Title: For Whom the Bell Tolls

Rating: PG

Genre: Angst

WARNING: Death

Beta: None

Cast: Cave Troll

Disclaimer: I own no-one from The Lord Of The Rings. All the characters and place names displayed belong to JRR Tolkien. I do not intend to, nor am I making any financial gain from the writing of this story.

Feedback: Yes please! We "aspiring" authors thrive on the stuff.

Timeline: During the War of the Ring. In Moria – seconds after the Fellowship leave Balin's tomb.

Summary: Wounded fatally, tortured and completely alone, the tortured cave troll of Moria breathes his last...


For Whom the Bell Tolls

Death. He never thought he would face it, and yet now, it was staring him in the face, beckoning to him, luring him to its impenetrable depths. Opening his eyes slightly, he noticed several figures scampering quickly from the chamber and then they were gone. He was alone.

Alone, cold and pitifully wasted. His breath came in short, rattling breaths, each gasp like sandpaper grazing the back of his parched throat. As he let in another painful current of air, there came a rush of white-hot pain combined. The arrow heads that had pierced him had done their work - most of it. Instead of dying instantly, the wretch lay shivering with cold and abandoned upon the rough and jagged floor of the chamber.

Swallowing a globule of blood, the fading creature recalled his last memories of home. He had been snatched when he had been merely a week old and forced to work for the foul animals that haunted the mines. They had beaten him, tortured him and starved him until he was completely submissive to their malevolent control.

The creature spluttered suddenly, and a steady trickle of blood oozed from his nose and the corners of his sagging mouth. How had it come to this? That he should face his final moments, lonely and suffering through no fault of his own.

He could hear them now. Their hellish screams of bloodthirsty fury and excitement rattled and poured through his ears, making his battered skull pound terribly. He tried to reach up to cover his ears from the vicious and piercing cries, but his arms would not move. They were pinned to the ground by his own weight, and to his anguish, he felt himself beginning to give in to what was so fast becoming inevitable.

Raising his head slightly, he gazed for a moment across the floor. It was then that the miserable creature set his clouding eyes upon the dappled light that streamed in through a gap in the ceiling. He watched as it danced and frolicked across the stones, feeling a sudden essence of peace and warmth for the first time since he had been wrenched from his family so many years ago.

Finally, he felt his eyelids beginning to droop and his heartbeat slowed. The pain was leaving him. At last, he could escape from his tormentors, and go somewhere where they could not follow. With a sigh, he resigned to his head meeting solid ground once more as the smooth hand of passing gently eased his final breath.

Fin