Bind Them (A Thranduil fan-fic) - Book 2 of Mirkwood Royals

by magicbunni

(In 7 Chapters.) A solemn purpose has separated Lusis Buckmaster from her friends and chosen home in the Halls of the Elvenking. And, soon, cries of wargs split the night air, silent strangers glide into Buckmaster Keep, and the famed Messenger-Men of the North come under attack - the results of an imbroglio between Men and elves, and a contrivance to lay low an inconvenient King.

6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

She woke up with a jolt and reached for her sword.

It wasn't where she always left it.

Stars, forget the sword, she couldn't even find the edge of her cot!

Her eyes opened. She blinked at the pink sunlight, crumpled in rose sheets.

Warm. The bed smelled like rain on pine-trees. Her eyelids snapped open, and her eyes slid toward the sound of water sloshing and the ringing of elvish voices.

"No," the King broke into Westron. "Finding the target is made more complex by what she did, Lord Elrond. It was inadvertent. You have my deepest apologies that I have yet been unable to deliver you from this yoke of suffering. She healed me quite without warning."

"It is to be expected," said the Lord's low voice, which, nonetheless, hummed like a tuning-fork struck in the dark of her skull. Elrond was resonant in all he was and did. Even so hushed, his voice struck a deep bell, softly. In contrast, the Elfking's whispers were the rustle of leaves in the wind, as if, in the pair of them, a cataract of waterfalls met a tower of forest.

And she was just a human girl on the Elfking's bed. Uncharted territory. Very probably dangerous. Stars. Her cot was deserted. Her troop had to be wondering where the Fires she was. They'd be looking for her by now. Stumbling around, bumping into one another-

Was the door open?

Of course the door was open.

She shut her eyes and gritted her teeth: Elves.

The Elfking sloshed water. "To be expected? Are you so sure?"

"Confidently so," said Elrond.

"I find that… unlikely."

"It is simplicity," said the Lord, and his words slowed. "It is impossible to miss her feeling."

"Feeling? She is fitful. I can't say what to expect of her from moment to moment."

The Lord Elrond's voice jumped with delight, "How exciting."

"Ah. You gloat." The Elfking sighed, "Would you, perhaps, like to add an allegory here?"

"Well, the Elfking is rather hard to predict, himself. Ask his sons, his people, his allies, the Men of his new territory, the elk, any other living beast-"

"His enemies," added the King quietly. "Ask his enemies."

There was a moment of silence. Elrond sounded dissatisfied, and somehow, abashed, "I… cannot be used to pinpoint the enemy."

"It is through no failing of yours that this has come to pass," a great rush of water signaled the King getting out of the claw footed tub. "She had no intention of harm. She will deliver you today, if she can… in fact, that may become our best lead, given the circumstances."

She managed to turn off her waking mind for a time, helped along by the shushing of fabric against flesh and the fact it was followed by the familiar sound of a flurry of combing.

The King's voice poured over Sindarin elvish for a moment and he exhaled. "To track a target across such a swollen maze it is helpful to triangulate."

"So we are defeated," said the Lord.

"Mm," the King's voice throbbed low, "not precisely. When the enemy is still in tall grass, what we need… is a spark." His voice was alarmingly close to the bed when he said so.

He was probably coming to pick up some article of clothing or other that he'd left there.

Something gentle brushed her arm.

Fires.

Lusis balled up and pulled the blanket she lay on over her head.

The King's voice was calm, "Lusis-dess?"

"I'm not here," her voice was muffled by soft fabric as she said it. But then she felt like a fool for hiding in his bed and sat suddenly up.

She was treated to the sight of three elves – the Elfking, Ewon, and Amathon – all of them frozen with their heads askance, but all tipped in different directions. No one dared make expression. No elf spoke. Then Amathon glided in. He bent beside her for a confidential moment during which he assured her, "Friend-Lusis, you are, indeed, here." He stepped back, quite earnest, with the soft head incline that equaled a nod among elves. Then he smoothed his soft green long-coat – he looked very official today.

They all did. There was Ewon in a long-coat of deep burgundy threaded with copper. Gorgeous.

And, gods, they were baffled. It made her chuckle.

She put her head down so they wouldn't have to deal with her irrepressible emotion.

"Is she well?" called the Lord, Elrond.

The Elfking said, "I… do not know how to answer the question." He glanced to either side of him and Amathon and Ewon withdrew together and stood just inside the doorway.

"Lusis-dess?"

She looked up at the Elfking's silver eyes. "Lusis-dess, not Lusis-sell?"

"Young woman," he said.

"Congratulations, Lusis Buckmaster," said Lord Elrond. "In his eyes, you are an adult."

Her face flushed mightily. "Nooo…" she looked at the bedsheets around her. She had clothes on. She was well aware nothing had happened. "My Lord, I think you misunderstand what's come to pass."

When she looked to the dark-haired elf, she was surprised to see he was seated and wrapped in the white fur cloak that had been presented to the King. His skin was papery. She stood up on the bed, happily still dressed, though without her elvish boots. "Lord Elrond, you are so pale."

"I will endure," he said patiently. "May I congratulate the young Istari?" His eyes crinkled in a smile he spared for her.

"For the King's contract?" Lusis walked down and stepped off the end of the bed. She dropped to the floor with the grace of a bird. "No, my Lord. It's tactical. It's a shrewd maneuver of the Elvenking's. And don't you think you should be resting, rather than spending your energy celebrating a gambit of ours? Better yet, you should let me help you."

For a moment, the room was as silent as the vault of Erebor had been, the night she'd gone in. Then the only sound was the flutter of the Elflord's eyelids. The Lord glanced from Lusis to the Elfking. He shut his eyes and bowed his head, "I see."

"Good, then let me help you. Then you can rest and heal."

The Lord averted his gaze. "Glorfindel… perhaps some air. Please."

By the windows, the huge, blond elf touched the draperies back into place and came to his Lord's summons. "Are we ready?"

The Lord of Rivendell looked to the Elvenking a long moment. "We are, yes."

The Elfking made a slow incline of his head. The cloak was lifted up and wrapped around Elrond's shoulders. Glorfindel helped the Lord to his feet so that he could make his way out.

Lusis turned, perplexed. The door to the room shut behind the last exiting elf.

She had to face the King. So she did. Lusis felt that sizable part of her that was Chief of a troop come to the fore as she looked at him.

The King was… resplendent was the only word she could find that qualified. The outfit was layered and long. The outer coat was so pale a blue it might have been white. It was shot through with silver threads of wind and a flurry of white snowflakes magnificently dotted with crystal. When he crossed the room to stand with her, she could see the thin long coat underneath was silver with a pattern of white pine-needled limbs embroidered, and innermost, the thinnest long coat was a chill blue with snowflakes covering it in painstaking detail. He was exquisitely turned-out. His hair was still wet against him. She glanced at the bed and found that there was a strange crown there. It was woven Mithril and rose into stylized antlers.

"What's that?"

"That is the Circlet of Rhiwaras – The Winter Deer." The King glanced over it. "It was once presented to King Bard by the elves of Mirkwood. I do not know that he wore it in his time… he was a modest person, self-effacing and full of mercy. It was presented to Kasia by those few Men who still dwell at the point between the ruins of Esragoth, North on the lake, and the ruins of Hale."

She cocked her head at him, "Did the Kingdom grow? Overnight? Did your Kingdom grow?"

"I have not claimed the lands that far," he had yet to look at her. "But, ma, they wish to claim me. I should know by late winter if they should be gambled upon, or if I should urge them to melt into the population here. If they will have it."

"They have more reason to love you than most," Lusis pointed out. "My mother – Mellona – her people dwelled among them…. Which may work in our favour if we are forced to stand against Kirstman in Buckmaster Keep."

Now he glanced at the circlet himself. His voice was subdued, "How political of you."

"We… we have a plan," she said slowly. The King was in a strange temper and she didn't want to upset or anger him. But she was becoming increasingly tangled in the buried lines of his intentions, unable to see them in the closed darkness of his heart. "Is this not a plan?"

"Yes," he assured her, "it is a strategy, Istari."

She sensed something else on the end of that pronouncement, unsaid, and she felt her lips press into a line. "Look at me."

His head rose first, and then she watched his pale eyelashes lift, and under them, such crisp and beautiful blue-moon eyes. He said nothing. He was overwhelming.

She sucked a deep breath through her teeth, "Did you want this contract?"

The King's silver eyes averted at once, and the hands curled at his sternum, now pressed over his heart. But the firelight inside of him, she could see that very well, and it leapt from a golden tongue of flame to a sudden spiral of white fire. She took a step forward and set her hand over his, where they were crossed on his chest. His fire rushed toward her in a flood of extraordinary light. Her starpoint answered back as if the sky parted with a volley of sun.

Neither of them breathed.

Eventually, Lusis nodded, "I will stand with you. As long as we stand." She looked at his pale face, "I will protect my home, my people, and you. My King. My own."

His pale fingers moved. He covered her hand in acceptance.

The stone inside of her began to melt away into fire and gold. Her fingers flexed over, and under, his. "I suspect this is going to be an eventful day." She said as she stepped back and looked at the incredible creature now, somehow, indelibly linked to her. Lusis recognized it was not a matter of paper and signature. That could, and would, go to ashes in a brazier as soon as this mess with Bregoln was over. But nothing could erase the fact their fires knew one another. They reached for one another. And in that airless, timeless span where their lights brushed, nothing was missing. Nothing was wasted.

"About… being political," his silver eyes rose. "I hope you can forgive this."

"Ah," Lusis winced and pressed her fingertips to the bridge of her nose. "Elrond is a wise edhel. What now, busy-head?"

His brows rose. "Perhaps it's better seen than told?"

She had a sinking feeling as she followed him to the door. Out there things weren't as simple as matching fires, simple faith, and love. Out there was the rest of the world. And things outside that door were complicated. He set a hand on the latch and she shook her head, No.

Long practice let him properly read this wordless human gesture.

The King waited.

She gathered herself, hastily, and tried to plan what she would say to her troop, to Icar, and gods, Dorondir – she didn't know what to say, or how to feel, when she thought of him.

The King's head tipped. "Lusis-dess," he said, "you are as you should be. Don't be afraid."

"Just a second." She crossed her arms under her breasts with no way of knowing if he could read that signal too – the insecurity in it.

"You are not alone," he told her. "And, yes, I know that is the crux of the problem. But, let me assure you, it is also the solution."

She looked up with an inhalation, the daughter of generations of Buckmasters, an invisible girl exposed on a mountain that had long ago fallen out of memory. A child delivered from death by shepards. The Yellow Istari. She'd overcome so much. What did she have to be afraid of?

The elves.

That's what.

There were seven of them. All of them small healers. They washed her – scrubbed her within an inch of having skin, twice. She tried to explain to them that it wouldn't matter how much they washed. She, at basic, was a deep and rosy tan. That didn't slow them down one whit. They washed her hair several times. Then they painted it with warmed oils and washed it a final time before putting it into elven plaits. Where it would not fit the proper structure for elven hair, it was trimmed. They spent endless amounts of time on her skin. Cleaning it. Plucking it. Covering it with wax and stripping it. Rubbing unguents into it.

"You must be working up quite a sweat," she growled at one of the slender elf girls.

"It is effortless," she said brightly.

Lusis slunk down into the thick robe they'd wrapped around her, secure in the knowledge these girls were stronger than any human and utterly tireless.

They clipped and buffed her nails and covered them in oils they rubbed in.

She came out of all of this stinging slightly, and smelling like honeyed lily and candied fruit.

Lusis took one look at the extravagant dresses and glanced around her for rescue. So much for 'You are not alone'. She pulled a deep breath and called out, "Elvenking, I am not wearing a dress!"

"Ah," came Amathon's merry voice from the hall. "My King, this is your lucky day."

Lo and behold, the deep, beautiful ringing of elven laughter rose – there were Elites there, or perhaps a section. There was some large number present. Lusis slapped her forehead with the palm of her hand.

The Elfking sent in Nimpeth, which was like sending a jar of water to a girl thirsting to death on the Southern salt flats. "Nimpeth, for the sake of pity, I don't want to wear these-" she glanced over the filmy creations, the likes of which belonged on Galadriel, all of them shape-hugging.

The elf-woman's blue eyes lit up. "Ai, you look like royalty!" She covered her lips with her fingers and then called out to her father and husband, "Ada and melabenn, she looks like a fiery young queen… and if you could but see the dresses they have made."

A jar whose lid required a grisly amount of force to remove.

It took a half an hour for Lusis to convince them to put her into an outfit similar to the one Telfeth, now standing in the doorway and fairly bouncing on her toes with excitement, wore. There had been some speculation she would behave this way, so, while it was a Scout's uniform, it was not made of standard cloth, and not the standard black and white of winter. This was a rich golden red with yellow worked in through the threads.

She drew the line at the hair-piece they tried to put into her braid. It was a half-circlet not unlike something that Eithahawn might wear, though more modest. It was a fine silver crown of mistletoe covered in silver leaves and berry pearls. They lifted it at her several times and she said No.

"Just my sword," she pushed past them and snapped up the sword and sheath that Telfeth held. The young elf girl inclined her head. This was not an improvement on Lusis' day.

She stepped out without warning. Elves stood in lines along either side of the hall, and they fell silent and still as she came out among them.

Her skin was much darker than their own, the gold insinuating itself into her hair made it look as if yellow ribbons had been plaited into her dark braids. She stood in the winter sun and elves stared at her, wordless. She wondered if she looked foolish to them – a girl pretending to be an elf. Lusis pulled a deep breath. Amathon, by the door, stepped out and inclined his head to her. "Lady, would you like to see the King?"

"To put it mildly," Lusis headed down toward the staircase.

He was by the landing, and turned from the window as she approached.

His eyelids fluttered and he straightened in surprise when she headed for him. And, though she would show no outward sign of this, Lusis doubted she would ever forget the sudden innocence in his face on that moment when he saw her again. That sweet expression slid aside as he stepped up in front of her. He inclined his head slightly. "Ma. And now… now you know my pain."

Fires.

She smirked because she couldn't outright laugh in this company, but then smoothed her expression again, and sighed. "Please tell me the rest of the day will be easier, and that I may happily fade into the background where I can protect you?"

"Ah." He confessed, "We are bound and shouldn't lie to one another."

Lusis glanced up at the gleaming grandness of the Circlet of Rhiwaras, on his silvery head. "Okay," she smoothed the robes she wore. "This won't be every day…. But it can be today."

"I am glad," he said. "The Princes are here, Lusis."

She brightened, unable to conceal her grin. "Legolas too?"

