Chapter 52

Pest Control

Mirkwood has to be cleansed to start with. The elves are gracious guests, but they wish to return to their lands and Thoren, although he is too polite to say so, would be quite glad to see the back of Thranduil.

Duly Noted, Chapter 51: Healing Part 2: Scars

The weather was bright the day they set out for Mirkwood. A small mercy, Thráin considered, given that the roads were still more mud than anything else after the past week. Not that it would have made any difference; they would set out today whatever the weather.

'So many of your folk have come,' Legolas observed.

They had. 'We are yet allies,' Thráin pointed out, although it was not alliance that compelled him. 'Your folk abandoned your woods to come to my brother's aid. It was lost for lack of defence. We have not forgotten that.'

He however had come here in Thoren's stead. It had been his wish to see Mirkwood restored, but he was recovering still after having been given a new knee – the thought was still a strange one – and Tauriel could hardly haul herself at monstrous spiders with Fryr strapped to her back. So Thráin had offered to go in their stead.

He would have gone anyway. As pleased as he had been to be home, his feet had begun to itch. He would not set out on solitary travels – he had foolishly promised Cathy – but Mirkwood was not very far away and the threat there needed dealing with. Besides, as much as he had come to appreciate some elves, he would be pleased to not meet quite so many of them in the street all the time.

Legolas inclined his head. 'You have my thanks, whether you want them or not.'

The elf had come to know him all too well.

Thoren had put Thráin in charge of mustering their people. He had limited it to folk still in possession of all their limbs. This ruled out rather a lot of potential warriors, but better to have a smaller force than to have folk who would turn out to be a liability. Of those remaining he had selected mainly archers and proven warriors with nerves of steel. His company was in the end comprised of about two hundred folk.

It would have been considered pitiful before the war.

Still, it was a relief to march to battle with his own folk at his back. His own folk, and his friends. Gimli had come, of course, as had Alfur and Halnor, who had circumvented the no missing parts rule by pointing out that a missing eye was not a missing limb. Uncle Nori, Kíli and Thorli had also invited themselves along. Of them only Kíli was a decent archer, but Uncle Nori insisted that it was possible to slice off the spiders' legs to bring them down. He had promised to show them how.

Thráin worried more about his uncle's sticky fingers.

As did the newly appointed captain of Thranduil's guard, Lancaeron. 'Must he come?' he asked, his eyes narrowed in Nori's direction. During their journey north he had lost quite a few of his possessions to Nori. All of these had been returned, but it had decidedly rubbed him the wrong way.

'You cannot turn away volunteers,' Thráin said. 'And he is a good fighter.'

This was true. Nori had many faults, but when push came to shove he could be relied upon to come through. Lancaeron did not know this, but he would by the time this was all over.

He nodded. 'I have seen him fight beside your brother,' he agreed.

'Then trust in that,' Thráin said. 'And I will ensure that anything that goes missing will be returned.' Preventing it might be beyond him.

'Very well.'

The first part of their journey was uneventful. The weather remained fair and the company was in a good mood. Whatever hostility had existed between elves and dwarves in the past had been eroded by the war. The good-natured ribbing was new, but good. None of us supported the darkness, and we have bonded because of that.

Thráin hoped they would remember it.

All around them was evidence of the war, but much of it was now covered by new growth; patches of green grass and small bushes had sprung up over the bones of the unburied and orc excrement. Life had won in the end. Even so, it did not sit easy with Thráin that so many of their own had never had a proper burial.

Too many never came home.

Legolas's voice pulled him from these observations. 'May I ask you something?'

Since the elf never bothered respecting anyone's reply and would do what he intended to regardless, Thráin's answer made little difference either way, but he agreed. 'What is it you wish to know?'

Legolas indicated the sword now strapped to his back. 'That is your brother's blade Orcrist, is it not? Has he given it to you?'

'He has loaned it to me.'

Thoren had offered to make a gift of it, which Thráin had flatly refused. Now that his knee was fixed, he would be able to wield it again soon enough. It was his birthright as much as the crown had been. So he had accepted the loan only because the elvish blade was better for slicing through spiders' legs.

He elaborated: 'Had Thoren been able, he would have come himself. He thought it right to at least lend his sword to the cause.' And he had one of Tauriel's knives tucked in his boot for that same reason. It was a little too elvish a notion for his tastes, but he was hardly about to turn down fine blades when they were offered; elvish weapons did have a sharper edge.

'I see,' Legolas said, which, being an elf, he probably did. 'I am glad you have that blade. It will serve you well.'

Thráin hoped so indeed.

Mirkwood was every inch as dark and forbidding as Thráin remembered it. In fact, it was more so than before the war. The darkness had been vanquished in many places, but here it had been left undisturbed and so it had thrived. Even the elves who had at first hidden in the woods during the war, had made their way to Erebor this past year, saying that the darkness had expanded and threatened even their last hiding places.

Even from a safe distance the silvery threads of webs could be seen. The scouting party that ventured closer, Thráin among their number, got an even better look.

The road was blocked. It was subtly done, but every opening that looked wide enough to allow a body passage had been blocked by sticky threads. It seemed reasonable to assume that this theme had been continued all around the border of the woods; the spiders certainly had the time for it. This would force their troops to hack their way through. Thráin saw several problems with this.

'It would be madness to enter the woods on the monsters' terms,' he said. 'We must concentrate our efforts on one small patch. It will be worse the farther we advance. The spiders could pick us off one by one at their leisure. This is their home ground.'

Thranduil's eyes sparked with anger. 'This is our home ground.'

'Aye,' Thráin agreed. 'But that is not how the spiders view it. They've had ample time to prepare their traps. We, on the other hand, would go in blind.'

Legolas, positioned at his father's right hand, studied Thráin intently. 'You do not suggest that we turn back,' he said. 'You have another plan.'

He did. And it was not one the elves would like.

