Greenwood Forest. June 4, SA 722
THRANDUIL hummed along with the trees. Most of the trees in this part of the forest were fir, dark and tall. He could understand why the mountains were called the 'Dark' Mountains. Dark fir trees with thick trunks the size of turrets stood tall with branches woven together forming a natural ceiling. In many places, the trees were too thick and packed together for Thranduil to pass through which forced him to take a different path.
It should be daytime, yet the Sinda felt as if he was under starlight. The thickly woven branches blocked out the sunlight, giving the forest a look of dusk. Thranduil stood still in the middle of the forest. It was so quiet here, not even the usual forest sounds: no sounds of animals or birds. Not even the sound of the crunching leaves or branches.
This place reminded him of Nan Elmoth, the forest where Lady Melian enchanted Thingol. His mother had taken him there as a child. There was a plant that grew abundantly only in that forest of all the forests in Doriath.
Thranduil tried to remember. He remembered every tree, every stone of that place, but somehow the name of the plant escaped him. It had a bright yellow flower with a minty fragrance to it.
As he was thinking, something flew past him. He turned and saw a bright spot full of sunlight. He walked toward it as if something pulled him to it.
It was a small grove full of fragrant yellow and pink flowers and thick grasses. A large boulder stood at one end. Something glittered by the boulder.
The fir trees around him sang and shook, their evergreen leaves shimmering under the sun. It was a joyful spot. With a sigh, Thranduil sat down on a carpet of thick grass, feeling the warmth of the sun on his skin.
He lay down on the grass and let out a contented sigh. Above him, among the deep blue sky, hundreds of castles of clouds floated. He wished he was just another cloud, floating about, going where the wind thought fit to send him. He inhaled the deep pine scent of the forest, that of the rich earth interspersed with the refreshing scent of nameless flowers. This place even smelled like Nan Elmoth.
If life was carefree without any obligations….
He thought his return to his father meant the end of responsibilities and the beginning of freedom. He thought the only thing he had to think about was what he should do the next day, wonder where to fish, which path to walk. And when he exhausted all there was to know about this great forest, he had planned to go visit Elrond and stir up some trouble for Gil-galad. Not to make any real trouble. Just to rough up Lammaeg's stiff feathers. Thranduil grinned. That would have been fun.
Lammaeg had made his stay at Lindon difficult after Lalaithwen left Middle-earth. It was more so because, for the past two centuries, he was compelled to spend time at the council chamber rather than on the field with the soldiers. Pengolodh had been convinced that Thranduil's education would not be complete without him learning diplomacy. He had hated it but found he was surprisingly good at it. Subtle threats came easily to him. Thranduil chuckled. Whoever said he wasn't good at diplomacy.
The blond Sinda let out a long sigh. He thought things were difficult then, but what his people expected of him, here in Greenwood, was worse. Sindar, who had followed his father, still look to his father to lead. They expected his father and Thranduil to rebuild what had once been Doriath and carry on the line of Sindarin royalty.
Why couldn't people accept that there can never be another Doriath? To his mind, there could not be another Doriath without Lady Melian and Lord Thingol. The time with them had long passed, out of history, into memory. Thranduil knew they could never rebuild what had been the greatest kingdom on Middle-earth. Even if they were to build another kingdom, it would only be a scant shadow of what had been. Why build something if it wasn't going to be the best?
Thranduil grabbed a blade of grass and chewed on it, savoring the fresh and bitter taste on his tongue.
Although from the daughter's line, Elrond is the only remaining royalty with the blood of Melian and Thingol. But the Half-elven was lost to the Sindar. Perhaps the greater part of his blood belonged to Sindarin heritage, but Elrond was a thoroughly Noldo in every way. Elrond and his brother had a chance to become a true bridge to both their people if they had been educated and raised in both the Noldorin and Sindarin ways. With Elwing alive, that would have been a possibility, but that opportunity shattered when the Feanorians took the twins after leaving their bloody prints in the destruction of Doriath.
Thranduil sat up and raked his head.
"Damn you, Elrond. It is your fault. If you were with us, I need not worry now about facing anyone's expectations." Thranduil plopped back on the grass, his arms thrown wide open. Elrond did not have a choice in what happened to him, Thranduil knew. It was more the fault of the Valar, or perhaps Eru.
Damn them all! Thranduil squeezed his eyes shut.
It was then that he felt them. Thranduil's muscles tensed as he reached for the hilt of one of the daggers he had holstered on each side of his hip.
