So so sorry for the wait! I need your opinions on something important having to do with the rest of this story, so please read my message after the chapter!

Into the Labyrinth

Author: Mirfaen

Chapter 21: Feigning Death

Aragorn dipped his left hand to the floor and grasped the hilt of his sword, moving into a defensive position and clenching his jaw against the pain in his right hand. He had trained himself from a young age to be just as skilled when the sword was in his left hand as his right and often switched hands in the midst of a battle. But that was his own sword. His own sword was far lighter and more mobile than the massive blade he now held. He reflected that the sword he was using was most likely crafted for the use of both hands together. To use it one-handed he needed the strength of his right arm, and now that at least three of his fingers were broken on that side, he was reduced to his left arm alone. It occurred to Aragorn that if there was ever an appropriate time to break most of your fingers, it was certainly not at this time.

His thoughts halted as Derral finally stepped back in to attack and he was intent for several long minutes with simply bringing his sword up to stop the larger man's blows. His arm ached and hot, salty sweat created a thin sheen on his face.

"There must be a way out of this place," he panted during a brief pause in the attack, maintaining the hope that Derral would cooperate with him.

Derral laughed but his eyes remained cold. "The only way either of us is getting out of here tonight is if we're dead."

A thought suddenly struck Aragorn. It was a desperate thought, but a thought nonetheless.

"Perhaps that is how we can get out of here," he said in a distracted manner as his mind worked through the new possibility.

"By dying?" Derral shook his head as he loped forward and swung back the mighty scimitar. "Not the brightest escape plan I've heard. The heat of combat is driving you mad."

"No." Aragorn backed up rather unsteadily. His eyes were alight as the idea took form in his mind. "We will make it appear as though one of us has been defeated. He'll be taken out as though dead."

Derral's rhythm faltered and Aragorn watched as the concept took hold inside him. The knuckles gripping the heavy blade were white and his eyes had become uncertain. "None know what happens to the dead after they are taken out," he commented. His steady gait resumed and the air beside Aragorn's head whistled as the blade passed by. But Aragorn barely had to duck to avoid the less acurately aimed sweep. "For all we know they burn the bodies. That would be some escape, kid. Good luck with that."

"No," Aragorn repeated with fervor. Metal clanged as his first offensive swing in minutes was blocked. "They would not run the risk of burning all the bodies. The town's patrols would take note of the smoke almost immediately. Even if they do they would have to do it outside and that as well as having the element of surpise gives you a much better chance of escape than in here."

"Listen, you may have something there, but don't get your hopes up too high." Derral leaned back to avoid another of Aragorn's not-so-vicious blows. Then he shook his head as though he could not believe what he was doing. "I'll tell you what. I'm gonna back you up on this and act like I've killed you, but from then on you're on your own. If they catch on and see that you're not dead, I'm gonna have to play like I didn't know and kill you for real."

The Ranger was filled with relief at Derral's support, small as it was. But he sighed and shook his head. "I can't do it."

"So now all of a sudden you're scared?"

"I can't leave Legolas here. There's no way."

"You know kid, all you have to do is leak the location to the town security and they'll finally bust this place. Everyone will get out, including Legolas."

"I can't run the risk of them killing him before help arrives. And I won't have him think that I've died either. I wouldn't do that to him."

"You want me to pretend that I'm dead on the hope that no one will notice? This was your idea, I'm not going to risk my life on your dim hope, kid. We both know that I basically have this fight in the bag."

Aragorn felt frustration begin to rise at the man's lack of optimism. His face hardened and the next swing of his sword was stronger. "You just basically told me that you have no friends here. So why would you want to stay when I'm handing you the opportunity to escape?"

"Stop talking, Alymar is getting suspicious."

Aragorn took a quick glance over Derral's head to see Alymar's eyes narrowed and several fingers playing idly with the small braids of his hair. Vahlia was nearby but was not looking his way and Aragorn turned his attention back to Derral. Something had changed in the man's dark eyes and following up on his hunch, Aragorn saw an opening and lunged with his sword. Derral moved to block it, but it was a slow motion and the tip of Aragorn's blade pierced the warrior's arm. The wound was light, as the Ranger could clearly see at this close range, but Derral howled and grasped his arm tightly, nearly dropping the scimitar.

