Augh! Sorry I haven't updated! I've been pretty busy. Anywho, sorry about the beginning chunk of this chapter. It probably should have gone in the last one, but hey, better late than never, right?
THANKYOUSOMUCH to those who have reviewed and all that good stuff! Keep it comin', folks!
Max POV
We made camp in a round, rocky, field-like thingamajig that somewhat resembled Stonehenge. Sam and Iggy were having a heated argument about cooking and Boromir was teaching Merry and Pippin some epic sword fighting skills. I looked at the knives I had, belted on my hips. I'd figured that since this was a medieval-ish time period, the Flock should have medieval-ish weapons. Well, actually, I didn't. Elrond did, and 'bestowed upon us fine elfish weapons'. Yeah, sure, whatever, Mr. Ye Olde Speek. I banned anything sharper than a baseball bat for Angel, Gazzy, and Iggy, so just to annoy me they found a bunch of huge sticks to fight with that of course I ended up carrying.
I had chosen two knives. It seemed most natural to me – knives are short, right? So they seemed just like extensions of my arms. I'd practiced a little and I was pretty good, just as long as I imagined they were very sharp fists and I fought like I normally would. Fang had chosen a sword, which he was also decent with. Nudge surprised me the most, though. She had tried out a crossbow and bam! On her first try she was about two centimeters from a bull's eye. At first we thought it was beginners luck, but when she repeatedly hit a feathers-breadth away from the very center of the target we declared her a prodigy.
Clang! I couldn't get used to the sound of metal on metal. I was more used to the sound of solid metal balls flying through the air so fast you can barely see them and slamming into your flesh. Or, you know, my fist connecting with someone's face.
Gandalf and Gimli were arguing about routes to take; something about Moria. I seemed to remember that that part of the movie involved a troll and someone almost dying. I'm not sure, though. I hadn't seen the movie in forever and I have much more important things on my mind like, for example, 'how are we going to get food tomorrow?' or 'are we going to be alive tomorrow?'.
"One two three four I declare a thumb war," Nudge exclaimed.
"Five six seven eight, you're the thumb I really hate!" Gazzy finished. Their thumbs twisted furiously, then their arms, and then they rolled off the large boulder they were perched on. There was a loud thump as they hit the ground.
"Ow," they said.
"What's that?" Fang pointed at a dark shape moving in the sky. I listened for mechanical whirring or the pounding of huge wings which would mean bad news for us.
"Nothing… it's just a wisp of cloud," Gimli said.
"It's moving fast, and against the wind," Boromir pointed out.
"Crebain from Dunland!" Legolas yelled suddenly. Okay, am I missing something? What are Crebain? I tried to remember back to my movie and came up with: spies. I hate spies. Especially when they can fly. Especially especially when they look exactly like me.
"Hide!" Aragorn ordered. We hid. When the crow things were gone, we ran.
-x-
The wind howled, ripping at me. My clothes and hair stood almost completely horizontal as snow slammed into my face, stinging my skin.
Well, this sucks, I thought, gritting my teeth against the onslaught of cold white knife-like flakes of snow.
Failed trials do not determine the outcome of the whole, said the Voice.
Whatever, was my reply.
"This is ridiculous," I shouted. Fang, Iggy and I were plowing through the deep snow, creating a path for the kids.
"It's ridiculously ridiculous!" Nudge piped in.
"Yeah, ridiculous things are generally ridiculous," Total pointed out.
"There's a fell voice in the air," Leogolas said thoughtfully.
"It's Saruman!" Gandalf roared. Saru-who? Another bad guy? Sheesh. There was a loud crack, like thunder, and rock fell past us, barely missing our little pathway. I grabbed Angel and Gazzy, pinning them against the rock face.
"He's trying to bring down the mountain," Aragorn realized. "Gandalf! We must go back!"
"No!" Gandalf insisted.
"What kind of nimrod are you!" I yelled at him. "I don't really want to be killed by giant rocks, thank you very much."
Just after I said it I looked up to see at least four feet of snow crashing down on us.
