Chapter title: The Chase
Author's note: Well... This update took long enough. I blame it on multiple job interviews and settling in a new job and stuff (yeah... life happened again). Plus, this chapter was a nightmare to write, because I've been on and off it for, what, two months now? Now that it's finally done, I can sigh in relief and go on.
Okay, enjoy and, as always, reviews are much appreciated!
Time froze. None of the Elves moved as the whisper died away in a hiss.
The sound of scurrying Orcs swelled in their ears and still the Elves did not move. They stood, barely breathing, with minds numb in fear.
The first one to break the stillness was Legolas. His gaze searched for his companions' eyes, but his face was no longer set in stoic determination. His brow crinkled and the same question that troubled his comrades was etched on his features.
However, Ninrieth was the one to voice it. "What was that?"
None of them had an answer, as clearly stated in the befuddled looks they exchanged. The initial numbness gave way to mounting panic and the realization that their situation grew more dire by the second: they were surrounded, outnumbered, they had lost precious time and someone - or something - was not only watching them, but had somehow managed to speak directly to their minds.
"We have to leave. Now". Legolas' voice was calm, but his blue eyes betrayed his terror.
Maeloth nodded, just to have her body move a bit and shake off that helpless paralysis. She willed her sweaty palms to tighten on the grip of her sword and looked around, feigning more courage than she actually felt.
Orcs were flowing out the northern and southern edges of the wall, like a black tide splashing against its rock curves. The loudest of the sounds seemed to come from directly behind them, from the other side of the wall, which meant that soon the Orcs would make their way through the very tunnel the Elves stood in front of. By the looks of it, they didn't have more than two minutes before the first enemies reached them. If they wanted to get out of there alive, they would have to act fast.
Inevitably, Maeloth's gaze turned to the forest. There were more enemies waiting for them among the trees, but they were still obscured by more than enough trunks and did not seem to move as fast as the other Orc units. The forest was probably their best chance for escape - and, apparently, their only one. She reached that conclusion at the time same time that Legolas pointed his sword to the mass of dark trees and shouted: "To the Forest! Follow me!" He broke to a run, the rest of his group following him barely a heartbeat later.
They pelted towards the forest, feet almost not touching the grass in their haste, and dove into the shadows of the branches. Over the tops of the trees the sunlight was fading quickly but, under the leafy roof, night had already fallen. Still, even in this near-absolute darkness, the Elves could discern the faint glint of eyes and blades straight ahead, approaching steadily for what would soon be a head-on clash.
"This way!" Legolas shouted and turned to his right. They headed north-west, never slowing down, trying to keep the fortress to their right and the Orcs in the forest to their left. The Elves quickly caught on their prince's plan to swerve past the enemies that lurked in the forest, while simultaneously putting as much distance between them and Bald Hill as possible. They hoped to maneuver their way between the two approaching bodies of Orc forces but, if they weren't fast enough, they would soon be flanked from both sides. They knew they were trapped between hammer and anvil, and their only chance lay in being fast enough to slip away before the former hit the latter.
Noises were growing louder around them and a quick glance over her shoulder told Maeloth that they had started running just in time, if not a bit too late: the Orcs from the fortress had just gotten past the treeline and were swarming the east side of the forest. The tide was closing in.
There was still an opening up ahead of them, but it was growing smaller with each passing second. Maeloth cursed under her breath and urged her body to run faster. The sound of her own frantic pulse and sharp breathing prevailed in her ears. Her exhales turned to gasps, but there was no alternative other than work through the pain in her chest and sides. If she fell even a step behind, that would be it: she would be swarmed and torn to pieces before managing to so much as blink, and fighting all of these enemies was out of the question.
She had to make it back. Back home. Back to Belegorn. She had to make it back, so she kept running even though each breath was shredding her lungs apart.
They could not turn to the east, because Orcs were covering every inch of space between them and Bald Hill, and the opening ahead was closing rapidly; way too rapidly. She avoided low-hanging branches in the width of a breath, eyes glued to the backs of her companions and that small, promising patch of space among the trees.
Taunting shrieks pierced the darkness. Blades glinted up ahead and to the left. The forest unit had almost caught up and was seconds away from closing off their only way out of there. Their shrill voices were screaming at the Elves; the first black arrows sliced the air.
"Swords!" Legolas bellowed, his clear voice echoing over the mess of shrieking and clanking. "Keep running! Do not let them stop you!"
The first enemies leaped in front of them, tongues hanging out of their mocking half-smiles and a thirsty gleam in their eyes. Their crude blades clashed with the elven ones.
