Jailil screamed. It was almost dark in the forest. He slashed at the underbrush with a stick. "I cannot find acrophelia, Ailunai! Right when I need Mirkwood to reveal all its rot, it decides to be pure." He sank to his knees. "Hyrondal will lose his arm and it will be my fault."

Ailunai wrapped the reins to her horse around a narrow birch tree. She circled a second small tree with her arms and pressed her cheek to the smooth bark. "You must listen, Jailil, as Hyrondal listens, to the song of forest."

"How can I listen to anything right now?" Jailil muttered. He clenched the reins of his horse in his hands.

The sun set by the time Ailunai released the tree. She shook her head. "Often the grape vines back home would tell me where to pick the finest grapes or if frost was coming, but these trees are silent."

"I will not go back to Hyrondal with nothing," Jailil said.

"I do not mind sleeping under the stars," Ailunai answered. "As we sleep, the forest may wake up to us."

There were no houses where Jailil and Ailunai rode. It was tangled brush-land where no elves yet wished to settle save the few isolated cottages of brave souls. Aware there were scouts in the trees keeping watch for orcs, Jailil and Ailunai found a patch of grass for the horses and sat down to eat the food Nimrethil had packed for their hunt.

Jailil slept poorly, aware Ailunai tossed and turned as he did, and fell asleep to dream of knives. As he dreamed, the knives turned into flowering buds and he watched the buds open wide and smile until slime and blackness covered the flowers and they dropped dead to rot into the forest floor when the worms came.

Jailil's eyes popped open to the hint of a sunrise above the thick tree foliage blocking the sky. He rolled onto his back to shake Ailunai, but she was already awake, kneeling with one hand pressed to the dirt.

"Vultures!" they cried at the same time.

Ailunai pointed to the tall tree trunks around them. "We cannot see the sky through this foliage, but I will climb above the leaves to spot for you."

Jailil mounted his horse. He left Ailunai's mount tied to a tree and waited as her blue slippers and ankles disappeared up a tree trunk. She climbed quickly, prancing from branch to branch.

"Jailil!" she shrieked, and her voice came from high above. "I see vultures circling west of here."

Jailil rode further into the tangled brush, but Ailunai soon caught up to him. The vultures scattered to the trees as the horses stomped onto their ground and Jailil looked at the half-eaten rabbit carcass at the bottom of a tree. "It is too fresh, Ailunai. Acrophelia need the flesh to be truly rotting."

Ailunai bared her pearly teeth at him. she swept her blonde curls over her shoulder and stood up in her saddle to grab a tree branch overhead. Jailil's horse pranced as she climbed and the vultures in the trees fluffed their feathers and glared at Jailil, willing him to move on. When Ailunai shrieked new directions down the tree to Jailil, the vultures were still waiting to return to their feast.

Jailil trotted northward, turning when Ailunai galloped up behind him, holding the reins in one hand. This time the corpse was a coyote, its grey fur matted with blood around a bite taken out of its belly. Jailil swallowed; the nature of the bite meant it had been made by orcs.

Ailunai wrinkled her nose as Jailil dismounted. The vultures here pecked at him until Jailil swung a stick at them. He poked at the coyote with the branch, but only a few worms wriggled out. The vultures snapped up the maggots when Jailil swung back into his saddle.

Ailunai said, "We do not have much time left."

"Maybe they are extinct," Jailil said.

As she squirmed up a third tree, Ailunai asked, "Is there no other way to find acrophelia?"

"According to Herbal Lore, you can smell the rot they eat before you see it. After they finish feeding off the carcass, acrophelia burrow into the ground to lay eggs so it is impossible to find them unless they surface."

Ailunai was silent until she shouted, "I see a couple of vultures south of here! I think we have time enough to reach it and make it back to Hyrondal before—before he loses his arm."

The horses plunged through the trees at a great pace. Jailil sniffed, smelling putrid air, and Ailunai wrapped her veil over her nose. Jailil spurred his horse forward, feeling his heart miss a beat. "It smells worse then Hyrondal's arm! If there are acrophelia to be found, we will find them in whatever is making that smell."

