Author's Note--This was either going to be an extremely long chapter or two shorter ones, and as I am going to be too busy this weekend to work any more upon it, I thought you folks might appreciate having the first of the two shorter ones. Many thanks to Elizabeth Wyeth for the medical information that enabled me to do nasty things to a character in this chapter. What can I say--you always hurt the ones you love! Here you go, Anglachel--remember, it's always only a matter of time before I drop an anvil on a happy Heth's head!
*SNOWSTEEL! WAKE!* I heard Elrohir's mental voice scream in my mind even as his physical one cried out to Prince Imrahil. My eyes snapped open as arrows began hissing into our campsite, and I rolled from underneath my blankets. An arrow thudded into the ground right beside my head, and I left strands of white hair twined around it as I scrambled to my feet. Drawing sword and knife, I hurried to interpose my body between the arrows and my lord, who was but a moment or two slower in doing as I had done.
He had just stood up when an arrow came flying into the camp from the opposite direction the others had done, and smacked into his left thigh. I heard him grunt in pain, but without hesitation he bent and swept up his blade, yanking it from its sheath. The arrow was one of the largest and thickest I had ever seen, black shafted and fletched, but it did not seem to be deeply embedded.
"I'm all right," he gasped. "I can fight." The foul stench and noise of an orc band permeated our camp, and then they were upon us.
We were three days from our crossing of the Entwash, and we'd finally left the riverbank five miles to the south of us. We were camped a bit east of the eaves of Fangorn Forest, and the barren hills of the Wold rose to our west.. The journey had been uneventful, save for Elrohir's sorrowful consumption of his last orange, and the increasingly colorful language with which the Prince greeted Caerith every morning, for so long as we were in proximity to the river, the stallion had gleefully continued his love affair with scum. By now, despite the Prince's morning ministrations, his dappled silver coat had a distinctly green cast to it, and this disturbed the Prince, who was a man particular about appearances, rather more than it might have almost anyone else.
Nonetheless, we'd had some pleasant conversations, the four of us. The twins had described some of the wonders we could expect to see in Lothlorien and parts of its history, and the Prince in return had spoken of his princedom, and some of his sea voyages as a young man, much to their fascination. We'd not encountered any Rohirrim patrols, but as the Prince had pointed out, Theoden had emptied his land to come to the aid of Minas Tirith, and orcs had been reported in the East Emnet even as they rode to Gondor. Therefore, we kept a careful watch at night. Our concerns had been justified when, on the day before, we had happened upon an isolated farmstead where the farmer and his wife had greeted us with sword and scythe in hand--until they'd seen my Gondor livery.
Then the Prince, surprising me with some reasonably fluent Rohirric, had had speech with them and discovered that there was rumor of a renegade band of orcs in the area, possibly holed up in a cave area in the Wold. After that, we'd ridden at the ready, but had seen no track or indication of them. Now, it seemed, they had found us.
The Prince and I had taken the first and second watches, while Elrohir was on the third, and Elladan would have taken the dawn watch. We had fallen into a pattern of the Elves taking the late-night watches because of their superior night vision. Now I was very glad we'd done it that way, for Elrohir had been armed and ready, and given us enough warning that we'd been able to do the same ourselves. Had the Prince or I been watching, I suspected they would have come much closer before being detected.
Elladan was on his feet, armed and somehow armored, by the time they came in, and he and his brother, back to back and fighting as if one mind directed them both, started working their way slowly towards us. There were too many of them, had been my initial, panicked thought, and there was something wrong--some of them were the sort of orc I was used to, and even sported the Red Eye among their gear, but some of them were far larger, and had they not possessed some similarity of feature to the smaller ones, I might have taken them for small Trolls, or some other sort of creature. But long habit and training suppressed my fear, and I moved into the proper position to guard the Prince's back.
"What.....are the big ones?" I panted as I swung and shoved and stabbed. I could feel the Prince moving equally quickly at my back.
"Uruks. Giant orcs." Was his terse reply, but it told me what I needed to know--that when all was said and done, they were orcs, and could die as orcs did.
Twenty of them at least there were pressing about us, snarling for the chance to blood their blades in our flesh--too many, I had thought in the beginning, but I had not counted on the company I was keeping. The sons of Elrond had been slaying orcs for nigh on two thousand years and practice, as they say, makes perfect. And the Prince of Dol Amroth was one of the doughtiest warriors Gondor possessed. Had the orcs stood off and simply peppered us with arrows, they might have acquired the easy feast of manflesh they were seeking. But impatience or a lack of leadership had sent them within sword's reach and most of them died before they'd even realized the enormity of the mistake they'd made.
As I have said before, I do not remember more than bits of battles, and this one was very brief. But I do recollect getting a glimpse of the twins in the heat of it, identical quicksilver death, though Elladan did his slaying silently while Elrohir spat insults at his foes, the foul language incongruous on his elegant Elven lips. I myself had a bad moment after I'd slain one of the smaller Mordor orcs. A Uruk shoved its way forward, and made a mighty swing at my neck. I threw up my knife to parry, and my much abused left arm would not hold beneath the force of the blow. Seeing both his blade and mine coming in, I instinctively dropped to my knees. The side of my knife hand was somehow laid open by his blade as I disengaged, and I stabbed up awkwardly with my sword, luckily managing to slide it deep under the lower edge of the creature's cuirass.
