Ithilriel urged her mount, Thala, onward. She and her scouting party had just broken camp for the morning. Over the last two weeks they had set out from Imladris on orders from her father, Elrond, to scout the easiest route between Imladris and Mirkwood. They had just finished crossing the High Pass. Tensions were high between the two kingdoms and all of Imladris was wary of an invasion. They distrusted Thranduil and the Silvan elves even more than they distrusted the dwarves right now. At least the dwarves tended to keep to themselves. Thranduil was known for being cold and unforgiving, especially when he felt scorned, which he did. Ithilriel tended not to bother herself with menial things like trade agreements, but that's apparently what had upset her father and Thranduil so much that she was now scouting the well known path for signs of a potential invasion.

Ithilriel turned to her second in command, Nendir. He was 9 years older than her, so they had grown up together. Ithilriel considered him just as much of a brother as Elledan and Elrohir. They were about 500 years older than her so had been well and truly grown when she came along. Arwen, although closer in age to Ithilriel by more than 100 years than her brothers, had also been fully grown when she was born. It had been Nendir that got into all the mischief and trouble with her as elflings, Nendir whom she had played with and, as they got older, Nendir who had learnt to fight and handle weapons with her.

Nendir was strong, the same as any soldier, but his body was more muscular and bulky than average. He had long, flowing, golden hair and dark blue eyes. Despite their bond, Ithilriel had not wanted him to come on this mission. If they did run into the Silvan elves, there would be trouble, no question about it. Nendir was a very talented fighter, and usually there was no one else Ithilriel would prefer at her side. No, the reason she had not wanted him to come was because his wife, Malnith, was at home heavily pregnant with their first child. Nendir had insisted, though, stating Malnith and their unborn elfing would be safer if he ensured they weren't about to be invaded in their own home.

"If we make good time we can reach the River Anduin in a week," Ithilriel said to Nendir, who nodded. Nendir then turned to relay her message to the rest of their scouting party, keeping quiet so as to not draw any attention to themselves, from watching Silvan elves or worse.

The scouting party urged their mounts onwards at a fast but maintainable speed. They stopped only for meals and to set up camp. On the fifth day of their travels along the Old Ford they found the remains of a camp. Ithilriel and her scouting party spent hours combing over every part of the abandoned camp, as well as the land surrounding it in every direction. In the end, they deduced that the camp had been abandoned for at least a week. Based on the footprints and animal carcasses they found surrounding the camp, Ithilriel thought it was orcs, warg riders specifically, that had set up the camp.

Ithilriel was troubled. It was not normal for orcs to come through here, nor was it typical for them to make a camp so close to the road. Although, as Nendir pointed out when she shared her concerns with him, with the high tensions between the two kingdoms the road was travelled far less. The orcs could simply be taking advantage of the lack of battle hardened elves occupying the road and were extending their territory.

More alert than ever, the scouting party continued on to the River Anduin. Investigating the camp had set them behind by a day, so in the end it was 8 days before they reached the river. They reached the river midmorning. Ithilriel gave the orders to leave the path and travel north. Thranduil's Halls were far north of the Old Forest Road. Besides, the whole point of a scouting party was to gather intelligence and report back without being seen. Ithilriel had no intention of actually entering Mirkwood.

It was later that afternoon that the first signs of trouble appeared. They were still traveling north when Ithilriel, Nendir, and the other two scouting party members, Faunor and Gawion, all heard the distant growling of a warg. A chill went up Ithilriel's spine. The noise had come from behind them, effectively cutting off their way back across the lake. She looked west. It would probably take the horses a few hours to reach the river. That wouldn't help though, she decided. It had clearly rained heavily here recently, leaving the river full and treacherous.

Nendir, Faunor and Gawion looked at her, awaiting her orders.

"North," she decided. Really, it was the only option. They had been traveling slowly but steadily downwards since crossing the river so could not see how many warg riders there were. The last thing Ithilriel wanted to do was attack only to sentence them all to death. Together, the four of them urged their horses faster.

By the time night fell, Ithilriel knew she'd made the right choice not to turn and confront the warg riders. Though they were still far enough away that she couldn't see them, the growls and barks that they could hear indicated there were too many of them to fight. They pushed their horses through the dark. The grassy plains had leveled out but Ithilriel was worried about one of the horses twisting or breaking their leg. They couldn't stop though. The wargs behind them were still loudly barking and snarling, clearly still awake.