Legolas's eyes widened; he had guessed. 'My friend, you cannot mean that.'

'I do mean it.' In his view it would solve two problems in one fell swoop.

'I've been cursed with reckless kin,' Uncle Nori muttered. He understood too.

'Not reckless,' Thráin disagreed. Recklessness would be to charge into a trap when there were better ways. 'Necessary.'

Thranduil had grown very suspicious. 'What is it that you intend to do?' He had not guessed.

Drawing it out was not going to make this sound any better to the elves, so he came right out with it: 'I suggest we burn it down.'

The consternation among the elves was considerable. They broke out in indignant shouting – unusual for them – and vehement protests. Legolas had closed his eyes, as if by not seeing this it was not happening.

Thranduil stared at him in unflattering disbelief. 'You truly are your father's son.'

Thráin shrugged. 'In this, I am more my mother's son.'

The expression on the elf king's face did not improve.

After a few minutes of chaos Thranduil raised his hand to restore order. The elves fell silent.

'You would have me burn down my own lands,' he said, daring Thráin to contradict him.

'I would have you force a way to your stronghold that will not put us at the mercy of monsters,' Thráin said. 'I would have you burn the spiders hiding among the trees. I would not have you sacrifice people needlessly when there is a better way. Too many have died already.'

The elves, though still not pleased, did no longer look as hostile as they had a few minutes ago. Like as not they at least recognised the sense in his words. Thráin sought out Legolas's face. His friendship and good opinion did now matter something to him. To his surprise, Legolas nodded at him. It visibly pained him to do so, but he understood the reasons and the necessity.

Thranduil was not convinced. 'These are our lands, our forests,' he said. The pain was not as evident on his face as it was on his son's, but it coated his every syllable. 'Must they now suffer the same fate as your own lands when they have been spared that indignity during the war?'

Ah. Now he saw. 'It brings me no joy to destroy your lands,' Thráin said, and this was true. The destruction around Erebor tore at the heart. It was an ache he might wish on his worst enemy, but not on his allies and friends. 'Yet consider this: your land has long been diseased. I see no improvement in that since Sauron's defeat. Even if we left your woods as they are, can you heal them? Can you banish this darkness? Or will you do what you have done for centuries and hold the worst of it at bay while in the darkest places the infection festers? Perhaps you may chip away at it, but can you conquer it?'

The silence that followed his words was absolute. None of the elves would meet his eyes.

As I suspected, then.

Unexpectedly, Legolas spoke up: 'I agree with Thráin.' A murmur of shock ran through the assembled elves. 'Long have we fought against the darkness, preserving what we could. Yet none of our efforts was ever sufficient to banish it entirely. We must burn down Mirkwood to let Greenwood the Great be reborn.'

Slightly more poetic than Thráin would have chosen, but no less true for it. He nodded.

Thranduil closed his eyes. Much as Thráin still did not like the elf, he could at least sympathise with his plight; had someone suggested tearing down Erebor, he might have killed the fool before he had the chance to explain. All things considered, the elf king was showing remarkable restraint.

Which did not mean that he assented yet. 'We will decide on the morrow,' he said.

Delaying the decision was not going to make anything better.

Thráin was about to say so, when Thranduil raised his hand to stop him: 'The wind blows from the west,' he said. 'If we made fire now, the wind would carry it back to us rather than drive it deeper into the woods.' He gave Thráin a very stern look. 'When the wind changes, I will decide.'

In the end, Mirkwood burned.

It was the only sensible course of action. For three days Thranduil waited, but when the wind turned on the fourth day, he gave the order himself. He did however insist that the fire was set by his own people and that the dwarves had nothing to do with it.

'I will do it to preserve the lives of my people,' he said when Thráin offered his help. 'And for the rejuvenation of my lands. It will be done by my people, not by dwarves who would take unnecessary satisfaction in the act.' He looked Thráin in the eyes. 'I have not forgotten what your father and mother did, Thráin, son of Thorin.'

Thráin had wisely held his tongue and had advised his people to do the same.

'This was my home,' Legolas said. His voice was tinged with grief. 'It was not always what it became. I remember a time when it was the pride of the east.'

'So it shall be again,' Thráin said. 'You shall make it so. It seems to me a worthy life's work.'

Not that he had any idea how to go about regrowing a forest. He knew just about which plants were edible, thanks to Aragorn, but about the growing of them he knew nothing. He'd leave that to the elves.

'A life's work indeed,' Legolas agreed, probably recalling the size of the woods, as Thráin did. 'And a worthy one. Yet my heart grieves for what is lost too.'

'As is only right.' It had been bad enough seeing the lack of Dale and Esgaroth and the damage to the surrounding area. At least Thráin had the consolation that Erebor still stood. 'Your father's halls are made in the caves, though, are they not?'

Legolas nodded. 'Yes, part of my home remains.' His gaze darkened. 'For all that it is currently occupied by spiders.'

'We will put an end to those,' Thráin vowed. 'You'll be glad to have some of my people there.' If given the choice, he would rather fight underground than out in the open.

'I am glad of you and your people here too,' the elf said. 'It gives me hope.'

It did that for Thráin as well. If the war had achieved that old enmity had at last been laid to rest, he would count that a boon. More than that, he would count it a great victory over Sauron, who had only profited by their division and useless squabbling.

They stood in silence for a while. The wind had turned to the east, which carried the blaze deeper into the woods at a rapid pace. Thráin didn't mind wagering that it would be days before it burned itself out. Make give that many nests will be destroyed by it. With any luck most of the woods would be burned in this fire, without any need to set others. Nevertheless, Thranduil, thinking ahead for once, had sent groups of his folk to the south and the north to set more fires where necessary.

'Do you reckon Dol Guldur will burn down?' Nori wondered as he joined them. He trailed a few others of Thráin's folk in his wake. 'Not that there would be a lot of it left to burn down of course.'

