Chapter 3. New Acquaintances and Old Friendships.

“You are a danger to everyone! I cannot believe…”

“It is not my fault!”

“Meaning that the bow that I gave you is flawed?”

“Well, I do oil it...”

“You do not care properly for it, and it complains…”

With an exasperated growl, Brethil shouldered his bow and jumped to the ground, not far from where the newcomers’ horses grazed peacefully. Composing what he hoped would amount to an imposing expression on his youthful face, he walked to the stranger who had called up to them.

“My name is Brethil. What are you doing here?” he asked in Sindarin.

Casting an amused look to the treetops, where the argument progressed heatedly, the Sinda bowed slightly. “Well-met, Master Brethil. My companions and I were attacked by a band of orcs and wargs two days ago, to the west. We need your help, if you have any to spare…”

“A cooking skin, yarrow leaves, some dried birch bark, clean bandages,” the Shimmering One grunted from where he knelt by their wounded companion. “Eru, Maentêw, they are children!” he complained as Brethil got closer. “Do you have anything for us, boy?” he urged then.

Brethil did not pay attention to him. Hanging his bow carefully on a low branch of an obliging tree –to spare himself Cûiell’s harsh rebuke- he knelt down beside the wounded elf and opened his pack.

“A cooking skin,” he mumbled, producing a small one that his naneth always insisted on placing in his pack, much to his embarrassment. “That wound is festering,” he informed the Shimmering One, who had quickly grabbed the cooking skin and set himself to start a fire.

The one who had been addressed as Maentêw knelt down beside him.

“We did what we could, but we did not have much time…”

“You will have to tear it open and clean it up again,” Brethil agreed, pointing at the reddened flesh along the long gash on the elf’s chest, and the greenish tinge around the wound lips. He rummaged again in his pack and then released a relieved sigh. “This will help,” he said, producing a small horn container with a wooden stopper and opening it effortlessly. The customary stench wafted up almost immediately, and Brethil could not hold back a mischievous grin at the elder elf’s involuntary scowl. “This healing powder works wonders,” he informed, pouring a handful of smelly, greyish dust on his palm. “The Laegrim make it out of a number of disgusting things, but it is very effective against rotten blood and the blackening sickness of the flesh…”

“Brethil, step aside…” Thranduil’s tense voice startled him. He looked up to see that his friend had finally come down from the tree, wearing his most menacing expression. Cûiell stood behind him and both had their bows nocked and trained on the strangers.

“Thranduil, it is fine…”

“This is the land where the Wood Elves dwell. No one enters here uninvited. Who are you and what are you doing here?” Thranduil’s voice had his father’s taunting, haughty manner, Brethil thought in exasperation, catching the quick, slightly surprised glances that the two strangers exchanged.

“Look, Thranduil…” he insisted, trying to appease his friend.

“No, he is right,” the elf called Maentêw came to stand beside him. “We were attacked by a band of orcs and wargs and were separated from our company, and got lost in your forest. He is Gildor Inglorion, from… Balar, and I am Maentêw, captain of the southern marches of Doriath,” the Sinda offered in a friendly, pleasant manner.

“Doriath? Like yourselves!” Cûiell chirped, lowering her bow in plain relief. By the brief shadow that clouded Thranduil’s features Brethil knew that he, too, was fighting back terrible memories.

“Doriath no longer stands,” his friend managed in an almost steady voice.

“I was there when it fell,” the Sinda acknowledged softly. “But that is no reason for the Doriathrim to raise their weapons against each other, no matter where they meet,” he added, taking two careful steps towards Thranduil, his palms up in a gesture of peace. Brethil tensed, awaiting Thranduil’s unpredictable reaction.

“Are you a kinslayer?” The question stunned the three of them, and then Brethil released another groan. Sensing that there was no more need for caution, and leaving the males to smooth down their ruffled feathers, Cûiell had taken to explore the makeshift camp. She was poking now with her bow at the Shimmering One, who squatted by the newly awoken fire, and was questioning him with her usual bluntness.

