(Author's note: I'm sorry about the displacement of some text lines. I tried x times to corrige it, without success...)
15. The Last Victory of the Elves
- Beside him Mardin was swearing under his breath, not with vehemence but with resignation, and the two elvish warriors behind them stopped dead in their tracks, after they too had caught sight of the numerous orcs advancing against them menacingly.
Still Legolas paid no attention to his companions, for he only had eyes for Saruman, the White Wizard, whom he instinctively knew to be guilty of all the misery that had befallen the wood elves, and whom he fiercely hated and still feared as someone who's motives he couldn't see through, and who yielded more power than every other living creature he ever came to meet.
Legolas clutched the haft of his last remaining knife so forcefully that his fingers ached in protest, and mesmerized, as if bound by a forcefull spell, he watched Saruman riding from the battlefield, slowly, proud and upright, and unchallenged, as if he was completely unconcerned about the following events, and unaffected by the doom of the elves, or worst of all, as if he saw no reason in fearing them any longer.
This last disrespect of the elves, which Saruman so vividly demonstrated herewith, woke an anger in
Legolas so strong that his throat constricted and his vision clouded.
"You've lost, elf!" Something within the retreating back of the wizard woke the memory of the words Saruman once had directed at him, sneeringly, filled with malice, when he'd been put into Elrond's prison, and again they were resounding in his head now. "You've lost, elf!" and finally Legolas understood that Saruman was going to be proven correct, and neither his nor any other elf's strength would suffice to hinder his escape.
In the last passing days Legolas had suffered more personal tragedies than in his whole long life before: His father's death, the poisoning of his brother, the destruction of his people, and his inabiltiy to warn the Rivendell-elves in time; but still none of them had hurt him more than the one he accepted when he had to let Saruman go unhindered, after he'd believed him into elvish custody.
Yes, too helpless, too powerless he was to prevent the wizard's escape – this final realisation brought angry tears into his eyes, caused him to shiver like someone unexpectedly caught in a cold breeze, and a sudden illness grew in his stomach so strong that his throat seemed to be laced up by invisible, and hostile hands.
Almost reluctantly Legolas averted his eyes from his deadly enemy and awaited the orcs, with a strange mixture of rising fear – far too many of them were attacking for the elves to really stand a chance of surviving - and the odd satisfaction that there were more, and still more orcs for him to kill, or, just in case he wasn't successfull enough in doing the latter, that they would put a quick end to all his pain, his doubts and the nameless torture that was corroding his personality like a parasite sucking its victim, from the inside, leaving nothing but an empty bodily shell.
Then, when the first orcs came within reach, Legolas' last thoughts were lost, giving way to the instincts of every good warrior and making him forget everything except for the movements of his swordarm and the will to kill any enemy before being killed himself.
The first orc facing up to him was still young, as far as one could judge at the sight of his ugly mug. The grin laying bare his yellowish tusks revealed anxiety rather than fear, as if he was secretly afraid of the elf he was pitted against, and he had every reason to be, for in his inexperience he raised his sword too high as he ran towards the elves, and Legolas had stabbed him with his knife into his right flank, before he even had a chance to try and attack his enemy. The strangely contorted smile stayed frozen on his lips when he fell, so fast that Legolas had to use all his agility to draw back his knife out of the falling body in time.
His next victim did not cause him significantly more trouble, since he obviously did not know if he should attack Legolas or Mardin first. The elven prince put him out of his misery by a fast stab against his insufficiently protected throat, and in disgust he flinched back when a splash of blood broke from the wound and smeared his face and the upper part of his body.
It passed off swiftly, the killing, without effort, and probably too effortlessly, for then, as if Legolas had used up all his fortune of war with this two swift victories in duel, as if the gods of war would now turn their backs on him indifferently, he was wounded, by a badly aimed, and overhasted stroke, and there was nothing heroic in the way he was overcome, as it often is the case with even outstanding warriors; that they are defeated by someone who is not on a par with them, and under circumstances which do not constitute the material for a hero's ballad.
The stroke slashed Legolas' arm lengthwise.
Slowly the pain penetrated the elf's consciousness, warily feeling its way like the hands of a blind man, and only hesitantly it got through the clouds of furiousness and desperation overshadowing the prince's soul. Then it was there, entwining Legolas' arm like thousands of red-hot cobwebs, and it brought a stertorous sound into his throat and blurred the silhouettes of his enemies. The elf didn't see the blood flowing freely from the wound, but strangely enough he felt its taste in his mouth, the one of iron, danger, and approaching death, and his arm fell.
