Chapter Thirteen: Revelations

First light

His fingers lighted on the mark. To any other, it might be indistinguishable, a slight shifting in the dirt caused by little more than the natural cycles of the earth. Minute. Unimportant and completely inconsequential in the workings of the forest. A touch more pressure caused gritty grains to crumble from the edges against his skin from the walls of the indent, and he knew more: to Aragorn, it was a beacon that he knew well, having traced such effects on the land before. It told him much … which foot had made it, and at what speed. It told him that the maker was stepping heavier than was normal for him and moved only with hard determination. Legolas' track held a deliberate direction, though, and the reasoning behind that was lost on Aragorn. But reasoning was not something Aragorn counted as consequential at that particular juncture…

Aragorn had waited for the greying of the sky with an edgy height of impatience. His return to the camp that night was brief, declaring his intent to take watch without leaving room for argument. Gimli was particularly vocal against the decision, trying – and failing – to impose his disapproval on the ranger's conscience with accusations of self-annihilation through sheer bloody-mindedness. Aragorn blanked him, taking some hot water for tea and leaving their company for the solitude of the trees.

The ranger had spent the night tracking the passage of the sky, watching the gradual change within its scape and wondering at how oddly dwarfed those tiny stabs of light made him feel. But they did not burn away the hours as brilliantly as they burned themselves. No matter how hard he willed it, dawn did not rush to meet his desires, and when light finally ceded defeat and leaked into the east and drained to the forest floor in the dimmest of intensities, Aragorn rushed on the camp and harried his sleeping companions into wakefulness.

Legolas' trail led them into a deeper part of the forest, so dense it seemed as though it was trying to shadow Mirkwood's darkened heart. The hunt became less positive for a time when the tracks ebbed to nothing more than a rumour of elven passage. Tracking ghosts was probably easier…

"So," began Pippin as he sidled up to Gimli, once again discontent with the heavy silence Aragorn's own quiet invoked in the group as they followed his stoop-headed form. "Do all dwarves have beards?"

"'Do all dwarves have beards?' Ha! Do all elves have freak ears?" He chortled to himself at his own quip, until he glanced the hobbit's way and noted the polite yet vaguely confused crease in his brow, and realised a little too late that his young companion – like the rest of his kind – sported an exaggerated version of said auricles. Gimli cleared his throat at his social stumble, even if Pippin had not noticed. "Yes, all dwarf men have beards," he reiterated more sedately.

"But whatever for? Don't they get in your way?"

Gimli puffed out his chest, his stride becoming a shot more prideful. "They most certainly do not: a dwarf's beard is an earned symbol of his rank and battle prowess. None but the finest warriors can sport a beard as opulent as mine." He flung an annoyed dagger of a glare at the ranger's back following his hardly concealed snort.

"Oh," said Pippin. "We hobbits don't grow beards." He was quiet for a time, contemplating what deeds would earn one the right to have a beard. Then: "Hey, Merry."

"What, Pip?" Merry kept his pace just behind Gimli, nervous of being out from the main body of the group, as he was constantly reminded by his still hurting throat of the perils of being away from sharp blades and those with the power to use them.

"Didn't your Gran Brandybuck have a beard?"

"She did," Merry agreed without a shadow of hesitation. "She used to brush it for special occasions and on every fourth Wednesday. We used to call it Parsnip."

"Really?" Gimli asked, overcoming his surprise that a hobbit female could have such a spectacular portion of facial hair. "You gave your grandmother's beard an affectionate name?"

"No," Merry sighed. "We called it Parsnip because whenever she had parsnips, there were always pieces stuck in it."

Gimli's appreciation for Merry's grandmother dropped slightly with the revelation … women with beards: absolutely. But the idea of women with beards with food stuck in them was not nearly so appealing to him…

As much as it amused Aragorn to hear tales of bearded hobbits, his concentration tried to blank the conversation and focus his attention on his pressing task. Legolas' slight disturbing of the leaf carpet brimmed a deep and very dark gorge-like cleft in the land, probably etched by the run of a substantial river many ages ago. Though the forest had reclaimed it, the river had bitten deep, until the earth had given way to its eroding passage and revealed rock instead…

In a surprise move, Legolas' trail negotiated the heavy gradient of the gorge side, travelling down a route that a healthy elf might consider childishly easy. Even so, it was treacherous under mortal feet, and it took the utmost concentration from them to work their way down with no incident.

