Building Ithilien [Legolas] LOTR

Hope, Always

In the previous chapters, Legolas had suffered some serious orc interrogation and all the benefits. He was beaten, cut up, and basically demoralized. Now, rescued by his friend Eledhel and fixed up by Aragorn's kingly healing ability, he suffers the memory and indignity of it all, along with the next big question- what should he do next? There's a battle that must be waged and a dragon to be fought. How will the faithful band of friends (+Aragorn's army) defeat Anglachur the Black and his army of orcs?

Shadows lengthened around the camp as the moon waned, and Eledhel and Aragorn had been planning for many hours their strategy to take back Calenfen from the dragon and its host of orcs.

The king and elf had decided that it would be best if Aragorn's riders could assault and break through the front lines first. Speed was essential. If they were to have any hope of victory, they needed to eliminate the dragon quickly, and the sooner, the better.

"The question is, how?" Eledhel asked Aragorn. "I have seen this beast. He is as cunning as he is strong. He will anticipate our moves, and it will not be a question of if he takes flight to swoop down upon your men, but when. And when he does, he will make short work of laying waste to all of Gondor's forces."

Eledhel's grim painting of the battle shredded what was left of Aragorn's hope; he knew that the elf was prone neither to exaggeration nor pessimism. His gift was for seeing things as they were, and the king knew that their battle would be as difficult as Eledhel had described.

There was one minor detail, a tiny shred that kept the king from despair—Legolas' arrows. Aragorn explained to Eledhel about Legolas' theory that Miredhel had used one of Galadriel's enchanted arrows that the prince had won as a prize in the archery contest on the dragon Anglachur.

"There is some kind of wizardry worked upon them, Eledhel," Aragorn concluded. "These arrows can break the strongest armor, including dragons' scales."

"If what you say is true, then we could lure the dragon away from the main battle, pull him out onto the open fields where we have our best archers waiting. This plan could actually work," surmised Eledhel, and for the first time that night he truly smiled.