Sitting up slowly, he scanned the grove without the overt turn of his head. He saw nothing, but that did not mean there was no one there. The trees were especially thickly grouped in this part of the forest, with plenty of undergrowth for someone to hide.
Carefully and casually, Thranduil got up and moved toward the edge of the grove. He did not want to alert whoever was out there to know that he felt their presence.
Thranduil tried to remember how far he was away from his father's camp. Perhaps more than a half day's walk. He had not given it too much thought since no one would come looking for him for another two days. Was it possible that Aron reneged on his word and sent someone to monitor him?
Sudden heat stirred his anger. And with it, his left arm seared with pain. Thranduil gritted his teeth to prevent a groan, wrapping the other hand around his left arm. The blond Sinda took a quick breath to calm himself.
Aron would not do that to you, you idiot.
He should know Aron better than to think that his friend would go back on his word. Aron wasn't like that. Like Elrond, Aron wasn't just a friend, he was family. If Aron sent someone after him, he would have had a good reason. Thranduil took a slow breath to calm his temper. And as he calmed, the pain on his arm lessened to a faint throb when something inside him whispered: Are you sure?
"Of course, I am certain," Thranduil said it out loud to stamp out the temptation to doubt himself, to doubt Aron. Aron did not deserve his mistrust. Thranduil thought back to Elrond and how his friend had trusted him even when Thranduil knew he did not even trust himself.
He shook his head when he caught the glitter on the boulder at the edge of the grove.
He walked over but stopped several steps away from the rock. The solid surface shimmered. Something was not right. There was a presence here. Thranduil felt them, yet he could not see them.
"Come out. I know you are here."
At first, there was a silence. Then, a figure emerged from the shadows behind the boulder. Clad in a dark green cape and deeply hooded, the figure stopped just in front of the boulder, a few steps away from where Thranduil stood.
"For a Sinda, you are rather perceptive."
A singsong voice, haughty and crisp, spoke in Silvan. Her voice sounded familiar, yet he did not know her.
"And you are?" Thranduil let go of the hilt of his long dagger and crossed his arms.
"There is no need for you to know. Here!" The woman threw him a pouch which Thranduil caught purely out of reflex.
As soon as his hand wrapped around the pouch, a puff of yellow dust sprayed around him.
"What is this?" Thranduil coughed, waving his hand to fan away from the dust. The trees around him swerved. They laughed and closed around him. The forest circled round and round. Thranduil teetered.
"No!" the woman gasped. "Don't!" The woman reached out.
Feeling something coming at him, Thranduil turned. Something flew at him, striking him on the head.
Ignoring the blinding pain in his head, Thranduil looked up. Two figures stood looking down at him, but shadows hid their faces. They moved farther and farther away. Thranduil tried to lift his hand, but he was falling. As if time slowed, he fell a breath at a time. Slowly but inevitably, into a pit of deep and damp darkness.
And all the while, he was thinking, why couldn't they wait at least two more days?
Damn it all.
Mountain of Shadow. June 4, SA 722
GRIMWINE groped for the wall that he knew was there. Sweat soaked his back. The air here was dead, stale, and heavy. It took effort just to breathe. The Northman took in a long breath, then grimaced. The air was foul.
"We are almost there," the Elf said as if he had just spotted a house he was visiting.
"How do you know?" Grimwine swallowed. His tired feet were stone-heavy and weary. They had been walking for a long time in this god-forsaken tunnel. He wasn't sure how much time has passed, perhaps hours or even days. It was hard to tell in this darkness.
From every corner, a shadow lurked, ready to pounce as the pitch darkness gave under the faint, flickering flame of the makeshift torch they made before entering the tunnel.
"Are you sure this is the right way?" Grimwine lowered his voice, looking around at the shadows that darted away, hissing with malice from every crevice. "How can you be certain when this tunnel is riddled with openings?" They had passed countless passages that opened on either side of the cave's walls.
"Am I certain? No." The elf kept walking into the deep darkness.
"I thought you knew the way?" Grimwine stopped walking.
The elf stopped and turned to him now. "I found the pit from the ridge above." The minstrel pointed to the ceiling. "It is easier and a quicker route, the one she uses, but it requires you to drop several feet onto her web. I don't need to tell you that is a bad idea. Especially with her there. Besides, you can't mistake it. We just need to follow the reek. It is hard to miss."
