Title: The Ranger Hell Week

Disclaimer: Tolkien's creations are not mine and I will never own them.

Summary: Aragorn and Halbarad have taken two young rangers under their wings. But when Aragorn gets injured in the wilds and Halbarad has to leave him, the two young rangers are the only ones who are there to help Aragorn survive.

Rating: PG-13

Chapter 2: Rescue

Halbarad hastened along the edge of the cliff as fast as he could. There was an ascendable part half a league to the south, and that was where Halbarad was headed now so frantically. He had seen Aragorn reach for a handhold, but then his fingers must have slipped, for the next thing that Halbarad had seen was Aragorn falling down the cliff and vanishing in the rain. And with the darkness that the storm had created, Halbarad had not been able to see Aragorn hit the bottom of the cliff. But he knew that the fall had been high, and Halbarad hoped that Aragorn was not dead. He simply could not be.

His feet slipped on the muddy ground, and Halbarad spread his arms out wide to recover his balance. The two young rangers were high on his heels, but Halbarad did not spare a thought on them. Along he hastened, until he finally reached the down sloping part of the cliff and descended it as quickly as he could. He had to lean his body back to prevent himself from tumbling down the hill, and when his feet hit the ground, he was out of breath. Still, Halbarad raced on as fast as he could, back to where they had started this climbing lesson this very morning.

Rain hit his face and his hair was in disarray as Halbarad reached the place where Aragorn must have landed. Panting, he stopped in his tracks and turned around in a circle, his eyes searching the ground. "Aragorn! Can you hear me? Aragorn?"

There was no answer but the raging of the storm. A moment later, Marek and Romorin came to a muddy stop next to him. They let their eyes roam across the ground, but they, too, could not see Aragorn. "Where is he?" Romorin asked breathlessly.

Halbarad did not answer, but instead lifted his head and looked up the cliff. When Aragorn was not lying at the bottom of the cliff, then Aragorn must have stopped his fall somehow. Or maybe, his fall had been stopped for him.

Without further thought, Halbarad gestured at the ground, "You two search here. I will go up there."

"But…" Marek began, but Halbarad was already clinging to the cliff wall and searching for a way up. In but a few heartbeats he was up a few feet. Exchanging a look, Marek and Romorin did as Halbarad had told them and searched the ground for any sign of Aragorn.

Panting, Halbarad hasted up the cliff as fast as he could. Down here, the cliff was not as steep as it was further up, and he had climbed this particular cliff so many times in the past that he had not even to search for suitable handholds.

Hope sprouted in his chest and he climbed higher and higher without any sign of Aragorn. It could only mean that Aragorn had not fallen the whole way down, but had been able to stop his fall.

Another gale of strong wind clutched at his clothing, but Halbarad climbed on. He looked up the cliff, steadying himself with his hands and feet, and that was when he saw it. The sight made his stomach lurch painfully, and his fingers dug into the crack in the cliff wall.

There, dangling over a wide rock outcropping, was an arm. Blood was mixing with the rainwater, running down the fingers and slowly dripping down to the ground. Lightning illuminated the sky, and it served to rip Halbarad out of his paralysis. With a frightened yell on his lips he climbed as fast as he could.

Only a few minutes later he pulled his body over the edge of the outcropping and sank to his knees next to Aragorn's unconscious form. "Oh, Aragorn. Please don't be dead." Halbarad said softly, before he let his eyes roam across his friend's body.

Aragorn had landed on his stomach, his left arm dangling over the edge. It was obviously broken, and the blood that Halbarad had seen came from the deep cut in the forearm, where the bone had pierced the skin. It shone sickeningly white in the lightning.

There was more blood on Aragorn's clothing and on the rough stone, but Halbarad could not tell precisely where it was coming from, or how seriously Aragorn was injured. The rainwater made it impossible to judge the amount of blood correctly. But what Halbarad could tell, was that Aragorn had hit his head rather badly. A large amount of blood was clotting his hair, and the whole right side of his face was bloody.

"Aragorn?" reaching out, Halbarad rolled his friend onto his back. There was a large gash on his forehead, with bright red blood trickling down the side of his face. Bruises were already forming on his left cheek, and there were numerous scratches on his face and neck. With a slightly shaking hand, Halbarad reached out and placed his fingers at Aragorn's neck. He waited with his breath held, but then he sighed in relief. A strong pulse was pounding under his fingers. Aragorn was alive.

