Thank you to Lady of Legolas very much: you've my first (and probably only) reviewer. Major thanks to you.

~ Chapter Three: The Death of a Queen

The orcs had not suspected such resistance. They had been watching Mirkwood for some weeks. They had seen the King and many other elves ride out from the palace and had decided to attack.

But due to leadership problems (there had been a fight over who should hold the banner), the orcs had had to postpone it. They finally resolved the matter when by accident the banner had been thrown into the fire, along with the orcs squabbling over it. And had thus marched for Mirkwood.

They had missed the fleet return of the elves though and were immensely shocked to see the King at the head of the army. And now they were fighting desperately for their lives for the elf wielding one wickedly curved scimitar was striking madly, his bright blue eyes merciless and mad with retribution.

As Thranduil fought, swooping down with his scimitar from horseback, memories played through his head and he fought even harder, trying to break through to the ranks to where his wife's murderer stood.

flashback

Queen Niphredil took her son by the hand as they walked lazily through the woods.

Niphredil was beautiful, even by elven standards. Her white, marble skin was flawless and her hair was blonde, as is usual amongst wood-elves, but it was so light that it did not really seem white. The blinding light white sheet of snow hung down over her slender body that was dressed in emerald green satin dress, had earned her the name Niphredil by her husband: Snowdrop.

By her side the elf of nearly fifty years had a smile on his face as he looked ahead in the woods. "Naneth!" [mother] he cried.

"Mani, Legolas?" [ What, Legolas?] Niphredil asked following Legolas' finger.

He was pointing towards a small glade. In the middle of it was a sea of...

"Niphredil!" Legolas laughed happily and started to pull his mother along.

Niphredil let go of her son's hand as he ran into the glade and she turned back to shoot a glance at the guards that always followed them.

She heard a faint call. "Yrch," [orc] she hissed to the guards who quickly started scanning the surroundings.

There was another call and she checked to see whether Legolas had noticed it. Thankfully he hadn't and was skipping through the glade, his long blond hair loose, tumbling down onto his shoulders.

"Soora ta," [follow it] she called to the guards who look doubtful as whether to go and leave the Queen. "Uuma dela," [don't worry] she added scornfully.

The guards nodded and started to jog into the woods, following the noise.

Niphredil rushed to Legolas and caught him in her arms.

The noise grew louder and the Queen spun around. This time Legolas had heard the noise and he made a scared whimper, his blue eyes were wide and afeard.

"Nurta!" [Hide!] Niphredil cried as she heard footsteps in the forest. And then they loomed into sight.

Ugly weapons held aloft, they gibbered and shrieked in the black tongue before starting to run forward.

"Nurta!" Niphredil repeated and started to push her son up a nearby tree. Legolas opened his mouth to scream for help but he found he couldn't. His throat was dried up and in terror he scrambled back in the tree, away from the range of the orcs as they surrounded his mother.

~

Thranduil crashed through the woods with sound that to a human would seem near silent, but to an elf was like an oliphaunt stomping through. He was desperate to find his wife when he heard the gibbering and ahead saw two guards running.

"Tampa!" [stop!] Thranduil ordered. The guards turned and he gestured to follow him, he could see the orcs.

They were in a glade surrounding something and laughing as they jabbed in.

"Tua amin!" [help me] he heard a voice scream.

"Niphredil!" Thranduil gasped, stopping momentarily before running forward, unsheathing his scimitar. He charged head on, ramming into the orcs and knocking them away from their prey.

His wife lay sprawled on the ground; her emerald dress was torn and hidden by her arm was a rapidly spreading black stain.

Thranduil looked briefly at her and seeing nothing wrong with his wife, followed the orcs as they started to scatter.

"Soora sen!" [follow them] he ordered to the guards and they followed the orcs out of the glade.

~

Thranduil ran back, panting. His wife's attackers were slain.

He ran back into the glade in time to see an orc stab a knife down.

Three screams of agony rang through the woods now tainted with orc blood. Legolas screamed as he watched his mother killed.

Thranduil screamed as he watched his wife killed.

And Niphredil screamed as she watched herself being killed.