Half a dozen scouts in green and brown made the horses startle and stop.

"You have no business in the forest so far from the palace," one elf said, lowering his bow. "If you are lost, we will guide you home."

"You must let us pass," Jailil insisted. "We need to see the body."

"That is no sight for eyes as young as yours to see," replied the elf, gesturing to his comrades to lower their bows. He clasped the bridle of Ailunai's horse. "Come, let us get you home."

"You do not understand! It is for my friend!" Jailil cried. "Let her go."

Ailunai met Jailil's eyes and nodded. She pressed a hand to her chest. "Oh! I-I feel faint—all the excitement." She released her reins and slowly, elegantly fell to the ground in a heap. Her veil fluttered down beside her.

The scouts exclaimed and swept to Ailunai's side. Jailil kicked his horse and the animal shot forward, breaking past the underbrush into a smell that turned his insides out. Jailil hacked and wrenched his tunic up over his nose, but the smell still made his throat heave.

It was a rotting orc body missing arms and legs and skin peeled back from bones and claws. The rot mixed with the soil. To Jailil's eyes, the orc's dismembered shoulder was Hyrondal lying in bed without his arm. Jailil dropped to his knees and plunged his hands into flesh so soft it squished.

Cold, slimy slugs burrowed among the maggots as Jailil felt them and he pulled a handful free. He thrust them into the pouch he held at the same time a scout grabbed his shoulder and boxed his ear. The elf shoved him back toward his horse.

Ailunai sat atop her mount, apparently recovered from her faint, and she questioned Jailil with her eyes as he mounted. Jailil tried not to smile as he nodded to her.

The scouts glared at Jailil as they guided the horses back toward the palace, but Ailunai sat with her nose in the air and her hands hidden under her veil and Jailil hoped the acrophelia would not stink outside of the pouch. At the stables, Ailunai took the horses and Jailil ducked past the scouts to run to the healing ward.

Jailil heard Nimrethil screaming and Thranduil shouting and stumbled past the healers forcing his friends out of Hyrondal's room.

"I-I," Jailil gasped, but he could not get the words out.

Head Healer Avaron turned away from the bed, where half a dozen healers heled Hyrondal down and tried to force purple liquid down his throat. Jailil snarled at Avaron as he found his voice. "I have acrophelia. Get away from my friend!"

Hyrondal hacked up purple liquid and wiped his lips. His arm was bare to the shoulder and the wound still oozed. Jailil emptied the slugs into his hand and Hyrondal choked and turned his face away.

"I do not know how to put them on," Jailil faltered. He looked up as Avaron put a hand on his shoulder.

At Avaron's instruction, Jailil washed the slugs under water. Cleaned, they were golden brown things, about five inches long and an inch thick. He dropped the slugs onto Hyrondal's open wound and Hyrondal squirmed as the slug explored the festering pus on his arm.

"Does it hurt?" Jailil asked.

Hyrondal shook his head. "Actually, they are cold and it feels nice on my hot arm."

"Can you feel them eating?"

Hyrondal stuck out his tongue. "No!"

Jailil pinched his lips at the brown slugs covering Hyrondal's arm. Now only flashes of purple and yellow flesh showed between the slugs. "My next best advice for you is to sleep and try not to look at your arm."

Hyrondal nodded. "Thank you."

Jailil smiled. "You helped me. I am glad I could return the favor."

"I gave you a place to sleep. You saved my dream. Nothing can repay this."

"You cannot count kindnesses in quantities," Jailil said.

Hyrondal smiled. "Maybe not. I will be alright; you can all go now." He looked to the door where Thranduil, Nimrethil and Ailunai clustered.

Nimrethil flounced into the room with a pitcher. "I made you more bone broth and I expect it to be gone when I come back tomorrow."

"Snapping turtle!" Hyrondal yelled after her.

Apologies for being a day late on the posting of this chapter! Engrossed in trying to make a bad piece of writing good, I lost track of time. Thought: the efforts of my time turned out to be rubbish anyway. Second thought: it is still good to try!

Thanks so much for reading; you know I love hearing from and appreciate every one of you.

Next Chapter: Yuai pays Hyrondal a visit . . .