Chapter 12

I am so close... I can taste the freedom...

Tomorrow is my last exam. My very last exam (until next year, when I have to do even harder exams). But one more day, and I shall be FREE!

This chapter is all Belhadron and Faramir, and we're actually sort of beginning to near some sort of end! I have had to mess around with this chapter a little, because otherwise it would be super long, so bear with me if it is short and a little cut off at the end. There is definitely some action to come, but there isn't a hugely detailed part, like there was earlier, because honestly it took a very long time to write that part, and it was certainly a challenge, so I wasn't too keen to do it again in the same story!

Important: I might have a small surprise for you guys tomorrow, so have a look tomorrow in the evening (past 7pm GMT, which must be around early afternoon for people in the US, and 8-9pm in Europe, I think). I'm not promising anything, it completely depends on how much time i have this evening, but keep your eyes peeled! (That is the weirdest expression, please don't actually peel your eyes because then you won't be able to read this chapter!)

As for anyone who still has more exams to do, have some cheesy song lyrics (Keep Holding On by Avril Lavigne. I'm not actually a fan, but somehow I know the song anyway).

*ahem*

KEEEEEEEEEP HOOOOLDING OOOON,

'CAUSE YOU KNOW WE'LL MAKE IT THROUGH, MAKE IT THROUGH.

I'm such an amazing singer...not. :)

Anyway, enough of me. Have some more story!

Disclaimer: see Chapter 1

0-o-0-o-0

The woods were quiet. Not silent, because ever since the war had ended the birds had begun to return, and were singing now in the trees, but still they were quiet. The air was still, and beginning to warm as the sun rose over the mountains to the east.

Faramir felt his hand tighten a little on the hilt of his sword at the lack of noise. Even after years spent in Ithilien, he was still not wholly used to it. He had grown up in a city, surrounded by people, and though there was a certain peace to the woods of Ithilien it was a peace he was unused to.

Of course, the reason that they were here seemed to remove any feeling of peace that could have existed. It was hard to enjoy the tranquillity of the woods when you knew who was hiding within them.

There was a movement to his left side, and Faramir glanced over to see Beregond come up and stand next to him. "Are we ready?" Faramir asked, his voice soft.

Beregond nodded. "Everyone is ready to move," he said. "I have four men standing by as scouts to move ahead of us, and Belhadron is scouting the area from the trees as we speak."

Faramir glanced behind him, to the thirty men he had with him. They had split up, Mablung and two of the other captains taking eighty men between them to completely encircle the camp of Easterlings that they knew was hidden in the slight valley before them. The remaining four captains had taken the rest of the Rangers, over a hundred of them, down south. They were to work their way up, ensuring no Easterling slipped through the cracks and escaped.

There was a light rustle from above them and then Belhadron dropped straight down from the tree they were standing nearby. Both Beregond and Faramir managed to stop themselves jumping in shock, and turned to the dark-haired elf. Beregond beckoned for the three lieutenants that they had with them to come forwards and listen.

"There is a camp," said Belhadron, picking up his quiver, which he had taken off to make his climb easier, and slipping it over his shoulders again. "There is smoke two furlongs, due East."

Faramir nodded. "That would make sense," he said. "There is a small copse east of here, nestled at the base of a slight hill. It would make a defensible camp." He nodded at the lieutenants. "I want a scouting group of four ready to move out with me and Belhadron. The rest of the men need to be split into two groups. Follow us until I say otherwise, and then we will plan from there." The men nodded, and split off to do as Faramir said. In a few moments every man was up and alert, the four best trackers moving to Faramir.

The company made their way stealthily through the forests, Faramir in front. Belhadron moved silently beside Faramir's shoulder, his sharp eyes not leaving the surrounding forest. The men behind were not able to be so quiet, and the occasional rustle or crack of breaking twigs made everyone wince.