Now he lit-up as well. "I am told he is here…" he faltered, just trying to conceal the great excitement that was obvious in the throb of his voice, "I haven't seen him."

"Let's fix that." She nodded. Lusis knew that there was one person who would know where the Elfprince was. Redd, collector of stories. If Legolas had been abroad in various lands, then Redd had sought him out. That was a fact.

She headed down the stairs, aware that her glossy waves of hair bounced against her leather-bound back, coiling and uncoiling near the ends of the lengths like springs. Kasia looked up at her, wide-eyed. He stepped back and shook his head. The staff, likewise, got out of her way.

The Master of Boats scoffed, "Lusis Buckmaster, are… are you sure you don't have pointed ears hidden in that hair?" His small daughter, Avonne bounced up-and-down on her toes and pointed at Lusis in a most alarming way.

"Friend-Lusis is so pretty, ada-Thranduil!" She ran to the tall Elf.

"Yes, she is." He said simply. When the urge to look in his direction struck, Lusis restrained herself. Avonne charged past her, "Yes, merilneth."

"What is that?" Kasia's forehead wrinkled with concern, "What is that word, and, Avonne, do you have to climb on the King so, and while he is in such fineries?"

"Yes," Avonne told her father. "Ada-Thranduil is the prettiest of all the pretties." She petted the King's silken hair and gently smoothed his ear-tip back as if it remained at such a perfect point through her efforts alone. "Merilneth means young rose."

"Why does she know elvish?" Kasia pointed at his daughter, and, impertinently enough, quizzed the Elfking.

"Because she tries." Was the reply. It made Lusis smirk.

She was met in the downstairs by Merilin. He bowed to the King, and then to her, which was odd. Lusis didn't like this change and glanced at her King. She was surprised to find his silver disk eyes studying her, ovoid pupils somewhat dilated.

Merilin straightened and spared a second acknowledgment, an inclination of his head, for Lusis. He seemed, in his stoic fashion, very pleased. "My King, your Prince is touring in Lake Township."

The Elfking stilled, "Is he astride some horse, amid a section of elves, in these streets?"

"No, of course not," Merilin said quickly. His tone sounded taxed, "I was told there was more adventure to be had on foot. Thus he's scampering along the rooftops with a section… my section." He opened his bow-honed arms and his head bent. Behind Lusis' back, Ewon – father of this very elf – made a quickly subdued burble of amusement.

Kasia and several of the staff began to grin. Their powerful King was rumoured to have a bone-deep problem, and it was one with which even Men were all quite familiar. He had a carefree son. Politely, Kasia asked, "Section-head Merilin, what about the other one? The one with the strawberry blond hair?"

And so, Merilin, quite uncharacteristically, spoke directly to a human, "Lord Eithahawn?"

"That's him – the tall one. Needs to eat a few more meals. Staff wants to make him a pot roast."

The very elf swirled through the door, with his dark red velvet cloak billowing around him. He took down the hood and his hair spilled out from under a glimmering circlet of Mithril – holly complete with star ruby berries. He came in through the open doors and the blowing snow outside, and leafed through the paperwork he held. He did not look up. "I will take that under advisement… whatever in the world 'a pot-roast' might be." His golden brows rose up.

"You wouldn't like to be one," Lusis said, aside and saw that Merilin was entertained.

The Elfking thawed a moment. "Hello, my own."

Though he didn't look up, or break stride, the words had struck Eithahawn. His voice was quietly grateful as he replied, "Ada."

"Oh," Avonne cooed. "He calls you ada too. He's my brother. Brother is hannar."

Eithahawn looked up at the tiny and unfamiliar voice. He warmed when he saw the little blond girl that his father held. Human or not, elves did adore children. For weeks they'd been teaching her Silvan and Sindar, and Ewon could sometimes be found singing her songs in his off time. Eithahawn, tall, bright, and lovely, glanced from Avonne to Lusis and his eyes widened in pleasant surprise. "Ah. You look like one of us, friend-Lusis. Beautiful."

"Thanks. I think." She said sharply.

He glanced back at Avonne. "Hawn is also brother. As in my name, Eithahawn."

Her nose wrinkled, "But… but why would they name you one who pricks his brother?"

"Because when I was born, I already had four very puckish, adult brothers," said the aqua-eyed Kingdom's-seneschal, and his brows rose in tickled memory. "My name was meant for those four, as a warning. I suspect my emel – my mother – feared I wouldn't survive them." He made a sad elven smile, because those brothers had fallen in battle, along with his parents. At that time, Eithahawn had been under a decade in the world. And it had been a struggle in the early years, but he had survived them all.

The King must have known what he was thinking. He stepped forward, "I am glad to see you, ion." His head drifted down and right. "Your stay must be brief, I know, but I see you and I am content."

"Ai, it's the Winter Deer," his aqua eyes took in the crown the King wore. "I've never seen this beauty of our making outside of books. How did you come by it?"

Now Jan Kasia cleared his throat, delicately, "Right, that would be the small contingent seated at the west wall here." He directed their attention to the bearded, scruffy men who crouched on benches, hunched under tapestries whose browns, reds, and tans they matched, from whence they gaped at the elven royals. Pacing along before them was a straight-legged young woman with short, brown, waving curls of hair and matching eyes. Her gaze mostly on the floor. She wore leathers and furs and frowned as she turned and paced the way she'd come.

Kasia nodded at the King. "Elfking, this is Bess." Now he spoke slowly to the imposing tower of light, "Most in Lake Township know her as Bess Bowman Once-of-Dale."

Now the Elfking set Avonne onto the floor. He took slight steps in the tall girl's direction, and then inclined his Mithril-antlered head to her. "Ariel Bess, why did you bring me this crown of yours?"

She nipped the corner of her lip and looked up at him. Her voice was unsure, "H-hello, mighty Elvenking," she inhaled as if to inflate her collapsing figure, and said, "There's scarcely 2000 of the old city's citizens in between Esragoth and Dale. I'm hardly a princess."

He glanced up at her, "You know and remember elvish?"

"Why not?" she crossed her arms and looked up at him. "You know and remember your Westron. Why shouldn't I do the same of my Sindarin?" Her chin rose.

"Ai," breathed Eithahawn. "The blood of the Bowman is strong."

"You should retain this," the King said and one increasingly graceful hand unfurled toward the crown that glinted over his fair hair.

The girl, who was just older than a teenager, looked grim as she said, "I would rather preserve your goodwill. It's more important than a relic, or so my father's-fathers always said. You must understand… my brothers are in the North, where they fight as Rangers. Their troops of men are their kingdom. They care only for ridding this world of taint."

"Which leaves you, here." Without hesitation, the Elfking asked, "What do you need, ariel?"

"There are Men in the mountain, Elvenking. My people ever watch that place. We are honed against the Dragon Sickness, and can hardly suffer it anymore. We are natural friends of Man, and spies on the mountain. They can hide much…" she jabbed a thumb at herself, "but not from me."

Eithahawn set down his stacks of paperwork on the long table that ran along the top of the room. "The Lonely Mountain is under treaty, and while no elves are allowed in, there is no such prohibition on Men and Dwarves."

"Not like this." The earnest-eyed young woman shook her head.

The Elvenking raised a hand, fractionally, to call for silence, "What have you seen?"

"Flattened grass along the Northern dells at the foot of the mountain. And wild game. It is hard to detect this, because his Majesty has claimed this land and, so, filled even the winter with mildness and plenty, but… something is taking a large quantity of wild game. My Men work with Kells Srus, the furrier, and we all expected a winter take such as we'd never witnessed. But that's not come to pass, someone else is taking the animals. Winter fish are the same."

"Your people are hungry, while mine harvest honey in the snow," the King tipped his head. "We shall see you through."

There was obvious relief on the faces of the two men behind her.

But the small, sharp girl pressed on, "It's more than our hunger, brings me here, Elvenking. There are tracks to the North, and pains taken to conceal them. Just hours ago, I walked through the woods and saw split and broken trees so eerie. I've climbed down the slopes to ask you, what could split them as I've seen, at the top? Elvenking, these trees are taller than the highest steeples here."

The Elfking had already shut his eyes. "I see."

Bess Bowman's dark brows drew down, "You and your… your fine miss," she snuck a shy look at Lusis, "must leave this place."

Lusis laid a hand on her sword hilt.

No one else spoke.

"Eithahawn."

"Adar?"

"You will brief me on affairs," the Elfking pivoted, "and you will leave for the Kingdom. Merilin, find Legolas and tell him the same. In fact, when he is home, perhaps… confine him to his suites."

The dark-haired section-head glanced up at the King, daunted, but it was Eithahawn who said, "That's a weighty 'perhaps'. Unless you plan to tie my slippery brother to a tree. But I wouldn't bank on any elf's ability to do so, friend Merilin. I… I don't suppose the King will tell us what is causing such a rush?"

"Peace, my child."

"Of course." Eithahawn came to a stop beside Lusis. He glanced down at her as if for guidance, but her steady eyes, darker than the deeps of Erebor, didn't stray from her King. The King was moving his heirs out of the way. There would be no more bats at the river, or werewolves at the edge of the woods. Trouble had arrived at the doorstep of the Kingdom. It sat waiting to be opened.

Bess Bowman wrung her hands and murmured. She stared at Eithahawn as if unable to look away, "You… you should listen to him, lovely one. Very soon, this will not be a place for anyone who is not good with a sword." Her eyes skipped to where Avonne watched these events. "And this will be no place for a child, if they come."

Jan Kasia looked down at his only child, and fell silent. "Avonne, my King," his words were heartfelt.

The Elfking didn't delay. "Collect her governess and nanny. Pack her things. She must be ready within the hour," said the King as he pivoted. His silver eyes passed over them all. "Master of Boats, call the Council together. The enemy is sharp. A crisis is upon us." He glanced down at Avonne's upturned face, reached a graceful hand, and smoothed her hair. She was quickly gathered up by staff who carried her away to help select things to pack.

Briefly, the Elfking cupped a hand around Eithahawn's pale cheek. He bent to press his forehead against the side of his foundling son's head. "There will be fighting – bloodshed. I cannot afford the distraction of fearing for you. You will travel today."

Eithahawn's brows drew down as his father passed him.

That didn't bode well. Lusis glanced across at Bess who quietly nodded. They fell in step beside one another and followed the long strides of the King. Steed hurried in beside her. "Lusis, speaking of someone who can't use a sword, I need to talk to you about Osp."

"You think I should send him back to the Kingdom?" Lusis asked.

Steed opened his hands.

"Back to Loss and Glir, then?" Her lip curled a little at the thought. "No. He should see this. He should see what these elves he and his disdain must risk, and must do, to triumph over evil."

Now Steed frowned. "He could be killed."

"Pardoning the Dunedain, but so could we all." Bess looked across at the Dunedain, curiously. She had no idea who Osp was. But was naturally intrigued. She'd never heard of an elf who disdained other elves before.

"Well… I thought to quietly remove him from here," Steed told her. "He told me that Dorondir Hastion involved him in some calculations. He's very sharp with numbers, Osp. There are plans in which he is involved. If they are battle plans, he will become responsible for loss of life."

"Warriors save lives," Bess told him. "If… if I may say."

Lusis agreed, but she also knew the circumstances were very different for this particular elf. "My friend had a good point here, Princess of Dale."

Bess shook her waves and curls, "Fine-miss, I'm no-"

"This elf we speak of, Osp, he is unlike other elves. He has come here from the West. He cannot battle. He knows nothing of death and killing."

"Oh," her brown eyes widened. "Does such an elf exist?" Involuntarily, she glanced across at where Lord Eithahawn wordlessly followed his father.

Lusis tried not to smile at this.

"Dorondir Hastion's actions are no less a conundrum than those of the Elfking. But if he's used Osp for such a thing, I'll also hold him responsible for the outcome, and for Osp. Mark my words." She glanced up at her contracted match, again, and his white blond hair drifted as he made for the doors. "In the meantime, show me. What has Dorondir done?"

They stopped and let events pass them.

"It is… discourteous for a human, even a part-elf, but I went into the Quiet Room in the early hours today. There is a map the elves keep against the wall that faces the outside – the wall with the open door. None would have seen it. One would have to go in, and it is a space for elves, so… Men don't."

"An open door. Among the elves. Of course it keeps a secret," Lusis realized the failing of her human habituation. She also glanced after Bess who had followed the King out into the yard. Another dark-eyed, dark-haired girl, though paler than Lusis would ever be. She wondered if the King had noticed a difference. Bess' two large, scruffy men followed her. And Nimpeth followed them. Which meant Amathon was nowhere to be seen. And that made Lusis secure in her King's safety. Because elves were much more where they weren't seen than where they were, as absently present as their emotions.

"Of course there's a map on the very wall that anyone," she glanced aside at him, "just staring in the doorway as we've all been doing, would never see." Clever elves.

"I think it's for the King's work, Lusis. I really do. Come and see it."

She turned on the off chance that… indeed, Telfeth was behind her. Lusis stopped. "Tell me, Telfeth, are you watching me for the King?"

"Yes, Lady," said Telfeth. Her head started to tip, and she caught herself quickly, because she was unsure what a being like Lusis might construe. "I… I am charged with your safekeeping. I am your cirbann-edhel, your haven-elf – the keeper of your confidence. Or…" she groped for a comparison, "I am meant to be, to you, as maer-Ewon is to our Greatest King. As is your right. For the Istari has graciously sworn contract to the King of Mirkwood, and he did, under the morning star, make solemn oath to uphold her. You are Lady of the Great Greenwood. What else would we Silvan do but protect you?"

The shock cracked Steed's cultivated, part-elven sangfroid. "What the Fires is this, Chief?"

The contract hadn't even been publically announced yet. "Right." Lusis made a nod. She continued through worsening weather while Telfeth eased in and pulled Lusis' hood up over her hair in a motion so quick and smooth that it was nearly invisible. Lusis had seen the Silvan do the same for the King. She sighed through gritted teeth, turned, and pulled Telfeth's hood up for her too. Elves. "The Lady… situation. I can't fully explain it right now, Steed-"

"You sound like him," said her Ranger archer.

"I'm sorry about that, too," she finally understood why the Elfking no longer bothered to unburden himself of these long thoughts of his. She looked into Steed's blue eyes, "The gods know I find secrets irritating."

"Are you… together with him?"

"No."

Telfeth made a soft peep, which had to be out of utter horror.

Lusis quickly added, "Also… yes."

Steed bared his teeth a moment, frustrated. "Fires, that King has too many angles. Tell me, are you being forced to this?"