"How much more, friend?" Kemik, who was walking abreast of Grimwine, asked. He shook his hand off the webbing that grabbed him from the wall. There were more of the spider webs, mostly on the ceiling, but occasionally on the walls.
"Not much more. Do you not smell that?" The elf who had resumed his walk stopped suddenly.
Everyone stopped walking. Grimwine lifted his torch higher to see better. They came upon an impressive chamber where the ground dropped suddenly while the ceiling rose higher, creating an enormous underground pit. Somewhere above, a stray light entered through a fissure, giving the subterranean chamber a faint illumination.
Standing behind the Elf, Grimwine sniffed the air coming from the gaping hole, then stepped back with a start. Something was rotting, a foul smell that punched his gut and twisted his stomach.
Gritting his teeth to keep down the bile that threatened to come up, Grimwine swallowed hard.
"That is some vigorous stench, friend." Kemik's face contorted as he gestured to his men, who took out their swords and strung their bows.
"Keep your voice down and put out the torches," the elf said. "Do you not see the creature?" The minstrel pointed.
Grimwine tried to see through the dust-filled air of the murky darkness when he spotted a black mass directly above the pit. Unlike the hazy grayness, the darkness was like a hole that blocked out all light as if every shadow within the cave originated from it.
On a barely visible string, a monstrous form hung upside down. Not counting the length of the legs, which were twice the length of its body, the spider was bigger than the biggest bear Grimwine had seen.
Kemik moved forward, his sword drawn, his eyes on the spider, but the Elf snatched his arm, preventing the Easterling from going further.
"Do not step on the thread," the elf hissed, pointing to the air before them. "She may not see well, but she can hear quite well. At least, she can hear by feeling the vibrations of her threads. Touch any of the threads, and she will know we are here. And believe me, mortal. You do not want her to know."
"But we can barely see the web," Grimwine said.
"Look carefully. Her threads are thick enough that you can see each line."
And the elf was right. Although it was colorless and difficult to see in the faint light, the thickness of the threads was like that of thin rope. But those silky threads were everywhere.
"Too many."
"We are not mindless beasts. As long as we remain calm, we can move between these threads without touching them." The elf stepped over the thread which touched a side of one wall, then bent down to avoid a thread over that one. "Not all the threads are sticky, but if you get stuck, try to stand still and keep the thread from trembling. And it would be best if you put out the torches."
"Why can we not use the torch?" Kemik asked. "We need gooder light."
"She may be practically blind, but she can detect light. If you hold a torch, it would be like holding a lamp on a moonless night. She will be drawn to you like a moth to a flame. Unfortunately, the spider would be a lot more difficult to get rid of than a moth. We have gone over the plan. If you wish to reconsider, now is the time to tell me."
Grimwine exchanged glances with Kemik who nodded. The man from the east took his three men and spread out around the rim of the pit, carefully avoiding the many spider threads attached to the walls of the pit.
"Shall we?" The elf jumped into the darkness of the hole. Grimwine muttered a curse, but he had no choice. Shoddy needed his help. And he could not do this alone. He was surprised that the minstrel convinced Kemik and his men to go along with this. But then the elf had not given Kemik much choice. He had offered to go with Kemik willingly, without giving trouble if they helped in getting rid of the spider's eggs. If not, he had threatened, he would jump off the cliff and they would have to chase him down.
"Do you really mean to go with Kemik after this?"
"I said I would."
"You don't have to."
"I thought you and he are on the same side."
"You saved me and are helping me to rescue my brother."
"What I do is not for your benefit, mortal. You do not owe me."
"But I owe you my life. We Northmen pay our debts."
"Is that so? My goal is to find the spider eggs, not in finding your brother. I am here with you because your goal aligns with mine. That is all. Besides, how bad would it be to go with them? What would it hurt to meet this lord, to find out why he wants to meet me. I am curious. Have you met this man? Do you know anything about this lord?"
Grimewine shook his head. "My brother and I have never met him. We are just mercenaries."
"But you must know something."
"Just that Kemik said his lord is god and king."
"King, I understand, but god?"
"That's what Kemik said. Someone very powerful, a giver of gifts."
"Giver of gifts?"
The elf stopped and gazed at the narrow entrance. It was covered in a pile of webs. Grimshod thought the elf's face turned dark, but he wasn't sure. It was too dark to see clearly.
"How do we get through without touching all those webs?"
The minstrel's hand moved and a blade flashed in his hand.
"I thought we shouldn't touch the web."