Ithilriel and the other elves took turns resting themselves, entering the waking meditative trance to recover their strength. When dawn broke there was an outcry of warg and orc voices, before the faint noise of many heavy paws hitting the ground at once reached her ears.

Ithilriel cursed. The warg riders must have picked up their trail. The horses were leaving tracks. Although elves, if they chose, could travel without leaving tracks, they had opted to take the horses with them as they could bring much more supplies with them this way. Ithilriel had wanted to spend as little time as possible near Mirkwood. Bringing food they would have been unable to carry otherwise had taken out hours of hunting time. Ithilriel now regretted this choice. She turned to Nendir.

"Should we abandon the horses?"

Nendir's face was grim. Neither of them would ever put their horses in harm's way if they could help it.

"No. If we leave them now they'll be slaughtered."

Ithilriel agreed, so they continued.

By dusk the warg riders had crested the hill behind them. Ithilriel's blood ran cold when she turned to look at them. Although they were over a day's journey away her elvish eyes could make out a large group of warg riders. She estimated there were around 20-30. Far too many for their little scouting party to fight.

Forcing down the panic rising like bile up her throat, Ithilriel surveyed her surroundings, desperately searching for some way to escape or something that would give them enough of an advantage to win against the group of warg riders that outnumbered them 5:1 at minimum.

The forest of Mirkwood had grown steadily closer to the river they had been following for the last few hours. They could potentially take refuge in the trees. This presented several problems though. First, they couldn't take the horses with them. Second, they could run into a group of Silvan elves.

Ithilriel turned her eyes to the river, but just as quickly turned away again. It was flowing far too treacherously to cross. It was certain death.

In front of them stretched plains onwards as far as she could see. To continue on as they were going now, especially at the pace the orcs seemed to be catching them, would result in them and their horses gradually tiring and tiring until they could be hunted down by even the laziest of orcs.

The only chance of hope, Ithilriel decided, was to cross into Mirkwood. She told Nendir and over the next few hours they alternated between planning and resting. They would need their strength.

By dawn the horse's pace had slowed considerably. Ithilriel and her scouting party slid off their weary mounts grabbing their weapons and only a small amount of food and water. Ithilriel whispered instructions to each horse and didn't watch as they took off northward again.

Ithilriel, Nendir, Faunor and Gawion then ran towards the trees. The sun was well and truly above the horizon when the shadows from the trees began to block out the sky. Ithilriel checked on the orcs again. She estimated that they'd reach them by nightfall, if not sooner. Panic again threatened to overwhelm her.

No, she told herself fiercely, this plan will work.

Ithilriel and Nendir quickly found trees to climb up, while Faunor and Gawion headed deeper into enemy territory to find their own trees. Then they waited.

"Does this remind you of when we were elflings?" Nendir asked, breaking Ithilriel out of her thoughts. She felt her face split into a wide grin.

"That time we put mud in my brothers' shoes," she replied.

Nendir also smiled widely, his dark eyes gaining that distant quality of someone reliving a memory.

"We stayed up that tree all night. My parents were furious when I got home."

Ithilriel laughed, remembering. "So were mine. Elladan and Elrohir were so angry. It was a year before I stopped running whenever I saw them."

Nendir laughed too.

"You're going to have your hands full soon, if your little elfing turns out to be anything like you."

Nendir tried to frown, but couldn't keep off the happiness that always lit up his face at the mention of his unborn child.

"I hope they're more like Malnith than me. She was always so sweet and kind, even when we were elflings."

Ithilriel smiled. Malnith was 24 years younger than she was. Nendir was right. She had always been a quiet, kind elleth. Ithilriel opened her mouth to reply, but was cut off by the guttural voice of an orc.

"Their horses went on, but look here, tracks. Same as where we saw them running."

Ithilriel peered through the branches. The orcs and their wargs were standing where they had left their horses.

"Elf meat is much tastier than horse meat," another, higher pitched voice said. Other orcs growled and agreed with it. They were all looking towards one orc, clearly the leader. If I kill that one, perhaps they'll all scatter, Ithilriel thought. It was a desperate hope though. Orcs didn't need a leader to kill their prey.