She looked up at her tall Ranger, "Yes. But… no. Steed it's complex. It takes too long to explain."

His lips compressed, "Lusis! We were willing to stand against Kirstman Buckmaster, famed sword of the Keep, as you recall. He wanted to consign you like house property too. For pity's sake, are you doing this freely?"

"No," she sighed, but then amended with a fearful. "Yes." She set a hand over her beating heart.

Steed looked grave as he turned away to mutter, "Gods. I asked myself, what were the chances that Istari could be as convoluted as elves?"

"Later, Steed, I swear." Lusis' will returned to its steely state of rest, "Take me to Osp."

And in response to her command Steed snapped to Ranger protocol. "Yes, Chief." After all, many times his neck had depended on Lusis Buckmaster's commands.

They walked through the bustling main building, through the stares of many of the workers there. They had grown used to seeing Lusis Buckmaster, the Ranger Chief, but hardly recognized her in the long elven coat she wore, and with her skin and hair so polished. She spared no attention for newfound admiration and went up the stairs two at a time.

In the upper hall, armed Silvan elves passed in and out of the Quiet Room. In contrast to the break-rooms of the workers in the downstairs, this lone haunt of elves in Kasia's largest building was hauntingly quiet. They saw Lusis coming, and several of them stepped out of her path and bowed to her.

"Lady, are you sure you wish to come in here?" an elf stepped aside to reveal tall, ginger-haired Arasell, herself. The section head had a bow out in one hand, strung with red bow string.

Lusis glanced up at the part-Sinda woman and said, "I know."

Arasell simply bowed her body and backed out of the Istari's way.

Elves moved aside for her. Lusis stepped into the room that, hitherto this morning she'd considered a sacrosanct haven of elves. Behind her, Telfeth inhaled deeply and followed. The inside was changed. It had been a spacious storage room, prior, lined with windows and piled with material now moved to a reinforced and specially prepared space in the attic. The room was wide and white. In the corners there were wood tables that had been cut to fit, and carefully stained. Bowls of berries, nuts, and dried fruits stood under a dome of elven glass, a tall silver vessel of water and cups beside it. On the opposite table she saw a profusion of spring-bright wildflowers growing from pots, a pure white antler, green pine cones, driftwood gone pale in the sun, a trio of rounded and glossy stones, old glass phials, a hammer and pestle, fur painter's brushes, and several large hunks of old and weathered glass that had been frosted by the motion of the river, and that the elves had now partially carved into lovey objects. All of this sat on a fragrant circle woven of sweet grass.

Lusis crossed to it first, the elves had an air of expectancy, but she didn't understand any of it. She couldn't say why these things were here. Was it to misguide the humans who could see this little trove from the upstairs corridor? Perhaps aesthetics? Elves found symmetry relaxing and were very fond of beautiful things.

"To help the mind relax," said a subdued voice from close behind her.

She blinked at the collection and suddenly realized they were bits and pieces of home – things she'd seen in the Halls before. "Sleep aids."

"For overtaxed minds."

Lusis turned to look up at Dorondir. His bright eyes fluttered. "Lady…," he inclined his head.

It pleased Lusis, she couldn't lie, that the elf spy who left her so curious was now so obviously moved. Likewise, she tried not to hold his green gaze in silence for long. But she didn't have to pretend at the vexation she felt with him, "Your mind is so overburdened lately, it must be hard to look up anymore." Her tone was critical. "What have you been doing? And why involve Osp?" Her eyes found him standing in the middle of the room, as if unable to hear her.

She headed for the Western elf, saying, "He's an innocent here. He's like a child."

"A useful child, my Lady, and good at probability, if I may say," Dorondir dropped in beside her stalk across the room. "Which is unrelated to either innocence or experience."

"What do you need probability for?" She asked him harshly, unsure, really what the ability to predict things had to do with math to begin with. In her experience, prediction was down to those rare individuals who were sensitive enough to see tells in the natural world.

Dorondir nodded quietly. His voice was low, "You are angry."

"Yes, I'm angry," Lusis snapped. "I take care of him."

"Lady, don't you think it's more appropriate to say that Inilfain – that Steed – takes care of him? Yet you do not see any temper from your Ranger. He knows I do no harm." Dorondir countered.

"Steed is there because I put him there." She growled at the elf. "I have charge of Osp. The Elvenking would have left him to wander back to the Halls, provided all the butterflies in his head led him in that direction. He's more distracted by this place than a child."

Osp blinked, slowly, and the distant forges sparked in his voice, "That's because there are so many wonders… in it."

She stepped beside him. "Bee, are you all right?"

He ignored her words.

A longbow interjected itself between Dorondir and Lusis and nudged Osp's ribs, and not gently. Telfeth's brows had drawn down on her forehead. Osp pulled away to look from her bow and up at her, but all the small elf-archer had to say was a leaden, "When the Lady asks a question, Western-gwass, so help me, you answer."

Lusis blinked, "What did you call him?"

And Telfeth's lip actually curled, "A stain." She smoothed her expression. To forbidding.

Osp knitted his long fingers and stepped away from the smaller elf. "What was the question, Lady of the Great Greenwood?"

"Don't call me that. We said we were friends," She instructed. It was surprising when he set a hand on his heart and inclined his head to her.

Now his voice was yielding as cotton fluff. "In all this, I thought you might have forgotten."

"I don't forget my friends," she glanced from him and over to Dorondir. "That goes for you too."

The elf spy's gaze found her shoulder, just a fraction off her expression, and his voice was softer than she'd ever noted of him prior, "Of course."

Lusis stepped between them, Telfeth unapologetically straight behind her, and went to look at the wall. She sucked in a deep breath and exhaled slowly. The beautiful drawing actually went straight onto the ceiling. It covered the back wall too, where a great harp dominated, and where elves now stood and watched, in apprehension.

It moderated her temper to see them all looking so tense. But it also worried her.

The drawing was like nothing she'd ever seen. It looked to be the work of many elves. She stepped back to take more of it in and murmured, "Steed, has Icar seen this?"

Her Ranger made a very human headshake in her peripheral vision. "I hadn't thought that way."

The elves would fail on answering what the headshake meant, she felt sure. Lusis quickly decided that Icar would love this. He would likely stare at it for hours.

The city of Lake Township rolled out almost as if a charcoal rubbing had been made from far up in the sky, and transferred to the sanded wood here. This had been done from the rooftops, for certain. The elves raced across the tightly knit houses day and night, and the level of detail that they saw was… overwhelming. Lusis stood and looked at this, dazed. It had been painted, this map from above, in warm and quiet washes of colour that, she would bet, were perfectly accurate.

"But what does this have to do with math? I…" she glanced at Dorondir, "I don't follow."

The spy exhaled. Elves filed out and pulled the draperies shut. One of them turned up an oil lantern and delivered it to the hands of the spy. Osp stepped in beside Lusis and his expression, for a moment, was a sunny as a child's. "What cleverness your Thranduil displays, friend-Lusis. And such beautiful execution by this half-Noldor spy of yours."

Lusis took from this, "You drew that, Dorondir?" She had to look up at the ceiling to see all of it. How had he done that work unnoticed? Although… who was in these buildings at night, but Argus' Rangers and the section elves of the Elvenking?

Osp smiled, "He did draw this. And these others, here, painted it in. But, as sublime as it is, beauty is not the most wonderful thing about it. That is a secret that the spy and Elfking," he took and raised the lamp, "brought to light."

The light of the lamp on the darkened room bounced off small chips of bright glass that had been embedded in the painting. There were shining trails no wider than a strand of web that crossed the entirety of Lake Township, they came in several colours – white, red, and blue. Lusis glanced at the river glass on the table and saw all the same colours there. The sources were those beautifully carved bits of glass. She quickly glanced over the white marble hammer and pestle on the table and understood how the glass had become shining trails concealed in the painting.

"What do the colours mean?" She looked from Osp to Dorondir.

"The white… is for the King of Mirkwood." Dorondir explained unhurriedly, as if reluctant. "The red is for Lord Elrond. It is the blue… that is the one you should attend to. It is where the math comes in." He looked to Osp, and the tall elf rocked up on his toes in excitement before settling beside Lusis again.

"Well," Osp inhaled and opened a long hand at the wall. "You see, there are reports of lights over the city at night. These were things that the Master, Drivenn, paid little attention, it seems. Your Thranduil, your King, however, was not the same in his thinking. His mind is… enjoyably systematic in that it sees or hears of phenomenon and wants to study and understand. And even to explain and predict. He is a flawless Sinda in that sense. This is how the Sindar came to construct great elf ships that sail all the waters of the world, so far from shore they can navigate only by star and sunstone. Yet they never lose their way, the fair ones of the sea."

Steed huffed a breath, which caused everyone to look at him. And he flushed. "I forget he's a sea-elf. It's hard to imagine him there."

Lusis' quirking smile was genuine. She hadn't ever thought of the great elf in that sense either. She turned back to the map and noted. "So the blue lines are… are they reports of lights?"

Dorondir told her, "Yes. The blue dots are."

"They seem random."

"They are not," Osp said with certainty and nodded. "I have been over the math dozens of times. They are no more random than the colour of the Elfking's eyes, being that his bloodline did not diverge from his kind until the birth of his half-Silvan son. And in the colours reported of that particular leaf of the line of Thranduilion, Legolas, you see the math of probability, friend-Lusis. It is not random that he is blond, or that he is blue, rather than silver-eyed."

She looked at the tall, lovely elf with his bee clasp and said, "Of course it is."

"But of course not." Dorondir told her. "White horses to white horses give white horses."

But Lusis frowned, "People don't work that way."

"Oh, but secretly, all things do," said Osp. "There is math for everything in the natural world, friend-Lusis." He pointed the slide-rule he so loved at the wall. "And there was math buried in the lights. Your King's mind is trained by long practice, little friend. He could sense that there was a pattern here. He did predict, twice, the proper areas of the city where the next might appear. You see that his travels twice parallel the lines made in blue."

"We were with him on one of those nights," Dorondir explained. "When the Elflord collapsed."

A zephyr of worry passed through the elves in the room and ruffled their smooth expressions at the sound of that. They hurried to either look away or steady themselves to hear on.

"He is clever." Osp was forced to admit, "Perhaps… brilliant. And he came very close. Though… if they'd come upon their quarry one fears what might have befallen the fading Lord of Rivendell."

Lusis felt herself sigh deeply, "Elrond is Lord, but you cannot find it in you to admit that Thranduil Oropherion is King?" He made things difficult for himself, Lusis felt sure of that now.

"The Valar themselves allowed him to choose his race." Huffed Osp. "He is the blood of Elwe, the Sindar High-King to which your match was once a subject, and his adar, Oropher, was a general. If either of the two of them could ever truly deserve the title of King it would be-"

Telfeth's bow made a whooshing sound in air. Osp fell back, hurriedly, and it narrowly avoided thwacking him.

Dorondir's stance shifted at once, and, Lusis swore, his green eyes flashed like the edge of a knife as he said, "You dispute my Lord and disparage my King. Why are you here?" His hand glided to a blade on his belt.

And Lusis set her hand over his.

He turned to look down at her, clearly tired of Osp's opinions.

Lusis stepped forward as Dorondir backed away. "I think I told you, he's a child. He's innocent and bright, and ignorant and rude, like a child."

Osp half-turned. "Friend-Lusis?"

"And, Osp, stop provoking these good souls with your conceit," she snapped at the Western elf, "or you can fend them off with that slide-rule of yours. Do you hear me?"

At that notion, Osp folded inward and pulled his shimmering cloak around himself again. "Fact. This map is the culmination of your King's night-walks with the Lord of Rivendell. Fact. Your King was able to intuit a pattern he did not have the equations to verify. Now he has them. Shouldn't that victory matter more than these petty squabbles?"

Steed took the lamp from Osp and pulled the tall elf to a more defensible position behind Lusis. "Maybe you should stop talking, Bee. Or at least stop stinging others."

"Lest you be swatted," Lusis sighed as she released Dorondir. The spy of Rivendell, and citizen of Mirkwood, had command of his quicksilver temper again. His green gaze was locked on hers a moment longer than was strictly necessary. Then he stepped aside and glanced at Osp.

"Be useful," said Dorondir. "Show her."

The light through the door was one with a perfect explanation. The Elfking in his pale blue snow-fall clothes and his Mithril antler crown. He was so pale and bright that the lamp seemed dull once he'd entered.

His silver gaze went to Lusis. "I am not surprised to find you here at last."

She took a step toward him. "Then why didn't you tell me?"

"Tell you?" he said slowly, and his bright head tilted. "What would I have said to you, Lusis-dess, of half-formed suspicions, and incoherent conjectures, as if handing you a key would make clear that there is a mountain to be opened?"

He stepped up to her and then glanced at Steed.

Steed brought the lamp without having to be told to do so. The Elfking's graceful hand took it up and he raised it, which was an irony to Lusis. The King shone so bright that his light swallowed that of the simple oil lantern. But as he raised it, the fragments of glass blinked again.

"We were able to predict some of the pattern you see here."

"You were, my King," Ewon corrected the King quietly, his flinty, storm-coloured eyes on Osp.

"I did try to convince Osp to finish constructing the lines, that he might connect all the points on this map," the King looked down at Lusis beside him and shadows played on his profile from two light sources. It coloured him blue and gold together, like some great master's painting. "He refused."

Without as much as a tap at the doorframe, Jan Kasia walked into the room that he'd granted the Mirkwood elves. He was nervous. At first he looked to the King: tall, still, and lit up by the lantern that gleamed against the curves of his Mithril crown. Then Kasia glanced around the elves gathered in the dimness, for he had never been in a place with so many of them at once. They were motionless capitals, as silent as an empty house, and their long eyes glittered, glassy, in the lamp light. The elves might have been embossed in silver, except Lusis Buckmaster moved. She turned to take him in, and in that moment, managed to look no more human to him than a golden fawn at the edge of the immense woodlands, West.

The lamp lowered in the King's hand, and he looked on. "Come, Master of Boats. Join us."

Kasia hesitated. He glanced through the room and found that the most human of people therein, Lusis Buckmaster, and Steed Roanhead, both seemed less connected to the world of Men than they currently did to the fabled West.

The King spoke again, "We are not enemies to you, Jan Kasia. This is your home. Come in."

Slowly, Kasia joined them. His gaze poured over the corner table, with the flowers, and stones, and the bone antler, and shot up at the crown of the King, with silvery-white prongs of his own that made the elf so utterly inhuman in aspect – his horned shadow unmoving on the ceiling. The tall elf with the bee clasp, his gaze followed the Master of Boats, unblinkingly. The green-eyed elf whom Kasia's security swore was a spy, and who both put Men at great ease and fit into shadows, his green stare was like that of a forest lion.

