We run across the sodden green grass, heavy heads of hawkweed and ragwort slapping hard against our boots. The ground is pitted and muddied, tussocks of meadow-grass clustered and easily tripped upon, but we seem to have taken Legolas' likening of us as wolves to heart. We run together, unified in purpose, and it is probably never going to happen again and is probably entirely by accident, but for a moment it feels quite grand. We split apart like birds breaking formation, just as the huge mountain of a man guarding the Tower recognises that we are going to attack rather than flee.

He seems pleased, if any emotion can be read upon what is barely functional as a face, and he squares toward our attack as though he is glad of it. As though he is bored, as though we are a simple distraction, and perhaps we are but I plan to be a painful one.

Legolas is the fastest of us. He sweeps low, ducks beneath the giant's reach, but the glint of silver in the dawn is not the tendon severing injury he had meant it to be. We have misjudged this man, this monster, because he might very well be the same dimensions as a cow, but he is far faster than he looks. He is just quick enough for Legolas' blow to be glancing – painful but not hobbling – and he swings his cudgel underhanded so that it catches the elfling upon the hip. It catches him in the brief moment when he is off balance, and Legolas stumbles but does not go down. Were he in better condition he might have dodged it but I will never know, and the giant does not simply leave it at that. He turns and grabs the elfling by the arm – mere kindling in his grip – twists it so that Legolas must drop to his knee and turn his body to alleviate the pressure upon the joint in his shoulder.

Legolas hisses, an involuntary sound of pain, but my elfling would have ended his days upon these shores long ago if such a move were enough to incapacitate him. He snarls, spits furious words I am glad I do not understand, and although he is all but tearing his shoulder to pieces he rolls forward and to one side. He wrenches his arm from the grasp of this giant, who rewards him for such a graceful move by booting him in the ribs.

Legolas goes from a graceful roll into a nasty and heavy slide, curled in upon himself. He lies in the mud gasping, his arm braced across his ribs and the other limp upon the ground, but Shutter reaches the giant in the matter of moments that have passed. Ai… it has been only moments!

Shutter takes the other side of the giant, the right side, where he holds his staff. No matter how massive they might be, any man approached directly toward his sword arm is often unable to swing, and it is rare indeed that any can wield a weapon well in both his left and his right. Rare, but not impossible.

We really have misjudged this man.

He is built from oak and slab, far taller than any man has a right to be, but it seems he is fast and skilled as well. Why such a creature has been left to guard the back door I have no idea, but he is also only one person guarding a door that I would have left a company to protect, and we are no longer wolves. We are not even cats. At this point I would liken us better to furious toddlers taking exception to bath time.

He swats Shutter aside as though he is an inconvenience, but there is nastiness in this monster of a man. He crunches his elbow into the lad's jaw with just enough force to have him reeling, and I know he could have floored him quite easily but he does not. The giant considers his staff for a moment, but then drops it and snatches Shutter's blade – snatches it into his non-dominant hand and grabs the lad by the scruff of the neck, drives a knee into his stomach and then flings him into Legolas, who is only just staggering to his feet. They both fall heavily, and Shutter rolls into the mud gagging and choking.

And so it falls to me.

If I were faster, perhaps I could also be lying about in the mud, but it is not so. The thief and the elf seem quite happy cursing and wheezing where they lie, and I reach the huge man just in time to receive a crack across the skull that I did not even see coming. Luckily, dwarven heads are far more sturdy than anything the race of the eldar or the edain have managed to produce, but it is enough to stall me… enough to have my purpose and reason evaporate and vanish from my head. I am lucky though… so lucky that I have another to watch over me when I cannot.

Legolas shouts as I stumble, and I can see just enough through a haze of white sparks and nonsensical slew of thoughts to see Legolas roll from the ground. He catches his blades awkwardly, tosses them and catches them all the better, ducks and twists and swipes. It is a beautiful movement, all the more graceful for the hurt I know he feels, and with an extended arm and a duck he severs the brute's artery in one movement. Beneath the arm – a place few can protect – but it deters him not at all. Blood blooms fresh and bright red, I can smell it, but this bull of a man does nothing but roar his anger into the new day and rush at the both of us.

