PROLOGUE
It was more than a thousand years since the Last Alliance of Men and Elves, and Greenwood the Great is at the peak of its greatness. Led by the Elvenking Thranduil, the woodland realm boasted of perhaps the best, and bravest, warriors in all of Middle-earth. Greenwood became a place of peace and solitude, its borders protected by elven scouts from marauding orcs, rivalrous dwarves, greedy humanfolk, and other creatures whose origins were unknown, but nevertheless reviled.
But beneath the sense of calm and quiet laid an undercurrent of suspicion, anxiety, anger...pain. Pain over the remembrance of those who had fallen, and of those who were brutally taken away...gone forever.
Much loss had been suffered by the Greenwood elves at the end of the Alliance, where their beloved King Oropher met his tragic end, and many of their kin were taken by the enemy...tortured...mutilated.
More than the pain and anger, there was fear...of losing what was left, and of what had just been given to them. Who is to know when it might happen again? For them the grief was much too dear, the wounds much too raw...
...and for some, the anguish ran deeper than most.
It was more than a thousand years since the Last Alliance of Men and Elves, and Greenwood the Great is at the peak of its greatness. Led by the Elvenking Thranduil, the woodland realm boasted of perhaps the best, and bravest, warriors in all of Middle-earth. Greenwood became a place of peace and solitude, its borders protected by elven scouts from marauding orcs, rivalrous dwarves, greedy humanfolk, and other creatures whose origins were unknown, but nevertheless reviled.
But beneath the sense of calm and quiet laid an undercurrent of suspicion, anxiety, anger...pain. Pain over the remembrance of those who had fallen, and of those who were brutally taken away...gone forever.
Much loss had been suffered by the Greenwood elves at the end of the Alliance, where their beloved King Oropher met his tragic end, and many of their kin were taken by the enemy...tortured...mutilated.
More than the pain and anger, there was fear...of losing what was left, and of what had just been given to them. Who is to know when it might happen again? For them the grief was much too dear, the wounds much too raw...
...and for some, the anguish ran deeper than most.