To Rekindle Hearts

Chapter Five: One of the King's Own Sprites

Legolas awoke with a start when he heard footsteps of men approaching across decomposed leaves a few decameters to their right. He pulled out his knife with his left hand and narrowed his eyes at the forest floor below.

It was first light, and the heavy clouds above had just begun to release their rain.

Legolas roused Ithildim with a low whistle and then Ithildim, too, became alert, grasping his weapon and dropping to the branch on which Legolas was now watchful and erect.

Legolas jerked his head toward the sounds and said quietly to Ithildim, "The man from the tavern, and several friends."

As the men came to the base of the tree in which the two wood-elves stood, Ithildim saw that Legolas spoke true. He almost groaned when he saw he had left his pack hanging from a limb at eye level, and the remains of their fire Legolas had neither overturned nor returned to the wilds, so it was very clear that Ithildim and Legolas were nearby, though the Men did not realize yet just how close they were.

Ithildim rolled his eyes skyward in exasperation as the instigator from the tavern picked up a great sword and slashed his pack from the tree limbs, driving the blade straight through the middle when it hit the ground. The man was good with a blade, for a villager, and what he lacked in technique he seemed to make up for in pure and committed hatred.

Legolas glanced at Ithildim and inclined his head toward the tree to their right. Ithildim nodded, and Legolas slipped his knife back into his belt and began to ascend as best he could, with one healthy arm, to the place where the trees' limbs overlapped. Ithildim was right behind him, and eventually they had made the next tree, the shift sounding like no more than a glance of wind in the cool morning.

They continued that way for some time until the rain became heavier and slowed their progress. After a while with no sounds from below nor sight of the men, Ithildim dropped to the ground to survey their surroundings, for the woods were bigger than he first imagined, and it seemed to Ithildim that they had been moving west, perhaps toward the marshes that ran up to the eastern edge of Mirkwood. Woven below the even pitter-patter of large raindrops hitting ground and leaves, there was the faint sound of a running stream a small distance behind them.

Ithildim whistled up the tree to Legolas to let him know it was all clear below, and then he slipped his sword back into his belt. Legolas was down the tree in a heartbeat.

In that moment when Legolas' feet hit the ground, however, an unexpected arrow passed Ithildim's left shoulder and Legolas' right and was buried to the shaft in the bark of the tree between them. Legolas immediately recognized that, whatever was happening, he would be of no use to Ithildim at ground level without his bow (indeed, he would most likely be a hindrance). So he jumped back into the tree, and took its branch with one arm at the elbow; he then swung his legs back up to grasp the limb, and clambered fully back into the tree's protection. Ithildim stood below him with his short bow pulled and arrow knocked, and Legolas reached into his armguard and pulled out a small, discrete knife, staring cautiously into the waning darkness before them.

At first, Legolas felt annoyance at Ithildim's novice oversight, before chastising himself, as he neither had noticed their nearby assailant. Legolas shook his head and focused his attention again on the scene below.

Several seconds passed, and the footsteps that approached were consistent with a much larger group than Legolas had initially heard. The instigator from the tavern and his friends, plus some, emerged to stand in front of Ithildim, who had held his fire, because these were not spiders or orcs or other evil things—they were men besot with grief. But, Legolas thought sourly, grief may make one dangerous.

Immediately one of the men walked behind Ithildim who still held his bow, and Ithildim did not turn, as there were more opponents to his front. Legolas saw Ithildim's shoulders square, and knew he was bracing for whatever was to come. Legolas fingered the small blade in his hand. If he only had one throwing blade and one chance to throw it, Legolas did not want to do so idly.

The man who walked behind Ithildim pulled back his fist and punched sharply on the left side, right below Ithildim's lowest ribs. The blow made him drop his arrow and he bent forward as the pain radiated from his kidney and made him nauseous. Another of the men pulled the bow from his hands as Ithildim dry-heaved once, and a third grabbed his dark hair and wrapped his hand in it; he pulled a knife from his belt and then jerked Ithildim up by the hair, tilting his head back and placing the knife delicately near the large vein on Ithildim's neck. Ithildim gasped and dropped his hands to his sides, standing suddenly very straight—absolutely still—and careful under the blade.

Legolas quit fondling his blade's handle and froze, thinking quickly. There were seven men, and he had one blade. He would have to be on the ground to give Ithildim any chance of escape, and even landing a killing blow against one of the men with his small blade would not ensure they would not kill Ithildim outright, anyway, at the first sign of a threat.

So with only a moment's consideration, Legolas took careful aim at one of the men farthest away from his friend, and sent the small blade spinning. It hit the man's foot and pierced through it and into the ground with a soft thunk.

In the moment the man cried out and all heads turned to the sound of the cry, Legolas dropped from the tree and pulled out his long knife. He held it extended before him as the men turned back around; his knees were bent and ready to attack or dodge if necessary. The instigator from the tavern—Aelfric son of Aelfwine, Legolas remembered—approached Legolas and roughly grabbed him by the right upper arm.

Legolas suddenly felt quite small and a little rash as the man's fingers closed fully around the base of Legolas' deltoid, his thumb and middle finger nearly overlapping as if Legolas were as insubstantial as a waif, instead of a well-trained soldier. Legolas did not let his doubt show, however, and he stood still, eyes flickering to the knife at Ithildim's throat, just two meters away from him.

