Disclaimer: I don't own any of Tolkien's characters or locations sigh. Mel is mine though.

To the reviewers:

Danceingfae: Snapped her neck? Well, read on and you'll see…

Dy: I love it when someone calls me evil, wicked, nasty, cruel lol.

Christie: Welcome aboard and thanks for your reviews! So glad you like this. Hope you enjoy what follows…

Maverick Girl: Well, they are going to get out of it this one, but at what cost?

Samus: The Messenger is believed to be some sort of a witch because she comes from another world, and thus her 'power' has to be investigated to see if she can be of any use to the 'dark side' lol. (does this sound verrry lame?)

~ Chapter 14 - On the Run ~

Aragorn's POV

They are sending out ever more scouting parties to search for us. The orc leader is not taking any chances. From where I was hidden, I saw him questioning Mel earlier and it was plain to see that whatever she said unsettled them.

I wonder why they have not taken the Ring from her yet. They must be waiting for the Nazgul lord to return. It is plain that even their leader is not privy to the Ring's existence. The Nazgul do not trust their filthy minions with this knowledge, for fear of the Orcs claiming the Ring for themselves.

The scouts pass close to my hiding place but none of them catch my scent. The rank stench of the corpses, already starting to rot in this humid heat clings to this cursed place like a sheet, numbing out all other odor.

I move toward their camp and set to work. I have used Gandalf's explosive rockets before and the panic and confusion they inflict should be enough to give us a chance to free the prisoners. *

I wonder if Gollum will carry out his task. In spite of his proffered help and vows, I do not trust him further than I can spit and neither does Gandalf. Yet it was Gandalf who persuaded me that Gollum had to be given something to do. We both realized that keeping an eye on him in this situation would be a near impossible task. So he had to be made to feel important.

'Do you want to see the Ring again?' the wizard had demanded, hovering over the creature prostrate at his feet. 'Then you will do as I say!'

Gollum's look was that of confusion mingled with fear.

'Smeagol will help you get Mel back,' he said quietly and if we didn't know just how warped Gollum was, the tone of his voice might have been enough to convince us of his truthfulness.

I have set three such explosive devices around the orc-camp, one for each of us to ignite, though I still fear the Gollum has some tricks of his own up his sleeve. But now we need him to ignite one of the devices, as Gandalf will ignite his as I am doing now with mine. I call upon the Lady to give me enough time to reach Mel and the Ring before he does.

The fuse is lit and I must draw back to take cover. Soon enough, the rocket ignites and light explodes in a clamor of sound and blinding flares, tearing the orc camp right open.

Gandalf's POV

I watch Gollum as he looks about sneakily before setting his device on fire with scrupulous care, precisely the way I showed him. Only moments before, Aragorn's own rocket has gone off. The rock behind which I hide quakes forcefully and smaller pieces of stone, earth and implements from the orc-camp hail on me, forcing me to take refuge. When it is safe to look around again, Gollum has disappeared and the Orc camp is in absolute chaos.

The night is alive with the red flaming blaze that engulfs the outskirts of the camp, the smoke is thick and rises gray and pungent with the stench of burning bodies and sheer terror.

The Nazgul's steed flutters its wings in a frenzied panic, it's serpentine neck neatly cleaved by a sharp fragment of rock. Its animal cries increase the wave of panic that sweeps across the camp that is swallowed by billowing smoke, fires burning out of control and the cries of the dying. With all my heart I hope that neither Legolas nor Mel are amongst them.

I light the fuse of my own device and run as fast as this old man's body that the Valar has seen fit to give me would allow. The blast is the most powerful of all and even before the sound of the explosion is over, I hear more agonized screams of terror and agony ringing out everywhere. The very ground under my feet shakes with such force as if the earth itself protests against this violation, and a wave of heat sears the air.

Out of nowhere, an orc lands at my feet, howling in agony and clawing at my legs between uncontrollable twitches as life drains out of him. I become aware of the reek of scorched flesh and fear that emanates from the camp and I am inclined to believe that it will cling to my nostrils for the rest of time.

Aragorn is slicing his way through the orcs that are confused enough to hang around and are not running screaming for cover. It only takes moments for him to reach Legolas and cut his bonds loose. The elf is wounded but obviously still capable to engage in battle because he picks up a mace from an orc carcass and begins to swing it around, slaughtering anything that moves in his path. I see it briefly in his eyes: he is avenging the horrible death of his comrades and his thirst for blood must be assuaged.

'Mel, where is Mel?' Aragorn bellows over the uproar as I run up close to them. The orcs that have not fled in panic are all but dead and I strain my eyes to look for Mel amongst the corpses and the thick smoke still lingering in the air. Mercifully, the Nazgul's steed has ceased its thrashing but as I come round the beast, I see the cloaked form of it's rider sprawled on the ground.

Aragorn approaches carefully but it is soon clear that the cloak is empty.

