forward so Hyrondal and Thranduil might reach Oropher. The King's clothes were torn and heavy with blood, his face as pale as the moon. He leaned against the stomach of his slain horse, chest heaving.
Hyrondal and Thranduil stood shoulder to shoulder in front of him. The sunlight in the leaves was sickly yellow, the stench of death nauseating, but their focus was absolute and their swords extensions of themselves. Their knees bent forward, then their torsos, and their swords followed deadly fast. Orcs fell but more filled their places with ferocity, hacking and slashing, trying to circle round.
"Valar, there are hundreds of them!" Hyrondal panted. He ducked behind Thranduil to grasp a tree root and desperately project his need for help out. He held on for as long as he dared, until his sight entered the summer house garden and tapped an elf on the foot.
Hyrondal jerked back to himself as he heard Thranduil grunt. He swung around, cutting two orcs back. He gave Thranduil two seconds to adapt to the cut on his shoulder before bouncing back into the struggle. They worked hard to keep the orcs from circling them, forced apart as the creatures tried to flank them. Slowly the three elves retreated to find the trees at their backs. A look at Oropher told Thranduil the King could barely stand.
Thranduil darted away from the protection of his tree, ducking under orcs blades and rolling between their thick legs to reach Oropher. He left behind half a dozen dead orcs but more had already filled their gaps.
There was hope in a slow retreat until the guttural groans of a orcs horn echoed in the trees behind them and the creatures ahead of Hyrondal, Thranduil, and Oropher rallied with a cheer that almost broke Thranduil's spine.
It barely mattered where and how Thranduil cut with his sword. It was impossible to miss, but he still slashed clean kills until both his arms hurt and the blades, he carried grew so slick with blood his fingers threatened to slip off the hilts.
The song of the forest faded. The pain in his shoulder stung at his eyes. Hard as it was to follow a tune overcome with orc smell and screams, Thranduil wavered not in the knowledge that this was what he trained for; to protect.
"Thranduil," Oropher said. "We will not survive this."
Thranduil could not turn to see the ghastly white of Oropher's face or see the pain in his eyes, but he said, "We will."
"My time has come, Thranduil. I only wished you to survive and even then, you defied me. I cannot stand the thought; Mirkwood in the hands of lesser blood! My line dies this day."
Rage bubbled in Thranduil. "Shut up!" he screamed. "How dare you? Even now I hate you. I hate you! Always you do this; you look down on people. You are hateful and prejudiced. You never give anyone else a chance!"
The orcs slowly forced him back. Fear of being cut down by the pack approaching from behind kept his back taunt. Thranduil ground his teeth. "Onyx! What is taking you so bloody long!"
"I am ashamed to be your son!" Thranduil spat at Oropher. "Everything in you I see in me is what I hate about myself!"
Oropher opened his mouth. He screamed and staggered and his sword fell to the dirt. He collapsed to his knees clutching his head. "Natelle! Beloved! No!"
Thranduil's heart jammed in his throat for Oropher's scream was the scream of an elf torn from their soulmate by the only true separator in the world: death. He knew then that Onyx was not coming, that his time had come, that it was time, time to die.
He saw the orc's blade coming toward him and heard of the whistle of it in the air over the noise. He saw the one orc's blade out of a dozen slashing at him and knew before it hit him it was the one strike he could not block.
Thranduil staggered when it struck him. The wicked blade sliced a deep cut through his left torso. Wet blood flooded down his thigh and white spots filled his eyes. He clung to his sword as he felt himself falling into the wet embrace of the ground and, as Oropher's body covered his as if to protect against mutilation, he fell into darkness. His last thought was yes, he wanted to die, to leave behind all his troubles, but how much he wanted to live. For Ailunai.
Oropher's grief kept him from the welcome thought of unconsciousness and, as he held onto Thranduil's body and felt the warmth draining out of him, he witnessed the remarkable might of a miracle.
It was Hyrondal against the orcs now and Hyrondal alone, yet Hyrondal refused to fall. Oropher was aware of the young elf standing in front of him and aware also of a woman's howling voice. It was Ailunai screaming in rage, in grief, in sorrow.
Hyrondal moved in a slow waltz with the forest, yet he moved quicker than any of the orcs. He cut down the creatures before they had chance to swing their weapons. His swords moved too quickly to catch the spraying blood drops flaying the air. He moved with urgency, without thought, racing against the pack of orcs approaching from behind and, even when knocked back, he snapped back to his feet. He faced a mass of writhing bodies; his mind picked apart their movements, dissected their future steps through their weight against the ground, and plunged his swords through the seemingly huge gaps their clumsy and ruthless attacks provided.
Hyrondal lost one sword; it snagged and caught in a ribcage and the weight of the orc falling away from him jerked it from his hand. He used his foot to toe the nearest blade into the air and catch it. He grunted; it was the royal blade of Mirkwood. It was Oropher's sword.
It surged through him. The sword latched onto his hand and refused to let go. Weightless and wicked it flowed with him as he moved like a tree in a vile storm. A tree with roots so deep no wind could tear it up, no earthquake could uproot it.
Hyrondal cut through the last of the orcs and stood panting. Energy still rippled within him, built up as he breathed for a full ten seconds. He turned with a snarl to meet the onslaught of the second orc pack. His swords became cruel, cutting off heads and ripping open stomachs. He moved faster as the echoing notes of an elven horn and the tramp of horse's hooves told him help approached.
By the time the elven guard burst out of the trees, Hyrondal stood alone. As Onyx leaned off his horse to grasp Hyrondal's hand, the elf collapsed.
Oo! Suspense! My middle name. And someone died(what?)!
Loved writing this JOYOUSLY long chapter. As I enjoy writing poetry more and more, prose begins to work into my writing. Thoughts welcome!
Dream plane: Thank you for reading and, especially, for sharing your thoughts!
Next Chapter: There are no healers to be had aka more suspense.