TITLE: Tindomerel’s Bane 
AUTHOR: Elfwine 
RATING: R 
FEEDBACK: Drop me a line at ElCeeJay16@aol.com and leave a 
nice, juicy review for the plotbunnies. You will be 
rewarded with...five minutes in a dark room with Legolas. I 
have the power, hehehe. 
A/N: This chapter contains graphic depictions of a deer 
hunt. Although this was a practise that the Wood-elves of 
Mirkwood regularly engaged in (see ‘The Hobbit’), if you 
think you might find the idea of it at all distressing, 
please read no further. 
Elvish translations will be in parenthesis at the bottom of 
the page.  
Chapter 5 
* * * 
The herd had long grown accustomed to this area of the 
forest. Within the shade of dark fir they would oft come to 
graze, feasting upon the drifts of damp, succulent 
vegetation that grew in ample patches of moss, and grass, 
and sedge, hidden amidst the depths of the trees where no 
sound rent the tranquil canopy of the woodland. Here the 
air hung in a warm mist, sweet with the decay of bark and 
the musky scent of budding fungi. The cathedral heights of 
the trees bore ever upwards, the boles forming coarse dark 
pillars above the carpet of grass. The forest was primeval, 
born of the earliest ages of the world, sprung out of nut 
and seed from the infantile breath of Arda. 
The herd's leader, a mighty and beautiful stag, was several 
years into his maturity, broad at the withers, slender 
across the sinewy slope of his back. His tawny pelt was 
covered with an undercoat of dense soft fur, sweeping up 
into the ebon swathe of fleecy mane that matted his neck. 
The fur was mottled across the haunches, dappled in 
intermittent blemishes of roan and sable. His head seemed 
small in proportion to the rest of his body, the 
intelligent, wary, glassy eyes glinting whenever a sunray 
piercing the dense roof of the forest caught against the 
dark surfaces. His downy palmate antlers originated close 
together, curving sharply outward, upward, then inward, 
eventually culminating in six keen and exquisitely 
dangerous points a good five feet above the stag's head. By 
his side there grazed three younger animals, a hind and her 
fawns as ivory pale as the hart was dark.  
What a prize he would make! The archer shifted his weight 
imperceptibly, leaning forward on his left knee, his elbow 
rested upon the right. His bow was bent, one gleaming arrow 
shrewdly notched, the string taut between thumb and 
forefinger. Long, strong fingers coiled about the wooden 
shaft of the arrow, the plated tip fading from deepest 
green to the colour of wet sand, sleek and willowy and 
utterly lethal. The skilled hands which wrought the Elven-
spun bow had not crafted it for the show of loveliness; 
indeed it was so, but the flexible wood curved from tip to 
tip, strong as the backbone of a dragon. One swift release, 
one arrow loosed, and the head would pierce the stag's left 
eye, straight into the brain. A fatal and entirely painless 
blow. The beast would not even have time to acknowledge the 
fleeing shapes of his comrades before death took him. This 
young buck was dangerous; not merely a proud symbol of 
status and grandeur, the antlers were effective weapons, 
able to tear through flesh and muscle in a fierce, well-
aimed toss of the head, crushing bones and rupturing 
arteries. Best to take him out with a single arrow, before 
the stag had any notion of flight or battle. Not the fall 
of a leaf disturbed the tranquil scene before him, still as 
a painted image; the archer did not breathe.  
Glancing sideways, the archer noted his eldest brother, 
poised like an athlete fine-tuned for the game. His bow was 
also readied, although the string was slack. The archer wet 
his dry lips and turned back to the herd. They had not made 
all the preparations in order to rush now. He knew the 
circumstances they and the rest of the hunting party were 
looking for, and he would rather return the next day than 
risk their chance for success. It was autumn; the deer 
would soon be migrating north. They had very little time to 
waste. 
Within the clearing, a doe lifted her glossy head, her eyes 
white-rimmed with anxiety. Moist nostrils flared as she 
tasted the air, tensely alert for the first scent of a 
predator. A downy ear twitched. The doe blinked. 
Then she lowered her head, returning to her idle feasting 
on the wet colonies of flora.  
"The wind is from the east," Thalion murmured, lowering his 
voice to the elvish pitch that could be perceived by mortal 
ears as no more than a whisper in the grasses. "We must 
make haste afore it changes direction and betrays us." 
