In which our fish is put to the test.

.

Tree limbs and the horizon roil overhead and water swirls in your ear, your heels dragging and clattering over stones, and then next thing you know you're flailing to sit up, splashing and spitting out river water.

Asshole #2 grins over your head where he's holding you by a fistful of your tunic. Somehow in your flailing you grabbed onto his wrist. You twist about, trying to get your feet beneath you.

What the fu-

Down you plunge again, the river freezing cold and sharp and burning in your nose.

Jesus fuck!

Okay. Fuck. You're awake. You're awake.

"Okay! Okay! I'm sorry!" you cough and splutter when you're back above the river, water sluicing off your chest and face as he pulls you aloft. "Jesus Christ! I'm sorry, okay?"

"Aye, you're sorry," Grinning Asshole #2 says, shaking you from where you're dangling from his fist, half in and out of the shallows. "I think you're a liar. Guilty or innocent? What think ye, aye? Let us put it to the test!"

"No!" is all you have time to shout, but that's it. Down you go again, blowing air out of your nose in vain attempt to protect against what inevitably happens to liquids and air under the force of gravity as Asshole #2 works to hold you down, doing his best to try to straddle you to keep your legs from kicking him or lifting you up from the river.

Fucker!

"Ah, you're a floater!" he cries and grins when he pulls your chest aloft, down on one knee at your side. Rocks roll and tumble under his other foot as he tries to keep you from kneeing him in the balls. "Such a pity. Guilty it is!"

"No! No! God!" you shout when you feel your weight dropping again, latching your fists on his vest and whatever else is on his chest you can grab. "Whatever you want! Whatever you want! Please!"

"What I want," Asshole #2 says, tightening his grip on you, his grin gone cold as he elbows your knee away from his chest. "What I want is my brother back and to have never heard of either you, or your misborn Ranger, or Ferny, or all those sons of whores in Bree!" he yells, picking up steam.

"C'mon, man. It wasn't me. God. It wasn't me. Don't. Don't don't don't don't," you beg.

He leans in closer and you give him something to watch, screwing up your face against the rising panic as your hands flail out into the river like there's something out there other than water for you to grab onto.

"Offer him up to me," he commands through gritted teeth.

"What?" you gasp like you don't know exactly what he's talking about. Fucker. God damn, motherfucker. C'mon. C'mon. Just a little more. Fuck.

"Should I not have what I wish then I'll have your Ranger's head on a spi-" he says and then shouts something garbled when the large stone you grabbed from the river slams into his mouth. Dropping the stone, you then grab ahold of his face, jabbing your fingertips into his nose and cheek. With all that flailing around, you've gotten your legs up clinched around his hips where you can lever him around and, with one hand on his chin and digging into his face you catch a finger in his eye socket and, with your other hand grabbing onto the hair at the back of his head, you wrench his head about like you're trying to unscrew it off the top of his neck. His shoulders and body follow his head and you roll him over and get all up right in his face, banging his head against the riverbed and ripping at ears, eyes, and nose, whatever you can get your hands on because fuck that motherfucker.

Ha! Estel's alive and using his infuriating, hypercompetent skills to piss them off? And they think you're going to give up Estel to these motherfuckers? Fuck them! And fuck this smug asshole in particular.

Asshole has the reach on you and so you keep yourself all up close and personal. You catch a blow to your ear, but it glanced off your shoulder first cuz he can't get the leverage he wants. It's like riding a one of those mechanical bulls and you've got all you can do to hang on without losing your hat and there's a lot of splashing and a lot of flailing as he tries to knock and kick you off so you'll be forgiven if you're completely taken by surprise when hands grab onto you and yank you away and off of him. Shit, they must have found some place to cross the river.

Listen, you don't go quietly, kicking and twisting limbs out of their grip and calling them every foul thing you can think of off the top of your head whether it makes sense or not. You get in a good hit or two, and Harvey goes tumbling down into the water at one point, but, fuck, there's four of them. You still end up getting dragged out into the deeper water in the middle of the river after a lot of shouting in a language you seriously can't recognize. Harvey Tunnelson dithers off to the side where he's not quite sure what he's supposed to do, cuz apparently he doesn't have a clue what they're saying either.