"Aragorn? Can you hear me?" Halbarad slapped Aragorn's face, but he got no reaction. Long years of being a ranger and, even more importantly, Aragorn's friend, had trained him in staying calm when others would perhaps lose their nerve.

With a detached calmness he shrugged out of his tunic, seeing that his cloak was probably still lying up on the cliff's edge. With his knife he cut it in three large parts. One he wound around the gash in Aragorn's head, the other around the break in his arm, and the third he wound around chest, to support the ribs that were surely broken. No one could fall this far down a cliff wall and suffer no broken ribs.

Leaning over the edge, he made out the forms of the two younger rangers. "Romorin! Marek!" When both looked up to him, he continued, shouting against the howling of the storm, "He lives! But I need your help getting him down. One of you has to climb up here with a rope. I will climb down with him, while one of you holds the rope up here and the other stays down to help me when we reach the bottom."

Romorin and Marek exchanged a look of relief, that changed quickly into working modus. "Marek, you will climb up and I will…"

But Marek cut him off, "No, you will climb up and I will wait here."

Romorin gave him a searching look, but then he shrugged, grabbed a rope out of his pack and hastened up the cliff wall. Marek stayed behind, following Romorin's climb with his eyes. He was not entirely sure why he had refused to climb the cliff, but somehow he had not wanted to.

With tension rippling through his body Halbarad watched how Romorin climbed the cliff wall, reached the outcropping and swung over the edge. The young ranger gasped at the sight of the unconscious and bloody form of his Chieftain, but Halbarad gave him no time to lose his nerve.

"Here, help me to get him into the securing rope." He said matter of factly, and together Halbarad and Romorin managed to get Aragorn secured in the sling of the rope.

Only a few minutes later Halbarad's tall form climbed down, followed shortly by the unconscious form of Aragorn. Romorin was slowly letting the Chieftain down, while Halbarad steadied him as best he could. It was a slow descended, and when Halbarad finally put his feet on the ground, he needed a few moments to catch his breath.

In the meanwhile, Marek had taken Aragorn into his arms and placed him on the ground. As soon as the rope was removed, Romorin began to climb down, too. Together with Halbarad, Marek carried the unconscious Aragorn a bit further away from the cliff wall, to a place where they had camped the night before. There was a small cave here, actually only a little more than an overhang, but it would provide them with at least some sort of shelter from the rain and wind.

"Marek, go and have an eye on Romorin." Halbarad ordered, already stripping Aragorn of his wet cloak. Marek gazed at him a moment longer, but then he nodded and complied. He had not seen many corpses yet, but in his opinion, his Chieftain looked more dead than alive.

Once alone, Halbarad began to speak with his friend, while he removed first the leather overcoat and then the bloody tunic. More scratches and bruises were uncovered, and Halbarad flinched in sympathy when he saw the big black bruise on the left side of Aragorn's chest.

"This has to hurt, Aragorn. Why don't you wake up and tell me where it hurts precisely?" But Aragorn did not wake, did not even move, and so Halbarad checked for broken and bruised ribs. He was not very surprised when his searching fingers uncovered not only bruised, but some very definitely broken ribs.

"Seems as if you were not very lucky, Aragorn. But, it could have been much worse." Again, there was no reaction from Aragorn, and with a frustrated sigh Halbarad began to inspect Aragorn's legs and arms. Aragorn's left arm was badly broken, with the bone piercing the skin. The bandage that Halbarad had wound around the open fracture had at least already stopped the bleeding. The right arms was bruised, but it was not broken.

There were tears in Aragorn's pants and blood encrusted the knees, but Halbarad was sure that Aragorn's legs were not broken. Or at least, he hoped so. When he pulled off Aragorn's right boot, he could tell just by the look of the ankle that it had been twisted badly. Very badly. But, he was no healer, and although years of being a ranger had taught him the basic healing skills, he could not tell whether his ankle was simply sprained or actually broken. He would have to wait till Aragorn awoke to be sure.

Just when Marek and Romorin returned, both sopping wet and slightly out of breath, Halbarad removed the bloody bandage from around Aragorn's head.

"How is he?" Romorin asked, wiping the wet hair out of his face and huddling closer to the wall of the small cave to get out of the biting wind.

"He could be worse. And better." Halbarad said, already applying pressure to the gash on Aragorn's forehead to stop the bleeding. "His arm is broken, as well many of his ribs and probably his right ankle. And it would be a miracle if he has no concussion."

Crouching down, Romorin inspected Aragorn's broken arm. "Should we set it?"

