Who is Watching?

How could a lowly human brigand like Valtar have obtained an object of such evil?  Everything else fell in line with what Elladan had grown to know of humans.  There existed a significant portion of the race who would squander what little mortal life they were afforded on petty squabbles over territory or some long past slight.  Valtar supposed himself the true king of Dale.  The veracity of his claim to the human city did not interest Elladan in the slightest.  The human was a savage and a slaver.  The two arrows he sent through the petty tyrant's throat were well spent to rid the Wilderlands of his cruelty.

The morally ambiguous tale of Odrik, a lost soul who slew a fellow man responsible for attacking a woman...that made sense to Elladan.  Human passion burns quickly and red hot like a torch.  Odrik's flight from the village for a new life, made sense.  His capture by Valtar's henchmen, plausible.  Odrik's bargaining for his life by selling out his own kin was morally reprehensible, yet still fell in line with what Elladan had grown to know about the reasoning of humans.  All of these things were explainable.

It was the severed head.  The sunken black eyes, the stretched skin and the gaping mouth.  The eyes...the hideous eyes.  They haunted his thoughts and disturbed his meditations.  They were filled with shadow and blackness.  He had heard stories of undead agents of the Shadow using such things to communicate.  But how did it end up in a chest in Valtar's tent?  Valtar was a petty bandit lord.  He was no servant of the Shadow.  Or was he?  Were the whispers of a necromancer to the south more than mere tales?  Did Valtar merely stumble upon it and keep it as a prize or was there more?

Once again the vision of those eyes ensnared his thoughts.   The hollow, sunken black eyes.

These thoughts raced through Elladan's mind as he was sitting cross legged in the grass under an oak tree, full of the green leaves of summer.  Suddenly he felt as if he were falling backwards into a bottomless abyss.  Everything went to black.

"You have seen the darkness and it haunts you, yes?"

The voice was Irime's.  He could hear the concern in her softly spoken words.  For the first time since he had left Valtar's tent his mind was focused on a different set of eyes, the lovely chestnut brown eyes of Irime.

"Yes, I saw it.  I cannot clear my mind of it.  What does it mean?  How did that fall into the possession of a human bandit?"  Elladan asked the vision.

"Lord Thranduil, suspects much, but knows little for certain.  We are all sensing a growing darkness to the south.  Orcs and men are being used as pawns in servitude to the Shadow.  You must investigate, Elladan.  The others must not know that you serve as Lord Thranduil's agent.  The Shadow must be kept unaware of the fact that the eyes of Mirkwood and Lorien are transfixed upon it."

"I will do my best, my lady." he replied with solemn conviction.

"I know you will Elladan.  Keep safe.  You have more allies than you know" she replied.

As suddenly as the vision of Irime came, it passed just as quickly.  Once again Elladan was sitting alone under the oak tree.

He opened his eyes to study the beauty of the Wilderlands in the throes of summer for only a moment.  Such beauty needs protection, he thought to himself.

He rose to find his companions.  He found solace in their company.  The newest addition, the Beorning human known as Beran, was honorable and capable.  Elladan felt comfort in knowing that one more blade was at his side as they faced the looming dangers ahead.