Something very serious… was happening here.

Kasia finally looked up where the Elfking did. He saw the expert painting of the Township, and gasped, dumbstruck by the exquisiteness of it, like a tribute to this city of Men, but drawn up by elves and painted with stars. "My… my King and good elves… this work of yours is such an honour. It is stunning. I gave you this room solely as a comfort, but you've made it into a tribute."

Lusis turned to look up at the Elfking's colourless eyes. His lids lowered. His eyelashes cast shadows upward onto his pale flesh.

Kasia opened his arms to the elves, "Why wouldn't you finish this? It is so fine and flawless."

The King raised the lamp again, "Kasia, do you know the rumours of lights over the city at night? Have you heard anything of that?"

"That's just the talk of children." Kasia chuckled, and then sobered at the way the elves reacted.

"No," the King said softly. "It is not, Master of Boats. This that you see… is a map of the reported lights with all the points joined. It was corrected mathematically, to draw lines across Lake Township. They appear in a predictable pattern, drawing a shape across the lands of the Men of my holdings."

"What is it?" Lusis heard herself ask.

"A square… tipped on an edge in this painting," Kasia could easily see that the blue lines intersected, now that his attention had been drawn to the lines among the stars. "Do the elves have such a constellation?"

"Yes, in fact," the Elfking said. "The lozenge, the same shape upon which edhel men of noble birth place their devices – the same heraldry that represents them."

"A round device for an edhel woman," said Osp softly, "and square for families, houses, and countries. I… I am surprised it is the same in this light-forsaken place."

The King's teeth flashed in irritation, "You woke on these shores, child. Not in Valinor."

"You dare call me a child?" Osp gasped. "I woke. You were born."

"Ah, and having woken, what have you withstood?" the Elfking said in scathing reply. He advanced on the taller elf… and Osp backed away, childlike in his reaction, as accused. "You have tasted little of the poison of war, or the bitter rapture of killing and, by it, surviving. Has this child yet breathed in the wretchedness of slaughter and edhel deaths? But you may see all today."

Kasia shook his head as if to clear it. "Excuse me, what?"

The King passed the lamp aside to Dorondir, who turned its flame down to nothing. Grave-cheeked elves opened the draperies to morning light. The spy set the lantern on the ground as the Elfking made for the door in his splendid robes. "Ai. Did bright Osp of Valinor glimpse the Rider and the Hunter? I think not."

He pushed his white-golden hair roughly over his shoulder.

Lusis hooked her hand into Osp's as he nervously gathered his cloak around him. "You're all right with me, Bee." She gathered his cloak in one fist and pulled him closer to reassure him. The tall elf was immeasurably old, but he was adrift in this strange land. His eyes were startled.

Lusis pressed, "Why wouldn't you finish the lozenge? What is it about what you've found?"

"You would not want to draw this device upon a city-map, friend-Lusis." Osp explained shakily. "Once… once it flew over our own lands to the West. Red and gold and black and white." He shuddered.

The King half turned to look, but offered nothing. He merely waited.

Osp continued, "It… I believe it remained unknown in Middle Earth… still, there is no elf yet in Valinor who does not recognize the accursed device that is tracing itself across your sky."

Kasia frowned. "So these lights mean something?"

Osp's upper body tipped back. His voice also sounded hollow. "It is a white tower on a black field. It is flanked, on either side, by six golden stars. And one is set atop. All is surrounded in a ring of fire. This lozenge was meant as a beacon to guide souls safe to shore. But that was a lie. It guided souls astray into torment and endless darkness. Where I come from, it has been taken down and burnt – an emblem of arrogance, travesty and brutal domination. Much of the lozenge is already upon this map. But I will not finish it. The device is his, and so those who make lights appear at night must also be his. Who else would know this obscenity? I will not close this device, not in this room because I would not dare to create such a seal for the enemy. Thranduil is not my King, but I would not give a fiend to the Lord of the Rings. I could never betray an elf."

Dorondir exhaled slowly and turned toward the King. "I am sorry that we have uncovered this."

There was a moment, as the Elvenking raised his head, where his silver eyes where shut.

The Elvenking's expression was serene, but he appeared like marble scoured by water and Ages – marvelously worn. Swallowed by time. His voice was slow and deep. "I am too late. My eyes did not see." His hands pressed to his bright chest and there was a sudden stillness in the room. But it was followed by a flurry of motion.

Elves came together. They reached in, and, in clear violation of elven social regulation, they touched the person of the King. Their hands rested on his shoulders and arms, his chest and back, they pressed against his white blond hair. Ewon, himself, laid a hand over the King's curled fingers. So many moved to him that Lusis was pushed back into Osp. The Western elf closed his forearms around her quite naturally, as if doing so was a normal thing in the Undying Lands, or as if he'd forgotten where he was. He stared at the press of the elves and his lips parted in a kind of wonder.

Lusis marveled that none could see the surge of fire, since the light forced her to squint through watering eyes. The colours of all those secret fires melted to one and became blindly white. She eased away because she could see that Osp's moonlight had begun to flood out around him and pass into the King, itself. Her own starpoint flared to painful brightness.

As quickly as this unity had come upon them, the elves departed.

The King was free of them and made his industrious way toward the door.

Kasia had retreated there. In fact, he stood beyond in a hallway now filled with Men.

"What's wrong?" Lusis looked them over and asked Kasia.

But it was Argus Samas who pushed through. "The building… it shook."

Lusis' eyes widened in dismay. "As in a cataclysm?" What kind of weapon did the Enemy have? And wasn't it terrifying that neither she, nor the King, had felt it?

"No," Argus shook his head. "It quaked as if in time to a heartbeat. It has stopped, but the workers are much disturbed, and many extolled me to check on the King and the Master."

Even as he said so, elves fluttered by, fleet and unobtrusive. All stood aside for the passage of the King. His pale fingers swept under Lusis' hand and coaxed her in beside him. He kept her with him as they walked. "Dorondir… the Lord and Glorfindel."

"Are readied by those who serve," the spy said softly. "Lord Eithahawn?"

"Awaits a barge for his departure," the King glanced aside at the grim face of the Master of Boats. "Avonne is with him."

Kasia jolted back to motion. "Yes. Thank you, Elfking. Bess was minding her. Your son is nowhere as adept with children."

"He was hard on himself as a child." The Elfking sounded worried. "I shall be at peace when he is safely away from here with that girl child."

The Master of Boats raised a hand as if to hold back the King, which was a hopeless goal now, "Is it imminent, this debacle? Surely… surely not this urgent, and we have time to plan?"

The Elfking's pale face averted. "What planning could be done… has been done. We are out of time, Jan Kasia."

In her chest came a sudden sinking feeling, and Lusis realized, at last, the price for healing the King when he had fought so hard to conceal his weakness, had come due on the heads of Lake Township. The aggressor who had dogged their steps since she'd stood in the snow of Buckmaster Spur was ready, now, to strike at the heart of Elvendom in Middle Earth.

"They aren't after me," she looked up at Dorondir, "they're after the elves."

Dorondir's smooth knuckles bumped against the fist of her free hand like a tiny rap on a door. She opened her fingers, and, in the chaos, he briefly curled his hand in hers. He passed her nothing. She inhaled, closed her fingers tight against his, and released him. Lusis brought her fist up to her sternum.

"You will endure, Lady Lusis," whispered the spy. "I swear it."

She glanced at him, "See to Eithahawn. He has few defenses. I will see to myself and my King." But her head was spinning that he would dare such a thing with the King beside her. Which was the first sign, she felt, that she had created a problem for him, and for herself.

The elves seemed suddenly everywhere. They pulled out fighting knives, swords, bows, arrows, all manner of violence. They were a quiet storm of checking the soundness of weaponry, and girding for war. The Elfking passed through archways made for Men, speaking deep, rustling Sindarin to the thronging all around him – a watercourse of beautiful sound. Lusis released the King to jog, in order to keep up. To no lesser extent, Kasia and Steed hurried to do the same.

The Elfking stopped, abruptly, in the landing on the lower floor, "Where is the Council, Master of Boats?" Elves pooled around.

"Collected in the shipping room. They are waiting for you. For word from you. We all are."

His long coats fanned around him as he passed onto the main floor from the back of the building. His section heads fell in to flank him, and with them were several Elites Lusis didn't know. Along with them went a tall woman with dark blonde curls that bounced on bright silver armour. This tall beauty fell in beside the King and they began to talk in earnest.

Lusis inhaled a few times because the new elf was so dazzling, and such an excellent complement to the King that she was his equal height, and had nearly the same flashing blue eyes as his son. So Lusis snagged the one elf she knew, for a fact, would have all the details. She pulled him close over her shoulder and asked his curving ear. "Who is that woman in armour?"

"That is Helin," said Ewon. "Helin Ivreniell, the Crystal Flower, she is called. She leads the King's Own Raiment, yes, but she has been at the fore of a Luster, and even a Storm of elven troops before. That would mean he summoned the Raiment here. Next to nothing else moves them – they are zealots of the King, and… I suppose you should be aware that Helin is the sister of the former Queen."

Lusis let out the breath she'd been holding. "Ai. No wonder she's so beautiful."

The elves swirled into the tall room.

Unable to prevent herself, Lusis glanced up at four floors of balconies, now packed with Men. Down the hall on her right, the Ranger, Elow, grimly sealed the Counting Room and all its staff behind a steel door. It was clear that the Men of Lake Township knew that something was afoot. The heartbeat within the building had been but the beginning.

The King looked up into the lamplight of early morning. Lusis remembered that, once, Men had rained flowers down on him from on high in this place. Now they watched him, and fretted.

The Council stood waiting. They had been woken early. Nema Aragennya paced and set her hands on her hips to stretch her long back.

Lusis' troop was nearby, as was Eithahawn, in his dark red, with Dorondir close by him. They both looked resolute.

She didn't miss that Icar stared at her, openly. Her troop's faces, her brothers, all responded to her as if she'd just grown fairy wings and tumbled out of a barrel of sugar. But she didn't have the wherewithal to acknowledge them when she was preoccupied with the King.

She glanced to her right to Steed. "Don't leave Osp alone."

"You have my word." He murmured. Osp was close beside him, and entrusted himself to Steed out of habit.

Cardoc Wence, the Master of Lumber, had been ever loyal to the laws of a King he had, prior to the Claiming of the Land, never met. Now he stood at the fore to receive the Elfking. His eyes travelled over the Mithril crown with its graceful antlers, and then looked to Murric Vant. The fishing magnate, hereabouts, was too terrified of the King to ever speak to him. To Vant, the Elfking felt too vast, too… inhuman. The antlers would not help matters. Kuril Farna, who headed the Guild of Trade, actually gasped on sight of the otherworldly figure the King cut. This arched crown sucked up attention quite the same way the magnificence of the King's layered clothes kept Killan Wye, the Master of Textiles, wholly entranced.

"Is there some occasion?" Cardoc asked breathlessly and opened his arms before him, as if he could hug the fabric, "Elfking… such grandeur."

The King shifted a little. His body glided a fraction to one side and his silver gaze fell on Lusis.

"What? Her?" Cardoc chuckled as if this was comical.

Lusis, in her fine elf clothes, with her varnished skin, her polished waves of hair, and her buffed fingernails, stepped forward. Wye's expression began to shift, and when she pulled her elven-steel, which made the most melodious of rings, he paled and asked, "I am… deeply sorry for any insult to you, Lusis Buckmaster."

"That is a wise choice," Kasia told Wye sharply. "She's the Lady of the Great Greenwood now."

In the flickering lamplight, Lusis' sword flashed.

"What does that mean?" Wence asked in the growing quietude. He seemed utterly stupefied by this development, "Has there been… betrothing? Is this happy event unfolding here, in our humble corner of the Kingdom, for the great Elvenking?" Wence was torn. He didn't know whether he should offer felicitations, or inform the Elvenking of the shape of Lusis' ears. And then his jolly nature took hold of him, "My King… can it be? Are we called together in such haste for happy news? Are nuptials in order?"

Nema pushed her way through. "What? Wed? To her? Are you in your right mind? Fie! She's been given a grass gown and a straw bed to lie in, by the Fires. Have sense! Not to her!" Nema stood panting as she stared around her. She looked at the Elvenking. "No."

It was Osp who made a sudden sputtering hiss, "Painted-woman, do you think she is some ball of yarn to roll playfully on the lawn?" His brows drew down and his next words spilled out in one of the most beautiful elven languages Lusis thought she'd ever heard. It would have been melodic, apart from the hiss underneath it, as if hot steel had touched water.

The King looked at him, sharply. His low, harmonious Sindarin pricked the air with frost.

Osp shrank back from it.

Lusis found her voice and stepped between the humans and elves, "No, Master of Lumber, this gathering is not about good news. We are at a pivotal point. Adversity rides down on us, and it has been careful to disguise itself. For survival, you will hear your King." Her sword lopped air as she put it away again. Noise in the Council, indeed, in the room and on the balconies, scudded to a stop… but for frantically pacing Nema. The woman was outraged.

"What has befallen us, Elfking?" Cardoc Wence asked. In the hush, his breathless voice floated to the upper balconies where humans huddled to listen. They remembered the Great Snakes of spring prior, and that memory was a dark cloud over the room that made the Men huddle in fear.

"This foe… is greater than the last," said the tall Sinda. His antlered head, passionlessly bright even with fires and disaster poised above him, tipped like a water vessel as he prepared himself to deliver this city of Men. "Werewolves roving the lands along the River Running, a slow emptying of the criminal settlements further afield, and lights across the city at night. There comes," his throaty voice drew the word out as if it were elvish, "adversity… and where is Gurn Drivenn, Master of Forces?"

Cardoc Wence turned to look through the Council… and didn't find the man. He looked back at the King, wide-eyed. "Elvenking… what does it mean?"

Argus Samas glowered. "My Lord, I will send men."

But this was not a question. Lusis exhaled slowly, "Or do you want me and mine to find him?"

"I have no doubt he'll find us soon enough, Lusis-dess, with his Forces." The King said a few words aside to Helin, and she inclined herself to him and walked out of the Main Building.

"Without the Forces, my King, we have only Rangers to fall back on," Cardoc seemed close to hyperventilation. "What calamity can we expect?"

The King exhaled, "An army, I would think, of werewolves, goblins, orcs, and Men. I suspect they are here for the territories of the Great Greenwood, of which you are one. And as we won't leave and make domination of these lands a matter of simplicity for them… I expect they mean to rout us."