The crowd hushed for a moment at this new and unforeseen development but soon returned to its loud and clamoring state as Aragorn followed up on his offensive. His muscles were trembling and he was beginning to feel dizzy from fatigue but Derral was playing along now and was subtly allowing Aragorn to move at his own pace, giving the entire arena the impression that his arm injury was far worse than it actually was.

The moment finally came when Derral was off-balanced and Aragorn gave a last swing of his heavy sword, his right hand throbbing with pain, and sent up a silent prayer that he would not wound the man mortally. He felt the blade cut through flesh and Derral staggered backwards, his face going white and his hands grasping wildly for his stomach. The warrior gave Aragorn one last look and then sank to the ground, going completely still.

The Ranger stepped toward him, his breath coming rapidly and saw an ugly looking slice in Derral's midsection. But he also saw a slight movement of the man's mighty chest, a movement so minute that not a soul would recognize it for what it was unless they knew to look for it.


Finally returned to his cell, Aragorn flopped onto his cot in exhaustion and tried to steady his fluttering heartbeat with deep breathes. Despite the dull buzzing of the dispersing crowd on the other side of the wall, the air around him seemed heavy and silent. He brought his hand up to his face and inspected it at close range, grimacing at what he saw. The three fingers were swollen to almost twice their size and were clearly not in their correct place. The skin near his knuckes had become a deep purplish green. Sighing, he laid the mistreated hand gently down on the blanket beside him and stared at the ceiling.

After a minute or so, the quietness of the hall got to him and he began to wonder why Legolas had not yet spoken. Usually the Elf was concerned about his friend's injuries, no matter how many times that Aragorn insisted he was all right. The Ranger had just taken a breath to call to his friend when he heard movement outside in the hallway. Rising, he walked to his doorway and then froze.

The door to Legolas' cell clanged shut and when the guards moved off down the hallway, Aragorn saw Legolas standing with his back to him and his head lowered. But something was wrong. The Elf stood with his full weight on one foot only and blood covered his other leg from the knee down. With alarm, Aragorn saw that Legolas was slowly sinking toward the floor, his right arm sliding down the wall. Hitting the floor softly on his stomach, the Elf sluggishly moved an arm under him as though he was going to attempt to push himself up, but the attempt never came and he lay completely still.

Aragorn was nearly speechless at what he had just seen and was now staring at. This had come completely unexpected to him and his mind tried dumbly to work through what could have possibly happened.

"Legolas?" The weary Ranger said softly, staring at his friend's inactive body. Blood continued to flow over the Elf's leg and was now trickling onto the floor. In the dim light, Aragorn could make out a deep laceration in the back of his knee.

"Legolas." He said more forcefully, his worry mounting.

Nothing.

Minutes dragged on and soon became over an hour and still Legolas had not risen or responded to Aragorn's callings. Aragorn had finally sat down and was examining his hand, debating whether to try and pop the bones back into place himself when a healer arrived at his room. It was the first male healer that the Ranger had seen in The Labyrinth and the man's hands were deft as he gently felt the bones of Aragorn's right hand. Getting the bones of his three broken fingers back into place was an extremely painful process, but Aragorn had gone through it before and simply gritted his teeth and endured the necessary pain.

After silently wrapping a thick bandage over and around the damaged hand, the healer set a jar of water next to the Ranger and stood up. Once outside, with Aragorn's cell door safely shut once more, the man turned and spoke for the first time, indicating Legolas with a tip of his head.

"Is he out?"

Aragorn nodded. "Do you know what happened? Why did they do that to him?"

The healer ignored him completely, turning the key to the Elf's door and entering cautiously. He closed the door quickly behind him and stepped over to Legolas' head. Squatting down, the man laid a suprisingly gentle hand on the Elf's good shoulder and shook it.

"Elf? You awake?"

"I told you, he's out. Has been for over an hour. Did they drug him?"

This time the healer nodded and began to rumage through a bag that contained his supplies. Aragorn was grateful that finally Legolas would get the treatment he needed.

But the healer was not there to treat him, as Aragorn found out when the man brought out of his bag a long rope and began to move Legolas into a kneeling position, leaning him against the wall.

"What are you doing?!" Aragorn demanded. "He needs help!"

Again, the man across the hall not not respond in the least, proceding to tie the Elf's wrists to his ankles. When he was finished he stood up, brushing dust from his pants. Out in the hall again, the healer looked as though he were going to leave when he stopped and glanced back at Aragorn.

