Chapter Five: Of Things Wild and Of Things Free
A metal shod hoof slashed by Aragorn's jaw, so closely that he felt the heat of the beast of Mordor in the air that broke against his cheek. He had hold of the stallion's reins, but could get no closer due to the clacking teeth and striking legs. The horse's ears were pinned against his head, teeth bared and gnashing. The light in his eyes was red, and he screamed to Aragorn in challenge.
"Easy friend," he told the animal, voice soft and as unthreatening as the hands he wished to lay upon the tortured steed. "You have had a hard time of it, I know. Your way will be easier now."
The horse paused for only a moment, but it was enough for Aragorn to close in, to get a firm grip of the headstall and to unbuckle the heavy armor that was strapped tightly about his head, tossing it aside.
Pulling the animal's head close to his, Aragorn looked directly into his eye, letting the horse study him as he did the same. The red light receded and the warm, intelligent brown shone forth.
"We have need of your help," Aragorn whispered softly, laying a hand on the high crest of the black neck.
The horse looked directly at him and then towards Mordor, and he pricked his ears as if he heard another voice upon the wind. And as suddenly as he had stood willing, the animal reared back and struck out again, foreleg glancing off Aragorn's shoulder and knocking him to the dirt.
Aragorn narrowly avoided being made one with that dirt as the beast's forelegs came down with the intent of crushing him. In his struggle to avoid such a fate, he lost the reins and the horse bolted through the clearing, back toward the East.
As he scrambled up and started after the horse, he heard Arwen call out, and the stallion hesitated in mid-clearing, but another short blast of trumpet sounded in the air and shook the earth below them, and screaming, the animal leapt the dying fire and continued for Mordor.
"Sauron will use him as a spy!" Arwen shouted at Aragorn, who, however hopelessly, ran after the horse.
Just before the animal passed through the trees and was lost to them, a tall, fair figure stepped into the clearing, into the direct path of the charging stallion.
His voice rang out in an unknown command in an unknown tongue, authoritative and persuasive, and none too gentle. Raising both hands high he continued speaking, holding his ground even as the animal bore down on him past the point of stopping.
"Legolas!" Aragorn shouted and started forward, to presumably collect the body of his soon to be flattened traveling companion.
It seemed the horse would run down the unmoving elf, as it seemed that the will of both was equally strong though the match of their brawn was not so equal. And at the moment Aragorn knew Legolas would be trampled, the horse threw back his head and sat down upon his haunches and slid through fallen leaves to a trembling, blowing halt.
He stopped no more than an inch before the warrior who had faced him down without flinching.
Legolas continued speaking to the animal in the strange language, and despite the need for haste, Aragorn was fascinated, listening to the sound of it, a series of soft clicks and rounded vowels that sounded almost as a song. At last, the beast suffered himself to be touched, and Legolas leaned down and brought the breath of the horse into his own lungs, as well as giving his breath to the animal. Finally, the horse lowered his head before Legolas, and in return, Legolas bowed before the stallion.
"There. We understand one another." Legolas told the horse, and then looked with satisfaction to where Aragorn stood frozen in mid-stride, watching with what seemed to be admiration. Arwen was harder to impress, and rolled her eyes a little when she saw he looked for her to be so.
"Where are the others? Where is my father?" she asked uneasily, looking past him and into the dense wood.
"I do not know," said the elf. "For I did not ride after them."
Aragorn met Legolas' gaze, saw that Legolas was staring back at him with raised chin, defiance pouring from him. "It was not in me to leave you to do this alone, Ranger. Though I tried to do as you asked me, I have never responded well to being told what my road is. I turned back after you had gone and set across Emyn Muil. I successfully came down the other side, just as you. You did not take care to cover your tracks from elf-eyes, and it was quite easy to follow you. You left your blood on those rocks and you turned the leaves in the forest with careless feet."
Aragorn thought for a moment of how to respond. In the end, he was glad of the extra set of eyes, and more so for the knife and bow of the warrior. "As for the tracks, I was in a great hurry. If you had not taken your time about following them, Prince of Mirkwood, I might have avoided having my head nearly split into equal halves."
"I doubt there is a blade in Mordor that could accomplish such a feat," Legolas returned, a smile hidden in the corner of his mouth.
The comment startled Aragorn into laughter.
Arwen was not amused and looked from man to elf. "And what of my father and his warriors? How will they know what road you have taken? When your horses meet them without you, they will think you have both been slain. They will try to enter Mordor."
"Can you not make your voice heard to your father now?" Aragorn asked.
"There is too much evil in this forest, too much will against us," Legolas replied before Arwen could. "I sent my mount with a message for your father that they were to continue on their course, approaching us from the North."
"The trumpets have sounded!" Arwen charged Legolas, and when the seasoned soldier flinched, Aragorn knew that Legolas did not need nor want the reminder of the call for evil. "My father and his men will be riding into the armies sent after us. We must ride North to warn them."
"We cannot ride due North, for that is the road they will watch most closely. We must take quieter, and more perilous, trails," Aragorn told her, and he wanted to put his hands upon her again, to comfort her worry for her father, but dared not with the sharp eyes and arrows of Legolas so close.
"And leave my father to ride blindly into danger?" Arwen cried. "I will not do it!"
Legolas smiled and moved to her side, taking her chin gently between thumb and forefinger and titling her angry eyes up to look into his. "Nay, Arwen. Do not let your face bear such strain. We will send one of these horses to your father. We will tell him that you are safe and that we ride into the wild with the Ranger."