With a growling sort of gurgle, the Uruk fell over on top of me, his blood gushing warm over my midsection and chest. The Prince, feeling me fall away from his back, called out.
"Hethlin! Are you well?"
"Fine, my lord," I assured him, my voice somewhat muffled by the body lying atop me. Crawling cautiously out from underneath the Uruk, I found the battle to be over. Elrohir was checking the bodies, and I saw him plunge his knife into the eye of one of the orcs that still breathed with the casual air of a goodwife wringing a chicken's neck. There was a nick on his left cheek, and a tiny trickle of blood traced a path down his pale face.
Elladan, seeing me covered in blood, asked concernedly, "Is that yours, Snowsteel?"
"Just this," and I showed him my injured hand. He nodded.
"We'll clean that up in a bit. Brother, are you well?" Elrohir came back to us, sheathing his knife.
"A scratch on the cheek is all. My lord prince?" Imrahil limped over to us.
"I'll need some help getting this out," he said matter-of-factly, indicating the arrow. "But it's not far in and it doesn't seem to have hit anything important. It's not bleeding that badly." He looked at my hand. "I have a roll of clean bandage in my saddlebags, Hethlin, why don't you--" he paused, a strange look passed over his face and he shivered. "Now that's peculiar." Elladan gave him a sudden, sharp glance then leapt forward to catch him by the elbow as he swayed. I took his other side, and he sagged heavily against us, trembling. Elrohir frowned.
"Poison arrow. Well, that was just what the evening was lacking to make it absolutely perfect." Without further comment, he moved to where his saddle and Elladan's were sitting, took them both up, complete with saddlebags, and came to the fire. Removing the saddlebags, he stacked the saddles one atop the other, and set them at the head of the blankets closest to the fire.
"Imrahil, sit you down here near the fire," Elladan said as we assisted him over to the blankets, and eased him down till he was sitting up against the stacked saddles. "And I'll have a look at your leg. Brother?"
"I'm working on it, brother," replied Elrohir to the unspoken question, rooting through the two sets of saddlebags, and pulling items out. Elladan drew his dagger.
"Hethlin, pull his boot off, if you please. After that, would you look for anyone who has arrows that match this one and search them to see if they actually had the wit to be carrying an antidote for this? That's a Uruk arrow--don't trouble yourself with the small ones."
"Aye, Elladan," I replied, throwing my liege a very worried look. The shivering had increased, and his brow was furrowed with pain. Elladan was slicing the leg of his breeches open. I moved off to collect Uruk packs and pouches and bring them closer to the fire to examine.
*Do not fret, Snowsteel,* came Elrohir's voice in my head. *Do you have any idea how many times this has happened to Elladan and me in the course of two thousand years? By now, such things no longer affect us much, but we always travel with the means to deal with them. Your lord is in good hands.*
There had been six of the large Uruks, and three of them had had bows. Figuring that the bowless ones would not be carrying the antidote, I collected the possessions of the three archers. It was slow work with only one good hand. As an afterthought, I also collected their quivers.
The twins could be heard near the fire. "Elrohir, hold his leg. I'm sorry, Imrahil, but this is going to hurt."
"Just get it over with, please," the prince gritted between his teeth. There was a moment's silence, then a muffled cry. When I returned to the fire, Imrahil was breathing fast and shallow, his eyes half closed. The wound, on the outside of his thigh, about six inches above the knee, was bleeding slowly and steadily. The area about it was beginning to swell. I could see where Elladan had had to widen the original injury to free the barbs from his flesh. I set the packs down, and began to rummage through them. Elladan came over to help me.
"I brought the arrows as well."
He nodded. "That was well thought of. I'll look those over in a bit--you stay away from them with that hand. Poultice, Elrohir, if you please."
Elrohir, who was mixing something in the small bowl, snorted. "Brother dear, this is not Imladris, and you are not Father with six eager healer acolytes in attendance. Strive for some patience, if you please."
"Patient I can be, on my own behalf," noted Elladan, rifling through one of the packs. "The Prince, however, may not be so leisurely. Fighting with that arrow in his leg has already driven the poison deep into his veins."
"I am working as swiftly as I may," Elrohir protested, "And look, it is done now." He moved to where Imrahil's saddle lay, searched the saddlebags and found the bandage, then returned to his patient, and began smoothing his concoction into the wound. The Prince's mouth tightened but he made no sound. Elladan tossed the pack he'd been searching through aside with a growl of disappointment.
"Nothing there. How about yours, Snowsteel?"
"Nothing in this one either. Just a flask of that liquor they make." I sighed, and started on the last pack, while he looked through the smaller pouches. Elrohir loosely bandaged Imrahil's leg while we continued our search. In the end, it was fruitless--besides food and more liquor and the sort of dirty oddments one might expect, we found coins of various denominations, a brooch that was obviously Rohirric, and a beautiful gold vial that looked promising for a moment, but in the end turned out to contain perfume. Elladan then turned his attention to the arrows, and found that only one of the archers had possessed the poisoned ones, and they were but half the number in his quiver. He brought one to the fire in gloved hands, examined it carefully, sniffed it, then snapped the head and about six inches of shaft off of it, and placed it in a small leather scroll tube that had been emptied of the parchments and pens it had carried.
