Chapter 3 - The Trees May Bud, The Waters Run
Sitting at his large dinning table, chewing on a piece of bread, King Thranduil sat pouring over official documents with a frown on his face. As his eyes skimmed over the black, ink letters on the curling paper, the lines of concentration on his forehead deepened. Idly, the king took another bite of his bread, the roll resting in his hand as it sprinkled crumbs on another important looking letter, although the second letter was still sealed with dark red wax. Still concentrating on his letter, a cause for much concern, Thranduil brushed away the crumbs. Well, to be accurate he actually brushed his hand through the air a few inches above the stray crumbs, but he did not realise how far out his aim was. He looked up as the great door opened and Oroweth walked in, trailed by Thellind. He smiled lovingly at them, and then turned his attention back to the letter as the two princes sat down.
After a few moments of silence, Thranduil looked up again. His crown of woodland flowers threatened to slip off his head, but he carefully pushed it back up to the top of his head again. The white flowers that were woven together to make this unusual crown were plucked from the forest floor, and the merry coloured buds were taken from the large trees that made up his realm.
"Will you not eat?" he asked
"Adar. . . there is no food on the table. You brought the bread from your study, after failing to eat it at breakfast."
With a confused frown, the king looked at the table. Indeed, his son was correct. The only food in the room was the crust of bread he held in his hand. Thranduil blinked with surprise, and then looked down at the letters and official documents in his place.
"Perhaps you ought to rest, adar. You have not stopped working for weeks!"
In reply, Thranduil shook his head, his golden hair shaking like the river Anduin when sun shone down on it in the middle of the summer. He held out the letter in his hand to Oroweth and the picked up the next one and opened the dark red seal with a sharp flick of the knife laying in wait to spread butter over bread.
"Old King Dorlas has informed me that his grandchildren have been kidnapped not long ago. At least, that is how it would seem. They were playing in the fields one day, and then they just disappeared. Not a trace of them has been found since. He suspects a group of Dwarves who had been resting in the town on their way to Moria." Here, the king sniffed disdainfully. "I do not doubt his words. Dwarves are disgusting creatures; the scum of the earth."
With similar expressions of disgust on their faces, Oroweth and Thellind sniffed, their fair faces turning sour at the thought of the stubby miners. Not one of the royal family cared for Dwarves in any shape or form, and the two races rarely conversed or traded. King Thranduil had his own smiths to cut gems.
"Do you think they have anything to do with the poachers, adar?" asked Oroweth after another few moments. Finishing off the bread and brushing the crumbs off the papers scattered around him, the king thought about it.
"Most likely. I wonder how close Culkemen has come to finding them."
At this remark, Oroweth and Thellind looked at each other guiltily, and then looked away. Nervously, Thellind fiddled with the cutlery laid out in his place as they waited for the food to come and supply a change of subject. If not a change of subject, then at least a distraction. As yet, Thranduil still had absolutely no idea that three of his sons had made a valiant escape attempt and were currently traipsing around the dark forest. Thranduil looked up from the new letter and looked around, as if suddenly realising something.
"Have the others decided not to grace us with their company again?" he asked. Prince Oroweth bit his lip and looked at his younger brother nervously. Under the gaze of his parent, he squirmed uncomfortably. Sensing that something was being hidden from him, Thranduil carefully laid down his letter and clasped his hands together, his elbows resting on the heavy, ancient table. He narrowed his eyes at Oroweth and Thellind, sat directly opposite him.
"Where are they?"
In a rush, Thranduil got the required answer.
"I am sorry adar, but last night when I told you they were not hungry, I was not being entirely truthful. Well, I was not lying, because they were not hungry, but that was not the reason they did not come and join us." He paused, beads of sweat appearing on his noble brow under the pressure of the glare of the king. "You see. . . they have. . . that is. . . they choose. . . they are not quite here."
"Not. . . quite. . . here? Oroweth, I fear that in my old age the language must be have changed considerably to the way I spoke in my youth. You see, as I understand it, you are telling me that four of my sons are only partly here. How can anybody be partly in one place, and yet partly in another? Would you care to elaborate?"
It was at this point that Oroweth wished he could be more like Thellind, never speaking a word. Although, he considered, that would be little help as Thranduil would just give him a piece of paper and a pen. Perhaps he ought to have escaped to the forest with Culkemen. . .