'How would you know?' Kíli demanded. 'You've never been there.'

Nori said nothing. He simply smiled knowingly. One by one the heads of his companions turned in his direction, their faces a study in various stages of disbelief.

Thráin reckoned that he knew where this was going and intervened: 'He has never been there,' he said. 'Have you learned nothing from last time?'

'It's not like you ever know entirely for certain with him,' Alfur said. 'With as many scrapes as he's been in.'

'He's never been,' Thráin repeated. He knew this because he had been there – or as close as he dared anyway – and he knew how the memory stayed with a person. It haunted him still sometimes, sneaking up in his dreams. The memory of that fear was not as potent as the fear itself, but it wasn't something you just shook off, the way Nori did. If he had experienced that, it would have marked him in some way.

Legolas too was undecided. 'You are sure?'

'Beyond a doubt.' He shot his uncle a look. 'You mustn't wind them up, Uncle. It's hardly fair.'

Nori shrugged. 'Worth a try, wasn't it?'

'You ought to be reassured,' Kíli said. 'At least you'll walk into places that harbour true danger before this campaign is over.'

'Already been there, my lad,' Nori pointed out. 'Once as the unwilling guest of…' He realised Legolas was nearby and quickly amended the unflattering description of Thranduil into something a bit more polite, '… the elf king. And then again with Thoren when the monsters invaded.'

'Good,' Halnor said. 'You'll be going in first then.'

Nori had nothing to say to that.

It took three days until the ground had sufficiently cooled to allow them passage. By that time everything in sight had burned to the ground. The ground itself had been too hot to walk on at first, but Lancaeron had taken a small party to assess the situation and he had returned an hour past to declare that it was safe for travel.

'Very safe indeed,' he reported. 'We crossed many a burnt spider corpse.' He nodded at Thráin, who fought the effort to say I told you so and won. But only barely. 'Several nests have been destroyed as well.' He looked at his king. 'There were nests where there had been none before. It seems our foe has multiplied.'

Thráin wrinkled his nose at that. Foe hardly seemed the right word for what were merely overgrown household pests with some low cunning imbued.

'It has also been severely reduced,' he pointed out instead.

Although the remainder was likely to have fled to Thranduil's halls. And, this thought occurred to him perhaps a little late, they would have fled east as well, in the direction of the Anduin. Weren't there folk who lived on the shores of the river? Had his suggestion accidentally unleashed a horror beyond their imagining on them?

He voiced that thought to Lancaeron after the meeting. 'Did they flee the war? Or have I sent their deaths to them?'

'Your information is old,' the elf replied. 'The horror of the woods has been such in recent years that most people had already departed. Those that remained fled when sorties of orcs from the Misty Mountains became too frequent.'

Well, that was some relief, if not entirely the good news that he had hoped for. 'Where did they go? These people.'

Lancaeron shook his head. 'That I cannot tell you. In those days we looked to our own defences. They never asked for help, but beyond that, I do not know.'

Thráin suspected that in that case, most of them would already be dead. Between the horrors of Mirkwood on one side and the orcs in the Misty Mountains on the other, there would not have been many options. Perhaps they had gone south along the river.

He hoped they had. The alternative was unthinkable.

They broke camp and set out west along the river. In the distance heavy smoke stained the horizon, but the fires themselves were no longer visible. Not to Thráin at least. Maker only knew what the elves could see.

The trees were gone, but some debris remained, so the going was not easy. The ground sloped gently up, but not enough to tire them greatly. It was the stench and the remaining smoke that made them cough and had their lungs burn. The elves were not greatly affected by it, but Thráin and his were feeling the effects.

'Apologies,' Legolas said as they halted along the banks of the river for a break. 'I did not realise this would hinder you so. You said nothing of this when we were in Mordor.'

Thráin shrugged. 'What could you have done about, even if you had known? The hobbits had a harder time of it.'

'And you carried both of them.'

'One at a time,' Thráin corrected.

The smoke had been bad in Mordor, in fact it had been worse. Perhaps peacetime had softened him, and that was why he felt the strain more keenly now. Perhaps he had been so badly off in Mordor that one more discomfort hardly registered. Even now he didn't like to think of those days. When he did try, he found that his memories of them were more impressions and fleeting images than clear sequences of events. If asked, he could not always say which event had taken place after another.

No need to mention that, though.

'As indeed did you when the need arose,' he finished.

Legolas inclined his head. 'Some days I wake and am astonished to remember that we achieved our aim and yet lived to tell the tale.' He stared into the distance. 'Do you still have the dreams?'

Thráin did not need to ask which ones. 'Aye,' he said. 'But when I wake from them I am always heartened by knowing that it is over and that we survived.'

The entire Fellowship lived. That was the thought with which he reminded himself of what had been achieved. The Ring was destroyed and all who had set out from Rivendell to do so lived. It was a success he had not quite dared to hope for, even when he had pursued it with all the strength he had.

'Is that enough?' Legolas asked.

Some days it was, some days it wasn't. 'It is enough to be getting on with,' he answered.

It took them a few days of careful marching to reach the outskirts of Thranduil's settlement. Nori happily commented that going the other way – by barrel over the river – was a lot quicker, which earned him a few glares from the elves. The smoke had much abated. The travelling on the other hand had been harder. A day of rain had turned the ground into black sludge that they were now covered in up to their knees. Or higher.

The elves, naturally, did not have a speck on them.

It was easy to tell that these lands were protected; the fire had run into an inviable wall of some sort and abruptly cut off along a very straight line. A reasonable precaution in such a highly flammable environment, Thráin had to admit. Under the given circumstances it was a hindrance. The trees obscured the entrance to the palace from sight and what wasn't hidden by trees, was hidden by the webs.

Gimli bestowed a disgusted look upon that spectacle. 'As if Shelob wasn't bad enough.'

