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"A dragon?"

Thranduil's blood turned to ice in his veins. Another roar came trumpeting over the Hills of Evendim, sending a shudder through the ranks of the Greenwood and Imladris. The sound seems to bolster Herumor's hoard though; the hundreds of goblins and orcs under the Black Númenórian-turned-Nazgûl gained in speed as they bore down upon them.

Then the beast itself came into view, winding along the spine of the hills like an enormous serpent. It was a creature both curious and fearsome, fully the length of a dozen horses laid nostril to tail and taller than a troll. The dull autumn light made it grey scales glint like a multitude of tiny war-shields. Even from afar Thranduil could see the smoke trailing from its leering mouth.

From atop his white horse, Glorfindel let out a hiss of distaste.

"A longworm, some foul spawn of Scatha by the look of it." Glorfindel said, reaching for the hilt of his sword. "The Grey Mountains north of here have long been plagued by The Great Worm and its filth."

"Not Scatha himself though?" Thranduil asked, careful not to let any fear creep into his voice.

Glorfindel shook his head. "No, this worm is a juvenile if the size is any indication. Do not take any ease though!" The elf lord said sharply, more to his troops than to Thranduil. "Young dragons can be just as bloodthirsty if not more than their mature cousins!"

"No need to be too reassuring." Grumbled Thranduil, drawing his own sword. The blade slid free of its sheath with a clear ring. "Baraniel." He spoke to the elf to his left. "Sound the charge, and signal Thenniel to take the shot now before the armies meet. Tell her not to antagonize the dragon until it gets close though, else wise it may turn its full attention on her and the archers before we can distract it with cold steel."

"Aran-nin." Baraniel nodded, then raised her horn to her lips. First she blew a series of staccato notes to signal Thenniel, followed by a long, pure call. Raising his sword above his head, Thranduil readied his army for the charge. The horn of Imladris sounded out and mingled with the call of the Greenwood. The two elvish war-horns filled the valley with music; an eerily beautiful herald of coming battle.

With Thranduil and Glorfindel at the head, the combined army surged forward to meet Herumor's forces. 'This is how the Last Alliance should have been.' Thranduil thought as they rode along the length of Lake Evendim. Elves fighting alongside elves, together as a cohesive unit instead of divided and uncoordinated. He wondered if Glorfindel had led the Noldor instead of Gil-Galad if perhaps things would have ended differently that day for himself and his father. Maybe Oropher and even Gil-Galad himself would have lived. Or then again maybe they all would have died, leaving Anthelísse without her brother or her future husband. 'Anthelísse... '

Then all thoughts were shattered and fell away as they came crashing against the tide of orcs.

The orcs fell by the dozens before them, their black blood soon wetting the ground and the blades of elvish swords. Elves have always been and will always be the superior to nearly every race on the field of battle by sheer virtue of their natural grace and dexterity. Only a handful of notable warriors of the races of humans or dwarves throughout history have ever been compared to the elves as their equals. Needless to say, the goblins and orcs posed little to no difficulty for the elf-knights of Imladris or the warriors of the Greenwood. They were not what Thranduil was worried about though...

As the orcs met the elves in battle, the dragon came loping across the hilltops towards them. A shower of arrows from Thenniel and her archers turned the worm aside from the main battle though. Thranduil shouted aloud with dismay, anger and some small measure of relief when he saw this. Thenniel had disobeyed his order to leave the dragon be until it was distracted by the battle. In doing so she had saved the elves on the field from the dragon's wrath...but had placed herself, Gurithon and the archers directly in the focus of its wrath.

There was nothing Thranduil could do for them now though. Turning away from the sudden burst of fire as the dragon reared toward the archers, he ducked an orc's crude sword. With superhuman reflexes Thranduil turned the duck into a rising stab, gutting the orc with one smooth motion. The creature blinked in shock before toppling backward. Thranduil met Glorfindel's eye between the whirlwind of battle and nodded fiercely. They may not have any particular love for one another, but the two elves could certainly appreciate a capable comrade in arms.

The dragon roared again, throwing more than one elf off their complex fighting forms. Thranduil risked a quick glance and narrowed his eyes in satisfaction. Someone had managed to put an arrow into one of the dragon's eyes, half-blinding it. A number of small figures could be seen scattering across the hilltop, diving for cover behind any available boulders to avoid the maddened dragon's fiery breath. Thranduil only hoped that Gurithon and Thenniel would find a way to either kill the dragon or get its attention away from themselves.

A trumpeting bellow on the battlefield itself demanded Thranduil forget the dragon for the time being though. The bulk of Herumor's small army may have been orcs and goblins, but as the elves killed their way past the front lines they were met by a number of bull mountain trolls. How the Nazgûl could command such dull-witted creatures Thranduil had no idea. The trolls swung enormous clubs in wide swaths as they lumbered forward, annihilating orcs, goblins and elves alike. The dexterity of the elves was somewhat lessened in effect compared to such sheer brutality.