Shutter's blade is still in the huge man's hand, and he grabs Legolas by the hair – a nasty and rough movement – fast enough to yank him back into reach. He draws that blade across the elfling's torso but it might have been far worse, far worse had Legolas been anything less than he is. The elfling melts beneath the bite of the blade… not enough to avoid it, but enough to stop it being a killing blow. Redness blooms once again across his chest and he lets out a brief sound of pain – ai I grow weary of that sound – and although this bull of a man will not relinquish his grip upon the elfling's hair, Legolas twists and jams his blade between his ribs.

He is released, an ugly sound of pain and anger escaping, but the bull kicks Legolas squarely in the chest as he passes and the sound is solid, like he has been kicked by a horse. Once more the elfling falls, but this time he does not rise.

Shutter and I attack as one person. I cannot answer for this thief, this strange ally we have found, but I feel a roar in my ears and see a redness that was not there before. Not before I heard the soft sound of pain and exhaustion that has passed Legolas' lips. Not because I heard it, but because he made it at all. Legolas rarely gives voice to his hurt… through everything that we have done and endured, he has done so silently, but although I have seen him hurt more times than I wish, I have never seen him hit so brutally. Legolas is strong, despite that he seems made of naught but twigs and feathers, but this man hits like a hammer to an anvil, and perhaps a hammer needs a dwarf, rather than a woodland archer.

My Mahal, it is ingrained within me now… I cannot see Legolas so wounded and not go blind with the need to protect him.

Shutter is a whirlwind of movement then, and I think it is mostly a saving of face because he has been so easily tossed aside, but I care not; the results are the same. He pulls himself backward and twists, turns, snatches Legolas' blade from nerveless fingers to replace his own and makes some unfathomable movement upon heel and hip, turns and slices this monster's thigh, turns and cuts deep into his spine.

He receives a kick to the chest for his trouble, goes down with a choke – the second time he has been winded in as many minutes – but the brute is distracted for long enough. Long enough for me to drop my axe – toss it out of harm's way – and slide up upon his back. I am a dwarf who rides horses, one of a very short list in my people's history books, and so I have found myself quite accomplished at grabbing and hooking, sliding and hauling my carcass up upon things too high to be easily climbed. It has become deft, if I could ever be considered deft, and the beast of a man does not even notice at first that I have climbed upon his upper back.

Dwarves are all of a kind when we are with one another – in fact I am considered tall by our standards – but the taller folk are more prolific, and so I am well used to craning my neck in conversation. I am, however, stronger than almost everyone that I know. Legolas cannot best me in strength, despite that his archer's body is predominantly sinew and muscle, because he cannot. I am built low, but I am built of iron, and I am well aware of my own limits. I clamber upon this monster's back, and I know I have won.

Legolas has severed this beast's artery, eventually he would bleed out all on his own, but I do not think that we have the time for it. He does not seem to have even noticed the damage, not even slightly, and he is just about grinding us into the dirt in the meantime. We have no time for him to bleed out like any respectable man might, and so I twist myself upon his back, claw forward until I can shove and push and jam my arm across his throat.

I brace my hand upon the elbow of the other, cupped under his slab of a face, and I use every muscle available to me to pull. I haul my own arm toward me, and the muscles that I use are not ones I utilise that often but they are still like stone, still enough to choke out a bull if I wished it. And so I choke out a bull, whether he is shaped as a man or not. I heave and draw, and something in the inner musculature of my arm and chest sounds an alarm but I do not let go. I choke and I heave, and the man beneath me bucks and roars, twists and even throws himself backward onto the ground to try and crush me. I fall beneath his weight and my eyesight dims, my ribs creak, the breath escapes me in a wheeze, but I do not let go.

I keep my hold, I roar out in exertion but still I do not let go, and I can see the flesh beneath my arms turn red and then purple. Can see his scalp – the delicate pink of it – change colour. I can feel his pulse hammering against my own skin, feel the barrel of his chest desperately heave for air and I cling on, even though it hurts now. My muscles scream and sing, my own blood pounds in my ears, but the man's struggles lessen. He weakens, flops his arms, the blood loss and the lack of air begin to take their toll.