"Who's hungry then? Let's feast on elf flesh," their leader roared, holding up his axe. The other orcs growled and crashed their swords to their armour in approval. Then they turned and rode towards where Ithilriel and Nendir were waiting.

Watching the warg riders come closer and closer but still being too far away to shoot was especially nerve wracking, Ithilriel decided. She had never been one to sit still, and watching her hunters come near her both far too fast and far too slowly was not helping. She was able to count them easily now and was dismayed to realise there were 27 warg riders in total.

Ithilriel looked across to Nendir. He was rigid, his bow loaded but facing down, his eyes locked on the orcs. Ithilriel took comfort in seeing him there. He was her best friend. There was no one else she'd rather have beside her.

Ithilriel turned back to the orcs. They were almost within shooting range. She moved her hand along the smooth curve of her bow. It had never failed her.

The orcs were getting closer. Ithilriel lifted her bow, drawing back the string. She could sense Nendir doing the same in the tree next to her.

The first line of orcs was within shooting range. Ithilriel waited just a few heartbeats more. Time seemed to slow down. She could hear her own heartbeat. Adrenaline coursed through her veins. Despite the overwhelming size of the warg rider pack, at this moment, she was the hunter. In this moment, she was powerful.

"Now."

She barely breathed the word, but Nendir heard. In unison they shot. Ithilriel hit the lead warg between its eyes. It was going so fast that its orc was thrown off as the warg suddenly pitched forward with momentum.

In the same instant Nendir's arrow hit the throat of an orc in the front of the pack. It growled and gurgled, before falling off its warg, dead.

The remaining orcs screamed in their guttural voices, the leader, who had survived its fall from the dead warg, jumped onto the warg who's rider Nendir had killed. It screamed at the other orcs, who had begun to break their formation. At his orders, they fell back in and continued racing towards the tree line.

Nendir and Ithilriel shot another volley of arrows, bringing down another orc and warg. This time though, they didn't break formation. Ithilriel ordered another two volleys before commanding Nendir to retreat. They leapt from branch to branch, tree to tree, before Ithilriel saw Faunor and Gawion poised to shoot in their own trees. Ithilriel leapt past Faunor and continued on for another minute or two. She found a thick, steady branch with a clean shot to the ground. She crouched there, feeling as tense as a coiled spring, and loaded her bow.

Although she could no longer see any of her companions, her keen hearing gave her a sense of where they were. Faunor and Gawion had begun shooting. The screams and gurgles of both wargs and orcs told Ithilriel their arrows were true. If Ithilriel was correct, they'd taken out 14 orcs and wargs. Just 20 of each left.

Faunor came flying past her. She could hear Gawion moving through the trees to her right. She didn't break her focus though. Her eyes stayed trained on the gap between the trees the orcs would come through. She wasn't expecting riderless wargs to come through though. She shot and killed the leader but three more took its place. Worse, an orc riding a warg came through and saw her as she shot her second arrow.

"There!" it screamed triumphantly, pointing to her with its blade. The three wargs ahead of it raced to her tree and started jumping and leaping up the trunk. One of them managed to hook its huge paw around a low hanging branch. From there it hauled itself up onto the branch, which was unfortunately sturdy enough to bear its weight.

Ithilriel was unable to get a good angle with her bow. It was too directly underneath her. She turned her aim towards the orc rider just in time to see it release an arrow of its own aimed directly at her.

Thought left her body. She didn't have time to think. She could only rely on the instincts she had been born with and had honed during a thousand years of training. Ithilriel leapt for the branch behind the trunk. She was just too slow. She felt a stinging in her upper right arm.

Safe for the moment behind the tree trunk, Ithilriel's thoughts returned to her. She looked at her arm. The arrow had only grazed it, but her heart was pumping so fast the blood was spurting from her wound. Slinging her bow over her uninjured arm, she moved as fast as she could, tearing off her sleeve from her wound down and tying it into a makeshift bandage to stop the bleeding. Casting one last glance down at the ground, only to see a swarm of orcs with bows at the ready and wargs trying to climb her tree, Ithilriel fled through the trees.

"The wargs are climbing the trees, the orcs have bows," she cried, leaping from branch to branch. She passed Faunor again. He was climbing to a higher branch, presumably to better avoid orc arrows. Ithilriel didn't stop to ask.

