Growing Pains- Chapter 6

Thank you to all who have read and reviewed so far. The suspense is not yet over- I am afraid I had to cut the scene here almost in half, or else the chapters would just get longer and longer, and I want to stretch out this story a bit to give me time to write something else. So that means another possible cliffhanger... Don't worry, it's not as bad as the last one!

Disclaimer: see Chapter 1

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Elladan laughed as he turned in the saddle to look back at his brother. "Aye, but do you remember the time when Glorfindel drank far too much wine one night, and challenged Adar to a duel?"

Elrohir chuckled and pushed his horse on a little so he drew level with Elladan, down the narrower, windier track that the two of them had taken. They had been riding for an hour or so, going slowly for the sake of Elladan's stallion. Still, they had come far from where the tracks had split, and Estel and Legolas had taken the other way to the clearing.

"I remember," said Elrohir. "And I remember Adar, having drunken too much wine himself, accepting the challenge. Things would have gone very bad if Erestor had not stepped between them and made them agree to wait until tomorrow." He laughed. "And of course, neither of them could remember it the next day."

"Aye," said Elladan with a smile. "Mithrandir was at the feast, was he not? I seem to remember he had stopped by for a while. I can't remember why." He grinned and with a gentle nudge from his heels, steered his stallion around the large boulder cropping out of the edge of the wood.

"We never know why Mithrandir appears," pointed out Elrohir. "He just turns up, half the time with someone in tow, stays to speak with Adar in mysterious conversations that I am sure they exaggerate, and then disappears. None of us know why he comes when he does. I don't even think Adar knows."

"I guess," said Elladan with a shrug. "We have not seen him in five years, is that right? He and the perian stopped here on their way back from Erebor." He chuckled slightly. "I wonder how Master Baggins is doing. He did promise that he would visit again. Somehow I doubt be will be able to stay in the peace and safety of the Shire."

"Aye," said Elrohir. He was about to say something else when he suddenly stopped, reining in his horse with a puzzled expression on his face. Elladan touched his reins and his stallion stopped, a little further down the track.

"What is it?" he asked, scanning the woods around them looking for anything at all that could have attracted his brother's attention. He couldn't see anything suspicious, and that meant that there was nothing suspicious that could be seen, at least by him. Elladan trusted his senses. He always had to.

Yet he knew he also trusted his brother's senses as well as his own, and he also trusted to instinct. Instinct was there for when senses could not work quickly enough, and more than one time instinct had saved Elladan, making him duck below the sword before he really heard the whistle of the blade as it sliced through the air.

Elrohir held up one hand, a signal for Elladan to be silent. They listened.

"I hear nothing unusual," murmured Elladan, his horse moving up to come next to Elrohir's. "Just birdsong."

"Exactly," said Elrohir. "Listen to it."

Elladan listened. And then his eyes widened and he stared in one direction, almost leaning forwards out of the saddle, his body tense. "Is that…?"

"Aye," said Elrohir. "Listen. There it is again."

And there it was. A faint bird whistle, barely able to be heard above the regular chatter of the wildlife in the woods around them, but audible to the sharp ears of the two elves. Of course, a birdcall is nothing unusual or suspicious. Yet the twins seemed to think otherwise.

Elrohir pursed his lips and whistled shrilly, a similar call echoing through the woods. The horses shifted restlessly for a few moments, until an answering call came again.

"He's closer, but cannot find us," murmured Elladan. "Thank the Valar he used a call of Mirkwood birds, or we would not have recognised it." He called a similar whistle to what Elrohir had used, so similar it would have been hard to tell them apart. The shrill whistle had barely died amongst the trees and undergrowth around them before an answering whistle came, slightly louder this time.

Elladan let out one more whistle that was answered yet again by the bird call. Yet this call was different, higher and shriller than the previous calls, and ever so slightly louder. Elladan exchanged glances with Elladan.

"He's found us," he said softly. "But why is he looking in the first place?"