I yell again, a cry to the skies. I twist so that I can brace one foot against the ground for leverage and I yank. I twist with my whole body, sudden and nasty, and I feel his neck snap beneath my arms. He falls limp in a second, and I am sat atop a dead thing that was once a man..

~{O}~

I wish that I had time to recover, I truly do, but as Legolas limps painfully over – arm cradled to his ribs – and holds out an arm to help me to my feet, I know that it is not the case. Shutter joins us, I set my shaking arms to my knees and try to regain my breath, but there is no respite.

A spill of men fall from the tower, a tumult of them, and I think perhaps they have been watching this fight. I think they had expected to see an enjoyable spectacle, something amusing to pass the time, but we have beaten their champion and now they race to end what he started. Ten of them, perhaps, and I have fought such numbers before but I am hurt and tired and they are all well trained and lethal. They do not shout or cry out as they run, they do not make a sound at all, but it is all the more frightening for it. All the more chilling.

I still feel the crunch of bone through my arm, the ghost of the killing blow I have so recently dealt, and it is a dreadful thing to feel death in such close quarters; to literally tear the life out of a man – no matter how desperately he tries to tear your own away. It chills me, makes me sick to my stomach, and now we face a hoard of men running across the grass toward us and I know I have not the energy left to fight.

Even so, Legolas limps away with a grim set to his jaw that says he will continue... always he will continue. He throws my axe toward me in a practised movement so that it lands solidly, blade first in the damp soil beside me, then moves to gather his own blades. Despite it all, and despite that I have seen him come through far worse, I am not sure that he has this in him either.

Shutter seems resigned, grim, and the three of us come together. We stand shoulder to shoulder to face this new fight, resolute and ready.

And then we are saved.

Another knot of men come from the outward edge of our view, where it is obscured by the trees. They run a bit faster, a bit fresher, a bit angrier. They are more in number as well… all running toward the knot of enemy soldiers who quail and falter under this new attack. They slow down, brace themselves, forget us instantly and I straighten… turn my face to the sky in relief that I cannot put word to. Legolas sinks to one knee, Shutter begins to swear and wanders off a short way. Drops his sword in nerveless fingers.

We are rescued. These men are our own, our reinforcements, and they make short work of the fray. They slam into our attackers, start cutting them down like hay in the summertime, and each one of them wears a cloak of white.

~{O}~

When Captain Hob reaches me, he all but barrels me back into the mud. I am feeling flimsy right now, and was not braced for – nor expecting – the sort of embrace that would have me tottering around and trying to keep my balance. His relieved embrace is like being attacked all over again, but this time I endure it… I even laugh and pat him on the back. He draws away and his grin nearly splits his face in half, pats the side of my face a bit roughly.

"You are like an old hound," he tells me with a laugh. "You will chase until you drop, I swear it."

"Sweet Aulë, how was this managed?" a voice calls out. It is Larke, poking the dead brute of a man with the toe of his boot as though he expects him to burst back into life at any second. I am glad to see him as well – glad to see each and every one of them – but I sober for heartbeat upon seeing Larke. There is something that I must tell him, something about Ren, and I do not wish to tell him.

Shutter catches my eye, and it is just a simple look… a brief gesture toward Larke. He speaks in just one movement, and any enmity I felt toward the thief is finally gone… washed away. He offers to tell him, offers to be the one that breaks such news, because he knows that I hold Larke in high regard. He will do it so that I do not have to.

I shake my head, but the look I give him is the most thankful I can muster. He shrugs.

"Is he well?" Hob whispers, missing the exchange entirely and canting his head slightly toward Legolas. The elfling has found himself a sturdy and old tree, has sunk to one knee with his hand resting upon the bole and his forehead upon the bark. The enormous man that lies dead at our feet has hurt him, more than he is willing to admit, and he was already well hurt. He is more red than green, today. He finds his centre, but it must be elusive indeed for him to need a tree to ground him. I sigh.