Osp's head tipped to one side, "Will you then retreat to the West?"

The King's chin rose, but he gave no answer.

"They want to scare you… scare you off." Kasia sounded airless. "My King… don't-"

In fact, Cardoc Wence staggered, and the King stepped up, extended a silvery hand, and steadied the man. In doing so, the King's colourless hair slipped over his shoulder and spun down to bounce against the man's bent back. Wence's badly dazed fire fluttered once more, but then began to burn solidly. He straightened before his King.

"Peace," said Thranduil Oropherion, as if he had forgotten the crown in this simple act of attending one he considered to be among his people.

Wence stood back and clapped a weather-hardened hand over his heart. He'd felt King's-fire for just an instant. The world, the great elf, all looked different to him now. "Greatest King," he breathed.

"Evacuation is underway. The sections have been instructed," The Elfking said. "For months, the elves of Mirkwood have seen to opening the passages to Celduin – the river out of Long Lake, the River Running."

"Passages?" Kasia set down his daughter and asked the great elf.

"Yes," said the Elfking. "The chambers of the Mirkwood extend far, though we no longer occupy them all. They run the length of the Enchanted River, and under the Mirkwood Mounds, the Stronghold where, once, elves were born. The hollow places run South. But there are also chambers along the River Running. My elves have been clearing and preparing one of them, which has become known as The Vault of Men. Where it opens is not far from this place, Jan Kasia… or did you believe your King would leave you with no retreat? No haven?"

Cardoc boggled at this, "They're leaving now? There are no bells of alarm through the streets."

The King replied, "I would as soon not invite the enemy along."

There was a stir at the dockyard-side of the Main building. Bregoln Fall's dun warhorse whinnied as it gamboled in. Its sharp sound pealed through the enclosed space. Fully dozens of arrows knocked on him even before the horse had stilled.

Ewon's was one such bow, and he asked, "Yes?"

"No." said the King.

"Lusis," Bregoln turned his horse into the building and it made a few beautiful high steps inside. Men cleared out of the way, which left the King, several of his Elites, and Lusis at the fore.

She squared herself, "There's nothing you can do about this, Bregoln. And there is business afoot. Good or fell, I don't have time for you now."

His tan face pulled into a momentary grimace. "Is this business about you and him?" He jerked his chin at the King and scowled. "I do not choose to believe such convenient business, Lusis, much the same as I disbelieve you have any desire to become a potted elven rose. But that is not why I've come."

The King stepped in beside Lusis. "Say on."

"Quiet, Pretty One. Kindly let the Northern Rangers speak."

The King's eyes widened and he pivoted slowly to Lusis. His beauteous expression was so affably displeased that it was, to Lusis' mind, priceless. His voice thrummed, unhurriedly, "Lusis-dess."

"Bregoln," she was annoyed and stepped in by the great dun horse to look up at him. Her words were more private when she said, "Please don't provoke the Elfking."

He bent over her, his long black hair dancing along the powerful shoulder of his horse, "He's your match? He is?"

"You know. Word reached you."

"That pale, sea-wave, with his dusty deceits, cunning bones, and endless Ages of breathing, is a match for you?" He pulled a face. "You are a smarter woman than that, surely."

The problem was… she was that, indeed. "What brings you here?"

"Lusis," his expression went grave, and the hardened years melted away to the handsome and earnest young boy she'd once known. "I wish you'd just run with me. Why couldn't you have?"

The King's white blonde hair lashed. His lips parted in a great inhalation. "We are betrayed, Lusis. Badly betrayed. We do not have time for this presumptuous child and his wistful yearnings."

An unfamiliar sound rose over Long Lake. Long, high, like the scream of a massive iron gate, but louder still, and, for a moment, Lusis couldn't place it. She felt her troop pool around her, Redd with one hand on her shoulder, and her two big brothers, staring wide-eyed at the doors.

"Lus," Aric asked quietly. "Does that sound familiar to you?"

The King turned to Kasia. "Sound the bells. Warn Men in this land."

The sound came again, and shut down in a rattling cackle.

"Lewegdol," said the King.

Lusis raised her head and shouted at row on row of faces staring, huge-eyed, from balconies. "Get down into the storerooms, underground, there are dragons!"

Now Nema paled and rushed toward the Elfking in a panic. She too was rebuffed by Ewon. "What is that?" she cried. "Please, don't go out there! No one told me about dragons!" And, in the next instant, Bess Bowman yanked her clear of the Elite elf and threw her on the floor.

"What do you know!?" she shouted at the woman.

"Nothing!" said the Madam. "Nothing! What is wrong with you, you stupid, cosseted girl?" Nema pulled herself to her feet and swept the traffic of the floor off her glorious blue dress.

"Long has the family of Bowman stood with the Mirkwood, and long has the Mirkwood stood with us!" Bess pulled a maul from her back. It had a black handle as long as her forearm, and one end of the hammer was hooked into a curved dagger. "Who did not lead you to expect dragons, you traitor!"

Lusis stopped in her tracks and reached to steady the Madam. "Nema, what have you done?"

"You!" Nema scrambled up and swung at Lusis, aggravated that the Ranger Chief could easily avoid her blows. "You fluttered around him, long-legged and lovely, and offered yourself to him as succor to his desolation. But I was already here for him! Why couldn't you leave us alone?"

"Your mind is sick. He doesn't love you." Lusis was horrified at the Madam's notion. "He does not love either of us! You cannot force him to."

"No," she trembled with rage. "I can't."

Lusis backed away and pushed at Bregoln's horse, but it kept moving into her path.

"Lusis!" he said to her. "You will stay in here and away from them."

Icar ducked under the horse's belly to reach his Chief. His sword came to point at the tanned Peak's Man, "Bregoln Fall, if you fail to move this horse out of the Chief's way, I'll move it for you." His sword oriented on the tall horse's neck. "Do not make me."

"Wait!" Steed elbowed past his friend and gestured at the horse. In response, the stallion stepped peaceably backward across the wood floor.

"You part-elf pest!" Bregoln shouted, "You'll get her killed!"

"Only she can do that." Steed got out of Lusis' path, let her pass him, and fell in behind her.

Elsenord pulled a face, "Fall, she is a Buckmaster. How can you have so little faith?"

"You are a young fool." Added Remee, and he brandished the large elven glaive that Amathon had tossed to him. "And if you seek to come between the Lady and the King, I will personally make sure you are a dead one."

Lusis heard this behind her.

"Go carefully," Steed called out. "Go hard." And he stepped back to where Osp stood beside Eithahawn and Dorondir.

The Elflord, Eithahawn, lifted Avonne and handed her over to Osp. "Stay together. It is time to leave." His graceful hand indicated the Council and the Men flooding into the main floor.

He watched the line of lean-cheeked Rangers go calmly to face dragons.

Kasia wasn't the only Council Member to hurry out to see what had befallen Long Lake.

The King stood on the wooden docks while his Elites released the spare barges to float into the River. Getting them back would be a lot of work later. Provided anyone survived. Elves darted out onto the ships off of the docks.

Lusis gestured at Nema, whose long blue skirts swirled around the doorframe and hurried toward a staircase to the streets. Bess caught the Madam and yanked her around with a growl. "Where do you think you're going, Aragennya?"

A loud squall sounded.

It seemed everyone looked up.

A large worm head dragon came to rest, perched atop the stout wooden roof of Kasia's secondary warehouse. It was still being evacuated as the monstrous beast settled on the stone tiles. Its serpentine neck pointed out at the barges, curiously. It watched the flood of elves onto the doc, watched their inhuman leaping from boat to boat, with a streamer of venom dripping out of its jaw.

"Male," said Ewon quietly. "Smaller. Venomous."

"The males are poisonous!" Lusis called out above the heads of her troop. "And dragon blood is sickening. If drops fall on you, wash them away quickly!"

Nema tried to run again.

Lusis caught hold of the woman and turned her on the docks.

As she came around, Nema spit nearly right into Lusis' eye. "Such vileness!" Lusis slammed the thin Madam against the wall of the Main Building and then shoved her sword under the woman's chin. She snapped, "Let me tell you, if you hurt him, I will not kill you, but I will cut off your face."

The woman squealed, "You goatish hag, I would never hurt him!"

Lusis reversed her sword and smacked the woman off the boards of the building, twice. "That, up there, is a dragon. It's drooling poison. That beast can tear a city apart. People are going to die today! What have you done, Nema?"

"I didn't mean for this!" She stared at the dragon, wide-eyed. "I didn't know about… a dragon."

"I have that much. What did you know?" Lusis asked.

Nema shook her head violently. "It's not what you think."

"Stupid woman," Bess yanked the Madam's shoulder, and the Bowman girl hailed Lusis, "Lady Lusis, this is a snake you have here. She tried to buy me for her houses when I turned twelve years of age. Her pretty words and her pleas are falsehoods, as will be any offer of aid or charity. She will say nothing to benefit you. She hates you. Face her, instead, with the one thing she loves."

"Very well," Lusis pulled and Nema flew off her feet, held down only by Bess, on her other side. They towed the woman to the tall, silvery pillar that was the Elfking. His crowned head turned a fraction to look down at the Council Woman.

Lusis hissed, "She won't answer me."

"Nema," the King's voice was a soft purr, "How has it come to this?"

"Come to what?" Released, she swept away tears from her long lashes. "I love you, and nothing has changed. Erebor's eternal lamps will fade to darkness at the end of the world. I will love you just the same, beautiful one. That is what it has come to."

The King turned, "Can you say that? You are about to destroy my Kingdom and your home." His gracious head bent to one side. His silvery hair spun out around his shoulder and Nema smiled with delight. She reached out to stroke it, and his arm, with her fingers. Lusis started forward and clear-headed Bess caught her back. Bowman's canny face was sure.

"Then do not resist," she said softly. "Lay down your arms, and they will show mercy."

"Who are they?" the King asked quietly.

"I will tell you everything," her hand smoothed his arm, "but break this meaningless vow of hers, and show me good faith: hurl the pretender of Angmar into the lake." Her gaze burned with resentment as she glanced at Lusis.

He didn't quite blink, rather, the King's eyelids narrowed on his silver eyes, and nearly shut for a brief moment. Lusis had never seen such an action among elves before. There was nothing more to the expression but that. She looked at the ice clumped water and wondered if she would be expected to take a dip for this King's gambit to work. She knew she would freely do so for the lives of the people of Lake Township. But she also stood with her heart hardening inside her. I am a weapon of the King, her mind churned.

The Elfking stood over Nema, took out his sword, and looked aside at Lusis. At the same time she felt Telfeth's slim hand close protectively on her arm.

"Nema Aragennya, the King of Mirkwood does not negotiate obedience." His sword flickered around at blurring speed and halted against the jump of Nema's startled throat. "I would rather strike your head straight off your faithless shoulders than subject the Istari's warm heart to a moment of such ice and cold. Do not tax me. Tell me-"

The male dragon made a long cackle and dove from the warehouse roof down in what Lusis thought was a breathtakingly lovely arch, to land on the docks.

On its back curled a small woman whose face was obscured by a horned and jaggedly armoured mask. "Come Nema. One can never turn one's back with you. Always, you find trouble."

Nema pointed at the Elfking, who had been pulled clear by his Elites, "But he is mine!"

"Not yet," said the young woman.

Now tendons stood out in Nema's long throat, "No more waiting! You promised me! You swore if I helped you in and out of the Township at will, you would give him to me. Beautiful and vulnerable, a pliable King, supple to my will. He waved a sword at me!" She swung her hand back at the Council, the poised Elites, and the stillness of the listening King.

"He is unready."

"Unready? He is engaged to that part-Angmar harlot!"

The woman in the dragon-seat laughed. "My dear girl, you are the harlot. She is the hero. We do not like heroes in these parts, of course, but let's not lie to ourselves."

Hearing this, Nema blanched and glanced at Lusis. She shouted. "Listen to me! I upheld my end of the bargain."

"That you did, Nema. That you did." The dragon-rider smiled. "Name your terms."

"I want her gone, and I want my clement King to me!"

The dragon shifted. The woman on its back raised a hand that held a long javelin. As the dragon turned, she leaned into a jab. Lusis felt Telfeth move more quickly than she could have on her own. The blade made a whirring in air, barreling straight for her face. She remembered shutting her eyes as she threw herself aside. She felt it on her cheek and yanked her head back.

It sliced through her braided hair and the wood wall thundered as it hit.

A roar sounded at the elven end of the dock.

Lusis opened her eyes and pulled away from the buried javelin just in time to see the flicker of shadow and motion that was the Elvenking going in. Blood sprayed in a high arc.

Telfeth caught hold of Lusis and dragged her under the javelin. They raced toward a sudden surge of elves across the docks. Nema's fingernails scraped along Lusis' arm. Bess Bowman ducked low and hooked the sharp end of her hammer in the woman's thick skirts. She jolted forward on the boards and her loop of motion turned Nema wildly off balance, tangling her legs.

She capsized, and, in the shredding of fabric, plunged into the Lake.

"Run!" Bess shouted and waved her hammer toward the opposite bank of the River.

Lusis saw the problem at once. Wind was roaring over the wings of a huge female worm-head whose hurtling bulk seemed only heartbeats away from them. She spared it no more attention for her footfalls pounded down toward the Council of Lake Township. She snagged as many as she could and got them running with her.

"Run you fool bankers!" Bess spurred others along. She bellowed at the building beside her as well, "Brace for dragon! Dragon incoming! Dragon!"

"Fires! Redd, the tree!" Lusis howled. "Rangers to the King's tree! They will try to take it with dragons and weaken the King!"

Almost as soon as she said so, a dragon arched down toward the end of the lake and tore into the top of the King's tree. Chunks of wood arced out in all directions. Redd howled in indignation, snatched a pike from one of the elves beside him, and hurled it at the dragon. The scales threw it off as if he'd hurled an acorn at it. The same elf snatched the pike as it whirled through air toward the ground.

Kasia grimaced. "The tree is his claim and our fountainhead of plenty in the land. How can we defend it against a dragon?!" Lusis grappled with the Master of Boats and pulled him aside. A hunk of tree hurtled past him and cracked against the ground. Jan Kasia looked upon the dragon, bitterly. "Did Nema want to destroy this place to the last lock and stock?"

"Maybe," Lusis said quite seriously, "if you consider her share of it."

Ewon skidded to a stop before them, his blue eyes on the dragon overhead. The Elites were so fast, they fairly seemed to materialize around the tree. Then the mass of them swarmed the dragon. No one of them remained in its reach for longer than a moment, but several topped to earth, injured by the splutter of venom.