"Alae!" (Look!") One of the elf-knights from Imladris cried out, pointing with his long spear past the trolls.

At the rear of the orc army, surrounded by what Thranduil could now see was a vanguard of trolls, the servant of darkness who had once called himself Herumor rode on a night-black warg. The Nazgûl carried a long double-ended glaive, a lethal weapon which he whirled overhead with an ominous whizzing sound. Seemingly unconcerned that his army was being for the most part decimated by the elves, Herumor spurred his dark warg mount forward.

Another roar from the dragon echoed throughout the valley, and Thranduil was torn. Two very deadly foes were confronting them at once; the dragon on the hilltop and the Nazgûl with his troll minions. If they did not deal with Herumor and his foul creatures now, they would find themselves trapped between one Nazgûl and another with the expected retreat of Angmar from the west.

"Thranduil!" Glorfindel emerged from the fray, his sword dripping black orc blood. The golden elf lord looked both fierce and resplendent, as if he had been reborn for this single purpose of fighting evil. Glorfindel's horse waded through the battle, it's white mane streaking in the breeze and its nostrils flared almost as ferociously as its rider's.

"Glorfindel." Thranduil took advantage of the brief calm in the eye of the storm to point with his sword at Herumor. "Will he die like a mortal if we strike him down?"

Glorfindel shook his head. "No, he will not. He will flee though, especially if he thinks he has lost the upper hand..." The Noldo looked at Thranduil pointedly, then at the hilltop where the dragon was terrorizing Thenniel and her archers.

Thranduil caught the meaning and grinned darkly. "Even a Nazgûl cannot stand on only one leg." He tightened his grip on the hilt of his sword. "You will be able to hold off Herumor in the meantime?"

"Count on it." Glorfindel assured Thranduil. His golden hair rippled like a pennant behind him, and the elf lord caught Thranduil's wrist in a grim clasp as he turned to leave. "Good luck Oropherion, and be careful. It does not do to trifle with a dragon."

"Be careful yourself, Goldenflower." Thranduil said. Then, steeling himself, he raised his voice and called to his army.

"The orcs have fallen, leave the trolls to the Knights of the Valley. We must help our archers, and send that dragon back into whatever foul hole it crawled out from!"

The rallying cry from the Greenwood army was somewhat less than enthusiastic; nobody wanted to fight a dragon up close. They followed Thranduil though when he led the charge up the side of the valley toward where the dragon had Thenniel, Gurithon and their archers pinned down.

The dragon reared up from where it had been trying to dig cornered elves out from beneath a rocky overhang. It peeled its horrible maw back from rows of needle-sharp teeth with a leering grin. Thranduil's heart gave a painful clench of fear in his chest, but he did not shy away.

"Back, back darkspawn!" He shouted, charging at the dragon directly. Gathering his legs beneath himself on his horse's back, the elf king sprang. For a moment he traced a graceful arc through the air. Then he landed blade-first on the dragon's side, driving his sword into the juncture beneath its wing.

The dragon let out a howl of pure rage. A number of arrows showered its head now that the archers were no longer pinned down, several of them lodging around its face and nostrils. Thranduil spotted Gurithon emerging from behind a boulder and felt a moment's relief. Then the dragon gave an almighty shake and Thranduil lost his grip on the hilt of his sword.

It was not a far fall to the ground, but hitting the ground knocked the air out of Thranduil's lungs all the same. Briefly winded, he struggled to get his numb legs to move as the dragon reared up and sucked in a breath.

"Thranduil!"

Thranduil didn't know who it was that shouted his name, but he clearly heard the panic in their voice. Acting on instinct, he lifted his arm and tried to shield himself with his cloak. An arrow whistled out from overhead and caught the dragon in the nose just as it opened its maw and let out a fiery blast.

That single little arrow saved Thranduil's life. It threw the dragon off just enough that the longworm's fire did not completely envelope him in an inferno. Instead the dragon's head cocked involuntarily to one side, sending a gout of white-hot death raging only inches past the elf king.

A dragon's breath is one of the hottest elements known in all of existence, even over the fires of a dwarven forge. Thranduil could see nothing but white, and his eyes stung as if they had been stabbed out. He tried to squeeze his eyelids shut but his entire face felt numb. Then the fire ended, and so did the numbness.

In its place was a pain such as Thranduil had never known before in all the thousands of years of his long life. His face felt like it was on fire, the skin burning and every nerve screaming in agony. Dimly he was aware that he was thrashing on the ground, and a roaring filled his ears. Was it the dragon, or the maddened pulse of his own heart? He wanted to die, he wanted to live, he wanted only for this unimaginable pain to end. Any torment in the world could not have been more unendurable than this. Thranduil felt he would go mad if he had to exist even for another second in this tortured state.

Something touched him, and the agony that brought nearly broke Thranduil. He was dimly aware of his own agonized screaming, and the shouts of other around him. Then strong, sure fingers pinched a nerve in his neck, and all went mercifully black.

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