Guys, I am so sorry ;_;

I really meant to update on time, but I simply worked too much, I've been so tired, and this chapter needed more editing than I thought. I was way too optimistic when I published the last chapter! There is still a lot of work to be done on this story, and now that it's summer I don't feel like spending all my free time inside by my computer. Even if I did, I don't think there's any way I could keep posting every week.

So I've decided that from now one, I'll update once every second week instead. I'm really sorry, I hate to make this change in the middle of the story, but I have to. As you know if you're reading my author's notes I haven't been satisfied with the last chapters and felt stressed to post them. I want the chapters to be as good as possible, and for that I need more time.

I hope you understand why I have to do this. You deserve a good story, not a rushed one!

XIII

The Way is Shut

Only a few days had passed since the twins' departure when they returned. They were unexpected. One morning a guard came running over the southern bridge, across the courtyard and up the stair to the entrance hall, calling for lord Glorfindel, and shortly after the twins arrived.

Legolas saw them from afar from a balcony over the courtyard, where he was perched on the railing while Lindir practised his lute and Ninneth was spinning thread as usual. It was Ninneth who pointed out the spot beyond the pine forest - across the deep part of the valley, where the ground rose again - where the path leading down into it was visible. It was a narrow and treacherous path just like the northern one that Legolas had taken with the rangers, and the riders could only be seen as two small spots moving down. Before long they vanished from view behind the trees.

Not long after that Glorfindel stepped down the stair, set his hands on his hips, then walked to and fro on the courtyard with his pale hair flowing in the wind. He walked like that until the twins finally emerged from the forest and rode over the southern bridge.

They wore sun-bleached black cloaks over their notched armour, had bows and quivers strapped to their saddles, and their horses were stumbling. Glorfindel hurried to meet them. One of them met him halfway across the bridge, his voice loud and angry though Legolas could not hear the words. The other - Legolas could not tell their faces apart, but he had a feeling it was Elrohir, because Elladan was the one who seemed to talk the most - stood quiet and dark-eyed beside them, fingering the hilt of his sword. After a while they followed the elf-lord inside.

It became quiet, as if nothing had happened, but something was wrong.

"They were supposed to wait for Beren", Legolas said, twisting on the railing to look over the courtyard, as if the answers would be written there in the snow. "Why did they come back without him? They should have waited!"

"Careful, you'll fall!" Ninneth said. "And don't worry. I'm sure it's alright."

"What if they couldn't find them?"

"Of course they could", said Lindir. "The twins are the most skillfull trackers in all of Middle Earth. They can find anyone."

"So why did they come back alone?" Legolas asked.

Lindir had no answer.

But the twins themselves had, and Legolas did not have to wait all that long to hear it. Not half an hour had passed before Erestor found them on the balcony and asked to speak to Legolas in private. Legolas followed him from the balcony and into the corridor inside. Erestor did not speak at first, merely walked down the corridor with his lavender-blue robe billowing about his feet and his dark head bowed in thought. Legolas had not spoken to him much since the elf-lord saved him from Echail, but whenever they met somewhere Erestor smiled at him and said hello.

Now, tucking a strand of hair that had come loose from its chain behind his ear, Erestor said: "Forgive me, Legolas, for making you leave your friends and then not saying a word! I was not certain where to start. Did you see Elladan and Elrohir returning from the south just now?"

"I did! Why have they..."

"They have returned", Erestor said, "because a new problem has arisen that none of us counted with. The twins went over Caradhras, the way we think Beren will come, but could not go further. There seems to have been a landslide, and the Dimrill Stair is filled with stones and snow entirely, much like the ravine in the High Pass. So, as you see..."

"They won't be able to get through", Legolas said, and felt the hair at the back of his neck rise. "Not there either."

Erestor bowed his head yes but said: "There is a difference. By the look of it, the twins think this way may be cleared. It may take a while, and they do not know how far in the Stair is blocked, which is why they have returned. They will bring some more elves to help clear the way."

"Aren't there other passes?"

"Not too many. There are passes further south, but that is wild and dangerous country. There is another pass above the Gladden Fields - but I doubt the wood-elves will take that way." Erestor threw a glance at a window as they passed it. "Shame Quick-wing left so soon, or we could have sent another message with him back - the twins had no means to contact Beren, so we do not know how far they have come yet. If the whole Stair is blocked it may be long before we can contact them."