Elrohir shrugged, and raised two fingers to his lips, letting out a shriller whistle that sounded similar to the call the two elves had just heard. He then sighed, his hand dropping back down to grab hold of his reins.

"What has happened?" he murmured, his voice carefully blank. He didn't look over at Elladan; his gaze was focused, strangely, on the trees around them, and his head was tilted as he looked up into the canopy.

Elladan didn't answer, his gaze following Elrohir's as they scanned the trees. A rustle came from behind them and they both turned sharply, their gazes finding nothing. The twins sighed slightly as one, their shoulders slumping, until a slight thud came from in front of them. When they looked back, a lithe blond elf was standing on the track in front of them.

Legolas smiled grimly. "Mellyn-nin," he said, his voice grim and tired. "Do you know how hard it was to find you? If you had not recognised my calls…"

Elladan dismounted, closely followed by Elrohir. "I am glad we did," he said, clasping Legolas' shoulder. "What has happened?"

Legolas paused for a split second. "Yrch," he said.

"What?" asked Elrohir. "There have not been sightings of orcs for a few months now." He paused, seeming to be thinking, and when he spoke again his voice was far harder and colder, like sharpened steel.

"Where is Estel?"

"He is safe," Legolas said immediately. "I had to leave him to come and find you. He would not have been able to get away through the trees without the orcs spotting us."

Elladan ground his teeth. "Start from the beginning," he said. "I take it we don't have much time?"

Legolas shrugged. "No, we do not, yet the situation is not desperate," he said. "If it were, you know I would have gotten Estel out of there." Elladan nodded in agreement, and Legolas started to explain. "My horse hit an orc snare, and went down as we were galloping," he said. "A few minutes after we took the wider track. I was thrown, and escaped unharmed."

"Not completely unharmed," pointed out Elrohir, looking with concern at the large bruise that had formed on the side of Legolas' face, starting at his forehead and stretching down until it reached his cheekbone.

Legolas shrugged it off. "It is nothing," he said. "My horse fell, and then Estel's panicked. He reared and went over backwards." He didn't miss the way Elladan and Elrohir's eyes darkened and they sucked in a breath as one, but he kept talking.

"He was thrown clear," he said, and he saw the visible relief in both of the twins' eyes. "But Estel's arm is broken, and he hit his head. He is conscious, though, and coherent enough. He is alright."

"Thank the Valar," murmured Elrohir. "But this is not all."

Nay," said Legolas. "I put the horses out of their misery. Neither of them would have been able to get up, let alone carry us out of there. Estel nearly stepped in another snare, but I pushed him out of the way. Before we could get out of there, I heard the coming orcs. We barely had time to get into the woods, and I only just managed to get Estel up into one of the larger trees before the orcs came."

He sighed. "The orcs looked like they were settling when I left. They seemed to like their catch of our horses." His face twisted into disgust. "Vile creatures."

"How long ago was this?" asked Elladan. He was already itching to go after the orcs, to hunt them down, because he had to, because it was what he and his brother did, what they needed to do, and they had to hunt those creatures down, and…

"You can't," said Legolas. Elladan blinked.

"What?"

"You can't hunt them down," Legolas said, his eyes flickering to Elrohir and seeing the same admission in his face. "I know both of you are thinking it. Not even the three of us could do it without injury. There are forty orcs on the track, and Estel is not fit to fight. You cannot hunt them."

Elladan paused slightly, his instincts still urging him, as he had been doing all these years, to hunt down the orcs and kill them. Legolas, seeing his hesitation, gritted his teeth, and decided to speak up.

"Ai Valar!" he said. "You cannot think of hunting orcs right now, both of you! In case you haven't forgotten, your little foster brother, who I know you love dearly and want to protect, is sitting in a tree above the orcs, with a broken arm. He was scared, mellyn-nin, though he tried to hide it." Legolas' voice was low and tense, not shouting, but with an edge to it. "You cannot think of hunting orcs right now."

