A Face in the Crowd: Legolas

Chapter Two - Many Partings

Three days riding had brought the group to Isengard, slower than planned, for folk were inclined to linger in the warm weather. Only Keren and Legolas looked solemn, for the others had many more days together on the road. They had ridden on Arod, Keren either before or behind him, and she had wondered what their fellow travellers thought of their closeness.

She now sat basking in the sun, an apple in one hand and her water-skin in the other, looking down on fruit trees and fine green lawns, leading down to a clear lake in the centre of the valley. She had a fine view of the giant tower of Orthanc and its reflection in the still surface of the water. Legolas sat quietly beside her with a smile, as he viewed the wondrous changes the ents had brought to the valley. The trees and grass were a new addition, he explained to Keren – for many years it had been the wizard Saruman's domain, and all had been turned to chimneys and pits.

"Now it's as green as the Shire again," Merry added, with a touch of melancholy. "Or as green as I remember it being."

"It will still be green when we get back," Pippin said, "or I'm an ent."

"What is an ent?" Keren asked.

But Pippin had just tapped the side of his nose.

"You'll know them when you see them," Legolas said.

"And I can't wait to see all your faces when you do!" Pippin exclaimed to Keren, and to Frodo and Sam, who had all thus far passed an entirely ent-free existence. But they had all been sat under the trees marking the entrance to the valley for a very long while by the time Keren saw the new owners of Isengard for the first time.

A strange booming noise began, and heavy thuds that made the ground beneath them shake. Keren stared in wonder at the sight of two figures appearing from between the trees walking towards her, and then gasped aloud when she realised the hoom-hom sound was coming from one of them.

"Are ents... trees?" she whispered to Pippin. "Walking, talking trees?"

But Merry and Pippin had gone, and were running towards the trees with great shouts of joy.

"They are not trees, though your eyes tell you otherwise," came Legolas's reply instead. "They are the shepherds of the forests, the oldest beings in the land, and some of the rarest."

With every step Keren watched in amazement as roots instead of toes sunk into the ground, and dull creaks sounded as their arms like giant branches swayed with their strides, Merry and Pippin now trotting along at their heels.

"The tall, grey one is Bregalad," Legolas said, "and the other is Fangorn, their leader. You would call them Quickbeam and Treebeard in your tongue. Fangorn has a forest named for him, and it is there I travel to when we leave this place."

The ents bent low to converse quietly with Mithrandir and the King. They had a strange way of speaking, like a pair of bellows blowing in and out, with strange humming and booming noises dotted amongst both unfamiliar and recognisable words. Keren could not follow the hushed conversation. After a time Treebeard straightened himself up with a creak and a groan. Suddenly his voice grew loud and jovial, and he addressed everyone.

"But I am forgetting my manners! Will you stay here and rest a while? And maybe there are some that would be pleased to pass through Fangorn Forest and so shorten their road home?"

The bark on his face bent into shapes that looked like they might be a smile and a crinkling around the eyes, as he addressed Celeborn and Galadriel. Keren's heart rose, for that route meant travelling beside Legolas for a while longer, but her hopes were quickly dashed by the Lord Celeborn's answer.