"They don't want him to heal too fast," the man explained quickly and quietly, as though at any moment a guard would come rushing down the hallway to kill him. "They've seen how fast he heals and they want that cut behind his knee to last at least a couple more days. I don't know any more than that."

With that, the man was gone again down the hallway and Aragorn was left shaking his head in disbelief.


Sorry this is a little short and my deepest apologies for getting this out months too late! Senior year started with a huge bang and I literally have not touched my computer for more than 10 minutes in several months. I hope everyone is doing okay and enjoyed their summer!

I would like to ask the opinions of you all. Over these last several months when I would think about how long the wait for this chapter was I got the idea that it would be so nice if I could just write the rest of the story all at once and then be able to post the remaining chapters in rapid succession. The only thing is that it might take me a while to do the rest of the story. So I would like to hear if any of you had an opinion, whether I should continue as I have and post a steady stream of chapters with waits in between, or have a long wait and then be able to post a chapter every week or every couple days until the story is finished. Ideas? This is for you guys, so please let me know your preference!

Reviewer Responses:

Bookworm, .303 – Don't worry, I can't kill them. We already know they live on for later adventures…Even if we didn't know that, I don't think I could kill either one of them! They're just too lovely. (Inside and out, of course!) Thanks for the review!

ClaMiAl – WOW, thank you so much for that great review! It was wonderful, the longest one I've gotten! (And I love the long ones!) I'm so glad that you see how dynamic the twins are (Amadeo and Alymar I mean), that they are not just simply "bad guys" but that they are human, and they love just as much as they hate. Let's see…yes, you find out where the larger stone door leads, don't worry. But no, the man in the expensive clothing doesn't pop up again, I just used him to try and make the crowd seem more real, instead of it being just this big, vague blob of noise all the time. I wanted to show what the people of the crowd were thinking. Thanks so much for commenting on the grammer and style! Grammer and spelling is a huge thing with me. And yes, I wanted readers to be reminded that while Aragorn and Legolas are not the Supermen of Middle-earth, Legolas is a Prince from Mirkwood, the Elves of combat, and Aragorn is Numenorian and the future king of Gondor and that they both will be part of the Nine Walkers. About Amadeo saying that Legolas is becoming disheartened, I think it is a little of both, that he'd seen that in his human fighters and was partly guessing, but Legolas is beginning to feel that way in his heart. And don't worry, Aragorn and Legolas do get into major trouble before the others find the place. Don't you worry about that! Well once again, thank you so much for the wonderful review, I hope you find time to give me another one and make my week again! :)

Cosmic Castaway – Yeah, thunderstorms are some of my favorite things! Unfortunately, we didn't get a single one all summer after that huge one came through that I told you about. Bummer. Hm yes, very strange how torture is so horrible and yet we love it. I think we can feel that way because we know it's not true, you know? If there was a real person going through anything like that in front of my eyes I would be sickened. But thankfully it's not real, so yay! Lol. Well thank you so much for the review!

Deana – That sounds like quite a storm! I love storms, I wish I had been there! Thank you for the review!

Elenillor – Thanks so much for those comments about the characterization! That's exactly what I was going for with Aragorn. And yes, I'm also trying to show that while Amadeo and Alymar know nearly nothing about Elves, they're minds are very sharp and they are very cunning. Thanks so much for the review!!

Libby – I'm so glad you like that chapter. I'm very sorry that Elladan is being a jerk, I know he is! But it's supposed to be like that and you just keep reading, because he really redeems himself. Right now he's letting his emotions rule him. Thanks for reviewing!

Milanais Pretensae – Yes, I do feel very special now!! Thank you so very much for those wonderful things you said! I do not feel like I deserve such praise, but you really helped make my week! Thanks for reviewing!!

Niani – You know, hearing that you are falling in love with Isorfinduil makes me so so happy! That is exactly what I wanted to happen, I want readers to fall in love with him! (I already have..) Yes, he will be in many more stories. To tell you the truth, most of the ideas for new stories that I've come up with center around him and I need to remind myself that people are going to go for Legolas more than him in general, just because he's the heartthrob from the movies. I don't know. Maybe I'll be able to work it in somehow. But I can guarantee that he will at least a major character in my other stories! Thank you so very much for the review!


Thanks again everyone, have a wonderful day and please drop me a review! Don't forget to let me know your opinion, I need it!

Mirfaen