Some say that in the few remaining seconds before death the dying sees images of the past, memory tatters disappearing as fast as they come into existence, but Legolas experienced no such thing.
He did not feel any ruefullness or sorrow, or grief either, that he was about to die in such a useless way. The only thing he felt right now was some kind of incredulous fury about the fact that the muscles of his right arm refused to work any longer, and that his fingers, tightly clenched around the knife (the hilt they spanned had already become slippery with blood), had started to loosen against his will, against his efforts.
His weapon dropped to the floor with a metallic, and definite sound, and Legolas finally lifted his head to pay his victorious opponent the appropriate attentiveness, if much too late, when he lifted his weapon to a deadly strike, while his face was contorted in grim satisfaction. Legolas didn't flinch when the sword came down.
Under loud and jarring cawing they leaked out, the screekers, and angry like irascible wasps they fluttered around the trees, on which they had been observing the happenings of the battle with their cold, black and soulless eyes.
Saruman's spies, that had often rendered him valuable services in the past, would have been of inestimable value to him also here, at the battle for Rivendell, for with their current strange behaviour they clearly betrayed to any attentive observer, that something exceptional, and disturbing, was happening at the forest's edge.
But this time no wizard was there to benefit from their pefidious attitude; and the birds' voices were lost in the rough cries of the fighting elves and orcs, the shrill neighing of the horses and the riot of battle, and they did not betray the raid of the second elves' army bursting out from the wood, their bright and many-voiced battlecry was swallowed by the noise of war, and even the singing of their bows.
But if there was something neither elf nor orc could ignore, then it were the black-feathered arrows that found their way into equally black hearts suddenly anew, overcoming the orcs irately and mercilessly like a swarm of hornets the incatious wanderer damaging their nest, and like him the orcs didn't know what was happening to them.
The arrows brought quick death, or at best, confusion and the stealthy poison of panic among the orcs, and they were dropping like flies with a surprised growl in their throat, and the new army of elves cleared a path of destruction through their rows; like a bright mercurial mountain stream it was penetrating their black floods; and renewed the strengths of Elrond's warriors.
The first orcs that had survived this unexpected attack, betook themselves to flight into the north.
Finally Elrond became aware of these events, too, and he raised his head, like someone listening intently, while reigning up his horse; and unlike his confused enemies he knew to assess what was happening, and a smile; bright as the sun banishing rain clouds; was suddenly illuminating his face, his eyes again shone keen and bright, as people were used to seeing him, and cool like a fresh breeze from the sea he felt new energy flow into his members.
Saruman would have assessed the second army of the elves aright, too, had he still been on the battlefield; as opposed to the orcs he at once would have been awake to the insight that there was no army at all, in the true sense of the word; since fifty elves, at the most, accounted for it, a fact that its leader tried to hide by letting his riders attack in small but rather numerous rows, a tactic that had already been appreciated by Elrond; if only mentally, since it bestowed upon them an almost checkless push; and the more than usual delicate figures, and the slightly smaller bows of the new elvish fighters would not have been lost on him – but Saruman had already turned away from the battlefield, a severe mistake he wasn't aware of yet; and that would cost him more than he could anticipate.
For guideless were the orcs without his mind, sharp like a new razor blade, to support them; and there was no one to convince them not to fear the attacking female elves, about fifty or sixty in number, in reality hardly strong enough to stand their ground against a fistful of wargs, allowing them to gain an arbitrative role in the battle for Rivendell; even though they were not feared for themselves, but for the reinforcement the orcs had to suspect behind them in the impervious wood; and for the first time it began to show what Gandalf later was going to say to a little hobbit: That even the weak could decide the fate of strong ones, when their time has come.
Reckless and strong and still graceful they have been, the female wood elves, and as merciless deadly as a panther defending it's young, it would be written in the stories men were going to recount to each other over the fateful day on which the battle for Rivendell had taken place, and they and their bows are said to be the reason, so the stories know to give account further, why Elrond and his warriors finally succeeded to besiege the orcs, thus contributing decisively to the salvation of the "last homely house"; and the hearts of many young lads might have skipped a beat when these martial amazons out of the woods were mentioned.
