Legolas heard the howls, then the silence. The frightened silence of the nightbirds and of the trees themselves. He heard the fell footfalls of the wargs and the light desperate step of their prey.
A sound that brought joy and fear to him all at once. The warg's prey ran like an Elf, and he was heading straight for their camp. Legolas called to Eryn to get her bow. Together they drew pony and goat into the center of the camp circle, with the dogs guarding them. He was starting in the wargs' direction when the wargs' prey blew over the top of the nearest boulder at falcon speed.
Gimli's axe whisked through the end of the Elf's long dark braid and connected with the head of warg one with a satisfying thunk! Legolas lodged an arrow in its heart for good measure, and in the throat of the one behind it. Wargs three and four circled and began coming over the boulders to the east, straight into Eryn's well-placed arrows. The dark Elf rolled and came up firing.
There were enough wargs for all of them, more than enough. And now the wargs had caught onto the strategy of circling their prey, they poured over the rocks from all directions.
The goat huddled by the fire, screaming, Glorinn spun in circles, ears flattened, back hunched, hind legs cocked and loaded like a crossbow. The great white dogs stood between them and the wargs like silver swords in a black night.
The wargs snarled around the small circle of light, a raging river of dark. The three elf-bows sang. Eryn and the two Elves fought in silence, but the boulders echoed with fierce epithets in Khuzdul as Gimli cursed the foul beasts from nose to tail.
Legolas saw the dark Elf fire, from an arm's length away, into the eye of one warg. It kept coming.
Straight into the jaws of Ancalinte. She reared and met it in midair, like a white avalanche off a mountain. It fell, sprawling half in the fire, thrashed back, and died with her jaws locked around its throat.
The goat scrambled in circles, wanting to gain the high ground of the boulders, but cut off by the ring of wargs. Glorinn let fly with both heels and caught one square in the jaw, it fell, broken-necked by the fire. The goat squealed and ran to the other side of the pony. Finlos charged, again and again, blowing wargs over like winter wind, killing them with jaws or knocking them down and letting the archers take their toll.
The bows sang. Warg eyes gleamed, and went out, like candles in a gale.
The dark Elf knelt, one last arrow fitted to his bowstring.
Silence, firecrackle, the panting of the great dogs, the soft words of Eryn, calming Glorinn.
The wargs' prey blinked hair and dirt out of his eyes.
"Suilad, mellon." Legolas said, kneeling eye to eye with him. Greetings friend. He looked up with wide eyes the color of treeshadow, the terror and heat of the battle giving slow way to wonder. Avari , Legolas thought, one of the Dark Elves.
"Ah, ahhh," the Dark Elf said. His breath still came hard, as if he had been running across all of Rohan. He looked uncertainly at Gimli, wiping the warg blood off his great axe. "Ah."
Legolas smiled, "Don't worry, he doesn't bite."
"Much." Eryn said. She came to Legolas' side. Ancalinte followed her.
"Ah." the Dark Elf said. His breathing began to slow.
There was, Legolas thought, something in his eyes like a new opened leaf. Something he was not used to seeing in the eyes of one of his own folk. Something...
"What's your name?" Eryn said. Anca poked her great wet nose into the Elf's neck.
He unclenched his hand from his bow, laid it gently down, extended the hand in greeting. "Fearaf. Fearaf Duilinion of Clan Celduin." His other hand went to Anca's wooly head.
...something young, Legolas thought. Not just younger than the great trees of Fangorn, younger than the saplings. "Are you all right?" he asked.
Fearaf nodded, he rubbed Anca's head, his eyes and body gradually relaxing.
"I am Legolas Thranduilion of Greenwood the Great. This is Eryn, and that is Gimli, Gloin's son, of the Lonely Mountain."
"And this?" Fearaf asked, smiling at the dog.
"Ancalinte." Eryn said."That one is Finlos."
"Would that I had such dogs! No warg would dare come near me!"
"They have never fought them before." Eryn said.
Legolas could see pride mingled with some surprise in her glance at Ancalinte. "Huan the Wolfhound would have done them honor had he seen their battle tonight." Legolas said.
Gimli's voice came from the other side of the fire. "Well it seems Thulesilme has survived the Battle of the Wargs. And one lies dead before his den. And he half its size!"
Fearaf rose, one hand still tangled in Ancalinte's fur. "What is that?" He moved, quiet as a cat, to Gimli's side, and peered into the rock crevice.
"Thulesilme." Eryn said, she looked at Legolas. "Do you want to hear his tale?"
Fearaf sat, chewing on fresh venison and the mushrooms and roots whose beds he had run over in his flight from the wargs. The great dogs lay some distance from the fire, pony and goat sandwiched between them. Thulesilme came from his den, eyed the dogs, and circled on the other side of the fire to where Legolas sat. He stretched out by the Elf's side. Legolas ran a gentle hand over his haunch, drawing healing energy from the earth itself. Gimli hunched on the other side of the fire, as far from the great toothy jaws as he could politely be.
Fearaf heard the tale of Thulesilme told mostly by Eryn, pacing back and forth, punctuating her words with gestures like swaying branches and diving hawks and closing jaws. He watched her with wonder growing in his eyes. A shadow passed over his face when she spoke of the dead mother. Legolas alone saw the flint-hard glitter in his eyes when Fearaf said softly, "Edain. With their sheep and their fire and their clearings. There will someday be no woods left." He looked up into Eryn's eyes and caught himself, "These new settlers, I mean." Not all the Edain, perhaps.
