Chapter 4: The Cry of the Damned

Running through the forest was not fun.

Quinn could run at a full sprint for days at a time—perks of being dead. That was all well and good on the plains of Rohan or the grassy stretches west of the Misty Mountains. But forests, with their fallen branches and rocks and hidden rabbit holes? Not fun. Even with her weird postmortem healing, it sucked to run with a broken ankle.

Doing it all at night was doubly not fun, and Quinn had spent the last few hours fantasizing about tying the Nazgûl's hoods together like a bundle of carrots and tossing them into the ocean. See if they could do their master's dark bidding beneath fifty feet of seawater.

The last sign of them had been at Bree, where they'd left a collapsed gate and a dozen terrified townspeople. Quinn hadn't caught any sign of the hobbits, though, and she hoped they'd been able to escape with Gandalf's help.

The next sign had been just off the road. The ruins of Amon Sûl, a watchtower from the old days, was used mostly as a shelter for passing travelers. She'd only given it a glance, but the small orange light shining from one of the upper levels had made her pause. She knew Rangers weren't dumb enough to light a fire in plain sight like that, and she doubted the Nazgûl were up there roasting marshmallows. But she knew a group of hobbits who had never been outside the Shire before might do something like that.

Quinn was nearly at the watchtower when the light went out. She frowned and paused, and a second later, a shriek pierced the forest.

"God damn cloak-wearing screechy-ass bastards." She broke into a sprint again, shoving a branch away before it could smack her in the face. The Nazgûl's cry had echoed, making it hard to pinpoint its exact origin, but it was loud enough for her to tell that they were close.

A figure stepped around from behind a tree and swung a sword at her neck. Quinn dropped into a crouch, and the metal thumped against the bark.

"Quinn!" He lowered his sword. "I-I almost—"

"Yeah, please don't decapitate me, I honestly don't know what that'll do." She straightened. "What are you doing here?"

"I could ask the same of you," Toven replied. She almost hadn't seen him at all, what with his dark Ranger's garb that blended into the shadowed forest.

"Don't give me that sass." She shoved his shoulder lightly. A chill crept over the forest, and she remembered herself. "Look, we can catch up later. We need to get out of here."

He shook his head. "Frodo and the others—"

"Up in the tower? I'll take care of them. You need to go." Quinn started walking, but he blocked her path.

"I'm not going anywhere. I'll stand with you."

She clenched her jaw. Toven was an adult now, and normally she trusted him to handle himself, but things were different now. "Listen to me. These aren't orcs or bandits we're dealing with. This is real shit." She put a hand on his shoulder. "You need to find a way out of here. Promise me you will not engage with those things."

His eyes narrowed. "Quinn—"

"Just get out of here." She brushed past him and sprinted for the tower. She hurried through the entrance, the door having rotted away years ago, and took the stairs two at a time.

The Nazgûl were already at the top. Five black-cloaked figures advanced on the cluster of hobbits standing in the center of the roof. Someone had given them swords, but Quinn already knew none of them knew how to use one.

The wraiths hadn't noticed her yet. Quinn drew her sword as quietly as she could and held it up to the light. From here she had a clear shot of all five, and they were tall enough that her strike would miss the hobbits entirely.

The scraping of metal sounded behind her, and Quinn ducked as a blade sailed over her head. She cursed and rolled out of the way as another strike clanged against the stone where she'd just been crouching. She'd nearly forgotten about the two Nazgûl left unaccounted for.

The wraiths pressed her with swift, punishing blows, and Quinn leapt back to put some room between herself and them. Normally, she could take a pretty big hit and keep fighting, but one scratch from a Morgul blade was game over for her.

She spared a glance at the hobbits. They'd been scattered, lying on the ground and winded but seemingly uninjured. The remaining five wraiths seemed more focused on something at the other end of the rooftop.

"Run!" she cried. "Get out of here!"

"Where's Frodo?" Sam staggered to his feet and drew his sword.

"Shit." Quinn dodged another strike from the Nazgûl and drove her blade upwards. Her sword flashed, and the wraith disappeared with a shriek. Her other attacker lunged, its blade scraping along her breastplate, and Quinn took a step back.

Can't let them get that close. Have to keep out of range.

With a cry and a burst of flame, a dark-haired man reached the top of the watchtower. He swung the torch gripped in one hand, and the Nazgûl retreated from the fire with a chorus of shrieks. He raised the sword in his other hand to block a wraith's blade. Toven followed a moment after, and tried to strike one of the Nazgûl with his sword. The blade bounced off its black cloak as if it had struck armor.

"Regular weapons don't work on them," Quinn said, moving next to him and parrying another wraith. "Also, what did I say about leaving?"

"I couldn't—"

Toven's reply was cut off as a scream split the air. Quinn looked over and saw the hobbits gathered around Frodo's writhing body. Cold fear seized her chest.

"No, no." Quinn held her sword in the air, then brought it down in a vertical slice. A shining beam of light split one of the wraiths in half.

