Ch. 7
"Legolas, awaken." A voice cut through the heavy depths of his sleep.
Legolas stirred and opened his eyes. He tensed as he felt arms about him and then realized that the arms were those of his brother. Self-consciously, he pulled himself up and away from his brother’s embrace. "What is happening?"
"How do you feel?"
"Better," Legolas admitted and then added as an afterthought, "Thank you. I guess I needed the sleep. I think I can ride on my own now."
His older brother’s hand gripped him briefly. "Yes, no doubt you can." And watched with a small smile as Legolas leapt nimbly onto his own mount.
"Where is Tavaro?" Legolas looked around and asked. "And many of our warriors are no longer here. What has happened?"
"I have split up the troops. Our scout has returned and reported that the orcs are less than a day away from the palace."
"So they have not attacked yet?" Legolas cut in anxiously.
"Thank the Valar, no."
Legolas closed his eyes and breathed a brief, thankful prayer. They were not too late yet! There was still hope. He once again turned to his brother. "What are our plans?"
"I have sent out two groups of warriors, one to the east and the other to the west. They are to engage and draw out the orcs from both flanks," Feren began to explain.
"And we will attack them from behind," Legolas finished rather triumphantly.
His brother looked at him approvingly. "Yes. The plan is to draw enough of those foul creatures away from the main formation so that the entire army falls into sufficient disarray for us to mount an attack from the rear. I fear the plan places far too much trust in the expectation that orcs tend to be rather undisciplined in battles. Though that has been our past experience with them, we do not know whether this particular army of orcs will behave as such."
"It sounds like a good plan," Legolas said, glancing at his brother. "I know I am inexperienced in battle strategies so my approval probably does not count for much."
Feren favoured him with a smile. "Though I would rather not have you learn the rudiments of battle so precariously close to danger, I do believe you will be much wiser after this escapade of yours."
"What better place to learn battle strategies than on the battle ground itself?" Legolas grinned with enthusiasm.
His brother’s brows immediately furrowed. "I hope you have not forgotten your promise to me. Nothing has changed. You are not to take part in the fighting."
Legolas’ face fell. It was one thing promising inaction on his part when he was on the brink of collapse from exhaustion, but now that he had recovered much, if not all, of his strength, resentment was beginning to grow once more at his brother’s unreasonable over-protectiveness. He opened his mouth to protest but was ruthless silenced by Feren.
"No arguments, Legolas. You have given me your promise and I expect you to fully abide by it. I have a battle to conduct and I cannot be distracted with concerns over your well being. You will stay within the safety of the trees until I tell you otherwise."
"I am not as completely helpless to defend myself as you may think. After all, I did manage to find my way to the troops without coming to grievous harm," Legolas retorted angrily. "And how long will I have to stay in the trees? Until the fighting stops? That can be days -"
"I will assign one of my warriors to stay with you. And you will do as he commands. We are about to go into battle. This is no time for your childish display of injured pride," Feren spoke more harshly than he had intended and when he saw the naked pain on his brother’s young face, he regretted the hurtful words even more. He was about to say something to lessen the sting of his words when a commotion among his men drew his attention. A scout had returned and the duty of command called to him. He would have to deal with Legolas later. With a brief glance at his brother, he tuned and hurried to the newly arrived scout.
"My lord, orcs are coming this way," the scout reported even before he was questioned. "There are at least fifty of them heading this way. They look as if they are on their way to join the main army."
"How far away are they?" Feren asked quickly.
"Not more than half an hour away."
"All right, we will have to stop them. Tuile, I want you and your men ride out to ensure that no orc gets pass to join the main army. Uurime, you and your men go through the trees and draw the orcs in this direction. Make certain that none stray behind. The rest of us will wait here in the trees and cut them down as they draw near. Hesin, I want you to stay with Legolas. Make sure he stays hidden until the danger has passed. All right, let us prepare ourselves."
Feren rejoined his brother. "Legolas, into the trees right now! Climb as high as you can and stay well hidden. Hesin will stay with you."
"What is happening?" Legolas could not help but asked.
"Orcs are approaching. Now no more questions and get into the trees!" Feren ordered sharply.
Legolas threw his brother one final look of defiance before sprinting toward one of the larger trees nearby. In a flash of gold, he disappeared into the thick foliage, followed closely by Hesin.
