Oh dear. Does time really go by that fast? School's been eating so much of my time that I didn't notice until it had been more than a month since I updated. Regardless, this is actually the third version of this chapter I've written. I got about halfway done with the first one and hated it, a page into the second and scrapped that, and then there's this one. Thankfully, I like this one a great deal better, even though it took me forever to write.
I hate having to scroll all the way down to the bottom of a page to see what something means, so the translation of any Elvish will be somewhere close by to the Elvish itself.
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Chapter Five: A Howling in the Midst
In all directions, he could hear wolves howling. It had been going on for what seemed like forever now. They were everywhere, the wolves. He knew that around him, the eight other Walkers were afraid. Some, like Aragorn, quelled it, while the little periain were visibly shaking. Legolas could hear them whispering to each other, their hushed voices a sharp contrast to the ceaseless howling.
Perhaps, if what howled in the darkness were wolves in truth, the Hobbits' fear would not have been so great. Aragorn and Boromir certainly would not fear mere wolves, nor would the presence of such wildlife (for they were only wildlife indeed, in comparison) worry Mithrandir. But these were Wargs, fierce and terrible and foul, and all sane creatures feared them. Legolas Greenleaf was not afraid.
As the howling rose around them, so did memory.
[periain: hobbits]
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"Estel! Estel, where are you going? That's the wrong way!"
The sudden silence that followed Elladan's call was followed by hoofbeats, but this time coming towards the group, instead of headed away. The fog was thick, and even the three Elves who waited for their errant friend could not see very far in it. As such, it was a few moments before Aragorn came into their view, his dark bay mare trotting happily back through the mud to the huddled ring of her stablemates. The wind whipped hard around them, blowing their manes and tails in all directions like tangled, damp ribbons. Their riders were not much better off, and periodically a hood would blow back to reveal delicately pointed ears and long hair. Two of the faces revealed by the attentions of the wind were remarkably similar, both with dark hair that was striking, even wet and wind-blown. The other was markedly different, and though the rain had darkened his hair, it was still considerably lighter than that of his comrades'.
Once the stray horse and rider had joined the circle of their companions, it was clear that he had long since given up completely on keeping his hood up, and surrendered himself to a drenching. He pushed back the hair that clung to his face, looking at his dark-haired brothers and their friend through incredulous blue eyes.
"What're you three playing at this time? Mist or no, I know my way home, and this isn't it."
Elladan and Elrohir managed to look affronted, and voiced their protests at the same time.
"Estel! When have we ever given you reason to doubt our integrity?"
"We're not playing at anything, little brother! Gwestam!"
[gwestam: we swear]
Aragorn only raised his eyebrow, skepticism growing by leaps and bounds. He turned to the other Elf for help.
"Legolas? What's going on?"
The individual in question grinned, reaching over to give him a reassuring pat on the shoulder.
"Did your brothers forget to tell you, then? You're not going home. You three are coming with me, east over the Hithaeglir."
[Hithaeglir: the Misty Mountains]
Legolas got the feeling that if the young Man hadn't been on a horse, he would have been jumping up and down, and most likely yelling, at that. Well, he still could have yelled, but apparently he'd thought better of it.
"You mean to Mirkwood? We're going to Mirkwood?"
Legolas laughed, caught up in this almost childlike outburst.
"Yes, to Mirkwood. To my home. And if we stay here any longer, your brothers will be sleeping in warm beds with good wine in their stomachs while we are here wasting away to mist ourselves."
As he spoke, the hoofbeats of the twins' horses were rapidly moving out of hearing. Swept up in his own excitement, Aragorn had failed to notice their departure. Laughing as much at himself as in anticipation of the days ahead, he spurred his mare after his brothers, disappearing into the mist after them. The youngest member of Thranduil's brood watched him fade away before beginning his own pursuit. Being the straggler for now didn't bother him. Besides, he knew a shortcut.
--
The passing of a few days found them on the western side of the Anduin, camped under an overhanging rock. The weather had yet to improve, and Legolas didn't need to look to know that the rain was falling sideways. Even so, it didn't seem to have dampened Aragorn's spirits in the least. He'd never been to Mirkwood before, which meant that the youth was more than eager. Come to think of it, Legolas couldn't for the life of him remember how old Aragorn was. He never had been able to tell for certain the age of Men just by looking at them. So he asked Elladan instead, and got laughed at.
"Haven't you asked this before? He's nineteen."
"Sorry, I'd forgotten again. I'll try to remember this time."
Elladan just rolled his eyes at him, then went back to watching the rain fall. Somewhere out in the downpour was Aragorn, who had yet to learn to sit still, apparently. The Elves had let him go; it was his own fault if (when) he came back cold and sniffling. The three of them sat there in silence for some time, glad to be under their rocky shelter, all of them thinking pretty much the same thing: was Estel insane?
At first, when they heard a shout, they paid it no heed. The wanderer had probably done something befitting his questionable state of mind. When they heard it again, louder this time, they paid attention. They were up and on their feet in a moment, taking off in the direction of the sound. Branches whipped his face as Legolas sprinted through the trees, just ahead of his friends (he'd always been just a little bit faster). It was only a short time before he broke through one last ring of trees and underbrush and into a clearing, skidding to halt in the mud. His heart had been racing before, but now it skipped a beat.