"Astaler is following three of his novices, I think Luinorn said."
"And the others?"
The glare that emitted from the other side of the table would have made Gandalf wither. The sudden drop in temperature would have suggested that, had Oroweth and Thellind not known better, they were in the middle of winter and surrounded by deep drifts of ice and snow. They shivered, and Oroweth gulped as Thellind looked away. The eldest of the two would never have thought that breaking the news to his father would be so difficult.
"Well, adar, they are. . ." he paused and squeezed his eyes tightly shut, "they told Culkemen that you said they could go with her to find the poachers."
His teeth bit down on his lip as the prince waited for the explosion, his eye lids still squeezed shut with so much force that they may as well have been glued together with sap from a tree. Instead of the expected explosion, all Oroweth heard was a small whimper. With a shade of terror, he prised open one eyelid. After realising that he was probably not in any immediate danger, he opened his other eye.
Across the table, Thranduil was staring at him with wide open eyes, a startlingly white face that would have made snow seem like a dark grey, his lips pursed together as though he had eaten something sour, and his nostrils flared with horror. His hands were clutched in to fists, completely crumpling the letter he was holding, and his knuckles were a similar shade to his face.
"My sons are in the forest?"
Oroweth nodded, slowly.
"With Culkemen?"
Again, the prince nodded.
"Searching for poachers?"
Another nod.
"Where there are giant, Elf eating spiders, wolves, wargs and other similar, unfriendly creatures?"
Nod.
There was a long, drawn out silence, and then Thranduil shut his eyes tightly. Thellind and Oroweth looked at each other, wide eyed. Each was as scared as the other. By mutual, silent agreement, the pair slid their chairs away from the table and got up to leave as quickly as possible. They would be able to get some food later, if they became hungry, but neither wanted to be in the presence of their father when he was upset like this. They were half way to the door, careful not to turn their back on Thranduil, when the king spoke.
"What must I do to keep my sons safe?" his voice was no more than a whisper, yet it was so full of emotion and pain that it struck the two princes like a dagger through the heart. He shook his head sadly, as a glistening tear fell from his eye. He looked up at a picture that hung on the wall; his dead beloved, queen Imlammthien.
"Ah, my love, am I such a terrible adar that my sons want nothing more than to run away from me? I am sorry, my sweet, I am so sorry. Have I failed you, as well as them? Was it so wrong to keep them cooped up here, like twittering little birds in a cage, desperate to be free? What am I to do?"
"Adar. . . ?" Oroweth began to speak, but the king cut him off by standing up with a swift movement and the swish of his dark green robes, and the issue of an order.
"Go and find Silnan, and tell him to assemble twenty warriors. We are going out after my sons, and we will bring them back."
~~*~~*~~*~~*~~**~**~**~**~**~~*~~*~~*~~*~~
In the dark grey shadows that indicated day time in Mirkwood, a shadow moved in the tree tops, darker than the other shadows around it. A lonely ray of sunlight pierced the canopy as the leaves rustled, and they caught sight of a bright, blue eye. An Elven eye, belonging to a young novice. As quickly as it had appeared, the ray of light was expelled from the forest again as the leaves above the novice swayed. On the branches, small buds and newly opened flowers rested, feasting upon what little light the grey shadows of day offered.
The previous night, the three novices had not got very far in the pitch blackness. They had nimbly made their way along the upper branches, occasionally catching a glimpse of the sliver of moon that shone brightly, and here and there being twinkled at by stars piercing the thick layer of spring leaves. Wisely, they had decided that Mirkwood forest at night time was bad enough and that they would wait until the morning; going to the thorn thicket that they were headed for would be downright foolish, considering the creatures that stalked that area of the forest at night.
Now, the three novices had been travelling since first light and they were hungry. Very hungry, as they had not taken any food with them when sneaking out of the gate. Why would they? Master Astaler had hinted that, perhaps they ought to, but they had not remembered to bring anything. At last, Caranthon stopped and flopped down on the branch she was sitting on.
"I need food."
Celrin nodded in agreement as Squirrel peered in to the darkness, watching out for unfriendly eyes.
"I need water."
From his vantage point in the next tree, Squirrel paused thoughtfully, trying to remember something.
"There is a stream not too far away, I think. Do you remember that little trickle we found last summer? Well, as it has been raining recently, I think it would have swelled in size. We could go and get water from that."
