Author's Note:

Just a quick thanks to all of you kind enough to review so far. This is proving to be far more popular than I thought it was going to be, and all I can say is I'm glad you're all enjoying it! Any thoughts and criticisms I would dearly love to hear!

This chapter is much longer than all the previous ones, but it's also the one where everything really starts to kick off, so it's pretty damn important. Anyway, enough of the A.N., and on with the story!

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Chapter Five: The Oncoming Storm

"... So, only when you have a true appreciation of the majesty of rock formation can you really understand the architecture of what can be carven through it. Each cave has its own hidden personality, Master Elf. Only dwarves have the skill to delve into their hearts and bring out their characters."

"Mm."

Gimli's enthusiasm was not curbed by the lack of vigour in his audience's response. "It is only a dwarf that can find the lines in the rock that define it," he added, injecting a little defensiveness into his tone for the sake of drama. This was a very one-sided conversation, and Gimli felt the need to entertain himself through imaging the elf giving him more animated responses than 'Mm'. "The choosing of each tool is imperative to revealing the nature of the rock: choose something too aggressive, and you risk causing the lady within injury. Go for something too gentle, and you reveal too little and leave her forever trapped." Gimli was rather proud of his analogy, thinking it loftily poetic enough for an elf to appreciate. Still:

"Hmm."

The dwarf scowled, going quiet and crossing his arms in irritation at his companion. He could talk about rocks and caves and digging forever, he really could, but he generally wanted some feedback from those he spoke to, expecting his love of all things stone to rub off on them. Of course, he knew elves were all for trees and green and nature, but there was nature in rock, was there not? Did mountains not rise in majesty from the same soil that trees did?

There were many feet of river between theirs and the other two boats. They were at the tail of the group, and it annoyed Gimli all the more to hear the laughter sail down the wind to them from the other craft. The hobbits were still in high spirits from breakfast, and even Aragorn and Boromir shared their joy in the day from the occasional deep bark of laughter from them. Why did Gimli have to be landed with an introspective partner when everyone else was so content? The elf normally sang as he steered. Naturally, Gimli liked to grumble about it, as was his prerogative as a dwarf ... but he found that without the soft singing the long day in the boat took on a more wearisome edge ... and it annoyed him all the further to think that he, hardened dwarf warrior that he was, missed the singing of an elvish princeling.

"You are more brooding than a chicken with an egg stuck in its arse," Gimli growled, keeping his arms crossed and eyes forward.

"Hmm?"

"Elf!"

"What?" The provoked response was a little snappy in its delivery, but Gimli held it as a secret victory: even one word was far preferable to noncommittal sounds.

"If you hmm at me one more time, I shall using that new bow of yours for firewood!"

"Try it."

The heavy threat in his voice actually shocked Gimli, and he turned in his seat to cast an incredulous eye over his companion. His jibe had been a good-humoured jest: they exchanged them more frequently than a barkeep took coin for ale. But looking at Legolas now, with the expression on his face hard and the holding of his frame so stiff and unyielding, he was every inch the image of his humourless father Glóin had recounted. Legolas didn't make eye contact with him, his penetrating steel gaze falling instead on the densely treed shores. There was something disturbing about his eyes...

Sensing that he was being scrutinised, Legolas brought his attention to his stocky companion, and he took in the dismay in the dwarf's countenance. The heavy lines etched into the elf's brow softened a little and some of the dark left his eyes. "I'm sorry, Gimli." Legolas sighed, the action forlorn. "I didn't mean that."

"What is the matter with you?" Gimli demanded, mystified that such an attitude should have befallen the one he was beginning to call friend rather than acquaintance.

Legolas took his eyes back to their surroundings, their deep blue taking on the aggressive keenness of a hawk as they sought to pierce through the dense wood at the waters' edge. The wind toyed with his hair, whipping his face with soft strands turned sharp by its strength. Dark clouds massed on the horizon, shoving their way towards them on the wind. They heralded more to me than just a storm. Legolas' focus returned only when the boat gave a spirited buck and he had to check their course to avoid some rougher water in the channel. "Nothing," he eventually replied, remembering Gimli's question and now keeping his attention on the water and doggedly refusing to meet the dwarf's eye. His kept his face carefully guarded, knowing that the dwarf's lack of experience of him would prohibit the gaining of any reading.

However, Gimli had better ideas. He felt that he knew enough of the youthful-looking ancient behind him to have a stab at his troubles, and the dwarf decided to act upon his inkling. "You're fretting about Boromir." When his words met only with silence, he took it to be an affirmation, and privately congratulated himself on his cleverness at revealing the trouble of the enigmatic being. He gyrated back to face the prow before continuing: "Worry not, lad. He'll forgive you."

