A/N: Sorry for the delay! I decided to do Moria in two chapters, mostly because its such an epic scene. And also, I have no time to continue it! I don't like doing my chapters more than five pages, and this is capping it, so here you go!
The steady, monotonous beat of the drums roared through Sam's system. It was deeper than the lowest note of a bass guitar, louder than a thunderclap, and it was sending the Hobbits into bouts of near-hysteria. Boromir and Aragorn shouldered their way to the front of the little group, readying bows, taking careful aim at the doors which were trembling slightly. Legolas had already smoothly notched an arrow to his string, and was evaluating the room carefully. Gandalf was guiding the Hobbits behind him, and Sam noticed all the color draining from their chubby faces. Frodo, bless his heart, unsheathed Sting first and tried to imitate Aragorn's fighting pose, but Sam noticed the tip of his sword shaking uncontrollably. Lizzie was surprisingly calm, staying behind Gandalf and very close to Frodo. Had Sam been more attentive, she would have noticed Lizzie's hands unnaturally close to Frodo's shoulders, as if to jerk him to one side and pounce on him. But any suspicion Sam might have had in her mind was instantly obliterated when she realized a very shy, very redheaded person was very noticeably missing. Her face went chalky white as she felt her stomach plummet. "Amy!" she shrieked, as if saying her name could conjure her from midair. "Where's Amy?"
She bolted towards the oaken doors which had been bolted shut by two thick halberds, ready to go through hell and high water to find her friend. A door, which had stood through the eons and been cemented into the impregnable rock, was not going to stand in her way. Legolas caught her around the waist before she had made it three steps, his arm snapping around her middle in a blur of speed. "Samantha, stay behind Gandalf with the Hobbits," he ordered, his voice wintery and colder than frosted steel. "You're injured."
"Damn my shoulder!" Sam screamed, thrashing wildly. The bandages which had been so carefully applied earlier that week were dirty tatters by now, and she wrestled her way out of Legolas's hard grip. Her cheeks, which had been so deathly pale only moments before, were blotchily red with anger and a fierce determination. Her brown eyes were nearly black as she searched the surrounding area for a weapon, any weapon. The nearby corpse of a dwarf caught her eye. It had an axe embedded in its skull. She ripped it from its gruesome tethers and hefted it, the bolt of pain that ricocheted up her arm echoing only dimly. The real Sam was buried underneath layers of adrenaline and a sheer, white-hot, magma torrent of battle rage. The door buckled once as spears began to hack away at it, and she felt an alien feeling soaring through her veins. Her eyes were slitted as she copied the stance she had seen Amy use so often, dancing out of Aragorn's reach as he boomed orders in her ears. But she didn't care. The only thing that stood between her and Amy was a door. One little door.
The little door exploded as the Orcs flooded inside. She was out in front, and for the first time since she had been in Middle Earth, she felt fear. An icy finger of utter terror stroked down her spine, sending ripples of goosebumps across her skin as she faced the horde of monsters. They were short, about four feet tall, with blackened skin that was greasy and gleaming with sweat. Orange eyes, striped with a sickening yellow, were wild with a savage hate and a lust for blood. Black fangs were bared in menacing snarls, and claw like hands gripped rusty swords and chipped spears. They bullied their ways forward, panting reptilian breaths of hot air as they forced through the mobs. Howls of triumph, guttural roars akin to sea lions barking, echoed through the tomb. Three arrows hissed around Sam, sending three Orcs to the floor grasping their throats as black blood bubbled between their claws. She hefted the axe and skipped to the left, burying it deep in the skull of a scrawny Orc with a curved sword. The beast gave a high-pitched squeal and died, its body wrenching horrifically in death throes. But Sam was already twisting her axe out of its head, sending brains and blood spraying across the floors. She was a machine. She would find Amy if she had to whack off the head of every thing that came through those doors.
Then the troll arrived.
Amy rocketed down the hallway, clutching the book to her chest as she skidded in the dark hallways. She turned corners madly, her heart pounding wildly, her breath coming in flat, rapid gasps of a fugitive. One more corner, and she flattened herself against the wall, listening. The book dug into her arms as she felt tears rolling down her cheeks. A bird of panic was fluttering at her throat, threatening to burst out and send her into a degenerating spiral of hysteria. She fought to keep her head. If she allowed panic to overtake her, she would be useless. She would die. Amy closed her eyes, listening closely, every fiber of her being praying that she wasn't being followed. The book felt like an anchor, dragging her down into inky depths. There was a faint noise in the distance, a dim roar similar to the swell of the ocean, but other then that it was completely silent in Moria. The panic didn't abate in the slightest, for every nerve ending in her body was screaming that something was lurking in the darkness. It happened in all the movies. The hero would turn a corner, and the monster would spring out of the shadows. But minutes passed, minutes that stretched into glimpses of eternity, and nothing came out of the darkness. A long, soft breath was expelled from between Amy's lips, and a fraction of the tension rolled off of her shoulders.