Suddenly Belhadron straightened, and grasped Faramir's arm urgently. He whispered something and signalled for those behind him to get down and stop moving. The men hesitated, unsure of following an elf's commands. After a moment Faramir gestured as well, and then they moved quickly, getting off the slight trail they were walking on and crouching down in the surrounding thickets. In their dark clothing, with the steel blacked out, they weren't visible at a first glance.

Up ahead, Faramir and Beregond both moved off the track, and Belhadron leapt up into the branches of a low hanging tree. The elf all but disappeared from view in the branches, drawing his green-grey cloak around him and stilling.

For a few minutes there was quiet, and the Rangers held back from shifting in the undergrowth and disobeying Faramir's orders. Nothing appeared to be wrong: the woods were quiet, but not silent. They could hear nothing out of the ordinary.

And then they could, the muffled sound of feet on the forest floor reaching the men's ears. They consciously made an effort to not even breathe, and tried to shrink back further into the undergrowth without actually moving.

An Easterling appeared along the trail, a crude bow in his hand and sheaf of arrows at his hip. His dark curly hair was pulled back from his face in a rough knot, and Faramir watched from where he was crouched behind the tree Belhadron was sat in. He frowned, watching the Easterling, and his hand crept silently to his sword, but there came an ever so slight movement in the tree above him, and he stilled again.

Faramir watched as Belhadron, ever so slowly, freed his arms from his cloak, shifting his body in a way that somehow made him become even less visible, as if he was moving with the tree. The Easterling slowed in his step slightly, looking down, and Faramir followed his gaze to see the scuffmarks of their tracks.

Belhadron moved up in the branches. Faramir watched as the elf dropped silently, his cloak fanning out around him. The Easterling spun around in shock, but Belhadron moved with him, and before the man could raise the alarm the elf locked his arm around the Easterling's throat, preventing him from shouting out.

The man struggled, twisting and writhing in Belhadron's grip, and his struggles tripped the elf, both of them falling to the floor. The man reached up, clawing desperately at Belhadron's arm and face, but Belhadron merely tilted his head out of the way and held on, cutting of the Easterling's air supply.

Faramir rose from where he was crouched as the Easterling stilled. He stepped out onto the track with Beregond behind him as Belhadron paused, removing his arm from the man's neck. Belhadron pushed the Easterling off of him, and Faramir offered a hand. The elf grinned slightly as he accepted it and Faramir pulled him to his feet.

"He is not dead," Belhadron murmured to Faramir as Faramir signalled for the men to rise from their cover. Beregond crouched down and pressed two fingers under the man's jaw, nodding to Faramir in confirmation. Belhadron resisted the urge to roll his eyes slightly. He hadn't even gone for the knife at the small of his back. In all honesty, Legolas should be proud of him for that: the blond elf had always said he was too quick to go for a knife when he didn't need to.

Beregond finished gagging and tying the Easterling up, and hauled him roughly to his feet just as the man started to come round. The man twisted and thrashed in his grip, muffled sounds coming through the gag, and Beregond cursed under his breath, tightening his hold.

Belhadron stepped back as the Easterling all but threw himself to the ground in his attempt to get out of Beregond's grip, and Beregond had to let go or be pulled to the ground himself. The Easterling dove out of his grip and managed two steps forwards before Belhadron innocently caught his leg with his foot and sent him sprawling to the floor.

Belhadron grinned as Beregond stepped up behind the Easterling as he struggled to his feet as hit him soundly around the head, sending him sprawling to the floor yet again. "My mistake," he said with a grin, and Beregond chuckled under his breath, tying the man's hands.

"Get him out of sight," he said softly to two Rangers, and they dragged him away off the trail. Faramir signalled for the four men who were scouting with him and Belhadron to move forwards, and they set off, treading stealthily through the woods. Beregond waited silently for a few moments, watching them go, and then nodded to the Rangers, who sank back down into the undergrowth.

They waited in tense silence for a while, Beregond watching the woods for any sign of movement. A slight rustle had his hand going to the hilt of his sword, but he relaxed when he saw one of the scouts step through the trees, his hood pulled up and a cloth mask hiding most of his face. Faramir followed him, and then the three other men. Belhadron brought up the rear, idly running his hand through the leaves on one side of him.