Legolas did not try to tell the dwarf that, in fact, forgiveness from Boromir was far from his thoughts. His difficulties with the Gondorian were little more than a tainting shadow compared to what his mind worried over. But there was no need to tell Gimli that something far more dangerous than the Steward's son troubled him. After all, how could he reveal his fears openly to the dwarf, and then declare that he did not fully understand what it was exactly that put him in such a raw state of mind? Gimli was a creature who only took stock of evidence as solid as the earth under his feet. Feelings of foreboding held no store with him.

"Y'see," Gimli continued, oblivious to Legolas' thoughts, "the problem with you two is you're both stubborn proud fools." Legolas could not restrain the amused smirk from gracing his lips at the sheer bluntness of the statement. "Neither of you can back down from the other without feeling that you'll lose face. But unity is everything on a quest of this nature. Set aside your quarrel."

Gimli's brusque logic displayed his ignorance of the situation, but Legolas appreciated his naive efforts to bring peace to his and Boromir's shattered relationship. Legolas shook his head to himself, a sad smile gracing his lips. "Oh Gimli, would that it were that simple."

"Why can't it be?"

"How can it be?" Legolas returned wryly.

Gimli huffed at the response. "Why do you elves always have to dance with words?" Legolas chuckled at that, and the short lapse of his dour mood sent its warmth through the dwarf and lightened the day for him, just a little.

Silence fell between them, its quality more companionable for Gimli than it had previously been. The chortling of a starling flock wheeling overhead served to punctuate the gentle murmur of the river as the boat slipped along, graceful and smooth as newly spun silk through long fingers. Though the chill of season's end was upon them, the pleasantness of the day did not escape Gimli's sense of natural appreciation. A weak sunlight glinted pale yellow gently on the water through a temporary lapse in the cloud's jealous embrace. The unique green of the river complemented the jutting fists of grey stone touched with yellow lichen that lined the banks and occasionally blocked the Anduin's path. The forest angling sharply skyward like an endless crowd of raised green shields was not foreboding to him in its darkness, but more a completing feature to the aesthetic grandeur of the Anduin.

For Legolas, however, the peace merely served to amplify the disturbed hum of the earth, a clamouring cacophony of tense warnings assailing his senses. The sensation of cold dread washed through him again, the feathery touch of a hand soaked in death lighting upon his back. For a Wood-elf, forests were places of safety and happiness, a natural and embracing environment that should bear no uncertainty... But the edge of forest that surrounded them, broken only by the uncompromising might of the river, repelled at his nature with a feeling so strong it burned his spirit to feel it. An icy shudder echoed through his body before he was able to suppress it, his grip on the paddle becoming steel without his realising. Daylight lapsed into an impenetrable pitch to his senses, the birds and river muting their song to him. He felt choked. His face was entirely bereft of the pale blush of the waning sun, and the wind was abrasive when it rushed his exposed skin in violent bursts of mocking laughter. I know what comes, it breathed, and you will fall.

You will all fall.

The sky flooded to their left with screeching crows, the mass of their pitch-black bodies rising from their roost trees and shrouding the daylight across the river bank. Legolas started so violently he threw the boat into the more turbulent waters when his wrists jarred against the current. Gimli shouted as the boat violently listed and plunged, his hands shooting out to grasp the sides in terror of tipping. "Drat and curse you, Elf!" he bellowed.

But he knew now, he knew.

Legolas did not care for Gimli's grievance, and he paid no heed to the more colourful curses the dwarf emitted into the chill air as he regained control of the craft, deliberately steering their vessel into the more aggressive waters. The current whipped the boat along without the gentle care the river's surrounding flow had previously afforded them. Gimli's cursing became full-blown swearing as the turbulence threw his weight and unashamedly bashed him about the boat, but Legolas ignored it still, riding out the rough with all the grace and mastery of balance gifted to his race. Using the paddle with fierce strength, he swiftly closed what had been a lengthy gap between the boats. The shocked expressions of Boromir, Merry and Pippin slipped by as little more than a fleeting memory as Legolas aimed for his true target.

"Estel! Daro!"

Aragorn's head whipped round at the unexpected hail, his open mouth betraying his alarm. The ranger slowed his vessel to as near a halt as the river would grant, and Legolas, knowing he had arrested their leader's attention, thrust his paddle deep into the water, expertly throwing the prow back into the calmer stream and drawing level with the other boat.