Feren stared briefly at the tree which Legolas had so readily climbed, his lips pursed with frustration. With a deep breath, he resolutely put aside thoughts of his young brother and made one last visual sweep of the woods around him. His men had already taken their places in the trees and to the untrained eyes, were virtually invisible within the sheltering canopy of the trees. He made his way swiftly to the tree that he had chosen and in a few liquid moves, he too was hidden among the leaves with his bow nocked for action. His keen hearing had already begun to pick up sounds of the heavy footsteps of orcs trampling through the wooded grounds.
Legolas’ heart was pounding with anticipation as he strained his eyes to catch his first sight of the oncoming orcs. Excitement coursed through him as he readied his bow. Feren had forbidden him to take part in the fighting, but picking off orcs with his arrow from the safety of the trees was not really fighting, at least not in the sense of face-to-face combat with the enemies. Hesin made a move as if to stop Legolas, but then seemed to have thought better of it. After all, the young prince was well known for his prowess with the bow and if more orcs could be killed by arrows, then the risk of a ground confrontation would also lessen. At this thought, the warrior readied his own bow.
The noise of fighting long reached Legolas’ ears before the orcs themselves spilled out amongst the trees and into his line of vision. At the first sight of the dark brutish creatures, his breath caught and nearly stopped, and his bow wavered fractionally. The whizzing sound of arrows slicing through the air snatched him from his momentary paralysis and then he too released his arrow. Once again, Legolas faltered as he watched his arrow tore into the neck of an advancing orc, dropping the enemy instantly. His first kill, and he felt strangely nauseous.
"Do not stop," Hesin’s voice commanded quietly at his side.
Fool, Legolas chided himself as he nocked another arrow with lightening speed. The enemy does not stop just because you are feeling squeamish over your first kill. His second arrow again found its mark. Then Legolas found himself firing off arrow after arrow, with unconscious fluidity and speed. He noted with grim satisfaction that each of his flying arrows culminated in the certain death of an orc. His hand reached back once more and this time, it met air. He was out of arrows. He looked at Hesin in near panic. The other elf’s quiver was also empty. Something caught his eyes and Legolas snapped his attention back to the ground beneath him. He saw with dismay that a number of elves had left the protection of the trees and were now engaged in hand-to-hand combat with the orcs that continued to filter out from the trees. His heart gave a curious lurch when he saw that Feren was among those elves. Instinctively he moved further out onto the branch to catch a better glimpse of the fighting.
"Prince Legolas," he heard Hesin call out warningly.
Oblivious to the warrior behind him, Legolas watched with fierce concentration the swirling figure of his brother as Feren skillfully parried the scimitars of the orcs with one knife and delivered death with the other. More elves were dropping from the trees and joining the melee of the battle. Whether purposely or not, Feren was moving closer and closer to the tree where Legolas had perched himself. His brother had just struck down another orc and was turning to seek out another when Legolas caught a movement out of the corner of his eye. Behind Feren, an orc, assumed dead by the warriors, had lurched to his knees and was about to let loose an arrow that was aimed directly for his unsuspecting brother’s back.
"No!" Legolas cried out and without thinking, jumped from his perch in a reckless dive.
"Prince Legolas!" Hesin made a wild lunge for the young elf but only grasped air. He watched with horror as Legolas landed briefly on a lower branch and then dove again toward his brother. A mere second later, the younger elf’s body collided with that of his brother, knocking Feren to the ground and out of the deadly path of the flying arrow. The arrow instead found another target.
Hesin was immediately behind Legolas but despite of his speed, he was still too late. It was he who cried out when he saw the deadly arrow slam into Legolas’ back, pitching him forward on top of his fallen brother. Hesin sprang from where he landed and with one quick swipe of his knife, decapitated the foul creature that had brought down his prince. He rushed back to where Feren was kneeling on the ground, cradling the limp body of his brother in his arms.
His face contorted with anguish, Feren grounded out his command through clenched teeth. "No orc is to escape!"
Grim-faced, the warriors fanned out through the trees to hunt down the orcs that had managed to slip by them. There were few which had managed to escape and the warriors had no intention of letting them go far. A small group remained behind, gathered in a protective ring around the two princes.
Feren looked down at the ashen face of his brother. "Legolas, you fool, why? Why did you do it?"
His breath coming in panting gasps, it took Legolas several agonizing tries before he could give sound to his words. "I do --do n-not want the orcs to – to take you. They have –already taken – Naneth."
His eyes stinging with unshed tears, Feren lowered his head until his forehead was touching his brother’s. "Oh, Legolas, I do not want the orcs to take you either!"
TBC