Faramir nodded at the scouts, and they joined the rest of the men as they moved out into full view. Beregond appeared at his side, and he turned to him. "Twenty-eight of them," he murmured. "We checked the close perimeter, and other than the man we currently have, Belhadron is pretty certain that there is nobody who has left recently. Any who have gotten out Mablung will have picked up."

Beregond nodded, and together he and Faramir ran through a brief plan with the lieutenants. In silence the men moved out, splitting into two groups and heading around to either side of the small valley. Belhadron moved around in front of the group Faramir led, scouting ahead and then doubling back.

The small valley came into view, and the Rangers spread out, surrounding the perimeter of the camp. On Faramir's signal, they surged forwards together.

The Easterlings were taken by surprise, scrambling for their weapons as the Rangers, most of their faces covered by cloth masks, stormed their camp. But the Easterlings had not survived the war, survived Ithilien for a year, to be caught completely unawares, and soon there was fierce fighting within the camp.

Belhadron stayed on the fringes of the camp with his bow, his arrows falling into the battle around him. Mablung's company had come to loosely encircle the camp, a furlong or two out, ensuring no Easterlings slipped past them.

Belhadron's thoughts turned completely back to the battle, and he loosed another arrow, this one burying itself in the calf of an Easterling, sending him howling to his knees, where a Ranger swiftly knocked him unconscious. His shot hadn't killed him, but that had really been the entire point. There had been enough death for him to last a lifetime, and, thought Belhadron with a slight grin as he sent another arrow flying into the fray, elven lifetimes could be rather long. If something didn't kill him at the wrong time.

His arrows were beginning to get noticed, and an Easterling who had shaken off the Ranger fighting him and left him dazed on the floor barrelled towards Belhadron with a wordless shout of rage and defiance. Belhadron went for another arrow, but the man was too close and running too fast at him to get off a shot.

If he had had more time Belhadron would have said something of the inelegance and, frankly, the stupidity of the man's attack. Apparently he thought that blindly charging at an elf was going to work. Belhadron forewent his bow, and merely ducked, spinning quickly out of the way with his hand going to his sword as he moved. He wasn't an idiot, and he knew very well that he should be ready if the man was faster, or better, than he looked.

He wasn't. The man couldn't stop in time to keep Belhadron in view, and the elf came up behind him, using the hilt of his sword to strike the Easterling hard in exactly the right place to send him reeling to the floor, unconscious.

Belhadron momentarily paused, though part of his mind was ever conscious of the battle moving around him. "Rude," he murmured in Sindarin at the unconscious body of the Easterling.

His sword was in his hand now, and so Belhadron moved forwards from the edge of the battle. Faramir was fighting nearby, and Belhadron found himself moving closer to the man, watching his back when Faramir was otherwise distracted. He used mainly the flat of his sword or the hilt, knocking out or disabling any Easterlings rather than killing them.

The battle wound down quickly. One Easterling threw down his weapon and then the rest soon followed, allowing themselves to be pushed down to the floor and their weapons removed. Faramir moved among them, speaking to his men, and Belhadron watched the copse carefully, not putting it past one of the Easterlings to try something even when they were all down on the floor.

Belhadron felt something change in the woods around them, and he paused for a moment, reaching out behind him and placing one hand on the tree trunk behind him. It took a few minutes for him to stretch his senses out through the woods around him, the trees unused to an elven presence, but eventually he found what he was looking for. Thanking the trees under his breath, Belhadron stepped away and found Faramir.

"Mablung is close," he said, the Westron slowly becoming a little easier on his tongue.

"How did you-?" Faramir started, before shaking his head. "Never mind. But thank you." He glanced over his shoulder as Beregond came up to him.

"We have all twenty eight of the men," reported Beregond, stepping out of the way as one of the Rangers pushed an Easterling, his hands tied behind his back and his ankles roped loosely together, past them. "I have men standing by to escort them to the soldiers on the road, and then we can move off once Mablung gets here. He should be moving in now."