Maeloth clenched sword and teeth and prepared to fight her way through. She had time to see a sneering face with rotting teeth before she cut off the head of the first Orc that got in her way; she jumped over its body before it touched the ground. She tackled her way through, slicing any spot of skin that happened to enter her line of vision, trying by all means to keep up to her companions. She shoved her blade into tender flesh one, two, three times before she stopped counting and started reacting instinctively.
Just as she had found out during her first real battle, all other thoughts and feelings abandoned her for the sake of one overwhelming drive: staying alive. Second came her prince's order: keep running. Stay alive and keep running. The rest did not matter.
It barely registered as she ducked to avoid blades and kicked shields and sliced her way through the thickening mass of Orc soldiers. She could faintly hear voices shout orders in elvish and tried to follow their direction, relying on her ears because she did not dare avert her gaze from the blades that danced in front of her.
So far it seemed that they were managing to clear a path through the enemies, but they had slowed down considerably. At this rate, the main force would catch up to them very soon.
"Keep running! Keep running!", Legolas kept shouting until his voice got muffled by the distance and the racket of battle.
A spear barely missed Maeloth - she felt it graze her arm - and she cut in half the shriek of the Orc that wielded it. The blood in her hands was hot and slick, making it hard to maintain her grip on her sword.
She lifted her gaze only when she heard Feredir's voice resonate with a triumphant note. "Hurry! We almost made it!" She spotted open space ahead, past the last few lines of enemies; Legolas had already made it past the flood of Orcs and was firing his arrows to assist those of his companions that were still locked in combat.
Excitement and hope doused the protests of her body as she tackled the two Orcs that stood between her and her route of escape. The rest of their group was already darting behind their prince; Maeloth had just made to follow them when Morfindir slipped into her line of vision, still fighting the last line of resistance. She staggered to a stop, hesitating for barely a second before turning back to help him.
The moment she turned around, she froze in terror. Morfindir did not need her help after all - he had finished off the Orcs that were trying to stop him and was already running after his group. It was what came behind him that made Maeloth's heart drop to her feet, drowning all of her previous excitement.
The Orcs that had remained weren't much of a threat, and their main force was still obscured by the trees, but spiders were coming dashing through the darkness like a flood coursing through the foliage. She did not try to estimate their numbers; she only knew that they covered every visible spot and were making their way fast, jumping across the branches or flowing in streams on the ground.
A shout reached her ears: a single word, so distorted by panic that she couldn't tell which one of her companions had uttered it.
"RUN!"
Maeloth did not know that it was possible for her to run faster than she already had, but terror gave wings to her feet. She felt as if her legs would snap with the force of her strides, but she did not even dare think of slowing down. Trees became blurry shadows in the corners of her eyes, but she found the golden gleam of Legolas' hair and fixed her gaze on it, following his every move and trusting him to lead them correctly after she lost all sense of direction. Not that it mattered much; as long as the mass of enemies was behind them, their route was the correct one.
The clicking of claws was too loud in her ears. She wanted to attempt a glance behind, just to make sure that she was not at imminent risk of being grabbed by a pincer, or that all of her companions were still alive and running - she had heard no screams of pain, no cries for help, but still - but she did not dare to. Thankfully, every now and then her companions swam in and out of focus as they dashed along, and it was something of a relief when she heard Morfindir urging them to run faster, his voice coming from somewhere behind her - he was still there, still there, he was not left behind, thank Eru, thank Eru-
Dread choked her every time she thought that he was the one left further behind, thus the one closer to the deadly swarm, but she could not bring herself to risk a glance. What would she do if she turned around and, suddenly, he was nowhere to be seen? Would she panic, stumble, rush to help - die? She could not afford to, she could not die - not here, not now - so she prayed and hoped and kept running, and she combed the sounds that reached her ears to distinguish his voice, his shallow breaths, his grunts; any sign that he was still alive.
The distinct scent of ash reached her nostrils, causing her terror to mount to a peak. Legolas was leading them back the way they came from, back through her old, burnt-down village. If they kept going that way, she would soon be back to that ashen clearing and heavens knew that she did not need that now. She did not want to set foot there again, not even when being chased by an entire army of Orcs and spiders; however, there no alternative, so she took a deep breath, as if preparing to dive underwater, and broke out of the safety of the trees and into the dreaded clearing.
With the next breath, the rotten, ash-laden air of the area invaded her lungs; a deep, pained grunt of resignation and powerlessness echoed from the depths of her throat.
