This is the first part of my humble attempt to expand upon Hwiltis' intriguing story, Strange Fates:
"Was it when the Elvenking kept me in his halls, after his wardens dredged me from the accursed river? How many years ago now..."
* * *
The chamber of Teithoron Tegilbor was bathed in the warm glowing light of many candles when Legelion came hither. The scribe was studying a scroll that lay upon his burnished table, but upon the entrance of the boy he laid it aside and rose to his feet to greet him, as is the custom of the Elven-folk when receiving guests.[1]
'Hail and well met, Legelion son of Gellin,' he said with a wave of his hands.
'Merry greetings to you, O Learned One,' the elf-child replied with a grin. "Does the day find you well?'
'It does indeed,' the elder Elf responded, 'and today I thought we might begin reading the...'
'O! Master Teitheron,' the elf-child interrupted. 'Must we spend this morning reading?'
At Legelion's use of the honorific a smile tugged at the scribe's mouth, for the boy never used it save for when he sought to sway his heart, and therefore he raised a questioning brow.
'Your face is too wan, Master! Come, the morning is growing old and the merry Sun is abroad in her blue fields; she would kiss your fair face if you would but let her!' his young pupil exclaimed.
'Why you must be high in the favour of Arien herself to offer me such a mighty gift so freely!' laughed Teithoron.
'Mayhap I am,' grinned Legelion, 'but I deem her gift of light is free for any whom so wish to bestow it on her behalf.'
'Indeed,' the scribe agreed, 'but whither would you lead me then?'
'Cast aside your scholar's robes and clad yourself in woodland garb, for we go hunting!'
'But you are of the Laegrim, and the Laegil do not hunt!'
'We do for mushrooms!' the boy laughed, waving the empty woven basket he held within his hand.
* * *
The heart of Teithoron felt light and young again, as if he had returned again to the first spring of childhood. The merry company of the young Elf and the mirth of their "hunt" for white-caps on the green meadow beneath the unshadowed sun, brought to it a stirring of joy; the boy had spoken truly, too long had it been since he had set aside the burdens of duty and walked afield in delight.
But there came on a sudden the sharp toll of a distant bell, and his cares all returned.
'Alas,' he told Legelion sadly, 'the king calls a council. I needs must depart forthwith!'
'Well, it was merry fun while it lasted,' the boy replied cheerfully, and with a bow said, 'I thank you for a fair morning of mirth. Farewell, Teithoron!'
'Let none say the Silvan are without courtesy!' the scribe laughed, laying his long hand atop the elf-child's head. 'But you have my thanks! Farewell, my young friend!'
With a smile Legelion watched him go, and glanced up at the midday sun. 'Time enough for one more errand,' he thought, and ran swiftly to bring their harvest to his home-tree.
* * *
Legelion wandered westwards along the hurrying waters of the Forest River, sometimes stepping upon the riverbank and sometimes leaping from rock to rock amidst the stream; six leagues he had travelled and three hours had passed, for even walking at leisure the elf-child was swifter on foot than mortal folk. And as he walked he sang, his high clear voice mingling with the music of the rushing river.
Now he sought not for mushrooms as provender, but for his mother's curatives. The best of these grew nigh the place where the enchanted stream poured into the Forest River, for they loved its black uncanny waters and it gave to them great potency. But though he was far from the safe confines of his home, he was not afeared for he carried with him Cúlalf, his stout bow of elm-wood.
At last he halted and a smile bloomed upon his face, for he espied mushrooms of great size clustered upon the dank bank of the stream. In the murk they glowed with a wholesomeness of which the other growing things beneath the gnarled trees seemed bereft. 'My hunt now begins in earnest!' he thought happily.
But then the silence of the forest was rent by a fearful howl, followed by a distant crashing through the undergrowth. Legelion's eyes grew wide.
Would it be unwise to seek its cause, he wondered? Most likely, but he knew not this heavy footfall and he prided himself on his knowledge of the creatures that dwelt within the Woodland Realm, and this was new. Mayhap he could descry it from above, and so thinking he leapt lightly into the branches of a nearby oak and climbed swiftly up to its topmost boughs.
