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Taros spat at the unconscious Ranger's feet as he inserted a long, thin needle into the human's arm. The wound would be small, too tiny to see, really...

"Won't this be fun," he hissed maliciously. He turned smugly to one of his soldiers, who chuckled appreciatively.

"Stupid Ranger won't understand why his ears have suddenly gone useless and his eyes are blurry..."

-

Legolas's consciousness flitted in and out vaguely for hours. He had little concept of the time, only that it seemed to be passing very slowly and painfully. Consciousness never stayed long, but fled after only a moment or two, his awareness confirmed by the bleak scene which met his eyes time after time again, of the cold dungeon.

His thoughts were never completely clear. Instead, they were typically a disjointed flurry of random thoughts of the events that had taken place over the last fortnight. One such memory, however, jarred his being and as he swam desperately around in the ocean of disjointed thought he felt a sudden urge to return to full consciousness, for more than a few seconds.

He still did not know what object had been given him by the dying elf.

The will to regain his awareness was a tiny pinprick of light in a world darker than night. It was like being held beneath dark water, able only to see the tiniest peak of light above the surface. Forcing himself to surface exhausted him, but he ignored the aching feeling and pushed onward.

Finally he regained consciousness again, and this time commanded his tired mind not to retreat into the blissful depths of unawareness.

He was firmly shackled by the wrists to the wall, but the cold metal object was not so far down in his breeches. Gritting his teeth, he grasped the chains holding his wrists in place and pulled up. Unsteadily, he gained a foot and moaned as fire raced throughout his body. Yet if he wriggled his body correctly, he could force the object from its place...

He moved his lower body and stretched a hand to seize the small thing. He could barely insert a fingertip into the top of his breeches, as his hands were secured rather higher above him. It was very awkward indeed, and likely looked ridiculous, but he cared not. With an effort, he hooked a finger around the metal object and managed to bring it into his palm. Leaning heavily against the wall for support, his whole body aching from the effort, he looked down into his hand to scrutinize the object lying within it.

His eyes widened with shock as realization struck him.

The Ring of Barahir lay still in his open palm.

-

Awakening had not been a pleasant task for one Ranger.

In truth, Aragorn felt it had been a better time when he was not fully aware of every cut, bump and bruise he had received in the skirmish. Yet awaken he did as the drug wore off, and he was made fully aware that his body ached acutely from the numerous cuts and blows he had managed to obtain.

He was lying on his side, hands bound firmly behind his back and feet tied at the ankles. His captors were nowhere in sight, and if they left any trace of their path it was invisible, at least from this vantage point. Curiously, there was a dagger stuck firmly in the ground about three yards from where he lay bound. If he could manage to wriggle over to it, he could get it free and use it to cut his bonds...

He was at a loss to say why the men had left the weapon there, and it made him extremely suspicious. He cast his eyes about for any sign of a trap, or of an ambush, and discovered none evident to his naked eyes. Inching carefully towards it, by scooting his knees forward and then pushing his upper body after it, proved to be an effective, if agonizingly slow, method of reaching the means to free him.

Aragorn could not say how long he had been lying there. The sun was now lower in the sky than it had been, but it had been morning when they were attacked so it was difficult to guess. He estimated it to be early in the afternoon, and that he had been motionless for perhaps three hours.

Finally, after perhaps a half hour of infuriatingly slow progress, he reached his goal and flipped on his back so his hands could grasp the knife and yank it from the dirt.

Now came the difficult part. He managed to slip the knife in between his hands, and thus in between the ropes that bound him. Grasping the handle in one hand, he pushed the knife's blade backward against the ropes. Awkwardly he sawed away, but his movement being extremely limited his progress was even slower than his journey to reach the dagger. Every few minutes his fingers would be come unbearably stiff and he was forced to cease his motions until he regained circulation.