But these stories were far away, oh so far away, from mirroring what really had happened on that clearing in Rivendell then, for there are no adequate words to describe what their Pyrrus-victory had demanded from the elves in form of blood and suffering, and generously it missed out the victims the elvish people had to bewail at the end of all its struggles.
Yes, very different from the glorious stories it had been then, less heroic, and darker, more bloody, for in spite of the help Elrond had received suddenly and unexpected, the elves still had a difficult stand, enfeebled as they were, and the orcs to whom a flight was made impossible through one of Elrond's troups or the female elves, did defend themselves with the vehemence of someone on the death row, already facing his hangman, and they had to be brought down, one after another, in a bloody and laboured slaughter that still claimed victims among the elves, for the orcs were dangerous even in defeat, like a dying monster that's tearing apart some of his conquerors with his last convulsions of death.
In vast numbers they lost their life, the Rivendell-elves, slowed down by their exhaustion, having lost their last weapons in fight, the wood elves, for their arsenal had not been adequate even at the beginning of the battle, and the female wood elves, whose longbows had not been designed for the black and ugly wild they were hunting right now, but for graceful, lightfooted game, and whose experience in fighting – even though their life in the mirkwood was rough on occasion – was not enough to stand one's ground in such a struggle.
Yes, from a glorious victory no elf would have spoken then, when finally the last orc's death cries were resounding over the battlefield, and least of all Elrond, whose horse had been killed at the last second by one of the last surviving orc leaders by an insidious flourish opening the belly of the poor beast.
The elvenking finally pulled his sword out of the body of his last fallen enemy, and held it high in the air, while he gave an elvish cry of victory that simultaneously was his command for the survivors of the four parts of the elvish army to collect themselves, but then he leaned himself upon his sword, breathing heavily, his face covered with dry blood from an ugly wound at his hairline, as if he was too exhausted to stand on his own; and a few endless minutes he remained like this, motionless, his face like carved from stone, the eyes cold and distant and dangerous, so that even to his subleaders, gathering around him on his sign, he seemed strange, and they did not dare to address him.
They did choose wisely not to do so, for Elrond fought a heavy struggle with himself this very moment, and he needed all his strength, mentally and physically, to overpower the darkness that was overshadowing his mind like cold november mist overshadowing late autumn, and he searched for strength, deep down in his soul, to finally lift his head and watch over the fields of destruction that were streching out around him, covered with the bodies of those he loved; and whose lives had been entrusted to him.
His subleaders had already started to exchange nervous glances, and one of his twin sons, Elrohir, who'd sustained a nasty wound at his shoulder, was getting ready to approach him, though still retained by his brother, when the king of the Rivendell elves raised his head again, his face a pale mask, and threw away his sword, disgustedly, as if sickened by the blood that still stuck to it; and while he did so he looked around, as if awakening, and noticed the sea of questioning, apprehensive, pale and bloodied faces around him, Aragorn's, Gandalf's, his sons', and the ones of many Rivendell or wood elves. Yes, all around him they stood, to whom his heart and life belonged, and their faces were marked by the horror they'd seen, but still they were alive, so alive, and while he watched them, his expression started to turn back to his normal energetic, vibrant and warm self; and again he raised his arm, his right fist now tightly clenched, and he shouted a cry of triumph into the noontime sky; the one that had accompanied the elvish people through every battle they could remember, and some of the other elves joined his call; and not effervescent was their jubilation, but tired, filled with grief for those who had remained on the battlefield, a grief that quickly started to fill their hearts, now that the first shock of the battle had worn off.
The blade advanced, fast and deadly, like the head of a testy viper, and well, all too well it hit its intended target, laterally embedding itself into the throat of its victim, dampening its death cry into a stertorous gurgle, when warm blood suddenly filled ist trachea, suffocating any other sound. Then a skillful hand turned the blade, stuck in the wound, and then draw it back, and another splash of blood gushed forth from the now horribly gasping wound it had opened. The now deadly wounded was forced to stagger back a few trembling steps by a rude kick, before his strength finally left him and he sank to the floor –face down- and didn't move any longer, even though a puddle of blood had begun to form under his body, silently, and its movements gave him a grotesque air of life.