At this, his two friends perked up. In the lower branches, not too far away, but completely hidden from view, Astaler smiled to himself. The more he watched the three novices, the more promise of good warriors he saw.
"I think it is only half a mile away," said Caranthon, thinking hopefully about the stream. The stream that they were all thinking of was not shown on any maps - it was far too small. It sprang up in the rocky grounds to the south, winding around the forest in hardly known twists and turns, and then eventually joined the forest river away to the north. As ideas went, this one seemed perfect.
With a quick change of direction, the novices headed of on a tangent in a different direction. Behind them, Astaler followed, moving quickly and silently through the tall, ancient trees. The prince wondered vaguely if he would be in trouble with his father for leaving the novice training grounds, but then he banished the thought from his mind and relished the feeling of freedom, not knowing that elsewhere in the forest three of his brothers were feeling exactly the same.
~~*~~*~~*~~*~~**~**~**~**~**~~*~~*~~*~~*~~
The band of warriors had stopped once, not long before dawn, before they carried on with their long march again. When they had stopped, Anoreg had revealed to the princes that he had, in fact, known full well that they were out of bounds and breaking the rules laid down by the king. Gratefully Legolas, Nuryävié and Nilwethion thanked him many times for not giving away their escape attempt to the king. Anoreg had simply shrugged and told that, if he was in their place, he would have made an escape attempt long ago. Not that he blamed the king for his actions; being a parent himself, he would do anything to protect his children from harm, even though they were fully grown warriors, including shutting them away if necessary.
The three princes were now marching along next to Culkemen, listening eagerly to everything she had to say. She told them all the little details of the mission that the princes had not known. Capture not kill, for instance. Apparently king Thranduil wanted to question them before deciding their fate.
"We are not far away from the place where the first traps were found," Culkemen said suddenly. Legolas looked around at his surroundings. To a stranger, this part of the forest looked no different to the rest. The twisted boughs, buds threatening to burst open in to flowers on the branches, soft earth covered in brambles trying to catch at leggings, sad skeletons of last years leaves in the process of rotting away and the lack of sunlight all looked practically identical to a spot twenty miles away, but the Elves could tell the difference. The warriors of Mirkwood all knew the forest better than the backs of their hands. The slope of the land, the formation of the trees and the twists in their branches and the chattering of squirrels and birds were all clues as to where they were.
"This close to where we live?" asked Legolas, surprise echoing in the tone of his voice. Culkemen nodded her agreement
"Whatever race these poachers are, they are certainly stupid. I suspect the Dwarves."
Legolas and his two brothers sniggered. Their opinion of Dwarves was no higher than their fathers was. If possible, it was lower. Like most of their race, they believed Dwarves to be stupid, ugly creatures that were stumpy and useful for little. As far as Legolas was concerned, all Dwarves should stay hidden away in their mines and not come out to create an eyesore.
The warriors entered a small clearing. Around the far edge, there were so many brambles and tangles not even a young rabbit could find a path through without its coat being caught and snagging on thorn after thorn. In the centre of the clearing, a few small patches of light had somehow managed to filter through the trees and was now dancing on the earth, encouraging small, hardy flowers to grow. Across one of these patches lay a rabbit, half in and half out of the sun. It was dead. It's neck was broken, ensnared in a trap, and cold blood staining the taught string.
It was the first dead thing that the princes had seen for years on end, and Legolas was suddenly hit with the disturbing thought that death and freedom were entwined. Culkemen shook her head sadly.
"Well, I did not expect them to return to this spot," she said after a moment. Some of the other warriors nodded their agreement, muttering curses aimed at the poachers. One of them, Ennyntaur, bent down over the dead form of the rabbit. After studying it for a couple of seconds, he looked up again.
"It is fresh," he informed the warriors, "I think it was killed sometime late last night, or early this morning."
Culkemen strode over to the pathetic form of the dead creature and, almost immediately agreed with him, judging the death to have been around dawn.
"It is likely that the poachers will come along soon to collect their 'winnings'" she said thoughtfully, "Ennyntaur, I want you to stay here Narbeleth, Novemyn, Hirilmir and Dúlain. Watch for the poachers. When they make an appearance, follow them but do not make them aware of your presence. If they lay down any more traps then wait until they have all gone then make sure the traps are disabled and unable to harm any creatures unfortunate enough to cross their paths. We will go and see if there are many more traps in the area."