'These are not as tall as she was,' Legolas said by way of reassurance.

It fell rather flat, because: 'These are far more numerous,' Gimli grumbled. 'And they are hiding in this rank, dank, wretched tree-infested place.'

Several of the elves took offence at this; the glares were as numerous as the webs.

Thráin regarded the obstacles before him. The trees here looked less diseased than the ones at the edge of the forest had been before they were burned to the ground. Having said that, prolonged exposure to spiders had not done them any good. The leaves drooped, dark patches stained the bark. The whole scene looked forlorn, like the trees themselves had given up hope.

'Can these trees be healed?' Thráin asked.

Legolas nodded. 'It will take time, but they are not yet beyond all aid,' he said. 'I would appreciate not all of them being burnt.'

Thráin said nothing, though the idea had entered his mind. It would save them rather a lot of trouble, but these were not his lands and he already had his way in burning down all of the rest. If he pushed his luck any harder, Thranduil might set him on fire. Thráin could tell he already wanted to.

'How far from here to the palace entrance?' he asked instead.

'Two miles,' Legolas said. 'I apologise, my friend. It will not be an easy journey.'

'You and I are used to hard roads.' He had never expected this to be easy. These things never were.

They camped a safe distance away from the treeline that night and set a watch. Thráin found he could not sleep so close to danger, so he took one of the watches and dozed uneasily for the rest of the night. Though he saw nothing move, he could tell he was being watched.

'Yes, they hide in the trees,' Lancaeron said when he came to relieve Thráin of watch duty. 'They have noticed our approach as soon as we made it.'

'How many of them, can you guess?'

Lancaeron considered the woods. 'I can see twenty-three from where we are. They have set a watch of their own.'

'They are intelligent enough for that?'

Thoren had told him that they had a language of sorts and that they could coordinate attacks to some extent, but coordinating attacks was a long way from being organised enough to set a watch. More than before he was now glad that so many had already perished in the flames. They might have never come close to Thranduil's halls had they been forced to fight for every mile's advance.

Lancaeron nodded. 'Not intelligence as you and I understand it, but yes. They have a mind of sorts. It is evil and cunning, but it makes them a formidable foe.'

'That and their stinger,' Thráin said, remembering Shelob. She had been larger and meaner, but the basic characteristics were otherwise the same, Legolas had assured him.

'They are hard to hurt,' Lancaeron said. 'Your blade gives you the advantage there.'

'My kinswoman Beth has loaned her elvish blade to my Uncle Nori,' Thráin said. 'We will be glad to put the swords to good use.'

His jaw had nearly hit the floor when Beth had especially accompanied Harry to Erebor just to hand over the sword. The only one more astonished was Nori himself, who couldn't quite comprehend that he had taken possession of something he didn't have to steal first. The excitement was of course slightly tempered by the fact that he would have to give Excalibur back when the campaign was over.

'You have our thanks,' Lancaeron acknowledged.

Thráin scoffed. 'Thank us when this is over.'

They hadn't won yet.

A start on the campaign was made in earnest just after sunrise. It was a cloudless day, and the sun blazed down on the forest's edge. This, according to the elves, was painful to these creatures of darkness, so they had better make use of it while they could. Underneath the trees they would lose the advantage.

Thráin thought longing thoughts of torches and the uses to which they could be put, but managed to hold his tongue.

It was an effort.

Instead he made himself useful cutting up webs to create a passage into the last remaining bits of forest. This was not a purpose for which Orcrist had been made, but one which it could perform well nonetheless. It slid through the silky threads like butter and did not, as it did with the others, cling to the blade. He would have to thank Thoren when he returned to Erebor.

Beside him Gimli was struggling, and cursing, rather a bit more. He would keep up a steady litany of abuse and complaint – 'wretched, rank, horrid, tree-infested…' – trail off into unintelligible muttering before raising the volume again when he encountered a particularly hard patch that warranted louder protest. Thráin found it amusing. The elves, who caught every word, not so much.

Legolas had not exaggerated when he warned that the road would be hard. They encountered webs every few paces. They could not put everyone to work cutting them, because the archers had to cover the cutters as they worked, lest the spiders sneak up on them and catch them unawares.

Even so, they progressed. Around noon Thráin was almost surprised to find the treeline so far behind them he couldn't see it anymore. This also meant there was very little daylight remaining. The gloom was becoming ever deeper and with it came the things that loved the darkness. They did not yet come near, but movement could be glimpsed in the distance from time to time. The faint clicking noises that drifted between the trees set all of them on edge. Even the elves seemed uneasy.

'They are many,' an elf called Erodir said. He was watching Thráin's back as he worked. 'More than they were before the war.'

Like many of his fellows he too was marked by the war; he still had all his limbs, but the wound that had taken one of his ears had also given him the ragged scar that ran from forehead to somewhere below the neckline of his clothes. Even now, seeing an elf look anything other than whole and unmarked was a little disconcerting.

But the scars meant that they had fought and survived and Thráin found he trusted Erodir more because of it.

'How close?' Thráin asked as he cut another thread.

'Fifty yards,' Erodir replied. 'But they are inching nearer.'

He had expected nothing else. 'Ground or trees?'

'Ground and trees.'

Thráin suspected that the spiders would not attack until they outnumbered their opponents at least two to one. As if they had not been hard enough to kill already. Either these beasts were cowards or Thoren had given them a beating they would not soon forget. The thought made him smile.

The attack, when it came, was sudden and brutal. The elves cried a warning which barely gave them time to fall into formation. Thráin had expected the beasts to be fast and numerous, but how fast and how numerous was still something of a shock. The first one he saw came bursting out of the trees and it headed right for him.

It never made it; an arrow to the eye put an end to that attack, but there were plenty left. Not for the first time that day Thráin was glad he had Orcrist in his hand. He lunged for a leg and found that the elvish blade slid through it with barely any resistance. It was far easier than Shelob had been.

