The splash of cold water against his face forced Aragorn out of peaceful oblivion with a painful jerk. Glancing up, light-headed and bleary-eyed, the Ranger glared at the three orcs hovering overhead. His jaw clenched with realization that he was about to find out what they wanted with him…whatever it was, Aragorn had no intention of giving it to them. 

"You have a name, human?" the orc in the middle ask.  

Why do you want to know? Aragorn wondered. He said nothing, expecting his silence to earn a painful response, and was surprised when the orc made no move toward him.

"Come now, human," said the orc, shaking its head disapprovingly. "Do not make this bad for you. It is elves we hunt, not men. Answer my questions plainly and we will let you go. No pain for you, only elves…and what does a man care about elves?" 

Startled by the seeming intelligence of the orc, Aragorn's brow furrowed. Still, he remained silent; the thought of a smart orc disconcerted him, and the Ranger decided that it was all the more reason not to answer any of their questions, no matter how benign they were. 

"No?" 

The one word was all the warning Aragorn got before the orc's fist slammed into the bridge of his nose, smacking his head into the tree bark behind him. Nearly a full minute passed before the stars dancing before his eyes relented. Forcing his head back up, he fixed his eyes upon the orc and renewed his hostile glare. 

"Name, human." The orc made it a demand, not a question, but again, Aragorn said nothing. The orc sighed, tightening his fist. "You are friend of the elves of this land?"

Aragorn kept silent, tightening his jaw in preparation for the next blow. He figured that it would come from the other side—he was right. Closing his eyes while he waited for the sting of it to fade, he heard a new voice chime in.

"The man knows nothing. Can't help us, even if he did. Let me kill him!" 

Aragorn stayed as he was, refusing to react. 

"No! The human knows what we need. If he knew nothing, he would speak."

Aragorn nearly raised an eyebrow. His interrogator was definitely brighter than the average orc, which concerned him. A hand suddenly grabbed a fistful of his hair and yanked it, preventing Aragorn from pondering the development further. His head was forced up and he shot a cold glare at the orc. 

"You know…." 

A booming crack of thunder drowned out the rest of the orc's question, not that Aragorn would've answered even if he'd heard it. Shifting his gaze to the sky, he flinched as a bright flash of lightning unexpectedly illuminated the thick, black clouds.      

The orcs were bad enough, he sullenly cursed the sky. Must I be wet and cold, as well?

The arriving storm turned out to be more of a gift than a curse, however. 

"We will get nothing from him till the storm passes," the intelligent orc shouted over a gust of cold wind. "Perhaps the weather will loosen his tongue and spare us the effort of doing it." 

The orc to his left grumbled—Aragorn couldn't quite make out the words.

"No. You will have to wait until it passes to kill him," came the reply, and the ranger figured he could guess what the other had said. "Take the watch, the rest of us will sleep. Whether or not the human speaks, we assault Imladris on the morrow."

That announcement made Aragorn's stomach lurch. His father's power prevented any evil from entering the valley, or at least it always had in the past. The confidence dripping from the orc's tone left a lingering tickle of doubt in Aragorn's stomach. No fell creatures, to his knowledge, had ever attempted to assault Rivendell disguised, as these were, in the cloaks of the Galadhrim. His father might—as he did—realize the danger too late. 

A surge of panic-spawned adrenaline cleared some of the fog miring Aragorn's battered brain, allowing him to think clearly enough to realize the carelessness of his captors. They had bound his upper body tightly to the tree trunk, but hadn't bothered to bind his hands or feet; nor had they bothered to thoroughly search him. Aragorn felt momentarily sick as it occurred to him that the orcs had probably not intended to keep him alive long enough for it to matter. He quickly pushed the thought away; they hadn't killed him yet, and he intended to take advantage of the lack of foresight.

Aragorn let his head hang forward as the orcs slipped away to find an area of sheltered ground to sleep on. Besides postponing his torture and death, the ranger realized that the storm that he'd so wrongly cursed had blackened the night enough to allow him a degree of undetected movement—if he was careful about it. He need only wait a reasonable length of time for them to doze off, and then bend his unbound leg to bring his boot knife within reach of his unbound hand. There was, of course, the sentry to deal with, but he'd worry about that in due time—once he'd freed himself.

Unfortunately, Aragorn didn't know that he had a friend waiting impatiently to sneak into the camp to rescue him. The traumatic events that followed would be something that neither Aragorn nor Legolas would ever forget…