A moment passed as the men considered the elves, and the elves likewise considered them.

Legolas' voice was so soft when he spoke that it was almost lost in the cacophonous sound of water from all sides, but it was unyielding and shook with a quiet rage when he looked up to meet the eyes of the instigator.

"I do not want to needlessly hurt you, Aelfric son of Aelfwine; that is not our way. I do not like to meddle in affairs that are not mine," said Legolas, adjusting the grip on his blade in his free hand. "But if you do not unhand my friend and return him to me now, in full health, there is nothing in Middle-earth that will stop me from destroying you, whether it is in this very moment or not."

When he finished, Aelfric took Legolas' other arm into his grip and shook him once sharply. He then stared with hatred into Legolas' grey eyes, which were now calm and looked very coldly upon him.

"Captain," said Ithildim, hoping his base command of Westron would serve him well enough to allow him to communicate with Legolas in it. He did not want to offend the men by using an elven language—he was not really in a position to make these men angry.

But the man holding the knife to Ithildim's throat jerked roughly at his hair, forcing Ithildim's head back even further, so that he stared straight up into the rain, and his neck was very suddenly very exposed.

Aelfric laughed; Legolas could feel the vibrations of his twisted mirth in the hands that gripped his arms.

Ithildim sensed Legolas' eyes considering the expanse of skin from his overshirt to the tip of his sharp chin, and Ithildim had heard the wild timbre in Legolas' voice when he confronted a moment before the man from the tavern. In Ithildim's previous experiences, that tone did not bode well for Legolas' self-preservation or for the calm resolution of any given situation, whether leveled during an argument over baking flours or in a shouted plea in the midst of combat.

"Captain," Ithildim said again, more firmly. "It would be well for you to listen to this man's demands, so that we can all leave here unharmed."

Legolas set his jaw and stared at a point behind Ithildim.

"We have had enough pain these years without being assigned blame for the death of yet more children," Legolas began evenly, in a Silvan dialect, before he continued, becoming agitated. "If we are to die for a stupid reason in these woods that are not even our own—at the hands of grieving men!—I will at least not have us so demeaned in the process!"

"Legolas, you must not—" Ithildim started to say.

"We are not on duty, and you will not in this foolishness command me," said Legolas, looking now, in turn, into the faces of each of the men surrounding them.

The man holding Legolas growled. "If you are going to speak of death, at least do so in a language we can all fully understand."

"Aye," said Legolas now in Westron, steadfastly ignoring Ithildim's exposed neck and the anger and beseechment he sensed from his friend, and he looked up into Aelfric's eyes. "I did speak of death. For if we die here at your hands, your own death may swiftly follow. The Elvenking of whom you are not fond? He is not so fond either of men murdering his captains, or his son."

In that instant, Ithildim wanted nothing more than to strangle Legolas himself.

Aelfric smiled unkindly. "So you are one of the king's own sprites!"

"I am," said Legolas coolly, sounding more like his older brother or even the Elvenking than Ithildim had ever heard before. "The king's own deadly sprites. My name is Legolas, and you would do well to not test the mercy of King Thranduil in this matter."

There was silence for a moment throughout the group. And for that moment, Ithildim thought that Legolas' outrageous approach might indeed spare them their lives. But it was only a moment, and a very brief one at that, for the man holding Legolas slapped him very hard across the face, and grabbed Legolas' right arm above the wrist—his other still gripping Legolas' left arm—where he knew he would be able to cause most pain, as it was the very arm he had broken earlier with his boot.

Legolas could feel the fractured bone shift under Aelfric's large hand, and Aelfric felt the elf's lithe muscles spasm under his fingertips, surprised by the shifting bone.

Ithildim spoke up quickly.

"Legolas is a notorious liar and will be disciplined for this attempted falsehood when we return to home," Ithildim said. "This elf is but a soldier of mine, and you would do well to let him go, for I am responsible for his safety."

The man holding Ithildim loosened his grip on his hair so that he could look now into Aelfric's face, which was perverted by a new and vengeful lust.

"And you," Aelfric hissed, "would do well not to lie. Now that I know who this elf is, it is all too apparent the relation. He carries himself with the same pompous and thoughtless air of a great," he spat, "Elvenking, who would look down on the race of Men and take joy in watching our children die."

Ithildim saw Legolas stiffen and for a moment could read the sorrow and then anger in his posture, before he stood taller in Aelfric's grip, so that his forehead was now level with the man's nose. Legolas' jaw was clenched and he seemed to frown, his neck very stiff, and he had raised the knife as much as he could with the man's hands pinning his arms to his sides. There was nothing Ithildim could do in that moment but yell, to redirect what he knew were Legolas' heedless intentions, for Legolas was a sneaky fighter and infinitely resourceful, and he had found what he believed to be an opportunity, however futile it might end up being.

"Legolas, stop!"

The man turned his face away from Legolas for a moment to look at Ithildim, and Legolas gave a mock whimper of pain and then twisted his arm in Aelfric's grasp to refocus the man's attention. The sound and movement served to draw Aelfric's gaze again to Legolas, and his eyes dropped toward the twisting arm beneath his large hand, his head inclined slightly. Legolas took advantage of Aelfric's position to quickly pull his upperbody as far away from the man as the now excruciating grip on his arm would allow, and then curled his back and drove his forehead as hard as he could into Aelfric's lowered nose.

...to be continued in chapter 6!