"How long?"

"That is hard to tell, I'm afraid", Erestor said. "Maybe a week. Maybe longer. It depends on the condition of the company and how much time they will have to spend hunting for food. The twins will bring enough supplies to set up a proper camp so they can stay for as long as they need to, but that means they will need a few days' preparation first."

The wood-elves would be cold and weary, and they would have little food, and one of them was wounded. They'd ride up to the Dimrill Stair, and they would find it closed. After all they had been through, the shadow-wood and Tuiw and father being injured and the avalanche -it seemed so unfair.

Or was there more to it? What if the traitor was so powerful he could create landslides and avalanches on his will? But only wizards were that powerful, and there were only three wizards in the world - and they could not be bad.

"Will they be here for Midwinter?" he asked.

"We hope they will", Erestor said. "We truly hope they will."

Tinuhen had insisted so urgently they must get to Rivendell before Midwinter, and the others had laughed him off because it had seemed impossible they would not be there before November ended. He might not have known what would happen, but he had been right anyway.

"You should not worry too much", Erestor said and laid a slender hand on Legolas' shoulder. "Caradhras is not far from Lórien, and I am sure your southern kin would not deny you help when you needed it? They can provide your companions with food and furs, if they need it."

Legolas nodded. He knew very little about Lórien, and father wasn't very fond of lady Galadriel, but that didn't mean the galadhrim wouldn't help. Maybe there would be enough time and Tinuhen would make it until Midwinter. If only Legolas hadn't been alone.

"Erestor", he said, "do you know what was in the letter Quick-wing gave me? The one from my father."

Erestor did not reply at once. "...I do."

"Can you tell me?"

"Not everything", Erestor said. "Some of it is only between Beren and lord Elrond - and your king and queen. He wrote to tell that everyone escaped the avalanche and that they are on their way south. And he mentioned you and asked us to take care of you, if you were with us - as if we wouldn't have!"

"Quick-wing said that one of the elves were injured."

"Beren mentioned that too", Erestor said, hesitantly. "But only briefly, in passing. He wrote that it might slow them down, but nothing more. I am sure that if it was a serious injury he would have written that."

"What about the Elvenking? We heard from Radagast..."

Erestor sighed as he turned a corner and they came into a corridor filled with pale sunlight. "About his... illness? I know very little about it - and I believe Beren does, too. But I doubt Radagast would have left Greenwood if Thranduil was still sick, and he is on his way west by now. Are you worried for your king?"

"He is the king."

"Not all kings are loved by their subjects."

"Ours is", Legolas said, and he knew that it was true - not only by his children. The wood-elves loved father because they had chosen him to be their king, and he was good and just. But Erestor nodded thoughtfully as if he found that information interesting. Maybe, because the noldor didn't trust father very much, they had thought the wood-elves wouldn't trust him either.

They fell silent, each deep in thought. Legolas wondered why Quick-wing hadn't said anything about father to him. Hadn't he known? Or was there something he hadn't wanted to tell?

It was too much to think about. Legolas wished he had never heard about father, and whoever of the elves in the mountains had been injured. Maybe Erestor understood, for suddenly he asked: "Do you know what that is?"

"What?"

They had come into the Hall of Artefacts, and Erestor pointed to the notched old helmet that lay on the spindly table. Wishing for something else to think of, Legolas shook his head.

"It may not look like much", Erestor said, "but it once belonged to your namesake - Legolas of Gondolin. Have you heard of him?"

Legolas hadn't, but he stopped to look closer at the helmet. It was true it did not look like much now, but it had been beautiful once - wrought of sturdy steel but with intricate golden ornaments and a small white gem at the front. It was scratched and dented and the ornaments on the left side looked like they had melted. A chunk of the left cheekguard had been cut clean off.

"Was he famous?"

"He was indeed. He was one of the greatest harp-players of his time, and well-known for his herb-lore. He tended the gardens around the palace in Gondolin."

Legolas' heart sank. Of all things, his parents had named him after a harp-player. The helmet must have been dented by some accident and not in battle. "I don't think I was very much like him, then."

Erestor chuckled and left him to admire one of the bleached tapestries on the wall. "He was also one of Gondolin's best scouts, and saved many fugitives from the city's Fall because of his keen sight and swift mind. The burn-damage you can see there on the helmet is from when he tried to help Glorfindel defeat the balrog."