The archer ran his hand along the length of the bowstring, 
plucking it between two fingers, pulling it taut then 
allowing it to spring free. The string coiled, spiralling, 
dangerously fast.  
"It will not be long," he said to his brother. "They are 
uneasy." 
"You know why we wait, Legolas," answered Thalion, looking 
at the Elf for the first time. "I will not risk the safety 
of those who I am responsible for. There has already been 
blood of our kin spilt under these trees this year." 
"That is so," said Legolas. "Although the danger here is 
notably less." 
At that moment, Thalion raised his hand, issuing for quiet. 
Legolas felt the sharp tug of adrenaline within his breast. 
A young doe, attracted by a fresh cluster of greenery, was 
near the periphery of the group of deer, and edging further 
out. For an instant she stood alone, a solitary animal away 
from the protection of the herd. It was the moment Thalion 
had been waiting for. Lifting his head he gave a long 
whistle, clear and piercing as the note of a bird, rising 
and falling on the still, humid air. 
A shrill, lingering echo. The heads of the deer snapped up, 
all at once a tandem of thoughts playing frantically 
through dull minds fogged by panic -- foes, fear, blood, 
death. Flee. The moment they sensed danger, the herd 
instinctively closed in. Two hunters leapt from the trees 
opposite where Legolas and Thalion were hiding. Three more 
came from the side. An arrow was loosed, splitting the air 
with its high, keen note. There were now two Elves between 
the doe and the rest of the herd.  
The sudden affray had turned the peacefully grazing animals 
into a state of wild, belling confusion. The doe turned 
towards the herd, but it was too late. She sirened for 
help, but the archers had converged on the milling deer. An 
arrow struck her shoulder. A bloom of scarlet stained her 
fair white coat. She stumbled. 
Legolas sprang up and caught a branch that grew from the 
trunk of the tree high above his head, swinging and 
dropping lightly to the ground. An arrow was at once 
notched and he let it fly with a pealing hum of the string. 
When he looked, the arrow, still quivering, was lodged in a 
young hart's throat; the animal was dead before it fell. 
He turned on his heel, blood singing in his ears. Thalion 
was ahead of him, his bow coiled and snapping as he sent a 
stream of blurring arrows into the frantically jostling 
herd. The animals had scattered, hooves clashing, legs 
tangling. Legolas' hand went to his quiver as he ran, 
grasping the soft fletch of an arrow, pulling it free and 
shooting it into the air. He loved the hum of the bow, the 
whirring string sharp against his fingertips. He was the 
bow, he was the arrow; he was the deadly point breaking 
free of the string, arching, dropping through the air 
before finally aligning, setting the target, finding its 
mark buried deep in warm flesh. This was a different kind 
of bloodlust; deep, raw, ancient, a joy in the hunt, a 
rapture in the hot, dark liquid that sprayed in stark 
droplets across the beasts' tawny coats. He could taste the 
metallic tang in his throat, the mingled scent of moss and 
blood and fear filling his nostrils. The bows of the forest 
once known as Greenwood the Great sang, and all around the 
woodland was alive and throbbing in impassioned, heady 
response. 
His bow snapped again, the arrow teeming through the air to 
an unknown mark. Legolas paused mid-stride, balancing on 
the balls of his feet, calm, sharp eyes assessing the 
tumult around him. He could no longer see Thalion, nor his 
two other brothers for that matter. The elf-hunters were 
barely visible, moving with curious flickers of green and 
brown through the trees in pursuit of the fleeing deer-
herd. Legolas' mind coolly sifted through his options. He 
could double-back deliberately and head the deer off at the 
Forest River, driving them back into the path of the 
hunting party; or he could continue towards the Long Lake 
and hope to pick off any straggling members of the herd, 
either the very young or old, or any animals wounded in the 
chase. His breath slowed to a steady rhythm and the sweat 
cooled against his skin, the open collar of his tunic 
falling away from his warm neck. There was nothing else for 
it; he would act quickly, head for the River and meet the 
herd straight on. 
Adjusting the quiver on his back, the Elf turned away from 
the distant calling of his comrades and started into the 
trees. Yet even as his pace quickened, a movement beheld 
out of the corner of his eye drew his attention. 
The Stag. 