With that, Legolas whistled and the second horse walked gently towards him, lowering his head. As with the first stallion, Legolas bowed low and breathed with the horse.
He spoke again in that same soft, complex language and as he did so, Legolas unsaddled and unbridled the horse, running a hand over the horse's neck. At last, Legolas stepped close and whispered something into the horse's ear. When he moved away, the horse wheeled and galloped North.
"What language is this? I have never seen this magic of the elves," Aragorn asked, fascinated into uncharacteristic curiosity.
Arwen smiled at him. "It is not magic. It is the ancient tongue of the Mearas. A secret the elves taught only to the Horse Lords of old. Few know of it."
"And why was I never taught it, when I have been shown all the other ways of the elves?" Aragorn wondered.
"Your tongue could not hold such words." Legolas said, with no small amount of superiority.
Aragorn raised an eyebrow and repeated the command Legolas had given the first horse with precision. Obediently, the horse that had moments before tried to kill him, turned from Legolas and walked to stand before Aragorn, dropping his head before him. The remaining animal pulled free from his tether and also came to stand with Aragorn, who bowed as Legolas had and then stroked their necks and spoke his own words to them.
Arwen caught Legolas' annoyance and could not help but smile. She loved the Prince of Mirkwood very much, for they were of an age and had passed through their youngest years together, playing their games, pretending to be great warriors, and men, monsters and horses. At one point, there had been talk among their houses of a betrothal, and though she had always felt as if she waited for another unknown to her before this day, she deeply loved Legolas, though not in a way that would have led her to bind herself to him for all eternity.
However, the prince was perhaps more full of bravery than suited his needs, and he had not often had dealings with races other than his own. Arwen thought it fitting that his first experience with men was with the finest and most capable of them all. She rather enjoyed his bewilderment.
"No, Legolas, Estel's tongue can hold whatever language he chooses, for he knows nearly all of them, and those he does not know he has great capacity for. Estel, you were not taught the horse-tongue because you were already gifted in the handling of horses. You have your own way with them. You did not need ours."
"And what did the command that you gave the charging horse mean, Legolas?" Aragorn wondered as he tightened the saddle of the second horse, deferring to the elf because he could see Legolas was still a bit bothered by his success at the ancient horse language. Fearing he could not hide his regard for the Lady from the sharp-eyed elf for very long, Aragorn had cause to attempt to keep himself on the feathered end of Legolas' arrows.
"You cannot command a horse to do anything, Aragorn," Legolas said, and his mood was improved in the giving of the lesson, in the willingness of the man to learn from him. "For a horse has a spirit and a will of his own, and he is your equal. Nay, we do not command him but we rather ask him, we reason with him."
"And what reasoning made him agree not to grind you into dust?" Aragorn asked with a smile as he stroked the animal that had nearly run Legolas down. The first words out of the elf's mouth had not sounded like a gentle request for help.
"Aye, well, some arguments are stronger than others, are they not?" Legolas grinned in return. "But as for the rest, I told him he had been deceived by Sauron. For horses have need to be free, and the Dark Lord has given them wildness and masked it as freedom. I explained to the horses that they have been enslaved by the dark, and I released them from the spells placed upon them. Now they understand that being wild is not the same as being free."
"If it were only so easy to convince the armies of Mordor of the same!" Aragorn murmured.
"They will bear us," Arwen said, as she left Legolas' side and came to where Aragorn and the horses stood and extended her hand below the animals' muzzles in greeting. "We must be away quickly, so you said, and stop speaking of things both old and irrelevant."
"You are right, as usual, my dearest friend," Legolas smiled. "We have lingered here longer than is wise. Come, Evenstar. You can ride with me."
Aragorn met Arwen's eyes, might have smiled but didn't dare as she told Legolas smoothly, "Nay. I will ride with Aragorn. Should his mount feel the pull of his old ways, I know the horse tongue as well."
"And yet you didn't see fit to utter it while I battled with the beast?" Aragorn muttered, but waved away any response she might have given. "Never mind. I did not wish to be saved by you twice in one day. My pride still walks the edge of a blade."
"You said Aragorn needed no help where horses were concerned," Legolas reminded her, a gleam of suspicion sharpening his eyes as he watched the meeting of their eyes, saw the intensity there despite the easy banter.
"Are you frightened to ride alone, Prince Legolas?" Arwen teased him.
It was the right tactic to take, because though he knew he was being manipulated by the Lady, who was too quick by half and had always, always outwitted him in games, Legolas felt resentment at the implication he was scared of anything. More especially so at the implication made before the man with the sharp eyes and the face as impassable as stone.
"Ride with the Ranger, then. Make sure he does not topple from the saddle and slow us all down."
Legolas called one horse forth and turned to mount him, and when he did so Arwen squeezed Aragorn's hand as she passed before him, victory in her eyes, and swung easily upon the horse.
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Note regarding Horse-speak: Fabricated in my mind, I think, though every time I think I've made something up, I find it somewhere in the trilogy. I am fascinated by the Mearas, like Shadowfax, who clearly are intelligent beings and have a will and mind of their own, so I gave them and their descendents a language too, sort of an old primitive language that few know. I draw the idea from one bit of The Return of the King, where Legolas sings to Arod to encourage him to travel the Path of the Dead:
"But Arod, horse of Rohan, refused the way and stood sweating and trembling in a fear that was grievous to see. Then Legolas laid his hands on his eyes and sang some words that went soft in the gloom, until he suffered himself to be led…"
I like to think that Legolas sings to Arod in this language.