Sighing, Halbarad shook his head. "No, at least not yet. As much as I hate to admit it, but I'm no healer. It would be best for Aragorn to be unconscious when we set the bone, but I need his advise before I attempt to set it. If I do it wrong, he could lose the use of his arm."

Marek swallowed, but said nothing. With detached interest he watched how Halbarad bound Aragorn's wounds with the bandages out of Romorin's pack, before he sat back on his heels and took a deep breath. Halbarad looked up at the two young rangers.

"I have done what I could. He will be fine for the moment, at least till he wakes. But we need to dry and warm him. We will need hot tea, perhaps some broth."

"I still have some kindling in my pack, it should have stayed dry during the storm." Romorin said helpfully, and immediately began to search through his pack for the wood. Marek stood and watched; he had forgotten to pack some wood this morning.

Half an hour later, the small cave was lit in an orange light, and the fire was crackling merrily. From now and then a gust of wind would bring rain into the cave, and the fire would smoke and sputter, but it burned. Slowly, the worst of the storm passed and night settled over the lands.

When it had become too dark to see outside of the light of the fire, Halbarad ordered the two young rangers to rest, while he kept watch over the lands and, more importantly, Aragorn. It unnerved him a bit that his friend had not yet woken, and he hoped that the hit on the head had not been too serious. They were in the wilds, with no horses and at least a three days journey from the next ranger outpost. These Ranger Hell Weeks made it necessary for them to travel without horses or a lot of supplies, seeing that these weeks were meant as a kind of initiation for the younger Dunedain that had decided to join the rangers.

Right now, Halbarad cursed these stupid rules.

Reaching out, he took one of the branches that lay near the fire and began to poke at it furiously. Sparks were flying into the air, and slowly the ceiling of the small cave began to turn black from all the soot.

Stupid rules, really.

Aragorn groaned inwardly. Why was his head hurting as if a troll had taken his club and repeatedly smashed it against his skull? Right after sitting on his arm, of course. Oh, and his ribs. Was the troll perhaps still sitting on his chest, with one hand tearing his arm to pieces and with the other banging his head against the ground? Well, that would certainly explain the pain.

Just when Aragorn had accepted that there was really a troll sitting on his chest, the other, more rational part of his brain told him that the possibility of a troll sitting on his chest was very slim. Not impossible given his luck with such things, but unlikely.

Annoyed, Aragorn tried to block the voice out that told him repeatedly to just open his eyes and see for himself why his chest and arm were hurting so much, not to mention his head. No, he really did not want to. The fact that he as in pain although he was not even truly awake could only mean that he would be in even more pain once he woke up completely.

And did he want that? No. End of story.

But, well, what if something serious had happened? Actually, what in the name of the Valar had happened? Wracking his brain, Aragorn tried to remember what he had been doing before the troll had come for a visit, and slowly very slowly a few snatches and pieces began to fill his otherwise blank mind.

A wood, a cliff, rain, wind…and then he had been falling. Falling…down that cliff he had climbed. Aragorn frowned in his mind, wondering why he had thrown himself down a cliff, and why he had been climbing said cliff in the first place. After a few seconds he came to the conclusion that he would not throw himself down a cliff, not for a good reason, anyway. So, he had been falling because something unforeseen had happened.

And then, out of nowhere, the face of Marek appeared in his mind, closely followed by all his other memories of the last few days, causing Aragorn to moan in frustration. No, he really did not want to wake up.

But, the next thing he felt was a cold hand on his forehead and another on his shoulder, shaking him slightly. Halbarad's voice reached his ears, telling him to wake up. Aragorn gave himself a mental slap. He had obviously groaned aloud, and now his friend was trying to wake him up to face the pain. Aragorn began to wonder whether Halbarad was really his friend; a real friend would let him fall back into blessed unconsciousness.

"Aragorn, wake up. Come on, my friend, open your eyes."

And to Aragorn own surprise, his eyelids followed that order and opened slowly, sluggishly. Traitors, he thought grumpily. When the first stab of orange firelight peeked in under his lids and reached his brain, his eyelids seemed to suddenly feel the same way, and he clenched them shut tightly. Another groan escaped his mouth, and Aragorn turned his head away from the fire.

Which was a very bad idea, given the fact that suddenly the troll on his chest hopped up and down in excitement, took his club and began to hammer away happily.

The hand on his forehead vanished, but the one on his shoulder didn't. It began to shake him harder, and Aragorn knew that Halbarad would not stop this before he had not opened his eyes and talked to him. Deciding that the troll would probably leave him alone once he had opened his eyes again, too, Aragorn tried once again to opened his eyes, but this time he immediately locked them on the rather blurry image of Halbarad instead of the torturing brightness of the fire. He blinked a few times, and when Halbarad got no sharper, he simply gazed up at him.