“I am not,” the Exile grunted in a low, menacing voice, swatting away her bow with a warning glare that meant that no, he was not a kinslayer but yes, with proper encouragement he might as well become one. Momentarily shocked by the harsh growl, Cûiell took one involuntary step back.

“You are Oropher’s son, if I am not mistaken,” the one called Maentêw chimed in hurriedly, surely reading Thranduil’s scowl correctly and hoping to distract him from teaching the Shimmering One the basics of elven courtesy. “And you…I am sure that I knew your adar as well?” he added, casting Brethil an appraising glance.

“Fêrtond,” Brethil offered in a quiet yet firm voice. His adar had been among the first to fall before the sudden onslaught of the sons of Fëanor, and it still hurt, after all those sun-rounds. He looked away, not wanting to see the knowing, compassionate look on the Sinda’s eyes.

“Of course,” Maentêw nodded softly. “You take after your naneth’s family…I hope that she is doing fine?”

“Well enough, thank you,” Brethil answered curtly. “Now, Thranduil, I think that you can lower your bow; their companion is wounded and they need our help,” he continued in a businesslike tone, taking charge of the situation with an authority that at times managed to restrain even Thranduil’s unruly temper. “Is that water boiling or not?”

                                                                                      ~*~*~*~

The sun was high in the sky when Gildor finished cleaning and re stitching the ragged gash in their captain’s chest, with Brethil and the elleth’s –Cûiell, as she had introduced herself in her cheeky manner- help. With an ostentatious gesture of contempt, Thranduil had set in search of some obliging prey willing to serve as their meal. Confident that the young Sinda would have inherited his father’s talent, Maentêw had turned to reawakening the fire, looking forward to their first hot meal since the night of the attack. While busy with that mechanical task, he tried to put order in the mixed feelings and turbulent memories aroused by that unexpected meeting.

Thranduil –and Brethil- had been no more than young children when the few scattered survivors had taken separate courses after Doriath fell that fateful winter. Maentêw still remembered the heated arguments with Oropher, who had been one of his closest friends back then. They had parted in anger, each certain that his course was the best, too wounded by recent events to be able to see reason in the other’s position. They had exchanged harsh words and accusations and had followed different paths then –Oropher into the forests of Ossiriand in the hopes that he might find the missing princes and Maentêw south towards the Sea, leading Elwing and the few survivors of the royal household to the safety of Cirdan’s stronghold in Balar. Running into his friend’s now grown-up son in the middle of those Tauron’s forsaken woods had revived painful memories that Maentêw felt he was not ready to face.

“Eru, child, you cannot die, you would never be allowed into Mandos’ Halls, not with that stench!” Gildor’s complaint forced Maentêw out of his gloomy thoughts. He looked back to see that his friend had just finished spreading a stinking paste down the long wound and was dressing it with clean bandages and long strips of birch bark. “How shall I get rid of this…odour?” the Noldo groaned, fixing the last bandage and lifting his hands to his face, only to put them away with a scowl of disgust.

“There.” The elleth stood before Gildor with a wide smile, handing him a handful of herbs Maentêw did not recognize. Despite his friend’s harsh, dry outer shell, children and young ones were always attracted to Gildor, Maentêw chuckled inwardly. “Is he your son?” she asked while the Noldo rubbed his hands with a sceptical frown. “Has he a name?”

“No and yes,” Gildor answered cautiously, casting a quick look at Maentêw, who shrugged and turned his attention back to the fire, leaving his friend to cope with the elleth’s apparently unquenchable curiosity.

“This seems to work,” the golden-haired elf observed in mild surprise, lifting his hands to his nose. “He is a… a friend’s son,” he explained then, pointing at the wounded elf who rested in a deep, feverless slumber for now. “And he is our captain as well. His name is Gil-galad.”

“Captain?” Brethil had been busy picking up deadwood for their fire, but he had been keeping an eye -and an ear- on their camp, it seemed. “In whose army?” he asked in curiosity, dropping an armful of sticks beside the fire and watching Maentêw with undisguised interest.

