"Do you feel it?"
"I do. Something is wrong."
Legolas regarded the lithe she-elf perched next to him. Once upon a time, he had been the one learning how to hunt in the forest, and this child's own mother had been his teacher. Those days were long gone, yet so clear in his memory.
She would insist she was not a child, but he knew better. She was not even into her second century, her exceptional skills notwithstanding, and she would still make a child's mistakes for many years yet. He remembered his own adventures at that age—trying to ride elk, and that time with the wildfire…
"Are you ready?"
"Yes!"
The fire in this one, Legolas thought, shaking his head. She was going to get into so much trouble. So long as he could keep her safe, it should be quite funny. "Come along, then." And he leapt, catching onto one branch and swinging to the next in the familiar rhythm of tree-travel. "Did you remember your knives?" he called back to her.
"Of course I remembered my—"
He snickered to himself. Legolas loved teasing youngsters, but he tried to pass it off as honest concern. He'd already seen that Tauriel had both her knives, and her bow; he himself carried the two longer knives he had grown most comfortable with.
And he never went anywhere outside without his own bow, of course. Never.
After a while he stopped, perched in the crook of a particularly crooked tree, and held up his hand to keep Tauriel quiet. (Young people could be so noisy.) "What do you see?"
She scanned the ground voraciously. Legolas made a note in his mind to hide something in a tree where he planned to stop next time, to teach her to look up too.
"There! Tracks in the soil."
"Can you see what they are?"
"Orc." Her eyes widened in anticipation.
"Are you sure?"
She gave him a look. "Yes."
"How many?" They would not engage with more than five at a time, not at this stage in her training. It was already hard enough to convince his father to let them go out here alone, what with the things that were off about the forest. It got worse every year, especially recently. Legolas feared, unfortunately, that his father was more worried about his safety than young Tauriel's.
"Three. No more."
"Then come." Off they went again, faster this time.
Yes, something was wrong with Legolas's home. It was bad enough here, where the forest was too quiet and elves occasionally vanished if they wandered alone at night. The orcs were not plentiful enough to explain the disappearances. But further out, where the trees were sickening…
It felt like something lurked at the edges of Legolas's own soul. And even worse, as the forest decayed, it seemed as if something was wrong with his father.
Legolas shook off that thought. Thranduil had better days and worse days, and the same with weeks and months and years. That was simply how it was.
Still.
He slowed by instinct as the trees told him orcs were near. Tauriel heard the trees well, too; he knew it from the way she turned for the orcs' location at the same time he did. Of course she heard the trees, she was the most Silvan-ish elf he had ever met.
"Shh," he cautioned unnecessarily.
Here were the orcs, and Legolas and Tauriel centered themselves right over the monsters, far above. Their forest-colored clothes and the leaves and shadows hid them.
You take all? Legolas signed to her questioningly. He and Silana and Taensirion had been teaching her the patrol signs for decades.
Really? Her eyes bulged with excitement. Tauriel loved killing orcs. No, that was not right. She lived for it.
Go, I cover.
She dropped down, blades drawn. Of course, she could have shot them all from up here, but it was more important to practice real close-combat now.
The first orc never saw her coming. The second had no time to utter a sound, as she flicked one of her daggers into its eye. And the third did not make a single step toward her before she twisted and knocked its legs out from under it, spinning to her knees above the prone creature and slashing its throat open. In three heartbeats, all three were stone-dead.
Legolas was in awe every time he saw this. Though the girl made plenty of mistakes, her attacks were brutally efficient when they were coordinated properly. The sheer fury of her strikes, even at this young age… her unceasing movement… Tauriel rarely paused to engage an enemy head-on. Constant momentum was her style, a tactic Silana and others compared to Legolas's mother. Legolas was a bit offended at this, as he had thought he fought like his Nana—but apparently he was more like Storm, who was a bit of a duelist, while his mother, in Galion's words, had "bounced around everywhere". Legolas had been practicing his tricks and flips to compensate.
Tauriel looked up to him, grinning. "How was that?"
"Excellent! Come, we may find more today." They would leave these orcs; no point burying them when there were scavengers waiting to feast.
. . . . . .
"There are no more orcs here, you know this."
Legolas frowned, shaking his head. "Yet elves have been vanishing."
"You have investigated some of the scenes yourself; have there been any tracks?"
"None."
"Blood? Signs of a struggle?"
"Rarely. It is unnatural, I agree. What are you suggesting?"
"…I do not know."
They sat together in a tree overlooking the river. Despite hunting until evening, they had found no sign of other orcs at all—and they had searched over a huge area. The trees had no hints for them, either.
"Shall we go back, then?"
"Wait." Tauriel caught his arm as he made to leave. "Let's watch."
"I promised my father—"
"Oh, Legolas, come on."
"Tauriel, come along. If my father finds out we stayed out into the night, he will be furious with both of us."
"What he does not know…"
"And if Lanthirel finds out, she will flay me alive." And Taensirion would have that betrayed look. Legolas could see it now…
"Think of what we might find," Tauriel argued excitedly. "The north forest is clear, so if anything is to hunt there—"
"—It could cross the river in any place. We would most likely never see it."