"The bal - did he?" Legolas stared from Erestor to the helmet and imagined a balrog (whatever they looked like) breathing fire on a slightly larger version of himself, his armour crumbling and blackening, the helmet melting, yet its wearer standing strong with a bow held taunt and ready. "Maybe I wasn't so unlike him either."

"I am sure you are not. Quiet as a cat and swift as an eagle, aren't you? And", Erestor's smile became serious, "you are loyal to your friends, and brave when you need to. Sometimes you must leave balrog-slaying to others, but that does not mean you cannot help at all."

Legolas thought about that while Erestor walked down the hallway. In the story about Amdir the Archer, one of the longer ones in Tales from Doriath, Amdir bravely went alone after the dragon that had attacked his home - but when it came to killing the dragon in the end, it was another elf who did it. Oddly, in his mind, Amdir the Archer looked a lot like Legolas of Gondolin.

Erestor was almost down by the carved oaken doors, and Legolas walked past all the tapestries and display cases and the broken sword to catch up with him.

"Is that your library?"

"That? Oh, yes. At least, I tend to it, and keep it orderly." The doors were closed as usual, but the letters over it gleamed in the sun-light. "I heard you can read."

"Only slowly."

Erestor smiled. "That does not make it less valuable. Any skill can be improved with practise."

"Is reading a skill?"

"What else would it be?"

Legolas shrugged. He had thought of reading as something one was required to do, like walking and riding, only it was also boring. Though Tales from Doriath wasn't boring.

He wondered if Erestor would think he was unsophisticated, but the elf-lord did not look so.

"I will make sure you get to see the library one day, if you'd like. I don't have enough time now to show you all its wonders."

"Findel said you had over a thousand books in there", Legolas said.

"One thousand, two hundred and eighty-four", said Erestor, with no small amount of pride in his voice. "There was a bigger collection in Hollin, but all that could be saved from it is here now. Perhaps you would like to join Ninneth and Lindir for lessons some day? I have lessons with them every week if I can manage, and I have promised them that next time we will be in the library to look at maps. Then I could show you everything."

Legolas hesitated. He still wasn't sure about lessons.

"Think about it", Erestor said. "You can only sit by and listen, if you want. I will not even ask you to be quiet, for Lindir won't be for asecond either way."

Legolas promised to think about it. When he left the Hall of Artefacts he saw the twins sitting under the apple tree in the room outside, still in chain mail but without the leather jerkins or the cloaks over it. Their swords and bows lay in a heap at their feet and lady Arwen sat beside Elladan, mending the torn hem of his sleeve. None of them spoke, and they did not look up. Legolas passed them quietly.

Tinuhen leaned over his horse's neck to brush the snow from a leaning milestone. The further south they had ridden, the easier it had become to follow the road - not because of a lack of snow, but because the land was so littered with the ruins of old stonework - bridges and houses and watch towers - that it was impossible to miss where the thoroughfare had once been. Tinuhen had counted the mountains as they passed them. Fanuidhol, like a spear point reaching to pierce the moon; Celebdil, an age-worn giant shouldering the heavens - and now, looming above them with his jarred peaks and fanged ridges gleaming with snow, Caradhras. Tinuhen shuddered. These were the mountains of Moria, and somewhere under the weight of all that stone were the hollow halls of that lost kingdom. Had the times been different they might have taken that way.

Maidh reined his horse in beside Tinuhen. "What does it say?"

"Dimrill Stair", Tinuhen said, looking back at the lichen-grown inscriptions on the milestone, "to the west. And Hollin. Lothlorien to the south. Moria to the south-west."

"West - up there?"

"Yes." Tinuhen followed his gaze. Another road - smaller and more difficult to see - left theirs and ran up towards the mountains, meeting with a stream that came crashing down to join the Anduin. It led into the shadows of tall spruces, into the depths of a high glen, and there it vanished from their view. "Up there."

They'd made good way that day, crossing the Gladden Fields and following the mountains as they bent westward. Naru had taken two boards off the top of the wagon and turned them into primitive runners that he fastened under the wheels, and pulled like a sleigh, the wagon moved swiftly and smoothly over the snow. Beren had slept through most of the day, but when they stopped for their midday meal he had been awake and able to eat a little.

"I just need to rest", he'd said, his paper-dry lips cracking when he smiled. "Just need to rest. You're doing fine on your own, my boy."