Eryn seemed not to notice. She handed him a pup, then all three, watched him cradle them in his arms much as Legolas had done. Elf and Dwarf saw the soft look in his eyes as he sang to them.
Watching him, Legolas saw again the new-leaf look of his eyes, of his movements. Something he had not seen in a very long time among any Elves. "Where is your clan?" he asked.
"I lost them two months ago."
Eryn gave him a sharp, sympathetic look, "They are...dead?"
"No...at least I think not. No, I would know. I was running under the stars one evening, I ran far that night, and when I returned they were gone. The fire yet burned, and some of the heavier gear was still there. There were signs of haste, but no battle." he looked almost embarrassed, " I lost their trail. And I have not yet found it."
"I thought all Elves could track the wind over a field of rocks." Gimli said.
Fearaf gave him a cool look.
"It is not a skill you learn in a few seasons." Legolas said, "It can take longer than the lives of the great trees of Fangorn to do it well."
Fearaf gestured toward a slender young tree at the edge of the firelight, "That beech has seen more summers than I."
Gimli's eyebrows shot up. He looked at Legolas, "And I thought you were all so old that only Fangorn himself made you feel young."
Legolas smiled at the memory of something he had said a seeming age ago at the edges of Fangorn.
"What will you do?" Eryn asked.
Fearaf shrugged, "Keep looking." He stared into the fire.
Keep looking? Alone? It's not good to be alone, Wolf Spirit. Everyone needs a pack, a clan. Even if they are not your kin.
Legolas glanced at Gimli.
Fearaf looked up at Legolas, half hearing his thought. There was a shadow of something in his eyes, like an uncertain yearling wolf without a pack. One still trying to look strong to a passing bear.
"It's late, you have run far and fought hard tonight. Better than many with far more years. Sleep now, the dogs will stand watch." Legolas said.
Fearaf nodded his thanks, unrolled a blanket from his pack and curled up near the fire. Eryn saw to her animals, then rolled out her blanket near him. They were soon asleep.
Gimli noticed the young Elf slept with his eyes closed. "I thought..." he began.
"He's young." Legolas said.
"More pups." Gimli said.
"Indeed."
"What about the goat?"
"Mahahaha!" the goat quipped from the other side of the fire.
Thulesilme yawned and eyed the goat. Legolas gave him a long hard look, he fixed the Elf with dark, bright eyes and strolled back to his rock, with only a slight hitch in his gait.
"He, at least, seems remarkably well-healed." Gimli said.
"Yes. Though it will be some time before he will hunt on his own."
"You mean to camp here till then? What about the goat?"
"Thulesilme can travel with us." Legolas kept his eyes on Gimli's face, his statement half a question.
The Dwarf nodded. "The goat."
"Tomorrow. We'll see what Eryn does."
"She needs to..."
Legolas fixed Gimli with a look much like he had given Thulesilme.
The Dwarf let out a huff of breath. "Elves," he muttered, and eyed the sleeping one. I am surrounded and outnumbered. He began arranging his own bedroll, and looked again at the face of the sleeping Elf, relaxed, free of desperation and fear, and terribly young. Younger than any he had seen among even his own folk for some time.
Legolas saw his expression, fatherly, the way he had looked at Eryn.
One of the dogs rose, circled and flumped down again in a more comfortable position.
"Am I seeing things, or is that dog growing fat on our venison?" Gimli said.
"Ancalinte will soon have pups of her own."
Gimli's eyebrows did their ferret dance again, then his eyes widened as if he had seen Smaug's treasure room himself. "As Fearaf said, if he had dogs like those, no warg would come near him. If the settlers had dogs like those, they would not have to worry about wargs or wolves!"
"The settlers might not feel the need to shoot every predator they see, and Thulesilme would be safe." Legolas added.
"And the goat could be paid for." Gimli eyed Eryn. "If someone taught them how to train the dogs."
"To care for them. They are born knowing how to guard." Legolas frowned, "But the settlers need to be taught about the forest as well as the dogs." He looked long at Eryn and Fearaf.
"Are you thinking what I think you're thinking?"
"Rangers have long wandered the wild, guarding against the dark, and the blood of Rangers flows in her veins."
"And who would know more about the woods than a Wood Elf!" Gimli paused, his look darkened."Except that Anduin is near, and Anduin leads down to the sea. And one day he will hear the gulls wailing in some dark marsh and forget Thulesilme, Fangorn and Eryn."
"He is Avari." Legolas said quietly.
"Wood Elves Dark Elves Light Elves Grey Elves Green Elves Purple Elves...it is all the same."
"Did you not hear me before? The Avari do not go to the Sea."
"Eh?"
"He will likely stay here."
The Dwarf sat silent for a few long slow breaths, considering this. "Then he has a stake in this place," Gimli's words fell off, as you no longer do, though those words remained unspoken. "They would make a good team." he said finally.
Legolas nodded.
"Well then, it's solved. We will tell them what we think in the morning. "
"No, Mellon nin, they must decide how this tale ends."
"Not all of us run on Elvish Time, we cannot sit here in these rocks forever. A little advice wouldn't hurt, especially to such young pups as those two."
Legolas shook his head.
Gimli leaned forward, "Mellon nin, there are times when even Elves should give advice." Their eyes, earth-brown and sea-grey, locked. "And you are perhaps more, ah, diplomatic than I."
At that Legolas smiled. He rose, picked up his Lorien cloak, softened and stained with leagues of travel and battle. He drew it around himself and found a good spot in the soft earth and leaf litter at the base of one great tree. "I hear you, mellon nin, we will see what the morning brings."