He trusted that his companions knew what they were doing and that the archers had his back. He threw himself into the fight. The eyes were too high for him to reach, so he devoted himself to attacking the legs and avoiding the stinger. He may survive being hit, but he'd be defenceless then.

Better not to risk it.

From the corner of his eyes he saw that Nori had thrown himself into the fight with a will, wielding Excalibur with a skill few folk ever expected of him. How the others fared, he did not know; he was too busy avoiding stingers.

It took a bit of doing, but Thráin established something of a rhythm. He concentrated on the legs on one side. When the monster lost its balance and went down as a result, he left it to whoever was behind him to finish it off. The spider may screech, but once it was cropped at the knees it was no longer a moving target.

How long the fight lasted he could not say. The first he knew of it that it was over was that he turned to find a new target and came up empty. A few spiders lay twitching on the forest floor and were quickly despatched.

Though they had won, they had not emerged unscathed. At first glance it seemed that at least none of their own forces had perished, but they had injuries to see to and some of them had been unable to avoid the stingers. Elves and dwarves alike lay stiff and unmoving on the ground.

'Did they take anyone?' Thráin asked Erodir. 'Did you see?'

'None taken,' the elf reported with an unusual briskness for one of his kind.

Thráin nodded. 'Good.'

Lancaeron organised his people into setting up a perimeter around their wounded. The calm way in which he went about this betrayed that this was not the first time he had done so. In this fight they are experienced and my people the novices.

His people were more represented among the stung than the elves. Halnor had fallen victim to them. Alfur was beside him, scolding him for being reckless and coming along when he only had one functioning eye.

'I don't think he can hear you,' Thráin remarked. Halnor's eye was open, but the look in it was glassy and unfocused.

'Then I'll have to tell him again, won't I?' Alfur said. He looked both angry and frustrated. 'I told him he shouldn't have come. His depth perception has never been what it was since he lost the eye.'

Thráin shrugged. 'Would you have remained at home if you were in his place?'

He knew he wouldn't have.

He left Alfur to stew in that and made his way to Legolas, who was limping. 'What happened?'

Legolas grimaced. 'A stinger scratched my leg.' He pulled the fabric of his trousers aside to show the faintest of scratches. 'It is not sufficient to stun me.'

'But potent enough to partly paralyse your leg?'

'So it seems.' Legolas sat down on the trunk of a fallen tree.

Thráin sat down beside him. 'How'd it happen?' Because something about this did not add up. 'You have fought them many times before.'

'I sought to follow your good example,' Legolas replied brightly. 'My bow was knocked from my hand, so I resorted to my blades.'

Thráin thought he could see where this was going. 'You tried to go under them to take out their legs.'

'In truth, I was after their stingers.'

Which was something Thráin had not bothered with today, but he recalled that he had done so when Shelob attacked. Maker be good. 'You are taller than I am,' he pointed out. 'You are an easier target.'

Legolas merely smiled in that annoying manner he had. 'It had to be done,' he said simply. 'So I did what needed doing. Is that not what you always say?'

Thráin had nothing to say to that.

They spent a tense night a little distance away from the place of the skirmish. They kept a sizeable guard on duty. Thráin managed a few hours of sleep, but the ever present danger woke him and he could not find rest again. There wasn't much he could see in the dark – he only caught glimpses of eyes gleaming – but he felt better for being awake and having Orcrist within reach.

Most of the stung began to return to consciousness shortly after midnight, but they had little control over their limbs until nearly dawn. Even then they were pale, their movements slow and uncoordinated, their speech slightly slurred. Their injuries were not life-threatening, but they were nothing to just shrug off either. Even elves needed the time to recover.

Lancaeron is right; they are formidable foes.

Their progress through the woods slowed as a result. They had perhaps made it three quarters of a mile on the first day before they were attacked. The second day added half a mile to that distance. The lack of progress bothered Thráin. These woods put his teeth on edge already and knowing that all about him monsters lurked in the gloom did little to improve that. He took his frustration out on more webs than he cared to count.

No more spiders attacked that day, though they were never far. 'What's stopping them?' Thráin demanded that afternoon. He would sooner fight than wait and this endless suspense was rubbing his nerves raw.

'Caution,' Erodir replied. It was his task to watch Thráin's back as he worked. Each of the slicers – a term coined by Halnor and quickly picked up by everyone – had an archer assigned to him to guard him. Yesterday morning the measure seemed excessive. It did not seem so now. 'We slew a great many of their number yesterday. They will choose stealth over force if they can.'

'Out of self-preservation?' Thráin asked.

'Self-preservation or cowardice, I do not know,' Erodir said. 'Perhaps they are plotting something. They may save their strength for our assault upon their lair. There they will have the advantage.'

Thráin had never stepped foot in Thranduil's halls, but he had seen the plans of them. Before his departure Tauriel had sat him down and handed over detailed maps, drawn in her own hand. 'I may not go with you to guide you,' she'd said. 'But I would not have you enter those halls ignorant of what may await you there.'

It occurred to Thráin that Thoren had known what he was doing when he chose his bride. He also wondered if she had quite realised who she had tied herself to.

'The fires must have damaged their numbers,' Thráin said. 'That may be why they are careful now.'

He had half expected another attack during the night, but none came. Nevertheless he slept poorly and briefly. It was the third night in a row and he began to feel the strain. He could yet bear it, but he would need to remedy it soon.

I went for longer without on the quest, he told himself as they broke camp. This is nothing.

As it was the previous day, so it was again. They hacked their way through the last three quarters of a mile that led to Thranduil's halls. There were no further attacks, but they were never unwatched.

'I'll wager they close up the way behind us,' Gimli grumbled during a short break.

The thought had occurred to Thráin approximately three days prior, but he held his tongue. He was no coward, but even so the thought of having nowhere to retreat to added to his ever-growing unease.