Aragorn finally recovered the use of his tongue, more than a little unnerved by the uncharacteristic behaviour. "What in the name of the One is the matter with you?"

"He's about the die, that's what's the matter with him!" Gimli thundered, flinging a burning glare at the elf so full of rage it could have cowed a balrog. But Legolas, being no balrog, failed to so much as flinch at the promised threat, blocking Gimli's ire from his immediate concerns.

"Estel, Ulaer come," he breathed.

Aragorn paled, his heart skitting to the side at those words, words he would have paid dearly to never have to hear. A desperate plea rattled through his mind before he could hold it. Ai, Eru, let him be wrong. Please, Legolas, for once in your life be wrong. "You are certain?"

Legolas gave a solemn nod. "There is no doubt in my mind." Urgency peppered Legolas' next words, his distress that his warning was being questioned evident in his tone. "Aragorn, dusk is coming, and they are many."

Aragorn nodded distractedly, trying to determine the best course of action. Sickeningly, he knew there was no error on Legolas' part, the conviction in his eyes was simply too strong. Through their long years as friends, this 'sense' the elf possessed had proven invaluable, if a little unnerving. Before he learned to trust the elf when he was not long a man grown, Aragorn had not regarded Legolas' ability with any real respect. It had proven a hard lesson that to dismiss Legolas' precognitive skills was foolish at best, deadly at worst. He dared not ignore it again.

Sam, Frodo and Gimli could only look on in bewilderment, neither understanding the word itself or why it held such threat that it could turn the hardened ranger's face as ashen as it had. "Damn you, Elf," Gimli cussed, the panic of the past few minutes and lack of understanding surging his heart into becoming truly angry with his companion, "will you speak with words we all comprehend!"

"What goes on here?"

The other boat finally drew up to Aragorn's port side, the confusion of its occupants directed through voice by Boromir, the warrior's green eyes hard with the need for a satisfying answer.

"Some Ulireare coming," Sam ventured haltingly, falling over the pronunciation of the foreign word.

"What?" Boromir frowned heavily at the hobbit with his lack of understanding, the intensity of his glare making Sam blush about his ears again.

"Ulaer," Aragorn corrected. "The Sindarin for Nazgûl."

Understanding blossomed over the faces of the rest of the Fellowship. That understanding quickly gave way to fear for the hobbits. This was a terror they knew too well, the memory of their ineffectiveness against such mighty foes still keen. But it was the suffering dealt to their kinsman that truly troubled them, an image scorched to their minds to haunt them to the end of their days.

"We make for shore," Aragorn informed them decisively. Knowing his friend to be his surest source of information, he turned his authority to him in their need. "East or west, mellon nin?"

Legolas hesitated, casting his eyes between both banks. He felt so unsure, and now that he had the attention of the entire Fellowship he didn't know in which direction the safest path lay. So many years in the shadow of Dol Guldor had taught his senses more of the Ulaer than he ever wished to know. The elves of Mirkwood had long ago learned how the unique black taint of the Ulaer marred their perception of the earth. It was a sense so well honed in those that battled the most against the spreading stain of Dol Guldor that they could pinpoint the location of the vile beings. But the direction of their threat was somehow blurred to him as though they were everywhere, like a drop of blood dissipated in a glass of water.

"Neither," he finally said unhappily. "The forest will not receive us well, but we cannot tarry any longer on the river. Land and water do not hinder them."

"What's that supposed to mean, land and water do not hinder them?" Boromir hissed, frustrated at the vagueness of the responses he was receiving.

"It means I don't know!" Legolas snapped back, his thin patience lost to him. "I know they come, and that's all I have to offer you. Believe me, don't believe me, that's your choice."

Boromir ran his hand through his thick earthen hair, the action expressing his discontent with the situation almost as clearly as the sneer twisting his lips. Seeming to remember himself, he lowered his hand back to the paddle and regained mastery of his face. Forced patience bent his anger down and clipped his tone when he directed his next words to their leader. "Surely, Aragorn, you cannot be considering taking us off course because of the vague forebodings of the elf?"

"I trust him, and I trust what he says," Aragorn stated forcefully, his liquid grey eyes dangerous in the waning sunlight. He would not have his authority questioned, not out here, not now. "There is no debate here: I issued an order, not a request." To illustrate his conviction in his own words, Aragorn struck out for the eastern shore in expectation of the others to follow.