Eventually, after what seemed hours of sawing away--and, in his estimation, was probably close to around a full hour--the first rope fell away. He yanked his hands tentatively against them, but it wasn't enough, so he resigned himself to hacking away at another. Finally, when he had cut through the second one as well, he was able to pull away enough to slip his hands through the loosened ropes.

Hacking away the ropes that bound his feet took mere minutes, now that his hands were free. Dizzily he rose to his feet, eager to be on the move again. He looked around, not truly expecting to find his weapons but considering it worth a try anyway. True to his expectations the area was devoid of his sword and all the other weapons he normally carried.

Regretting it immensely but far too itchy to get moving, he did not dwell on it. His opponents had been skilled fighters, ones who would surely not leave any of his familiar weapons for him.

He gazed around the clearing for a second, trying to gain bearing on where he was and exactly what had happened, when suddenly alarm crashed through his existence and shook him to the core.

Thranduil! What had become of him? And Airulas and Belthan, where were they? He had heard their cries but had been helpless to do anything, busy fighting on his own. He felt sickened. It had been a diversion. He had been drawn away to get the elves alone.

Gritting his teeth, he chose the direction he believed he'd come from and plunged into the woods. Vaguely he found it odd that there were no birds chirping, and that there was no wind rustling the trees. His vision was less than perfect, too, but he figured it was due to the blow on the head he'd received and that it would clear up soon enough.

He raced back to where he had left the elves, and a horrific sight met his eyes.

King Thranduil lay unmoving on the ground at his feet. A gash tore open his right side from which blood streamed thickly and freely. His breathing was hitched, his pulse erratic. His skin was cold and his open eyes were glazed.

Aragorn cast his eyes around the glade. Airulas and Belthan were nowhere to be seen.

He inhaled sharply as he rushed to the king's side and inspected his wounds. Cursing, he wished he knew how long he had been away from them. He blinked his eyes furiously, but they did not seem to be able to clear properly. Certainly he could see, and nearly as well as any normal human could, but Aragorn was used to having sharpness of eyes comparable to elves', and having only mediocre vision, blurriness added, was extremely frustrating.

He gingerly rolled the king onto his back and pulled back the matted, bloody tunic. An ugly, careless gash ran across the fair skin, the edges of the wound crusting with blood and the middle still seeping crimson.

Aragorn's pulse raced. Something was wrong here. The king's injury was bad, but not fatal, yet the king appeared lifeless as a corpse. The slight, strained rise and fall of his chest was the only thing that gave Aragorn hope. He grasped a water flask and poured it onto the cleanest bit of cloth he could find, cleansing the wound the best he could. Was it poison? Aragorn could find no trace of leaves or any other herb near the king or in the wound. He checked the king's body and found no other lacerations or places where cut had been made for poison insertion. If it was poison, it must have been administered orally. The only way to get that out would be to force the king to vomit or to just wait for the poison to flush out of his system. That would require both consciousness of the king and plenty of water, neither of which Aragorn currently had.

Biting his lip he cast around and found two discarded elven water flasks lying near the outskirts of the glade. He rose to his feet and hastily collected them, figuring that he should collect the necessary supplies before trying to wake the king. That way in the event that he could get Thranduil conscious, there was no guarantee that the king would remain so for very long and it was best to be prepared. Aragorn spent a few minutes gathering what little remained of their belongings--a shred of cloth here he could use for bandages, strewn lembas, the water flasks--before he turned back to the king and his heart nearly stopped.

King Thranduil had stopped breathing.

Aragorn dropped the provisions and raced back to the elf. He snatched the elf's wrist up and pressed two fingers to the pulse. There was none. Gasping, he pressed a finger to his neck, where a strong and steady thump ought to be, straining for any weak sign of a pulse. Nothing.

Aragorn dropped to the ground and laid his ear against the elf's chest, hoping against hope that there might be a tiny thump, anything, just a sign that the king was still alive...

But there was nothing. Aragorn rocked back against his heels, reeling with shock as the stunning realization hit him like a pair of cymbals.

King Thranduil was dead.

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Reviews would be nice!

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