"I'll want to examine this by the light of day, but it looks as though it's not a vegetable poison. Probably spider venom-based--that's the most common sort they use."
"Then shall we give him what we usually take, brother?" Elrohir asked, and when Elladan nodded, he pulled a glass vial and a tiny silver cup out of a beautifully carved box.
"Four drops, I think," Elladan told him, after a quick, assessing glance at Imrahil. Elrohir measured the dose into the cup, then carefully poured a small amount of water into it, and took it to the Prince.
"Here, my lord, this will make you feel better soon." He had to hold the cup to Imrahil's lips, as he was shaking too badly to take it himself. The lord of Dol Amroth drank it down obediently and grimaced.
"Tastes bad enough to distract me from my troubles, that is certain," he murmured, then closed his eyes. "That did not agree with me well at all, I fear." Elrohir reached out and took both his wrists, long fingers rubbing them in a certain area between the long bones.
"You need to keep it down. You must try for the next few minutes, give it a chance to work." Imrahil made a small nod, and sagged back against the saddles. Elrohir continued the odd massage. "Hethlin, would you bring my blankets over here? We need to get him warmed up." I did so, being careful not to touch them with my bloody hand or shirt. Elrohir thanked me, and Elladan came over and tucked the blankets around Imrahil, checking his forehead and his pulse. He frowned slightly, then turned to me.
"Let's see to that hand, Heth, and then you can get cleaned up." We moved around to the other side of the fire, and he cleaned the slash with water and some wine, set a couple of stitches into the deepest part of the cut, then bandaged it .
"Keep that dry, or I'll have to redo it," he instructed me. I looked over at the Prince.
"Will my lord be all right?"
"He should start feeling better in a couple of hours," Elladan assured me. "Get cleaned up a bit, then go over and share the blankets with him, try to make him comfortable. He is still shivering, and you did not get your full share of sleep. Dawn is not far off. I will take a look at him in daylight, and we will decide whether to travel then or not. I believe we should at least move camp into Fangorn--if there are more orcs, they won't follow us in there."
"What about you and Elrohir?" Elladan smiled that slightly superior smile.
"The Firstborn can do without rest somewhat better than can Mortals--if necessary, we can even dream as we walk or ride. And it was time for my watch anyway."
I nodded and went to clean off, an awkward and not totally satisfactory process as it was dark, and all I had was water and the one unbloodied sleeve of my ruined shirt. But I peeled it off, and sponged and dabbed till the orc blood was removed from my skin, then clad myself in clean clothes, ignoring the elves, who were certainly near enough to get an eyeful. It was not that I'd become any less modest over time--it was just that Elrohir had already seen me, and for all I knew that meant Elladan had too. I did not fully understand the depth of the bond between them. But if Elrohir was right, nudity was a matter of no interest to them in any event. Certainly, neither of them commented, and I returned to the fire barefoot, feeling rather much better, though a faint smell of blood still lingered.
The brothers had been busy, and my blankets too had been used to pad the saddles into a more proper backrest. I could not tell if Imrahil were awake or not--there was the barest gleam of an eye visible beneath the crescents of his almost-closed lids. His breathing still seemed labored to my ears, and as Elladan had said, he was still shivering. Carefully, I slid beneath the blankets on his uninjured right side, and considered how best to proceed. Thinking that my shoulder was probably a softer, more pleasant pillow than a blanket-covered saddle, I moved as close as I could, then slid my arm beneath him and drew him onto my shoulder. He stirred and groaned a bit.
"Hethlin?"
"Aye, my lord. How are you feeling?"
His voice was little more than a whisper. "Head hurts. And stomach. And I'm cold."
"Well, I'm going to try to help you with that."
"Would......appreciate that greatly." Ever polite, was the Prince. So I carefully wrapped my arms around him, drew him as close as I could and pulled the blankets more tightly about us both. Anxiously, I felt his forehead and found it hot. He turned his head into my neck and sighed. After a time, the shaking lessened, and he seemed to relax. Relieved at his improvement, I drifted off to sleep as best I could.
Right after dawn, I was awakened by Imrahil's voice in my ear.
"Hethlin....I'm going to be sick....." Snapping awake, I let go of him, and helped him roll to the side so that he would not soil the blankets. He retched for a couple of minutes, dry heaves, and when I helped him lie shakily back, I noticed a trickle of dried blood beneath his nose. There was a matching spot on my shirt where he'd rested his head. I got up and tucked the blankets about him. "Sorry about the....unpleasantness, child."
"Don't you worry about that, my lord. How are you feeling this morning? Still cold?"
"No. Not cold. My head hurts......much worse. Stomach too. And my hands....feel odd."
"You just rest quietly, and I'll go get Elladan." It had become apparent over the last several hours that as far as healing went, Elrohir deferred to his brother, and I assumed there was a reason for that. As I rose, I noticed that the bodies of the orcs had been dragged away. Elrohir was curled up on the other side of the fire, his eyes wide and staring, while his brother was coming back into camp.