"We should refrain from touching the individual threads. But this clump of webbing is too dense for her to feel anything. If we stay clear of the threads, we should be all right." With that, the elf cut through the webbing, making an opening big enough for them to pass through.
As Grimwine passed through the narrow passage, he reached out to touch the web, but the elf slapped his hand away.
"Don't," the elf shook his head.
Inside the opening was darker than the tunnel they had passed. For a moment, they stood in complete darkness with only a pale grayness lighting the entrance.
"Ruinë." The minstrel whispered and a flame burst in his hand.
Grimwine turned away at the sudden light. When he turned back, the Northman saw red-gold flames flickering on the blade the elf held. He had seen the blade glow white before, but he had never seen a flame surrounding a blade.
"Is that elf magic?" He had heard fantastic stories from his grandmother, of the times long gone about the ancient, hidden people. His brother always considered her too fanciful, but Grimwine had been dazzled by those stories.
"'Magic'? I do not know that word."
"Magic. You know, creating things out of thin air with words, spells or charms or whatever that you do."
"No one can create things out of thin air, mortal. I just brought out the element with which this sword is embedded. My father made all of our weapons like this, especially the ones for my brothers."
"Your father made your sword?"
"He was a blacksmith. Among other things…."
The elf flexed his jaw.
"My father, too, was a blacksmith. And he was a damn good one, too." But his father never made anything as fancy as the elf's sword.
"Indeed? Why are the sons of a respectable artisan carrying on with the mercenaries? You are a descendant of Edain, are you not?"
"Edain?"
"Northmen. Well, most of them were at one time."
The elf moved his sword in a wide circle. The shadows ran, chased by the flames, revealing another tunnel. The area, unlike the wide and smooth one they had traveled, was covered in webs all along the walls, ceiling, and on the ground. Here, the ground was rough with rocks just as the ceiling which was pocked with fang-like hanging rocks. Among the sharp rocks, things were hanging from the ceiling, covered in fine webs.
"The ground is rough. Try not to trip." The elf warned as he skipped over the ground. Grimwine hurried to keep pace with the tall elf, fearing the shadows. "And light your torch. She cannot see us. Let's hope none of the eggs hatched."
"You think this is the right place?"
"I am certain."
"How do you know?" Grimwine stiffened, clutching his ax. The stagnant air was thick and moist here. Sweat beaded Grimwine's forehead and dripped down his neck.
Wiping the sweat from the back of his neck, Grimwine looked up. He backed up, waving his torch in front of him. "That thing just moved. Did you see that? That moved." He moved to the elf's side, gripping his ax.
"That is not an egg sac, but one of her victims. It could even be your brother."
"Shoddy! Shoddy!" Grimwine ran over to the hanging pouch and tried to cut through the webbing with his dagger. He hacked at the web, sawing through the thick layer of mangled threads. He had not expected the web to resist him and was forced to use the blade part of his ax. The ax worked better, but the webs were thick.
"Please, allow me." The elf swung his sword and the sac cut cleanly off. Something fell off the sac and dropped onto Grimwine's feet. "She must be only several centuries old if your blade could hack through it. The threads of a full-grown Ungoliant's brood require a blade that could cut through iron."
"Several centuries? How long does it live?"
"Believe me when I tell you that some things live a quite a long time. Unfortunately.
Grimwine pulled apart the soft inner silk. The man inside groaned. Grimwine helped him sit up.
"Where's my brother?" he asked the man in his torn black cape. The man said something that Grimwine could not understand.
The elf spoke and the man replied, his words hesitant and slow.
"What did he say? How do you understand him?"
"I worked with Easterlings before. And their tongue is simple, although as with any tongue, it can be as false as it is truthful. As to what he said, he doesn't seem to know anything except for what happened at the cliff. I fear, he is still under the influence of the spider poison. It will take time for him to gather his wits. Let's hurry. Time is merciless; if you but linger a little, it takes and never looks back."
Grimwine did not understand half of what the Elf was saying, and he didn't care. He just wanted to find Shoddy and get out as fast as he could. When the Kemik's man seemed well enough to stand, he handed his torch to the Easterling, then grabbed what he thought was a stick. It was a bone, but he wrapped an oil-soaked strip of clothing he brought as a spare and lighted a new torch for himself.
The elf moved further into the pit and Grimwine hurried to follow, half dragging and half supporting the Easterling.
"Shoddy!" Lowering his pitch, Grimwine called out. His heart was drumming again. What if his brother did not make it? What if he was lost? "Shoddy, are you here?"