The mighty animal stood alone, utterly proud and defiant in 
the pale sunlight that dappled and sparkled about him. If 
this was prey then the Stag was a superior example of a 
breed regarded weak, tall, powerful, his coat sleek with 
youthful health and vigour from inky torso to sand-dusted 
jaw. For an instant, the image of the beast came into sharp 
focus, every hair defined, every muscle rippling, every 
sinew made clear. Legolas' breath stopped. 
A moment of acknowledgement passed between the Elf and the 
Stag. The air crackled, seething with tension, and Legolas 
felt a pulsing thrill that enveloped his entire body. He 
noted the subtle change in the buck's stance, the near-
imperceptible flexing of a leg muscle. In a blur of deadly 
horns, the Stag's head whipped around and with a bound he 
was moving, clearing the decaying trunk of a fallen tree in 
a single leap. With an unspoken prayer to Varda, Legolas 
sprang after him. 
The Stag out-distanced him within seconds, but Legolas was 
fleet-footed, agile, and his own leaps were of equal 
length, his own sprint of identical swiftness. The buck 
wove and darted between the trees, and still the Elf ran, 
his light shoes making ne'er a print in the damp, tender 
grass. He felt the thrill rising in his breast, the joy 
piercing him, insinuating through his veins; he stretched 
himself out, squinting at the wind in his face, loping with 
the sinewy grace of his kind. At one point his stride 
matched that of the deer; they ran side-by-side, leaping, 
bounding, hunter and prey united in the silence, the only 
sound their own breath and the soft patter of the buck's 
hooves against the leaf-strewn ground.  
Ever onwards the two very different creatures ran, winding 
and darting, now over-taking one another, now equalling 
each other's pace. And with every passing moment the Sun 
was falling like an ember from the sky, into the unsullied 
fire that was the hem of the horizon. The heat of their 
bodies carried them on, though the air was bitter.  
Here the forest waned, the trees becoming larger and more 
scattered. The wind blew in raw, rasping gusts, smelling of 
rain and thunder and faraway storms. Legolas braced himself 
against the trunk of a downed tree, leaping from the 
vantage point and grasping an overhead limb; swinging in an 
arc and dropping lightly to the ground. A branch tore at 
his face, snapping his head back, and he felt the wetness 
of blood against his cheek.  
Up ahead, the swollen river pounded; one of the few water 
sources that cut through Northern Mirkwood, rising in the 
deeps of the Grey Mountains and threading like a wish into 
the lands beyond. The river, already high due to recent, 
tumultuous rainfall, had swelled to more than double from 
tributaries. The Elf heard a roar in the distance long 
before he saw the waterfall, cascading down the high bank 
at the confluence of a large stream with the main flood. 
The thundering sluice poured over the lip of the ridge in a 
foaming cloud of white water. It rushed into a pool worn 
out of the rock at the base of the fall, merging in a 
constant spray of mists and eddies where the conflicting 
currents of the rivers met. Too deep, too treacherous to 
cross, and as the Stag reached it he swerved, running 
towards the steep bank where a narrow defile in the stone 
arched upwards, blindly tapering into a rocky formation 
that rose sharply into a closed end. The hart saw the gap 
with its beckoning glimpse of escape and headed for it. For 
the first time his strength faltered. The Stag gathered 
himself for a leap over the high ridge of the bank, but his 
hooves skittered against the rock, knees buckling. He 
crashed downwards into the muddy shallows, belling his 
frustration. In an instant, Legolas was above him, 
breathing hard, sweat teeming into his eyes. He fitted his 
last arrow and took aim. The string spun. The arrow pierced 
the Stag's flank, wounding the animal, but not mortally. 
The great beast arched, wild-eyed, floundering in the mud. 
The slender haft of the white knife closed tightly in the 
palm of the Elf's hand. He gripped it fiercely, knowing 
that his own eyes were dark and blazing with determination. 
Hot resolve trickled through him. He leapt down beside the 
struggling animal, and in a swift, reckless gesture slashed 
the tendons in the Stag's right hind leg. The beast's 
strident cry of pain split the air. Instinctively he tried 
to attack, swinging the deadly rack of antlers in a 
powerful, angry toss of his head. Legolas ducked, slipping 
in the mud, feeling the cold whistle of air past his face 
as the Stag's blow missed -- barely. He struck out again 
with the bloodied knife and hamstrung the buck's left foot. 
The mighty Stag fell to his knees. 