Aragorn stopped in surprise when the elf's trail disappeared in the narrow mouth of the crevice. The place was dark and distinctly unwelcoming … but the thing that puzzled him most was the fact that the towering sides nearly met at the top. This passage was more tunnel than open crevice, and it troubled him that Legolas, an elf who shared fear of such confining spaces with the rest of his kin, should think to venture through it. But there had been Moria and the pitch darkness there, deeper in the earth than even he ever wanted to pass, and though he knew Legolas' fear had quaked just beneath his calm exterior, his experience had apparently shored up his courage against such places.

"He went in there?"

Merry's voice, just behind him. Aragorn merely nodded, eyeing the narrow passage only a moment longer before he followed the ghost of his friend's footsteps. For all the heavy squelching of hobbit and dwarf feet in the mud and detritus behind him, Legolas' marks were still shy of being distinguished imprints. Aragorn's shoulders snagged on the sloping stone walls. He angled them inward, but the action only just kept them clear. Moria or no, he was definitely surprised that Legolas had tolerated the tight confines so willingly. The passage kept him stooped for quite a time, shrouding them in murky dark for what felt like a posture-altering age before the crevice floor dipped away from them, and the walls parted enough for taller shoulders. Aragorn cracked as he straightened, flexing his cramped shoulders stiffly. The walls bent sharply towards the brighter slant of reluctant light at the end.

And then there was the answer to the riddle.

Aragorn stopped so abruptly the others nearly shunted into his back. Gimli fired a hot curse from the rear of the group at nearly falling over a hobbit, but Aragorn paid him no heed as he sat on his haunches. Deeper marks, defined and clearly Legolas', retreating into the darkness in staggered steps, as though he had been harried back by something. Aragorn's heart skipped at this new and frightening evidence, and his eyes quickly read more, inviting his fingers to touch the prints and gain a higher sense of their meaning. He pressed on, staying close to the floor, and made a discovery that made him blink in surprise.

Weighty prints, deeper in the mire than even Legolas' more flighty tracks, wide apart and deliberate like an attacking warrior. He pursued them a little further and found the point where they had been lighter and jumped back, a man surprised. And he knew to whom they belonged. Aragorn straightened in disbelief, turning to look beyond the heads of his bewildered companions. Yes, it would make sense: the point where Legolas' prints went back were just aft of the bend. Boromir, clearly startled, had fought him back. It did not surprise Aragorn that Boromir had been alarmed: Legolas was quieter than a ghost at the best of times, and seeing him emerge round the blind corner must have nearly given the Gondorian heart failure. In fact, seeing the elf himself must have made his head reel and think it was a ghost he faced.

"They were here," he stated, the thrill of excitement in his chest welling into his voice when he sighted the broad and clearly toed imprints of two hobbits just beyond.

"'They'?"

"The others…" He pursued the tracks beyond the confusion of the restrictive stone and out into the open forest, where everything became more definite. He understood now that he could see them more clearly. Legolas had tracked the others, just as Aragorn tracked him: his sharp eyesight had allowed him to tread the easier path whilst observing the tracks from a distance. No wonder Aragorn had not spotted them himself…

The heavier traces of hobbit and man alike went back on themselves for a few feet before changing course, crushing the more birdlike tracks of his elven friend. Wherever it was they were going, Legolas was leading them there. Aragorn knew without a doubt what the elf had discovered when he encountered the group. Somehow, Legolas had gained leadership: technically, as Aragorn's second and of high birth himself, the role should naturally fall to him. But Boromir would not have ceded command to him lightly: whatever advantage Legolas held, he must have played it very carefully.

"So, does that mean we can find them?" Pippin queried, his tone marked lest his excitement should prove a disappointment to him. "We can find Frodo and Sam? And Legolas and Boromir?"

It saddened Aragorn to hear such reluctant hope in his young companion's voice, but it gave him unending pleasure when he turned to him and smiled, offering a single nod. "These tracks are not old. It won't be long before we are with them."

Pippin and Merry's faces jointly reached to something closely resembling their usual brightness, and Aragorn found himself giving them the first true smile in far too long. Yes, things were finally beginning to take on a more favourable light…

His smile dropped.

Crashing armour, clamouring over the jarring impact of heavy-clad feet in mass, the guttural and terrible bellows of creatures little more than beasts spitting from the crevice entrance. They were coming, so fast, the noise accelerating right for them –

We are found! "Hide yourselves!" Aragorn's fist wrapped itself in the cloak of a frozen hobbit – he did not know which – and swung the stunned creature before himself, forcing him into a run for the cover of the trees.