The five Elves nodded and swiftly climbed up a tree, melting in to the shadows out of sight. It did not take long for the Elves on the ground to find tracks left by the poachers, and they had departed within a matter of minutes.
~~*~~*~~*~~*~~**~**~**~**~**~~*~~*~~*~~*~~
With a delighted laugh Squirrel, Caranthon and Celrin found their stream. As Squirrel had guessed, the recent rainfall had made the stream swell. They ran up to the trickling water and knelt down next to it, then scooped the clear, cool water in to their hands and tipped it in to their thirsty mouths. In the shadows, Astaler grinned to himself. His earlier assumptions had been correct. The young Elves, even though they were not yet fully grown, would definitely make good warriors one day. He carefully noted how they scooped the water in to their hands first, instead of lowering their heads to the stream to drink. Good. They would be much more aware of their surroundings, and would not swallow anything unsavoury like a water bug.
The novices filled their flasks, laughing and chattering as their thirst had been quenched, though they were still hungry. Suddenly, Squirrel saw something that made him blink. He stood up, his knees and shins now muddy, and jumped over the small stream. Caranthon and Celrin stopped their insistent chatter and followed his lead. They looked down at the bank of the stream, and frowned.
They were not the first visitors to the stream that day.
~~*~~*~~*~~*~~**~**~**~**~**~~*~~*~~*~~*~~
A/N: Even more new characters! All of them mine, so please don't take them. Not that they've done much yet. . . although Ennyntaur did have a little cameo in Princes of Mirkwood.
Again, I'm wondering if anybody knows where the title came from. Nobody even tried to guess the last one. Clue: they're from the same place. Exactly the same place. Kudos and cookies if anybody manages to guess it. Heck, even a guess would be good, even if it's further from the answer than the Vogons are from writing good poetry!
REVIEW REPLY THINGY
SILVERKNIGHT7 ~ Yes, the king did find out that his sons had gone. Yes, I am very naught leaving a cliffy like that. I've left another one.
ORODRUIN ~ Ah, you know me too well! The novices and the princes are going to meet up eventually. . . but under what circumstances? You can bet they won't be happy ones, what with me writing the fic!
LYN ~ Thank you for pointing out the mistakes; I wouldn't have realised I'd made them otherwise. Are there any I've missed this chapter?
Sitting at his large dinning table, chewing on a piece of bread, King Thranduil sat pouring over official documents with a frown on his face. As his eyes skimmed over the black, ink letters on the curling paper, the lines of concentration on his forehead deepened. Idly, the king took another bite of his bread, the roll resting in his hand as it sprinkled crumbs on another important looking letter, although the second letter was still sealed with dark red wax. Still concentrating on his letter, a cause for much concern, Thranduil brushed away the crumbs. Well, to be accurate he actually brushed his hand through the air a few inches above the stray crumbs, but he did not realise how far out his aim was. He looked up as the great door opened and Oroweth walked in, trailed by Thellind. He smiled lovingly at them, and then turned his attention back to the letter as the two princes sat down.
After a few moments of silence, Thranduil looked up again. His crown of woodland flowers threatened to slip off his head, but he carefully pushed it back up to the top of his head again. The white flowers that were woven together to make this unusual crown were plucked from the forest floor, and the merry coloured buds were taken from the large trees that made up his realm.
"Will you not eat?" he asked
"Adar. . . there is no food on the table. You brought the bread from your study, after failing to eat it at breakfast."
With a confused frown, the king looked at the table. Indeed, his son was correct. The only food in the room was the crust of bread he held in his hand. Thranduil blinked with surprise, and then looked down at the letters and official documents in his place.
"Perhaps you ought to rest, adar. You have not stopped working for weeks!"
In reply, Thranduil shook his head, his golden hair shaking like the river Anduin when sun shone down on it in the middle of the summer. He held out the letter in his hand to Oroweth and the picked up the next one and opened the dark red seal with a sharp flick of the knife laying in wait to spread butter over bread.
"Old King Dorlas has informed me that his grandchildren have been kidnapped not long ago. At least, that is how it would seem. They were playing in the fields one day, and then they just disappeared. Not a trace of them has been found since. He suspects a group of Dwarves who had been resting in the town on their way to Moria." Here, the king sniffed disdainfully. "I do not doubt his words. Dwarves are disgusting creatures; the scum of the earth."