There was silence. Elladan ran his hand through his hair and over his face, sighing. "Forgive us," he murmured. "It was an immediate response. I was not thinking of acting on it, believe me."

"Neither was I," said Elrohir earnestly. "It has just become such an instinct, but we would never act on it. You know our first priority is to look out for Estel."

Legolas seemed to study his face for a second, before nodding. "I believe you," he said. "Forgive me, mellyn-nin. It has been a tense hour or so, especially when I could not find you." He glanced around him. "I do not know these woods."

He didn't speak of the endless running through the trees, his senses on a constant alert as he tried to find the twins, listen out for the orcs and avoid tripping and falling out of the canopy as he ran through it. The woods had been strangely devoid of animals, though birdsong could still be heard around him. It was the birdsong that had eventually led him to start adding calls of his own, whistles that cut through the air around him. He knew the orcs would never realise that his calls were not from real birds, but he had hoped that Elladan and Elrohir would recognise it.

After so many years fighting the darkness in Mirkwood, Legolas knew how to focus properly, how to block out most of the crippling thoughts that could invade if you had not trained your mind well enough. Training in Mirkwood was not just combat training. A poorly prepared mind could be as dangerous as a blunt weapon in a battle. And Legolas had been training for a very long time.

Yet every battle, every situation was different. And each one had something, some little thing that was able to find its way past the training and the barriers and worm its way inside your mind, seeding whispering thoughts that could be crippling if you let them grow. And this time, Legolas could not shut out the little whisper in his head, not completely.

And as he ran through the trees, he could not help thinking whether Estel was alright, whether he was still awake, or had succumbed to the exhaustion and pain Legolas had seen on his face and fallen asleep. Legolas didn't know whether the orcs were still there, or had moved on, or, Valar forbid, had spotted Estel.

If they had, Legolas knew that he would blame himself. Once that thought had appeared in his head, he had resolutely tried to stop all other thoughts not necessary for navigating through the trees and finding Elladan and Elrohir, trying to not think about it, until he had heard an answering whistle and felt the relief as he realised Elladan and Elrohir were answering him.

"How far away are they?" asked Elrohir, breaking through Legolas' thoughts. "How long can it take to get near enough to get to Estel?"

Legolas glanced up at the sky. "I am unsure," he said softly. "We were galloping for a few minutes, no more. Yet I do not know how far away we are from the split in the track, and we cannot get the horses through the woods."

"We are not too far," Elladan said, flicking the reins over his horse's head. "We can come up with a plan as we ride." He mounted his stallion again and pushed the horse closer to Legolas. Elladan extended his hand. "Legolas?"

Legolas glanced up, and then grasped Elladan's hand, pulling himself up and onto the back of Elladan's horse. He briefly grasped Elladan's shoulder before dropping his hands limply to his side. "We need to go," he said.

Elrohir, already mounted, nodded and turned his horse around, back the way they came. With a nudge and a soft word from Legolas, the two horses and the three elves began to move back down the track, getting faster and faster, until the horses were stretched out in canter, their hooves pounding rhythmically on the forest floor.

Yet it was still not fast enough for the three elves. Every yard covered was one yard too many. But none of them wished for things to be different, none of them asked for this to never have happened, or for things to change. They had all been fighting too long to ever let themselves think that, when they knew perfectly well nothing would ever change.

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Estel's eyes were fixed on the orcs below him.

His breath came in sharp bursts, hissing out through clenched teeth as he struggled to keep his jaw shut. One hand clenched and unclenched on Legolas' knife, the handle smooth underneath his calloused fingers. He could not drop it. Drop it, and he was dead.

But still his vision was not completely clear, and his head was spinning. He thanked the Valar that Legolas had had the sense to tie him to the tree before he left, or he would have fallen.