Getting closer, closer, closer –

Aragorn hauled Merry behind one of the more thickset beeches they reached away from the path, pressing tight against the trunk and enveloping both of them with his cloak. The press of cold and ready steel against his thigh was a thin comfort when he knew so many were coming. Merry's heartbeat yammered against Aragorn's stomach so hard he feared it would give them away, but he dared not move as the crevice started to vomit the vile filth into their side of the forest.

To the monstrosities flooding the forest floor as they disgorged themselves into the open, there was nothing obvious to their sharp eyes that they were being watched. But a silver eye observed them with a careful stillness from the concealing shadow of a deep hood. The ranger watched them seethe through the open with a disturbed burn in hollow of his chest. These were new, these creatures: tall and straight, grotesquely intelligent in the face and abhorrently muscled in the body, moving unhindered by the rising sun. "Seldom do orcs journey in the open, under the sun, yet these have done so! You are being followed." Lord Celeborn's warning to him less than a week ago echoed with the hateful pounding of their feet. They were in trouble.

No matter how great his skills of hiding were, Aragorn had to quell his revulsion lest they scent it on the air. But then, it struck him as odd that they did not pause as they emptied into the open, that they did not notice the tracks leading to their hiding places that were so painfully clear to his eyes. It was bizarre…

Realisation plunged ice water through his entirety, and he knew. Aragorn knew, and it sickened him.

Only when the weak early light swallowed the last of the Uruks from view did they leave their places. What was once fresh morning air hung with their passing stink, marred beyond salvage. Aragorn barely knew how to draw breath for the fear tightening his chest. His eyes drifted down to the crushed leaves at his feet, where not minutes before, he had read the passage of their companions.

Gimli joined his side, his stocky frame still ridged with the expectation of battle, axe primed in his fists. "Well, at least that proved your luck's returning! I thought we were good as dead!" When his words enticed no response, he lifted his beetling eyes to his taller companion. It unnerved him to witness the clear fear pulling his strong friend's face taught. "Laddie?"

Aragorn shook his head to himself, dismayed and sickened by the revulsion of his own enlightenment. Need drove his legs into a run after the hated beasts, forcing the others to follow in bewilderment. "They weren't hunting us: they were hunting the others," he informed them tightly, propelling his run into something faster and pushing the hobbits already. But the pace the Uruks set was too high for the hobbits to maintain, and he knew in his gut that they could not possibly get there in time. I beg of you, he silently pleaded of the Valar. I beg you, let him have his wits about him. Let him know they come. "They're following Legolas' blood."

-(())-

Mid-morning

"ERU'S BLOOD!"

Legolas' senses jarred. Alarm jolted his body forward to get him on his feet, only for him to fall back against the tree with an irrepressible and keening wail at the excruciating agony lancing through his side. Legolas spurred his heels through the soil in a fruitless attempt to dissipate the pain, hearing nothing above the erratic panic of his heart and strained roaring of his blood. Fresh warmth spread down his flank and he felt sick to his core at its dangerous heat.

Distantly through the dissonant pained fog in which he was trapped, he knew someone shouted, angered and close. The words were not discernible through the thick blanket of pain, but he registered the shouter. Boromir. And he knew, without doubt, that the anger was directed at him. His warrior's instinct wished to leave his vulnerable position on the ground, but his agony bridled him too severely to let him get up.

Silence fell. Though it was a relief to be free of the clamour, he did not know if it was a true quiet, or if his senses had failed. Legolas took the lull as an opportunity to collect himself together, consciously trying to master his out of control heartbeat and return himself to something closer to normal…

Then he remembered that he was not alone.

He did not realise his eyes were closed until he had to pry them open. Daylight stung, harsh and young, spearing him with clean and torturous brilliance. The careful mask he had managed to maintain since the previous day was all but ruined, cracked by the tight pain lines spidering about his eyes, and there was nothing he could do to salvage it as he looked up at the figure framed glaringly by the new sun.

Rage radiated from Boromir in stronger waves than heat from a fire, and with those green eyes fixed with such condemnation on Legolas, the elf deduced that he was the sole focus of the man's ire. He is displeased with me. He found it utterly absurd that Boromir should think his displeasure would worry him now of all times, and for a fleeting moment, he laughed. The action was quickly replaced with a hiss, and his eyelids clenched down on themselves again.

