Chapter 16: Orc Blood and Royalty Robbed
Aubrey grabbed her bow and bunch of arrows and joined Kate, Kat and Arwen helping the weak and children inside the building. She looked out to see the bright light of Sting in Drogo's hand keep moving through the night. She was scared that she would see the light stop and stay motionless in the nearly endless darkness. She would be up on the shooting tower watching his sword lie motionless and she would not be able to help him at all. She would be powerless to help him.
She saw Gandalf and in the slight light of the moon she could see Thomas and Faramir swinging their swords in the fight. Kate and Kat were still helping the children and Aubrey made sure that they would be some of the few that stayed with the children just in case the orcs got as far as the palace; a judgment under both her own and Faramir's influence so that neither of the Bradybucks would be hurt. After getting as many as a few dozen into the palace Aubrey climbed the side of the tower to her post where she would start to shoot down the orcs coming toward the palace.
Aubrey strung arrow after arrow shooting as many orcs as she could. Many she could not hit as well as others, but the ones she did miss the others on the towers with her would shoot them down. Aubrey watched the horrible results of war as both sides were being slaughtered. It seemed as soon as and elf hit an orc down another orc would hit them down and an endless cycle would begin one after the other falling to the ground. Aubrey couldn't see the victor in this war. She couldn't draw the line on the most kills. All she could be certain of was the dead bodies of both sides' lying dead on the ground. Many of the elves could be seen with lost limbs or even lost heads. The orcs on the other hand could be found as a whole body still together, but with fatal wounds in their heads or chests.
Through all of this she wanted to turn away to run back to her room and cry. To run into Drogo's arms and bury her head into his comforting warmth and never let go was her ultimate wish and desire. She couldn't show the feelings. She had to stay strong and continue to fight. Through the showers of arrows she could never once shed one tear.
Aubrey saw Arwen and the others lead the last of the children into the palace throwing a reassuring smile up at her. Aubrey felt a little more confident as she knew where everyone was standing in the fight. Well, maybe not everyone. She saw many of the council members out on the field killing, wounding the enemy and at least one of them was already lying dead in the pale moonlight. One was uncounted for and Aubrey was very anxious to know where he was. Carond could not be found by Aubrey's eyes. Even where she had told him where to fight he could not be found.
Aubrey pulled at air as she felt for more arrows behind her. The bags were empty and the other two elves in the same tower with her were out as well. Orcs began sending their own arrows toward them and Aubrey saw them finally bust through the wall made in quick haste earlier that day. It fell in a series of small collapses. The ruble did not catch any beneath its mass, which many were relieved of. Aubrey could hear the victory call of the orcs from the falling of the wall as more masses of them ran into the city. The line of elves that stood before them were almost instantly knocked to the ground as the wave of orcs washed over them. Aubrey wished for more arrows to cut down the numbers before they reached the main line in the center of the city.
Almost seeming to hear her call for more arrows another elf ran up the side of the tower and gave the three of them more arrows to help in the fight. Most of the arrows were covered with orc blood and other arrows were different and Aubrey noticed that they were orc arrows. The young elf took down the side of the tower once again and his feet hit the ground running. Although, before he got too far he was struck in the arm with an orc arrow and slid underneath a pile of wood, were no one really noticed that he was there.
"Keep shooting!" Aubrey yelled at the other two elves in her tower and started down the steps, trying to dodge the arrows that were being shot at her. At least one grazed her face as she reached the ground level off the steps of the tower. She took no notice of the small wound except for a small gasp that escaped her lips upon the arrow's contact.
She ran across the fighting field, dodging both arrows and clanging swords. Elves and orc both fell in front of her. The swords barely flew above her head and she saw the stream of arrows cover the cool night air. Blood shot out at her as she jumped out of the way of the spluttering blood of both elf and orc. She jumped over the ones that she couldn't dodge in time and made it under the pieces of wood the younger elf had slid under.
"Are you alright?" Aubrey asked him touching his unwounded arm. He looked at her a little strange and Aubrey understood that he probably didn't understand anything but Elvish as some elves did. Are you all right? she repeated again in Elvish.
The arrow is in pretty deep, I can't pull it out by myself, he winced trying to tug a little on the arrow jammed into his shoulder. Aubrey looked into the young elf's face and he seemed as though he was only twelve years old, but Aubrey knew better. She touched the wound careful not to agitate it very much to look at how bad it was injured.