He blinked, focusing on the orcs. They had spread out into the undergrowth on either side of the track, taking dead wood and brush from the undergrowth to start a small fire, over which they were roasting the meat from their fallen horses. He closed his eyes as the smoke drifted up towards him, but still it caught the back of his throat and Estel, without thinking, without meaning to…

Coughed.

Immediately his hand shot up and clamped over his mouth, his eyes wide in horror. A quick glance showed a few orcs look up and the horror filling him up and covering him climbed as one or two growled something to a few others.

And then a weakening wave of relief washed over him as the orcs settled back down again, bickering over the charring slabs of meat in the fire. He relaxed back against the tree, his eyes shutting in a quiet sigh of relief. Dropping the hand from his mouth, Estel let it fall in his lap.

Let it fall in his lap, where it jogged the long white knife that he had let go of to keep in his cough, and Estel was too late to catch it as it jumped off of his leg and began to slip, and he reached for it. For a moment he thought he would grab it, that the knife would not fall, but then the moment ended and the knife slipped from his leg and the branch and fell, spinning through the branches and towards the ground, and…

And everything seemed to freeze, and Estel could feel the air rush out of his lungs as he gasped aloud as the knife hit the ground, clattering against the branches and coming to rest on the ground. He couldn't move, couldn't get out of the way as the orcs picked it up and looked up, and their gaze came to rest on him, and he couldn't move, couldn't escape as one orc picked up a roughly hewn bow and nocked an arrow, and Estel watched with no breath in his lungs at all as the orc pulled back the bowstring, sighted and…

And the arrow sped towards him, the black head coming closer and closer, and too late Estel twisted and tried to move, desperately clinging to his instincts to try and survive. But it was too little too late, and the arrow came closer and closer, until it struck.

And Estel awoke from the dream with a gasp that was quickly silenced. Immediately he clenched his hand around the knife that was in his lap, and after a second of thought, stowed it carefully in his belt. He couldn't risk it falling out. He couldn't drop it.

After doing that, Estel leant his head back against the trunk of the tree and let out a controlled sigh. He shut his eyes, trying to slow down his heart. He could hear the beat thundering away in his head, and his breathing, no matter how quiet he tried to keep it, was ragged and coming far too fast.

He risked glancing down, and was relieved to see that the orcs were busy roasting the now charred meat from their horses over a few small fires that they had set up. A few of them had taken the supplies off of the horses, and were fighting over some of their possessions.

The smoke from the fires rolled up towards Estel, and this time he made sure that he did not cough, his hand firmly over his mouth. The memories of his dream were still too vivid. Nothing could stop the smell, though, and Estel's stomach rolled as he caught the smell of the roasted meat, mainly because it smelled so similar to the roast rabbit that he loved to eat at Imladris. His stomach rumbled with hunger, and Estel winced at the noise, seemingly so loud to his ears. It didn't help anything; just reminded him that he was hungry and thirsty. He had been up in the tree for over an hour now.

He supposed there was one bright side to the smell of the roasting meat. It covered up the stench of the blood from the horse carcasses.

Estel relaxed slightly as he felt his pulse and breathing returning to normal levels, or at least as normal as they can be when a pack of orcs are underneath the tree you are stranded in. He wondered, as he had been doing for the past hour or so, when he was not asleep, where Legolas was. Had he found his brothers yet? Could they even get back to him without being seen?

A slight movement in the treetops to the right of him suddenly had Estel whipping his head around, and he silently cursed as the sudden movement sent his stomach lurching, the nausea coming back with a vengeance. Blinking to try and focus the world into view, and taking a deep breath to stop himself from emptying his stomach, Estel looked around him at where he thought he saw movement, hoping desperately for a sign of Legolas, or better yet, his brothers.

At first he saw nothing, and the pang of worry rose in him yet again. And then his eyes, flitting randomly over the woods, caught hold of something and Estel stilled.

It would have been almost impossible to spot Legolas in the trees, he was so still. It was his golden hair that had caught Estel's eye, and that was partially because Estel had grown up with two elven brothers, and had become very good at spotting elves whilst playing hide and seek.