As the Elites cleared, the dragon rolled and crashed from the Silver Beech into the mouth of Forest River. It quickly righted itself and bounded up the embankment. It opened its wings and screamed, a horrible sound like massive sheets of metal twisting that rocketed through the field in which it stood, and tore down emptying city streets.

Lusis felt her blood fairly freeze.

Halfway through the field, Eithahawn, Osp, and many of the locals and Kasia's staff made for the barge to the Halls. The dragon turned its long neck and took them in, and when it roared, Eithahawn's long hair lifted off his shoulders. Avonne shrieked.

Bess Bowman whirled her hammer through air and charged into the field, howling.

Seconds behind came Lusis and her troop, they raced the elves toward Eithahawn, unsure what they might do once they reached him. None of them were prepared to fight dragons, even though Bess' family had a long history of doing exactly that. She hadn't the weaponry for it. But that didn't slow her any as she reached the worm-head. She swung her hammer widely at the beast. The dragon was so surprised that it yanked its head back from her on its snaking neck.

"This is the steel," she swung, "of the black arrow," she dodged the reaching head, "that felled," her hammer caught a long fang of the dragon and snapped it, "Smaug!"

The dragon yowled and she was thrown aside and rolled, shaking her head, back up to her unsteady feet. Her men pulled her out of easy reach.

The dragon raised up, swallowing air as it did so. When it crashed back down, the earth rocked, and its open mouth had taken on an eerie green glow.

"Venom!" the elves shouted. Telfeth dragged Lusis in the direction of the Kingdom's-seneschal. It seemed that everyone was scrambling, not the least of whom was Jan Kasia. He charged for his reaching daughter.

A blast, not unlike a powerful jet of steam, shot out from the dragon's jaws and blackened the snow. It withered the grass, blackened the earth, and was upon them so quickly that running proved futile. It was then that Eithahawn gestured a long hand in air, and a flash of light, pure and blue, arched across the field in which he stood. The jet of venom turned to harmless ash in air, and the elf-light rolled into the Silver Beech. The tree bloomed full of flowers in a matter of moments, its leaves coming to fruition. When the flower petals began to fall away from the beechnuts, wherever they touched dragon's skin, welts and boils appeared.

The thing cried out in pain and began to open its wings to flee.

"Thi!" shouted Ewon – now. And the Elites swarmed. Lusis rushed forward with them, for she had the same terrible idea.

The stink of blood fouled air as she closed in. An elf cried out to her left, having had a splash of venom strike the back of his hand. She saw the huge and crushing leg come around, grabbed the injured elf, and yanked him clear.

Her first stab ran up the one vulnerable seam she could see on the dragon – the small loose bit of flesh where the wing met the flank. She sliced it open and Elites flew in behind her. Telfeth caught hold of her and lifted her over the dragon's rolling back. The dragon screeched, its struggles became wilder and more dangerous, like a ship tossed in oceanic waves. Lusis was thrown off, and crashed into her older brother's chest as he hurried to catch her.

"Redd!" Elsenord threw the axe that had been dislodged back up to the huge Ranger.

"Clear out, Lusis!" Icar came tearing by. "It's rolling!"

But it didn't roll. It fell utterly still.

She looked through the blowing snow and steam at the lifeless dragon. At the end of its long neck, tall, pale, and resplendent, was the Elfking. He drew deep breaths into his chest, and tossed the dragon's severed head into the snow.

"Not bad," shouted the dragon-rider. Her big female dragon landed in the field, her long tail easily ploughing through the deserted camp of the Men of the Peaks. "Not bad for a sprite who is little more than the chattel of a harlot."

Lusis felt stung by that, seeing as she was his contract and not Nema. She pulled free of Remee and shouted, "Come down off that dragon and take off your mask, coward. We'll see who the harlot is then, I suspect."

"Oh?" the woman's helmet turned. "I am forced to wonder, Buckmaster, if you actually are as they claim. For I have heard such stories of you. I am warned, time and again of you. Surely, she is the stuff of the living legend as comprises the Elvenking in the Great Greenwood."

The elf-steel glinted in Lusis' hand as she raised it, "Take off the helmet… and come down here."

"Ah, but… what magic have you, as could stand against me." The dragon queen pointed one of her long spears at the Elfking. "And what magic have you?"

Eithahawn's long hand curled around Lusis' shoulder and he breathed, "We are no match for such a beast. A dragon-rider, or witch-queen, for that is the helm she wears, Lusis. Some slow poison has risen up from the cradle of Angmar." His chest rose and fell with panting, "Please take my father from this place. They are surely for him, Lusis. The mark upon his hand, and upon the hand of Lord Elrond, they are no coincidence."

"Lord Elrond." She blinked, "Where is Lord Elrond now?"

Kasia came puffing up to snatch his daughter from stupefied Osp. "It's more important to ask where," he coughed, "where the orcs and werewolves are, don't you think?"

"Werewolves," Osp's lips curled. He turned at Steed's racing return through the field.

The elf-blooded Ranger panted, "There is no hope for the barge. We need to make for the safety of the Vaults – the caverns the elves prepared for the safekeeping of Men – Osp. All of us. Now." He let off an arrow at a dragon flying overhead. His shot was on-point, but the shaft snapped. The head of the arrow simply ricocheted out into the lake. "Dammit."

"Take them," Lusis nodded to Steed. Telfeth pressed an extra quiver of arrows on the man.

Eithahawn stayed with her a wistful moment.

"They need a leader," Lusis told him. "What… whatever it was that you did, you shielded the tree with a wave of light, Eithahawn. You can protect them as they make their way to safety."

The Elfking's voice rolled out across the field, speaking Sindarin. The volley of water that had spun up from the Forest River now formed itself into a trio of large eagles and shot into the field. They slammed into the dragon and knocked it onto its side, unseating the dragon-rider.

She spat some terrible words, half-pinned by the dragon. It rolled up and backed away without her, and their foe came to her feet. "I summon you, my werewolves!"

They riffled through the trees. The first few huge, snarling beasts broke through, bloodied and full of rage. Lusis felt a sudden certainty that Helin's Raiment of elves had already engaged them.

Certainly, the masked-woman froze in dismay. "So… few?"

"Go," she shouted back at Eithahawn.

He gritted his teeth at the racing wolves and tore after Osp and Steed. Lusis turned and ran along the length of the field. She raised her sword and pointed at the tree line. Rangers, some her own, some Argus Samas' troop, lurched into a run with her. By the time they reached the middle of the field, they were a rough line, flying for the arriving wolves.

She watched Telfeth race up one of the dragon's wings and leap over its back to the other side. The elf maid meant to fill the hole in the line made by the dragon. But Lusis' plan was more devious. She pounded in at such high speed that the sudden course correction she made wrenched muscle, but, as she was set to flicker by the dragon's head, she suddenly hooked to the right. This put her very close to where the queen had her sword out in her hand, and made ready for the approaching Elfking. Lusis controlled her breathing, and her timing.

The world, for her, slowed and quieted.

She heard her inhalations, and the exhalations of her pounding footfalls.

The large female dragon had seen her. Its head was slowly turning. Its round, black, beach-rock of eye fixed on her. Its jaws opened to snap her out of air. The queen raised her blade and made to step forward to block the falling sword blow of the King.

Lusis folded her knees and laid back in air. Her elven boots impacted snow and the leather she wore skipped across it. Her sword reached, reached, barely able to make the distance since the queen had stepped out, but the impact of the King's blade drove her smaller form back and down. The blade hooked into the dragon-rider's flexed knee. It passed through tendons and muscle, and found air on the other side. She thought it might had dove into the woman's left leg, but Lusis lost track of the damage she was doing, because the dragon's head snapped in air right above her. Its chin smacked against her body and bounced her off the snow and cold earth.

She squinted through tears of pain as she slid by under it.

She had no weapon in her left hand. So she balled up a fist and struck it under the jaw. "Curse you, evil thing! Do no harm here today!"

Then she was out the other side in an explosion of blood, skull, and brain matter. She shot over a bump and up to her feet, and seemed to sail over the snow without taking a step. The orc running at her fell down, terrified, and tried to scramble back from the assault of this unnatural woman standing and flying across the snow at him. In reality, she'd encountered the thin coating of ice the King's river-eagles had made, but Lusis stabbed the orc nearest her and kept going until she rolled to a stop in the blowing snow.

Redd made a loud and joyous bellow. "Rangers, ahead!"

Orcs were fleeing from them, heading for the trees, which left the werewolves confused and vulnerable to the glaives of elves, some of which had been handed out among Rangers.

Lusis chopped her way through a reaching werewolf paw and didn't stop hacking away parts until she made it into the screen of trees and realized, right beyond it, line on line of elves in bright armour fought a massive number of Men and orcs, some of the latter astride werewolves. She blinked, and was stunned to see the Men of the Peaks rally their horses. They turned like a pinwheel, galloping along through the field simply laying waste to whatever stood up. The great armoured horses had metal shells bound along their bellies and legs, and their shoes were cleated with dull spikes, for they were trained to trample the rest.

"Winter combat!" Remee shouted at her. "We should be driving the aggressor out into the wind. There's a storm offing, and it howls more fiercely than any werewolf ever could. Do you hear it?"

Hear it? It was sucking the breath out of Lusis' lungs as she reached the edge of the trees. She gasped and nodded at her rugged brother.

He crouched, "Lusis, we must use the thick snow on the higher land against the enemy, drive them up there in repeated routs. The wind, cold, and climb will exhaust them."

She knew this tactic. They would go numb. They would get sloppy. And then, one of these pushes downhill, they would find themselves falling rather than charging. And the Rangers of the North had long said A man falling into battle fell into his grave.

"Hold them high!" Elsenord shot by shouting. "Hold the enemy forces on the highlands. Let the cold be our dragon!" A roar broke over the Rangers, and many, she saw, of the Forces that had joined in.

Downhill from Elsenord Buckmaster, Bregoln heard and nodded. He pulled out a long and curved goat's horn and its sound brought the Men of the Peaks around into a line.

"Helin," Lusis pointed at the elf woman and shouted over the wind. "Get down to her, Remee. You are the sum of generations of winter warfare. Give all to her!"

Remee nodded grimly. "Sail across the snow again, little sister."

She smiled at him as he turned and made his way downhill. Behind her. Telfeth pressed close, and then, Nimpeth. The latter elf pulled her to her feet. "Unhurt?"

Lusis heard it in her head.

"Unhurt here," she searched her friend for injury and saw nothing. Telfeth was also whole.

Amathon came out of the wall of blowing snow and took down his hood. "The fight is in the city, Lusis-Istari. They have somehow passed the walls and all the Forces and Sections there – that is even more than Drivenn's traitors could manage." His head inclined, "And, Lady, the King is abroad on the great elk toward the center of town. He did send me to find you. He is with his Elites."

"He knows that way is where the heart of the lozenge is… on Dorondir's map."

"The beloved King has," Amathon nipped his lip, "a plan."

Warning bells rang between her ears. Lusis swept snow off her face. "Is he all right?"

Now Amathon found it difficult to contain his smile, "The King is well, but he wants you beside him, Lusis-Istari. Will you go to him?"

She panted. "Wherever he is. I will. Lead on."

They passed over a landscape she didn't know. The snow blew so thick that she wasn't sure she'd reached the walls beside Jan Kasia's until she slammed into the logs with one shoulder. Lusis switched to rope mode at once, slowed her heartbeat and focused on feeling her way along without much help from her eyes. The yard to Kasia's was deserted. His house doors were uncharacteristically barred shut. The streets, so usually full of bustle, were grey and empty now.

"I don't know how much help I can be." She gasped.

"Have cheer, Lusis Buckmaster," breathed Nimpeth. "You did make a dragon's head explode."

Lusis' eyes widened in disbelief.

This amused Amathon, whose wine-red brows rose. "There is some hope in that, you must admit, my Lady."

As she passed it, the door to the main building rolled open. Heat and firelight flooded out at her and Lusis slowed. The inside was still distressingly full of workers. Jan Kasia and most of the Council were still among them. One of the serving staff shot through the door and slung a warm white fur around Lusis' shoulders. She bound it to place.

"Lusis!" Kasia called out to her. "I've looked at the map, Lusis, and there are reports of a dragon, or dragons, in the center of that lozenge the elves drew. It's right over the amphitheater. But then, there are rumours of an army of orcs and wolves too… and that can't be. What does it mean?"

She panted and nodded her head. "It means I'm headed there to wade through orcs and dogs and try to kill a dragon."

He opened his arms, "You can't kill a dragon, Lusis. Don't be ridiculous. It is beyond a Ranger."

"Then she is beyond a Ranger." Nimpeth told them. "Give us your draft horses, your river horses, Jan Kasia. It is a long way."

The horses were given without argument. Four of them were hitched to a wagon and it was Bess Bowman who stepped up to drive them. Her head was now bound in a bandage, but she was far from beaten. "Get aboard. I know the way."

They had to climb into the back over extra bows and quivers, and long pikes. Kasia was frantically breaking open boxes in the main floor and throwing anything of use in the back, which included furs to warm them, thankfully.

"Go," Lusis pounded on the wood of the wagon. Workers pushed water skins at them. "Go, Bess Bowman, and ride like Mount Doom is burning behind you!"

Because she knew where she would find the King.

And he had a head start.

It took hours to make the trip to the middle of town.

Clashes had broken out across the central part of the city, and they seemed to want to spiral outward into the city proper. With lines of elves and men, and no reinforcements coming in from the line Helin held, this was not proving as easy as their enemies might have hoped.

The sun was a cheerless ruddy glow through the clouds to the West as the horses trudged through the final rows of houses. One of them had an arrow in his shoulder. He did not complain of it, being longsuffering, as suited his hardy breeding, but it was deep. As they stopped, Amathon got out and went to cover the horses in some of the fur blankets from the back. He pressed some salve into the beast's shoulder and it exhaled a puff of steam. He was forced to simply pull out the arrow, which, with his elven strength, happened quickly. The horse jolted, but was too exhausted to fight. His head sagged as the elf applied a thicker coating of salve.

"He needs help," Amathon said as he returned. He wiped his hands along the thick blankets of fur. His voice woke Lusis again. She'd been watching him. His eyes were on her now. "Are you well, Istari?"

She nodded. After hours of skirmishes Lusis had nearly fallen asleep in the last fifteen minutes. She'd been lulled by the silence, and rocked in the carriage, wrapped in furs. She blinked to awareness now. Every inch of her worn body was unwilling to come out from under the furs. Bess, who had driven them this far and fought beside them, now toppled over from the seat and rolled into the back. She impacted with the shafts of pikes with a grunt.

