User blog:Faenor of the Silver Laurel/The Second Tale

Another story fragment, set during the late Third Age, before the War of the Ring and after the events of The Hobbit. Enjoy reading as much as I had writing.

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Faenor took a deep breath, the cool air traveling to his lungs. It was cold, but that didn't bother the ancient Sinda. He had had an eon to develop a resistance, after all. And of course, his heart lay with the snow and ice. No, what bothered him was why this Orc-patrol had come this far north, past the sentries of the realm of Thranduil. Northern Mirkwood was no place for Yrch or Eldar, but both were there anyway.

He crouched down, his grey-cloaked form hidden among the russet reds and golds of the autumn leaves around him. Around thirty orcs passed him by, snarls and curses mixed with the sound of lashes from the drivers.

"Move, you lot! The master wants us in the mountains by tomorrow!" he heard their leader snarl at the others.

You won't reach the mountains, thought Faenor. He slipped through the branches, his soft-soled boots making the lightest of sounds on the wood beneath his feet. His flexible leather armor, a gift from the Wood-elves to the southeast, enabled him to twist and turn among the gnarled branches of the massive oaks and beeches below him.

Ahead, Faenor knew, was a homestead belonging to one of the Woods-men. If the orcs found it, they would tear it apart and kill every living thing. He quietly slipped an arrow from the quiver on his back, laying it on Rhîwrûth's string. He took careful aim, knowing that he would only have the element of surprise for a few moments.

--

The orcs were sniffing about, tracking an unfamiliar scent, when the first arrow was released. It took one through the neck, blackened blood flowing from the wound. A hail of shafts followed it, killing every which way. There were so many arrows flying that some of the confused yrch thought that they had been surrounded by an entire company of Wood-elves.

One of them looked up, just in time to get a boot to the face. With a flying leap Faenor had jumped from the branches he had been running on, and was now in the centre of the now very angry orcs. He reached for the quiver on his back, only to find it empty. So he switched to his other quiver, clipped to his belt. He leapt forwards, firing off a shot to take an Orc through the chest while avoiding another's scimitar.

With the speed that only an Elf could muster he swung Rhîwrûth around, catching one orc's neck with the 'S' curve of his bow and swinging it onto another's sword. He drew an Elven dagger, using his bow's curve to pull one yrch forwards and then cutting the foul thing's throat, only to twist around and cut down another one, slicing from forehead to chin.

With a wordless cry Faenor stabbed another Orc, this time his dagger cutting clean through and hacking the yrch's head off. Another came at him, halberd raised. Faenor twisted to one side, avoiding the falling axehead, and grabbed it and swung it around, spinning the blade back into the orc that was holding it. Another came at him, sword raised, alongside another halberdier. Faenor grabbed the swords-orc's arm and twisted it backwards painfully, blocking the descending edge of the halberd with the Orcish blade. He then kicked the other Orc away and stabbed the Orc he had been holding with his own weapon, blood spurting out around the sword wound.

By this point nearly all the orcs were dead. What few remained were fleeing, while some had packed together in a tight clump. The captain was there, cursing and shoving his men forwards. Faenor sheathed his dagger and drew Ringil. The orcs quailed at the sight of the ancient Elven blade, and cursed him as he spun through them, cutting them down like chaff in the wind.

The remaining holdouts dead, Faenor now turned to the survivors. Some ten orcs were fleeing away south, back the way they had come. With a grim smile Faenor leapt into the wide branches, running light-footed through the reddish-gold boughs of autumn. Swift were his feet in seeking a sure path as he came up upon the first fleeing. Following the twisted path that the branch took him along, Faenor leapt from the branch to a lower one, twisting to face the way he had just come and shooting the Orc through the eye.

Faenor then turned to the others. They were following a dry creek bed now, and so it was easy to make them out. The embankments were too steep to climb out of in a hurry, Faenor noted. He calmly nocked an arrow.