Legolas saw Estel watching him and raised one finger to his lips, slowly. His eyes flickered back to the orcs, and as soon as some of the orcs began to bicker loudly again, he raised his head, and in a swift movement, jumped into the next tree. Landing with barely a shudder on the branch, Legolas climbed swiftly. Estel followed him until the blond elf was up amongst the most slender branches, branches that Estel thought were far too thin to take the weight of an elf.

It only took a few minutes before Legolas climbed down the tree Estel was sitting in until he was crouched on the end of Estel's branch. A half smile was on his face as Estel sighed in relief. The young man pulled out Legolas' knife that he had been keeping safe in his belt, and handed it over.

Legolas smiled as he took his weapon back, and quickly used it to slice the ragged strips of cloak that had been used to keep Estel on the branch, gathering up the cloth so none of it fell to the floor. He shifted in the tree, moving swiftly and silently so that he was crouched on another branch, by Estel's head.

"Estel?" he asked softly, his voice barely even a whisper.

Estel nodded, trying to move his legs to get some feeling back into them. "Aye," he replied. "It's still me. Did you find Elladan and Elrohir?"

"I did," whispered Legolas in reply, his eyes flickering from Estel back to the orcs again. "They're here. We're going to get you out of here."

Estel cracked a smile, though it felt fake. "About time," he whispered, and the smile felt a little less fake as Legolas smiled back at him.

"Elladan is down on the forest floor," he murmured. "Closer to Imladris, and as close to the orcs as he can get without being seen or smelt." Luckily Estel and Legolas were downwind of the orcs, so the creatures could not catch their scent. Besides, the smell of the horses had masked it well.

"Elrohir is the other side of the orcs," continued Legolas. "When he moves to distract them, we climb down. Run north along the track, and Elladan will meet you up there. When you get to the horses, get on and go. Don't wait for Elrohir and I."

"Wait," said Estel, his voice quiet. "What are you going to do?"

Legolas gave a wry smile. "Someone has to watch your back," he said softly. "Elrohir and I will harry the orcs as much as we can. We know what we are doing."

Estel thought about protesting, asking for maybe one of Legolas' knives so he could help fight, but then his head swam and the tree branches around him blurred into a haze of green and brown. His stomach rolled again and he gulped, squeezing his eyes shut to try and regain control and stop the spinning.

When he opened his eyes again, Legolas was still crouched next to him, and he could feel the reassuring weight of the elf's hand on his shoulder. Legolas squeezed his shoulder briefly. "Are you ready?" he murmured. "We have to be as quick as we can."

Estel nodded and, gripping hold of a small branch to keep his balance and not fall out of the tree, he shifted so his feet were dangling from the branch. Clenching his teeth against the dizziness, Estel lowered himself until he stood on a lower branch, gripping onto other branches tightly.

Legolas moved above him and slid through the trees until he was as close to the track as he could come. A small part of Estel marvelled at the fluid way he moved through the trees, how the branches never seemed to be in his way. It seemed so natural to him.

Legolas pursed his lips and let out a low chattering whistle. If Estel hadn't seen him do it, he would have sworn it was a regular birdcall. The blond elf waited tensely for a few moments before an answering whistle came from further up the track. Still Legolas waited, completely still, his body tense like the string of a bow just before the arrow is fired, until another answering whistle came, this time from the other direction. It was only then that Legolas let himself relax slightly and move, easily threading his way through the branches back to Estel.

"Ready?" he whispered. Estel nodded, stopping the movement quickly when he swayed, and Legolas briefly grasped his arm. He gave it a reassuring squeeze, before lifting one hand to his mouth and sending out a shrill whistle. There was silence.

To Be Continued...

Estel is just so adorable... As always, reviews are very welcome, and do really make my day. When I come back from a really long day at school, with a mound of work, it just puts a smile on my face to see that people care enough to comment on what I write. Thank you :)