14. On the edge of a knife

(...)

„Sors salutis et virtutis

mihi nunc contraria

est affectus

et defectus

semper in angaria

hac in hora

sine mora

cordum pulsum tangite

nunc per sortem

sternit fortem

mecum omnes plangite!"

(...)

„When health
and virtue
are against me,
are only pain
and exhaustion,
forever in this vale of tears.
So at this hour
without delay
pluck the vibrating strings;
since Fate
strikes down the strong man,
everyone weep with me!"

(freely translated)

„Oh Fortuna" from Carl Orff

I.

Men in Middle-Earth say that good and evil are constantly at war, a war in which soon  the former, soon the latter force gains the upper-hand, and all their stories, tales, myths and legends - at least the often narrated ones - entwine around this war, in one way or another. This belief mirrors the ambivalent nature of man itself, whom's soul is torn hither and thither between light and darkness, and capable of both heroic deeds and catty felonies at the same time.

"There were golden ages once" the aged use to say, and the look of their eyes becomes absent, for they know with the wisdom of old age that they will undergo such times only beyond this world; and some of them, the wiser ones, probably sense that all that´s pure and good often solely survives in the stories they tell their grandchildren; the stories of bright young knights and their exploits, of farmer sons with valiant hearts, of true lovers, and of valour, honesty, and virtue. Never does the human mind create more heroes than in dark times.

The elves believe that the forces of good and evil are well outbalanced. Eons of seconds, hours, days and years passing by had taught them that everything evil will bear something good eventually, while everything good may already carries the seed of evil, deeply hidden in it's core. They know that light and darkness are not easily distinguished, since they both intermingle into one another like watercolours in the rain, turning into a shade of grey that dissolves every sharp outline.

It is difficult to say which of these point of views is more accurate. But at this day, when the Rivendell elves, together with the small group  of surviving wood elves, faced up to an army of bloody-minded orcs  in order to defend one of the last elvish realms, it seemed, however, that indeed the humans were right – too many evil, destructive forces were unleashed this day, the ones of the orcs, Saruman's, ready to destroy the good forces of the elves, a wizard and a human, and ready to enrich the world of men of yet another dark story : The one of the downfall of the free elvish people.

II.

It started with the elves attacking on the left flank of the orc's rows. Be it because they clashed with a pack of especially fearless, war-experienced orcs – qualities they showed to an increasing degree, and alarmingly fast those days – be it because they were less covered by wood elves' arrows, since the natural cover was sparse on their side – their advancing was slowed down first, then stopped; when more and more of them died, pierced by black arrows or spears, slain by axes or swords, while the orcs seemed to gather new strength from their dying, as if they nourished on the blood of their victims.

And this was only the beginning.

III.

Few were there on the battlefield who knew to keep a survey of the course the battle was taking besides the struggles they were entangled in, apart maybe from Gandalf, the wizard, and Aragorn, in whom's veins royal blood was circulating; and Elrond and Saruman, which had exercised the necessary skills even in times of peace, albeit in another context.

Elrond saw the retreat of his warriors at the left side of the triangle he knew to be the last hope of the elves remaining in Rivendell, and his heart grew heavy. He'd played out all the cards he'd held in his hands militating in favour of a victory of the elves against the orcs' supposed superiority – oh, no one knew how many of these vicious creatures crept through the forests of Rivendell, but there were rumours of course - The moment of surprise, the far reaching bows, the swiftness and mobility of elves attacking on horses – and like his left edge his hopes now disintegrated that this actually would countervail against  the cards the orcs had to deal out: Warriors and bloodlust, and the berserk strength of someone knowing he's caught in a deadly trap.

Elrond saw it, and his heart was bleeding, but still he didn't send support to his endangered fighters. First he had to know if the warriors he led, or the ones on the right edge of the triangle, were able to fight back Saruman's hounds on their part; for there was one thing neither he, nor any other elf, could allow to happen: That the orcs found their way to Rivendell to rage among it's defenceless victims. "More or less defenceless", the elfenking mentally corrected himself immediately, while an image of Arwen emerged in his head, and he smiled at the strange things he thought of in the  middle of a battle. "Not as long as a single elf is standing on his feet, has an arrow left, or still is able to lift and use a sword!"

