Author's note: well…enjoy  Thanx to all of you for being such faithful readers and reviewers.  I love all of you!!!

Disclaimer: my plans for world domination are in the making…but since they have not happened yet—I own nothing.

                                                                                               Fire and Blood

                                                                                                    By eck

Legolas ran through the streets of Gondor as if he was chased by some fearsome being; and in many ways, indeed he was.  He was being chased by the ghost of a memory and the fear of the unknown. His legs and arms pumping in a syncopated rhythm that had long since become a second nature to him. Elbow to waist to directly behind shoulder to waist to level with his chest and then back.  His feet pounded in time with his arms; heel to toe, heel to toe.  Every muscle in his body was working to give him as much speed as was possible considering the abilities of the lean elvish body he inhabited.

Keeping his mind on the rhythm of his movements took his mind off unpleasant thoughts.  Like what that monster might have done to Éowyn in the few hours he had been away from her.  Like what he would find once he reached the house of the Steward of Gondor.  Like what he would do if she had been harmed anyway.

In the corners of his vision he saw the Gondorian men and women watching him quizzically as they tended to their food and trinket carts that lined the busy roadway.  Now and then a child would scamper across his path only to be pulled back by an anxious mother and father.

As he rounded the side streets and approached the street that housed the Steward of Gondor, he chanced a look up at the soft blue sky.  White puffy clouds were spread liberally across but his eyes were immediately drawn to the single column of billowing dark fire smoke extending into the sky like a crooked dagger.

Fear threatened to choke him for a moment. He all too well remembered the last fire that had taken someone he had loved.  His breath came in faster than it should have considering the rate he was exerting himself.

Forcing his mind off that dreadful fire long ago, he doubled his speed as he raced around the last corner and skidded to a halt in front of the two story house.  When he saw the blazing inferno the house had become, the cry was dragged unhindered from his lips.  "Éowyn!"

The few servants and guards out front barely looked up at his call.  They were trying desperately to stem the furnace by pouring buckets of water, which they drew from a well a few yards away, and dropping them one by one onto the fires.

Immediately, Legolas saw it was no use.  The bucketfuls on the fire had the effect of a raindrop on the bonfire the house had become.

Why had Éowyn not answered his call?

He scanned the gathered servants for her blonde hair and fair face.  "Where is Éowyn?" he called again, not really expecting an answer, but it made him feel better to say it all the same.

There was a pause of silence as the servants waited for the next one to answer the desperate elf standing before them.

Finally, Dezrick, one of the older servants stepped forehead.  "Claron and his nurse were left in the house. She went after them."

His feet began to move out of their own volition towards the house even as his mind screamed of burning memories of flame and fire that had almost swallowed him alive.  He did not heed their cries of warning as he ran to the dark door and stepped inside.

The moment he was fully engulfed by the smoke filled room, he knew he was being watched.  Dropping low to avoid being seen and breathe fresher air, he scanned the nearby proximity but the smoke was too dense to see much past a few feet away from his face.

Then an arrow whizzed by a few inches from his head and he instinctively rolled to draw his two knives.  Still crouching, he moved steadily in the direction from whence the arrow had come.

The slight twang of a bow string above the roar of the flames alerted him to the beginning flight of another arrow.

Dodging the arrow, he lunged in the approximate direction the source of the arrow and came face to face with a sneering man just getting ready to send another arrow on his path.

At the appearace of the elf, the man attempted to pull up and shoot Legolas directly in the heart.

Legolas threw one of his knives and sliced the man's hand off rendering him incapable of shooting the bow.

The man's cry of pain echoed in the fiery walls.  Stumbling desperately for his knife, he had no defense when Legolas came up and quietly slit his throat in one clean swipe.

Jumping back at the gush of blood from the mortal wound, Legolas whipped his head, sending his blonde hair flying, around at the sound of a clatter and the wail of a baby coming from the upstairs hallway.  He spun away from the dying man and charged up the stairs calling Éowyn's name as he went.  As he passed the top of the stairs, his eyes took in the scene at once.

Éowyn was on the floor with one hand clutching her heavily bleeding stomach and with the other hand trying to drag herself along the ornate carpet towards the source of the baby's wails.

In two quick strides he was by her.  "Éowyn," he said softly gently lifting her.  "Are you hurt?"

She stared at him with unblinking eyes that were rimmed in red.  "That's a stupid question," she finally said but her voice was mere above a whimper.  "Get Claron. I don't know what that monster did to him."

He glanced down at the bleeding wound she had been clutching.

The knife had cut her deep, delving past the tight muscle to slice into and lay bear the vital organs beneath.  Hot, crimson blood drained from the wound at an alarming pace and a strange grayish substance seemed to linger on the skin around the wound.

Poison, the still functioning part of Legolas' brain told him.  Mortal wound, it screamed traitorously at him.  No! the unlogical part of him shouted.  She'll live, she has too! Don't let her die, you fool!

The baby let out another lusty wail and Legolas nodded in assent to her desperate wish.

"Don't leave me, Éowyn," he pleaded, climbing to his feet.  "I shall be right back."

Nodding weakly, she watched him with glazed eyes as he trotted towards the open door of the nursery.

Miraculously, the nursery had escaped the worse of the fire and smoke; only a few tendrils wisped through the air.   Claron's crib sat in the middle of the room, surrounded by white billows of lace.

Claron, himself, seemed unharmed.  His tiny, red face was squished up in the beginnings of another wail as Legolas bent over the cradle.  When he saw the blonde creature above him, one fist waved in the air as if to fend off the intruder that was not his mother.

"Sh," Legolas murmured softly as he spoke quietly in Elvish.  "Your mother is near, pen-neth, she will be with you soon."  Scooping the baby up, he fled from the room and back to Éowyn.

"Did you get him?" she called weakly.

"He's fine, Éowyn. Just fine."

She nodded silently.  "All is well than," she murmured.  "All is well…"

Legolas hugged the baby tighter as he bent over the still woman.  "Éowyn? Stay awake, Éowyn, your baby still needs you."

She opened her eyes.  "Claron," she whispered to the now contented baby.  "Claron…" and then her eyes closed again.

For a moment all was silence except for the flames and then the keening Elvish wail of grief rose up above it all.

TBC….

Sorry it's soooo short but see I'm leaving tomorrow morning for camp and I'm gonna be gone for a week so I wanted to get this up for all you friendly folk.  So don't kill me or hate and I promise I'll update as soon as I get back from camp. 

ON A SIDE NOTE: I'm thinking about doing a story that sort of fills in Legolas' years away from Gondor, let me know what you all think.

TA-TA! O wait, yes, REVIEW!!