Tinuhen had nodded, because he was. He was doing fine.

He'd led the elves this far south without any difficulties. Every night they had moved closer to the river to find shelter as far away from the mountains as possible, and they had hunted and gathered fire-wood along the river banks and in the Vale. The elves were optimistic. They hadn't been hungry much, not cold and not tired, and the detour was bearable. It wasn't far now.

As they rode up beside the tumbling stream, heading for the shadowy glen into which the road vanished, Tinuhen felt certain it would be alright. They would camp below the Dimrill Stair and cross Caradhras in the morning. By tomorrow night, the mountains would be behind them. The shadows were already lengthening, but it could not be far.

Once under the shelter of the trees they stopped to rest, but Tinuhen could not be still. While the others refilled water-skins and gathered fire-wood he took Hethulin along - she was still not happy with him, but she'd ceased being disrespectful and only frowned when he asked her to come - and walked further up the slope. Laeros followed a step behind Hethulin. He'd taken to do that whenever the healers were too busy with Beren to keep an eye on him, and though Tinuhen was not sure if they ever spoke, Hethulin never protested either. So as they walked, Laeros walked after them like a shadow, a quiet presence of vigilance at their heels.

They followed the stream as it came splashing down a ladder of falls. The trees grew scarcer after only a few hundred yards, and the sides of the valley rose higher and closed in. It became steeper. There was very little snow, and here and there they could see the broken stones of the old road hidden under moss and brown shrubbery. The road ran up to a small open area huddling beneath cliffs that shot straight up for the sky. The stream fell over a ledge at a dizzying height and crashed down in foam and mist among the stones beneath, fed by the sun that melted the snow higher up in daytime. Here, or a little further down between the trees, would be a good place to camp.

The Stair was right ahead, nothing but a dark crack in the surface of the stone. Tinuhen was about to step out of the trees when Hethulin's light hand on his shoulder made him stop. Her eyes were dark and wide open. She watched the cliffs ahead of them; there was nothing there, but she was right - caution was everything. Tinuhen drew back into the shadows. He had never been as good at finding hiding-places as the wood-elves - always been found first when they played hide and seek, long ago when he was no older than Legolas - but if Hethulin thought the trees were safe enough, he believed her.

"That the Dimrill Stair?" she whispered.

"Yes."

"Narrow, is it not?"

Tinuhen had thought about it too. He knew that wagons and carts had used to be pulled up the Stair, so it could not be that steep, but what if it was too narrow for their wagon?

"We ought to take a look. Do you think it is safe?"

Hethulin looked at the cliffs again, then at Laeros, who seemed very calm.

"Yes", she said. "Let's go."

They left the shelter of the trees and crossed the open space, glancing upward. On closer look the Stair was more of a gentle slope, twisting upward so that they could only see a few yards in, with its rough-hewn stone steps partly covered in snow. Tinuhen stretched out his arms to estimate the width.

"It can work. Otherwise we can make a stretcher for Beren, and split the supplies between the rest of us."

Laeros crouched at the opening of the Stair, picking with the small stones that were strewn over the steps. There were a lot of stones, as if the very cliffs were falling apart. When Hethulin cautiously moved further up the slope they crunched beneath her feet. She kicked away a larger rock that lay in the way before she vanished behind the bend.

Tinuhen heard her draw her breath.

"Hethulin?"

"Come and look, my prince."

Tinuhen glanced at Laeros, deemed it was safe to leave him alone, and followed after Hethulin. She stood a little bit further up, staring grim and silent into the dark. When Tinuhen saw what she was looking at he stopped dead in his tracks.

The Stair was shut.

At some point an avalanche or a storm had brought snow and loose rocks down from the slopes above the cliffs, and they'd fallen into the ravine and blocked it off as effectively as a stone wall. Boulders as tall as an elf had crushed the fragile stairs, and littered among them were more stones, smaller stones, shards of stone, and piles of icy snow. The Stair was not filled to the brim like the small plateau below the High Pass, but like there, it would not be breached. Not by horses and wagons, nor by elves with a stretcher. Tinuhen doubted even someone as agile as Hethulin would get past it all.

It would take weeks to clear it. They did not have that time.

"Now what?" Hethulin asked.

Tinuhen did not answer. His head was empty.

A dark shadow flew over their heads and they looked up.

"Is not good!" Quick-wing said. "Is not good at all, no?"