The skin around the arrow's entry seemed a little puffed up already and Aubrey knew that if he didn't get the proper attention it would get infected. The arrow seemed to be an elf made arrow. The orcs must have caught on to their plan of using the enemy's weapons against them, Aubrey had thought that might be giving them too much credit, but it was one of the only options floating in her mind at the time.
Aubrey looked around at the fighting and noticed that nothing or no one had reached the palace steps. She turned back to the elf, Run toward the palace and get inside, you should be able to be helped inside by Lady Arwen.
But I need to gather the extra arrows for the towers.
I will do that, Aubrey said almost harshly to the elf, Now when I say go, run as hard as you can to the palace. Time slipped by the slowest Aubrey every felt in the few seconds that she looked for a clear opening for the elf to run for safety. She wasn't going to take a chance on this elf's life. She had seen enough suffering and elf blood on the battlefront already. Aubrey finally saw an opening and pushed the elf out of the pile, Go!
The elf ran faster then Aubrey ever thought possible of some one injured. She could see an orc lift his arrow to strike the boy down, but Aubrey took her bow off her back and found an extra arrow near by and quickly shot the orc through both arms, making it unable to fight. She watched and saw the boy run through the doors and into the palace. The huge doors slammed shut again before arrows could be cast into the palace.
Aubrey looked around her general area for the first time after she looked for the opening for the elf. She was just about ready to jump out when she heard a loud grunt from above her. She rolled to her side where there was a little space for her to fit as she saw a nice sized blade break through the wood and then slide back out. She saw the face of an orc look into the wood and then retreat as he saw Aubrey. She heard another force of effort begin in his breathing and rolled out of the woodpile. She rolled on her stomach to see the orc take his sword out of the pile to look again, apparently unaware that she had rolled out. This observation just assuring her of her earlier assumption that there was almost no way that the orcs were thinking of this on their own.
She grabbed another arrow out of the orc corpse next to her and shot the unaware orc through the chest. She ran over to the dead body, grabbed the arrows that were on him and ran off to find more arrows for the towers. After grabbing a good arm full she headed up the closest tower to fill up their bundles and run toward the next one, picking up extra arrows on the way.
The tower that she was heading toward was silent and it seemed that all three of the elves were ducked down to shield themselves from the oncoming flow of arrows. Aubrey tossed the bundle of arrows onto their platform and headed toward the tower that she was once shooting off of. She had a good hundred yards to cover and not a lot of energy left in her legs. She looked over her left shoulder before heading out on her run and saw Drogo fighting off a particularly tall orc and didn't see the one behind him. Aubrey ran up to the struggle and stabbed the orc in the back with one of the daggers she placed on her hip. It screamed along with the orc that Drogo had just sliced down to size. He turned around and saw her standing over the orc.
"Hun, I can't watch over you the whole time. Watch your back," she gave him a quick smile and kiss then ran toward the tower once again. He smiled as well and shook his head unable to comprehend how she did it. He turned around in time to stab an orc in the stomach and move on to the next one.
Aubrey gathered another good amount of arrows and ran back up to her old tower to check on their amount of arrows. They were nearly out and really happy to find Aubrey back with an arm full of arrows ready for launch. Aubrey looked down the line of towers to make sure that they were still firing and didn't need arrows as of yet. She took off her bow yet again and started to fire at the horde of orcs down below.
The fight continued hard through the night as Aubrey kept running through the fighting masses to find more arrows and bringing them back up the towers. At one point, Aubrey knew that it must have been morning by now, but remembered that at one time when the orcs were coming after her the sky became dark with thick clouds covering the land as if it was night. She was sure that was the case now. As she ran through the crowds she was sure to watch her friends' back as she looked upon the crowd. Sometimes she couldn't find one or any of them and started to worry, but after a few minutes she would see the ones who were missing and kept going back to her tower.
Aubrey stood down from shooting at one point to look over the numbers of the dead. She was kind of happy to see that not that many elves were actually injured in the battle thus far. The orcs' dead outnumbered the elves' dead by at least ten to one. Aubrey heard a scream from one of the other towers and saw one of the elves fall over out of one of the towers shot in the chest. Aubrey patted the back of one of the elves to tell him that she was going to the tower and help them. He nodded his head and kept shooting the enemy down below.
She jumped down the stairs and down the ground, a movement she had been perfecting ever since she began collecting arrows. She ran over to the tower where the elf fell and touched his body. She crouched over him and saw another elf arrow jammed through the middle of his chest. It was strange, but she had not seen an elf arrow hit one of its own since the young boy elf was injured earlier. He opened his eyes and saw Aubrey standing over him. He grabbed her hand that was checking his pulse and barely blurted out a couple of words the best his could in Elvish, Elf not orc.