Otherwise, it was eerily quiet. Lusis stirred herself to go to Bess. Her forehead was bleeding slowly into the bandages. Nimpeth came with the skin of water for her.

"Bess, you need to rest here for a while," Lusis pulled furs up around the girl, and rolled one under her head. She glanced up at Nimpeth, "Leave a bag of water here with her. She needs rest."

"There's no fighting here." Bess' voice was whispery.

Lusis glanced up at the eaves of houses three storeys overhead, "We're in an alley, Bess. As sheltered as we can make you. Just rest."

The girl's brown eyes shut.

Nimpeth covered her head with the fur she was wrapped in. "She will be warm, as will be the horses. That is the best we can do." The elf Elite leaned against the wagon, her hair in a wild dark tumble, and her face speckled and dotted with the dirt of war.

Amathon stepped around the back of the wagon, paused, and then smoothed Nimpeth's dark hair. She turned, leaned her shoulders against the wood, and laid herself against his wide chest. After a moment, Amathon exhaled, "Gi melin, Nimpeth-bess."

Lusis quickly looked away from them, not only to give them privacy, but because she couldn't tolerate their intimacy in her extremity.

"Gi melin," Nimpeth replied in a whisper.

And Lusis realized that she hadn't seen the King in hours.

Thinking it best to give them a moment, Lusis started out across the huge rotunda that was at the core of the great seal on the city. She laid a hand over her sword hilt and walked around the central point in what had been Sauron's lozenge drawn in light. In the distance, a werewolf howled. Some hours ago, the forces of darkness had made it inside the city. Lusis really didn't know what that meant for the people. She paused. The round of roadway seemed to have endured a collapse of stones.

The amphitheater had been built in another Age.

Its stone was of the same brightness of the ruins of Dale. She knew that meant it had been quarried from quartz-rich deposits inside of Erebor, or recovered from Dale itself. A bad Omen, her mother would have said, and she was of the people of this land. Lusis smelled something familiar. She trotted along the flank of the towering wall – its highest stones some six storeys above her head – and found the jumbled breech in the wall. The wide round cobble promenade was littered with broken stone and stinking blood. She hissed sharply in the silence, the smell of dragon was so powerful. Soon, her eyes made out the twisted body of a dragon pinned under stone. Its neck was cut open as if Jan Kasia's head chef had sliced it like a cake.

Lusis quickly took note of something else of importance to her and ran down the crumbled stones to the curled figure of an elf. He had been pulled free of puddled dragon's blood and was breathing fast and shallow. An Elite of the King. Long red hair. She remembered him from the Elite's Chamber, sparring with her Troop and later besting Redd. Now he was dragon-sick and injured by what appeared to be a long and barbed quill. It was bandaged. No one had made an effort to remove it from his sides, for the shaft, itself, was covered in tiny barbs.

She gritted her teeth, extended a hand, and touched the elf. He was, by now, too far down the dark tunnel of dreams to resist.

"Ai. Leave me, neth," he breathed.

Slowly, Lusis straightened. She wasn't about to leave him. But… moving him would be difficult without help. She was set to go back for Amathon and Nimpeth when the fleet motion before her turned into Telfeth – dusty and worn as the young Elite was. "Neth," she said in her light, high voice, "Neth means sister, Lusis-Istari. In the dragon-nadh – dragon chains – caused by exposure to the blood of such ilk, he must think you're Farathel of the throne-room guards. For this is her brother, Celondir." She paused, and her voice actually wobbled, "By Elbereth, he is damaged."

Lusis looked quickly up at her. "He is hurt. He is not beyond help, Telfeth. Bess can get him clear of this place."

"Clear to where?" the girl asked softly. "Where is safe, my Lady?"

That was a good point.

"The Halls. The Vault." Lusis hadn't had any news from either location. She was aware there were enemies in the city, now, but she knew nothing of safe havens.

"It is too far."

"Then she'll tend for him in the cart."

Telfeth reached out, hesitantly, and then smoothed the Elite guard's red hair. It was something that, normally, she would never have been permitted to do. He made a small tumbling of elvish that Lusis didn't understand.

"Talking to his sister," said Telfeth, "telling her that she is precious." She quickly smoothed her emotions and took off her cloak. She gently wrapped it around him so that the dragon's blood, with its sickness, the 'fetter' it caused, as the elves spoke of the effect, did not touch anyone.

Amathon came around the curved wall and hurried down to them. "Celondir. Stars." He was breathless. "Friend-Celondir, forgive this pain." He snatched the Elite elf up and said to Lusis and Telfeth, "Hurry with me. There is something I must show to you."

They rushed behind him, back into the labyrinth of streets.

Bess Bowman had stirred herself. She waited at a cellar door made of stout wood and iron, and nearly twenty men and women crammed the narrowness of the alleyway, all armed. Nimpeth waved them to cover. "Here are men and women of Lake Township," she said lowly, "who have done good work."

Good work, indeed. Inside the cellar, laid out on wool blankets, were six injured elves. Two more were attending them with what healing their bloodied and exhausted bodies could muster, too busy to even speak to her in passing, as they boiled water and tended to injuries.

Bess scowled. "We'll need to wash away the dragon's blood."

One of the older women in the alley turned her head. "Giron. Morgain. Pump water from the well into the trough and let's get the blood off of this one." She turned her no-nonsense face toward Lusis and said, "You're the Buckmaster Chief, the King's woman."

"I – sure. Yes. I am." Lusis wasn't about to dispute details. "Who are you?"

"Mirrin." The woman told her. "I keep this bakery." She clapped the stone wall beside her with a flattened hand. "And I will not allow the brave ones who have been fighting the dragon to lie in my streets and die. No, King's-woman. That will not be me."

"We been running through the ruins," said a teenaged boy, "finding the elves, and bringing them in to be helped, we have."

Amathon inclined his head to them. "Alia, good children."

The boy flushed in his cheeks.

Amathon continued, "I have one of our greatest here. An Elite warrior these two Ages and leader of a Spark of elves. He is imprisoned by the guileful blood of a dragon and impaled through with a spine. Please, will you safeguard good-Celondir?"

One of the healthy but harrowed elves shot out into the alley. "Ai, the smell of dragon's blood is sickening the weak." She said. "I'll cut him from his clothes, we need to wash him clean of it."

Amathon went with her toward the trough at the end of the alley, and Nimpeth, a trained healer, herself, swung down to help the young Silvan man who bustled between the other injured elves.

Lusis sucked a deep breath, "Mirrin, children, did you see the King?"

"We wouldn't know him to see him, kind lady," said Morgain, the young, black-haired girl.

"Oh, you would," Bess assured them. "He is tallest, and he is a silver-blond. He moves in a way that cannot be mistaken, for he speaks the language of dragon-charming, constantly – that is how honed he was to take their heads in his youth."

A large man set down his shovel and exhaled. "Then… then I saw him." He looked amazed as he said so. "He… he was in layers of fine clothes, only dusted with battle. And he had two swords that struck like bolts from the heavens. His hair and shoulders were aglow, it… it seemed. He… why, he…." The man's voice petered away.

Lusis reached a hand and wrapped her fingers around the man's large shoulders. Each word fell out like a drip from the tap of a pump. "Please tell me." She could feel her pulse in her fingertips.

The man's wide, brown eyes took her in. "It hardly seems possible-"

"Then it was definitely him," she reassured. "What did you see, good man?"

"He… he moved with such sureness," said the man, "that he passed under the chin of one of the dragons and struck off its head. But the two others…"

"Two?" Bess asked anxiously.

"Yes," the man nodded. "The two larger had been terrorizing the citizens for a quarter of an hour when he came. They would not risk themselves to his swords… or, so it seemed. But he brought them as close in to attack as he could, and… and it seemed to me that he raised a sword and tumbled the walls of the theatre down on them. And when they lay under the rubble, he took their heads."

Nimpeth looked out through the cellar door. "He… he tumbled the stone walls?" She was wide-eyed as she asked.

"Yes," said the man. "He did. And he went into the theatre, and I could not see him after. It… it seemed he had a quarry inside."

"Lusis," Nimpeth said gravely. "There are, adding good Celondir to this number, 13 elves in this cellar, all of them in need of repair."

"Stay with them," Lusis said quietly.

"No, Lady, and that is not why I mention their number." Nimpeth shook her head, "The King travels with a section, and I have been counting the fallen hereabouts. And, apart from father-"

Lusis turned to her. "Is he in there alone?"

Gravely, the woman nodded. "By my count… yes."

It was then that Amathon came through. He carried Celondir, now drenched and wrapped in Telfeth's cloak, down into the cellar. "We go for the King, Nimpeth-bess. Would you cut this barb and remove it from him?" Lusis followed him in and hurried to help ready the covers that humans were spreading over thick horse blankets.

Carefully, Amathon and Nimpeth set down their friend.

The wine-haired Elite exhaled and inclined his head to Celondir before he turned to Lusis and said, "I go for the King."

She nodded in agreement.

Nimpeth interjected. "I go too. I love him no less than you do. And adar is there."

"You are sure?" Amathon use a hushed voice. "This is your second month, and nearly third."

Lusis glanced at the elf woman.

The Elite set a hand over her belt and said, "That only means we would both die for him."

In the broad and wood-choked cellar of Mirrin Breadbaker, now covered with swaddled and injured elves and the Men who tended them, Lusis realized that Nimpeth was two months into her first pregnancy. She inhaled the wood-smoke air deeply. "Nimpeth, I am your Lady. I am asking you to please consider this new life of yours, and let me safeguard the men you love."

The Elite's quick hand reached out and caught her husband's dark red hair. She watched it glide between her fingers. She glanced up into his hopeful eyes and gravely commanded him, "Come back to me. Bring my father. And my King."

He bowed to her. "Yes, meleth. Or not at all."

"Ai." Next she looked at Lusis and exhaled the words. "Take him."

This was almost more than the deadly Elite could muster, so Lusis didn't delay. She tapped Amathon's forearm, turned, and left Nimpeth to heal and to worry. Telfeth hurried after them, fleet as a young deer. Bess trotted not far behind. The smell of dragon's blood wafted in air, astringent and nauseating, like the smell after a particularly ferocious lightning storm.

Lusis sucked air through her mouth as she ran around the flank of the amphitheater.

Then they all slammed to a halt.

Legolas Thranduilion, his long and buttery hair spinning out from his shoulders in the rising wind, stood up from the remains of a dragon. His blue eyes, the cheerful colour of hydrangea, twinkled in the declining sun. "Adar was here. One can tell." The warrior elf gestured at the dead dragon, "Anyone else lucky enough to put steel in a dragon… they always use a bow."

He hopped down from the stones beside the dragon, and padded toward them. Lusis blinked because, by hopped, she knew her brain meant to say he effortlessly leapt down from a four-storey height and landed with flawless accuracy on the one outcropping of stone that looked steady in the rubble that surrounded them all.

All the elves ringing Lusis bowed. Belatedly, she tried the same, but the Elfprince made a soft negating sound.

"Ah-ah-ah, Lady of the Greenwood."

She looked up at him, ashamed. "My Prince, it is a gamble of your father's."

His head tipped slightly, and the slight merriment was erased by care. "Is… is it?"

She would have thought he would prefer to hear this, but, in fact, he looked no less concerned than the elves around her, who now looked at her and could not conceal their disappointment. The Elfprince said, "Lady… perhaps you do not understand," he averted his glance at the ruins, "how hard it is for me… to watch him long for someone to trust and bring close for so many years." His pale blue eyes jumped up to hold her gaze. "I cannot be his everything and yet retain for myself, anything at all… but I have tried, Lusis Buckmaster. Adar is a powerful and beautiful vessel – the finest at sea – but, below the surface, he is hung upon rocks and taking on water. What will become of him?"

"I don't mean what you think, to him," Lusis said gravely.

"You don't know what you mean," Legolas sighed and turned toward the amphitheater. "I hardly know what I mean to him, and it's been an Age. Eithahawn is the same."

That was funny only because Lusis knew. She knew with a pure and burning certainty, as surely as she could see the wall of butter-bright flame inside the Elfprince, that Thranduil loved his boys more than he loved his own life.

"He's in there," she took out her steel. "This is the central point, it turns out, in a large lozenge of Sauron's fallen house, drawn above the city by the enemy. Drawn… with light. The King has gone inside, all but alone."

Legolas put his head down and exhaled as he absorbed this. He looked up at the sunset and said a gritted, "Of course he has…. Doom's Fires, adar…. Do we know what we face?"

"Well," Amathon noted aloud. "There are dragons-" he gestured at the dead one in the stones.

"So helpful," said Legolas in response.

But Amathon continued, "Orcs, goblins, werewolves, witches, dark Men, and, quite possibly, hungry vampire bats."

"Oh," Legolas' chin dropped a fraction. "Is there anyone he left out?" Amathon thought a moment, pulled in a breath, and Legolas raised a restraining hand. "Rhetorical. Not a literal question. Merely thinking aloud."

"Yes, certainly," bowed Amathon with the utmost respect. "The Elfprince can comprise a list and does not need my assistance."

Legolas turned from him and huffed a laugh. He hefted a discarded quiver from the stones a few steps ahead. "Do we know what we face, Lady Istari?"

"Yes," she said as she fell in beside him. "Dead… who don't know they're dead yet."

Now Legolas' chin rose. "Very well."

Gone were the familiar songs of the winter birds that flocked so thickly along the lake, and the croaking of the unseasonable frogs who persisted in the warm light of the King's Beech. Gone was the whispering of wind through the tall pines. Fires burned in the West of the Township. Cries and rallies roared. But inside the stone walls all sound was blocked as night fell.

Within the amphitheater it was cool, quiet, and still, like setting foot inside a tomb.

And it remained that way until halfway along the stone stands. Then, on the broad stairs that climbed down to the player's stage, a final dragon lay gravely wounded. She was close to death, her head twisted around on her neck so that her eyes could look but down at stone. Her throat was imperfectly struck.

"It can't even see the stars as it fades," Telfeth said softly, mustering pity for a dragon.

"He was busy as soon as he came in here," Legolas said. "He would never leave a creature in such a state. Not even an evil creature. Cruelty is not his nature." Legolas pulled an arrow from his quiver and shot the worm-head through the sword strike, meaning the arrow shot up its neck and slammed into its head. The great body shuddered and went still.

Telfeth exhaled a pent breath.

"They won't show you even that much mercy," Legolas disclosed to her. "What is evil is selfish. What is selfish is cruel."