They raced past the skeletons of buildings that stood like sentinels in the darkness. No stars shone overhead to lend a glimmer of beauty to this gruesome graveyard, and the burnt corpses looked even more nightmarish under the meager moonlight.
Maeloth bit down hard on her lip, adding another sharp pain to the numerous ones of her body to keep herself in line. "Run", she whispered the command to herself through her panting, forbidding herself another display of weakness, swallowing back down all feelings and locking them in firm denial. Feelings had no place in such a moment. The ash did not matter - the smell, the houses, the bodies did not matter. What mattered was running fast enough to survive. Leaving everything behind.
She would run out of this place once more, like so many nights ago, when she held tight on Belegorn's hand and did not look back. She would run away, this time forever. This time the trees wouldn't dare to sing a requiem for her, because she was not meant to rest under this ash. She was meant to run and fight and live; and let the dead remain with the dead.
"This way!" she shouted with an authority she didn't know she possessed and turned sharply to her right, towards the north, her sense of direction returning with the memory of Belegorn dragging her along the very same path.
A quick glance confirmed that her companions had heard her and were following her - thankfully, all six of them. They crossed the ash-covered stretch of land, running as fast as arrows flying straight to the north edge of the woods. The spiders kept at the chase, raising a cloud of ash in their wake; one last glance before diving back into the trees showed Maeloth her homeland being swallowed by the black wave of hairy beasts.
Once in the dark embrace of the trees, she did not look back again. She led her companions north, needing no stars to confirm their direction. She might have had no memories of her village or of life before the attack, but everything after it was imprinted on her mind in extreme acuteness.
The oak was silent, the elk stood seething and the birch seemed wilted, but she knew she was on the right path. Whatever trails had once marked these grounds seemed to twist and turn in all the wrong ways, but she followed none of them. She followed the Belegorn of her mind's eye, almost seeing him in front of her. Her companions panted along, every now and then leaving confused gasps as Maeloth skipped obvious turns of the path, leading them through untrodden parts of the woods.
"Are you sure this is the right way?" Ninrieth shouted as they jumped over a small gorge.
"Yes!" Maeloth yelled back.
She could not stop to explain, but she hoped her certainty would be enough to reassure them. The woods were hostile and changed - they had acknowledged that before - but there were still familiar details for her to follow, small things that she recognized with little pangs of triumph. A twisted trunk, a mushroom-infested fallen log, a weirdly-shaped rock or a thin stream snaking over the dead leaves lit spark after spark of hope and renewed her courage. She remembered everything clearly; she could tell when they crossed the spot where Belegorn had collapsed, or the tree against which she had leaned to catch her breath.
The spiders kept clicking their claws and snapping branches as they made their way through the forest. Respite for the Elves was out of the question and Maeloth hoped against hope that their enemies would give up before her group ended up collapsing. She had lost track of time and even fatigue had stopped being an indication of how long they were running.
The only positive sign was that the norther they trod, the weaker the sounds of pursuit grew. It seemed that the Orcs had given up the chase long ago and some spiders had just started doing so, one by one. Nevertheless, there were still enough that persisted, leaving the Elves with no option but to keep going.
"Wait!" Morfindir shouted at some point, startling them all to a staggering halt. He was looking around with recognition lighting up his tired features. "I know this place - I used to be in charge of patrols in this area!"
The moment Maeloth stopped moving, her head rushed in nauseating dizziness and pain shot through every inch of her body. She leaned against a tree as her companions moved around hastily, scanning their surroundings.
"That's right", she heard Legolas say. "There is an outpost, not far from here".
"It's that way!" Ninrieth cried out with as much enthusiasm as she could muster among the pained gasps that made up her breathing.
"We are close", Berior's deep voice rumbled with evident relief.
"Let's move! Hurry!" Legolas' command rang loud, voice invigorated by hope.
"Come on", Morfindir tugged at Maeloth's arm softly, managing an encouraging smile through his shallow breaths. She let him pry her from the solidity of the tree and forced her legs to start moving again. She resumed her running, earning sharp pains with each step.
Legolas had taken the lead and was shouting encouragements as often as his own heaving allowed him to.
"How much further, captain?" Maeloth breathed as she jogged next to Morfindir.
"A couple of miles, I think".
A great, creaking sound told them that a tree had fallen somewhere close; probably a victim of the brutal passage of the spiders. The group's jog sped up to a run again, but their delay had been more than enough for the monstrous wave to catch up.