"How is he this morning, Snowsteel?"
"He slept for a while, but a little while ago he woke me up and said he was sick, and started retching. His nose bled last night, and he says his hands feel funny, and that his head and stomach hurt worse." My tone turned accusing. "I thought you said he'd start feeling better!" Elladan's pale brow furrowed in concern.
"By all rights, he should have. Let me wash up, and I'll take a look at him." He moved towards the waterskin.
"Did you move all the orcs?"
"Yes, the stench was bothering me. And it was something to do. I would have checked on the Prince earlier, but he seemed to be resting peacefully, and I didn't want to disturb him."
"I'll start breakfast, if you like." Elladan had dampened a small cloth and was thoroughly cleaning his hands.
"Why don't you give Brother a kick awake instead? In fact, why don't you just kick him anyway? I'm sure he's done something in the last little while to make him deserve it." I gave Elladan an irritated look.
"I can do simple cooking, you know."
"I do not claim the contrary, Snowsteel--never have I seen food burned with the verve and vigor you bring to the act." Growling, I went to where Elrohir lay, and gave his backside a sharp nudge with my foot. The staring eyes blinked, and awareness returned.
"Wake up. Fix breakfast."
"Your wish is my will, oh surly one. Whatever is the matter?"
"I can cook, you know," I declared, as I stalked off to take care of the morning's necessities. There was a chuckle behind me.
"Of course you can. Silly Brother! No one cooks things quite as......completely as you do."
I returned to find Elladan examining the Prince's leg. I had not seen it since the arrow was removed, and I was horrified now to find that it had swollen greatly since then. The formerly loose poultice bandage had in fact been constricting the flesh, and Elladan had had to remove it. He was bathing the injury and speaking to Imrahil in a soothing tone, asking about his symptoms. The Prince was not a complainer by any means, but it was evident that he was in a great deal of pain. At Elladan's request, I brought the water skin, the washcloth and a cup over, gave the Prince a drink and cleaned the blood off of his face while Elladan applied a fresh poultice and bandage. When he'd finished, he gave Imrahil a reassuring smile and covered him back up. He then walked with me to the far side of the camp. Though no words were exchanged, after a moment Elrohir took his skillet off the fire and joined us.
"We have a problem," Elladan said as soon as Elrohir arrived. "This is not a normal orc poison, or it would have responded to the antidote. In fact, giving him the antidote may have done more harm than good. I wish I had not done it." I looked at him in amazement.
"I thought you knew all about these things!" Elladan grimaced.
"Much as we of the First-born would have Mortals think we never make mistakes, Snowsteel, it is simply not the case. In fact, the mistakes we make tend to be wonderfully huge ones. At some point in the future when we are not so pressed for time, I will tell you of some of our more marvelous miscalculations. But for now, I can tell you that I do not know what this poison is, or how it will affect him. It appears to be acting like a venom of some sort, and that gives us more time than we would have with other things. I am hoping that the poison was old enough or dilute enough that he will be able to overcome the effects. He is a warrior after all."
"Those Uruks were from Isengard originally," said Elrohir thoughtfully. "They bore the White Hand on their armor. Curunir, being a wizard, could have had the poison brewed out of almost anything. He might have been working on something that was more potent than the usual things orcs use, though I hope for Imrahil's sake that is not the case."
Elladan sighed in frustration. "I can keep the wound poulticed, and hope to draw some of the poison out, but I fear to give him much of anything else, even willowbark. His wound refuses to cease to bleed." Elrohir frowned.
"Definitely no willowbark then. It sounds like we need Father, Brother. Shall I take Nimfaun and Alagos, and try to make a run to Lorien?" Elladan considered this for a moment, then shook his head.
"We're over three days hard ride away now. You could cut it to two, pushing them, but they would be spent when you got there. We would be slowed somewhat on the mortal horses, and as he is not a small man and Hethlin and I would have difficulty getting him into and out of the saddle, we would not have made that much progress toward you. It would probably take you over a day to return to us, if you could find a horse among the Galadrim the equal of ours, so no time would be saved by your going, and you would be in greater peril alone. Perhaps when we get closer." Elrohir nodded.
"Very well, I am going to finish making breakfast--it looks to be the last hot meal we may be eating for a while. The two of you see to him and start packing."
A little over an hour later, we had eaten, packed and saddled and were ready to depart. It had been decided that I would hold Imrahil before me on my saddle, and switch back and forth between Caerith and Fortune. The Prince's armor and my own had been strapped onto Nimfaun and Alagos. Elladan spoke to me quietly before the twins brought Imrahil over.
"We ride hard as he can stand, for as long as he can bear it, do you understand, Hethlin? Into the night, if the horses will endure it. Are you able?"
"Aye, Elladan. I can do it. I don't want to have to explain to Faramir that I lost his uncle!"
"Hopefully, it will not come to that, Valar willing." But there was something lurking behind his silver eyes that made me uneasy. The Prince, when handed up into my keeping, was a bit frightened about his sudden lack of strength, a bit embarrassed by the situation he was in, and being Imrahil, a bit amused despite it all.
