In the thick of melee, Legolas was abstractly aware of his own people about him, burning with an inner fire like the stars for which they were named, existing in a different plane almost from the races he had come to know in the Fellowship. He had learned respect for mortals whose courage was honed by fear. Their fighting was more akin to orc than elf: broad movements, finesse without grace, battle without beauty, seizing openings with economy however they came to hand. On so dark a night as this, their courage and skill would be sore tested, for without the eyesight of elves, they faced a nightmare struggle against shadows they could barely see. But the men of Rohan had the defense of the keep and the bailey behind the gate; on the Deeping Wall, Legolas was surrounded only by his own kind. His heart was leaping with the flash of the elven-blades beside him, the music of the bows of Lórien undaunted by the lashing rain, and the voices of his fair kindred raised in defiance not song. It awakened in him something that had slept since Rivendell, or perhaps even since the Battle of the Five Armies almost eighty years ago.
Yet Uruk snarls drowned out fair voices, and swift as they were, elves could not dodge arrows, nor did every orc-blade miss its mark. Another defender took the place of the last to fall. Legolas would not have noticed this one more than the rest, but the fighter was small, solidly built, more like one of the sons of men pressed into the desperate siege. He moved swiftly yet unhurriedly, using movement and space itself as if his sword were only an extension of that space. That was an elven trick. He had some knack for turning the treacherous footing, rain-slicked stones that made skidding easier than stopping, to his own advantage. Yet there was something wrong with him, for the force of his blows was weak, and his swordsmanship was more like Gimli's hewing strokes than the controlled arcs of elven blade-work. The fighter's face was familiar. But all this came to Legolas in a moment: his world was balanced between the twang of his bow and the edges of his blades.
Finally there was a lull as he cut through the last orc from the most recent attempt on the walls. The cries of men and orcs, the thud of more ladders hitting the ramparts, and the tumult and confusion of battle were suddenly more dissonant and jarring, now that the play of movement for the elf had briefly come to a standstill. The reek of torches, metal and oil, the living and the dying smote upon his senses. He took a breath through clenched teeth and nocked another arrow. At the same time he spared a concerned glance for the smaller fighter, to learn whether his neighbor was wounded, or whether the host of the Galadrim had admitted inexperienced striplings into its ranks.
It was not a he, and Legolas had seen those intent blue eyes somewhere before. She looked up, fierce delight in the grin she flashed towards him before turning to meet another ladder bearing down on them. The leading orc was carved open between his knives and her sword, before its boots ever reached the flagstones.
Lord Thranduilion, she said with a duck of her chin as she twisted her blade back, around, and down into the the face-grill of the next orc-head that popped over the wall. There was no time for a reply. Aragorn was shouting for Legolas, and a moment later the strange fighter was forgotten as the elf bent his bow to the Dúnedan's will. One shaft punched through the oncoming foe racing towards the foot of the wall below him, carrying a huge sputtering torch that shone with ominous light.
Bring him down, Legolas! Aragorn cried. Dago hon!
Two more arrows found their mark, but the dying creature refused to fall.
Elven hearts are not easily moved to frustration, so it was with detached resignation that Legolas watched his quarry stagger from view into a low culvert in the wall beneath their feet. He did not know what the burning brand portended, but he braced himself. The Deeping Wall exploded. With a shattering roar, huge slabs flew in all directions, and the parapet vanished almost to where he stood. Off to his right, Legolas saw the Ranger fall and strike hard on the stony yard far below.
Gimli's anguished shout on the opposite side of the breach spoke for both of them.
The dwarf simply hurled himself down from the battlements, even as the ruins of the wall came thundering back to earth along with broken men, bits of orc, armor, stone, wood and flame. The unleashed stream concealed both dwarf and man from Legolas' eyes. Through it he could see the dark heaving shapes of orcs flinging themselves against the current, most falling and being carried away, but the strongest beginning to pour through the wall. Then Legolas spotted the swing of Gimli's axe. The dwarf was all but submerged, wading in water and foes surging around him, keeping them back from the spot where the man had fallen. Aragorn's luck still held; dazed but alive he was staggering to his knees.
An orc-shield skittered past Legolas' feet towards the head of the stairway plunging down to the breach. He leapt and rode it down, sending arrows into the tumult around his friends. Living orcs were beaten back by the bodies of his victims, and at the bottom he kicked the shield into the throat of one more. To his right, Aragorn flung himself onto higher ground and turned to face the onslaught. Elf-arrows whistled around him, finding many marks in the tide of orcs spilling through the wall. But Gimli had not followed him, and Legolas had his hands full with Uruk-hai at the foot of the stairs. The Ranger mustered the elves behind him for a counter-charge and met the influx of enemies head on, fighting his way to the side of the hard-pressed dwarf. Elves and Uruks clashed together in the rain, amidst the churning stream, on the ruins of the wall that was already lost. There was blood in the water. Bodies were falling down from above. This only spurred the elves to greater fury, battling with the cold swift precision of the first-born. But they were being pushed back, foot by foot, and every instant they were more outnumbered. Horns from the citadel sounded the retreat.