The current roars against Asshole #2 as he strides through the water toward where Asshole #1 with the hunting horn and Unnamed Male Extras #1 and #2 have you in their grip, arms and tunic and hair. Your legs are free but it's not doing you one damn bit of good. You try kicking against a fucking river.

Asshole #2 isn't grinning so much anymore. He blots at his face with his arm and you get a better look at him as he gets closer. Damn. You got him good. Head wounds bleed like a mother and he's got cuts deep enough to scar. He's got blood seeping out of his nose and he can't seem to open one of his eyes as he squints and hawks bloody spit into the water. Good. You hope you scratched his eyeball something fierce and it gets infected and rots in his fucking skull.

He says something quick and sharp once as he approaches and his friends' grips tighten on you. You don't understand a word of it, but you'd be an idiot to not get the gist. Fuck. You can see it coming. He's practically winding up, pulling back his fist like a slingshot as he takes the last couple of steps toward you.

Aw shit. This is going to h-.

The world bursts open into a shock of red, red, red but it's not until you open your eyes, blinking and trying to reorient yourself that you feel it. Okay. Yeah. Ow. Fuck. Asshole's got a fist like a pile driver. That hurt.

You spit out that metallic taste in your mouth. Mmm, yep, blood. Shit, he made you bite your tongue.

You grin, showing your teeth, blood and all. Oh hey, look, you knocked out a couple of Asshole #2's teeth. Go you!

He's winding up for another run at it when you hear, "Hey now. I think mayhap Fish has had -"

"Shut your gob!" Asshole #2 turns on Harvey Tunnelson where his eyes whip between you and Asshole #2.

"You're naught but a whining pustule on my backside," says Asshole #2, poking Harvey in his chest. Harvey looks like a teenager next to the dude, mouth twisted up and all sullen-faced.

You blink at them. What the fuck did Harvey think was going to happen? He'd point you out and he and his new friends would take you out for beers and a snappy night of karaoke? That's not the kind of tune they want you to carry.

"It's Fish," Harvey says and shrugs by way of explanation, gesturing at you as if you hadn't just fucked Asshole#2 up and it hadn't taken four men to drag you off of him. "Take too hard a hand and you'll cost the Chief his purse is all I'm saying."

Asshole #2's face screws up at that and he gives Harvey a hard shove. "Shut it! Speak no more of it! You and your clod-polled mates! You've done naught but lost us good men with your feeble wits. Were it up to me you'd go the way of your friends, but should you not have the stomach for the work that must be done, you can make your way back where ye came from and good riddance to you, should you be able to find the way."

Harveys face twists at the snickering that follows that and the shove Asshole #2 gives him. Never one to give up the opportunity to embarrass himself when his ego is on the line Harvey shoves him back. And, there we go, it's become a slap fest and Asshole #1 sighs audibly to your left before joining in the incoherent yelling.

"Enough!" comes a shout from the riverbank.

Everyone's heads whip around. Barrel-chested and bow-legged, nearly as broad as he is tall and his hair held back from his face and a wool cap on his head, a man strides down the low slope to the water.

"Build a fire!" he shouts as he splashes through the shallows. He doesn't bother looking at the men following behind him as he does so, but makes a beeline toward you.

Asshole #2 thrusts Harvey away from him from where he had grabbed him by the armholes of his vest. The riverbank fills with men getting busy following their chief's orders. Jesus! How many of them are there, anyway? It's like they just keep tumbling out of a fucking clown car.

The Chief of the Assholes spares a glance for Asshole #2, taking in your work. He jerks his chin, dismissing him to join the rest of the men on the riverbank.

"Well, well, well, what have we here?" he says as he approaches. "A little fish caught in our net, is it?"

"I told you to look down by the river," Harvey says, grinning and all but puffing out his chest as the chief makes his way past him. "Did I not say it? You'll have Sharkey's -"

There's a flurry of movement and Harvey's voice dies, strangled by the knife jammed in his throat.

You flinch within your captor's grip. Jesus fuck!

Harvey chokes, too shocked to do more than stare, eyes bulging and mouth spitting out blood in a dark red stream before Major Fucker yanks his knife back out of Harvey's throat and, pausing to wipe the blade against Harvey's sleeve, turns his back on him as Harvey sinks into the river.

Oh shit. I mean, you never liked Harvey, but that was… Shit!

Major Fucker slams his knife back into its housing without looking. He makes a soft, speculative noise as he looks you over, and then nods as if you're pretty much what he was expecting. "Well then, what say you, little fish? Where is he?"