From his perch he peered into the gloom of the deep-shadowed wood, but naught could he espy. Again he heard the sound of something strange moving amongst the leaves that lay piled thick upon the forest-floor, and his heart yearned to know more. 'What to do?' he asked himself, his thoughts wavering between caution and curiosity.
At last he could stand it no longer, and climbing down he crept forth along the banks of the enchanted river towards the beguiling noises.
Hidden behind a thick flowering bramble, Legelion peeped between its thorny branches. Not twenty yards beyond there stood upon the riverbank an ancient oak, strangled with ivy and hung with lichen and bearing no more than a few blackened leaves, and through its barren boughs a slender beam of sun lit clearly a tall figure outlined against the black water. Its skin was alike to bark, its feet like roots; long leafy limbs protruded from its thick trunk.
'Could it be an Onod?' the elf-child wondered. 'But nay, Teithoron said that the Onodrim have not walked these woods in a long, long age of the world. I deem this creature is one of the Taurogrim... this does not bode well!' For these monstrous trolls were known to the Tawarwaith and they despised them as ravagers of the land; corrupted and evil, they slaughtered the beasts of the forest and defiled the trees.
But wherefore would a taurog forsake the swamps of Tholkát wherein they dwelt? And why came it hither? He shook his head to clear his thought. It mattered not; his chief concern was what to do here and now!
Even as he watched, he marked that the monster seemed wary, almost afraid. 'It's manner is that of fearful prey. Why, I deem the hunter is itself being hunted!' His heart froze. 'But by what?
* * *
The huntress slipped silently through the shadows of the tainted trees. Her noisy quarry was not difficult to track, but it was lithe and agile and swifter than others of troll-kind; yet she would not relent the chase, for she hated the corruptions of the Dark Hunter upon the world. This one she had pursued eastwards from nigh Torech Emel for many leagues, her hunt for Great Spiders rewarded with a choicer prey. Nearby she could hear the rippling waters of a fast-flowing river, and she smiled grimly; her quarry could flee no further!
But her woodcraft had been honed through years uncounted, and beyond her senses she felt the presence of another. An elf, she deemed, and thus she slowed her pace. There! Ahead in the darkened green glimmer she saw a slender form hiding behind a bramble bush, and she crept slowly forward till she could see it clearly. An elf indeed, but it was a mere child... crouching down, then standing on tiptoe to better peer at the wood-troll upon the riverbank. Closer she snuck until she too sheltered unseen behind a thorny bush, but the elf-child turned and looked over its shoulder as if sensing her and she suppressed a gasp of surprise. For it was a boy she had seen before, perhaps two years ago or more, and she recalled that even then he had seemed innocent and heedless of peril, though she marked with relief that he had enough skill in woodcraft to hide downwind, though the air was still and close.
Through the tangled twigs she carefully studied him. In height, she guessed, he would stand but a little taller than her belt; his dark hair hung down to his narrow waist, but was braided back from his small sun-bronzed face. Over his slender shoulder dangled a waterskin and a small elf-blade was girded about his midriff; his bow and quiver were slung across his back, and in his wiry arms he clasped a skilfully woven basket.
He was clad in the colours of the forest; his rustic tunic was well made, and his frayed breeches hung to his knees. His small feet were bare; well-formed and comely, but slightly broad from walking unshod all his young life. 'Akin to my own,' she thought with a smile. The fingers of his hands were short and slender, and she had seen how deftly they could fly upon the shaft of a wooden flute; his every movement was graceful yet with the nimbleness of childhood, and for a brief moment she thought of the elf-children she had known afore long, long ago, and she wondered what had become of them in the uncounted days hence.