Time seemed to become endless. The orcs continued pushing them deeper and deeper into Mirkwood, showing a disappointing ability to advance despite the twisted and tangled roots on the ground. The afternoon turned into night, but the warg riders kept advancing. Although Ithilriel and her scouting party continued to shoot at them, leapfrogging each other's positions, the trees became thicker and thicker, protecting them from arrows but protecting the warg riders too. Morning came, and there were still roughly 25 wargs and orcs chasing them.

Ithilriel began to feel exhausted. The combination of riding for days and nights non-stop, leaping through the trees for a full night and about half a day and the prolonged tension and stress of her situation wearing on her. She and her companions began to move slower and slower.

As Ithilriel was leaping from tree to tree to find a spot for her next assault, she stopped in her tracks, the sudden change in momentum almost propelling her off the branch. There, attached to the branch she had been about to jump onto, was a strange white thing. Ithilriel followed its path from one branch to another, and another and felt ice crystallise in her veins.

She remembered her father telling her stories of Greenwood the Great before an evil had befallen it, changing it to Mirkwood. Elledan and Elrohir had teased her long after she first heard that story, telling her Mirkwood was basically one giant spider's nest. When she'd been little, that had terrified her. As she grew up though, she had thought they had made the whole thing up. Had they actually been telling the truth?

Ithilriel heard a triumphant snarl and a yelp of pain, which broke her out of her panicked thoughts. Desperately, she looked for another way to go, only to notice more and more of what she suspected to be web. As she was entertaining the possibility of jumping over to Nendir and Gawion's side, she heard a clicking, hissing type noise. She looked back across to the original branch she'd been about to leap on. Eyes, too many eyes, stared back at her.

Fear like she'd never known shot through her.

"To the ground!" Ithilriel screamed. "To the ground! Spiders in the trees!"

The spider leaped towards her, and she all but fell backwards. Ithilriel felt weightless for a fraction of a second before her upper back slammed into something hard, then she was weightless again until her torso slammed into a branch. This one stopped her fall, and she lay, stunned for a moment, curled around the branch. The impact had left her completely winded.

She eventually regained air in her lungs and was able to properly pull herself up onto the branch. Ithilriel glanced upwards. The spider's face appeared over a branch above her before its massive body began to scuttle to the tree trunk. Ithilriel leaped down the remaining distance to the ground, landing lightly on her feet this time. She reached for an arrow, only to realise that the impact of her back landing on that first tree branch had broken her arrows. Ithilriel cursed, drawing her blade. This was not good. There were too many orcs and wargs left to enter close range combat, and that wasn't even considering the spider that was chasing her too.

Ithilriel needed to regroup with the others. She heard someone drop from a tree behind her and turned to see Nendir landing on the ground. Ithilriel's stomach clenched as she noticed the end of a snapped arrow buried in his shoulder. She raced over to him.

"It's not bad," Nendir said instantly.

"I don't care," Ithilriel replied, using her sword to cut away at the fabric surrounding his shoulder, eventually tearing off his entire sleeve. She could hear the warg riders getting closer, could hear the spider scuttling down the tree. She wrapped both hands around the arrow shaft and yanked it out of Nendir's flesh. She heard his sharp intake of breath as he tried not to betray his pain. Hands moving as quick as lightning, Ithilriel tied off the wound with the sleeve she just ripped from Nendir's arm.

"Behind you!" He cried as soon as she finished the last knot. He leapt in front of her, blade already drawn, and stabbed the spider through its head. I had been diving down to attack them. It hissed and clicked and screeched, backing away as Nendir withdrew his blade. It flung its head around, then fell, dead.

At that moment, Faunor and Gawion came rocketing through the trees, the remainder of the warg pack on their tail. Together the four of them regrouped.

"There's 18 left," Faunor told them. Too many to take on without picking more of them off with arrows.

"Keep running," Ithilriel ordered grimly.

They had barely begun running again when they came across more web. This time it was so low it blocked their path. The four of them skidded to a stop.

"Shoot," Ithilriel ordered, wildly looking around for another way to run.

To her right the trees were bound with more of the thick web. To her left there appeared to be an opening.

"This way!" She cried, leaping towards the gap, only to shriek and pull herself to a stop.

There was another spider rushing towards her, its black eyes glinting evilly.