"Listen, Legolas."
He waited, but she said nothing.
"Listen."
He tilted his head at her. What was…
…the trees.
He had not noticed the change in their thoughts while he was moving and speaking, but now he heard. There was something wrong.
Elves beware, beware.
It comes. The thing. It is wrong.
He shuddered. What thing? he asked the trees.
The monster. It comes, replied the graceful plant they perched on.
Legolas knew better than to hope for a better answer. The trees were intelligent in their own way, but they did not have names for things as elves did, and the ideas they imparted to him were enough of a stretch. All he could see from the blurry pictures they tried to show him was a dark shape. This creature, it comes every night?
Yes.
He settled into a crouch next to Tauriel. "We wait. Be silent, and do not tell anyone of this… and well noticed." He was embarrassed he had not been the one to hear that this spot was different.
She smiled smugly.
. . . . . .
They waited. And waited. And finally…
Snap.
"Shh," breathed Legolas, again without need. Tauriel was as still as he was, and she did not even appear afraid.
They strained their eyes in the darkness, trying to make out any shapes in the night. Legolas worried; what was he thinking, letting Tauriel get into this situation? But he had more faith in her abilities than those of any other young elf he had ever known. In fact, if it came to a fight, he might rather have her by his side than the average soldier. And she was not even two hundred!
Rustling continued below, too quiet to be apparent except to an elven ear. And perhaps to the ears of many wild creatures; it was too quiet here. Everything was hiding.
Legolas wished for a torch.
Hsst. Crackle.
Tauriel shifted, and Legolas resisted reaching to hold her still. They should be invisible up here, even if the monster could see in the dark…
She gave a tiny gasp, redirecting Legolas's gaze down below. The river ran silver, reflecting the starlight—and across it, so quickly Legolas caught only the end of the movement, darted a black shape. He could not tell what it was, but it was big.
And a moment later, there came another. This time Legolas saw it as soon as it ventured onto the rocks that stuck up from the river here. First one spindly limb extended to a stone, then another, then two more pairs guided the great bulbous body across, and finally the last two legs kept its balance as the monster moved on.
What was this?
"But Ungoliant was destroyed," Legolas breathed, at a loss to explain this vision. He had heard stories of other gigantic spiders, but never believed them!
Tauriel moved.
What are you doing? thought Legolas. But her intent was clear; she was reaching for her bow.
"Tauriel!" he hissed. It was too dark for patrol sign.
"Are these all?" she whispered back. "If there are more, we should slay these to show to the king!"
"If there are more, their pack may overwhelm us!"
"Ask the trees! I cannot calm them."
He could hear the trees' minds; they were driven to terror by these cursed spiders, even though the abominations did not threaten them. Listen to me!
Evil. Evil. Evil is here.
Evil.
Are there more spiders nearby? Legolas demanded. Large ones?
Evil…
Answer me.
No. No more here.
That was enough for Legolas. He unslung his own bow from his shoulder—it was strung, as he had expected to find more orcs—and nocked an arrow. "On three," he whispered to Tauriel. He hoped she could see her spider in the darkness; she was on the left, and he could only halfway see the spider on that side now that he knew what to look for. He would have to hit his own based on hearing alone. On a whim, he took another arrow and laid it beside the first. If he was likely to miss with one arrow, maybe he would get lucky with two. It did not work well to fire two arrows in combat—it was too unwieldy—but now, when he had a second to spare…
"Ready," he whispered. "Aim…" In the corner of his eye, he saw Tauriel raise her bow, just a shadow in the darkness. "Fire!" he hissed.
Three arrows shot toward the hidden spiders, and immediately, one gave a hideous screech. Legolas could only hope that meant it was wounded, but he could not see… Both elves had another arrow in moments, Tauriel being nearly as fast with hers as Legolas.
Something hissed in the night, and there was a thud. Had they killed one? Was it faking?
The evil is dead!
Legolas flinched at the cry, dislodging his arrow and sending it clattering to the ground. Even as he whipped out another, he recognized the voice of the trees. They are dead? Both?
Yes! Felled and rotting! The trees imagined a decomposing trunk.
He breathed a sigh of relief and turned to Tauriel. "Go down, cautiously."
They made their way to the forest floor, but were met only with more darkness; Legolas wished they had torches.
Branches shifted, and bright starlight illuminated the two horrible spiders, much closer than Legolas had imagined. He stepped back, but Tauriel only edged closer. "Dead," she remarked. "Both of them."
Legolas was not so sure, and he prodded each with a long stick before drawing near. The one on the right, which he had shot, had an arrow each in its fat body and in one eye; it had simply sunken down and curled its legs under it. The other, which Tauriel had shot, was flat on its back in a puddle of gore, with an arrow dug deep across its face. Both were stone-dead, which Legolas confirmed by kicking a leg off each.
He and Tauriel exchanged looks.
What did this mean?