"Crap," I growled, yanking the others to the 'safety' of the cliff face. As I pushed, though, I was thrown backward and I felt the snow hit me, slamming me into the ground. I couldn't breathe. Frantically, I clawed upwards through the snow, only to feel a hand grasp my wrist. Aragorn heaved me up and out.
"Thanks," I gasped.
"We must get off the mountain! Make for the gap of Rohan and take the West road to my city!" Boromir suggested.
"The Gap of Rohan takes us too close to Isengard," Aragorn objected.
"We cannot pass over the mountain. Let us go under it. Let us go through the mines of Moria!" Gimli put in.
"I'm all for choice number one," I said.
"Let the ring bearer decide," Gandalf reasoned. Ring bearer? That made it sound like we were in some sort of wedding. "Frodo?"
"We will go through the mines," Frodo said in what I can only describe as a clear and loud mumble, if that makes any sense, which it probably doesn't.
"So be it," Gandalf grunted.
A couple days later we found ourselves in front of a blank stone wall surrounded by rocks, dead plants, and a lake. Fascinating, huh? Gandalf worked some of his magic mojo, though, and suddenly there was a door there, made out of smooth silver vein like lines. Gandalf muttered something, then said, "Speak friend and enter."
"What?" Gazzy cocked his head.
"What does it mean?" Frodo asked.
"Well, it's quite simple, really. If you are a friend you speak the password and you may enter," he shrugged and rattled off something in a different language. It didn't work. He came up with another. And another. And… well, I think you get it.
"Can't we just blow up the door?" Iggy looked at me and stuck out his upper lip and discreetly let the corner of some no doubt explosive device peek out from his pocket. How he looks at me when he's blind I'll never know.
"You're way too old for bambi eyes, Ig," I told him. He frowned.
"Hey Gasser, you're cute, you come try!" he called. Gazzy walked over from where he'd been talking with Merry and Pippen and tried to hit me with the power of cute. I shielded my eyes.
"No way, buddy," I crossed my arms. "You could hurt someone. Or, you know, kill someone."
"It would be very contained and safe!" Iggy said.
"I said no!" I growled, smiling a little.
"Fine," the Gasman grumbled, dragging his feet as he walked away. I heard splashes and watched as Merry, Pippin, and Angel tossed stones into the water. Not surprisingly, Angel's always went the farthest.
"Speak friend and enter?" Fang sat down beside me. "Any ideas?"
"We're not exactly PhDs in what goes on around here, and I seriously can't remember from the movie," I shrugged. "We watched it when Jeb was still living with us, and since then… well, you know."
"I get it," he put his arm around my shoulder as our brains strained to remember.
Hey Voice, have you ever seen the Lord of the Rings? I thought.
Language is important, Maximum. It shapes worlds, it said.
Yeah, sure. That doesn't really help me out all that much given the current sucky situation.
One wrongly spelled word, falsely translated message, or badly punctuated sentence can send nations into wars.
Nations into… oh! I remember now! I punched my palm lightly.
"Friend," I exclaimed, standing up. "That's the password."
"What?" Nudge frowned.
"I get it," Fang stood up, too. "It's not 'speak, friend, and enter', its 'speak the word friend and enter'.'
"Right," I nodded. "So what's the elf word for friend?"
"Mellon," Gandalf frowned. Just as he said it, the doors swung open with a crunching sound.
"Cool…" Gazzy grinned.
We grabbed our backpacks and walked in. The air smelled like dead stuff and it was pitch black. As Gimli fantasized about our future stay in the paradise of underground, I looked around. With my avian vision I could see better than the average Joe in the dark and what I saw was slightly sickening.
"Oh, god, ew," Nudge nudged a skeleton with her foot. Get it? Nudge nudged it? Ahahaha… never mind.
"This is no mine," Boromir breathed. "It's a tomb."
"Try being at eye level with these things!" Total prodded a skull with his paw and jumped into Angel's waiting arms. "Gross!"
"Oh no! No no no no no!" Gimli took a step back, horror washing over his face as Legolas knelt beside a dwarf skeleton, pulling an arrow out from between two ribs.
