"We know the spot that she was taken into Lorian. And we're pretty sure that it was Eldarion that was taken in before her." Maleth said from his spot beside the map of Middle Earth that hung in the war room of Meduseld. Eomer, Aragorn, Faramir and Eowyn sat at the table before it and listened as Maleth related what was known.
"We will take in three regiments of horse and five of foot troops. We will march on Lorian and Fangorn and find out what is going on in there." Aragorn stated. "I want my son back, and I want to know what these creatures are."
"Lady Arianna believed they were the product of Urukhai and humans."
"How is that possible?" Eomer asked. "I thought all of the Urukhai were destroyed with the fall of Sauron."
"Nay, the wizard Saruman created some and turned them loose before he disappeared somewhere in the north." Aragorn sighed. "The last word we had of him, he was in the Shire."
The door to the chamber banged open and two figures strode through the door.
"But we turned him out, didn't we Pip?"
"Right you are Merry."
"Merriadoc Brandybuck and Peregrin Took!" Eowyn chided. "You are interrupting important business good sirs."
"They never could stay away, how did you find out about this?" Aragorn asked, fighting to keep the smile off his face.
"Well…we were bored with Shire affairs and decided to take a little turn out on the country side." Merry said.
"And then we just rode farther and farther and farther and suddenly we were here." Pippin finished.
"Well, then perhaps you can help us."
"Eldarion?" Ari approached the door and waited for the man—who she was finding hard to think of as the Prince of Gondor—to join her. "Let me see your knife." Eldarion handed her the small blade and stood back as she went to work.
She had redoubled her escape efforts after finding out that Stranger was indeed Eldarion. This was her mission. She had to get him out if nothing else and away from this place. He could not be permitted to risk his life and endanger the line of Gondor and the rule of men.
She crouched at the door and worked the blade into the bolt on the side of the door. She had to cut through a layer of fungus and grime to the pin in the hinge. She rocked back and sat on her ass and breathed heavily. She couldn't believe such little exertion could wind her so greatly. It actually wasn't the exertion, it was the position with her abdomen cramped up under her battered rib cage.
"I think we can get out this way." Ari said looking at the big door. "We'll take the bolts out of the hinges and open the door to this side…"
"Do you think it will work?"
"It works in the movies." Ari said shrugging. She went back to work for a little while wiggling the knife under the bolt in the door until Eldarion warned her to come away.
"They'll come with lunch soon." Ari sat down on her stone bench and waited as the tray came sliding through the door.
"Didn't any one tell you sons of bitches how to cook properly, I mean…this slop isn't fit for an orc!" Ari was disappointed not to have gotten a reaction from their guards. After they had finished eating Ari went back to work on the door.
"Why did you yell at them?" Eldarion asked as Arianna sat wiggling the pin out of the hinge.
"What?"
"The creatures outside….why did you yell at them?"
"Oh, habit….I was HORRIBLE when I was incarcerated in Rohan." Ari looked up quickly. "Oh….guess I didn't mention that."
"You're---you're a criminal?"
"No no no…you see, I found myself here—in Middle Earth—Rohan-- quite by accident….then when Maleth and his men found me I was taken to King Theoden." She laughed. "His lackey, Wormtongue had me imprisoned because he believed I was a spy. So I harassed the living shit out of the guards because in Rohan the guards prowl in front of the cells. So I used to just sit there and make fun of them to no end because it was sort of fun. I tried to tunnel out, but they caught me before I got real far with the project." She saw the look on Eldarion's face. "That wasn't an option here…the stones are too close together to pry up…I already checked. Anyway, it was while I was in prison that I learned to pick locks…..I scared myself the first time I did it…then I tried to make a run for it." She stopped working on the hinge and looked at the moldy wall beside the door. "Eomer helped me escape---I thought I'd die in that prison…that I'd lost my mind…but then he came through the darkness and brought me out." She turned to face Eldarion. "He saved my life—he saved my life more than once."
"Are you sure you DIDN'T lose your mind in that prison?"