"There," the elf padded his back and pointed. Grimwine turned to see several large sacks shaped like spiked balls attached to a lower portion of the ceiling. "The eggs. We found them." The elf looked relieved.
"I don't care about the spiders. I want to find my brother."
The Easterling pointed, mumbling in his strange tongue. Both the elf and Grimwine turned to see.
"The pouches hanging below the sacs, one of them may be your brother. They look recently made."
"Shoddy?" Grimwine left the Easterling who seemed steadier on his feet now. Raising his torch, he moved closer. One of the pouches was moving, and a muffled sound came from it.
The elf cut through the webbing as if he was gutting a fish, swiftly and neatly in one stroke. Two of the webbed pouches contained a bloated and blackened body Grimwine did not want to think about.
"Get me out of this thing," Shoddy shouted as he squirmed within the softer inner web of the third pouch when Grimwine removed the webbing from his face.
"I suggest you keep your voice down," the elf said.
"Who the hell are you?" Once freed, Grimshod glared at the elf. He seemed not as affected by the poison, unlike the Kemik's man.
"He helped me find you, Shoddy. He's the elf."
His brother frowned, then looked about him. "Where am I? Where's Kemik?" He turned to Kemik's man who seemed busy looking about the pit and the egg sacks.
"We are in the spider's lair. And Kemik is outside, keeping watch on the spider."
"We need to rid of the egg sacks before the spiderlings hatch." The elf raised his flaming sword to illuminate the egg sacks hanging on the ceiling.
Unlike the great chamber where they found the spider, the ceiling here was lower. If only they had a bow, it would have helped.
"Why should we care about some spider eggs?" grumbled Shoddy.
"Because, mortal, if left to grow, the hundreds of eggs within those egg sacks will each grow into full-grown monster spider you saw last night. Do you think these mountains outside will be tall enough to hold them contained? When they need more food, where do you think they will spread to?"
Grimshod turned to him. "Where's my ax?"
Grimwine shrugged. His brother picked up a rock from the ground. "Well, we'll just crush them."
"Va!" The elf's sharp command barely left his lips before the rock on Grimshod's hand flew through the air and smashed against the egg sacks.
"You fool! Crushing the sack will only force them out of the sack."
The sacks fell with a thud somewhere in the darkness. Grimwine could only see a faint outline at the far end of the chamber.
"Shoddy, I think you killed them." Grimwine took a step toward it, but the elf yanked him back.
"Move back." The elf lowered his sword and extinguished the flame. "And put out your torch."
"You are overreacting." Scoffing, Grimshod snatched the torch out of Grimwine's hand and waved it toward the darkness. "You can't see a thing in here."
Click. Click. Click.
At first, it sounded like a murmur, then a sound of buckets of grain being poured onto the ground followed. Softly the sound rose, then grew steadily louder.
Click, click, click, click. Chat. Chat. Chat. Chat.
"What is that noise?" Grimwine stretched his neck, trying to see through the dark.
The elf said something to Kemik's man. The Easterling threw the torch in his hand toward the sound. It flew through the dark and landed near where the egg sacks fell.
Out of the sacks, something dark crawled out. A rat-sized spiderling.
"Run, mortals, as if your life depends on it." The elf sounded eerily calm as he raised his sword, which burst into a bright red flame.
Grimshod took out a dagger from inside his tunic. With the torch in his dominant hand and the dagger in the other, Shoddy took a fighting pose.
"It is just one. We can handle one."
But it was not so.
Grimwine'shearthammered, pounding away in the dark, blocking out all sounds except for the thundering of his heartbeat. Behind the spiderling, more and more crawled out. Two, three at first. Then, twenty and thirty.
Hundreds of them.
They crawled onto the ground, climbed up on the walls and over the ceiling.
"Go! Now!" The elf's sharp command pierced through the murky darkness.
Fear struck Grimwine's heart.
Nan Elmoth (Sindarin. Valley of the Stardusk)—forest east of Doriath where great trees grew so thickly that they blocked sunlight. Before the trees became so, Melian met Thingol for the first time there. Thingol, known then as Elwë, was enchanted and frozen to the spot for years while his people looked for him. Upon awaking, Thingol returned to his people with Melian by his side and founded the realm of Doriath. Later, the Dark Elf Eol lived here with permission from Thingol as it was considered part of Doriath.
Ruinë (Quenya. Fire)
Vá! (Quenya, Don't or Don't do it!)