'He's gone, probably thrown aside by the blast,' Aragorn sighs but something catches his attention, something lying underneath the giant dark cloak. He looks to me, his eyes fierce and bleak, and hesitates for a moment before he lifts it to find what lies there.

Mel…

~~

(Switch to 3rd person)

Aragorn knelt beside Mel's broken form, his expression mournful, and with infinite gentleness turned her over. Caked mud and blood covered her face, her eyes were closed and she looked completely lifeless. Aragorn touched his fingers to the side of her neck and looked up to meet Legolas' widened eyes.

'She is alive, but only barely.' He briefly inspected her body for other wounds. He found none. 'She was not hurt in the explosion.'

Legolas held his breath, knowing there was more bad news to come.

'How close did she come to them?' Aragorn asked him,

'The force of the blast must have thrown the Nazgul on top of her. Before that he had his hand around her neck.' Legolas said sorrowfully. He had wanted to protect Mel so badly and the one moment he had turned around, disaster had struck.

'I'm sorry…' he whispered to Mel, sinking to his knees beside her and taking her hand into his own, as if she could hear him.

'That was close enough..' Aragorn commented grimly.

Gandalf knelt next to Aragorn, examining her.

'It is what I expected,' the wizard said sharply.

All three of them stared. The chain around her neck was gone. So was the Ring.

~~

Their heads whipped around all at once.

'Where is Gollum?'

Amidst the smoke that still rose and the scattered fires that smoldered softly, the former owner of the Ring was nowhere to be seen. He was probably gloating as he carried his prized quarry away, so easily plundered.

'Are you sure the Nazgul did not get hold if the Ring, Legolas?' Gandalf asked.

'I am certain' Legolas stared intensely at the wizard. 'Just moments before I became distracted, I saw Gollum crawling towards us. He must have taken the Ring.'

'He couldn't have got too far' Aragorn said. He crouched to the ground, concentrating fiercely and when he rose again, it was obvious that he had found what he was looking for.

'I found his trail. He's heading West,' the Ranger said.

'I think I know where he is going,' Gandalf murmured, nodding his head. 'His old cave. It's the only place he feels safe.'

'Then we must track him at once' Aragorn urged.

'How do you know he is going to his old cave? He knows that is the first place we would search.' Legolas interjected. 'This creature is clever, he would not walk open-eyed into a trap.'

'He never told us how to get there. He was going to guide us.' Gandalf said. 'And he certainly does not count on Aragorn being able to track him.'

'We must make haste' Aragorn pressed.

'How about Mel?' Legolas asked.

'We will set her on a horse and keep her as comfortable as we can.' The Ranger replied. 'At our next stop, I will try to tend to her. I am quite certain of what it is that ails her.'

'Will it not be too late?'

'I fear that it may already be too late..' Aragorn sighed and shook his head helplessly, his voice thick with emotion. 'But we cannot linger here. The remaining Nazgul have already raised the alarm and the Orcs are sure to come out of hiding soon and pick up on our trail. Let us hope that Mel is strong enough to last a few more hours.'

~~

Legolas sang. He sang a song of a distant place, of the sea, of the Undying Lands that he knew he would one day set sail for. But she did not stir, did not hear about the beauty of it, her frozen fingers did not even twitch in his warm palm. Legolas let go of Mel's hand, and tucked it under the blankets. He glanced up at Aragorn. The Ranger's heart sank as he saw the despondency and grief mirrored in the elf's face.

'It is in vain, she cannot hear me.'

'I know,' Aragorn sighed, his face covered with sweat and his eyes haggard as he sat by the fire and halfheartedly chewed on a lembas. 'There may yet be hope…I will try to reach her again later'

Gandalf shot the Ranger a worried look. Aragorn had been taxing himself to the limit, fighting and marching at a frenzied pace in order to keep track of Gollum's movements. It was at the wizard's insistence that Aragorn had agreed to stop and rest for a few hours.

The wizard regarded his travel companions and shook his head in disbelief. If they had seemed pitiful only days before, they were now entering into absurd territory.

The elf had an assortment of cuts and bruises across his whole body and a more serious stab wound in his lower ribcage the pain of which had made him pass out twice already, even if it was healing well enough. Aragorn's bitten arm was still somewhat swollen due to the strain of combat and the subsequent exertion of the march. Mel was like a rag doll, unresponsive and gone far beyond anyone's reach, even Aragorn's, Gandalf feared.

'It is the Black Shadow, a disease that comes from the touch of the Nazgul,' Aragorn had explained as he had given Mel a thorough examination. 'It has spread its wings over her and is holding her captive.'

'How bad is it?' Gandalf had demanded, secretly preparing himself for the worst. He was hardly surprised to find how close Mel had gotten to his heart.