Legolas did not acknowledge this with anything other than a brief nod. 'I appreciate that you came here with us, my friends,' he said instead. 'I know you have no love for the woods.'

'Show me woods that do not attempt to kill me when I enter them, and I may appreciate them more,' Thráin said reasonably.

Legolas grinned in a very unelvish manner. 'Did not the woods of Lothlórien make you welcome?'

Welcome was not exactly the word Thráin would have chosen. That forest had been beautiful – even he could not deny that – but he had not felt welcome. He had felt like an intruder, and an unwanted one at that. He suspected most of the elves had sighed in relief when the Fellowship departed.

'I'll grant you that it was not infested with evil,' he said.

'I will change your mind yet,' Legolas promised.

The sight of the walls of Thranduil's halls dismayed many of the elves and even some of the dwarves. The walls were covered with a thin layer of webs, like a blanket had been spread out over it. The gate was even more heavily fortified; it was very nearly invisible.

'Would it be fair to say that our coming was anticipated and prepared for?' Nori asked.

No one answered, but only because the answer was blatantly obvious to anyone with eyes. Thráin scanned the walls, but found no weakness there to exploit. It was well-known that Thranduil had turned his halls into a near impenetrable fortress. That would have been good and well if Thranduil himself was the occupant, but a difficult obstacle now.

'There are no weaknesses,' Lancaeron correctly anticipated the question Thráin was about to ask. 'The spiders gained entry through the trees that overhang the walls, but it seems they have guarded against that too.'

All the trees near the walls were heavily covered in webs.

'They have more cunning than I gave them credit for.' Thráin was tempted to say something impolite. 'Even if we clear the gates, they will be able to pick us off one by one.'

'They'll attack from two sides at once too.' Lancaeron gestured to the gates and the forest behind them in turn.

'It seems to me that you fine fellows are overlooking an obvious flaw in your reasoning.' Nori leaned casually on a branch, grinning like he was up to the worst of mischief.

'How is that?' Thráin asked.

'You don't need a frontal assault,' Nori said. 'You need a sneak attack. And to break in, you need a thief to show you how, don't you?'

Thráin started to see the vague shapes of a plan. 'Do you mean…?'

'If you can use a place to break out, you can use it to break in.'

Lancaeron stared, as if he had been whacked over the head and was still recovering from the blow. 'It may well be that they have covered that place as they have everything else.'

'No, they haven't.'

Lancaeron blinked.

Thráin suppressed a groan. Of all the stupid, ill-advised things to do! 'Please tell me you did not.'

Nori grinned only wider. 'Very well, then I shan't tell you.'

Lancaeron looked at Thráin, though whether for denial or confirmation was unclear. 'Tell me true, did he venture there?'

Thráin looked at his uncle and figured out the truth from there pretty fast. 'He did.'

'But how? There were guards all night. None saw him leave. They would have reported if it were so.' Lancaeron was clearly unused to life with Nori.

Thráin however was an old hand at it. 'I am afraid that when it comes to the art of sneaking around, my uncle has yet to be bested.' To the endless exasperation of his brother. He turned to Nori. 'There were no webs there?'

'No webs and no guards,' Nori reported smugly. 'So if we could sneak a small party in…'

Lancaeron began to nod. 'We can attack them from both sides. If we take a small group…' He trailed off, lost in his own thoughts.

Thráin and Nori waited in silence while Lancaeron concocted a plan. The elf had always seemed calm and competent. Thráin began to suspect that behind that façade lurked a streak of recklessness. Perhaps that was why Elvaethor liked him.

'I take it that you have a plan,' Thráin said at last.

The elf's eyes gleamed dangerously. 'Yes,' he said. 'I have a plan.'

One of these days he would stop throwing himself into danger, Thráin resolved as he considered the barrel he was about to climb into. It didn't look like a sturdy sort of vessel, nor indeed a very comfortable one. This would have been less of an issue had he been able to float gently along a calm stream.

The river next to him was not calm.

'It will only be a short distance,' Legolas said in what he intended as a reassurance. 'And we will haul you out.'

Thráin nodded. 'I know.' It was just that his mind failed to deliver the message to his guts. 'Very well. I will see you there.'

He climbed in. Legolas handed Orcrist to him and then closed the lid over his head. The little light of the stars overhead disappeared. He was plunged into utter darkness. Only muffled sound remained; the voices of his companions and the hungry roar of the river. Someone pushed and his barrel tipped over into the stream.

None of his parents' stories had adequately prepared him for this experience. His father had told him that it was cramped and uncomfortable. His mother had told him that it was dark and terrifying. All of that was true, and more besides. He was tossed about on the waves, with no way to influence his direction. If he were to be smashed against a rock, he would never be able to see it coming. He was thrown this way and that until he was no longer sure which way was up.

After either a few minutes or an eternity his barrel was caught and lifted. The roar of the river was no longer as deafening. He was set down on steady ground. Someone pulled the lid off. This made little difference in light, because it was very dark here too.

Legolas was true to his word and helped him out. He was gracious enough not to say a word when Thráin needed a few moments to find his balance and win the fight against his heaving stomach.

I will never do this again.

Maker only knew how his parents had borne it.

The final few barrels were caught in the net and hauled out of the water. The occupants, Nori and Alfur, looked a little worse off than Thráin; Alfur sported a bump on his forehead and Nori managed to look green in the face even with the little light they had.

'Never again,' he muttered. 'Three times I've done this now. I must be mad.'

There would be many in Erebor who'd heartily agree with that assessment.

They pulled themselves together. Lancaeron stood before them, surveying the troops at his disposal. It was his idea, but the slightly worrying spark in his eyes had made way for solemn focus.

'Legolas, take Erynion, Nori and Alfur,' he said. 'You know what to do.'

Legolas nodded tersely.