With similar expressions of disgust on their faces, Oroweth and Thellind sniffed, their fair faces turning sour at the thought of the stubby miners. Not one of the royal family cared for Dwarves in any shape or form, and the two races rarely conversed or traded. King Thranduil had his own smiths to cut gems.
"Do you think they have anything to do with the poachers, adar?" asked Oroweth after another few moments. Finishing off the bread and brushing the crumbs off the papers scattered around him, the king thought about it.
"Most likely. I wonder how close Culkemen has come to finding them."
At this remark, Oroweth and Thellind looked at each other guiltily, and then looked away. Nervously, Thellind fiddled with the cutlery laid out in his place as they waited for the food to come and supply a change of subject. If not a change of subject, then at least a distraction. As yet, Thranduil still had absolutely no idea that three of his sons had made a valiant escape attempt and were currently traipsing around the dark forest. Thranduil looked up from the new letter and looked around, as if suddenly realising something.
"Have the others decided not to grace us with their company again?" he asked. Prince Oroweth bit his lip and looked at his younger brother nervously. Under the gaze of his parent, he squirmed uncomfortably. Sensing that something was being hidden from him, Thranduil carefully laid down his letter and clasped his hands together, his elbows resting on the heavy, ancient table. He narrowed his eyes at Oroweth and Thellind, sat directly opposite him.
"Where are they?"
In a rush, Thranduil got the required answer.
"I am sorry adar, but last night when I told you they were not hungry, I was not being entirely truthful. Well, I was not lying, because they were not hungry, but that was not the reason they did not come and join us." He paused, beads of sweat appearing on his noble brow under the pressure of the glare of the king. "You see. . . they have. . . that is. . . they choose. . . they are not quite here."
"Not. . . quite. . . here? Oroweth, I fear that in my old age the language must be have changed considerably to the way I spoke in my youth. You see, as I understand it, you are telling me that four of my sons are only partly here. How can anybody be partly in one place, and yet partly in another? Would you care to elaborate?"
It was at this point that Oroweth wished he could be more like Thellind, never speaking a word. Although, he considered, that would be little help as Thranduil would just give him a piece of paper and a pen. Perhaps he ought to have escaped to the forest with Culkemen. . .
"Astaler is following three of his novices, I think Luinorn said."
"And the others?"
The glare that emitted from the other side of the table would have made Gandalf wither. The sudden drop in temperature would have suggested that, had Oroweth and Thellind not known better, they were in the middle of winter and surrounded by deep drifts of ice and snow. They shivered, and Oroweth gulped as Thellind looked away. The eldest of the two would never have thought that breaking the news to his father would be so difficult.
"Well, adar, they are. . ." he paused and squeezed his eyes tightly shut, "they told Culkemen that you said they could go with her to find the poachers."
His teeth bit down on his lip as the prince waited for the explosion, his eye lids still squeezed shut with so much force that they may as well have been glued together with sap from a tree. Instead of the expected explosion, all Oroweth heard was a small whimper. With a shade of terror, he prised open one eyelid. After realising that he was probably not in any immediate danger, he opened his other eye.
Across the table, Thranduil was staring at him with wide open eyes, a startlingly white face that would have made snow seem like a dark grey, his lips pursed together as though he had eaten something sour, and his nostrils flared with horror. His hands were clutched in to fists, completely crumpling the letter he was holding, and his knuckles were a similar shade to his face.
"My sons are in the forest?"
Oroweth nodded, slowly.
"With Culkemen?"
Again, the prince nodded.
"Searching for poachers?"
Another nod.
"Where there are giant, Elf eating spiders, wolves, wargs and other similar, unfriendly creatures?"
Nod.
There was a long, drawn out silence, and then Thranduil shut his eyes tightly. Thellind and Oroweth looked at each other, wide eyed. Each was as scared as the other. By mutual, silent agreement, the pair slid their chairs away from the table and got up to leave as quickly as possible. They would be able to get some food later, if they became hungry, but neither wanted to be in the presence of their father when he was upset like this. They were half way to the door, careful not to turn their back on Thranduil, when the king spoke.
"What must I do to keep my sons safe?" his voice was no more than a whisper, yet it was so full of emotion and pain that it struck the two princes like a dagger through the heart. He shook his head sadly, as a glistening tear fell from his eye. He looked up at a picture that hung on the wall; his dead beloved, queen Imlammthien.