The man with the torch was whirling through the black-cloaked wraiths, driving them back with one hand and parrying their blows with another.

Quinn darted between Toven and one of the Nazgûl and used her weight to shove him backwards. "Dude, get out of here!"

The wraith blocked her strike with its sword, then backhanded her with his other hand. Quinn lost her balance, and the wraith pressed her with another blow, sending her onto her back. She grit her teeth and forced her sword upwards against the Nazgûl's.

Toven stepped forward and rammed his blade through the wraith's back, but it passed through the black cloth ineffectually.

"I got this!" Quinn snapped, and lifted one foot to kick at the wraith's general crotch area. It didn't react.

Something bright flew at them from the side. Quinn and the Nazgûl both turned to see the torch hurtling directly at them, and the burning end embedded itself beneath the wraith's hood. It shrieked as flames crawled over its cloak, and stumbled backwards and over the edge of the tower.

Quinn pushed herself to her feet and grabbed Toven by the arms. "Did any of them hit you? Do you feel cold anywhere?"

He frowned and shook his head. "I'm fine."

She turned away, concern overriding anger for the moment. The three hobbits were kneeling beside Frodo. Sam looked up, his face wet with tears.

"Help him, Strider!"

The man went to kneel by Frodo, and Quinn and Toven followed. Frodo's face was pale, and the fabric by his shoulder was soaked in blood.

"He's been stabbed by a Morgul blade." The man glanced at the discarded knife on the stone floor. "This is beyond my skill to heal."

Quinn stepped forward. "But he can be healed?"

The man looked up at her, and she finally recognized him—Aragorn, one of the higher ranking Rangers. She'd seen him a handful of times, but it had been several years since the last time.

"He needs Elvish medicine. We'll have to take him to Rivendell."

Aragorn lifted Frodo into his arms, and the hobbit cried out as his wound was jostled. Quinn winced at the noise. She'd seen others bleeding and dying before, but seeing her friend in such pain…she felt sick.

The rest of the hobbits followed as Aragorn carried Frodo to the stairs. Shakily, Quinn knelt down and picked up the Morgul blade.

"Cloak."

Toven stepped forward and offered his. She would have used her own if she had it, but she kept losing it and didn't really need one anyway. She wrapped the blade in the fabric several times, taking care near the point of the blade.

"What are you doing?" Toven asked.

"We'll talk later." She looked up and glared. "And we are going to talk later."

Quinn scanned the plains just beyond the forest, keeping her eyes peeled for even the slightest twitch of movement. Her nerves had been raw for the past few days, each twitch of brush making her hand fly to her sword.

Frodo's condition had worsened. He spent most of the time in feverish and restless sleep, and nothing seemed to help him. Despite the ruthless pace at which they'd been moving and Quinn's shitty sense of direction, she knew they were still days away from Rivendell.

There wasn't much she could do except keep an eye out for the wraiths. She'd killed three of them, which left six somewhere out there, but apparently Aragorn lighting most of them on fire had been enough of an incentive for them to keep away for the time being.

"The wraiths need to be hunted down and destroyed."

Quinn didn't look at Belekur. "I know. Believe me, there's nothing I would like better. But I can't leave Frodo like this."

"There is nothing you can do for the halfling."

"I know that. It's not about—you know what? Forget it. If you haven't gotten it by now, I don't think you ever will."

She trudged back towards the clearing where they'd stopped to rest for the night. Originally, she had volunteered to take Frodo by herself, since she didn't need to rest, but Aragorn had pointed out that she didn't know how to slow the poison from the blade, and if the Nazgûl decided to attack again, she'd be hard-pressed to fight them off by herself.

The others were in the clearing where she'd left them. To one side were three hulking shapes—apparently the stone corpses of the trolls that had attacked Bilbo all those years ago. The hobbits were kneeling in a tight knot around Frodo. Toven was clearing a space for him to lie down more comfortably, while Aragorn scanned the shadows with another torch.

"All clear, as far as I could tell," Quinn said as she passed. She went to crouch down beside Frodo. "How's he doing?"

It was clear enough by the sweat shining on his pale face and his hoarse, gasping breaths. She knew firsthand how painful it was to be struck by a Morgul blade. Seeing him like this made her want to punch something, preferably something ghostly wearing black.

Sam pressed his hand to Frodo's forehead. "H-He's gone cold!"

Pippin turned to Aragorn, looking slightly tearful. "Is he going to die?"

"He's passing into the Shadow World," Aragorn said.

The Shadow World? What, like in A Link to the Past?

"He'll soon become a wraith like them."

Quinn thought back to her own experience getting pulled out of her body, how she hadn't been able to speak with or touch anything other than the ground beneath her feet. She stood up.

"There has to be something we can do." Desperation was pulling tight at her chest. She was getting really close to finding the Nazgûl wraith and beating a cure out of it.

"Athelas might help to slow the poison," Aragorn said. He nodded to Sam. "Do you know it?"

"Athelas?"

"Kingsfoil."

"Aye, it's a weed." Sam scrambled to his feet. "But I know it."