"Do you think this fun?" the Gondorian spat, his anger branding his shaking tone. "I never thought even your arrogance could reach this kind of height!"

"Arrogance?" Legolas wrenched his eyes open again. He struggled to coerce them into focusing on the aggravated man. "I confess, Boromir, I have -" The elf gasped and his jaws clamped, biting the rest of his sentence to nothing. Without will to do so, he curled on himself against the new and more intense assault of pain. Hearing was lost to a high whistling in his ears, sudden and terrible light-headedness threatening to banish his senses completely. The support at his back offered by the deep contours of the tree was the only thing keeping his body upright, and for too long, it was simply him, the encroaching darkness, and the pain. Whatever damage had been wrought to his body, he was losing the fight to keep it together. Breathe, he counselled himself, recalling the aids he had called upon the previous evening when this frightening ailment had assailed him.

Unlike the previous day, the darkness did not relinquish its hold so easily. It was so much more intense, a yawning gulf ready to swallow him. But his situation did not grant him the luxury of concentrating on his hurt and sickness in favour of blanking Boromir: the man suspected him, and that in itself was terribly dangerous.

Legolas made himself lift his head again and strain his gaze through the black fog at his companion. He was immensely grateful for the sympathetic support of the tree behind him as the forest spun nauseatingly and was rendered in stark hues of purples and greens and reds.

"What is wrong with you?"

A demand, not out of concern, but anger, deep and hot and laced with suspicion. Still, it pleased Legolas to know that Boromir was ignorant of the true source of his torment. "Now, there is a question." He chuckled again, and privately decided that the pain was driving him to madness. It amused him to see Boromir's fists furl, and he wondered briefly if he would even remotely feel a strike considering what he was currently experiencing, as another black wave threatened to engulf him.

"Do not toy with me! Answer!"

Legolas swallowed, his eyelids drifting closed without his instruction. Opening them was frighteningly difficult. Lie. "I hit my shoulder trying to get up." He felt the words resonate within his chest, but they sounded so distant to him…

Those searing green eyes narrowed. "And a broken shoulder is an excuse for sleeping on watch, is it? Have you any idea how late it is?"

Sleeping? A spike of fear edged through his spine. He had been sleeping? To the Fellowship's ignorance, Legolas frequently snatched small pockets of rest whenever the group halted. It did not trouble him to sleep standing, and none save Aragorn recognised the slight glazing of his open eyes as elven sleep. But to sleep out here, on a watch, with his eyes closed, that was something else entirely. The new threat cleared his head a little, and he found that the implications frightened him. The fear coupled with his pain and pushed his temper. "I am immortal," he spat viciously, "not infallible! I'd think the rays of perfection brightening your backside would have made you more attentive to the state of the day!" His fit of anger made his head float and the awful colours of the forest to blacken almost to nothing.

Boromir's own temper flared red, blanking his perception of his companion's condition, and he had no control anymore as he lunged with his swinging fist -

"STOP!"

Boromir nearly fell avoiding the smaller figure suddenly in the way, barring his access to the elf by putting his own body in line.

Sam held one hand out at Boromir, and shielded his face with the other. His eyes were wide, like he could not quite believe that he was doing something so foolish. "It's not his fault!"

The Gondorian realigned himself and matched Sam's alarmed countenance with unfettered fury. It was testament to the gardener's courage that he did not allow himself to be cowed by such clear ire. "It's not his fault," he repeated a little steadier, staying right where he was with his feet straddling Legolas' legs. "He woke me in the night to swap, and I said I was gettin' up, only I didn't, I went back to sleep. I didn't mean to. He thought I was awake." Sam stopped, giving a quick look over his shoulder into the glazing eyes behind him. It was the most fleeting of looks, but it said much, and Legolas held his silence. The hobbit gave Boromir his attention again, his conviction level and fixed. "The fault's mine; if anyone deserves a whack in the face, it's me."

Legolas stared blearily at the back of his unexpected defender. Sam lied, there was no question of it: it was Legolas' habit to simply not bother rousing anyone else for watch duty, and Boromir knew that. But why in the name of the One had Sam taken it upon himself to protect him? If Boromir had not stayed his hand, the power of the blow would have knocked the hobbit clean out. It was a dangerous situation for one so small to place himself.