"Goblins," he hissed, snapping it in half. We drew our weapons, Angel, Gazzy, and Iggy scrambling to grab their 'clubs' from where I'd fastened them to my backpack.
"We make for the Gap of Rohan! We should never have come here!" Boromir yelled. Sheesh, who died and made you leader? Still, I had to agree.
"Move it!" I ordered. At that moment Frodo dropped to the ground, scrabbling at the dirt and screaming. Something had attatched itself to his ankle… a tentacle? It yanked him towards the lake and I caught a glimpse of a giant kraken-like thing.
"Whoa! That thing is badass!" Iggy cried.
"Hey, watch the language, buster. There are kids around!" I hit his shoulder lightly before sprinting forward, one knife out. Unsure what to do, I lunged and started hacking at the tentacle holding Frodo. The creature hissed and released him, dragging its wounded limb into the lake.
Suddenly about a zillion more tentacles burst out of the water, spraying me with water. Nudge was shooting with her mad crossbow skills while Aragorn, Boromir, Sam, Fang, and I started to slice at the new tentacles. In ten seconds flat, however, Frodo had been snatched up again. I groaned. Couldn't the guy stay out of trouble for one minute? I ran forward, Fang hot on my heels, only to feel a tentacle slam into my gut and send me flying. Suddenly I was being crushed by the long slimy things and who knows what else. I gasped for breath – yes, underwater. Us Avian Americans can breathe underwater. Pretty cool, huh? Then I kicked hard, sending the tentacles flying off of me and paddled to the surface. I rocketed through the water back to the shore, punching a tentacle aside just as it was about to slam into Fang.
"Into the mines!" Gandalf bellowed. You don't need to tell me twice. We sloshed through the water, diving through the door just in time to see it smashed by the creature thing and just like that we were trapped.
"Report!" I coughed, spitting out some water and dust.
"This is Iggy, checking in."
"Nudge here. I'm a-okay."
"Captain Terror is all systems go."
"The dog isn't dead, thanks."
"I'm all right, Max."
"I'm fine," was all Fang said. Okay, everyone is alive. Good.
Gandalf banged his staff on the ground and light erupted from the top and I could see more easily.
"We have now but one choice," he began ominously. "We must face the long dark of Moria. Be on your guard… there are older and fouler things in the deep places of the earth than orcs."
Well, that's just great. We are so screwed, I thought.
We stumbled around in the dark for at least two days until Gandalf finally sighed and admitted we were lost. Well, actually, he said he had no memory of where we were, but I gathered that we had no freaking idea where we were supposed to be headed. With my bird kid sense of direction I was guessing east, but honestly, who knew?
We rested by some rocks. The Flock was practically jumping off the walls, what with our claustrophobia. In case you didn't know, mines generally don't have many openings to the air, which is where we're most comfortable. Merry, Pippin, and Gazzy were flopped down on a boulder complaining about how hungry they were. I fished a snickers bar out of my backpack and tossed it to the Gasman.
"This is the only portable food I have," I said. "Be nice, share, and eat slowly."
"Ve must destroy ze snickers bars!" the Gasman cackled in a perfect imitation of the hell beast white coat ter Borcht.
Gandalf seemed lost in thought for a while, but then he stood up and walked over to sit down next to me and Fang.
"I believe it may be prudent now to tell you that any funny business will not go unnoticed. I know you are not who you say," he said. Whaaat? Did that mean he knew about our two extra feathery body parts?
"What do you mean?" I said innocently.
"I know the youngest girl worked some magic on our minds to fool us into believing you are trustworthy and not spies of darkness," he paused. "I do not believe you are allied with Sauron, though whether you are a threat or not I am unsure."
"Oh, we're very threatening," I assured him, relieved that he seemed to have no clue about our wings. "To the bad guys, at least. We kick butt."
He studied me carefully and I put up precautionary mind blocks. I didn't think he could read my mind, but better safe than sorry.
He stood up and walked away, and became somewhat catatonic again.