"Above us," Nendir cried. Ithilriel glanced up and saw at least three more spiders descending the trees around them. Terror gripped her. This was it. Surely. She couldn't see a way out here.

Time seemed to move slowly. Every heartbeat, every gasp for breath seemed to take an eternity. She cursed herself for not taking the time before to realise just how wonderful every heartbeat felt, just how lovely every breath of air tasted. Without realising she had moved, she was standing next to Nendir, crouched down in a fighting stance, Faunor and Gawion standing behind them spraying their enemies with arrows. They took down two wargs, then a spider and an orc.

Dimly, Ithilriel heard the spider's body crash to the forest floor. She found Nendir's hand and squeezed. He squeezed back. The action seemed to unlock her from her trance. Time sped back up, her hearing returned in full. She released Nendir's hand.

Ithilriel watched as a spider reached the forest floor behind the warg rider pack. Miraculously, it snatched up a trailing orc, spearing it with its fangs and turning to carry it back up the tree. The orc screamed, slashing its sword wildly. It managed to cut off the spider's front leg. The spider hissed and screamed, dropping the orc. Other trailing warg riders realised the threat behind them and turned to fight the spider, just as two more spiders appeared to back it up.

Incredibly, all the spiders that had been on their way down from trees turned immediately to the orcs. For that instant, the only threat they had to worry about was the spider coming from the side. Faunor and Gawion both shot it, killing it. Another one took its place though, and more spiders continued streaming down from the trees in front of them.

Seemingly before Ithilriel could blink, there were so many spiders that they had completely wiped out the warg riders. Many of them began picking up the bodies and scuttling back up the trees with them. The rest turned their evil black eyes onto Ithilriel and her scouting party.

Once again, thought left Ithilriel, instinct taking over. Despite the pain in her sword arm from the arrow, she slashed, stabbed, ducked and whirled amoungst the spiders. She was back to back with Nendir, then on her own, then side by side with Gawion. It seemed not to matter the injuries she inflicted on the spiders. No matter how many she killed, there was always more, hissing and clicking.

The spiders forced her away from Gawion and she found her way back to Nendir. The sleeve Ithilriel had used to bandage his shoulder was soaked with blood and his arm hung uselessly. Together they killed another spider.

A particularly large spider came racing towards them. Instead of diving down to bite them like all the other spiders had, this one reared back. Caught by surprise, Ithilriel faltered as she tried to stop the stab she'd already started in anticipation. The spider took advantage of her stumble and swept a huge leg out, flinging her off the ground and hard into the trunk of a tree.

Ithilriel felt her back and head slam into a thick, hard surface. She felt her sword fly out of her hands. All sounds seemed muted. Ithilriel looked around, confused.

A forest. She was in a dark, poorly lit forest.

Spiders. Battle. She was battling spiders.

Pain. Ithilriel looked down at her hands. Blood. Blood trickling down from a cut in her arm.

A scream.

Ithilriel looked up to see Nendir surrounded by three spiders.

No.

Sword. She had to find her sword.

Nendir.

Nendir!

NENDIR!

Ithilriel heard a voice screaming his name. She ran towards him weaponless, helpless as a spider's fangs speared him through the back.

Ithilriel heard screaming as she watched Nendir be lifted through the air, limp. She watched as his sword fell from his hand and clattered uselessly to the ground.

Her vision was blurred and she could feel something wet on her cheeks. Still hearing someone screaming, Ithilriel tried blindly to get to Nendir. Her foot caught on a root on the ground. Her ankle flared painfully and she was suddenly on the ground. Unable to run, Ithilriel tried crawling towards the spider that had Nendir.

The spider began to turn, heading for a tree, when suddenly three arrows sprouted from its head and it collapsed, Nendir going down with it.

The woods were suddenly alive with golden fighters, slaying the spiders as if it were child's play. In amongst the chaos, Ithilriel made it to Nendir's limp body. His face was pale, too pale and his eyes stared skywards and didn't move. Ithilriel held him, curling up as close to him as she could.

The last thing she saw before she lost consciousness was a beautiful, golden haired angel staring down at her with breath-taking ice-blue eyes.

Hi everyone! Yes, I know I should be working on Dirty Little Secret, but I just couldn't get this story out of my head and had to start writing it. As always, please review and tell me what you think. I finish my exams in a few weeks so I'll have lots of time to work on both stories. Yay!