The orc drew the blade out quickly and licked it with a black tongue and sneered at the prince in the tree before seeing the furious King running at him.

The orc dodged the blade and scampered into the woods. Thranduil followed, blind to all else apart from his wife's murderer.

~

Legolas dropped out of the tree and ran quickly to his mother's side, cradling her head in his lap, he frantically brushed the white hair away from the pale forehead that was nearly of the same hue.

"Legolas," his mother choked. Blood started to stain the skin around her mouth and Legolas felt his stomach churning. "Santa sina," [take this].

He felt her hand press something into his. Her hand remained there for a minute, feebly resting against his before it went limp and fell to her side.

He looked down in his hand to see the eternal snowdrop ring. It never shed its leaves nor did it die. The one after whom it was made was eternal, but she had died.

Niphredil passed from the world and was accepted into the Halls of Mandos.

Legolas lifted his head back and howled a cry to the sky, filled with pain and guilt and anger.

~

This was the only thing that would have stopped Thranduil from running. And it did.

He turned direction though the action was the hardest he ever made. And ran back to Legolas.

The King found his son lying next to his mother as he had so many times before when he woke in the night from some nightmare.

Thranduil was sick when he realised that no one would except he would ever be able to comfort Legolas again from the nightmares that haunted his dreams.

End flashback

Legolas rode with even more urgency than the warriors behind him.

He remembered the sight of his father's back as he attacked orcs, bitterly. It brought back the memory of his mother's death and Legolas murmured a few soft elvish words in prayer while touching the ring before loading his bow and firing it.

There was nearly fifty orcs there. A normal sized raiding party. Thranduil was in the middle of the fray and seemed to be trying to head towards an orc standing on top of a rock shouting orders.

He was the one who had killed his mother, Legolas thought and aimed his bow at the orc.

Legolas' aim was disturbed though when Arod suddenly dipped. He had jumped off a rock and was sailing through the air. The arrow nearly missed the orc's head and he cackled loudly before notching up his own bow. It was crude and wicked with a black arrow trimmed with raven feathered fletching.

Arod was still leaping. Flying through the air, his white legs outstretched and Legolas hugged the horse's mane in anticipation for the landing. For the elf wore no bridle or saddle.

Finally the horse of Rohan landed on top of orcs who had failed to notice the stead.

There was a swift crack as their spines were broken and Arod trampled on them as momentum carried him along further.

He unsheathed his white knives and began cutting down.

The loud horse cry alerted him to the fact that the rest of the guards were among them and then the singing of bows that the archers were here.

The ill balance arrow in the mean time was flying through the air towards Legolas. Because of the bad weight of it, it was flying sluggishly and Legolas deftly caught it.

He snapped it in two and flung it at the ground defiantly.

The orc grinned maliciously, bearing yellow teeth. And then he looked up with bright green eyes filled with feral intelligence and saw the number of elves that were bearing down on him and he stopped grinning for one second.

He barked something in orkish and the rest of the orcs turned and started to run.

Every single one of them turned and ran. No stragglers were left behind. The only orcs that did not run were the dead ones.

Legolas opened his mouth to tell his father to stop, but it was hopeless.

Thranduil was swearing loudly in elvish at the orc's cowardice and was still following them. His eyes were lit up with battle rage and his scimitar gripped so tightly in his right hand that the knuckles had gone white.

"Adar!" [father] Legolas called softly, though the sound was lost in the din of the orc's scuttling feet and the horses' pounding hooves.

~ Five days later~

"Sir!" a breathless voice cried.

Aragorn swiftly stood up from his position sat next to his wife. Arwen smiled feebly at him.

"Go on Estel," the Evenstar mumbled in a sleepy voice. "I'm fine."

He kissed her forehead and exited the room.

Outside stood a man dressed in the livery of the army. But on his arm was a badge showing that he was a scout. The scouts were the forerunners of the army. While the troops were marching on foot, the scouts went ahead on their swift horses, unburdened by supplies of heavy armour.

In the relatively peaceful days since the War of the Ring, the scouts had been called on for routine checks along the borders.

This one was splattered with mud from a hard day's riding. Aragorn sighed inwardly. He remembered an image of himself like that. Weatherworn, skin tanned from long days out under the sky and boots coated in drying mud.