Shit.

Okay. Okay. Here we go.

Oh, god.

"Who?" you ask, cuz, I mean, what else are you going to do?

This is - fuck. No matter what you do? This is not going to go well for you. This is… shit…

His eyes narrow at that. He's got a big beefy hand to go with that barrel-chest of his, with callouses a little too much like Estel's for comfort, and up it comes to take you by the chin. He turns your face about this way and that. "That dúnadan with whom you've been lording about," he says in a flat voice, as if he were much more interested in reading something on your skin than in your answer.

Doona-what?

"I don't know what the fuck you're talking about," you say. It seems pleading ignorance is the route you've chosen.

"I think you do, little fish. Spent most of the summer with him, you did," he says and scowls gently as he tugs at the neck to your shirt, pulling it away, examining the skin beneath and sticking one thick finger beneath the cloth as if he were searching for something hanging around your neck before moving on. He purses his lips as if he were searching his brain for something missing. "Let me see, how was it? Walker? Long Legs?"

"Strider," says Asshole #1.

"Oh, aye, yes, 'Strider,'" says Major Fucker, nodding, his hands going on to a thorough search of your body, squeezing and running along your chest to your waist to your thighs from back to front.

Ugh. Fucker. It's not doing you much good trying to twist away from him. You'd protest that you don't have either anything of value or any weapons, but you figure that's only half of what the fucker's trying to achieve. Apparently Major Fucker's men learned from Asshole #2's experience and are holding you in as tight of a grip as they've got. You are thoroughly helpless and he can do whatever the fuck he wants with you.

"One of the Ranger-folk, Strider, though what his true name is I've not heard." He shrugs and then makes a regretful clicking of his tongue when he comes on the empty scabbard to Estel's knife. He lifts it up, twisting it about in the sunlight. "No matter. Of a people long gone and forgot. Their lord, 'tis said by some, and that's good enough for me and my purse."

I'm sorry, what?

He purses his lips, examining the chasing of engraved leaves of silver about the scabbard and then lets the knife's housing drop back to your hip and pins you with a sharp look.

"Where is he?"

"I don't know any lords, much less where they are," you say. Which, you know, is technically the truth, though, what the fuck?

"Fish, Fish, Fish," Major Fucker says, shaking his head as if, for your sake, he had hoped better. He pats your cheek. "The harder you make me work for it, the less use I have for you. See? It's all about risk and reward. The more you cost me, the greater the reward shall need to be in recompense."

Jesus! If that's his attitude, who the fuck is Estel that he has a price on his head big enough they'd spend a whole summer and half their men on him?

"So you, little fish that you are, had better pay up with a bigger fish soon, else we shall see should fire loosen your tongue should not your lungs full of water do it."

"Fuck. Off," you say, as clearly and distinctly as you can, no matter how much you think you just might hurl the contents of your stomach all over Major Fucker, cuz… shit. This is so not good.

"Very well," he says and takes a step or two back, tucking his thumbs into his belt. He smiles wryly at you as if you were a child and it is his job to be patient with you. He nods at the men holding you.

Oh god. Oh god.

Your only warning is the hardening of their grip on you. They yank you up and kick your feet from beneath you, and then the water closes over your head. They hold you down and hold you down and hold you down and you fight and you fight until your chest is on fire.

Oh god.

Your body finally rebels all on its own. You're thrashing wildly, the water burns as it goes in your lungs and you gulp great mouthfuls of it. When they pull you out you're coughing and you vomit it out all over yourself and your face stings where they slap you because you got some on them, and then the ground disappears from beneath your feet and down you go again.

They pull you out and laugh. Always the fucking laughter. You can't see straight or connect the dots between the words they're saying and what they mean for how dizzy and disoriented you are, but still there's the fucking laughter.

It takes time for the fire to get hot, and even longer for the metal to heat up.

Fuck! They're not even asking you anything anymore. You're going to die like this, aren't you.

"I don't know anything!" you shout when they haul you out of the water for long enough that you can clear your lungs, or, at least, you attempt to shout something. Water runs from your nose and your mouth tastes of metal. You're not sure exactly what sound comes out.

Doesn't seem to matter much. Major Fucker's got you about the throat, not strangling you, but holding you tight enough to remind you that he could, and has leaned close enough you could see every hair on his face if you weren't half-blind.

