"Move swift as the Wind and closely-formed as the Wood. Attack like the Fire and be still as the Mountain." ― Sun Tzu
Note: This chapter was written by my friend Lord Exar Kun who kindly agreed to type up a few of the chapters. Originally were thinking of writing a fic together but as we never got to that he offered to write a few chapters to lighten my load. Enjoy!
Legolas stood on a high tree branch inhaling the sweet scent of the forest. The few elves that companied him lingered down below making final adjustments to their bow straps.
Mirkwood. Or so it was now called. Once there was a time, a lighter time, when the trees sung of beauty and health, young and bountiful in wonder as they were meant to be, when the land was then called Greenwood the Great! Almost as if the woods were alive, of course, to an elf they were. Now though, a sickness had encompassed the green trees, and blackened the sunlight in the day and muted the starlight of the night skies. A faceless shadow had fallen into Greenwood. The dark lord Sauron, the deceiver, from his fortress at Dol Guldur had corrupted the woods, and turned them into an extension of his corruption, aided and surrounded by spawn of Ungoliant.
The fortress was however in ruin. No more did the dark lord reside there. Abandoned by him following his defeat and the wars of old, the last Alliance. Yet still the woods whispered of evils, and felt tainted with darkness. The fell sickness of the very soul of Greenwood, now Mirkwood, now spread north into the realm of King Thranduil, the Wood
Perched upon a branch amongst a tree of southern Mirkwood, the prince of the woodland elves peered to the borderlands beyond the trees, and majesty of his homeland. High into the air, the breeze striking his face with a gentle caress, and the sounds of woodland creatures filled his ears. Piercing the veil of the treetops that spread for miles on end, his blue-gray eyes wandered for any unnatural movement, any sign that they neared any fell creature from whatever festering hole they crawled from.
"Do you see anything?" Mutely the prince shook his head, though he knew his companions could not see him, and thus jumped down the majestic tree he had stood upon, branch to branch, being sure to fall with the natural grace gifted to he and his Elven kin. Not once leaving an unnecessary mark upon this majestic tree.
Another one such as he landed with similar grace and stood before several of his kin. Fellow patrols sent with him by his Ada. To the prince it was a bit much, but he knew his Ada was merely overprotective. Perhaps to a fault at times...
"Did you see anything from the trees, my prince?" The captain of the patrol, an elf, of tall stature even for elf kind, hair quite dark and unusual for the Silvan or even Sindar of Mirkwood, by the name of Lhinnor asked once more, and Legolas shook his head visibly this time.
"Nothing. It does nothing to dispel the darkness that now draws around the woods."
"Indeed. One's sight can do little to be rid of darkness that can be felt looming in the air itself, my prince."
Legolas nodded, and pulled his bow around from his back, holding it within his right hand, and pushed his gray cloak aside. He examined once more, those elves around him. They were lightly armored and equipped. To mortal men, they would seem to open to attack, but Legolas knew that they were far better prepared for a battle should one come, lightly armored as they were than ever if they were to wear the heavy and clanking loud armor of most of the men. Of course this was a mere patrol guard as well. Were it war, then the prince saw armor as necessary, but they required silence, and stealth for now.
"Let's move west. The last pack of those sickly creatures came from west not south as the King suspected." Lhinnor looked confused, furrowing his brow in noticeable confusion.
"My prince. To the west is but the very end of the North Undeeps. Why should Orcs come from there? Surely they could still reside in the ruins of the hill of sorcery to the south, can they not?"
"They could, but they move west to east, and back again. They have only begun to wander north and test our borders. They have grown cleverer or perhaps it was their sheer luck that allowed them to ambush two sorties of our own. What bothers me is the possibility that they have grown smarter if as you say they come from the old fortress of shadow, and lure us westward." The prince spoke aloud, but then gave a faint smile.
"Then again, if they are coming from the west, and have taken camp in the Undeeps, then we have but to flush them from the woods, and let them wander back toward the Misty Mountains, or wherever they may seek to make their foul dwellings." The captain nodded, in a conceding manner, and said no more, as the prince nodded in kind and directed his company, a total of twenty-five elves westward leading out of Mirkwood.
"The shadow...it grows in these lands my prince. Do you think that..." A sentry spoke to the prince as they walked, not that he minded. He felt little sense in acting or seeming superior to his kin, Legolas knew what he wished to speak aloud, but desired not to utter the idea, for fear and superstition alone could half a warriors will and prowess.
"I do not think the dark lord could have returned. His defeat long ago has given the world enough peace. The coming of these fell creatures, spawn of Ungoliant herself, and the Orcs are nothing new. What is troubling are the new numbers they swell in. They must have a leader ordering them about. Orc chieftain or some other wicked monster I cannot say, but that is why the King sends us thus." The sentry nodded and gave a satisfied and, whilst holding his woodland bow near to him.
Though the thought never left his mind, and it was one the prince of Mirkwood never would utter aloud. The dark lords return to these lands, without so much as a single inkling by the White council, and the Istari would bring great evil and further darkness to he, his people, and the woods.