"Eomer asks the same questions sometimes….and no, I'm not sure…." She grinned at the shocked man behind her. "I'm kidding dude…." The pin wouldn't budge more than an inch from its secure spot in the hinge. Ari whacked it with her palm and regretted the decision when it began to throb, a big welt spreading across the heel of her hand.
It took Ari three days to move the first pin out of the door. She'd awakened one morning with a string of spit sliding down the side of her mouth. She'd wiped it away hoping Eldarion wasn't awake to notice it. She sat up slowly and wiped at the crud on her face. Then it dawned on her….
"Can we blow up my soccer ball now? Please Daddy?"
"Sure sweety…let me go get the pump." Ari's dad had retrieved the ball pump from the garage and returned with something sticking out of his mouth.
"What's that daddy?"
"It's the needle to inflate the ball…see?"
"Why'd you put it in your mouth?"
"You can't put it in the ball dry…it needs to be wet so it slides in without ripping the lining of your ball."
"Spit is a natural lubricant." Ari said. She waited for breakfast and then summoned as much spit as she could in her mouth and hawked the biggest loogie she could on the hinge.
"What are you doing? That's disgusting!"
"Spit is a natural lubricant." Ari repeated. "I should have thought of it sooner. It is disgusting though…but we have to do what we have to do." Just before the lunchtime meal was brought to them Ari triumphantly held up the first of the pins.
"If it takes you that long with the other two…we'll be out of here in ten days." Eldarion said casually.
"It won't take me three days now that I know what I'm doing." The next bolt, in the middle of the door was out in twenty four hours. It was the third, top hinge that posed the biggest problem. Ari couldn't reach her arms over her head for long periods of time and she certainly couldn't spit that high. Eldarion had to help her.
It took him two days to get the pin out of the door, of which most of the time was spent on Ari convincing him to spit on the hinge. She eventually succeeded and the pin slid out and into his palm on the afternoon of the second day. He turned, staring at it.
"Now what, they'll be here soon with lunch?"
"We wait til after…." Ari said grinning happily.
"Master Merriadoc….how fare you?" Eomer asked of the Hobbit as the large troop of men rode towards the one time haven of the elves. "What news of the shire folk?"
"We are well….Frodo and Bilbo went with the elves several years ago and Samwise is now mayor of the Shire, if you can believe that."
"Father of a passel of Hobbits---how many does he have now, Merry?"
"Thirteen---and Rosie'd have it no other way, I can assure you."
"They all live at Bag End….Shire does right well under Sam's eye." The Hobbits conversed with Eomer for some time until they reached Helm's deep which was to be their camping place.
"I will not stay behind."
"And if something happens to the both of us? Who will care for the children?"
"She is my friend….my dearest of friends….I can not let her languish in that prison…" Eomer stepped through the door into the inner sanctum of the hall at Helm's deep. Eowyn's face was filled with passion and anger as she argued with her husband. "I refuse to be kept behind merely because I am a woman."
"You must stay behind because you are Queen."
"Yet, KING of Rohan, you are allowed to venture forth?"
"Aye, 'tis my duty." Eomer cleared his throat and brought the attention of his sister and brother in law to him.
"Sister, Brother….I do not believe it wise for either of you to venture forth." Eomer turned to Eowyn. "But Faramir is right….you are a mother and Queen of Rohan…you must not put yourself in danger for Ari." Eowyn made to object but Eomer raised his hand to stop her. "Knowing Ari she's probably pissed off many of the guards and has managed to get herself injured somehow." He smiled briefly remembering what Ari had been like when she'd first arrived in Rohan and the stories the guards had told about her. "If what Maleth said is true, she's probably in a great deal of pain from being trampled….we need you hear to make poultices and prepare the healing halls for her---and any others that may fall in this mission."
"I don't care to admit it….but you're right." She said begrudgingly. "I have not ridden out in many years….since before Arianelle's birth….I would be more of a hindrance….but I want to be there for Ari…"
"You'll be able to help her here."
Two days later the army set out from Helm's deep for the woods of Lorien and Eowyn remained behind helping the women of the court prepare for the injured to return.
