In the forests of Minhiriath, the moonlight was sliced into slivers of silver by layer upon layer of leaves, falling in broken fragments across dead foliage soaked in black blood.
Legolas leaned against the trunk of an oak, breathing hard.
His silver robe had been torn open by a Haradrim spear. Though the wound had been bound with Elven herbs, fresh blood still seeped through, staining the bracer that bore the crest of the Woodland Realm.
"Prince Legolas, we've less than fifty arrows left."
A Sindar warrior of Doriath came over, handing him half a bag of rock-hard bread. His tone was low and grim.
"The western defense line has been broken. We've lost contact with King Elurin. The battle's turning against us."
Legolas took a drink of water, bit into the bread, and the jagged crumbs scraped his raw throat like sand.
He didn't answer immediately.
Instead, he lifted his head, gazing up through the gaps in the foliage at the sky full of stars.
He was thinking.
Ever since the defeat at Lond Daer Port, they'd been forced to retreat into the forests of Minhiriath.
Seventy thousand Haradrim had poured into the woods like a swarm of locusts.
Those men from the far southern lands of Harad had deep brown skin, their faces painted with red and white symbols of dark worship—
Half man, half beast in their savagery.
When they went to war, they liked to blow bone-flutes, charging to that strange, shrill tune. The eerie melody sent horses rearing and gnawed at Elven minds like a worm.
The warriors of Doriath were elite, but they numbered few, and they still had to leave troops to guard the capital where the Sacred Tree stood.
Elurin and Legolas had begun with fifty thousand Elves, harrying and skirmishing with the enemy among the trees.
Until the day they were encircled.
They'd punched a bloody gap and broken out, but the army was split in two.
After three days of brutal fighting on the edge of the forest, Legolas now had barely three thousand warriors at his side, pressed back into this long, narrow stretch of woodland that locals called the Whispering Vale.
Looking at these kin of his….heads bowed, shoulders sagging—
Legolas drew in a long breath and pushed himself upright.
The prince of the Woodland Realm spoke, voice clear despite his fatigue:
"We are of one race, of one people. Many of you share my ancestry… but not my birthplace."
He looked around at them.
"You were born in Aman—
On that land without war, without death."
"I have never seen its beauty," he continued quietly. "Never heard the blissful songs of the Valar.
"I was born in the deep woods. From the day I came of age, my life has been battle in the dark. I have fought for centuries now."
He swept his gaze over the weary warriors.
"When you left the Blessed Realm and came here as Elves of the Light, and first witnessed the darkness of this land…
"You must have felt disappointment.
"Compared to Aman, Middle-earth is full of war and death."
He paused, then smiled faintly.
"But listen to me.
"Only in the darkest places can the purest, brightest lights be born.
"Just like those stars." He raised a hand toward the sky. "In the day you cannot see them at all, but when night comes, they fill the heavens."
"The Valar in Aman are like the sun, sweeping away all shadow.
"And we who fight in darkness…"
His voice grew stronger, carrying through the whispering trees.
"…we are like those stars."
"We burn our courage as fuel, stand face to face with the dark, and light it up.
"So that in the darkness, there is not only darkness….
But also countless unyielding souls, shining like starlight."
"Because we are the Children of the Stars!"
"We are the Eldar!"
"We are the Teleri!"
Legolas, prince of the Woodland Realm, let his words crash like a wave through the ranks.
The heavy gloom that had settled on his kinsmen's hearts was shaken loose.
One by one, Elves wiped the blood from their faces. Hands that had drooped now tightened around bow and blade.
Legolas nodded once.
"Those who can fight. Those who dare fight. Those who do not fear death, come with me."
"We're going to destroy the Haradrim's catapults.
"If they lose those, they won't be able to bombard the capital."
All three thousand Elves straightened, eyes burning, and fell silently in behind him.
Their robes were caked with mud, their hair knotted and tangled, but their backs were straight as spear-shafts.
Sindar and Falmari were branches of the same ancient group of Elves, The Teleri.
In their bones, the same unyielding blood flowed.
Even knowing this might be their last stand, they would use their final breath to kindle a spark in the dark.
…..
The Haradrim camp lay at the mouth of the Whispering Vale, its bonfires like a field of red eyes blinking in the night.
A dozen catapults were set up on the outermost line.
Huge stone boulders wrapped in oil-soaked cloth waited in their slings. Bare-chested brutes sloshed more pitch from goatskin bags, laughing and shouting in a harsh tongue.
These were the engines they meant to use to batter down Doriath's capital.
Legolas led his three thousand warriors silently forward.
He signaled for the Elves to lie low behind the scrub. Then, like a hunting cat, he climbed the trunk of an ancient tree.
His silver boots made no sound on the branches. The shadow of the leaves masked his form perfectly.
Only when he reached the crown, thirty meters above the ground, did he stop. From here, the entire enemy camp was spread out beneath him.
Around the catapults, five hundred Haradrim stood guard. Their waists bristled with curved blades, long spears gripped in their hands, eyes trained warily on the tree line.
Further in, from the tents came shouts and rough laughter, the noise of drunken men.
Here and there, Legolas could see corsairs mixed among the Southrons, dressed in the familiar rags of Umbar's raiders.
So, some of the forces left behind at the port had joined them.
"We have to get rid of those guards first," Legolas thought.
He gestured down to the warriors below, fingers flicking toward the densest cluster of sentries on the left wing.
Twenty Sindar archers understood at once.
They drew their last remaining silver arrows from their quivers, set them to string, and drew back.
Legolas drew a breath.
Standing balanced on the swaying bough, he pulled his own bow into a full moon—
But his aim was not at any of the guards.
His gaze fixed instead on the stone boulders slick with oil in the nearest catapult's sling.
"Loose!"
Legolas, the prince of the Woodland Realm, A warrior of many battles, who was there when Sauron was driven from the once accursed Dol Guldur, was fighting with his very life at stake.
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