Chapter 3: Captured
The seconds dragged by while the prince checked the Human over. There did not seem to be anything physical wrong with him, and he was slowly waking up. Suddenly the humans eyes went wide and Legolas spun around, but the orc Estel had seen behind the prince was now gone, but before Legolas could turn back to face the man on the forest floor something hard hit the back of his skull and he sagged before the man he had protected from the orcs.
The orc with the stone had finally had it's chance, the diversion it's companion had made, had brought the prince in a perfect position for the path of the stone, just a pity that the elf had turned enough that the stone did not hit him perfectly. Otherwise the stone would have crushed his skull.
Now, with the elven warriors approaching, the orcs had to accept that all they had accomplished was giving one of the cursed elves a severe headache. Not exactly what they had been hoping for, but at least the two miserable creatures lying on the ground would not walk from the glade unharmed, and that brought them some consolation, even though they would much rather that the two beings had been made diner.
Estel saw the stone fall from where it had hit the elf in the back of his head, and picked it up, not really knowing why; just because it was the only thing his tired and emotionally overloaded mind could think of.
Almost instantly after he had made this simple action of picking up the weapon, which had been used on the elf lying unconscious in front of him, a dozen elven warriors appeared in the clearing. Quickly taking in the scene before them, they hurried towards the man and the elf.
Estel saw them coming, but stayed where he was, not feeling like moving right now. The Elf in lead of the company went to look the prince over, trying to find an explanation for his unconsciousness. He quickly found it; a nasty discolouring of the skin behind his jaw told far too clearly that the prince had been hit with something heavy, a stone perhaps.
The elf turned his attention towards the human sitting behind the prince. Until now he had not had the time to bother with the less than ordinary company the prince had assumedly been keeping, before he was knocked unconscious, bit now he did.
Estel had been sitting still while this went on, the incriminating stone still resting in his palm. Of course the elf saw it; he had in fact been looking for something of the like. The stone the man was holding was certainly big and heavy enough to have been the weapon to cause the prince to black out; in fact it could easily have killed him, had it hit the prince a little higher and at a slightly different angle. Taurion's eyes turned dark, and he looked at the human, fury burning behind his eyes.
In the meantime the rest of the warriors had strung their bows, having seen the same thing as their leader and now a dozen arrows were pointed at the human.
"Why did you do this" Taurion asked, barely reining in his burning rage.
When the elves had approached, Estel had not been afraid at all. He had after all been raised among them, and one seldom fears a race they know to be noble and kind, when one has done nothing wrong. But when he saw the look on Taurion's face this sense of security disappeared. Estel felt cold. They were actually accusing him of having attempted to take the princes life, when he had done no such thing. But you didn't help him either. A small but insistent voice whispered to him.
"I didn't…" he managed to squeak out, but Taurion would have nothing of it.
"Liar" the elf shouted to the frightened young man, his head inches from that of the man before him, but in that moment the prince, who had been moved by the other elves, began to awake, largely due to the other elves gentle treatment.
As Legolas began to awake he moaned softly at the thundering ache in his head. Oh but if he survived this...
Taurion motioned for one of the other elves in his company to come take charge of the human and gently approached the slightly dazed prince. "How are you feeling my Lord?" he asked, mindful of keeping his voice as low so as to not aggravate the headache the prince was sure to have sustained. Legolas groaned nonetheless, as the normally soft musical sound of an elven voice was sounding at least twice as loud as it should be, torturing his poor hurting head. He managed to answer the concerned captain though, assuring him that he would most definitely live. Then Taurion asked the question he was most anxious to get an answer to "Who did this to you, my Prince? Was it the human?"
Legolas turned his head towards the man, who had been seized by the other elves when Taurion was no longer paying attention to him, and the look in the mans eyes implored the prince to tell that he was not guilty, that the stone that had knocked the prince out had been thrown from behind them both, that the man had nothing to do with it, other than being stupid enough as to sleep on the ground in an area often visited by orcs.
The prince racked his brain to try and remember where the stone had come from, if it could possibly have come from somewhere else than the human's hand, tried to remember where exactly the humans arm had been and if this stone had been close to the human when he arrived, but he couldn't remember, it was possible that the stone could have come from somewhere else, but as it looked right now the odds were weighing heavily against the human. All he knew was that the stone had come from behind and that in that moment the human had been behind him. Yes the odds surely didn't look good for the human.
With a shaky voice the prince started "I can't remember it entirely, but when the stone hit me I had my back to him," Legolas said and indicated Aragorn with a flick of his left hand "I don't think there were others with us here" He didn't want to say anything that would indicate that it was the man who had done it, for even though Legolas was almost convinced that it must have been, he would not judge anyone beforehand, the human deserved a fair trial and a chance to plead his case.
Taurion turned back to Estel with a snarl on his lips, "You see young human, no use lying now. There was no one there except the two of you. No other to do this. But why, why did you do it?" Taurion's voice was deceptively sweet, but laced with poison. The human had tried to kill the very person who had just saved his petty life.
"What grudges do you have against elves that you would try to take the life of him who tried save you life?" Now his voice was no longer sweet and silken, now it bore all the anger the elf held towards this human.
Aragorn had tears in his eyes when he spoke up again "I didn't do it..." But he never got to finish before Taurion interrupted him.
"Then who did?" The elf almost shouted now and Aragorn flinched away sharply more tears welling in his eyes. It wasn't enough that his family did not want him anymore, but now he was accused of attempted murder.
"I don't know," he said heavily, knowing that this would only strengthen the elves in their belief that he was truly guilty, "I just don't know." He hung his head.
TBC
Ok here we go again...
R/R