Elrond saw it, and while he jerked his sword into the throat of the first orc coming into his reach, he knew the weighing scale of war had started to subside to his disfavour, and thus heralded the second stage in the battle for Rivendell, which might would prove fateful for the elves, for it was the one of the man-against-man combat, the one of the light against the darkness, of elf against orc, and the one he'd wanted most to avoid. He did not doubt the skills of his warriors in hand-to-hand-combat – but forced to face up to their enemies more vulnerable they were, and immune against a superiority, they weren't.

"Well." Elrond thought with the courage of desperation and attacked another small group of five orcs. "Let's deplete their superiority then."

The elven king killed many, but still he couldn't chase the probing fear that his left edge was soon going to fall completely.

„On the left side they're on the brink of a break-through." Saruman thought, never tearing his eyes from the events on the battle-field.  "Elrond's fighters there are too dispersed to offer resistance for much longer!"

Still he didn't dare to give free rein to his suddenly budding hopes – too deeply the failing of his plans had shattered him – but he observed the battle closer now, and lurking, like a big, treacherously peaceful animal of prey, and what he saw pleased him, and seemed to prove him right.

Yes, there was no denying it: The elves were pushed back, especially on the left side, but also their thrust on the right side was now slowing down.

An alarming smile started to play around Saruman's lips.

"You ought to send warriors to the left, Elrond!" he thought while he watched the wood elves, having provided the rear cover of the left edge, debouch from their hiding places and hurling themselves headlong into battle as well.  They'd run out of arrows, probably, but most likely they finally had realised – as he'd done before – that a break-through of the orcs on this side was imminent; and he watched them die, one after another, and futilely, knowingly, they sacrificed their lives, for they couldn't really believe they would last long against their enemies so numerous.

"Soon enough you will lack warriors on the right side as well, Elrond!" Saruman thought, coolly and indifferently assessing the situation, while a warm feeling of triumph started to pulse through his veins.

"Why don't you part company with some of your fighters, Elrond? Do you fear my orcs will breach their way to Rivendell without you being able to stop them? Yes, I think it's this line of thought keeping you back, but sooner or later you'll have to give the command from which you still shrink back right now.

You and I, we both know that your plan to defeat the orcs in a surprise attack has failed, though not through your failure, but your minority. And you and I, we both will watch now how your people's abolition, slowly, one elf after another, and I hope you will not fall too early, not until you've seen your defeat with our own eyes, for this will be a revenge sweeter than anything I can think of to punish you for trying to spoil my plans."

The moment came when Elrond could not wait any longer to divide the forces of his warriors, although he knew very well he was going to critically enfeeble the troop obstructing the passage to Rivendell. Too weak now was his left edge, too urgent the looks he got from his subleaders, and too imminent  the breakthrough of the orcs on the left side for him to abstain from the corresponding command any longer.

Once more the elvenking surveyed the band of warriors gathered around him, relieved to see that most of them had survived thus far – the Valar speed you – and finally rested on Aragorn, on Gandalf, and his sons for a few seconds. Yes, all of them still fought as if they didn't know what was going on behind their backs, what had been initiated, slowly, yet undeniable… And still there were those two wood elves, attacking the orcs, blindly raging among them like wounded wild boars, Legolas Greenleaf, prince of Mirkwood, and his protector, Mardin...  Although he'd many reasons to doubt the motifs of these two strange elves – heaven only knew what was going on in the stubborn heads of these two (and the ones of the whole band of wood elves, anyway) – but he didn't doubt their fighting strength, not for a single second.

Elrond inhaled deeply. Perhaps he would beat the odds and sustain the middle front against the orcs even with a smaller number of warriors, outstanding and battle-scarred as they were…

The hell, they just had to succeed! And like Saruman had expected previously, he shouted a short command, ringing clearly over the uproar of the battle; and some of the elves behind him departed immediately, to stand up to their enemies somewhere else.

IV.

What the wood elf Mardin fought for was indeed difficult to say. Being much older than most of his fellow elves, his background was veiled in an impenetrable darkness, a darkness he never cared to enlighten, even when the wine had loosened his tongue, rarely enough as it happened, and only after a battle had taken place. There weren't many left that had grown up with him, and so most wood elves just knew him as the old, scared warhorse he'd always been, true-blue, worried like a mother hen about the soldiers under his command, always present where difficulties were to be encountered – and yet he was strange to them, since they didn't know what he lived and fought for, or what was going on in this old head of his.

