"What'd ye know?" he asked Tarathiel, but the elf was deep in thought and did not reply.
Ivan rushed across to Pikel and asked, "What'd ye know?"
Pikel crinkled his face and pinched his nose.
"Ores?" Ivan cried.
"Yup yup."
In a single movement, Ivan pulled the axe from his back and turned, feet set wide apart in solid balance, axe at the ready before him, eyes narrowed and scouring every shadow.
"Well, bring 'em on, then. I'm up for a bit o' chopping afore another long and boring road!"
"I sense them, too," Innovindil said a moment later.
"Dere," Pikel added, pointing to the north.
The two elves followed his finger, then looked back at him, nodding.
"Our borders have seen orc incursions of late," Innovindil explained. "This one, as the others, will be repelled. Trouble yourselves not with these creatures. Your road is to the west and the south, and there you should go and quickly. We will see to the beasts that dare stain the Moonwood."
"Uh-uh," Pikel disagreed, crossing his burly, hairy arms over his chest.
"Bah!" Ivan snorted. "Ye're not for throwin' us out afore the fun begins! Ye call yerselfs proper hosts and ye're thinking o' chasin' us off with orcs needin' killing?"
The two elves looked to each other, honestly surprised.
"Yeah, I know, and no, I'm not liking ye," Ivan explained, "but I'm hatin' yer enemies, so that's a good thing. Now, are ye to make a friend of a dwarf and let him chop an orc or fifty? Or are ye to chase us off and hope we're remembering the words ye asked us to deliver to King Bruenor?"
Still the elves exchanged questioning glances, and Innovindil gave a slight shrug, leaving the decision to Tarathiel alone.
"Come along, then," the elf said to the brothers. "Let us see what we can learn before rousing my people against the threat. And do try to be quiet."
"Bah, if we're too quiet, might be that the orcs'll just wander away, and what good's that?"
They moved a short distance before Tarathiel motioned for them to stop and bade them to wait. He climbed onto the pegasus, found a run for Sunset, and lifted into the air, rising carefully in the close quarters, up and out to the north.
He returned almost immediately, setting down before the three, motioning for them to hold silent and to follow him. Up to the north a short distance, the elf led them to the top of a ridge. From that vantage point, Ivan saw that the mystical tree-attuned senses of his companions had not led them astray.
There, in a clearing of their own making, was a band of orcs. It was a dozen at least, perhaps as many as a score, weaving in and out of the shadows of the trees. They carried large axes, perfect for chopping the tall trees, and more importantly (and explaining why Tarathiel had been so quick to return with Sunset) and more atypically, they also each had a long, strong bow.
"I saw them from afar," Tarathiel explained quietly to the other three as they crouched at the ridge top. "I do not believe that they spotted me."
"We must get word to the clan," Innovindil said.
Tarathiel looked around doubtfully. They had been traveling for a couple of days. While he realized that his people would move much more quickly with such dire news as orc intruders, and without having a pair of dwarves slowing them down, he didn't think that they would get there in time to catch the orcs in the Moonwood.
"They must not escape," the elf said grimly, thoughts of the last band retreating into the mountains still fresh in his mind.
"Then let's kill 'em, 7 Ivan replied.
"Three to one," Innovindil remarked. "Perhaps five to one."
"It'll be quick, then," Ivan replied.
He took up his heavy axe. Beside him, Pikel fished his cooking pot out of his sack, plopped it on his head, and agreed, "Oo oi!"
The elves looked to each other with obvious confusion and surprise.
"Oo oi!" Pikel repeated.
Tarathiel looked at Innovindil for his answer.
"It has been a long time since I have had a good fight," she said with a wry grin.
"Only a dozen—ye'll have longer to wait for any real fight," Ivan said dryly, but the elves didn't seem to pay his remark much heed.
Tarathiel looked over at Ivan and asked, "Where will you fit in?"
"In the middle o' them, I'm hoping," the dwarf answered, pointing toward the distant orcs. "And I'm thinking me axe'll be fitting in real well between them orcs' eyeballs."
That seemed simple enough, and so Tarathiel and Innovindil looked to Pikel, who merely chuckled, "Hee hee hee."
"Don't ye be frettin' about me brother," Ivan explained. "He'll find a way to do his part. I'm not knowin how — I'm usually not knowin' how even after the fightin's over—but he does, and he will."
"Good enough, then," said Tarathiel. "Let us find the best vantage point for launching our strike.”
He moved to Sunset and whispered something into the pegasus's ear, then started away while Sunset walked off in another direction. Innovindil went next, moving as silently as her elf partner. Then came Ivan and Pikel, crunching away on every dry leaf and dead stick.
"Vantage point," Ivan huffed to his brother. "Just walk in, say yer howdies, and start killing!"
"Hee hee hee," said Pikel.
Innovindil also wore a smile at that remark, but it was one edged with a bit of trepidation. Confidence was one thing, carelessness quite another.
With the elves guiding them, and despite the noisiness of the dwarves, the foursome came to the edge of a rocky clearing. Across the way, the orcs were at their work, some chopping hard at one tree, others holding guiding ropes tied off along the higher branches.
"We will hit at them after they have retired," Tarathiel quietly explained. "The sun is high. It should not be long."
Pikel's face grew very tight, though, and he shook his head.
"He's not for watching them cut down a tree," Ivan explained, and the elves looked to each other doubtfully.
Pikel opened a pouch, revealing a cache of bright red berries. His expression grew very serious and very stern. With a grim nod to the others, he walked up to a nearby oak, the widest tree around, and put his forehead against its thick trunk. He closed his eyes and began muttering under his breath.
Still muttering, he stepped into the tree, disappearing completely. "Yeah, I know yer feelings," Ivan whispered to the two elves, who were standing dumbfounded, their mouths hanging open. "He does it all the time."
Ivan's gaze went up to the branches, and he pointed and said, "There."
Pikel exited the trunk some twenty feet above the ground, moving out on a branch that overhung the rocky field.
"Your brother is a curious one," Innovindil whispered. "Many tricks."
"We may need them," Tarathiel added.
He was looking doubtfully at the dozen or more orcs, all with bows on their backs or lying within easy reach. Looking up at Pikel, though, he knew that the dwarves weren't likely to wait, whatever he suggested, so he went into a crouch and began surveying the battlefield, then motioned to Innovindil to fan out to the side.
Ivan walked right between them, crunching through the trees, axe in hand, stepping onto the edge of the clearing.
"Can't be hitting anything that moves, now can ye?" he taunted loudly.
The chopping stopped immediately. All sound from the other side of the clearing halted, and the orcs turned as one, their yellowish, bloodshot eyes wide.
"Well?" Ivan called to them. "Ain't ye never looked death in the eye before?"
The orcs didn't charge across the way. They began to move slowly, deliberately, with a couple barking orders.
"Them're the leaders," Ivan whispered back to the concealed elves. "Pick yer shots."
The orcs never blinked, never took their eyes off the spectacle of the lone dwarf standing barely twenty feet from them, as they slowly began to collect their bows, to string the weapons and bring them up to the ready.