'Erodir, Thráin, you shall come with me.'

This had been agreed, but Thráin understood the comfort to be had in repeating the instructions. It was a hard and dangerous task they set themselves. They were marching into hostile territory. They had no idea where their enemy hid or how many of these wretched webs would obscure their path.

The answer was: surprisingly few. They found a few threads here and there, but most of the hallways remained clear. No spiders were in evidence. Thráin strained his ears, but heard nothing.

Is this a trap? Thráin wondered. Or are there fewer of them now than they would have us believe? Are they asleep? It was close to dawn after all. Not for the first time he lamented the fact that he knew so little about these creatures. It struck him that this was an oversight that could have horrible consequences.

All the same, it was a relief to be underground again. These were not the halls of dwarves, and the difference was noticeable. These walls had been shaped with magic in a way that just felt wrong to his senses, but this was stone, not these endless trees everywhere.

Their way led up. Lancaeron kept intentionally to the smaller corridors, which spiders would find hard to navigate, but the closer they came to where they needed to go, the less they were available. The hallways they traversed broadened. Filth littered the floors, indicating that the invaders did come here.

Thráin's unease increased.

And rightly so. If his memory of the maps was correct, they were less than a quarter mile from their destination when a spider emerged from a corridor just ahead of them. At this distance it could not have failed to notice two elves and a dwarf.

The only thing in their favour was that it was more surprised to see them than they were to see it. Erodir had an arrow on his bow even before he skidded to a halt. The spider made hissing and clicking sounds, although it didn't make it for long; Erodir's arrow to the eye put an end to that.

It had still been too long; already there was the tell-take clicking noise in the corridors around them.

'Forget stealth,' Thráin said. 'Run!'

They ran. It was just as well that they did, because it wasn't long before the first spider picked up the pursuit, and many of its fellows followed. The only good news was that so far all their pursuers were behind them, not ahead. Even so, they had to stop to shoot periodically just long enough to create a barricade of corpses that the spiders had to scale before they could give chase again.

After some minutes of this, Lancaeron veered sharply right into a small room. Thráin followed hot on his heels, Erodir after him. They slammed the door behind them. Erodir slid the bolt on. The first spider behind them slammed hard enough into it to make the walls tremble, but the door held.

'Will it hold?' Thráin asked.

'It will hold long enough,' Lancaeron said grimly.

Thráin took in the room around him. It was long and narrow, with an aisle leading from the door to the far wall, where a door of some kind was set. Two platforms stood on either side, just broad enough for one person to stand comfortably.

'Tell me what to do,' Thráin demanded.

'See the wheel set against the left wall?' Lancaeron asked.

Thráin nodded.

'Turn it, to your left. I shall turn the wheel on the other side.'

Simple instructions. That he could do. He and Lancaeron took up position at the wheels. Erodir meanwhile stationed himself in the middle of the room, an arrow on his bow, guarding their backs.

The wheel hadn't been used in a very long time, Thráin suspected. It quite escaped his notice why Thranduil would have something like this in his palace – he determined to ask Lancaeron when this was over – but if this worked, he would not complain. He pulled and the wheel squealed in protest. It shifted perhaps an inch. Outside, spiders kept throwing themselves against the door. Thráin pulled again, there was another ear-splitting noise, but this time the mechanism yielded. Once it did, it was easy to turn.

Lancaeron's wheel on the other hand was stuck. He pushed and pulled with all his weight, but it refused to give.

'I'll take that one,' Thráin said. 'Mine is loose.'

Lancaeron nodded his gratitude. They switched. Thráin took the wheel and pulled. The mechanism behind it groaned in protest, so Thráin pulled harder. Inch by inch the wheel began to turn. He really had to strain his muscles to achieve even the smallest movement. They did not have time for this, because the door was close to falling apart.

Thráin took a deep breath and poured his every reserve of strength into his task. He felt the resistance, hanging on before, unexpectedly, the whole thing finally yielded so suddenly that Thráin lost his balance and nearly stumbled into the wall.

Maker be good.

The wheels turned easily now and now he could both see and hear the result. The barrier, because that was what it was, slowly sank into the floor. From at first a small slit at the top came the fresh morning air and the furious roaring of the river just beyond.

What fool would court danger by installing a construction like this? Thráin wondered, even as he turned his wheel faster to get the door down and the river in.

They managed it with barely seconds to spare. The river came in first in a slow trickle, which became a stream as the barrier went down further.

'Erodir, take cover!' Thráin warned.

At the same time, Erodir shouted: 'The door is breached.'

Mahal must be paying attention that day, because just for once, the timing was perfect. Erodir jumped gracefully onto the same platform as Thráin just as the door exploded off its hinges. The first spider through was received with a blast of water to the head and disappeared as quickly as it had come in.

Furious hissing and even screaming from beyond the room indicated that the spiders did not appreciate this turn of events. It must have the intended effect, though, because not a single one of them returned through the door. Meanwhile the river flowed through the room, flooding the aisle. The platforms remained dry, which made Thráin suspect that they were intended that way.

Which begged another question: 'Why would something like this be built?' It came in handy, to be sure, but the reason remained unclear.

'To prevent the forest from flooding when the water levels are high,' Erodir said.

Thráin stared at him. 'To prevent the trees from getting a little more water, you would flood your own house instead?' Only the elves…

Erodir clearly did not understand Thráin's point: 'We are entrusted with the care for these woods.'

What remains of it, was something Thráin stopped himself from saying just in time.

'We would not have our presence be the cause of harm to the woods.' The words were accompanied by a very pointed look at Thráin.

He ignored that. 'The forest would just flood further downstream now,' he said. 'Given that the diverted water flows out of your cellar back into the river.' That was after all how they hoped to get rid of a great many spiders today.

'The banks are higher there,' Erodir replied. 'Flooding is rare in that area.'