Gimli and Aragorn hewed a route towards the keep, making an opening for the Galadrim. Legolas, retreating in their wake, picked off what targets he could from the line of orcs swarming the stairs of the broken wall. He was running out of arrows. Aragorn was calling urgently up to Haldir, who was covering for his own people and had not yet left the battlements. Nan barad! Haldir, nan barad! Some of the elves were fighting their way down to the garth. Others, hemmed in, simply jumped from the heights to the Deep where the Uruk-hai were now pouring in. Out of the corner of his eye Legolas saw Haldir stagger, pull a cruel-looking knife out of his arm, and swerve towards the stairs just as an orc rose behind him to sink a sword into his back.
It was a sight the Mirkwood elf would later have time to mourn.
Unfortunately, Aragorn had also seen it and turned back with a cry. He dove through the ranks of orcs and gained the stairs, hacking and shoving foes over the side as he struggled to reach the captain of the Galadrim.
Gimli cursed at Legolas' elbow; they had already reached the foot of the broad stairway leading up to the keep. The last of the elves were sprinting past them, some turning to shower arrows as they headed for the upper level and the defenses of the Hornburg. By now the ground between Gimli and Legolas and the wall was a mass of Uruk-hai.

I know. The elf nocked an arrow and held it, covering Aragorn with disciplined concentration; there was no room for error. He had three shafts left. Gimli planted himself at the elf's knees on the step below and added a few more orcs to his own score. For the moment, most of the Uruk-hai before them were dispatching the gravely wounded or scaling the wall to clear the few remaining defenders.
Aragorn had reached the dying captain. He stooped and pulled Haldir across his knees, oblivious to Théoden shouting down to him from the bailey. Gimli was roaring out numbers while he slew. There now were none left alive in the garth save enemies, and these were beginning to converge upon the unlikely pair at the foot of the keep's stairs, seeing new sport. For Legolas, however, none of this mattered. His mind and instincts were committed solely to the space around Aragorn, its radius defined by the length of one orc arm plus one sword. An Uruk-hai bounding over the uppermost three steps dropped with an arrow through its neck, and another coming over the parapet fell from sight with a gurgling cry. Legolas nocked his last arrow.
There were two or three elves left upon the wall, the small one among them, selling their lives as dearly as they could. But it would take a score of archers with full quivers to gain them any chance of escape, and there was nothing he could do for them. Enemies were pouring through the breach, up the stairs, over the parapet from ladders and siege towers. Gimli was still keeping them at bay— he was not shouting his count any longer— but any moment they would be overwhelmed. So would Aragorn. Legolas patiently held the feathers against his lips, waiting until the last instant to select his target from among far too many.
Aragorn, Tolo dad. I gaim aran ú-nestathar chery bain.*
Aragorn looked over the edge, seized the top of a ladder, and rode it down with a frenzied cry, crushing orcs below him as he came down. Legolas loosed his final arrow into the fray above, then unsheathed knives and joined Gimli in clearing a path for him. The three with the dwarf last of all raced for the Hornburg, up the long stairs, along the narrow parapet clinging to the cliff at the base of the tower, and into the bailey. Doors and portcullis slammed down behind them, sealing the outer ring-wall.
The three hunters exchanged grim glances.
Not lightly do the leaves of Lórien fall, Legolas murmured, echoing something the Ranger had said during their long travels together.
There was a crash of breaking wood below them, and the stones beneath their feet shuddered. The causeway-gate was giving way. Aragorn gave a shout and charged down to the lower level, the courtyard behind the gate, where Théoden's spearmen were doing all within their power to fend off the orcs from the splintered beams.
Gimli grumbled under his breath. Curse his luck; you rabbits nearly left me behind back there.
The key is breathing, Legolas told him.
The dwarf snorted and headed after Aragorn.
When the elf heard the Dúnedan's offer to take a stand before the gate until men could brace it, Legolas turned back to join the other defenders on the parapet overlooking the causeway. His friends would need a means back inside unless they meant to stand before the doors until they were slain. And if that was their intent, he would need a way down to them.
While searching for a stout rope, Legolas finally remembered where he had last glimpsed the woman on the wall.
It had been the Fellowship's first night in the hidden heart of Lórien. She had been perched in the graceful spiral of a hanging staircase that was cradled in the branches of a mallorn tree on the far side of the glade. Her knees were tucked against herself, arms and elven-cloak draped loosely around them; her face was in shadow. Every line of her body seemed to melt into the curve of the railings and the tree behind her, and if she'd had more height and grace, he might have mistaken her for one of the austere figures carved in wood that were suspended here and there in the forest. She had been leaning forward, listening to the lament for Mithrandir as if she were breathing it, utterly engrossed in the haunting echoes of the singing trees. While he was taking note of her, she had suddenly glanced down as if searching for something, and he'd caught the glint of blue eyes. At the time he had taken her for an elf-maid. Now he had strange doubts.
They did not matter any longer.
Aragorn and Gimli were fighting for their lives some twenty feet below him, and his quiver was spent. Orcs were falling off the causeway on every side, and even the fighting Uruk-hai, monstrous giants compared to the goblins they had dealt with in the past, were loathe to close with the enraged dwarf and grim-handed son of kings. Down in the Coomb itself, Legolas could see heavy machines being wheeled forward, ballistas carrying giant iron hooks instead of bolts, and behind them the orcs were assembling siege-towers on the ground. The screams of enemies and the dying hammered the walls like great fists. Yet some men still lived to defend the Hornburg, and his task was keeping it that way.
He needed more arrows.

*(Aragorn, come down. The hands of a king will not heal all wounds.)