When Saryn had regained a measure of strength, she raised herself to all fours in the elbow deep water. The eyes looking down at her were hard but not angry. Rather she detected a glint of bemusement in them. The tall figure abruptly grabbed her by the arm and dragged her onto the squelching, rank hummock. He said nothing as she lay gasping and sputtering on the mushy earth. He merely watched her with those unsettling eyes.
        “Are you alright?” he asked when he was sure she could speak.
        “Yes, thanks to you,” she coughed, wiping a heavy, matted clot of hair from her face.
        Her rescuer was about to say something further when Telvryn came sloshing into view. His long blonde hair was plastered to his mud-streaked face. His uniform clung to him, a runner of snot hanging from his small, rounded nose. His blue eyes were fevered bulbs in overheated sockets. His chest heaved from exertion and sorrow. “My Lady,” he called urgently, and from his mournful tone and drooping shoulders, it was clear he thought her lost.
        “Telvryn,” she called, waving with both grimy hands.
        His head snapped to where she sat. A joyful hoot erupted from him, and he bounded and floundered to him, churning up great clouds of mud and silt. He clambered up the embankment and threw himself onto her with relieved exuberance, nearly knocking the wind out of her again.
        “You’re alive!” he cried, smothering her with hugs and clumsy kisses on the face. He was braying with hysterical laughter.
        “Telvryn, mind yourself,” she reprimanded weakly. “I am a married woman, and a pregnant one at that.” She tried to fix a stern, disapproving expression on her face but failed, dissolving into shrill giggles. They laughed and hugged like wanton lunatics until a soft baritone voice interrupted.
        “Your lover, I presume,” her rescuer said.
        She was on her feet so quickly that she didn’t even register she was moving until it was almost over. She flew at her savior and delivered two smart, vicious backhands in quick succession, the sound echoing like small thunderclaps through the claustrophobic bog. “He is no lover of mine,” she spat at him as he staggered backward and touched his reddening cheeks. “I have but one lover, and his name is Legolas of Mirkwood. For two hundred years it has been thus, and so will it always be. I will kill any man who doubts it.” She turned and stalked back to her spot on the hummock and sat down.
        “Fine way to show gratitude to one who has saved your life,” he retorted drily, still rubbing his now tender cheeks.
        “Save her life? She…we saved your life, you ungrateful fool!” shouted Telvryn, coming to life after goggling for several moments in silent stupefaction.
        “I fail to see how putting an arrow in my neck can be called saving my life,” he answered.
        “That I did not intend,” she hissed popping to her feet with a loud sucking sound.
        “If I should kill your beloved, precious Legolas, though it not be what I intended, would you not despise me all the same?” he shot back, his own temper beginning to flare.
        She opened her mouth, then closed it with a snap. For the first time in a long time, she could think of nothing to say. He was right. No matter what the circumstances, if Legolas were to fall be his hand, she would hate him with all the force of her being. She would be a hypocrite if she criticized him for doing the same. She dropped slowly to the ground and folded her arms across her drawn up knees.
        “I hardly think-,” Telvryn began, but she silenced him with a shake of her head.
        “I’m sorry,” she said softly. “I’m sorry to both of you for everything, but I have no choice.” She was dangerously close to tears.
        “You had a choice in every decision you have made. You had the choice not to break Elrond’s law,” responded Cerek.
        “I am obeying a higher law,” she said, rancor kindling in her voice again.
        “What law is there high than that of King Elrond?” he challenged, advancing toward her. She infuriated him, this impudent, high-born, muddy waif.
        “The law of my heart that calls me to my husband,” she said, unflinching before his furious gaze. “When I joined myself to him, I made a vow to love and protect him no matter the cost. It is an oath I do not take likely.”
        “By following the law of your heart, you nearly cost me my life.”
        “And in stopping to pick you up and rescue you from the fate of drowning in your own blood, she nearly lost her own. Who are you to besmirch the character of so fine a lady?” shouted Telvryn.
        It was the first time he’d lost his temper, and she watched him, pleasantly intrigued. It was a previously unknown side of him. She was strangely pleased by it.