Legolas turned the knife in his hand, holding the blade 
outwards, locking vertical with his wrist. The buck was 
thrashing in confusion and pain, and as the point of the 
knife bored into his neck, severing an artery, he lunged 
forward in a last valiant effort, impaling himself on the 
sharp blade. Legolas gripped the knife and thrust, putting 
all the force of his centuries of training behind it, 
driving it to the hilt.  
Brown glassy eyes met with his, and for a moment the Stag 
seemed to hold his gaze. The beast arched, almost rising up 
out of the mud, still defiant even as his lifeblood ran in 
dark rivulets down his coat, staining the dull water about 
him crimson. Then the magnificent Stag slumped downwards, 
his struggles at an end. His proud head fell forward, one 
antler broken. 
In the prevailing silence that followed, the exhausted Elf 
stood over the body of the fallen deer and thought of 
demise in the mud. Yet even as he sensed the lingering rise 
of the Stag's fea as it whispered and coiled away from the 
downed form of its tether, Legolas had no feelings of 
guilt. There was no imaginable end to the cycle of those 
that were hunted, and those that were born to pursue. It 
was a way of life. The Elf felt his heart begin to beat 
faster with a new kind of excitement. At that moment, knee-
deep in the shallows of an icy, autumnal river in the 
middle of a vast forest, somewhere between the undefined 
boundary of the desolate Northern Waste and the barren, 
arid steppes that lay to the south, Mirkwood's youngest 
child stood with the bloodied haft of a dagger in his hand 
and the downed body of a young stag at his feet -- and felt 
powerful. Alone, he could survive. Alone, he would survive. 
The sound of the river filtered back into his 
consciousness. Legolas bowed his head, quietly murmuring 
the words of the ancient death rite so infrequently uttered 
amongst his people. There would be no burial for this 
prince of the forest, but there would be a blessing. 
"Hiro hon hidh ab wannath."  
Above the cool, mingled speech of the river, he heard 
another voice, rising and falling in a name. 
"Legolas!" 
He had already scaled the bank, sheathing the knife and 
wiping hands covered with mud and blood on the wet grass. 
He was suddenly aware of a gaping rip in the sleeve of his 
tunic, of the smarting evidence of a scar on his face; and 
he felt foolishly self-conscious as his brother emerged 
from the trees, followed closely by remnants of the hunting 
party. All at once his triumph seemed to shrink in 
consequence, becoming the trivial endeavours of a child 
scorned by his elders. Did he look a state? 
"Toronya," Thalion rapped out as he approached. "We have 
been scouring the woods from a mile back. We thought you -- 
" His voice faltered as he caught sight of the fallen deer. 
A host of emotions -- shock, anger, awe -- played briefly 
across his smooth features.  
Legolas let his breath out sharply. "There is much, 
Brother," he said, allowing impatience to clip his words 
short, "that escapes your notice as captain." His heart 
jumped as Thalion looked up, grey eyes burning. 
"Indeed," the older Elf said, softly now. "It seems that 
children weave a strange game away from the watches of 
others." 
"I do not need your permission." 
"Aye, but that of our Elven-lord." Thalion stepped closer, 
brow furrowing, long fingers lightly touching the scratch 
on Legolas' face. The Elf turned away irritably. 
"It is fine." 
Thalion stood a moment, hand raised, searching his 
brother's face wonderingly. Then he turned and gave a brief 
signal. Two elf-hunters came forward and jumped down into 
the shallows to slit the buck's throat.  
Legolas watched them, feeling an irrational surge of anger 
-- or was it disappointment? He had promissed himself that 
he would not let them effect him thus. He had *promised*. 
And yet -- too late, too late. His prize was no longer his 
own, but a piece of meat handled by all and sundry, and he 
had not the courage to do aught but stand by and watch. 
Such a good little princeling, he silently mocked himself, 
feeling shame scorch his cheeks. 
As the body of the great Stag was heaved up the bank, 
Thalion slung his bow upon his back and looked 
questioningly at Legolas. "And now, pen-neth," he said with 
a slight smile. "Homeward. I am sure that our father will 
be anxious to hear the account of your adventure." 
Legolas met his eyes. "I would trouble him so," he snapped. 
"And let the matter lie thus between us?" replied Thalion. 
"I have yet to teach you gentle speech. There is much to be 
said ere the coming of dawn." 
And that is what I am afraid of, thought Legolas. 
* * * 
Hiro hon hidh ad wannath: May he find peace after death. 
Toronya: My brother. 
Pen-neth: Young one.