'The Nazgul touched her and that alone is bad enough. ' Aragorn replied. 'This,' he said, pointing to the purple marks on her neck, 'most likely comes from him trying to strangle her. But it did not do too much damage.' He concluded. 'The Nazgul did not have time to inflict the harm he would have liked. Yet a few seconds more and he would have snapped her neck'

The moment they set up camp, Aragorn had sat down next to Mel's unconscious form, taking her hand in his own, whispering to her softly, gently rubbing her arms, trying to massage out the dreadful chill.

'Mel, come back. Come back from the shadow!'

Soon enough, Aragorn had sunk into a healing trance, offering his own vigor and spirit piece by piece in order to bring Mel back from wherever it was she had gone to.

After a while, Aragorn had re-emerged, exhausted and shaken.

'She will not respond…not yet.' He smoothed Mel's hair protectively, like a father would do to his sleeping daughter.

'Do you think…?' Legolas broke off the question he dreaded to ask.

'I do not know.' Aragorn shook his head dejectedly. 'But I will keep trying. I will not lose her!'

Gandalf glanced at her Mel's sleeping form. She looked so innocent, like a sleeping child, when her hard, forbidding eyes were closed. The swelling caused by the blow to her face was still there but it would be gone in a few days. He hoped that by then Aragorn would have found a way to pull her out of this terrible stupor.

Failing that, all their efforts would have been for nothing. They would find themselves in front of a gateway that would stay sealed forever, mocking their helplessness with its taunting rock face.

The Enemy followed, every few hours they saw another of their carrion steeds tearing across the skies, watching, stalking and hunting. But their eyes now turned to another…Gollum.

'He knows he cannot wear the Ring,' Gandalf rationalized, 'otherwise the Nazgul will swarm all over him in no time.'

Gollum was fast. But not fast enough. Time and again, Legolas would glimpse him with his eagle vision a mere few hours ahead of them.

'Every so often he stops to admire the Ring' Gandalf explained. 'He gets engrossed in the beauty of it and loses track of time.'

They rested only for short whiles, tending to their wounds as best as they could and invariably started on Gollum's trail once again. The horses had been abandoned due to the steep slopes of the Misty Mountains. There simply was no time to guide the beasts through the crevices and find ways that would be tolerable for horses. The only horse they kept was the one that carried Mel.

~~

Jerry had noticed something inexplicable, something he could not ascribe to exhaustion or the pattern of two hours sleep that he had fallen into since the game had started tracking the multicolored dots.

After he had made sure that the green dots were at a safe enough distance, he settled his tired eyes yet again on the four red dots. One of them seemed to be flickering, going on and off like a strange beacon. None of the other ones did that and Jerry could not begin to fathom what caused it. Until a few hours ago.

'Tamara,' he shrieked into the phone 'you've got to get to the hospital straight away.'

Tamara's reaction was predictable. After she managed to calm down a little, Jerry explained.

'Something must have happened to Mel inside the game. At least, I think it's Mel. But I have an idea and, no, I can't explain why and how, but you need to be there with her. I will try to upload a virus in the program.'

'A virus? Are you nuts?' Tamara flew right back in the panic she had managed to surmount moments earlier. 'What if it's going to kill her?'

'And what good are we to her if we don't even try anything? This is all I can do. With a little luck, it might be exactly what Mel needs.'

'A little luck, Jerry. Do you realize just what this could mean for Mel, if it goes wrong?'

'Yes, I do, but do you realize that we have no other option other than to just leave her there? If there is a break in the game's logic, the virus will find it. So go! NOW! There is no time!!!'

Tamara had raced to the hospital and had startled the nurses with her demand to be let in. After all, it was 3am and Tamara bursting into Mel's room did seem a little odd to the hospital staff.

How could Tamara explain that her friend was running out of time, it would sound insane at best and she herself would probably end up in the same hospital, only in the psychiatric ward. It took her a couple of precious minutes to convince the nurse.

She pushed the door open and was immediately taken aback by the Mel's gaunt countenance. The only light in the room shone straight above Mel's face and her skin was almost transparent. She pulled out her phone and dialed Jerry's number.

'I'm here.' She said into the receiver. 'This better work, Jerry.'

'Let's hope it will,' was the answer. 'I'm uploading the virus as we speak.'

Tamara sat beside Mel, taking her hand into hers. Why was it so cold? She had been assured that Mel's condition was unchanged, all things considered, yet it was only too obvious that something was happening.

'Oh, Mel, where are you? What's happening to you?' Tamara mouthed as she watched Mel's chest lifting in steady, machine-induced breathing, while her eyes rolled frantically under her closed lids. Tamara held her breath as for a moment she prayed Mel would open her eyes. But a sudden premonition came over her, drowning out all other hope and although she had had it before, it had never been so strong. It was certainty more than anything: she had to hurry if she was to see Mel ever again.

~~

* A/N: I hope the explosives did not sound too far-fetched. My reasoning was that if Gandalf used firecrackers for parties, he could just as well have used advanced pyrotechnics for more serious occasions.