The darkness around them stirred. Thick, sticky threads shot towards the Elves' feet, fortunately missing them and sticking on tree trunks and grass blades instead.
Maeloth did not need her prince's prompt to run faster. She could hear guttural insults and the loud clicking of claws coming from a few feet behind her. A thread missed her by mere inches, causing her to cry out in alarm.
"Gaelion!" Feredir roared to their companion. Both men were in front of Maeloth, running as fast as they could; Feredir was gesturing to his right. Without hesitation, Gaelion broke out of the group and followed him.
"We'll try to divert them - keep going!" Feredir yelled as an answer to the bewildered looks of the rest. Before Maeloth could manage more than a disbelieving glance, they were gone, all the while shouting to catch the attention of the spiders.
"Don't slow down!" Morfindir shouted, placing his hand firmly on Maeloth's back and pushing her forward. "Go, go!"
It was a miracle that she did not stumble from exhaustion, or that her feet did not catch on a treacherous root or a stray spider thread. The air was full of noises all of a sudden, the yells of her companions mixing with the spiders' curses and the ear-grazing sound of snapping branches. She did not know whether Gaelion and Feredir had succeeded in distracting even a few spiders, but there were still more than enough at their heels.
She heard an arrow's hiss in the air and a shriek indicating that it found its mark. Somebody from her group was firing arrows one after the other and Maeloth could not help but wonder how they managed to do so while still running. She was clutching at her sword, but all of her focus was on the three miles that stood between them and the elven outpost.
A panicked yell pierced Maeloth's brain. In the cries of pain that followed, she recognized the warm hues of Morfindir's voice. Her heart missed a beat at the sound and she found herself doing what she was unable to before: she turned around, stomach lurching in sickening agitation, desperate to catch a glimpse of her captain still alive and running, despite the screams that were definitely his.
Morfindir had fallen to the ground with a spider pincer biting into his right leg; he was crying out in pain and was struggling to fight from his hindered position, swinging his sword with one hand and clawing the ground with the other. The spider that had managed to catch him was the leading one but more were coming, flinging their sticky threads around.
She knew she should keep running. She knew she should, because the outpost was so close and she could make it. She knew she should keep herself safe so that she could return home to Belegorn, and keep fighting to bring down those Orcs, just as she had promised herself at the fortress. She knew all that - and yet, it did not take more than a second and a breathless curse for Maeloth to make up her mind and rush to his side.
She lifted her sword and sank it in the spider's eight-eyed face with all the momentum from her run. Blood sprayed her when she pulled her sword out with a strained grunt and she kicked the beast straight in the bleeding wound, pushing it away from her captain. Morfindir freed himself from the pincers' grip once they went limp and tried to scramble on his feet. Maeloth slung an arm around his shoulders and yanked him up, not thinking twice about it, wanting only to take him out of there as fast as possible. She all but dragged him and he cried out again - she caught a glimpse of blood flowing down his leg - but she did not stop nor made her movements more gentle.
Running was not an option for Morfindir. He tried to at least walk but, every time he put his right leg on the ground, he hissed in pain and trembled all over. His injured limb threatened to give in with each step. Maeloth tried to support as much of his weight as possible and guide him away from the nearing stomping sounds, while searching with her eyes for her companions. For one mad moment she thought they had abandoned them and kept on running, but then she saw Ninrieth and Berior dashing towards them with their long curved blades in their hands. Behind them, she spotted Legolas perched on a branch, firing arrows as fast as blinking.
Berior was headed towards her, to assist her with carrying Morfindir. Despite the wave of gratitude that rose in her, Maeloth shook her head impatiently and shouted: "I've got him! Hold back the spiders!"
She saw him give her a curt nod before sprinting past her, his focus shifting to the oncoming mass of enemies.
Maeloth hauled Morfindir along, not stopping for a second, not even when he started protesting in-between pained grunts.
""Stop- Stop! Leave me and run- just- run!" he was rambling as he limped next to her. Behind them, shrieks and clangs of claws had arisen; Legolas' arrows kept whizzing over their heads.