"Aragorn, can you hear me? Are you awake?"

This is really a stupid question, Aragorn thought, but he swallowed and answered obediently. The sooner he spoke with Halbarad, the sooner he could go back to sleep. Really, his whole body hurt.

"Hmmmm."

"I take that as a yes, then. Welcome back, Aragorn." Halbarad's voice was definitely too loud. Aragorn blinked again a few times, and this time the shapes around him became objects. A leather pack, a pair of boots, no, his boots, another pack, wood and there in the back, looking as if they were about to be eaten by a pack of hungry wolves, were Marek and Romorin.

So immersed was he in his surroundings, that he almost missed Halbarad's next words.

"How is your head, Aragorn? Are you dizzy? Nauseous?"

Uhm, no, not until you mentioned it, thank you very much. Aragorn grimaced, but shook his head minutely in answer to the question. He could see Halbarad give him a broad smile, before his friend leaned closer and peered intently into his eyes.

"Of course not, stupid question really. I apologise, Aragorn. Of course you have no concussion after tumbling down the cliff and banging your head on every single rock on the way down."

To Aragorn, this sounded slightly sarcastic, but the pounding in his head and the pain shooting through the rest of his body prevented him from uttering the words that ran through his mind. He blinked once more, before letting his heavy eyelids slid shut. Sleep was all he wanted right now.

"Hmmmm." He muttered, telling his friend with this inarticulate sound that he had indeed no concussion although he knew he had, before he fell asleep.

Halbarad tucked the cloak tighter around his shoulders, before he sank back and sighed in relief. Aragorn would be fine. Grumpy for the next few days, but fine.

They had set the bone yesterday morning. And it had not been a pleasant experience. Neither for Halbarad, nor for Aragorn, and especially not for the two young rangers. At Aragorn's pained scream when the bone finally slid under the skin only to grate on the rest of the bone that was still in the arm, the two had started a race to the bushes to lose their breakfast; Aragorn and Halbarad were not sure who had won, but definitely not the bushes. Poor things.

Aragorn shifted slightly, trying to find a more comfortable position and failing miserably. For a few more moments he watched in silence how Halbarad stuffed various things in his pack, only to take them out a few seconds later. Sighing, Aragorn took a quick look around to make sure that the two young rangers were out of earshot.

"Halbarad, you cannot leave me here. With them." He hissed, only to hold his breath a moment later when his broken ribs protested.

"Aragorn, they are rangers. Young yes, but rangers. They will take good care of you until I am back." Halbarad gave Aragorn a long look, suppressing the smile that threatened to appear on his bearded face.

"But…Halbarad. Have you actually watched them yesterday? They act like children."

"They are nervous. A bit giddy, perhaps." This time, Halbarad did not look at Aragorn, knowing that if he did so, he would spoil the fun by laughing at his friend.

Sighing, Aragorn shook his head. "They will kill me."

"No, they will not. You are a big boy Aragorn, you will manage."

"I could come with you." It was a last attempt of Aragorn to be not left behind, but the moment he spoke he knew what Halbarad would say.

"We discussed this, Aragorn. That ankle of yours is broken, as are most of your ribs and your arm. You have a concussion, and although I am glad that it is not a bad as I feared, it is bad enough. You need rest and you cannot possibly make the trip back. I will go and get some horses and supplies." Halbarad closed his pack and finally looked back at Aragorn.

The sight of Aragorn's pleading face reminded Halbarad of a young puppy and he wondered how the twins had ever managed to say 'no' to him when he had been a child. Patting Aragorn's good leg, Halbarad smiled reassuringly. "All will be fine, Aragorn. You'll see."

Halbarad got to his feet, tightened his cloak around his shoulders and threw his pack over his shoulders.

"Save journey, Halbarad." Having given up on his hope to be allowed to accompany Halbarad, Aragorn gave his friend a serious look, which he returned.

"Aye." Giving Aragorn a last look, Halbarad could not stop himself from nodding his head in the direction of the two young rangers, his voice filled with humour. "And if they really manage to kill you, I will make sure that they get what they deserve."

"Oh, and that would be?" Aragorn called after Halbarad, who was already a few feet away from the small cave.

Turning, Halbarad grinned widely, "How about life long pipe prohibition?" And with that, he waved, turned and vanished behind some huge trees.

Tbc...