Expect the Expected

Disclaimer: not mine


'Estel' Elladan called.

To his dismay there was no reply.

Thinking quickly, Elladan grabbed his horn and placed it to his lips. But before he could even draw breath, he heard another call, from an identical horn, echoing through the forest.

Elladan knew the meaning of this call and just hoped his brother would be sensible enough not to attack the orcs without back up.

Knowing that Elrohir would never let the orcs out of his sight once he had found them, Elladan replaced his horn at his side and jumped from the tree to land beside his waking brother.

'Estel' he called softly. 'Can you hear me?'

Estel knew his brother was talking because he could hear the urgency in his voice, but his foggy brain hadn't recovered enough to decipher the words yet.

Instead, Estel decided to try and sit up.

He immediately regretted this decision as shoot pains ran up his right arm and he flopped back to the ground.

Elladan gently removed the branch from his brother's arm, slipped an arm around his shoulders, and froze.

Estel, expecting assistance, tried again to sit, only to be rewarded with no help and a lot more pain in his arm. With a cry a fell back against Elladan.

It was then that Estel also heard the echoes of his older brother's horn, calling through the trees.

Elladan knew something was wrong. His brother, having already sounded the call once, would not hail again unless something was wrong.

Estel cry, however, brought him back to the present situation and he carefully helped his brother into a sitting position and inspected his arm.

As he thought, the wrist was broken and would need setting.

Glancing around him quickly, Elladan found a relatively straight stick and broke it in 2 to use as a splint.

Tearing strips from his cloak, he bound the wrist and helped Estel to his feet.

Not daring to risk the trees again, Elladan and Estel hurried towards the dying echoes of their brother's call.


As they approached the clearing they heard the sounds of fierce battling and knew that it was not the scouts that had found the orcs, but the orcs that had done the finding.

Thinking only for the safety of his brothers, Elladan pulled Estel after him into the nearest tree.

Once a safe distance up he made sure that Estel was comfortable and not in immediate danger of falling and turned to survey the fight.

He wasn't happy with what he saw.

Elrohir and Legolas were completely surrounded by at least three times as many orcs as they were originally hunting, and were quite clearly fighting for their lives.

With a quickly glance at Estel to check he was safe, Elladan, with a loud cry of 'Gurth gothrim Tel'Quessir!' through himself into the battle.


In the middle of the mass of orcs, Elrohir and Legolas knew that help had arrived.

Assured that they now had support from the outside, they began to fight with renewed strength.

A moment later, they heard a second battle cry, a quieter echo of the first.

Distracted, Legolas looked around for Estel, knowing that only he would echo that particular cry.

An orc, taking advantage of this momentary distraction, plunged his sword down towards Legolas' abdomen.

Just before it struck, Legolas turned back to the fight and, seeing an orc sword inches from his stomach twisted out of the way.

Unfortunately he was not fast enough and the blade slice into his side.

With a cry of pain, Legolas dropped his blades and fell to the ground clutching his side.

Elrohir, hearing this cry, took a step back so that he was covering the now unconscious Legolas. He had lost sight of his brothers and only hoped they would reach him in time.


Gurth gothrim Tel'Quessir – death to the foes of elves

I'm going camping next week and so won't be able to update, but I'm hoping to return with lots of nice chapters for you!

Cya

Othrilis