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“My Lord?” Osgar skidded to a halt behind Legolas.
“My Lord, what is it?”
The elf had closed his eyes, and he bowed his head, frowning
with concentration. “Eowyn has disappeared,” he murmured.
“I can no longer feel her. Something… Something has—oh!”
A strange sensation had begun teasing his loins and, trembling
at its power, he suddenly arched his back, and stretched out his
arms, letting it flood into his thighs and spread into his belly,
heating up his innards—
Rock hard, he threw back his head, and howled into the rain.
“My Lord!” Osgar leaped back, drawing his sword.
“Not yet,” snarled Legolas—raising a still-commanding
hand.
An answering roar echoed through the Forest.
“There,” he growled. “It has her! It has
Eowyn! Let me save her. Then deal with me however you must.”
…
The exchange of demonic howls brought Gimli back to his senses.
We are surrounded!
He peered through the downpour, quickly locating his men—All
present—and, shouldering his axe, took a deep breath,
preparing to bellow the command to regroup—
Somewhere up ahead, Eowyn shouted, triumphantly, “Look—silver.
Our weapons are tipped with silver! And if I do not kill
you, Lassui will! With silver! Yaaaaah!”
The dwarf’s eyes met Haldir’s.
The pair charged.
…
As he raced across the Forest floor, Legolas grimly resisted
the urge to drop to all fours. His skin was tingling and his body
felt stange—his limbs powerful; his chest deep; his phallus
long; his testicles big and brimming.
This, he realised, is what the gaur wants.
Two wolves, fighting for one mate.
And if I lose, both she and I will be its playthings…
He snarled—and saw that Osgar, assuming the worst, was reaching
for his sword.
“Not yet!” he growled. “Wait!”
The gaur is hiding Eowyn from me—he rubbed his forehead,
and ran his hand over his wet hair—it is clouding my mind,
or clouding hers, but its own anger is shining bright,
giving it away, because—
“She has injured it,” he cried. “She has
stood up to it, and humiliated it, and—oh, Valar—how
it hates her! Come, Osgar! Run! Eowyn needs us!”
…
Gimli jumped down between the roots of the great mallorn, and
peered around in the gloom. “Where is she?”
The March Warden said nothing; he reached out, detached something
from the tree bark, and held it out for the dwarf to see.
“Elven cloth,” said Gimli. “From her leggings,
by the looks…” He took the tiny fragment in his gloved
fingers and, shielding it from the rain, examined it carefully.
“No sign of blood,” he concluded, hopefully.
The elf, meanwhile, had crouched down in the shelter of the tree,
and was searching for tracks. “It had her captive here,”
he said. “She was moving about—struggling—but
her footprints do not lead anywhere.” He looked upwards.
There were no stairs close by; the nearest flets were high in
the trees. “It is as though she and the gaur both vanished
into thin air…”
“Well, they cannot have gone far,” said Gimli, practically.
“Not in the few moments since we heard her voice.”
He climbed out of the hollow with a grunt. “And she did
not sound like a helpless victim to me,”—he batted
the dripping undergrowth with the flat of his axe—“that
lassie is a warrior,”—he suddenly remembered where he
was, offered a silent apology to the Lady, and continued his search
more carefully. “Wait a minute! Look! Under here!”
He leaned down, pushing the leaves aside with his arm. “She
got away!”
Haldir sprang out of the hollow and came up beside him. “She
was running,” he agreed, “and the gaur leaped after
her—here is where it landed.” He turned to the dwarf.
“Its footprints lie on top of hers, Gimli. It is chasing
her as a wolf chases its prey!”
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