Maeloth did not bother to answer Morfindir, as all her breath was going in her struggle to carry him down the path. She was not going to leave him behind anyway, no matter how noble he wanted to act and no matter how much he protested. She hoped that the look on her face would be enough to convey this and make him shut up and be cooperative, but it achieved the exact opposite. Her captain dug his good foot on the ground, effectively stopping their procession, and said firmly:
"I command you to leave me! I am a hindrance and a liability for the mission, and I will not allow myself to put you all in danger, so I demand that-"
His sentence was cut in half as Maeloth heaved him, sheer annoyance giving her strength, and resumed their hobbling in a fast enough pace to make Morfindir repeatedly cry out in pain instead of talking. Her own body was trembling with the strain, but she was beyond caring at this point. She knew that the outpost was close, so it would all take one big final struggle, one last gritting of teeth and then they would all be safe. They were at the end of the road; she had not made it this far to give up now.
She craned her neck to take a look at the fight that was going on behind them. Berior was cutting down spider legs in a swirl of green garments and deep brown hair, slipping between deadly pincers with the elegance of a leaf in the wind despite his well-built physique. There were no more than ten spiders left now; the rest of the swarm were dead or had abandoned the chase, either to run behind Feredir and Gaelion or to go back to Amon Lanc before they tread too deep into elven grounds.
Just as Maeloth was looking, Ninrieth appeared from between the branches and dived down to the rapidly-diminishing swarm of enemies; she barely managed to catch the glint of her sword before it was plunged into a beast's hairy back.
"Maeloth, take Morfindir and go!" Legolas' voice reached her before the prince himself jumped down from the tree he had climbed on. He had already drown his long knives and broke to a run, shouting: "We've got the spiders! You go!"
She left them to fight and went on, reassured in spite of the horrible screeching sounds and clangs that filled the air. Thankfully, Morfindir had ceased his protests and was trying to move faster, keeping his right foot of the earth and relying solely on his left one and on Maeloth to maintain his balance.
She was keeping her eyes fixed on the north, repeating four words over and over in her head: we are almost there, we are almost there, we are almost there...
She did not know if it was the Forest or her vision that was growing darker, but she found she had to blink several times to discern the tree trunks around them. Everything seemed to fade away in blackness, dissolving and taking shape again in-between blinks. The pain in her lungs was piercing. She could hear her breath hitch more often than she would like.
She held on to Morfindir's solid and warm form, both to make sure that he would not slip from her numbing fingers and to keep the assurance of material reality in a world that was growing blurry and distant. She was under the impression that he was saying something again, but she could not make out what because his voice was fading in and out - just the way the whole world was.
She gathered a few sharp breaths in order to utter two words. "Lead me".
Fortunately, her voice sounded clear enough for her captain to understand. He tugged her to the right as he murmured something that she could not really hear. She supposed he was trying to encourage her, perhaps saying the very same thing that she kept repeating in her head. We are almost there. His breath was burning her ear.
She kept her eyes tightly shut to fight the dizziness that tried to overtake her, relying on Morfindir's slight pull towards certain directions to take them to the outpost. It was hard to say who was supporting whom at that point. At least, it was something of a consolation that both were on their feet and still conscious, unlike the last time that Maeloth had been in a similar situation.
She opened her eyes when Morfindir shook her violently, shouting something indistinct. She looked around blindly until her vision cleared enough for her to spot a tall wall through the trees. The sound of horns pierced the air, loud and high-pitched enough for her to hear.
She managed to make out what Morfindir was saying. "This is the outpost! We made it, Maeloth!"
Ten minutes later she was sitting on a chair next to a roaring fire, the cup in her hands emitting a strong scent of herbs and spices. An elf was trying to wrap her in a woolen blanket while shouting instructions to someone behind his back.
There was a lot of shuffling and scurrying around, but Maeloth could see none of the Elves that surrounded her. Her vision was still blurry from exhaustion, so she had sat back in her chair with her eyes closed, breathing in the restorative fragrance of the contents of her cup instead of actually drinking them. Under the strong heat of the fire she started drifting in and out of consciousness, tiptoeing on the verge of sleep even though she was anguishing over her companions. She knew that Morfindir was in a nearby room getting his wound looked after, but she hadn't heard from the rest yet.
She jumped out of her restless half-sleep when a hand touched her on the shoulder, accompanied by a hesitant voice.
"My lady?"
An Elf soldier she did not recognize was leaning over her, seemingly unsure whether to wake her up or not. When she blinked at him, he gave her a small smile.
"You'll be glad to hear that your companions are all alive and well. We have sent a force to help Gaelion and Feredir with the remaining spiders, and Prince Legolas and the rest are on their way".
It took a few seconds for the information to sink in her groggy mind. When it registered, her whole body relaxed, her form melting into the cushions of her chair. She let out a long exhale, drawn from the depths of her strained lungs, and allowed her head to lean back and her eyes to close.
They had made it.