"Ah," he said as sweat broke out on his brow and the shivering started again, "if only Eomer of Rohan could see me now." I couldn't help but chuckle as I urged Caerith forward.
*SNOWSTEEL! WAKE!* I heard Elrohir's mental voice scream in my mind even as his physical one cried out to Prince Imrahil. My eyes snapped open as arrows began hissing into our campsite, and I rolled from underneath my blankets. An arrow thudded into the ground right beside my head, and I left strands of white hair twined around it as I scrambled to my feet. Drawing sword and knife, I hurried to interpose my body between the arrows and my lord, who was but a moment or two slower in doing as I had done.
He had just stood up when an arrow came flying into the camp from the opposite direction the others had done, and smacked into his left thigh. I heard him grunt in pain, but without hesitation he bent and swept up his blade, yanking it from its sheath. The arrow was one of the largest and thickest I had ever seen, black shafted and fletched, but it did not seem to be deeply embedded.
"I'm all right," he gasped. "I can fight." The foul stench and noise of an orc band permeated our camp, and then they were upon us.
We were three days from our crossing of the Entwash, and we'd finally left the riverbank five miles to the south of us. We were camped a bit east of the eaves of Fangorn Forest, and the barren hills of the Wold rose to our west.. The journey had been uneventful, save for Elrohir's sorrowful consumption of his last orange, and the increasingly colorful language with which the Prince greeted Caerith every morning, for so long as we were in proximity to the river, the stallion had gleefully continued his love affair with scum. By now, despite the Prince's morning ministrations, his dappled silver coat had a distinctly green cast to it, and this disturbed the Prince, who was a man particular about appearances, rather more than it might have almost anyone else.
Nonetheless, we'd had some pleasant conversations, the four of us. The twins had described some of the wonders we could expect to see in Lothlorien and parts of its history, and the Prince in return had spoken of his princedom, and some of his sea voyages as a young man, much to their fascination. We'd not encountered any Rohirrim patrols, but as the Prince had pointed out, Theoden had emptied his land to come to the aid of Minas Tirith, and orcs had been reported in the East Emnet even as they rode to Gondor. Therefore, we kept a careful watch at night. Our concerns had been justified when, on the day before, we had happened upon an isolated farmstead where the farmer and his wife had greeted us with sword and scythe in hand--until they'd seen my Gondor livery.
Then the Prince, surprising me with some reasonably fluent Rohirric, had had speech with them and discovered that there was rumor of a renegade band of orcs in the area, possibly holed up in a cave area in the Wold. After that, we'd ridden at the ready, but had seen no track or indication of them. Now, it seemed, they had found us.
The Prince and I had taken the first and second watches, while Elrohir was on the third, and Elladan would have taken the dawn watch. We had fallen into a pattern of the Elves taking the late-night watches because of their superior night vision. Now I was very glad we'd done it that way, for Elrohir had been armed and ready, and given us enough warning that we'd been able to do the same ourselves. Had the Prince or I been watching, I suspected they would have come much closer before being detected.
Elladan was on his feet, armed and somehow armored, by the time they came in, and he and his brother, back to back and fighting as if one mind directed them both, started working their way slowly towards us. There were too many of them, had been my initial, panicked thought, and there was something wrong--some of them were the sort of orc I was used to, and even sported the Red Eye among their gear, but some of them were far larger, and had they not possessed some similarity of feature to the smaller ones, I might have taken them for small Trolls, or some other sort of creature. But long habit and training suppressed my fear, and I moved into the proper position to guard the Prince's back.
"What.....are the big ones?" I panted as I swung and shoved and stabbed. I could feel the Prince moving equally quickly at my back.
"Uruks. Giant orcs." Was his terse reply, but it told me what I needed to know--that when all was said and done, they were orcs, and could die as orcs did.
Twenty of them at least there were pressing about us, snarling for the chance to blood their blades in our flesh--too many, I had thought in the beginning, but I had not counted on the company I was keeping. The sons of Elrond had been slaying orcs for nigh on two thousand years and practice, as they say, makes perfect. And the Prince of Dol Amroth was one of the doughtiest warriors Gondor possessed. Had the orcs stood off and simply peppered us with arrows, they might have acquired the easy feast of manflesh they were seeking. But impatience or a lack of leadership had sent them within sword's reach and most of them died before they'd even realized the enormity of the mistake they'd made.
As I have said before, I do not remember more than bits of battles, and this one was very brief. But I do recollect getting a glimpse of the twins in the heat of it, identical quicksilver death, though Elladan did his slaying silently while Elrohir spat insults at his foes, the foul language incongruous on his elegant Elven lips. I myself had a bad moment after I'd slain one of the smaller Mordor orcs. A Uruk shoved its way forward, and made a mighty swing at my neck. I threw up my knife to parry, and my much abused left arm would not hold beneath the force of the blow. Seeing both his blade and mine coming in, I instinctively dropped to my knees. The side of my knife hand was somehow laid open by his blade as I disengaged, and I stabbed up awkwardly with my sword, luckily managing to slide it deep under the lower edge of the creature's cuirass.