"No", Tinuhen said wearily. "It is not good at all."

The House of Elrond was, after all, not a bad place to be alone and a little lost. The noldor might expect much of themselves, but they expected little of others; all they asked was that one was friendly, and if you were happy to sing along with them in the Hall of Fire, so much the better.

Of course, they weren't wood-elves. They talked more than they listened, and didn't see the point of sitting quiet and watching the flames dance in a log-fire, though they did see the point of sitting quiet and watching the stars. And though they had many words for stars, they had few words for trees, so that sometimes Legolas did not know how to describe things to them. The noldor had words for elm and spruce and pine and oak, but not for young trees or old trees, or sick trees or trees with a lot of branches, or for trees by a river or trees on a hill. If Legolas said he had been talking to cairaendoron, they looked at him and wondered who on Arda he was, and Legolas had to explain he meant the crooked oak that grew by itself by the hedge - cai-raeg-ereb-doron. But the noldor only laughed at that, and wanted to know more about trees.

The twins remained in Rivendell for the following days, though no one saw much of them. They rode out every morning and did not return until very late, and while other elves gathered fire-wood, sharpened swords, reinforced tents and repaired spare shovels that would go with the elves on their journey south, the twins did not seem to help in the preparations. Sometimes they showed up for dinner, but they were quiet and barely seemed to eat; sitting with their heads bowed and close together, they never spoke even to each other, and it seemed more like they were trying to shut everyone else out. When they were there the room became quieter, so they stopped coming.

Legolas got other things to think about. One day he and Ninneth helped a healer put herbs, salves and other medicines in leather pouches and glass bottles that would be sent with the elves as they travelled south. They took them from large jars; dried leaves and roots, and strange powders. Legolas knew some of them, for mother has showed him how to find them in the woods and what to use them for, but there were many he did not recognise.

"Careful with these", the healer said and put another jar on the table. "One of these leaves in the wrong pouch might be unpleasant."

"Are they dangerous?"

"Poisonous. Used right they cure a number of illnesses, and they will stop the bleeding of small wounds, but take too much of it, and you will be very ill."

Legolas and Ninneth eyed the bluish green, crenellated leaves with great interest, but were careful as they filled a leather pouch with them, and made sure to label it correctly. The glass jar was almost empty, and the label tied around the opening so faded with age it was almost impossible to read.

"Blood-root", the healer said. "Common enough, but not in these mountains. Here you need to know the right people to buy it."

Legolas and Ninneth were very careful as they filled a leather pouch with the poisonous leaves, made sure to label it correctly and to not let anything get on the table, but they were not as careful with everything else. By the time they were done, the front of Ninneth's dress had stains of some mixture that smelled very odd, and Legolas had willow-bark juice over his tunic. When they found Lindir, who had been running errands for lord Elrond until then, he laughed at them.

"You two need to change! Do you have any spare clothes, Legolas?"

"No... well, yes, in my room. They're not mine, but I suppose I'm meant to borrow them."

Since he'd arrived in Rivendell, Legolas had only ever tried on the night-shirt, because though the clothes he had worn since he left Greenwood might be in need of a wash he didn't want to change. They were the only piece of home he had and he didn't want to part with them even for a little while. But now that the winter day came to its end and the sun sank like molten gold in the west, he took them off and washed his face and his stained hands while Lindir spent half and hour deciding what he would wear instead.

Then they sat on the floor, curled up before the fire, and talked until the dinner bell tolled. Legolas wore a tunic of green velvet, because the silver-grey one Lindir has settled for had turned out to be too small, and a pair of yellow suede trousers that fit almost perfectly. Lindir plucked on his lute again. Ninneth braided her hair. Legolas ran his fingers over the smooth silvery fabric of the discarded tunic and thought of father.

"Can you take out melodies on that one?" he asked Lindir.

"What melody?"

Legolas sung the Tree-song to him. It was a simple tune, made for singing by the fire at night, and after a few tries Lindir got it right.

"We should do it in the Hall of Fire tonight", he said. "I play the lute, and you sing."

"It sounds better when many people sing it."

"We can teach the others. They're always happy to learn new songs."

Legolas looked at him. The noldor were great at almost everything, but the sindar had always been the best singers, and he was half a one. And if they were meant to teach Legolas about etiquette (not that they did, because they did not know that had been father's wish) maybe he could teach them about the things he knew.

