A/N: Hey hey hey! Look, a quick update! Don't expect this every times, mates. Poor Spike's been driven mad with other stuff and creativity is at an all-time low. So hopefully you will enjoy this chapter; it is an exhaustive effort in squeezing my reluctant muse until it gives forth a tiny trickle of the clear fluid of Creativity, which I must (sadly) dilute, bottle, and present to you thusly:
Chapter Nine: Voices From the Wood
Grima peered into the gloom of the undergrowth, startled at the velvet green that glinted back, very much alive, and very watchful. Afraid to move he held his breath and looked away in hopes of fooling his observer into thinking he had not seen. He thought of crawling back to Saruman, who slept no more than a few metres away, but he was afraid to move and more afraid to wake his master. Slowly he turned his eyes back to the undergrowth; the eyes remained fixed upon him, and when he looked they blinked.
Cold fear seized the Wormtongue then, and he felt the need to flee, to get away from the eyes that seemed to be peering into his very soul. Quickly he turned and made to get to his feet, but before he could regain himself two arrows hissed out from the trees, pinning his cloak and robes to the ground and pinning him fast. He froze, turning back to look at the fringe of the wood, from which there emerged two figures, hooded and cloaked, who advanced upon him slowly. One had a bow in his long hands, and an arrow was aimed at Grima's breast; he stayed as still as he could as they strode fearlessly up to him. The unarmed figure knelt and pulled the arrows from his quarry's cloak, confident that he could not run away, for his strange pale eyes were fixed upon the arrow aimed at him.
"Why have you done this?" hissed Grima, and watched the figures recoil slightly at his painful rasp. "I have done no harm to you or your kin; I merely sit in silence, bothering nothing."
The unarmed one looked to his companion, who nodded, and at once they both removed their hoods to reveal fair features with delicately pointed ears and long hair, dark and sleek and straight.
Elves! Grima tried not to show his terror, for he knew the Elves to be swift and vengeful, and often as a child had he heard admiring tales from the Riddermark, touting their accuracy and deadliness with weaponry.
"My name is Ayan, and this Pilim," said the unarmed Elf, "and you are trespassing."
"Forgive me," said Grima in his most placating voice. "We knew not that we were; we traveled here in the dark of night and were attacked by wolves, and thus too weary and wounded to journey on through the night."
Ayan looked pained as Grima spoke of the wolves, and looked again at Pilim, who shook his head sadly.
"I have heard of the Elves' love for fellow creature," said Grima, catching on quickly, "but it had to be done; they wished to kill us and would not relent."
As Wormtongue spoke a shadow fell across him, and Pilim aimed his arrow above Grima's head as the voice of Saruman thundered out above him.
"Take down your weapon, my fair friend," he said to Pilim, and spread his arms wide, a welcoming smile on his face. "You aim at Saruman the White, sent abroad in these dark times. We seek welcome in your company, for we have traveled long and are weary, and your fair people are a balm to the weary soul."
Ayan laughed at this; sudden, tinkling laughter, but in that sound was the knowledge of Saruman's true nature. The Elves were not fooled; the news of the wizard's deceit had traveled far, and they certainly were not immune to its message.
"Saruman the traitor," said Ayan with savage merriness, "seeks to draw his cloak over our eyes, Pilim. Surely he cannot think so highly of our folk now that he knows we cannot be entranced by the spell of his voice!"
"You speak truly, Ayan," said Pilim slowly, and he did not lower his weapon but pulled tighter upon his bowstring. "The wizard is not welcome." He stared down the arrow shaft at Saruman, and his fair green eyes were chill.
"Here," said Ayan, striding forward to the flinching Grima, "this one is wounded." Stoically he assessed the wounds, and then straightened and turned to his partner. "We shall give them the healing balm we carry, friend, and then let them go free, far from our woods. It is not our place to judge the Istari, for they are a sacred and noble race, and he is fallen from this grace. His punishment truly is to live on, shamed, and his company looks unfit to be judged, for we know not what crimes he has committed. It is likely that he follows the traitor as a slave to his fear, and would just as soon go free be he rid of this burden." Herein he gestured gracefully to Saruman, who stood calmly, but as Grima turned to peer into his master's eyes he saw that a darkness had passed over his gaze, like clouds passing over a summer sun.
Ayan reached into a small cloth pouch that he carried at his waist, and drew from it a strange small circular box, which was beautifully engraved. He tossed it to Grima.
"Within this box," he said, "is a balm that will help to heal your wounds and make you fit to travel far away from this wood. Should you linger your death will be swift; you are not welcome here so long as you travel in the company of Saruman."
Grima caught the box and held it wordlessly, unable to speak to thank them for their generosity. He got slowly to his feet as Ayan and Pilim, graceful and beautiful, wise and savage, backed into the fringe of woodland, their home, and vanished from their sight.
"Good riddance to the fools," hissed Saruman, incensed, after gazing at the blank space in the woodland fringe for what seemed to Grima like an eternity. "The Elves are wise in many ways, but not in every way. Leave them to their ignorance, Worm; I saw the scowl on Ayan's face when you mentioned the wolves."
"I thought you slept," gasped Grima, still clutching his balm and staring into the wood. He felt as though a piece of him had left with the kindly but stern Elves, and he felt, if possible, even more empty and sad.
"No, none can slip by my awareness, even whilst I rest, Worm," replied Saruman dismissively. "I would like to see an Elf face a hoard of hungry wolves armed with nothing but our own strength, sapped as we were by traveling. Had they been cornered as we I doubt they would be so passive."
"Aye, my Lord, I agree," said Grima, though he didn't, not at all. Something, perhaps the shades of the stories he had been told when he was young, told him that an Elf might never find himself the prey of wolves, and if he were could simply vanish into his surroundings. He had heard that Elves were magical creatures, able to bend nature to their will, or so the Riddermark stories claimed. So awed was he by his encounter that he renounced all previous doubt of the tales he was told, for he was skeptical of them even as a small child, and yet the presence of the Elves incited within him such awe and peace that he chided himself for not believing. As the day passed and the trail of the Elves grew cold, and their memory slowly fading from his turgid mind, a deep, deep sadness engulfed him.
Would it that he could have vanished with them.