Was he fighting for the wood elves' sake? There weren't many left of them to fight for. For his homelands? They'd been lost and devastated. For good? The expression of his eyes clearly denied this assumption, even though his face betrayed nothing of the angry feelings that blazed through him, never ceasing, merciless, and which shattered the fundaments of his being - and their core was guilt. He, who'd considered himself as the protector of the king's family (and often enough Thranduil had characterised him being just that, half laughing, half seriously) carried the guiltiness of failure with him since the unholy second Thranduil had died. Neither the father, nor his sons he'd known to protect effectively.

Yes, it was the consciousness of guilt that really drove on Mardin, although everyone would have stared at him utterly lost if he would have bared those feelings in front of others.

Mardin was an elf with high ethical principles, principles that were both his blessing and his curse, since they had brought him as far as he was today, and had enobled him, only to bring him down all the more when he didn't manage to live up to his high, oh so high claims.

Mardin had hoped to wash away his guilt with orc- blood, but now he realised that this wouldn't work. The feelings of guilt still remained in his heart , and Mardin's strokes became desperate.

But still he never forgot, despite his desperation, despite the battle that was raging on around him, to give a quick glance to the blond elf fighting near him, and which he hadn't succeed to keep from taking place into the battle – and every time he did so, he gritted his teeth in helpless anger.

V.

Yes, as a matter of fact he should not have taken part in the battle, Legolas Greenleaf, king of the wood elves, just having escaped being killed more closely than he probably admitted to himself; and still, no one, and nothing, had managed to restrain him from attending the battle for Rivendell – the battle against the orcs – neither Elrond's nor Gandalf´s wise words, nor Mardin's pleas – the old elf could be quite convincing if something was important enough for him to try - and least of all his own, overwhelming, physical and mental exhaustion.

Legolas - the Legolas he once had been, the quiet, reserved, yet happy elven prince, sheltered by the woods, the one which had been saved from the vast darkness by Aragorn's "Poisonous lady" and Gandalf's healing powers the last moment, and the one which had been hastily clarified about Saruman's intrigues, like all the other elves, while time was passing by merciless, and indifferent – he wasn't on the battlefield.

Only the Legolas who ached, with every fibre of his heart, to put out the flames of his anger and hate with orc-blood.

Yes, hate was burning him, huge and hot and blazing like the fires of a lighthouse, and guided every move he made, lending him strength and skills matching even those of Aragorn and Elrond,  and he raged among the orcs like a wolf among lambs, remarkably unimpressed by the  looming defeat of the elves; which he probably was since he didn't fight for the rescue of Rivendell, but against the orcs – and a 2nd demon that was struggling for his soul beside the hate: and this was the demon of sadness.

Oh, he'd been small in the beginning, veiled in the prince's subconsciousness, patiently luring for his chance, which he got soon enough, for he grew with every orc Legolas slay, with every stroke he carried out, until his voice became louder than the song of hate his blood was singing, and he'd won the fight the second Legolas understood that the killing of orcs, the revenge he'd lived for thus far, wouldn't change anything. It wouldn't change anything at Thranduil's death, at the useless dying of so many of his people, or at the helpless sadness shattering his soul, and the emptiness of his heart – and least of all it would bring him back his old life. Driven from paradise he was, Legolas now understood, and a castoff from paradise he would remain.

The realisation did not exert a paralysing influence on Legolas, as it might would have been the case with a human, on the contrary, the orcs came to taste his renewed strength, but the prince's mind it did paralyse, painting a black hole where the future could have been, until it finally made any thought of survival meaningless, or even painful, and Legolas' fighting turned from courageous to reckless.

VI.

„How many warriors did you lack for the rescue of Rivendell?" Saruman reflected; and with no small satisfaction he observed the progressing defeat of the elves in front of his eyes. "Maybe fifty? Yes, I think if you'd commanded additional fifty warriors, you would have been able to turn the page. Thirty of them to support your left edge, twenty on the other side – where the orcs will be victorious soon enough, though their number has been seriously reduced  – and you would have been able to lead your people to victory. So few fighters you have, Elrond, and still you have assigned ten of them just to guard me? I'm almost touched that you take me for so dangerous... But soon enough the time will come when you´ll have to withdraw my minders in order to re-enforce your disintegrating left line of defense. Or your fallen one, as I might say more accurately. Soon you're desperate enough to do so, although you know very well that I immediately will be beyond your control, as sure as a bird will escape any four legged animal of prey.