"Little fish," he says, his voice almost scolding and fond. "I have been very patient. My men? They have had their fun. But now? Now you will tell me what I want to know."

You're not sure what it is he is handed. All you know is it's metal and it's so hot that it pings and sizzles when drops of water fall on it from your hair. What the hell are you going to say? You don't know a fucking thing about Estel.

"You're a pretty thing, aye?" Major Fucker asks with a quick look from your top to bottom and back. "They say he's fucked neither woman nor boy nor man full grown. Should you have caught his eye, he'd want you kept close.

"So do not lie to me, little fish, hmm?" he goes on, his voice slow and light as he caresses your throat with his thumb. "Or first I will put those pretty lips of yours to good use, ere I cut them from your lying mouth and you, my little fish, will learn the taste of your own flesh ere you die."

Oh god.

Your knees buckle but they hold fast to your arms and keep you aloft by fistfuls of your hair.

God, this is going to hurt, isn't it. Major Fucker's got that gleam in his eye. Maybe it's a really really good thing you don't know anything. He brings the metal so close to your face you can feel the heat of it scorching your cheek. Shit. Shit shit shit shit shitshitshit-

Then he sprouts something dark and feathered in his eye.

What the fuck?

But down he goes before you get a good look and all hell breaks loose. There's shouting and running and splashing and -

Fuck! You're back in the river, the water closing over your head again. It takes some time of flailing about to realize no one is holding you down.

It takes all the strength you have to clamber and paddle through the current until you can crawl through the shallows, slipping and stumbling on rocks that shift and tumble beneath your weight. A man screams high and wailing but then the sound cuts off sharply.

There's pounding of booted feet and a shape dark against the sun-bright beach speeds across your field of vision. You scramble back through the shallows, landing on your backside and scuttling like a crab out of the way, splashed by the water as Estel pounds through the river in front of you. Shit! He's spattered with blood and swings that big-ass sword of his over your head as if it were a toothpick. Jesus! You barely recognize his face for the grimace of rage distorting it. There's the clang of metal behind you and grunts and shouting and the splash of water and then he's chasing something into the line of trees. There's a few more bodies on the shore in addition to Major Fucker trailing a cloud of blood behind him where the current has pushed him into the shallows.

Fuck! Just make it to dry land, right? God help you but you're not sure you can stand up right now. And so you keep creeping along across pebbles and the green slime that grows in pools of quieter water and clings to everything, stopping at times because you can't cough and spit up river water and crawl at the same time.

And then there are boots and splashing and Estel's hands are upon you. His eyes flick across your body, and then he is peering into your face.

"Ai! Halanya!" he says low. He has sheathed the sword and he is touching you so, so gently where your cheek and eye ache and throb, but all you want to do is scream.

You rear up and flail at him, knocking his hands away and landing upon your backside in the water. "Who the fuck are you?" you scream.

"It is I, Hala, Estel," he says, reaching for you.

"Fuck you!" you croak. "You are no more Estel than I am Fish."

"Ai! Hala!" he says, growing urgent. "We do not have the time for this!"

"Make the time! I'm not fucking going anywhere until you tell me what the fuck is going on!

"Jesus Christ!" you swear, panting for breath and struggling to keep from collapsing into the river.

You want nothing more than to crawl to that nice patch of sand and dirt heated by the sun you can see over his shoulder and maybe lie down in it and take a nice nap on the nice soft sand with the nice warm rays of the sun beating on your back and shoulders and forget about the not so nice men. That would be nice. Let's do that.

You do not get to do that.

Next thing you know, Estel hauls you upright and you stumble to get your feet beneath you. He's got a fist in the back of your tunic at the nape of your neck and uses that to guide you forward. Together you splash through the shallows and upstream to the low bank of the river.

Great. All kinds of new things you're learning about Estel and sides to him that you're getting to see.

"We must go. Now!" he commands, dragging you alongside him. He may have been talking for a while but you're only really hearing what he is saying now. "They have fled, but once they regroup they are sure to return and make another attempt to find us."