"Ah, my love, am I such a terrible adar that my sons want nothing more than to run away from me? I am sorry, my sweet, I am so sorry. Have I failed you, as well as them? Was it so wrong to keep them cooped up here, like twittering little birds in a cage, desperate to be free? What am I to do?"
"Adar. . . ?" Oroweth began to speak, but the king cut him off by standing up with a swift movement and the swish of his dark green robes, and the issue of an order.
"Go and find Silnan, and tell him to assemble twenty warriors. We are going out after my sons, and we will bring them back."
~~*~~*~~*~~*~~**~**~**~**~**~~*~~*~~*~~*~~
In the dark grey shadows that indicated day time in Mirkwood, a shadow moved in the tree tops, darker than the other shadows around it. A lonely ray of sunlight pierced the canopy as the leaves rustled, and they caught sight of a bright, blue eye. An Elven eye, belonging to a young novice. As quickly as it had appeared, the ray of light was expelled from the forest again as the leaves above the novice swayed. On the branches, small buds and newly opened flowers rested, feasting upon what little light the grey shadows of day offered.
The previous night, the three novices had not got very far in the pitch blackness. They had nimbly made their way along the upper branches, occasionally catching a glimpse of the sliver of moon that shone brightly, and here and there being twinkled at by stars piercing the thick layer of spring leaves. Wisely, they had decided that Mirkwood forest at night time was bad enough and that they would wait until the morning; going to the thorn thicket that they were headed for would be downright foolish, considering the creatures that stalked that area of the forest at night.
Now, the three novices had been travelling since first light and they were hungry. Very hungry, as they had not taken any food with them when sneaking out of the gate. Why would they? Master Astaler had hinted that, perhaps they ought to, but they had not remembered to bring anything. At last, Caranthon stopped and flopped down on the branch she was sitting on.
"I need food."
Celrin nodded in agreement as Squirrel peered in to the darkness, watching out for unfriendly eyes.
"I need water."
From his vantage point in the next tree, Squirrel paused thoughtfully, trying to remember something.
"There is a stream not too far away, I think. Do you remember that little trickle we found last summer? Well, as it has been raining recently, I think it would have swelled in size. We could go and get water from that."
At this, his two friends perked up. In the lower branches, not too far away, but completely hidden from view, Astaler smiled to himself. The more he watched the three novices, the more promise of good warriors he saw.
"I think it is only half a mile away," said Caranthon, thinking hopefully about the stream. The stream that they were all thinking of was not shown on any maps - it was far too small. It sprang up in the rocky grounds to the south, winding around the forest in hardly known twists and turns, and then eventually joined the forest river away to the north. As ideas went, this one seemed perfect.
With a quick change of direction, the novices headed of on a tangent in a different direction. Behind them, Astaler followed, moving quickly and silently through the tall, ancient trees. The prince wondered vaguely if he would be in trouble with his father for leaving the novice training grounds, but then he banished the thought from his mind and relished the feeling of freedom, not knowing that elsewhere in the forest three of his brothers were feeling exactly the same.
~~*~~*~~*~~*~~**~**~**~**~**~~*~~*~~*~~*~~
The band of warriors had stopped once, not long before dawn, before they carried on with their long march again. When they had stopped, Anoreg had revealed to the princes that he had, in fact, known full well that they were out of bounds and breaking the rules laid down by the king. Gratefully Legolas, Nuryävié and Nilwethion thanked him many times for not giving away their escape attempt to the king. Anoreg had simply shrugged and told that, if he was in their place, he would have made an escape attempt long ago. Not that he blamed the king for his actions; being a parent himself, he would do anything to protect his children from harm, even though they were fully grown warriors, including shutting them away if necessary.
The three princes were now marching along next to Culkemen, listening eagerly to everything she had to say. She told them all the little details of the mission that the princes had not known. Capture not kill, for instance. Apparently king Thranduil wanted to question them before deciding their fate.
"We are not far away from the place where the first traps were found," Culkemen said suddenly. Legolas looked around at his surroundings. To a stranger, this part of the forest looked no different to the rest. The twisted boughs, buds threatening to burst open in to flowers on the branches, soft earth covered in brambles trying to catch at leggings, sad skeletons of last years leaves in the process of rotting away and the lack of sunlight all looked practically identical to a spot twenty miles away, but the Elves could tell the difference. The warriors of Mirkwood all knew the forest better than the backs of their hands. The slope of the land, the formation of the trees and the twists in their branches and the chattering of squirrels and birds were all clues as to where they were.