Several yards away Aragorn was on the ground, pressed up against a tree, clutching a dagger dripping with blood and rainwater in his hand. Snarling in front of him was a Warg, an adolescent by its size, but still a very large, very dangerous one. Even at this distance he could smell it, reeking of wet fur and the decaying flesh of its one-time prey. Blood ran down its leg from a wound in its shoulder, mixing with mud and water once it reached the ground. Made deaf and blind by its single-minded desire to kill and devour the creature before it, it took no notice of Legolas, giving him an opening he couldn't miss. Knowing the shot would be an easy one, the lone Elf reached for his bow.
Only to discover that in his hurry, he had left it behind. His quiver of arrows lay on his back, but his bow lay propped against the rock under which they had made their camp. With a sinking heart he heard the Warg's snarling grow louder, and watched it crouch lower in preparation to lunge. In a moment of desperation, he did the only thing he could think of, grabbing an arrow and throwing it with all his might. While the tumbling projectile didn't so much as nick the thick hide, it hit with enough force to turn the beast's attention from Aragorn to Legolas. It whirled to face him, and he was unfortunate enough to get an even worse whiff of the foul odor that permeated the air around the creature.
The archer was no stranger to Wargs, but for the very first time he found himself face to face with one. He could feel it breathing hotly in his face, smell the carrion on its breath. Yet it was the eyes that made him shudder, awakening an inescapable terror from within him. It was not the wild gaze of a wolf that held him rooted to the ground, but the mad eyes of a killer that stared into his own and held him entranced, weaving a spell of bloodlust and instinct and rage, senseless and unadulterated.
It was then, when time had all but stopped, that he became vaguely aware of someone yelling, but he pushed the sound away, trapped in a spell he had no power to break. In the end, Aragorn was the one to break the spell cast upon the Elf by the beast and the terror it had unleashed in his mind. Still detached from reality, he watched the Warg go down under the human, keening in pain and anger as its former prey stabbed it again and again, until finally it moved no more. Panting, covered from head to toe in mud, his savior knelt by the lifeless corpse, eyes half-closed as he tried to collect himself.
The sight shook the last remnants of fog from Legolas' mind, and he walked over to stand in front of the one who had saved his life. He reached down to offer his hand to help up the other, who looked up and spoke with all seriousness.
"You shouldn't have done that, you know."
Legolas just chuckled and gripped Aragorn's hand, pulling him to his feet and slinging his arm around his friend's shoulder and mimicking his usually casual speech.
"Aww, c'mon, Estel! Elrond would've killed me if I let anything happen to you. I helped you purely out of self-interest."
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More than half a century later, it was beginning to look like he and Aragorn might again come face to face with a Warg. This time, though, there were many, and they were all fully-grown. Now he stood next to his friend, and the heat he felt was from the fire at his back, in the center of a ring of stones and old trees. This poor defense at the top of a hill was little comfort for the Fellowship, who watched the darkness with wary eyes.
Legolas closed his own eyes, listening to the howls of the Wargs who circled around them in the night. He felt himself swept up in their music, in their songs of darkness and desire, of a hunger for blood that surpassed all else. As the howling rose to a crescendo, so too did the darkness rise in the prince's heart, joining in the chorus sung by the assassins of the night, and he was powerless to stop it. His awareness dwindled until only the howls mattered, the voices of the pack calling to him across the clouded darkness.
Brother? was their question to him.
Join us! was their command.
You are one of us! Why do you stay in that pack of quivering dogs? Come, for we are your pack! Leave them! Leave them and come to us, brother!
Legolas, breathing heavily although he knew not why, was brought from his reverie by one howl that rose above the rest, calling the pack to gather, to begin their assault of the hilltop and its defenders. For the second time in his life he looked into the eyes a Warg, and the eyes of this, their leader, were of no compare. They drew him in and called to him as the howling had, willing him to take his place in the pack. This time, there was no one to yell, no one who knew he fought. Somehow, despite the force of the pack-leader's will against his own, he managed to raise his bow, to ready the arrow with which he could slay this beast. The eyes that bore into his soul narrowed, a mocking snarl challenged him to do what he could not, for he was but a pup, and incapable of such a thing. Legolas' eyes never left those of the creature that stood before him, even as he took aim. He said something, then, that no one could hear. No one but the leader, who lunged forward, and fell heavily to the earth with an arrow embedded in his throat.
The pack went silent, the tension in the night air was dispelled. No notice was taken of the archer's shuddering breath of relief, as no notice had been taken of his whispered words. As he watched the blood pool on the ground, he repeated them to himself, trying to tell himself that they were true.
"Ûnach nín gwador."
[ûnach nín gwador: you are not my brother]
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.endchapter.
Please don't kill me if my Elvish was off, I really did try to get it right.
Umm. Wow. That took me forever to get the way I wanted it, not counting the other versions. I had about half of it done when I started typing it, but it still took forever. I don't know why I had such a hard time with this one…I'm much happier with it than with the last chapter, so that's a plus. For once, something came out the way I wanted it to. Still, there are only so many nouns I can think of for Legolas, Aragorn, and Warg(s).
Loopy Lu: Hehe, that's not a bad guess at all. It's not right, but it is one of the ideas that I played with. It just didn't work right, though.
Alynna Lis Eachann: Thankoo! Sorry for the wait on this one.
Hidden: Umm, thanks…
onewhohastoomuchtime: Well, here's the next installment for you ^^. Still nice and evil, I hope?