Boromir shook his head to himself. Many years as a disciplined soldier in an unending time of war had taught him deference to superior officers. But for more years than he dared count, Boromir himself had been the superior officer, and both his pride and spirit as a leader of men made him more than willing to question the acumen of those around him. Any information received had to be of the most solid foundations before he would even consider action; the lives of his men were too precious to him to entertain acting on anything less. Preternatural senses, elven or otherwise, were not strong enough foundations for drastic action. Equally, if he detected poor judgement amongst his lieutenants, he would speak out and expect to be heard. And right then, he saw a combination of these potentially dangerous elements unfolding before his eyes, and he was damned if he wouldn't make his protest known.

"We should stay our c-"

An earth-rending shriek shattered the rest of his sentence in the confines of his throat. The hobbits cried out in terror, their hands clamped to the sides of their heads in an effort to stop the noise breaking their souls to shards. Even for Boromir, hardened as he had been to the presence of the Nine through his life, could not withstand the brace of fear that snared him and turned the air he breathed to ash as his eyes drew themselves skywards...

The monstrous beast the Nazgûl rode as a stead was immense. It grew from being little more than a sparrow to the eye to near the size of one of the great eagles of the Misty Mountains with terrifying speed. Massive leathery wings supported a gigantic, sharply angled body through flight, the slate-grey scales absorbing light and returning nothing. The great fanged maw stretched wide in a promise of death, vast enough to engulf a horse. The abomination's claws spread wide as it aligned its angle of descent straight for the fear-frozen figures of one man and two hobbits, helpless as three snared rabbits.

In the boat closest to them, Gimli, as stone-dead terrified as those in the stricken vessel, did not fully understand what was happening when a pair of strong hands prised his own open and firmly thrust the paddle into them. But again, Legolas found himself not caring for the dwarf's incomprehension as he stood in the boat, angling his body to give him better sight of the oncoming threat. His long fingers moulded around the bow of the Galadhrim and adjusted to the unfamiliarity of the girth. For a fleeting instant, he missed the familiar weight of the one gifted to him by his father many years gone. But this new bow was a more powerful weapon, designed for use in war rather than woodland, and his honed talent accepted it openly. This was where his power lay, this was his strength, and that knowledge gave every tendon a keener edge as his right arm drew the elf-hair string taut, his sharp eyes advising his skilled aim...

Death was so close to them now that Boromir could see every mottled mark about the monstrosity's snout where the colouring changed. With every beat of its wings, a reptilian stink so strong it turned the air near caustic flooded his mouth and nose. He could see every gouge in the jagged claws, every chainmail scale laid so perfectly that it belied the abomination it covered as something close to beautiful. So this is what Death looks like. All he could do was take a deep, bracing breath, having nothing left for the two hobbits sharing his fall from life.

He did not see the loan figure framed against the failing light, tall and strong and armed with deadly grace.

He did not witness Legolas deal his hand.

The song of the two arrows was shrill and short before they pierced deep into the throat of the swooping creature. It gave an agonised scream at their strike, the projectiles throwing its course more like butterfly hit with a shield than a fell beast of Mordor. It gave a great wheezing squeal, its desperation for breath detracting its efforts from flight, the wings clumsy in their efforts to remain airborne and propelling it up and sideways over the far bank.

Legolas nocked two further shafts and tracked its flawed passage across the water, waiting for that perfect shot.

Waiting... Waiting...

The beast twisted in the air over the forest, flashing its softer belly to him, and he finally took his chance. The strike of the twin arrows was perfect despite the pitching of the boat, to the relieved cheers of the hobbits. The Wraith screamed again, pure fury ripping the air enough to even quell the most stalwart hearts of the Fellowship ... but the flying beast itself made no sound, pathetically arching its neck with its great maw gaping before plummeting lifelessly into the trees below.

Boromir breathed again, individual gasps he could not believe he was taking in. He found himself savouring every one as though they were made of purest gold, not fully understanding how it was he was still alive to perform such a basic action. Without thinking, his eyes crossed the water to the closest boat and lighted upon their saviour. Legolas still stood, his face impassive as he replaced his bow at his back and staring at the point where the Nazgûl and his mount had crashed. His eyes were unreadable when they briefly flitted to Boromir's. Before the Gondorian could begin to form words, further screeches tore through the darkening air. Legolas' head snapped to the north momentarily before he all but threw himself back to his seat and snatched the paddle from Gimli - who stared at the elf as though he had sprouted an extra head - and immediately set to propelling their vessel with renewed desperation for the western shore. The action slapped Boromir back to his senses. He recovered the use of his muscles from his frozen state of terror and thrust the paddle deep into the river, the excited hunting cries of the remaining Nazgûl harrying them across the water like a pack of baying hounds.