She peeked around the corner and nearly slapped straight into a bulky Orc.
Orcs are not stalkers by nature. They do not have an innate ability to sneak up on their prey, luring them ever closer by comforting silence and appearance. They prefer to kill their meal quickly, in a no-nonsense way that will not allow the meat to toughen. It had taken every shred of this particular Orc's patience to keep from pouncing on the tender looking human. Seconds before she poked her head around the corner he could feel his endurance fraying, and had been willing to just take his chances by cutting downwards blindly around the corner. But now that the tantalizing human was within his reach, he wasted no time. His cutlass, worn around the hilt and spotted with rusty blossoms, came swinging down at Amy's neck. She reacted instinctively, bringing her hands up to shield her throat. Luckily for her, her hands were still clenching the book in a blood-out-of-stone grip. The sword sank into the book with a rotted whap, and Amy felt the tip of the sword scratch her throat. An uncharacteristic anger welled in her breast, similar to the rapid dissolving of a dam as water leaks through. It had dared to touch her book! She twisted the book to the side, wincing as the pages ripped internally, turning the Orc's wrist sharply and causing it to squeal shrilly in pain. The rusty sword went spinning across the narrow passageway, and Amy darted over to it so she could pry the book from the swords edge.
Apparently the Orc didn't need a blade to devour her, for it tackled her with a guttural roar. She felt red hot claws swiping across her chest, scoring it shallowly as the beast pawed for her neck. Every self defense class she had taken suddenly evaporated from her mind, and one thought kept running in circles around her mind: Get him off of me! She kicked upwards with her knees, hitting his groin and lower belly with a disgusting crunching noise. Had there been sufficient light in the hallway, Amy would have seen its pupils dilating into a look of sheer horror. It let out a strangled moan and continued scrabbling at her neck, cutting thin red welts into the delicate flesh. She rolled onto one side, sprawling the Orc on its back, and her fingers groped blindly in the darkness for the hilt of the sword. Her fingertips were rubbed raw over the rocky floor as she felt the Orc's nails biting deeper into her shoulders, belly, and throat. Her index finger ghosted across a firm surface, smoother than a rock, and she lunged for it.
Her fingers closed around the sword as she felt the Orc's teeth sink into her stomach.
Lizzie watched calmly as Sam battled her way through the mobs. A queer feeling of complete serenity was flooding her system, dispelling the urges to scream and run around. She watched as Boromir, Aragorn and Legolas choked off the supply of Orcs as they continued to come into the room, noted Gandalf's angry face as he shot beams of light from his staff. The Orcs were completely ugly - the ugliest things she had ever seen. Part of her remembered that she should be scared stiff right about now, but the new feeling of queenly tranquility soothed it. She looked down at the small Hobbits, and smiled winningly, feeling her chapped lips slide across her teeth. That's what was making her feel this way. It was that tiny bauble bouncing frantically on Frodo's chest. That small ring that would fit so perfectly on her finger. She took one step nearer to it, wanting to have more inner calm as she actually reached for the ring. She imagined how it would feel on her finger; cool, small, firm enough to cling to her finger, but not constricting. It would look so pretty in the sunlight, winking and smiling in the faces of the Fellowship. They would cherish her then, and they would worship the ground she walked on. Which finger would she put it on? Her right ring finger, she decided. It would look prettiest on that one. She was half a step away from putting the ring on her finger, half a step away from snatching the necklace from Frodo's neck, when the door shattered and a full grown cave troll bulled inside.