"I guess you're right", he said. "We can teach them."

The snows kept coming. One night it snowed over three feet, and on the morrow morning half of Rivendell were on the courtyard to shovel it all away, though they did not get very far before a snow-ball war broke out and the shovels were forgotten. Other elves were busy wrapping smoked fish in brown paper and stuffing it in barrels, then rolling the barrels onto small carts along with sacks of rye and wheat, rolls of blankets and furs, heaps of arrows, whet stones and tents and water-skins, and the medicines Legolas and Ninneth had prepared. The twins were to leave that afternoon, but they were nowhere to be seen even as the last preparations were made.

After the midday meal, Legolas went down to the kitchen and asked the kitchen-maids for something to feed the animals with. He figured with so much snow, the birds and beasts of the valley would have a hard time to find food, and he had to go into the forest anyway to look for Quick-wing. It would be the first time he left the House of Elrond since his arrival. Legolas longed to be in the company of trees again, even if this forest wasn't like Greenwood.

One of the maids filled a basket for him with bread gone dry and some nuts and dried berries that she thought she could spare. She said the noldor used to put out food for the birds too in winter, but if Legolas wanted to go into the forest, he could.

"But you must go no further than the fourth stream from the house", she warned him. "If you get lost..."

"I'm a wood-elf!"

"I know that, but this isn't your forest. And it always safer around the house. Lord Elrond says no one is allowed to go further than the fourth stream alone, unless they are prepared to fight. Sometimes wicked things comes into the valley."

"I thought there were only two ways in."

She shook her head. "There are many ways - all hidden and impossible to find again once you've lost it, but they are there to stumble upon by anyone and anything." She smiled and hung the basket over his arm. "Now go, before the sun sets already. It is a long way to the fourth stream."

The day was pale and tinted with frost, and after the heat of the kitchen the nothern wind was biting cold. Legolas left by the southern bridge, and when he looked down at the icy stream far below he thought of the little river at home, of the water-wheel that could be heard far away when all else was quiet, of the elves living upstream coming down in their boats to trade goods, of climbing down to the smooth river stones to drink the clear water every morning. Then he batted that thought out of his head. It was no good to be home-sick when he could not go home.

The path led in between the trees and away south. Legolas followed it to the bottom of the valley but there he left it, never one to follow roads; he found his own ways through the forest, and they went here and there and to everything that looked interesting. He crossed the trail of a small sled on which the foresters had brought their fire-wood back to the house that morning, walked through glens tucked between gentle hills, past boulders with cloaks of snow and over glades hidden among the trees. Mighty oaks and elms and slender beeches replaced the gangly pines, and the sky was crossed with branches. It was so quiet he could almost hear their breathing. The snow softened all hard edges.

When the trees grew used to him, Legolas asked them for the dens of badgers and foxes, and for places where the deer often went, so that he could leave them food. He broke the ice of a little pond so the animals could drink, and left handfuls of nuts and berries here and there as he walked. He climbed into a tree to feed a squirrel family high in its branches, and sat there for a while letting them eat from his hand. He kept an eye on the sky; but not before the basket was almost empty did he see a bird circling the trees-tops, and recognised Quick-wing's copper-read coat.

He whistled, just in case that strange black bird would be near - he had seen it once or twice, circling the house, but it had never come close. Quick-wing wheeled around and swooped down under the tree-branches. Legolas held his arm out and let the sparrow-hawk sit on the brace strapped to his wrist while he untied the message from his leg. Then he fed him some berries.

"Don't you have a message to me too?" Legolas asked, tucking the one with the Greenwood seal inside his tunic.

Quick-wing shook his head. "Only one. Too many messages very dangerous. Very dangerous already, very secret."

"I guess so." Legolas carried Quick-wing back to the pond so he could drink. The sparrow-hawk was very tired. "How is Tinuhen? Where is he?"

"Elves fine. One elf still not flying, others fine, they hunt good, make big fires. But is trouble, yes! Elves find way through mountain but it blocked, yes, blocked by stone, blocked by snow..."

"Erestor told me that. So they're by the Dimrill Stair already?"

"Has made nest below. Can't go on. Elves can't fly, no, elves have no wings!"

"No we don't", Legolas said, thinking of how much easier that would have made things. "But lord Elrond already knew that, and he'll send out elves to help clear the way so Tinuhen can go on. You'll have to tell him that. Tell him to stay and wait for help, if it's possible. They're leaving today, so they should be there soon."