        “My name is Cerek Blackbark, sentry and loyal servant of King Elrond. Not a traitor like you, who has betrayed your king and realm by falling for the guiles of this selfish, arrogant, manipulative wench.”
        “I am no traitor, and I will have your head for the accusation. Lady Saryn no wench, and for that aspersion, I will have your heart!” Telvryn had gone an alarming, livid purple, and he reached for his sword.
        “Stay your hand, Telvryn,” she said, gently grasping his arm. She could feel the tendons therein thrumming with rage and adrenaline. To Cerek she said, “I would betray a thousand kings and all of their empires to protect my beloved Legolas from harm.”
        He rounded on her, fists clenching and unclenching. “Pray, Lady, tell me, from what danger do you shield him?” he asked, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “Is your husband so impotent and useless a man that he cannot protect himself from a few puling orcs?”
        “He has gone to Mordor.”
        That simple sentence momentarily rattled him. He blanched, and his fists froze in mid-clench. “It is madness to journey to Mordor. I can think of no reason for any sane thing to seek out that ruined place,” he said at last.
        “Then you serve a madman, for it was King Elrond who ordered him there,” she said calmly.
        Rage twisted Cerek’s face. “MY KING IS NO MADMAN, YOU VILE, UNREPENTANT WHORE!” he shrieked, the cords of his neck standing in sharp relief against his plum face. He moved to strike her across the bridge of her nose, and would have done so had not Telvryn connected with a solid punch to his left eye.
        Now it was her turn to goggle, frog-like, as the two young elves grappled with one another and fell, rolling down the embankment into the water. Telvryn was trying without success to grab his opponent by the points of his ears, points as sensitive as genitals to a male elf. He had nearly succeeded when Cerek jabbed him in the eye. Howling and blind, he was powerless to keep him from pushing his head beneath the surface.
        Seeing her faithful companion about to be drowned galvanized her into action. Screaming at the top of her lungs, she charged into the water and seized Cerek by the delicate points of his ears. The results were immediate. Letting go of Telvryn’s head, he clutched frantically at her fingers, trying to pry them loose. He was bellowing and keening in rage and agony. Frodo, had he been present to hear the sounds, would have thought it a ringwraith. He bucked and twisted, throwing an occasional elbow at her exposed stomach. She shifted away as much as she could, knowing that if he met his target she would lose the child for certain. “Telvryn, help me,” she pleaded. Her strength was fading. Cerek was strong, impossibly strong, and she couldn’t hold on much longer.
        Telvryn responded to her frightened call by punching the struggling Cerek in the nose. It broke with a dull, muffled snap. Now his angry screams had a congested, watery timbre. There was another snap, this one crisp and sharp, as Telvryn crushed his cheekbone. Now the screams were high-pitched and pleading, wrenching her heart in spite of what he had done. She was about to tell Telvryn to stop when all noise and struggle ceased and the body sagged into her arms. He had finally blacked out from the pain.
        She released his ears and sat back with a flop. She had exhausted all her strength, and a wave of dizziness passed over her. She had to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from passing out. When the feeling passed, she ruefully investigated the damage to Cerek’s face and winced at what she saw. Both his eyes were beginning to swell and blacken. Blood still gushed from his flattened nose, and the alluring line of his left cheekbone was marred by a grotesque ridge where the bone was pushing against the skin. She thought she might be sick again.
        “Are you alright?” she asked after they had rested a few moments.
        “I think so,” came the reply.
        When they were both sure their legs wouldn’t give out on them, they lugged the once more unconscious body of Cerek onto the hummock and set him down.
        “We better tie him up,” she sighed. “No telling what he’ll do now.”
        Telvryn removed the belt from Cerek’s uniform, and she unlaced his boots. Working quickly, they tied his arms and legs together behind his back and ran a boot lace from those bindings through the holes of the raft on which they’d carried him. For good measure, they gagged him with his wet cloak.
        With their new adversary thus secured, they settled in for the night. Their cloaks water-logged and no way to make a fire, they could only huddle together for warmth and comfort in the yawning, all-consuming darkness. They had survived their first day in the bog.
        Now they prayed to last the night.