Legolas has shown me the voice of the trees, how they feel to him; an experience I will never forget for all of my days. A tree freshly waking in the spring must feel like a child stirring from sleep in his mind, fresh and happy and unencumbered by weariness or worry. He connects with the Song, the truest form it can take, and whilst I envy him for being able to hear it so clearly – all of the time, so effortless for him – I am glad of it right now. There was a time when it was barred from him, a time when he was strangled and cut off from the very thing that keeps him going so doggedly, and I leave him in peace. I leave him gladly.

Hob's eyes are wide and concerned – he knows nothing of what the elfling does right now, and he really does look quite horrifying, all about him blood and bruises and mud. I smile, because it seems I am the resident elf expert these days and I imagine how my father would think of such a thing.

"If I knew as much about elves as you think I do, friend Hob, then I would have gone home when I still had a chance. He will be well given a moment, but tell me what has happened to you? And why in the name of Mahal did you stop to change your clothing before you got here?"

He laughs, probably mostly due to a flood of relief, because what I said was not so amusing.

"We came upward through the city," he tells me. "We met back in the old house we started in, the only place in the lower circles that I could think of, and some of the men were already there. We nearly did not make it through at all, but even caked in a mountain of mud I was recognised and allowed past. The cloaks were still there, I was cold and tired of looking as a condemned man's guard, so it was a simple thing to don them. We made our way here as swiftly as we could.

"I imagined you might remain upon the second," Legolas says, finally joining us. He walks stiffly, held together tightly, but there is renewed determination in him. He reaches out and rests his hand upon my shoulder – I am not even certain he does that consciously any longer – squeezes gently and I grant him a look… one that tells him I know he is hurting, and I get something soft and careful in return. He knows my aches and hurts and exhaustion as well, because our link might not be the way it once was, but the ghost of it is still there, and we knew one another well before a shadow forced this bond upon us. It is a moment of connection, but it is all we need. I pat his hand, scratch at my beard and he steps away.

Legolas might be pale and bloodied he still manages to seem beautiful. He moves away, separates himself and finds himself, and his face seems cut sharp and hungry; his eyes burning all the brighter in the whiteness of his face. Damned elves. I probably look as though I have been fished out of a river three days dead. He drops his hand from where he has been protecting his hurts, schools his face so that there is nothing there at all.

"There is nothing to be done on the second," Hob admits, and I think he is getting used to my friend. He does not flinch, not at the way the elfling burns and intimidates just by his presence right now. He is like an approaching storm – perfectly still and full of the promise of violence. "The city guard fight there; they have sealed the circle, and none enter and nor do they leave. I could help in the fighting, but who else knows what happens here? Minas Tirith did not fall against the Necromancer, they certainly shall not fall under a coup, and absolutely not because a single captain was absent. What I do question is why all of the guard are being drawn downward, pulled away from the top of the city."

"You can be congratulated on a rare show of mannish cleverness," Legolas murmurs… sounds bored despite that he has just probably insulted someone he qualifies as a friend. I am attuned enough to the elfling to recognise this as his attention being split rather than intentional rudeness – I sometimes suspect the elfling must concentrate on not being rude – and so I switch my focus to what happens around me.

There are men, perhaps twenty, all of them Whitecloaks and all of them far more weary than they seemed when they first came upon us. They sit and rest whilst they can, drink water and share the few sad little pieces of beef strip they have between them. Shutter has moved aside, gathering himself alone, but he catches my eye and sees Legolas and so returns to us. The elfling is distracted, his gaze far away, and then he twists his countenance into a grimace, turns to Hob and spits his next words nastily.

"He was meant to be safe," he snarls, and is in full blood again despite that I cannot imagine he has much left. The laegrim elf within him is visible right now, and Hob takes a step back. "He was to be safe from this!"

Again, I ignore the rudeness and focus only on what has caught his attention so thoroughly… squint into the bright light until I can finally see.

A tiny figure, unbelievably small and fragile, running across the grass toward us. Uncoordinated, tripping and clumsy, but earnest and focussed. Sig comes running across the grass toward us, as fast as his little legs can carry him, and now it is my turn to swear.