He placed her hand on the arrow in his chest and fell silent. Aubrey didn't really now what to make of the message. She sat there watching behind her and all around her to make sure that no one had spotted her yet. While she struggled to get the arrow out from the body of the fallen shooter the thought just hit her, 'Elf shooter not an orc.'
She looked up the steps of the tower and started to climb up quickly but carefully. At the top she found another elf lying motionless and the last elf shooting down below. Aubrey approached the one still unhurt and he turned to her, "Princess."
"Carond! What are you doing here?" she gripped her dagger that was now behind her in the small of her back.
"The shooters were wounded I had to help," he knelt down and started to approach Aubrey. She looked around for any other thing that she could use to defend herself just incase the dagger failed. She looked over the tower and noticed that there were no arrows flying over the top as if the orcs had orders not to shoot this tower. Aubrey looked desperately for the third shooter. He had to be there, or that would have meant that Carond was always at the tower and she never noticed him while bringing the arrows to them.
As he came closer to her she felt very uneasy, "Shouldn't you be hitting orcs right now, Carond?"
"You would think so, wouldn't you?" he grabbed the back of her head and held her by the hair.
"You're the shooter," she said through gritted teeth.
"Ah, so your little friend told you about that, huh?" he bent down lower to her face and smelled her hair, "You know you are a very beautiful young woman. You can do so much better than a common hobbit."
"He is nothing common!" she took the dagger out from behind her back and tried to hit him in the gut, but only got him to let go of her and she stepped back toward the stairs, "I knew in the end that you would betray us! Your people! You never were negotiating agreements with nymphs! You were telling the orcs information! You betrayed your whole people!"
"Very good, Princess," before Aubrey could react he tried to reach for her, but was tripped on something. He yelled out in pain and Aubrey saw that the elf that she thought was dead had stabbed Carond's foot to the floor of the tower with one of the un-shot arrows.
"Run Princess! RUN!"
Aubrey gave him a quick smile of gratitude and started to run down the stairs of the tower. Carond turned around and with a good amount of effort pulled the arrow out of his own foot. He turned to the other elf and leaned on the tower's edge looming over the injured elf, "You will die."
"The princess is right. You have betrayed us all. Lady Arwen will have you killed for your treason!" the elf leaned against the wall trying to keep conciseness making big gulps of air and gritted his teeth tighter. He held his stomach that was severely cut across with a dagger earlier.
"That is what you think," he swiftly cut the elf's neck and looked over the edge of the tower to see where Aubrey was. He saw her barely at the bottom of the stairs and ran after her the best he could with his injured foot. He caught her at the bottom of the stairs causing her to trip and her dagger flying out of her hand. She turned around and began kicking and hitting at him. He climbed up to her face and placed a hand over her mouth.
"Now listen, Princess. If you stay quiet then you will have the royal treatment, if you don't cooperate you will wish that you could have stayed home with your dying hobbitlass mother!" He pulled off his hand and looked at her in the eyes, "Well?"
"You go to Hell!" she tried to slap him, but he caught her hand.
"Wrong choice," he kissed her on the lips hard and she clawed at him with her nails. He pulled away grabbing his face and hitting her, ultimately knocking her unconscious. He looked around to check for any elves, but didn't see any as a rush of orcs ran by the crevasse or hole that he and Aubrey were in. He slung her over his shoulder and bolted toward the palace. Before he was even twenty feet of the palace doors, he was grabbed into a small hole where an orc hit him against the wall and caused him to drop Aubrey.
"Is this her?" the orc let him down the wall slowly.
"Who else? Now let me down," the orc let go of him and Carond heaved Aubrey into a cart for her transportation, "You know where to go."
The orc nodded and Carond went back outside into the battle and ran once again toward the palace.
***
Drogo beheaded the last orc that he encountered and back up into something behind him. He turned around just about hacking Faramir's head off as well.
"Whoa there, Drogo," Faramir said gripping his neck, "I hope that you thought that I was the enemy or I would think that you would want me dead."
Drogo grabbed his friend's shoulders and they both dropped to the ground and rolled under an orc that had just brought down his sword attempting to kill them. The two hobbits brought out their small swords and shoved them through the orc in the gut.
