Soft moonlight illuminated the forests of Ithilien, the forms of the three hunters cast in shadowy relief against the trees.  Legolas sprinted ahead on light feet, his keen Elf eyes scanning the earth.  He could feel the passing minutes like a dagger plunging relentlessly towards his heart.  Time was running short.

Luck had been with them and they had picked up the trail with relative ease.  A large group of men had passed through the forest, and with them an Elf maiden.  Nimoë.  It could be no other.  Legolas stopped still and his fists clenched as he sighted an indent in the loam that could only have been made by a woman falling.  A woman with her hands bound.

Gilmin and Raven padded up to his side.  Legolas unclenched his jaw.  "They are hurting her.  We must make haste."

The Dwarf and the Hobbit nodded silently, and trotted after the swift Elf.

#

The giant nodded his head and smiled coldly.  "Excellent."  He beckoned the guards with a quick flick of his hand.

"Your orders, Garad?"

"Take the Elf-witch to the prison.  We will keep her there for the night."

"Food, water?"

Nimoë glanced up, trying to keep the hope from flaring in her eyes.

"No."  Her shoulders slumped back against the hard ground.  "We cannot remove the gag."

"Yes, Garad."

They grabbed Nimoë beneath her arms and yanked her to her feet.  Caldarion wailed, "Nimi!" but Garad paid the boy no heed.

Nimoë tried to struggle, but the strength had been sapped from her body.  It was all she could do to stand.  Tears ran down her face, soaking into the filthy material of the gag.  The Easterlings dragged her out of the doorway, and with each step, Caldarion's voice grew dimmer.  They couldn't hurt him, she tried to reassure herself.  Without him, there was no way to force her to their will.  Still his cries ripped at her heart, laying open great rents which bled fear like blood.

She stumbled on between her guards, fighting to keep from falling.  They led her to a ramshackle hut, locked by a heavy steel bolt.  They pulled the door wide and flung her inside, where she landed with a breath-stealing crash.  Through the momentary blackness that spun before her, she heard the lock fall back into place.

Nimoë did not try to rise.  Without Caldarion by her side, she dared not contemplate escape.  Best to rest while she had the chance.  She closed her eyes and tried to calm her breathing.

At last, she allowed herself to fall into her one safe place.  Legolas.  His face swam before her, eyes full of tenderness.  She could almost feel his strong arms wrapped round her, soothing away the pain, the fear.  She pleaded with his image to make haste.  With every fiber of her being she cried out for him.

Finally, safe in the ghostly arms of her love, she slept.

#

Legolas ran as light and swift as a deer through the moonlit forest.  A sensation of desperation had been steadily growing in his mind, as if Nimoë were crying out to him, lost, in pain.  With each step along the path of her captors, the faint cry grew stronger, tingling at the base of his spine, urging him on.

Still, Gilmin and Raven were falling behind.  He paused at the base of massive oak tree and waited, pacing restlessly, anxious to move on.  His companions crested the last rise and jogged down towards him.  Raven was nearly invisible in the darkness, but for the moonlight glinting off of his coal-black hair.

It could not have been more than minutes, but Legolas felt that he'd been waiting forever.  As they reached him, their breath coming in heavy pants, he turned to take up the pursuit, but was brought up short as a heavy net dropped out of the branches of the oak tree, trapping all three of the companions.

Gilmin let out a shout.  Legolas hesitated only a moment before reaching for his knives, but the heavy fiber strands tangled his hands, slowing him.  The thrashing of Raven and Gilmin knocked him off balance and fell to the earth, Raven atop him, with Gilmin still flailing for his axe.

"Stop struggling, or we'll kill you where you stand."

All three stopped still.  Legolas peered through the webbing of the net.  They were surrounded by no less than twenty Easterners, with bows draw, their arrows trained on their captives.  And captives they were.  Unable to draw their weapons, trapped and, for the moment, helpless.

Legolas cursed himself for a fool.  He'd been too intent on the trail, on the haunting call of Nimoë, that he hadn't read the signs fully.  He should never have allowed himself to walk straight into an ambush.  What good was he to Nimoë now?

He waited, muscles taut as a drawn bowstring, as the Easterlings dragged them free of the net and trussed them like game for the spit.  The leader laughed.  "Well, now.  The Elf Prince.  We've got the whole ruddy family now."  He spat on Legolas' soft leather boots.  "Your wife's been most cooperative, Elf.  Lovely thing.  I'd like to get my hands on her.  Elf-breasts are more tempting than any I've seen in many a long day."

Legolas lunged forward, heedless of his bound arms.  "Speak ill of my wife, and I will see you dead!  If you've harmed her--"

"You'll what?  Yell at me?"

The Easterlings dissolved into laughter.  Roughly, they led the captives towards the camp, which stood just over the next rise.  Legolas fumed silently.  They might have the upper hand now, but he had lived for thousands of years.  All those years must have taught him something he could use to his advantage.

As they entered the Easterlings' camp, he searched for any sign of Nimoë or Caldarion, but he saw nothing.  Only more than a hundred Men, rough and sinister, ranged around the campfires.  He did not resist when his captors bound him to the trunk of a tree, near the center of a broad clearing.  Gilmin and Raven were bound nearby.  After searching them for any concealed weapons, the Easterlings left the captives where they stood.

"That went well," commented Raven, his voice tinged with sarcasm.

"I am sorry, friends.  I should not have brought you here.  You should not have been involved with this," Legolas replied.

Gilmin shifted against the trunk of his tree.  "Do not apologize, Legolas.  We are here of our own free will, and should we manage to free ourselves, you'll need us if we're to find Nimoë and Caldarion and make good our escape."

Legolas did not reply.  Four against more than a hundred?  He'd faced such odds before, but they looked no better now.  "Get what rest you can.  Who can say what the morning will bring."