Of course it was.

As much as he wanted to do otherwise, there was no way to leave now if he did not want to go the same way as the spiders, so he settled down to wait. Maker give that the others were at the gates before we unleashed the river. But that was now beyond his control.

Lancaeron leaped over the aisle to join them. 'You have my thanks,' he said to Thráin. 'I could not have turned the wheel unaided.'

Thráin inclined his head. 'That was why you asked me to come, is it not?'

They lapsed into silence. Thráin strained his ears, but heard nothing but the water rushing past. If battle was still ongoing, he could not tell. In a way this was like it had been on the quest: he had been sent on a mission vital to the success of the war, and as a result was away from the main battles.

The next war will be different, he knew. It may be some years, but when he went to Khazad-dûm, he would fight in battle, not remain in the shadows. The prospect was both good and daunting.

Lancaeron listened too, but even his elvish hearing could not make out any useful sounds above the din. So they waited. The elves kept time, which was just as well, because Thráin lost track of it. Something about these elvish halls confounded his senses.

A long time passed before Lancaeron nodded and said: 'It is time.'

He leaped back over to his side and turned the wheel, as Thráin turned the wheel on his own side. The water resisted this forced change in course every inch of the way, so he really had to put his back into it. It was necessary for Erodir to jump over and assist his captain, or he would not have managed it.

Slow though it was, the door rose with every turn of the wheels and the flow of water became a trickle an eventually cut off entirely.

Silence returned.

The elves listened, consulted with each other wordlessly and nodded. 'The battle is nearly over,' Lancaeron reported for Thráin's benefit. 'Our forces are victorious.'

They set out to join them, which was slow going, because the floor was treacherously slippery for the first stretch. There was no evidence of any eight-legged overgrown pests, so Thráin assumed that they had indeed all been flushed into the river. Erodir assured him that they were not good swimmers and had likely drowned.

It might be a kinder fate than that which had befallen the spiders in the courtyard behind the gates. Many of those had been cropped at the legs before being shot in the head. A few legless spiders still twitched.

But not for very long.

'Hello, my lad!' Nori hailed him. 'Have you come to see what a real battlefield looks like?'

'This is hardly battle,' Thráin retorted. 'You killed a few spiders, uncle. You cannot tell me you've never done that before.'

'Very big spiders,' Nori pointed out.

Thráin grinned. 'I have seen bigger.'

They spent the rest of the day tracking down the last remaining spiders. There weren't very many of those; all that had been below the level of the water gate had been flushed out through the wine cellar. The caves had apparently been designed that way.

That night they made camp in the courtyard, given that the palace itself was still uninhabitable. Thráin was content to sit by the fire and eat, but Thranduil sought him out.

'At your insistence my woods were burnt and my home was flooded,' he remarked.

Thráin could have pointed out that the flood had been Lancaeron's idea, but said nothing. He was long past expecting reason from this elf.

'It seems to me, Thráin son of Thorin, that you make a fearsome enemy.'

Thráin frowned. 'I am not your enemy.'

'Indeed not. Long may it remain that way,' Thranduil said wryly.

He departed before Thráin could discern what the purpose of this exchange could have been.

As it happened, he was not in the mood to ponder over elvish riddles, so he joined some of his own people around a fire. As expected, they were the most rowdy bunch.

'Thráin, catch!'

The warning would have been more use had it been given before the sausage hit him square between the eyes. He did manage to catch it before it hit the ground.

'Tasty,' he said when he took a bite.

'Nothing fosters an appetite more than a day's hard work,' Nori said. He leaned against the wall as if he suffered from great exhaustion.

'How would you know?' Alfur demanded. 'You've never worked hard a day in your entire life!'

Nori shook his head. 'Oh, the insolence of youth,' he lamented. 'None of you offer any deference to your betters.'

'Takes one to know one,' Halnor retorted. 'Ah, Master Legolas, catch!'

He threw another sausage, but Legolas's faster reflexes enabled him to catch it before it hit him. Even so, it was a near thing. He took a bite of it and sat down beside Thráin. 'Is it customary among your folk to pelt one's companions with food?'

Thráin grinned. 'Aye, it is a sign of great affection.'

'Great affection?'

'To be sure.'

'They hardly know me,' Legolas said.

'You are my friend,' Thráin explained. 'And I am theirs. That is sufficient.'

Legolas pondered this for a moment. 'You helped me save my home from the monsters which infested these lands for many years.'

'I told your father to burn down the forest in its entirety.'

'You played a great role in flushing them out of these halls.'

'Lancaeron was the one who concocted that plan.'

'And it would not have succeeded were it not for your strength, my friend,' Legolas said triumphantly. 'Lancaeron told me what you did.'

'I did…'

'What needed doing,' Legolas nodded. 'As indeed you always claim.'

'Because it is always true.' He wished he knew why everyone always insisted on patting him on the back as if it were something special. 'I have no need of thanks.'

Legolas remained elvishly unfazed. 'No, indeed not. It is swords you will have need of, and friends to guard your back when you retake your home.'

That rendered Thráin effectively speechless.

'Therefore you will have me and as many of mine as are willing at your side and your back when that time comes,' Legolas said.

Thráin's mouth remained somehow incapable of uttering words.

'Although it is probably for the best if my father does not join that venture,' Legolas continued. 'I fear he may be tempted to do to your land what you did to his.'

He continued to smile serenely while Thráin tried to recall how to speak.

At least until the next sausage hit him in the head.

Apologies for the day's delay in getting this up; it's been something of a week.

There'll be no update next week, but the week after that (22nd of May) I will start a multi-chapter piece. Thorin and Kate are taking a trip to the Iron Hills. This was supposed to be short and light-hearted and somehow turned into multiple chapters of high stakes drama. Don't ask me how that happens.

As always, reviews would be much appreciated. So would requests for what you guys would like to read.

Until next time!