The trees, wild and great surrounded them as they glided through the woods on foot westward. Their natural grace gifted upon them making them silent as the wind when they so desired, and their hearing greater than any mans allowed them to notice the most sudden of snapping and miniscule of movements. Their sight unparalleled among the races that walked the world, and Middle earth. Yet, even so they felt uneasy. Their apprehension clear and permeating the air that already hung thick with looming gloom of the unknown for what lay ahead.
For the Orcs, and the spiders had since for the longest time from the fall of the last dark lord, remained clear of their realm. The Greenwood, but the wind was fell, and brought ill tidings. Whispers were spoken in the dark and the compulsion to look over one's shoulder was growing greater among the Woodland Realm. The King had thus sent a patrol; Legolas with much apprehension as well, to make south, and track the raiding Orcs back to their base, or to at east waylay them, and send them running from the woods once more. The night prior an encampment found.
Only hours ago Orcs, spiders, but stranger still Goblins. The lesser breed of Orc came from the Misty Mountains, fearful and scornful of the Sun and hateful of the world beyond the dank darkness of their caves and tunnels. Seeing them among the Orcs and spiders of the woods and from the lands south or even north from Gundabad, sent warnings through the prince of Mirkwood, and unwanted fear.
The camp from the night prior was numbered at least forty foul creatures large who secure in their numbers cared not to conceal themselves as did the others or perhaps could not for what occurred had been coincidence. Setting up positions and agreed upon mode of attack, his company surrounded the camp on all sides from the trees. Legolas was first to release an arrow. It pierced the skull of a hideous Orc, large perhaps man size, and likely the chieftain, and he fell dead. The camp went alight with activity. Orcs croaked and called and brought blackened swords and spears to bare. They scattered and looked around in dazes their foul sounds filling the once silent woods as their fires burned around them, and then the company of elves followed their prince. A hail of arrows felled them one by one. Each one a precise shot aimed at head, and heart, under and above armor, exposed flesh; blotchy and sickeningly wet and repugnant was pierced by the finely made arrows. Blackened blood spilled and poured from wounds as the Orcs fell and goblins crawled at the arrows before falling into dead slumps.
The spiders, those beasts were harder to kill, but not by much. The large eight legged fiends crawled and screeched as they charged at the trees seeing the fall of the arrows upon their horrid and lanky masters. The Elves drew blades, two short knives in the prince's case. The wretched creatures charged the trees, their tendril legs piercing soil and bark as they clawed at the elven woodsman. Their shrieks piercing the veil of silence within the woods, and terrible, ooze spilling maws opened wide for the bite and the kill, but blade met the terrible creatures instead. Knives pierced flesh in terrible cracks and rips of their skeletal flesh, and whines, shrieks and horrendous cries filled the night as they were felled by elven blade and arrow, until every last one of the creatures, both Orc and spider were piled upon their own fires and set ablaze.
Now, it was but a day later, and the company made their way ever west. Deeper into yet further away from the old woods. The harsher the trees twisted and jagged into the skies above. Bark was rotted and leaves were dry. Webs were arrayed and the stench of evil filled the air.
Night loomed and the stars above were blotted and silence as the dark trees and felled winds made the night even darker still. The elves moved silent and swift as shadows, and the prince led them on. His keen blue eyes looking to the distance as he perched upon tree and into the canopy of the wood. His elven brethren moved on the ground level and as silent as he. Their arrows always ready and bows within their hands, as crackling limbs and twisted twigs, the odd bird cawing and other odd sounds sent adrenaline through them. No matter how immortal one thought themselves, the woods spoke of evil tidings, and they worried.
The moon filled the sky and its light pierced the veil in places, but others the shadow remained master of the woods, even as they came further still toward the forests edge. Of course Elf kind need no sleep, but rest was never a bad thing nonetheless, and so the company came to a stop. A creek ran beside where their path led. It no doubt flowed from the forest river due north. They neared the old elven road through Greenwood. For now, with the darkness of night shrouding them, and rest desired more than needed, they stopped. Elf took drink and shared in bread. Not the great lembas, but it would suffice, as they did not feel great need to eat yet.
"We shouldn't rest for too long. We never know what enemies are about." An elf, whose name the prince had failed to gain, spoke aloud and he nodded a silent agreement. His eyes danced once more around their surroundings. No fires were to be lit and none were. Attracting the enemy by light would make things far too easy for them.
"My prince.." Legolas turned and approaching from behind was Lhinnor, his helm cloak removed, and his bow over his shoulder.
"You are troubled." It was a statement more than a question and the prince nodded, as the captain joined him by the creek where the trees had parted and allowed both moon and starlight to pierce.
"The rabble grows in numbers and come from the west. This we all know, but they are not merely raiding and attacking caravans or travelers. They are moving into the north where they dared never cross before." Legolas turned once more to his fellow elf.
"They have leadership. Of whom this shadow is, I do not know, nor dare to guess, but it troubles me. Perhaps more than it would the king." Lhinnor nodded, silently beside the prince and they turned to silence while the starlight fell upon them and their kind.
The silence crept and the night went on. The small encampment was no less silent as the night and the elves turned to their open-eyed state of sleep. If one could call what they did sleeping. Some were awake, watching and guarding. Their eyes seeing and their ears listening. Yet even still there was little noise.
Read and Review!