Boromir glowered, but he made no attempt to swipe Sam aside. Instead he angled himself around the hobbit, jutting an accusing finger before the elf's face. "Be that as it may," he hissed, "it was your duty to make sure we were guarded. You failed, Legolas. You failed in your duty." With that, Boromir straightened and snapped his eyes to Sam's with thinly veiled contempt. He had no words for the hobbit, but the look was enough. Boromir gave his head a final shake, and moved off back to camp.

Legolas watched him go until he was gone from view. He leaned his head back against his tree, turning his eyes to the sky. It was tinged unnaturally purple to him through the dark branches, purple with a too-bright white eye. He sighed heavily through his nose, sealing his eyelids against it and trying to calm the torrents of thought inspired by the confrontation and ease away from the persisting light-headedness.

"Phew. Well, I was pretty sure I was going to get a good knucklin' in the face then!"

He jumped at Sam's voice, not realising the hobbit stayed with him.

"Mind you," Sam continued as he plonked himself down on the leafy ground beside Legolas, "I can hold my own in a fist-up, but they're normally my size, you know?" He smiled and laughed softly at his own quip, but fell to an awkward silence when his elven companion made no remark.

Legolas watched him through his lashes, a contemplative frown pushing at his brow. "Why did you do that, Sam?"

The hobbit shrugged his shoulder, pulling his eyes from the elf's face to focus on the leaf his hands were busy demolishing, ripping it along its veins and letting the freed sections float to his outstretched legs. Though he hid his face, the red flush about his ears was clear enough. "I … it's just…" Sam stopped, feeling a fool for not knowing how to express himself. He maintained the silence until he decided he had his words a bit better formed. "Well, you know… You've done so much for us – especially for Mister Frodo - I've been tryin' to come up with a way to thank you for all you've done, and stoppin' you being hit in the face matched my ideas rather well, I thought." He smiled at the elf again, but the expression faltered when it met only with that keen and penetrating stare.

"I think we both know that is not the entirety of your reasoning, Samwise," Legolas goaded softly. "Why did you tell Boromir I woke you for watch duty?"

The leaves under the hobbit's seat bristled as he shifted uncomfortably. "Because…" he threw Legolas a fleeting look, like he was trying to gauge if he truly wished to know his motive. A sigh brushed his lips, resigned and unhappy. "Because, I saw what happened. That night, with the Wraiths." As though to confirm it, Sam's gaze flitted faultlessly to Legolas' wound, hidden as it was in the security of his cloak.

At the look of alarm on Legolas' face, Sam guessed at his thought and his eyes widened. "I haven't said nothin'!" he said hastily, shaking his head to emphasise the point. "Not even to Frodo: you said you'd just broken your shoulder, so I figured you didn't want anyone knowin'."

Never had he expected such quiet loyalty from a creature he barely knew, and it humbled him. Sam shared everything with Frodo: if he had reservations over any matter, he ran them by Frodo before bringing his concerns to anyone else. For all his bumbling and noise, Sam was a conscientious soul, and he saw to it that anything of importance was highlighted to his master and friend before taking what he saw to be the proper course. For him to have left Frodo in the dark about something so potentially devastating was an incredible deviation from character, and it was purely for Legolas' sake.

Unknowing of Legolas' thoughts, the hobbit continued: "Now, I don't dislike Boromir," he said levelly, "but I can't trust him, and after what he did to you that night -"

Confusion. "'What he did to me'?"

"Yes: leavin' you to fight them Wraiths on your own."

The elf smiled weakly at the statement. "Oh, Sam: the Ulaer cannot be slain. The reason I fought them on my own was so that he could get Frodo out of their reach. There was no choice for me, and none for him." He smiled bitterly to himself. "I truly understand what that means now."

Sam did not understand, but he kept that to himself. "Even so, it seemed an outright cruel thing to do, in my view, and Frodo was real upset by it. We all thought you'd died.

"I couldn't believe it when you showed up yesterday, just like that … I was right worried about what we'd do if we got to Boromir's city, and then lo! You were there, and you took over!" But Sam's apparent joy faded when he fixed his soft eyes on Legolas again, and an odd sadness filled their warmth. "I hate to say it, Legolas, but you look awful poorly, sir. Awful poorly. And knowin' full well what's causin' it, and that I can't help, it's…" Silence drifted from him, just as vocal as if he screamed.