Legolas just stood there, his left hand protectively edged over his right arm, and tried to squint away the veil of sweat and tears the pain had laid over his eyes, making it difficult for him to see what was happening around him, something he managed to do quite tolerably, but to the veil of wearyness, exhaustion and disavowed agony that had fallen over his mind he had nothing to oppose, at least not for long.
But still long enough for him to understand that he still was alive, and that his knife was lying right in front of his feet, where it was waiting, invitingly, its silver stained in red, and instinctively Legolas bent down to reach for it – maybe it was just his knees giving way under him, he couldn't really say – but then his perception became blurred, his whole body was suddenly covered in cold sweat, while his right arm exploded in an almost insane pain; and with a small gasping sound Legolas sank down.
But although a merciful darkness was now closing over him, as fast as the lid of a coffin on a deceased, he still felt someone building up beside him, legs apart, someone strong and non-relocatable like a very old rock, then he didn't see and feel anything more, although he never really lost consciousness, and the riot of the battle arround him ebbed down to the silent humming of insects filling the clearings on bright summer evenings.
Mardin, the protector of the king's family, who had just saved his life, stood over him, big and cruel and invincible this day, and he was defending the faint of his prince against anyone approaching him, and anyone who'd done so would have sworn that the eyes of the old warhorse had been shining in a clear, happy light, and that he, while he was slaying his enemies, was singing a silent, yet airy song, a bright tune that was telling of the spring's begin in the mirkwood.
Of the elves, only Mardin seemed to have lost nothing of his reserved attitude, for he stood there, upright, with calm earnest, seemingly untouched by all the frenetic aleation around him, and so he held out, while Legolas Greenleaf, prince of mirkwood sat in the grass, resting against his legs, his face ashen, the eyes strangely uninvolved, his clothes torn and bloody at the right side of his upper torso, and over him Mardin protectively held hand and sword, and at close range one could see that his face wore a calm, even detached expression.
That was how Elrond found the two of them.
"Legolas Greenleaf! Greenleaf!" A shadow was towering over him, grabbing him roughly at his shoulders, shaking him. "Greenleaf!" The urging voice penetrated his mind, like splinters of fragile glass, and Legolas frowned. The man's grip hurt him, and he opened his mouth to say so, but no words were formed in his throat, so he decided to open his eyes instead. With quite some effort he eventually suceeded to focus his gaze on his tormentor, and when he noticed the apprehension in his features, he forgave him, even tried a smile, mechanically, with no heart in it, but still this didn't seem to disturb his opposite, for his efforts were rewarded with a relieved exclamation. "Greenleaf! At last! I already thought you..."
Legolas stopped smiling. It hurt. One of his lids was twitching. He was tired, so bone tired, and a dull fire seemed to burn his right arm from the inside, sucking every remaining bit of strength out of him. But there was an urgent thought that had stuck itself in his brain, and sometime later he managed to phrase it. "Saruman? Orcs?" He loathed the thin sound of his voice but Elrond, who had never let go of his shoulder, had heard him very well.
"We have won." he said. "They've been vanquished, and your people are avenged."
Legolas showed his teeth, in another attempt to smile that failed miserably. "That's what you think, Lord Elrond." a small voice in his head said. "Do you really believe the wood elves' desire for revenge has been stilled herewith? You should know that it is insatiable as a drop of water to someone dying of thirst..."
He didn't put his thoughts into words though, for he knew very well that Elrond's peaceableness had its roots in honest sorrow and true sympathy for the wood elves, but still the elvenking, who never averted his eyes from him, seemed to read some of his hatefilled thoughts in his mimic, for his gaze suddenly hardened, and he –at last- let go of Legolas' shoulders, and the prince sank back against Mardin's legs; a movement that flared up the fires in his arm anew and alluringly called for the shadows of yet another unconsciousness.
Then a mug of water was held to his lips – Elrond could be provident like a mother if he wanted to – and if he directed his entire attention, or even affection, on someone, that much Legolas noticed know, then it was difficult to escape the elvenking's almost radiant charisma, and after a first reaction time – too fresh was still the memory of Saruman's try to poison him – he drank, and he choked on it and coughed, but the effects of the reviving liquid didn't fail him, as it brought back the prince's awareness of his surroundings, and Legolas suddenly understood that he sat leant against Mardin's legs; in a quite unimpressive and unroyal posture; but he felt too weak to change it, maybe didn't even want to, for with the old soldier towering over him, although he did only discern him as a shadow, he felt safe there, like someone coming home after a long, long journey, seeing the first hills of his homelands afar, and he enjoyed this feeling as something he'd not felt for an eternity.