"Come now, Faramir," Drogo said thrusting his sword back out of the orc, "Who then would be in my business if not you?"
Faramir smiled and they both rolled out from under the orc and looked around, "Where is the second line?"
"I don't know," Drogo looked at the elves who were asking themselves the same thing, "I don't think that anyone knows."
Philon came up to the two and checked to make sure they were alright, They are retreating.
Drogo looked at him strangely, 'Why would they retreat just like that without a warning after nearly a full day of fighting?'
The queen is asking everyone who survived to look for injured and to reassemble at the palace, Philon ran past Drogo's side and over to an elf that looked like he was still breathing.
Faramir looked at Drogo to figure out what had just happened. He could only make out a few of the words from the little of lessons he had attended, but all of it still sounded like gibberish to him, "The orcs are retreating. Look for survivors, Faramir. Lady Arwen wants everyone back at the palace."
Faramir nodded and followed him back to the palace, finding only two living, wounded soldiers.
When they all came back into the palace, Kate ran up to them and nearly jumped into Faramir's arms. Faramir hugged her tightly to him, clutching some of her hair lightly in his hand. Kat smiled at them and at Drogo. He asked her with his eyes if she had seen Aubrey, but she just shook her head.
The whole group looked around at the injured in search for Aubrey and Thomas, but could find neither. Drogo was starting to get worried. They passed a certain section of injured and saw Carond leaning over a soldier he had just brought in. Drogo noticed the elf as one he saw fall over one of the towers earlier and saw that he was long dead, and wondered to himself why Carond even bothered to bring him in. He didn't think that he would have had the heart.
They stopped in the middle of the room in front of Arwen. Drogo approached her, "We can't find Aubrey."
Arwen's face went to surprise and worry and looked up, "Attention! The princess is missing! Find her!"
"There is no need for that," Thomas came in dragging another injured in, but it wasn't Aubrey. Thomas himself looked like he was injured in the leg and tried to limp the rest of the way in.
"Thomas?" Drogo went over to him and helped him carry in the injured.
"I saw Carond taking Aubrey to the palace, so she should be here."
Everyone looked at the advisor and his face didn't change expression from his indecisive glances that he usually wears. Thomas threw out something from his unoccupied hand, "I was hoping to return this to Aubrey after she must have dropped it from you carrying her in."
The dagger scratched across the marble and halting at Carond's feet. Carond didn't even look down at the dagger as a smirk spread on his face, "Stupid hobbit."
Thomas's face never changed from his mad expression and his eyes focused on Carond, "Where is Aubrey?"
Drogo looked at him waiting for an answer along with Arwen and Thomas. Carond couldn't help but laugh.
"You really think that a hobbit like you can stop me?"
"No," Drogo stepped between them, "But an angry hobbit like I can. Now, answer the question, where is Aubrey?"
"One thing I have to say," Carond said backing up, "You'll never find her alive. The power of Sorion's jewel will be the dark lord's and all will bow to him in time. I will be at his right hand, getting my rewards for serving him. Who knows, I might even be able to keep Aubrey." He looked over at Drogo who was being held back by Faramir and Kate, "I never quite understood what she saw in you. A plain hobbit of the Shire."
"Carond!" Gandalf stepped into the room and pointed his staff at the elf, "You run and you will die!"
"Only if you catch me and I don't kill you first," he stepped back once again, stopped and disappeared through the floor.
"NO!" Drogo took off toward the floor and began to pound it with his fists, "Bring back Aubrey you bastard! Bring her back!"
Faramir pulled his friend back and Drogo eventually gave up his struggle too tired from the battle.
"That is why the orcs gave up so quickly," Arwen stood beside Gandalf, "What are we going to do?"
"The only thing we can hope for. Build Rivendell back up, get ready for another orc attack if they decide to attack once again and find Aubrey."
Kat held Drogo in a hug after she took him from Faramir and let him cry into her shoulder. Thomas pounded his fist into the marble as he leaned his head into the white wall. Faramir and Kate held each other close hoping that it wasn't true.
Drogo didn't want it to be true. Aubrey wasn't there . . . for the first time in his life, his heart was broken. The orcs had succeeded in taking another loved one away from him. The only sounds that he could muster were the sounds that he would make if he were wounded badly. His eyes were closed, shut tightly and his teeth never unclenched. His cousin tried desperately to keep him from thinking the worst, but she could never help that. He swore then and there that none of them would live after he was done with them. And Carond better pray that he will be dead long before Drogo got to him.