But with those crippling words and his stressed silence, Sam confirmed what Legolas had known all along. It was typical of his nature that he had refused to accept the truth his heart knew too well, but the incident with Boromir proved that luxury was no longer afforded to him…

"I cannot be your defender anymore, Sam," Legolas admitted quietly, as much to himself as the hobbit. He leaned his head back again, wanting nothing more than to shutter his eyes against the discordant colours and endless pain. Instead, he fixed his gaze on the hobbit, because what he needed to tell him was important, and the hobbit deserved his fullest attention - no matter how hard it was to give it to him. I am so tired… "I'm sorry … so, so sorry, but -"

Panic set itself in the hobbit's eyes, pitifully clear as understanding began to ebb through him. "But Strider will be here soon, he'll find us – he's good at this healing stuff, he can get you back to rights again -"

Legolas gave him an affectionate but resigned smile, shaking his head slowly. "No, Sam. It must be you now, and only you." He licked his lips, hating the burden he was bestowing on the young hobbit. But there was no other choice: this was the way it had to be … never in his life had he imagined that Baerahir's words would be applicable to someone as insignificant to the greater world as a hobbit gardener. "I want you to take Frodo at the earliest opportunity, and leave. Say nothing to me, and certainly nothing to Boromir." He could not contain the shaky groan as a fresh swell of pain threatened to engulf him. His aching teeth clenched against it, and he wondered how long he would have to play this game with death before one of them emerged the victor. A breath, deep as he dared, and he reopened his treacherous eyes to the sunlight. Sam's face was close, worried and helpless.

"Elves are immortal," the hobbit stated, unerringly hitting Legolas' thought. He tried to make it a solid fact in his tone, but his voice buckled with distress at seeing one of the Eldar he so adored in such pain. "This thing can't kill you."

"It can, and it is." Legolas gave a humourless snort. "Immortal, but not infallible, Sam."

The sounds of camp being broken drifted over to them, the clattering of Sam's pots as they were mercilessly thrown against his pack needlessly rending the silence of the forest. Legolas sighed to himself. Time to continue with this fool's errand. "Sam, swear to me that you will do as I instruct."

To Legolas' frustration, reluctance at his order marked Sam's face, his unwillingness to leave his side too clear. It speared him with worry that the hobbit would not act on his command should an opportunity present itself, and all because of his concern over something he could do nothing about.

"Samwise! Will you swear to me?"

The sharper tone snapped Sam's attention, and when he dared to look at Legolas properly, he did not see the mirthful and gentle-natured elf he was used to seeing. A prince's power stared at him with those intense blue eyes, and Sam realised whose company he had really been sharing over the months. Here was an elven prince, used to issuing commands and having them obeyed. Whilst those eyes were fair, he would not be denied, not in something he deemed so important, and they relayed that need for compliance very clearly…

"I swear," the hobbit said unhappily, loath to be committing himself to an oath that would take him away from the failing elven prince he happened to count as friend. "I'll do it. I promise."

Legolas' unbound hand rested on Sam's shoulder, giving it a light squeeze. "Thank you, Sam. Truly." He smiled then, as true a smile as his pain would grant him.

But no matter how much Sam knew, and no matter how damaged he was, Legolas' pride still stirred in his chest: he would not tolerate the hobbit witnessing him struggle to rise. "Go and help break camp, Sam: I believe your tins need rescuing from Boromir's temper."

Sam cast the elf a concerned look, but Legolas did not return it. The dismissal was clear, and the hobbit reluctantly got to his feet and left.

The blue eyes trained themselves on the hobbit's retreating back in wonderment. This was not the first time one of the small folk had surprised him: Legolas had, after all, been held ultimately accountable to his father for the disappearance of several dwarven prisoners, thanks to Frodo's uncle. Stout in stature, but undeniably massive in courage. If there was anything he knew of Sam, it was that he was a creature of his word, and there was no shadow of doubt in his mind that he would carry Legolas' order through.

"Mára mesta, Sam. I Melain berio le."

TRANSLATIONS:

Mára mesta – Goodbye

I Malain berio le – May the Valar keep you

Okay, I know this was a very short chapter - by my standards, anyway - but if I made it any longer, it would be truly massive, and the wait would be mean. You've probably guessed it, but the next chapter is when the poopies really hit the fan...

Hope you enjoyed this chapter, and the rest of the story so far, and what is to come in the future. If you wouldn't mind dropping a coin in my review hat, I will be most thankful!

Ghost