Soon enough you will withdraw them –  I know the line of your thoughts very well , elven king – hoping that you still will be able to stop the raid of orcs in Rivendell – a treacherous hope, as you soon will see, as treacherous as green river ice in spring.

But still you're more tenacious than I gave you credit for. Congratulations, Elrond. I thought you would call them back much earlier…"

Saruman's eyes never ceased to follow Elrond's proud figure while he thought so, like the elves surrounding him did, at least the inexperienced ones, and in their otherwise so stoical faces nervousness started to show.

From now and then one of them cast a sorrowful glance over his shoulder. The hellish noise of battle – or the course it took, as it was discernible from far  – seemed to shake them pretty deeply, for indeed it couldn't escape their notice how bad the circumstances really were.

But all of them were good soldiers. Their commander had asked them to take orders; and they would do so, even against their own conviction, even against their own will. They would hold out until Elrond called them into battle, or they would die guarding him.

VII.

The command that would have freed Saruman from his minders indeed had already been on the tip of Elrond's tongue; the moment he was desperate enough to risk even the escape of the white wizard, but he didn't get around to giving it, for he lost track of Saruman when a pack of orcs assailed him and his fighters, orcs more numerous, and more unscathed than it was entirely desirable, their arms combatively risen – a serious threat for him as well as for the fading forces of his combatants, even more so since two of them carried arms that suspiciously looked like crossbows, crossbows that already were drawn.

The elven king gave them no further time to approach. A swift pressure from his tights, a soft battle-cry, heard by no one but himself, and his horse dashed away, carrying him immediately among the orcs. He'd slain two of them before they could even think of defending themselves, taken by surprise by his foolhardy attack, but still the rest of them turned out to be only too alert, for now two of the warriors fighting right beside him, exhausted, smeared with blood, fell the same second; and Elrond knew for sure that at least one of them had cockled himself in front of an arrow which had been aimed at him. It was a deliberate, selfless sacrifice, cutting Elrond to the quick, all the more since he knew that it was going to be unsung, and unhonored most likely, with  no one alive to give testimony. The killer of his saviour died only seconds later, and Elrond, his face now contorted in anger, thwarted the next orcs, and killed many of them, always accompanied by the awesome feeling that for every orc he killed two new ones emerged to replace him, as if they originated from the head of a Medusa that gives birth to two snakes at the place one was decollated.

The certainty about the elves' defeat came casually, not as a violent shock. It didn't bring much pain with it, only a silent melancholy, at the most, that everything had to end like this – in a defeat against the most ugly, most cruel creatures that had befouled Middle-Earth with their presence ever.

VIII.

Saruman´s waiting for the recall of his minders would have been in vain, since Elrond, now immediately fighting for his life, was no longer in a position to give the appropriate command; but anyway, it didn´t matter anymore, for now the battle itself was catching up with the guardians.

A couple of elves fighting at the right edge had been pushed back by the orcs more and more, always straight into his, Saruman´s direction, and in the beginning he´d observed these movements suspiciously – by no means he wanted to become involved in the battle – but in the end this mistrust quickly had changed into an ominous anticipation, when the elvish warriors, which obviously had ran out of arrows long ago, went down one after another.

Their fall wasn´t lost to his minders, of course, but doggedly, like well educated staghounds, they never averted their stinging eyes from him, and it was only in the increasing amount of edgy movements of their horses one could assess the elves´nervousness that had been conferred to the sensible animals.

"Come here, my orcs!" Saruman silently thought, or merely commanded, while he felt goose-flesh starting to cover his body, and all his senses vibrated in newly arisen tension. "Come here! Here's more elvish flesh for you to feast on!"

And they came, a whole pack of orcs, probably more than twenty warriors, as if they had heard him, as if they wouldn't just do what their cruel minds told them to - and this was killing, killing everything that didn't look like an orc; and then the moment arrived at which even the elves guarding him could no longer remain in their position – some of them turned, and the first arrows flew through the air, hitting the assailants with vertiginous security, and most likely the elves would have been able to deal with these enemies, if they hadn't been followed by even more orcs, orcs that had realised that a breakthrough in the middle might be not impossible, but expensive, since it would claim a high blood token. There seemed to be less dangerous ways…

Then the first orcs reached their enemies, forced them to drop their bows, to fight on with their swords, and when one of his most pertinacious minders, whose bow was still aimed at Saruman, unfaltering, fell from his horse stertorously, with an orc-spear deeply embedded in his back,  the last guardians of the wizard turned their back on him and started to fight for their lives, and doom took it's course, for Saruman, the white wizard, was now free, free to enjoy the victory the orcs gained for him, free to take Elrond's ring, free to reign over vast amounts of middle-earth and free to form it according to his wishes.