For a moment, she felt a terror that belonged to a deer staring into headlights. And she had every right to be; the cave troll was gigantic, larger than an elephant, with a colossal iron collar ringing its neck. Spikes jutted from the collar, adding just another weapon to the already hefty arsenal. A thin layer of grayish fur covered its scaly body, the muscles bulging underneath oddly contrasting skin, and fangs dripped with a mixture of blood and saliva as it bellowed. Its small, piggish eyes swept through the room, evaluating the targets as it looked for the easiest prey. Lizzie felt her body trying to panic, trying to scream and bolt for cover, but then the ring assuaged her fears with a whisper of that beautiful, beautiful voice. She relaxed almost instantly as she followed the instructions the ring was telling her to obey. They were easy instructions, and she began to follow them to the letter. She turned to see the Hobbits scattering in all directions, searching blindly for places to hide. She felt a fond smile steal over her lips. Silly little creatures. Why would they run from a cave troll? She was the real threat. Anger flared in her chest, hard and bright. Stupid animals. Why were they cowering from a troll when they should be bowing in fear before her? She raced over to Frodo, who was diving for a boulder patch. "Outta my way, midget," Lizzie snarled in a raspy voice very unlike her usual dulcet tones. She sent Frodo sprawling across the floor with a well-aimed kick.
The troll, seeing the movement, stopped crushing its captors underfoot and honed in on the terrified Hobbit who was now grasping feebly at the boulder patch where Lizzie was hiding behind. The troll tossed the gigantic spear of wood that it was gripping and turned to Frodo. Something like a maniacal grin twitched its filthy, ugly muzzle, and it stabbed the wood into Frodo's stomach. The small Hobbit went white, his eyes widening to fantastic diameters, and then he toppled to one side. Lizzie peeked out from behind her boulder patch, and she felt as though someone had slapped her clean across the kisser. The peaceful serenity she had once had vanished like water on a hot sidewalk. Someone had died because of her. All because of some stupid ring! How could she have just done that?
But that stupid ring was glittering invitingly on Frodo's chest.
Drunkenly, she crawled out from behind the boulder patch and put a tentative hand on Frodo's chest. Traitorously, she heard herself composing a speech to pick up the spirits of the Fellowship. "There, there, there. We must respect Frodo's death and press on. We should not disgrace his memory by weeping. He would have wanted us to continue. Therefore, it is with great personal grief, that I will continue Frodo's legacy and take the ring." One finger caressed the smooth surface of the ring, and she saw her reflection in the dull surface. Then there was a splitting headache that cracked across her forehead, remarkably akin to be sliced into the scalp. Moria melted away, the sounds of the battle, everything for a brief moment. She saw a blinding flash of fire, an eye of magma with a core of inky black. Thick Black Speech twisted through her brain like branding irons, and she fell backwards with a little scream.
The ring was going to kill her if she wasn't careful.
"Lizzie! Come on, lets go!" Sam snapped, one hand plunging downwards to capture Lizzie's arm. She hauled her upright and ignored the quivering, the lip wobbling, the paleness in both of her cheeks. Sam knelt next to Frodo, who was sweaty and trembling all over. Aragorn was laughing with relief, but Sam didn't feel like laughing. Amy was still missing. Sam tore past the corpses of Orcs and the huge body of the slain troll as she bolted towards the door that was hanging lazily off of its hinges. She would find Amy, find her if it was the last thing she did. She heard footsteps behind her and didn't bother turning; she knew it was the rest of the Fellowship, hurrying out of the scene of the battle. Legolas passed her, then spared her a glance. He waited for a fraction of a beat, his chilly blue eyes meeting with hers.
"Samantha, we will find her," he said. There was a crack in his voice that betrayed his feelings. "We will find Amy. I swear it."
"Bullshit. I'll believe it when I see her." Sam growled, shoving through the rest of the Fellowship and down the narrow hallway.
It was at that improbably moment that Amy slammed straight into Legolas. She let out a little "oomph", and would have fallen to the floor had Legolas not caught her tightly by her forearms. Their faces were suddenly, alarmingly close, and he saw every little detail of her rounded features. Those eyes, Valar, those eyes were beautiful. But those pale green discs, like tiny leaves uncurling in new spring, were filled with fear. Absolute, unequivocal fear. He looked down at her, and his pale eyes suddenly darkened to the point of blackness. "You're bleeding." he said, and his voice was rough and low. "Amy, what happened?"
She looked like she was about to faint as she touched her fingers to her bleeding stomach. "An Orc," she whispered. "Followed me. Oh, God, this hurts!" she cried as Legolas's fingers brushed her bruised belly. He glanced behind him, and his keen ears pricked up as he heard the sound of approaching goblins.
"We have no time," he said brusquely. "Aragorn!" he shouted. "Aragorn, help me!" The warrior turned around on a dime and picked up Amy in one quick movement. Amy cried out again, and this time it was laced with pain and thick with fear. She was being carried by a man she had hardly exchanged words with in a mine full of monsters that were hot on their heels.
It was going to be close.