The two of them set off into the brush, and Toven took the cue and went to look as well. Quinn sighed, pacing back and forth. After a minute, she went to find him.

He was in a clearing a little ways away, scanning the ground with his torch held aloft. He glanced at her as she approached, but didn't say anything.

"So, what does this Kingsfoil look like? I can help look."

"It has small white flowers. Tell me if you think you've found anything."

"Yep." She wasn't exactly an expert in plants that you couldn't smoke, and her skills hadn't exactly improved since her mushroom mishap in Mirkwood all those years ago. She puffed out her cheeks and nudged a bush with her toe. "We should probably have that talk now."

"All right."

Quinn flapped her arms at her sides. She was still tense as hell, but most of her anger from earlier had faded. "You know I'm not good at the…thing. The…"

"Having serious conversations?"

"Yeah." She scratched the side of her head. "Yeah, but you did a really dumb thing back there. You've seen Frodo. That—That could've been you."

Toven finally looked up and gave her a dry look. "I became a Ranger so that I could protect people, as you do. I'm not going to run at the first sign of danger."

"Okay, first of all, don't do things just because I do them. I once elbow dropped an orc from the top of a cliff. Nearly took my arm off. I survived that, because I'm dead, but you wouldn't have. And second, I don't care if you elbow drop orcs from a normal height. Just don't fuck with the wraiths. Those things scare me."

"Aragorn was able to fight them off. I was following his orders—"

"Oh, come on." Quinn put her hands on her hips. "I know you look up to the guy, but don't turn this into a 'Mom said, Dad said' thing—"

Toven flushed. "That's not…" He lowered the torch and stepped towards her. "You may be my mother, but you seem to have forgotten that I'm not a child anymore. It's been a decade since I came of age—"

"You're fudging the numbers there, chief."

"—and I don't need to prove to you that I'm capable of making my own decisions. Even if it means risking my life."

Quinn ran a hand through her hair and let out an exasperated growl. "You should be protecting your life. You—You're older than I was when I died. Don't just throw that away."

"You died defending your friends in battle."

Her fingers brushed the spot on her side where her ribs had been caved in by a mace. "Yeah, and it was dumb as hell."

"Do you regret it?"

She opened her mouth to respond, but nothing came out. If she hadn't made that stupid mistake during the battle, Kíli and Tauriel might have died that day. As much as she disliked being dead, she wouldn't ever take that back. She sighed. "I kinda feel like you won this round, and that makes me sad."

"You'll get over it." Toven plucked a handful of leaves with white flowers and walked back to camp.

Someone else had arrived while they'd been gone. A dark haired elf was kneeling beside Frodo, while Aragorn pressed a dark paste to his wound. Frodo let out a choked gasp and shivered.

"We must get him to my father," the elf said, lifting her head, and Quinn finally recognized her—Arwen, daughter of Elrond.

Aragorn lifted Frodo and placed him on Arwen's horse.

"There are six wraiths behind you," Arwen continued. "Where the other three are, I do not know."

"Not our problem, at least for now," Quinn said, and they both turned to look at her. "Still haven't figured out what their respawn period is."

Merry stepped forward, his fists clenched. "Where are you taking him?"

"Rivendell," Toven said. "They'll be able to heal him there, if they can make it in time."

"What are they saying?" Pippin asked, indicating Aragorn and Arwen, who were speaking in low Elvish to each other.

"No idea," Quinn muttered, rolling her shoulder. She'd never gotten the hang of Elvish, either. "Kinda rude, if you ask me."

Whatever the two of them were debating was decided a moment later, and Arwen mounted behind Frodo. Aragorn murmured one last thing to her, and she spurred her horse out of the clearing.

"What are you doing?" Sam cried. "Those wraiths are still out there!"

Quinn put a hand on her sword. "I can try and cover her. Those things need to go down regardless." And she would do whatever it took to make sure Frodo made it to Rivendell.

Aragorn raised an eyebrow. "You're on foot."

"I'm a fast runner. I do a lot of cross country since I keep…losing horses." She took the Morgul blade from where she'd tied it to her belt and handed it to Toven. "Hang onto this for me, and for the love of god, don't touch it."

He nodded and accepted the sword.

"And, you know, don't die." Quinn looked around at the others, waved an awkward goodbye, and jogged off into the woods.

So this is my first LOTR fic that isn't some crack-level parody, and I'm trying to keep some canon elements while still making this Quinn's story. I hope some of this stuff isn't too repetitive for you guys who read a lot of LOTR fic.

I'm headcanoning for this chapter that Nazgul aren't affected at all by steel weapons. I justify Eowyn's kill in ROTK as some kind of wordplay trickery—that, or she's just that good.

I don't really like writing grouchy Quinn, but it doesn't really make sense for her to be light-hearted in these situations (and I did say things were getting darker…) There'll still be some funny moments though, don't worry.

I thought we'd had enough scenes of Quinn fighting Nazgul, so next chapter is probably going to jump straight to Rivendell + first Toven POV!