But he was shaken out of his reverie by the scout repeating his cry: "Sir!"

"What?" he asked, fixing his grey eyes on the man.

"Orcs have been spotted on the southern borders, just leaving the northen reaches of Ithilien."

"Well?" Elessar said. Small parties of orcs were common along borders. Remnants of the battles, they roamed in small hoards. The only danger was that they were menaces to travellers and small villages without defences. A well-organised squad could easily take them out though.

"Nigh on a hundred, and growing over night," the scout said his eyes lowered in dutiful respect.

"What do you mean growing over night?" Estel cried, raising the scout's chin with his finger.

The man's eyes met his and they were unblinking, brown eyes that were honest and frank.

"I found the army on Wednesday evening. On Thursday morning there was nearly a score more of the creatures."

"Where are they heading?" the King asked in a low voice. He did not wish his wife to hear the conversation. She was still ill and Elessar believed that worry would worsen her condition.

"Straight for Minas Tirith," the scout said.

"Summon my generals!" Elessar the Elfstone said to the man, who nodded and walked away.

~

"Get ready to push them back!" General Aera bellowed to the assembled Gondorrim.

The men had been quickly called together and those ready, marched to the borders of Gondor.

There they would meet the enemy.

King Elessar was at the front, resplendent in ceremonial armour engraved with the tree of Gondor. It was not practical, but underneath he had the chain mail from his old days of travelling. Anduril was at his hip and Brego was whinnying softly as he transferred his weight from one hoof to the other, when he heard the first shriek.

"Milord," Aera said. "They come."

Elessar nodded grimly and put on his helm. It was plumed with bright red feathers of some exotic bird and the metal was cool as it rested against the bridge of his nose.

"Brego," Elessar murmured into the ear of the big horse as he whinnied softly again.

Then the orcs drew into sight.

At his side Eldarion looked forward with keen eyes inherited from his mother's bloodline. "Nearly a hundred and fifty orcs in total," he reported. "No Uruk-hai or goblins. And no leader."

"Rabble," Estel said confidently. "They'll be easy. Keep in rank!" he cried along.

"Stay in your lines while charging!" Captain bellowed, his trained voice echoing over the plain.

"They have archers!" Eldarion said.

"Orc archers? They haven't been seen since the war of the ring," the King said and then gave a slight smirk. "It shall be a jolly party."

The orcs stopped. A group of splodges to the human's eyes, Eldarion could make out their skin colour and even the emblem on their crude shields.

"They bear shields with fang symbols on," Eldarion said to his father. "What could it mean?"

"Its most probably the name of their little bunch," a veteran said from below on the ground. "They make up names for each squad. They'll be the Fangs or something like that."

"What, like the white ha- They're firing! They're loading their bows!" Eldarion suddenly shouted, sitting bolt upright in the saddle.

"Shields!" Aera commanded and immediately the foot soldiers bearing the cumbersome rectangle body shields ran forward.

They made a small wall between the enemy and the soldiers.

The arrows bounced off with a dull thud.

Then there was silence and one man moved the shield to poke his head around and see what was happening. His body fell forward onto the ground and immediately started shaking in his death throes.

"Orc arows are poisoned," Aera said, but he did not sound convinced. Indeed, some orc arrows were poisoned but....

Maybe there was more to this 'rabble' than met the eye. "They can keep us penned in here for ages," Eldarion said, clearly frustrated. He took his helm off and ran his fingers through his black hair.

"Put your helm back on!" Elessar snapped.

His son scowled and put the helmet back on with a grumble.

"We could retreat," the captain suggested.

"No," Eldarion protested. "We came here to kill the orcs and to prevent them from attacking our lands and our people. I say we should charge forward. We'll easily defeat them. The odds are 2:1."

Captain Aera nodded. "He is right. We are a proper army, although this is only a fraction of it, but we drill, follow commands, and have numerous cavalry. They will be crushed under our feet."

Elessar nodded. "Then charge. After my call soldiers, charge...." he took a deep breath and filled his lungs with air.

"Charge!"

~

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Anna.