“In Balar’s!” Maentêw snapped. “A mixed army of survivors ready to continue fighting the evil creatures of Angband, instead of hiding in the forest…”

“Peace, Maentêw,” Gildor chimed in, seeing the chagrined expression in the boy’s face. “They are children…”

“So is he,” Maentêw snapped, nodding curtly towards their wounded captain, feeling a surge of anger that had nothing to do with the children. With brusque movements and avoiding his friend’s worried glance, he stood up and walked to their horses, who had reached the easternmost limit of the glade in their unmolested grazing.

“They wanted to travel west to join an elven army, but Oropher and the others would not allow it,” he heard the elleth’s conspiratorial voice, and Gildor’s noncommittal grunt as answer. Taking a deep breath, he busied himself with checking their horses’ legs and cleaning their hoofs, allowing his anger to ebb away. Had Oropher led his group to Sirion as I insisted that it was his duty, these children would be as dead as all the rest, he reminded himself, forcing his mind to concentrate on the task at hand. Busy fighting bitter recollections, he was not aware of Thranduil’s return until a tempting smell reached him. Patting his horse comfortingly, he walked back to where his companions where gathered around the cooking skin.

“Not a plentiful hunt?” he taunted the young Sinda, taking seat by the fire beside Gildor and counting the pieces of willow grouse floating in the tasty-looking stew.

“Enough for the three of us,” Thranduil retorted with a twisted smile that was entirely Oropher’s, Maentêw noticed. “After all, you have been eating up our supplies…”

Overcoming his gloomy mood, Maentêw allowed himself to be dragged into playful bantering while Brethil passed around pieces of stewed willow grouse accompanied by fleshy wood-mushrooms on makeshift bark plates. “According to the forest law, and since you found us helpless in your territory, you are forced to grant us hospitality for at least two days…”

“Helpless?” The youngster cast a meaningful look at the long swords leaning against the tree closest to where the wounded elf rested.

“They are warriors in an elven army, Thranduil,” Brethil informed his friend eagerly, “and that is their captain…”

“And where were the mighty warriors going in their hurried flight?

“They were attacked by the same band of orcs that we met; he said that before,” Cûiell burst in helpfully. Maentêw almost let fall his meal and Gildor choked on a piece of meat.

“You ran into a band of orcs?” Maentêw asked in dismay. “Where? When? How…”

“We make the questions here,” Thranduil cut him, raising his hand to stem his friends’ willingness to exchange information with their uninvited guests. “As you pointed out, you are in our territory. So tell me, how is it that a former captain of Doriath is now a plain warrior in a stranger’s army, and what are the three of you doing in the woods of Ossiriand?”

Casting a restraining glance at Gildor, who clearly seethed at the boy’s insolence, Maentêw began his tale.

“…And we know not what happened to the rest of our patrol or to the orcs that attacked us. The trees pressed us on relentlessly, and we had ridden for two nights and a whole day when you found us,” he ended tiredly. “We thought that we were being led to a settlement of wood elves, and that was our mission anyway…How far is your home?” he asked in a whisper then, all the weariness and tension of the past days suddenly catching up with him.

“And what were you three doing in the middle of the forest?” Gildor asked in turn, unable to restrain his own curiosity. Their three hosts exchanged wary glances. “Not now.” Thranduil said. “You are tired and you cannot go anywhere in that state. We will keep watch while you take some rest,” he added with a twisted smile. “We need to take counsel among ourselves.”

“We shall look after him,” the elleth put in, pointing at the wounded elf. “And when you are rested I will have a look at your wounds,” she added, frowning at the ragged bandages on Gildor’s arm and Maentêw’s forehead. “Now, go and do as you are bidden,” she ended in a commanding tone that made Gildor laugh as he nodded obligingly.

“See, Maentêw, we are being bossed around by children!” he chuckled, standing up tiredly and following their suggestion gladly.

“Well, you must be used to it, anyway,” Brethil retorted in a friendly manner, nodding towards their young captain. Amused by the children’s good humour, Maentêw conceded defeat. Following Gildor’s example, he wrapped himself in his cloak and lay down under a willow tree, intending to remain alert.

The ominous roar jolted him from a deep slumber. He sat up with a start and groped around wildly for his sword, amazed to find out that the night was well in.

“What…?”

TCB