This unaccustomed loss of focus startled her, and she looked again to her prey. The taurog stood looking to and fro as though seeking a path across the flowing stream, and it seemed to her that it was loath to wade or swim in its black waters. Indeed, there was an unwholesome feel to it, but she knew well whence this came, for this river carried an enchantment of great drowsiness and forgetfulness.[2]
A movement from the boy caught her attention. To her dismay, he had unslung his short bow and was nocking an arrow. Surely he did not mean to assail his foe... her quarry!... alone? Her mind was torn between admiring his courage and cursing his folly, and though she was not bound to him there burgeoned in her heart an unlooked-for feeling of guardianship; for unbidden to her mind came the memory of his merry dance afore upon a greenwood path far away, and the brief moment of lightness within her heart that she had cherished thereafter.
At that moment a soft wind came up unlooked-for from the South, and the fell monster lifted its head to smell the breeze. Then with a roar and two great bounds it leapt across to the elf-child's hiding place and thrust forth a knotted limb to seize him by his long hair, lifting him kicking up into the air.
‘Ai! ai!’ he wailed, and drawing his knife he hewed vainly at the thick arm that gripped him. The huntress laid aside her carven longbow, reached over her shoulder and drew her sword; in the green gloom it glittered like ice.
* * *
Hanging helplessly by his hair Legelion struggled to free himself from the wood-troll's powerful root-like fingers. His heart was hot at his folly and he thought of the words Gladhron his father-brother had once said in jest: 'Your curiosity will one day get you killed!'
'Alas,' he thought, 'This is that day!' And tears of wrath pricked his eyes.
But then unlooked-for a tall leather-clad figure leapt up crying, 'By the light of Paanu, you shall not have his blood!' and by her voice he knew it to be an elf-maiden!
In her hand she held a bright longsword, and with a sweep of its long curved blade she cleaved the hair held within the wood-troll's grasp and deftly caught the elf-child as he fell. But this moment of distraction cost her dearly, for her foe swiftly swung at her with its mighty limb and she was flung away into the black waters. Legelion dropped lightly to the forest floor and seized up Cúlalf; nocking an arrow he drew its string with all his strength and crying, 'O Araw! Tauron!' he loosed the shaft into the creature's eye. The taurog howled and stumbled blindly backwards into the river with a splash, where it thrashed for a moment in the flowing water before sinking down into its dark depths like a stone; the severed locks of elf-hair in its outstretched hand washed swiftly away.
Panting hard, the boy staggered to the water's edge where the elf-woman lay senseless. The water lapped over her legs and torso (and he marked with wonder that her slender feet were bare alike his own!) but her head yet rested on the moist soil and she breathed freely. A dreamy smile was upon her slumbering face.
'By the wood and stars! he thought, 'the enchantment of the black water has taken her!' He dared not pull her ashore, for to touch the water would doom him to the self-same sleep. For a while he knelt there beside the stranger, and beseeching Nienna for her pity and for comfort and courage, he wept for the valiant elf-maiden's ill-fate.
Then at last he stood and with his lips he gave a trilling whistle, and after a long moment a plump brown wren fluttered down onto his shoulder.
'Greetings winged messenger!'[3] he said, gently stroking its soft round breast. 'Hasten to Gedril and to Berior, the nearby greenwardens of the western marches of the River. Tell them that I call for aid and my need is dire! Please be swift, my little friend!'
* * *
[1] The Fellowship of the Ring, 'The Mirror of Galadriel'
[2] The Hobbit, 'Queer Lodgings'
[3] "The Elvenking had received news from his own messengers and from the birds that loved his folk, and already knew much of what had happened. Very great indeed was the commotion among all things with wings that dwelt on the borders of the Desolation of the Dragon. The air was filled with circling flocks, and their swift-flying messengers flew here and there across the sky. Above the borders of the Forest there was whistling, crying and piping. Far over Mirkwood tidings spread: “Smaug is dead!" Leaves rustled and startled ears were lifted. Even before the Elvenking rode forth the news had passed west right to the pinewoods of the Misty Mountains; Beorn had heard it in his wooden house, and the goblins were at council in their caves.”
- The Hobbit, 'Fire and Water'
It should be noted that this tale is set in the 2983rd year of the Third Age, when Legelion was but eighteen years of age; also that these anecdotes are not in strict chronological order
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