Ari and Eldarion waited until they'd finished their meal and then assessed what was available to them. Eldarion's small knife was bent and scraped from being used to dig the pins out of the door. They had rocks, long lengths of chains and Ari had managed to wrench an old sconce off the wall and sharpen the end of it.
"Alright, so do you know how to get out of here?"
"Roughly." Eldarion said. "We're on the level below where I was held last time….there is a set of stairs to the left that will lead up." He sketched out a map on the floor of their cell with his knife into the soft stone. "We have to go up to this level and then go down the set of stairs over here. Then it's down a spiral stair and out to the stables through this door here."
"Let's do it then."
Eomer, Faramir and Aragorn sat atop the canyon top. The signs of battle were still visible from where they sat….spears were broken off into the ground and a burn mark indicated where the carcasses of the creatures had been burned.
"Lady Ari was taken in over there….near that shorter mallorn tree." Maleth indicated.
"We need a plan of action." Faramir said. "How do we proceed my king?"
"Carefully."
Ari and Eldarion decided to wait for dark to fall before making their escape. They napped through the afternoon and waited for the silver moonlight to flood their cell.
Eldarion pried the door away from the jam and swung it into their cell….the door scraping ominously loud against the stone floor.
"Quiet!"
"The door is heavy, sorry." Ari and Eldarion made their way to the staircase and up to the next level, then down the long corridor to the opposite stair.
"It's a spiral stair case…how so we know there's not going to be someone on it?"
"We don't…but it's the chance we must take." ELdarion and Ari edged their way down the stairs carefully, wary of anyone approaching or following them down. Eventually they stepped out into another corridor and Eldarion stopped and looked around.
"Are we lost?"
"I don't think so. I just forgot about this…." Eldarion proceeded to the end of the hall but found no stairway. They were going to double back and go back up the stairs when they heard someone coming. Ari and ELdarion hid behind pillars and waited as a lone creature came into view. It began sniffing around the pillar Ari was standing behind. She held tightly to the sharpened piece of metal in her hand and waited for it to make its move. When it made to lunge at her she pinned the creature to the ground and threatened it with her paltry implement of destruction.
"Now, you're going to tell me how to get out of here--right now, or I'll kill you." Ari said. The creature struggled beneath her. It was smaller than any other she'd met.
"Why should I?"
"Because I'm bigger than you…" Ari started to bring her weapon to bear on the creature but it suddenly spoke.
"Second door on the left…up the stairs to the floor above us….." Ari stabbed the mini-pike through the creature's shoulder, leapt up and kicked the creature in the head rendering it unconscious.
"Come on!" Eldarion grasped Ari's hand and led her up the stairs.
"Wait….I can't breathe." Ari wheezed as they sprinted up the stairs. Pain rippled through her side and she felt as if her chest were on fire. "Stop!"
"We can't, do you hear that?" Ari listened to something besides the annoying voice in her head that had been yelling at her to stop and heard the sound of heavy footsteps coming up behind them. They broke out onto the courtyard and made a bee-line for the stables. "The stables are down this path…let's go!" Eldarion and Ari managed to find the stables but there was only one horse inside. They didn't even bother to saddle the horse but pulled it outside and through the woods.
It had taken them so long to get out of the dungeon that the sun was just coming up to kiss the snow capped peaks of the Misty Mountains. In the blue green light of early morning Ari stopped Eldarion and leaned against one of the big Mallorn trees.
"You have to get on that horse and ride as fast as you can to Isengard…..from there you can get help back to here."
"No, you take the horse, you're hurt."
"Bloody hell I won't…." Ari ground out. "I wouldn't make it far at all…I can't ride like this….but I can be a diversion."
"I cannot permit it."
"Dammit Eldarion!" Ari grasped him by the collar and thrust him towards a different tree. It took all her strength to do so. "I said you'll get on that fucking horse and you will…if I have to knock your ass out and throw you up there, I will make sure you are on that horse. Now, quit being a gentleman and go!"