With a growling sort of gurgle, the Uruk fell over on top of me, his blood gushing warm over my midsection and chest. The Prince, feeling me fall away from his back, called out.
"Hethlin! Are you well?"
"Fine, my lord," I assured him, my voice somewhat muffled by the body lying atop me. Crawling cautiously out from underneath the Uruk, I found the battle to be over. Elrohir was checking the bodies, and I saw him plunge his knife into the eye of one of the orcs that still breathed with the casual air of a goodwife wringing a chicken's neck. There was a nick on his left cheek, and a tiny trickle of blood traced a path down his pale face.
Elladan, seeing me covered in blood, asked concernedly, "Is that yours, Snowsteel?"
"Just this," and I showed him my injured hand. He nodded.
"We'll clean that up in a bit. Brother, are you well?" Elrohir came back to us, sheathing his knife.
"A scratch on the cheek is all. My lord prince?" Imrahil limped over to us.
"I'll need some help getting this out," he said matter-of-factly, indicating the arrow. "But it's not far in and it doesn't seem to have hit anything important. It's not bleeding that badly." He looked at my hand. "I have a roll of clean bandage in my saddlebags, Hethlin, why don't you--" he paused, a strange look passed over his face and he shivered. "Now that's peculiar." Elladan gave him a sudden, sharp glance then leapt forward to catch him by the elbow as he swayed. I took his other side, and he sagged heavily against us, trembling. Elrohir frowned.
"Poison arrow. Well, that was just what the evening was lacking to make it absolutely perfect." Without further comment, he moved to where his saddle and Elladan's were sitting, took them both up, complete with saddlebags, and came to the fire. Removing the saddlebags, he stacked the saddles one atop the other, and set them at the head of the blankets closest to the fire.
"Imrahil, sit you down here near the fire," Elladan said as we assisted him over to the blankets, and eased him down till he was sitting up against the stacked saddles. "And I'll have a look at your leg. Brother?"
"I'm working on it, brother," replied Elrohir to the unspoken question, rooting through the two sets of saddlebags, and pulling items out. Elladan drew his dagger.
"Hethlin, pull his boot off, if you please. After that, would you look for anyone who has arrows that match this one and search them to see if they actually had the wit to be carrying an antidote for this? That's a Uruk arrow--don't trouble yourself with the small ones."
"Aye, Elladan," I replied, throwing my liege a very worried look. The shivering had increased, and his brow was furrowed with pain. Elladan was slicing the leg of his breeches open. I moved off to collect Uruk packs and pouches and bring them closer to the fire to examine.
*Do not fret, Snowsteel,* came Elrohir's voice in my head. *Do you have any idea how many times this has happened to Elladan and me in the course of two thousand years? By now, such things no longer affect us much, but we always travel with the means to deal with them. Your lord is in good hands.*
There had been six of the large Uruks, and three of them had had bows. Figuring that the bowless ones would not be carrying the antidote, I collected the possessions of the three archers. It was slow work with only one good hand. As an afterthought, I also collected their quivers.
The twins could be heard near the fire. "Elrohir, hold his leg. I'm sorry, Imrahil, but this is going to hurt."
"Just get it over with, please," the prince gritted between his teeth. There was a moment's silence, then a muffled cry. When I returned to the fire, Imrahil was breathing fast and shallow, his eyes half closed. The wound, on the outside of his thigh, about six inches above the knee, was bleeding slowly and steadily. The area about it was beginning to swell. I could see where Elladan had had to widen the original injury to free the barbs from his flesh. I set the packs down, and began to rummage through them. Elladan came over to help me.
"I brought the arrows as well."
He nodded. "That was well thought of. I'll look those over in a bit--you stay away from them with that hand. Poultice, Elrohir, if you please."
Elrohir, who was mixing something in the small bowl, snorted. "Brother dear, this is not Imladris, and you are not Father with six eager healer acolytes in attendance. Strive for some patience, if you please."
"Patient I can be, on my own behalf," noted Elladan, rifling through one of the packs. "The Prince, however, may not be so leisurely. Fighting with that arrow in his leg has already driven the poison deep into his veins."
"I am working as swiftly as I may," Elrohir protested, "And look, it is done now." He moved to where Imrahil's saddle lay, searched the saddlebags and found the bandage, then returned to his patient, and began smoothing his concoction into the wound. The Prince's mouth tightened but he made no sound. Elladan tossed the pack he'd been searching through aside with a growl of disappointment.
"Nothing there. How about yours, Snowsteel?"
"Nothing in this one either. Just a flask of that liquor they make." I sighed, and started on the last pack, while he looked through the smaller pouches. Elrohir loosely bandaged Imrahil's leg while we continued our search. In the end, it was fruitless--besides food and more liquor and the sort of dirty oddments one might expect, we found coins of various denominations, a brooch that was obviously Rohirric, and a beautiful gold vial that looked promising for a moment, but in the end turned out to contain perfume. Elladan then turned his attention to the arrows, and found that only one of the archers had possessed the poisoned ones, and they were but half the number in his quiver. He brought one to the fire in gloved hands, examined it carefully, sniffed it, then snapped the head and about six inches of shaft off of it, and placed it in a small leather scroll tube that had been emptied of the parchments and pens it had carried.