The boy skirts the first of the bodies lying still upon the charnel field we have left behind us, sees them only as he comes upon them, staggers and stumbles but only for a moment. The lad recovers and runs again, runs toward us, and when he finally reaches our company Legolas is the first one to crouch down. The first one to hold his arms slightly from his side so that the boy can slam solidly into his embrace. Legolas flinches not at all, not for all of his hurts, because Sig is small and gossamer fine and Legolas cares for him. I am surprised by this show of the care he holds for the boy, but only for a moment; Legolas is not cold or cruel. He receives the boy and crushes him tightly to his chest, and if I see his eyes close for a moment then I ignore it.

He pulls the lad away, holds him at arm's length, softens that elven glare – which validates my suspicion that he knows full well how much we hate it – but I can tell that he is furious. Legolas burns with a hundred emotions and none of them are good, all of them are clashing. He shakes the lad gently. Sig is crying as quietly as he can and scuffs the tears from his muddy face angrily with the sleeve of what was once a fine shirt.

"Why did you come here, boy?" Legolas demands, but his tone is softer than I thought it might be. "You were to remain behind, safe and secret."

Sig cranes his neck, looks over at me as though he checks that I am here, and I come a bit closer.

"You should answer him, laddie. I would hear it as well."

His face twists, torn and upset, and I brace myself for the flurry of words this lad is so well accomplished at. He has seen far too much.

"The balcony of the Queen's library is very close to the next one… I climbed but I could not bring Moss. He is too large, you see, but you must not be angry with Master Gowry. He must empty his bladder quite frequently because he is old, and he did not see me leave. I wished only to see what happened; I swear that I would have hidden myself away and done no harm, I swear it, but there are so many men behind the walls! There is a lad in the kitchens that showed them to me, he is called Aben and he is my friend now, and I do not know the paths that well but they are full of men – men that should not be there. And then I heard shouting and the men were angry, and I thought it might be you, and so I ran. I ran and I came to find you to tell you of the men in the walls."

"Then tell us of them," Hob urges, grabbing the lad's arm although he is not unkind. "Tell us, where do they hide? If they walk where the King lives then we must go there immediately, and you must tell us!"

"Go there immediately?" Legolas scowls up at Hob, disbelieving. "With twenty men and a boy? You might care little for your days, but I wish to walk a few more upon these shores. Sig, can you show us?"

"You would bring him along?" Hob sounds outraged.

"Oh, not at all. Let us leave him in a hedge and have him shout this information, I am certain I can hear him from underground."

"Legolas," I chide with a tsk and a scowl, and he deflates as soon as he meets my gaze. It is quite a thing, to see Legolas go from his princely self – son of King Thranduil and Lord of the elven archers – to a tired and hurt elfling in just a breath. I ignore it, and he lets go of Sig. The boy sways as though he was perhaps leaning against the support, but then rights himself, pulls himself together. He turns toward Captain Hob.

"I can show you," he nods, although I know he is afraid. He shifts from foot to foot, his bright blue eyes shifting from Legolas' face and then to mine.

"You need do nothing laddie," I tell him quietly, my voice a bit more gruff that I had meant it to be. "We will be well without you."

"No," he disagrees. "Master Gimli, no… do not cast me aside! You will not find them, you need me. I am frightened, but it is well… it is well. Edgar will not want me if I am cowardly, and I … and I …"

He begins to weep then, as though a dam has broken, and they are heavy sobs that wrack his frame. I am certain that it is nothing more than a cumulation of all that he has seen these last days, but it makes his unhappiness no easier to bear. He tries to speak through his tears, but gasps and bleats and makes some nonsensical sounds, and this time when he throws himself at Legolas my elfling has no idea what to do.

Legolas' face is obscured by Sig's mop of straw, but past that his eyes cut into me; panicked and horrified. No clue what he might do right now. He pats his back dumbly, and I shrug, and then Sig pulls away. His face twisted and dirty and resolute the way I have seen few adults.