Unreal it seemed to him in his weakened state, the smell of blood and death hanging over the battlefield, as unreal as the bodies of the fallen, laying not far from him with glassy eyes, and he didn't really see them, for like a blind man that starts to see again after living in the dark for many years, he suddenly knew what was essential: To turn one's face from darkness to the sun and search the light.
Anxiously he looked around for the faces he knew and cared for: Wood elves' faces, Aragorn's, Gandalf's, and Elrond's, and he felt trully happy to find them alive, even though he still wasn't too sure about this for himself. A first sincere smile was warming now his face, and it expired only when his traveling gaze met the one of Merennwen Oronar, a rather small, yet slender and browsy wood elfin that had the reputation of being rather brusque – an attitude that had served her well when she'd let the female wood elves' attack against the orcs - and he saw her long hair in wild disorder, her blood reddened clothes and her sword; and her cheeks that were flowering in the color of bloodstained roses as well.
"You've fought." He ascertained in a strange mixture of pride and resignation.
"We did." Merennwen agreed, as a matter of fact, and she smiled. "None of us has been staying back." She said it simply, but in her voice there was the justified pride about their long odds. Legolas sighed. That's been what he had feared, too.
"But you've been ordered to do so!" Mardin interjected on the prince's behalf; and in his face both his admiration for what the elvish woman – as a commanding officer – had achieved, and his consternation about the fact she'd done such an unwomanly thing, visibly struggled; and he looked at her as if she might bite.
"Yes!" she said. "We've been told so. By prince Legolas." She gave a sidelong glance to Elrond who seemed to listen with growing unease. "But Lord Elrond had deposed him from his leading role, as you might remember." There was an almost mischiveous triumph in her voice when she continued: "Well, HE didn't give us any order concerning our participation in the war against our mortal enemies." As an afterthought she added: "Not too many of us have fallen." She sounded suddenly sad, though, when she said this, more silent than she'd spoken before, as if she was mentally recalling the faces of those who actually had, and was mourning them.
Now it was Elrond's turn to sigh, but he knew exactly what he owed to the wood elves; and wisely he deciced not to add anything further on this subject.
"That is good." Legolas finally said, but his voice was lifeless, and his eyes started closing again. Merennwen simply nodded her agreement, while trying to hide her sorrow for the prince's obviously bad state, and provocatively bared her teeth to Elrond.
The elvenking sighed again. He'd probably never learn to understand the wood elves. He might didn't even really want to. They only had to live!
And he flashed Merennwen one of his, rather rare, boyish smile, feeling equally boyishly pleased when he noticed that it actually reddened her cheeks to a still darker shade of red.
He smiled again, while starting to give some more orders about the organisation of the recovery of the wounded and death elves.
***
"It's not over yet." a dark voice said behind his back; silently, only meant to be heard by the elvenking himself, and maybe Aragorn. "It's not over yet; and it's of uttermost importance that I speak privately with you, Lord Elrond, as soon as possible."
Gandalf, who'd not moved an inch away from Elrond since the battle had ended, had spoken up; and the hint of fear that could be detected in his usually confident voice was enough to sent a shiver down the elvenking's spine. Not that the wizard would have voiced something that was new to him, but he roused some unacknowleded, and outcrowded foreboding by doing so, and, as if finally released from some invisible chains they pitched into him, like the screekers into the cadavers of the orcs, all around the battlefield.
To be continued...
Author's note: Well I remember telling you that I would update more often... that was about a month ago... I'm sorry about the delay, but this was only because I had to overcome my misery of a severe case of drops in reviews... an about 200% drop (or so, I'm no luminary in maths)...I had to re-read the nice reviews of SpaceVixenX and Tapetum Lucidum and Elise (beta-reading once more, which was quite effort this chapter, I'm afraid. I hope you won't tell my english teachersJ ) a hundred times to get into a proper writing mood...So please, hint, hint, get me more reading stuff... and magically another chapter of this story will appear on the net someday!!! ... wait a minute... there's another review from Hypy as well...I maybe even hit the "fifty-reviews-mark" soon...(author's drifting away with head full of dreams of reviews!!!)