Quick-wing nodded and ate some more berries from Legolas' hand. "Elf has message to little elf, too."

"He has? You said - "

"Not written, no, but gave to Quick-wing. Elf said, little elf keep hiding, yes? So eagle thinks is only sparrow. Safer so. Little elf promise?"

"I do, but can you stop calling me - "

"And be polite to elf-lord. Else elf will - hmm - lock little elf into dungeon until learns to behave? And strangle, too, yes!"

"I'll strangle Tinuhen. No, don't tell him I said that! I'll do as he says."

Legolas set the sparrow-hawk down by the pond and watched him drink until he was satisfied. When Quick-wing settled down to hone his feathers, Legolas sat down too in the snow and drew circles in it with a stick. A squirrel leapt from a branch to another, setting them both in motion and dropping a heap of snow down on the ground. Quick-wing eyed it hungrily but did not attack. Squirrels are fierce fighters.

"I wonder if lord Elrond has a message for Tinuhen", Legolas said. "Maybe you should wait here while I go back and ask him. Then you'd get a rest too. Was it windy in the mountains?"

"Very windy. Very much snow", Quick-wing said. "Mountains angry. Something in them that's not supposed to be there."

There was an edge to his voice that made Legolas think twice about his words. "Something else than the elves?"

Quick-wing croaked, the way sparrow-hawks do when they feel threatened and don't want to show it. "Foul! Foul and wicked. Ragast never liked, noo, too clever, too cunning. Mind like machine. Mountains don't like, no but mountains can't scare him away!"

Legolas shuddered. Someone with a mind like a machine, someone that even the Misty Mountains could not scare away, must be very powerful. He wanted Quick-wing to tell him more, but the sparrow-hawk seemed not to know how to explain further.

"What about the traitor then?" Legolas asked. "Are they - "

"Hush!" Quick-wing cried, staring at the sky. Legolas fell silent.

The black bird was up there, over the trees. It flew in wide circles over the valley; sometimes out of sight, then it appeared again, a dark blotch against the blue sky.

Legolas sat very still. The black bird vanished again and did not reappear, but they waited for what felt like hours to make sure it did not come back. At last it seemed to be gone.

"Not safe here", Quick-wing said. "Valley is guarded. Cannot wait for elf-lord, must leave at once."

"Yes", Legolas said, eyes still fixed on the sky. He did not think the bird had seen them, but it had been close. "What about me? Should I leave?"

"No! Not little elf. Too dangerous outside. But next time must be more clever, yes, much more clever. Can't come into valley anymore."

Legolas nodded. "There must be a way I can leave only for a while, and without getting in danger. Findel asked me to take Marigold for rides. Maybe I can follow some hunters, or maybe I could go with Ninneth and her father would come with us; he's a warrior."

"Good, good!" Quick-wing said. "Little elf very clever. Four days, we meet south, by river. Will wait if little elf not there. Elves often come to river, will take you there. Understand?"

"Got it."

"Now hurry back. I fly quick and sneaky through forest, evil bird can't follow."

With a last glance at the empty sky, Quick-wing took off. Legolas waited a little more before he took the basket and left, but he did not go back at once, because the basket wasn't empty and he wanted to see more of the valley. He walked south-west down a long slope until he stumbled upon a stream at the bottom. It was just a trail of ice snaking through the forest, narrow enough to jump over, but it was the fourth he'd found since he left the House of Elrond.

So here was the border. Though the forest looked no different on the other side, he was not allowed to go further. Legolas wanted so badly to go on, but there was still a lot of forest he had not discovered on the side of the stream he was allowed to be. There wasn't exactly a reason to break the rules, he thought, and turned to walk back.

And then he saw the tracks.

In the snow below a pine - the almost invisible imprints of elven feet. They came from the house, led over the stream, and further into the forest. They could have been the foresters' tracks, or a hunter checking on their snares that morning, or anyone who was allowed to go further than the fourth stream.

Legolas stood still and listened. Maybe they weren't so far off.

At first there was nothing.

Then he heard, faintly over the forest, the rhythmical singing of steel on steel - the sound of clashing swords.

So, just to be clear: there will be no update next week, but the one after that. From now on I hope to update on time, every time.

Thank you for reading, commenting, and putting up with me! 3