"Edgar will not want me if I am cowardly," the child scowls at Legolas. There is a stream of something horrible and wet snaking from his nostrils, and tears form trails down his dirty cheeks. "He will not take me in, and I will not have a home. I want a home so very badly, and so does Moss. I will show you."

Legolas smiles at the boy, the full force of that damnable smile of his… the purest part of him showing through, young and kind as he so rarely shows. He cups the boy's face, swipes his tears with the pad of his thumb and pulls him close for just a moment. Pulls back and stands, but Sig winds his tiny hand into Legolas' – fragile bird bones held by scarred and hard archer's fingers.

"To the lowers, then," Hob nods, accepting that he is beaten.

"There is a thing to do first, though," I say, and I wish I did not have to. I wish more than anything that I did not have to tell Hob or Larke of Ren's betrayal, but if this child can school his fears then so can I. I can see both Shutter and Legolas looking at me, but I do not acknowledge it. I take a deep breath. "There is something that must be said, to you and to Larke, and I am sorry."

~{O}~

Larke crouches, his hand tangled in his hair and resting atop his head, his face twisted in grief.

I cannot look at him.

He has his friends with him, an arm across his shoulder and a man I do not know crouched before him, whispering words I cannot hear. It is cowardly to abandon him this way, but I do not know him that well and this is a moment he needs… a moment where he seeks comfort that I cannot grant. His best friend… his best friend in life has betrayed us, and I cannot even fathom how it must feel to him.

I glance at Legolas, remember the sight of him bleeding out upon the shore of the Anduin. I recall in a flash what I did to him, how that could possibly be considered any different, but I wipe it away. These are old feelings, an old discussion, something I should be moving past. It is hard, but I still see it that way some of the time. Legolas still trusts me, still cares for me exactly the same, but sometimes… sometimes.

Hob has aged a decade in a moment. He looks worn and sad, but when he comes to my side I can see him fighting it. Can see that he struggles to continue, and I can see a flicker of anger begin behind his eyes. That is good. That is the best thing that he can feel right now, and I do nothing to quell it.

"We must go," he murmurs.

"Will he manage?" I ask, gesturing toward Larke with little more than a head tilt. Hob's jaw tightens.

"Yes," he says certainly. "It is his rage rather than his grief that we must be concerned about, but not yet. He is a Whitecloak… we have been named by a prince and clothed by a lady, acknowledged by a king. We have no time to sit in grief and hurt; we will find Ren and ask him why he has betrayed his brothers, but until then we have much to do."

"I have a thought on that," Shutter says. He can be as silent as an elf when he wishes, but I heard him join us. He stands at my left, brushing my arm with a moth-soft touch – just enough to say he is there – and I glance at him. He seems unsure, or perhaps pensive… a strange look as though he says his words as soon as he has thought them. "I have been thinking, and… the Lady Briar. I think I might know where she has gone."

TBC

So, not only have I left you months without an update, but I give you something this short. Please hear me out before you kill me.

This chapter was actually ready to post two weeks after my last chapter, waaaaay back. Unfortunately, my laptop then decided to get very poorly. I dutifully went out and bought a new one (omg you guys it's a thing of beauty) because I was due an upgrade anyway, sat down to move everything over that wasn't already stored on the cloud BECAUSE I AM AN ACTUAL MORON FOR DOING THAT and yeah. It died. It died a very dead death. Deady McDeaddy-Dead. Chapter 20 and the start of chapter 21 gone forever.

I have spent the last month trying to re-write the chapter from memory, whilst writing chapter 21 by hand in a book, and I don't think it's as good as the original version of chapter 20 but it's done. I have grieved, I'm over it, but I'm sorry you guys have had to wait so long for a sub-standard chapter. Chapter 21 should make everything better because it's actually kind of brutal... it made me a bit uncomfortable writing it if I'm honest. Lots of feels there, you guys.

I know I don't deserve it, but I'd love to hear from you. Simply because I haven't spoken to you guys in ages! Hope you haven't forgotten me, and that I might be forgiven.

Have a great weekend :)

MyselfOnly