Saruman wasn't in a hurry to retreat from the battle. Coolly he observed how his guardians – after an embittered resistance – were slain one after another, and then he averted his eyes, as if being bored from the look, in order to spot Elrond's tall figure on the battlefield once more. He did not even bother to look down when an elf, pierced by a crossbow's arrow, fell down directly under his horse's nose and almost made it jump. Perhaps the king of the elves had managed to survive thus far, and he would provide a precious hostage when he was going to try and get Galadriel's ring. If Elrond had managed to stay alive that long… On the first glance Saruman could not discern him in the crush of the battle – still there were fierce duels taking place everyhere – and while he stifled a curse between his teeth his gaze fell, though not on Elrond's face, still on familiar, and grimly resolute ones, hardly recognisable under all the blood and grid covering them, and these familiar elves directed their horses straight towards him, followed by some other warriors, giving them rear cover.

For a moment Saruman felt the blood rushing to his head, and his instinct urged him to instantly leave this place, but then he acknowledged the assuring presence of some orcs, yelling hideously triumphant beside him, and he restrained himself.

"Well, Legolas Greenleaf" he thought. "As well as you, shadow of the king, Mardin! Do you really believe you'll still be able to stop me, now that my victory is forthcoming? Two, three futile elves against me, Saruman, the White? I almost pity you, since you're virtually challenging your own death, you fools…"

And he waited, until Greenleaf and his captain were just some meters away, then he abruptly lifted his right hand for a spell, a deadly one, as it was mirrored in his eyes – and let it drop again, when one of the orcs beside him, gathered to catch their breath, snarled something. He obviously was their leader, and he sounded daring, even aggressive. "You're right." Saruman agreed, gently, while there was a yellow light in the depths of his eyes. "I'll leave them to you. Make sure that none of them survives. Especially the yellow haired one. Kill him. Kill them all."

He said it emotionless, far away from the hate he once would bear against a little hobbit foiling his essorant plans. No, Saruman did not hate Legolas, the elf which, completely unaware, had become a central figure in all his doings. He was only another hindrance on his way to the realisation of his dreams, and thus had to be abolished. "Kill them all." He repeated, while he was withdrawing from battle. He wouldn't come into an elf's focus of vision again.

The last thing he saw was a black ring of orcs concentrating around Legolas and his three companions.

IX.

Then a sword grazed his left shoulder, and while an abrupt wave of adrenalin was flushing through his body, mobilising still new, hidden forces –Valar alone knew where they came from – Elrond looked around like someone awaking from a long, deep sleep, and he realised that all his nightmares had started to assume definitive shapes; for the elves gave way, gave way, while the orcs gathered their scattered forces, and although he still parried the next sword strokes aimed to take his life, and even dashed to pieces the spear that missed his left side just by a hair´s breath, the effort almost seemed him too much now, and he reflected if a cruel fate meant him to live through the fall of Rivendell from start to finish, or if it showed him the mercy to let him die before.

X.

And then something happened wherewith neither Elrond, nor Saruman, and not even Gandalf had anticipated, and it changed the fate of Rivendell.

To be continued...

To SpaceVixenX: Legolas? Who´s Legolas? Ah, you mean the guy I forgot in the dungeon…

(Just kidding, of course, for I´m happy to announce that he has his reappearance in this chapter, since, coincidentally, he´s my favourite character as well…)

To Hypy: Me neither! (Talking of reviews, of course J)

To Tapetum lucidum: Evil Saruman a teenager? Well I don´t know about your teenage years, but I was always good and friendly and never moody, in short, the pure opposite of the White WizardJ! About the civil war of elves: I was  glad as well that it could be avoided. Had to kill more than enough elves thus far in benefit of the story!

Author´s note: Hope you enjoyed this chapter (I managed another cliffhanger, yes, yes, yes!)

And now be a good reader and leave the hard working author and her equally hard working beta-reader Elise a nice little review with your treasured opinion!!!

If you do so, I promise to update more often (which means every third week in my language… but considering the fact I started this story more than a year ago, you´ll agree that this will be very fast!!!)