The next few days aren't ones you remember well; snatches of running through the thinly wooded areas until your throat and lungs burn and you are shaking too hard to keep your feet beneath you, brief rests in which you can't seem to catch your breath and Estel presses water on you. His hands against your face when your breathing becomes more labored and brief stops in which he grinds something green and sweet smelling in a rag with a stone and nearly forces it down your throat when you can't seem to get it together enough to drink it by yourself. Estel speaking urgently and shaking you, and then yelling at you to keep moving. He is absolutely terrified under all that impression of a drill sergeant, and that's what finally breaks the fog and keeps you on your feet and lurching forward.

You wake during the night to find him standing beside you, his back to the tree under which you are sheltering.

You're unsure what woke you. It's the quiet of the deepest part of the night, when even the crickets and frogs are asleep. And then he's down on one knee next to you. His touch lingers on your forehead and cheek and you are shaking. Deep bone-rattling shivers come in waves. Fuck, it's cold.

"My pack…" you mumble. God, there is something, something, damn it, what was it? Oh. Your pack. Right? Shit. What were you going to say? Wait. Who the fuck is this giant dude anyway and why is Hozier touching you like that? Oh, doesn't matter. Your teeth are chattering so violently in between bouts of curling up and coughing up your lungs you probably wouldn't be able to stand up much less fend him off.

"Aye, Halanya, worry not, I have your pack. It was on your back when I found you." He's shaking out his blanket and wrapping it around you tightly before he then turns you on your side and, laying down behind you, spoons up to you. He rubs at your arms and chest with his huge hands. Fuck, you knew Hozier was tall, but fuck, he's just big all over.

"Hush," he whispers when you start to cry.

"I let him down," you say, starting to sob outright, ugly and sputtering from where you're trying to hold it in.

He tucks you in close, wrapping his arms about you and speaking low. "Hush, Hala. I am sure he bears you no ill will."

"You don't understand, I promised him," you say, bereft, because, fuck, you did promise him, and his asshole father ghosted him and his friends ghosted him and, fuck, now he's alone and it's all your fault. But you don't say all that. You can't. It's just too much. Instead, you do your best to convey your feelings on the matter, as deep and complex as they are. "And he can't find me, I'm a wombat," you say, ending on a wail.

"Ai, Halanya." A big paw of his lands on your forehead and when he removes it he sighs deeply as if the world's burdens just settled on his shoulders. "Hsst, hush now, hush," he soothes, his face pressed up cool against your head and voice soft in your ear. "All will be well, Hala."

Fuck, it's dark and for some reason your bed is outside under a fucking tree. Fuck. Your landlord is going to charge extra for that, isn't he. You're shaking and cold and hot all at the same time and when did a giant start rocking you against him and encouraging you to sit up and spit the goop you just coughed up out onto the floor as he rubs your back and who is this Hala person he keeps yammering on about?

"What's happening?" you beg. You are so fucking confused.

"Worry not," he commands gently. "I have you. Sleep if you can. We move again when the moon sets."

It all just makes absolutely no sense, but slowly the heat of his body seeps into you and you decide maybe it would be better to take his advice, what with him being so huge and, well, all over you, and well, you are really sleepy anyway. Maybe it will all make more sense when you wake up.

You are then jouncing about and the ground bobs below you. You feel like you've taken a knee to your chest, your sinuses and nose are full of snot and you've drooled all over his shoulder and pack. Up and down and up and down the heels of his boots go.

Oh. He's carrying you.

"Hala, do not move about so much. You are not heavy, but neither are you light and the way is not short."

He's got you slung across his shoulders, your left arm and thigh clutched against his chest and the rest of you dangling. It is not pleasant.

"It got wet," you say miserably, though, honestly, you're not exactly sure what you're talking about.

"Aye, Halanya, you did, but you are safe now," he says with the air of someone who is not quite sure what you're talking about either and is on about the million and first attempt to reassure you about it.

Oh god. Maybe you should just concentrate on not throwing up on him.

The next thing you recall clearly is his low curse as his feet slide. Estel catches himself with a jerk and then jostles you upon his shoulders to resettle your weight. The ground had been rising steadily but now he skirted about a tree to then reveal a narrow gap between walls of stone. From there it seems you are winding your way through a steeply falling, narrow ravine of dirt and rock.

"Hush," he says, his voice low and soothing.

Oh, you were moaning and coughing up goop.

He has slowed down and now places his feet with exaggerated care and clings to the rock face with his free hand. "We will be there soon. I believe we have lost them."

"Okay," you say and promptly fall asleep again.