"He is, according to Belhadron," replied Faramir. He glanced around, at the Easterlings being corralled in one corner, his Rangers moving with steady efficiency. "We must clear the camp away as best we can. Put out the fire, remove our tracks. Have some men see to it, Beregond, and then we will get as close as we can to where we are meant to be next before nightfall."

Beregond nodded and moved away. Faramir's gaze flitted around the clearing once more, and then fell to the fire smouldering in a ring of rocks. He frowned, and wondered how Belhadron had seen smoke above the trees when the wood was barely burning anymore.

0-o-0-o-0

They moved out after less than an hour. There was a slightly tense moment when one of Mablung's scouts forgot to announce his presence, but Belhadron merely mentioned who was approaching, and the Rangers relaxed, though Faramir caught confused whispers and the word 'magic' being murmured, with perhaps just a little irritation.

Faramir himself was curious, but pushed the matter from his mind as they made to move out. They headed further into Ithilien, the woods slowly becoming thicker. Mablung was with Faramir now, having sent some of his men north with the Easterlings, and the rest with another captain and one of the lieutenants that Faramir had with him further east.

It was only when the sun had already sunk in the sky that they stopped for the night. There wasn't a camp, as such: most of the men had been Rangers at some point and knew full well that the simplest thing to do, when there was no chance of rain, was to merely wrap themselves in their cloaks and use their packs as a pillow.

"I can keep watch," Belhadron said quietly to Faramir as the little light left dimmed even further. The two of them were with Mablung on the edge of their hasty camp, Faramir and Mablung talking softly over the plans for tomorrow. "I do not need to sleep."

Mablung looked up in surprise. "How long can you go without sleep?" he asked, his voice soft. Belhadron shrugged.

"It is…different, for elves," he said with a slight frown. "But I can have seventeen days without proper sleep at the most."

Both Mablung and Faramir looked surprised. "Seventeen days?" asked Faramir. The most he had managed to go without sleep was three and a half days, during some intense fighting where he hadn't had a second to spare. Boromir had eventually forced him to sleep, even if it had only been for a few hours before the orcs started to press their defences again.

Belhadron grinned slightly. "It is an easy thing to forget," he said. Both Faramir and Mablung looked at him a little incredulously, and Belhadron remembered that for mortals it probably wasn't an easy thing to do at all.

The seventeen days had occurred sometime in the chaotic months of the end of the Watchful Peace. For two weeks there had been intense fighting on the southern border, and with a final lull in the waves of orcs, reinforcements managed to push through to those on the front of the assault. Belhadron had been there, watching Legolas' back as usual, and none of the elves there had slept for the entire time they had been on the border. In total, Belhadron thinks they managed to walk into seven trees on the two-day journey back to the stronghold.

Belhadron unbuckled his quiver, shrugging it off his back and leaning it against a tree. The quiver was full, Belhadron having picked up all the arrows he had used earlier. Faramir and Mablung turned to quiet conversation as Belhadron sorted through his arrows, separating out the ones that needed repairing.

Eventually Faramir and Mablung both retired to sleep, and Belhadron adopted the usual position he took when he had been on watch in Mirkwood: cloak drawn about him, his knees held to his chest loosely by his arms, only this time he was on the ground and not in a tree.

It was quiet. It was a good quiet, though, one that did not precede, as quiet often had in Mirkwood, orcs ambushing the patrol or spiders leaping from above or, on one occasion that Belhadron wished he had been there to see, thirteen Dwarves interrupting a feast in the woods. Belhadron gently stretched out his senses amongst the trees, not pushing, just seeing if they would respond at all to his presence. It was slow work, but peaceful.

Belhadron's lips quirked in a smile. Peaceful. That was a word he had not used in a long time.

To Be Continued...

We've got a bit more to happen in this scene, and then it's back to Legolas and Aragorn next time. My ideas of elves and nature will be explained a bit in the next chapter- I'll try and organise my thoughts on it at some time, but if you wanna know, I'm always right here!