"This close to where we live?" asked Legolas, surprise echoing in the tone of his voice. Culkemen nodded her agreement
"Whatever race these poachers are, they are certainly stupid. I suspect the Dwarves."
Legolas and his two brothers sniggered. Their opinion of Dwarves was no higher than their fathers was. If possible, it was lower. Like most of their race, they believed Dwarves to be stupid, ugly creatures that were stumpy and useful for little. As far as Legolas was concerned, all Dwarves should stay hidden away in their mines and not come out to create an eyesore.
The warriors entered a small clearing. Around the far edge, there were so many brambles and tangles not even a young rabbit could find a path through without its coat being caught and snagging on thorn after thorn. In the centre of the clearing, a few small patches of light had somehow managed to filter through the trees and was now dancing on the earth, encouraging small, hardy flowers to grow. Across one of these patches lay a rabbit, half in and half out of the sun. It was dead. It's neck was broken, ensnared in a trap, and cold blood staining the taught string.
It was the first dead thing that the princes had seen for years on end, and Legolas was suddenly hit with the disturbing thought that death and freedom were entwined. Culkemen shook her head sadly.
"Well, I did not expect them to return to this spot," she said after a moment. Some of the other warriors nodded their agreement, muttering curses aimed at the poachers. One of them, Ennyntaur, bent down over the dead form of the rabbit. After studying it for a couple of seconds, he looked up again.
"It is fresh," he informed the warriors, "I think it was killed sometime late last night, or early this morning."
Culkemen strode over to the pathetic form of the dead creature and, almost immediately agreed with him, judging the death to have been around dawn.
"It is likely that the poachers will come along soon to collect their 'winnings'" she said thoughtfully, "Ennyntaur, I want you to stay here Narbeleth, Novemyn, Hirilmir and Dúlain. Watch for the poachers. When they make an appearance, follow them but do not make them aware of your presence. If they lay down any more traps then wait until they have all gone then make sure the traps are disabled and unable to harm any creatures unfortunate enough to cross their paths. We will go and see if there are many more traps in the area."
The five Elves nodded and swiftly climbed up a tree, melting in to the shadows out of sight. It did not take long for the Elves on the ground to find tracks left by the poachers, and they had departed within a matter of minutes.
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With a delighted laugh Squirrel, Caranthon and Celrin found their stream. As Squirrel had guessed, the recent rainfall had made the stream swell. They ran up to the trickling water and knelt down next to it, then scooped the clear, cool water in to their hands and tipped it in to their thirsty mouths. In the shadows, Astaler grinned to himself. His earlier assumptions had been correct. The young Elves, even though they were not yet fully grown, would definitely make good warriors one day. He carefully noted how they scooped the water in to their hands first, instead of lowering their heads to the stream to drink. Good. They would be much more aware of their surroundings, and would not swallow anything unsavoury like a water bug.
The novices filled their flasks, laughing and chattering as their thirst had been quenched, though they were still hungry. Suddenly, Squirrel saw something that made him blink. He stood up, his knees and shins now muddy, and jumped over the small stream. Caranthon and Celrin stopped their insistent chatter and followed his lead. They looked down at the bank of the stream, and frowned.
They were not the first visitors to the stream that day.
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A/N: Even more new characters! All of them mine, so please don't take them. Not that they've done much yet. . . although Ennyntaur did have a little cameo in Princes of Mirkwood.
Again, I'm wondering if anybody knows where the title came from. Nobody even tried to guess the last one. Clue: they're from the same place. Exactly the same place. Kudos and cookies if anybody manages to guess it. Heck, even a guess would be good, even if it's further from the answer than the Vogons are from writing good poetry!
REVIEW REPLY THINGY
SILVERKNIGHT7 ~ Yes, the king did find out that his sons had gone. Yes, I am very naught leaving a cliffy like that. I've left another one.
ORODRUIN ~ Ah, you know me too well! The novices and the princes are going to meet up eventually. . . but under what circumstances? You can bet they won't be happy ones, what with me writing the fic!
LYN ~ Thank you for pointing out the mistakes; I wouldn't have realised I'd made them otherwise. Are there any I've missed this chapter?