"I'll want to examine this by the light of day, but it looks as though it's not a vegetable poison. Probably spider venom-based--that's the most common sort they use."
"Then shall we give him what we usually take, brother?" Elrohir asked, and when Elladan nodded, he pulled a glass vial and a tiny silver cup out of a beautifully carved box.
"Four drops, I think," Elladan told him, after a quick, assessing glance at Imrahil. Elrohir measured the dose into the cup, then carefully poured a small amount of water into it, and took it to the Prince.
"Here, my lord, this will make you feel better soon." He had to hold the cup to Imrahil's lips, as he was shaking too badly to take it himself. The lord of Dol Amroth drank it down obediently and grimaced.
"Tastes bad enough to distract me from my troubles, that is certain," he murmured, then closed his eyes. "That did not agree with me well at all, I fear." Elrohir reached out and took both his wrists, long fingers rubbing them in a certain area between the long bones.
"You need to keep it down. You must try for the next few minutes, give it a chance to work." Imrahil made a small nod, and sagged back against the saddles. Elrohir continued the odd massage. "Hethlin, would you bring my blankets over here? We need to get him warmed up." I did so, being careful not to touch them with my bloody hand or shirt. Elrohir thanked me, and Elladan came over and tucked the blankets around Imrahil, checking his forehead and his pulse. He frowned slightly, then turned to me.
"Let's see to that hand, Heth, and then you can get cleaned up." We moved around to the other side of the fire, and he cleaned the slash with water and some wine, set a couple of stitches into the deepest part of the cut, then bandaged it .
"Keep that dry, or I'll have to redo it," he instructed me. I looked over at the Prince.
"Will my lord be all right?"
"He should start feeling better in a couple of hours," Elladan assured me. "Get cleaned up a bit, then go over and share the blankets with him, try to make him comfortable. He is still shivering, and you did not get your full share of sleep. Dawn is not far off. I will take a look at him in daylight, and we will decide whether to travel then or not. I believe we should at least move camp into Fangorn--if there are more orcs, they won't follow us in there."
"What about you and Elrohir?" Elladan smiled that slightly superior smile.
"The Firstborn can do without rest somewhat better than can Mortals--if necessary, we can even dream as we walk or ride. And it was time for my watch anyway."
I nodded and went to clean off, an awkward and not totally satisfactory process as it was dark, and all I had was water and the one unbloodied sleeve of my ruined shirt. But I peeled it off, and sponged and dabbed till the orc blood was removed from my skin, then clad myself in clean clothes, ignoring the elves, who were certainly near enough to get an eyeful. It was not that I'd become any less modest over time--it was just that Elrohir had already seen me, and for all I knew that meant Elladan had too. I did not fully understand the depth of the bond between them. But if Elrohir was right, nudity was a matter of no interest to them in any event. Certainly, neither of them commented, and I returned to the fire barefoot, feeling rather much better, though a faint smell of blood still lingered.
The brothers had been busy, and my blankets too had been used to pad the saddles into a more proper backrest. I could not tell if Imrahil were awake or not--there was the barest gleam of an eye visible beneath the crescents of his almost-closed lids. His breathing still seemed labored to my ears, and as Elladan had said, he was still shivering. Carefully, I slid beneath the blankets on his uninjured right side, and considered how best to proceed. Thinking that my shoulder was probably a softer, more pleasant pillow than a blanket-covered saddle, I moved as close as I could, then slid my arm beneath him and drew him onto my shoulder. He stirred and groaned a bit.
"Hethlin?"
"Aye, my lord. How are you feeling?"
His voice was little more than a whisper. "Head hurts. And stomach. And I'm cold."
"Well, I'm going to try to help you with that."
"Would......appreciate that greatly." Ever polite, was the Prince. So I carefully wrapped my arms around him, drew him as close as I could and pulled the blankets more tightly about us both. Anxiously, I felt his forehead and found it hot. He turned his head into my neck and sighed. After a time, the shaking lessened, and he seemed to relax. Relieved at his improvement, I drifted off to sleep as best I could.
Right after dawn, I was awakened by Imrahil's voice in my ear.
"Hethlin....I'm going to be sick....." Snapping awake, I let go of him, and helped him roll to the side so that he would not soil the blankets. He retched for a couple of minutes, dry heaves, and when I helped him lie shakily back, I noticed a trickle of dried blood beneath his nose. There was a matching spot on my shirt where he'd rested his head. I got up and tucked the blankets about him. "Sorry about the....unpleasantness, child."
"Don't you worry about that, my lord. How are you feeling this morning? Still cold?"
"No. Not cold. My head hurts......much worse. Stomach too. And my hands....feel odd."
"You just rest quietly, and I'll go get Elladan." It had become apparent over the last several hours that as far as healing went, Elrohir deferred to his brother, and I assumed there was a reason for that. As I rose, I noticed that the bodies of the orcs had been dragged away. Elrohir was curled up on the other side of the fire, his eyes wide and staring, while his brother was coming back into camp.
"How is he this morning, Snowsteel?"