The light was going, which put Lusis in a near panic. Her eyes couldn't see in the dark. They were running out of time to find her King and have her be of actual use to them. "Where is he?"

"You tell us," Legolas prompted her. "You are bound to him."

She glanced at that, "You're not? You're his son. His own blood."

When he didn't offer an answer, Lusis coasted down the steps toward the stage. She picked up speed as if she were a leaf carried on the wind. As she closed on the flat white surface, she could see a large crack had opened up much of the stage. Down inside it was dark. Cold air breathed out on her.

"In here?" Legolas asked her.

Lusis concentrated on the darkness and… saw a tiny pinpoint of blue-silver light that she feared she was imagining. Cold swept her, worry that it was all that was left of his fire, and she clambered into the broken stage, down over rock and onto… the stone flags of a long hallway. Ahead, she could see firelight, she could hear motion.

"Oh," Legolas' lips curled in undisguised reaction. "I smell dragon's blood in the air."

Crouching in the dark, Lusis glanced around her. "This route is direct. It will lead us into trouble."

"Perhaps they have become complacent," said the blond elf of the Fellowship, "these many hours without sound and without interference, in the heart of their conspiracy."

The heart of the symbol of Sauron the Dishonorable.

And look who came in without as much as a guard of his own. Lusis nipped her bottom lip and glanced at Telfeth and Amathon, and once she had their attention she tipped her head toward Legolas. She hoped she didn't have to say aloud that he was their priority. But they easily understood her.

There was rubble in the passage to the left. She drifted over that way to hunker out of sight, as louder voices fell through the jagged downward path. Legolas and Telfeth flattened to a bend in the wall opposite.

A shadow appeared from what had seemed to be a fissure in stone just ahead of her. She laid a hand on one of her precious remaining throwing knives and watched the figure slide into the half-light. That light glided along long hair, a high cheekbone, and the tall curve of an ear. The elf raised a hand and touched his first two fingertips to his lips in an unmistakable plea for silence.

The voices drew louder still. Lusis shifted fractionally, and Amathon squeezed into the rugged shadow of the wall and rolled up to incredible compactness. Maybe his joints were made of putty. There were men striding up the crumbling path that led outside.

"-and not much trouble, after all."

"You haven't been out in the city, Drivenn."

Gurn Drivenn continued to sound pompous. "I said it to you before, the elves are leaving these shores for the next world – their so-called Undying Lands. There are going to be far fewer than you expect as a result, and the Men of Lake Township are sheep – flaccid and domestic. My soldiers are hidden within the Forces. We will win the day."

"If they are so inadequate, why is the news from your men so mixed?" asked the towering man. Lusis squeezed a hand over her mouth to keep from gasping. She knew not only the voice of the man who spoke to Drivenn, but the tall, broad look of him. That hawk-nosed, dark-blond wall of a man was Kirnor Buckmaster. "It is not a good sign, Drivenn. She needs to take those gilded dolls of hers into Erebor."

"Dolls." Drivenn scoffed. "What a waste. They are ruthless. They are siege-engines. That fool woman will have them trussed in those fool dwarf-forged cages, dotted with gemstones."

"They are prized possessions." Drivenn rolled his shoulders. "It is a time to look to Men, Kir."

"And I do," mused Lusis' uncle. "If only my lost and wandering kin could do the same. It's a matter of time, before we take the North. The Fell family may be headed up by a young fool… but the elder-Fells see the way."

They passed out of earshot.

Lusis crumpled around terrific pain. It lanced through her, physically, even though it wasn't a blow that had been delivered by any weapon. She felt her eyes bead up and overflow. Amathon clasped her shoulder. She didn't respond to him, and he quickly darted away.

It was unbelievable.

For some reason, her memory played out for her, the first time her father had set her on the back of a horse that Kirnor held for her. She'd clawed away and clung to her uncle, because she was afraid, and, even that long ago, Lonnan had driven away the three oldest Buckmaster boys with a switch, because they wouldn't leave her in peace. On the boards, Remee had crossed his fingers. Elsenord had watched this seven-year-old project of his father's, unconvinced. But Kirnor had held her carefully, even if he had scoffed 'This is not a Buckmaster-maid, Nev, this is… a mop, a terrified and sodden mop'. But her father hadn't given in. Even after everyone had left them. He'd cajoled, encouraged, tried to make a game of it, tried to talk her through. The pony had looked on all this curiously. Walking around the enclosure, holding her hand, Nevrmen had realized aloud, 'But then… you're not afraid of the horse, are you, little light? You're afraid of the bridle. The bit.'

Lusis didn't know when her family had fragmented, had stopped loving one another, and started betraying the firm, kind light that was Nevrmen Buckmaster, she only knew that the penalty for it would be death.

She opened her eyes and stood slowly up from behind the stones in which she'd hidden.

"Lady Lusis." Dorondir bent across the stones. He saw, in her battle-smeared face, emotions so raw that he recoiled from her. "Stars."

All the elves fell back. Legolas turned his golden head to the stone wall.

Bess breathed, "You are terrible to behold, Lady Greenwood. What possesses you?"

"That man… is marked," she panted with fury.

"The traitor, Gurn Drivenn?" Amathon asked quietly.

"No, friend-Amathon," she shook her head, "The traitor, Kirnor Buckmaster."

The shock made Amathon's pale eyes go wide. He reached to steady himself against his wife. And she wasn't there. He looked to Dorondir, and the half-Noldor's chin rose, his green eyes were hard. He quickly shut away the thoughts he feared she could see in his gaze. "Oh, Lusis." The inexplicable death of Nevrmen Buckmaster of which he had heard, was unravelling. When he had recovered enough, Dorondir Hastion bowed his head to her. "Lady, he is yours."

"Where is the King?" Lusis asked.

He glanced down the dark tunnel, "I am a harbinger of the Raiment." He glided forward and stepped back into the shadowy fissure from which he'd come.

"What does that mean?" Lusis followed him, full of a rage that numbed her to fear. "The battle has leaked into the Township, Dorondir, fires burn, and war can be heard. If the Raiment were doing well enough to be this close, there would be no such noise and confusion in the streets."

"Some fire. Some noise." Agreed Dorondir as the procession crept along with him. "They hear and see what is meant to be heard and seen."

Now Amathon breathed, "Meant to be?"

"The Aglareb – the Special Forces of the King." His green eyes found her in the darkness, vaguely chatoyant. "They are trained Elites, it is true. But they are also his foremost spies, some of them schooled in cunning by his own hand – you must tell none of this."

Lusis was so stunned by this that her rage stumbled over itself. "Is he staging… the advance of Drivenn's Forces through Lake Township?"

"Perhaps some. The plan was to mislead." The elf nodded quietly, clearly an elf of the Aglareb.

Now Bess glanced up at him, "But your numbers are too thin to repel the army of the enemy, you elves, we heard."

He turned her way. "My friends, the Elfking knew that trouble was coming. What, I ask you, do you suppose he did?" Dorondir seemed amazed by their assessment. "Wait? Fail to plan? Is that him?"

Legolas made a soft puff of amusement. "He plans, adar. He plans schemes around his strategies."

Bess shook her curling head, "He plans… plans around his plans?"

"Yes. If I could broach how bright he truly is…." Legolas averted his smile down at the broken stone to hide the great warmth he felt. "Long has adar foretold a need for Elite spies. Now he has his Aglareb – his glorious ones. They will be as bright and deadly, as he is, himself. And they will be keen. Perhaps… the coming of the new Age forced his hand?" Now the Elfprince glanced at Lusis. "Enemies among elves and Maiar are, in some ways, easier for us. They are known quantities with which elves share some common comportment. Enemies among Men are not so easy to understand… but our spies are trained to do so."

"An army of spies," Bess said quietly. She shut her eyes and exhaled. "Do… do we have hope, yet? Is that what you're trying to tell us, good elf?"

"There is hope yet."

Lusis suddenly realized there could only be one way for Dorondir to be here. She felt her eyes widen. "Where is Lord Elrond?"

The spy shut his eyes and went still.

"He's in here." Lusis squeezed the hand she laid over her chest.

He didn't open his eyes as he told her, "They have him."

Lusis had held her breath so long that the world did a slow loop. She set her hands on her knees and breathed deeply. "Oh gods. Where is Glorfindel? Where is the King with Ewon, do you know?"

"I do not know where my King and Ewon may be." Dorondir said quietly. He seemed slightly sickened by having to say so. "But… Glorfindel."

She chose to believe that great blond Noldorian was yet alive. "Take me to him."

Dorondir bowed his head to her. "Yes, my Lady, but it will be a difficult path."

He led them to the fissure he'd emerged from and squeezed his body into it, gracefully. Elves were very flexible. Human children were as close as one could come to their ability to fit into places. Lusis was very glad that she had always made conscious efforts at doing the stretching and flexibility training which was handed down to her from the Women's Way her mother had passed to her. Women warriors had somewhat different skills, and the training leaned to perfecting their bodies for leaping, dodging, and great elasticity. Bess also had had some of the same training, it was clear from how she insisted on helping Lusis cut away the lengths of long skirt on her breezy elven scout's dress.

Even with that, both women were stretched to the end of their tolerance getting through the tightness of stone.

And Lusis hated the feeling of being trapped more than anything in life.

She was shaking when they emerged from their climb through, and then down, into the dark, close fissure. Her heart was hammering with fear she fought to contain. In fact, she stumbled out.

"Lady," Telfeth hurried to her as Lusis dropped to her knees in an open cavern. She was still closed in on all sides, but the space was larger than the hall at Kasia's. She felt powerless to move, closed in this stone crate.

Bess passed from the deep crack, dropped to her knees, and closed her arms around Lusis' shoulders. This was automatic.

"We did it," she shuddered. "I wasn't sure I could."

Lusis wrapped her arms around the quaking girl while the elves stood by. Her voice was strained as she panted, "Any extremity… for my King and my people."

It took a few minutes, but young Bess Bowman gathered herself in the darkness. She clasped hands with Lusis. "Lady… let's deliver them."

They rose and Bess turned to checking her weapons. Lusis made to do the same, except Dorondir extended a pale hand and pushed her hair out of her eyes. He set his warm hand on her cheek. She looked up at him. His green eyes, in the low light of the fire Amathon had struck, were rueful.

Lusis took a step forward and he folded her in an embrace. She leaned against him and said to him, "Friend-Dorondir, tell me we won't come back this way."

"I cannot tell you so." He sounded so sorry.

She exhaled into the curves of the leather armour at the base of his throat, sure she couldn't make it through that again. Everything in her shaken spirit rebelled. She couldn't face that fissure alone, "Stay close to me."

"Yes," he told her. His hands seemed to be tidying her hair.

"Then," she pulled away from him and turned to her weapons, "I will find a way to kill the fear."

She looked up into the averted gazes of Elites, whose behaviour Bess modelled. It was Legolas Thranduilion, the Greenleaf of Greenwood, who stared at her. He shut his eyes a moment. His motionless expression had shifted by the time he opened them again. "Spy of Rivendell, where is Glorfindel?"

The spy backed away. Pointedly, he did not look at Lusis. Instead, he bowed, deeply, to the Elfprince and he said, "We are close. Please follow me."

Legolas passed Lusis and followed the half-Noldorian. They hurried down the face of the cavern and found a gap into which they easily fit. Lusis held her breath going in. It was roomy, compared to where they'd been. She pressed the stone with her hands. Dorondir glanced back to her. He, too, was no fan of tight spaces.

"At least this crack in the earth could fit Steed through… if not Redd." She breathed evenly.

Amathon laid a hand on her shoulder. "Find your inmost serenity, Lady. Accept this tomb of stone for what it is and you will be able to move through it in harmony. We are close, recall."

They emerged into a large crack that firelight flooded with so much light that Lusis and Bess were blinded, as they came out and flattened to the stone behind Dorondir. Ahead, a lip of stone rose. Glorfindel was pressed against a ledge. He spied on the noise and whatever threw the light and shadows from below. His eyes were wide as they arrived.

He reached for Lusis, paused to set fingertips to his lips for silence, and then took hold of her shoulder. Amathon braced her other shoulder. She peeked out over the lip and down a mere storey and a half, into a large rounded space that appeared to have been storage for the amphitheater, now caved in on one side to reveal a large tunnel that ran Northward.

She looked at the straight cuts in the stone, and the beautiful parallelism, and Lusis eyes widened. She'd seen this before. Inside Erebor.

'Dwarves cut this? Even though Dorondir said this directly in her thoughts, Lusis felt as if it was still a whisper.

Now Glorfindel was grim. 'They let these forces into the city. We are betrayed.'

Lusis shook her head. She sort of… thought at them, 'I don't see treachery here, Glorfindel. That passage is old and worn, and there cannot be enough dwarves in Erebor to both build it and guard the-'

The noise increased steadily. The room echoed with the footfalls of marching men. Werewolves growled and snarled, driven ahead of Gurn Drivenn's traitorous Forces. Orcs snapped whips overhead in air and shouted in their garbled language.

Bess leaned in against Lusis' ear and whispered. "I have heard rumours of tunnels. The dwarves used them so they were not seen by Men on the way to the Old Forest Road which they cut through the Great Greenwood. They did not all summer in the mountain, it is said. Those old legends also spoke of a secret way to move gold and stones into Erebor."

Lusis moved to whisper to Bess, "But the mountain was already full of gold."

"Don't you know the story of the old dwarf King? He wanted to stand on high, above all beings, atop his riches? He wanted more than the mountain could give?"

'These tunnels are the old way in for supplies to the mountain,' she told the elves. 'Supplies and still more riches.'

Bright-eyed Glorfindel glanced at her, 'The Lord and King passed that way, Lady. If the roads go to Erebor, then that is our way now.'

"We can't go through these tunnels." Lusis exhaled. "The way is blocked with troops."

Amathon brightened. 'Lady, you'd have to be used to sheltering within living stone. There will be utility tunnels, not only to test the soundness of the stone ahead before digging through it, but to give a means of escape should the excavations collapse.' He actually sounded like his wife, the tour guide of the Halls of the Elvenking.

'There will be guards within them.' Telfeth said with certainty.

'You may call them guards if you wish,' thought Legolas as he took down his war-bow. 'I prefer to call them target practice.'

Glorfindel actually smiled as he rolled to his feet in the recesses of the crack in the stone. 'We go down into the room when the troops pass, and we find the tunnels. And if they cry out when you put an arrow through them, Elfprince, what odds? Orcs and wolves are a hurricane of noise and cries.'

Legolas looked so pleased, 'No one will know.'