"He slept for a while, but a little while ago he woke me up and said he was sick, and started retching. His nose bled last night, and he says his hands feel funny, and that his head and stomach hurt worse." My tone turned accusing. "I thought you said he'd start feeling better!" Elladan's pale brow furrowed in concern.
"By all rights, he should have. Let me wash up, and I'll take a look at him." He moved towards the waterskin.
"Did you move all the orcs?"
"Yes, the stench was bothering me. And it was something to do. I would have checked on the Prince earlier, but he seemed to be resting peacefully, and I didn't want to disturb him."
"I'll start breakfast, if you like." Elladan had dampened a small cloth and was thoroughly cleaning his hands.
"Why don't you give Brother a kick awake instead? In fact, why don't you just kick him anyway? I'm sure he's done something in the last little while to make him deserve it." I gave Elladan an irritated look.
"I can do simple cooking, you know."
"I do not claim the contrary, Snowsteel--never have I seen food burned with the verve and vigor you bring to the act." Growling, I went to where Elrohir lay, and gave his backside a sharp nudge with my foot. The staring eyes blinked, and awareness returned.
"Wake up. Fix breakfast."
"Your wish is my will, oh surly one. Whatever is the matter?"
"I can cook, you know," I declared, as I stalked off to take care of the morning's necessities. There was a chuckle behind me.
"Of course you can. Silly Brother! No one cooks things quite as......completely as you do."
I returned to find Elladan examining the Prince's leg. I had not seen it since the arrow was removed, and I was horrified now to find that it had swollen greatly since then. The formerly loose poultice bandage had in fact been constricting the flesh, and Elladan had had to remove it. He was bathing the injury and speaking to Imrahil in a soothing tone, asking about his symptoms. The Prince was not a complainer by any means, but it was evident that he was in a great deal of pain. At Elladan's request, I brought the water skin, the washcloth and a cup over, gave the Prince a drink and cleaned the blood off of his face while Elladan applied a fresh poultice and bandage. When he'd finished, he gave Imrahil a reassuring smile and covered him back up. He then walked with me to the far side of the camp. Though no words were exchanged, after a moment Elrohir took his skillet off the fire and joined us.
"We have a problem," Elladan said as soon as Elrohir arrived. "This is not a normal orc poison, or it would have responded to the antidote. In fact, giving him the antidote may have done more harm than good. I wish I had not done it." I looked at him in amazement.
"I thought you knew all about these things!" Elladan grimaced.
"Much as we of the First-born would have Mortals think we never make mistakes, Snowsteel, it is simply not the case. In fact, the mistakes we make tend to be wonderfully huge ones. At some point in the future when we are not so pressed for time, I will tell you of some of our more marvelous miscalculations. But for now, I can tell you that I do not know what this poison is, or how it will affect him. It appears to be acting like a venom of some sort, and that gives us more time than we would have with other things. I am hoping that the poison was old enough or dilute enough that he will be able to overcome the effects. He is a warrior after all."
"Those Uruks were from Isengard originally," said Elrohir thoughtfully. "They bore the White Hand on their armor. Curunir, being a wizard, could have had the poison brewed out of almost anything. He might have been working on something that was more potent than the usual things orcs use, though I hope for Imrahil's sake that is not the case."
Elladan sighed in frustration. "I can keep the wound poulticed, and hope to draw some of the poison out, but I fear to give him much of anything else, even willowbark. His wound refuses to cease to bleed." Elrohir frowned.
"Definitely no willowbark then. It sounds like we need Father, Brother. Shall I take Nimfaun and Alagos, and try to make a run to Lorien?" Elladan considered this for a moment, then shook his head.
"We're over three days hard ride away now. You could cut it to two, pushing them, but they would be spent when you got there. We would be slowed somewhat on the mortal horses, and as he is not a small man and Hethlin and I would have difficulty getting him into and out of the saddle, we would not have made that much progress toward you. It would probably take you over a day to return to us, if you could find a horse among the Galadrim the equal of ours, so no time would be saved by your going, and you would be in greater peril alone. Perhaps when we get closer." Elrohir nodded.
"Very well, I am going to finish making breakfast--it looks to be the last hot meal we may be eating for a while. The two of you see to him and start packing."
A little over an hour later, we had eaten, packed and saddled and were ready to depart. It had been decided that I would hold Imrahil before me on my saddle, and switch back and forth between Caerith and Fortune. The Prince's armor and my own had been strapped onto Nimfaun and Alagos. Elladan spoke to me quietly before the twins brought Imrahil over.
"We ride hard as he can stand, for as long as he can bear it, do you understand, Hethlin? Into the night, if the horses will endure it. Are you able?"
"Aye, Elladan. I can do it. I don't want to have to explain to Faramir that I lost his uncle!"
"Hopefully, it will not come to that, Valar willing." But there was something lurking behind his silver eyes that made me uneasy. The Prince, when handed up into my keeping, was a bit frightened about his sudden lack of strength, a bit embarrassed by the situation he was in, and being Imrahil, a bit amused despite it all.
"Ah," he said as sweat broke out on his brow and the shivering started again, "if only Eomer of Rohan could see me now." I couldn't help but chuckle as I urged Caerith forward.