A/N: I WAS going to continue with everyone Legolas and co. and make the attack an even longer cliffhanger, but I decided not to be cruel and get on with it. At least for this time… mua haha! Once again, if you read it, review it! Or I might just have to continue with evil cliffhangers… mua haha!
Chapter Three
Ambushed
Furnash and his company crept as silently as they could through the growth of trees and dense shrubbery. He watery eyes kept to the tree tops, scanning them easily with his natural night vision, for anything or anyone that was alive. But they found the horses before they found their owners. "We can't kill the horses 'ere, 'em cursed elves will wake with all the noise!" Furnash cursed silently to the others.
"Why don' we jus kill the elves first den?" a particularly stupid orc asked, scratching his hairless head.
"Imbecile!" Furnash hissed at the offending orc, "do you wan' tah be trampled by 'em once they hear us attacking! Besides, Gorlak said he wanted them alive! Think for once!". They offender knew enough to realize that he had been insulted and scowled. "'Right, this is the plan. Turga, you take 20 of those fools and position yerselves 'roun the horses. I'll take the rest 'o you lot and we'll surround the tree from the ground and the trees 'roun it. You hafta watch for those sneaky elves, they can squirm their way out of 'most all situations." Furnash ordered, "then when I give the signal, Turga's lot will exterminate 'em horses and we'll take care of the elves" he finished and after arranging his group crept off silently trhoguh the undergrowth with a host of twenty orcs trailing. Turga and the other twenty surrounded the unfortunate horses.
Pippin's heart sank into the deepest pits of his stomach as soon as he saw them coming. They had been successful in dispatching the fairly large number of creatures running amok in the city, but that seemed to be only a scouting group. Pippin had climbed to one of the brightly blazing fire beacons and almost fell off when he saw the enormous black smudge still far, far away, creeping slowly across the plains.
Everyone was in position. The seemingly peaceful night air was penetrated with the gruesome smell of many orcs' heavy breathing, all waiting in blood lust induced tenseness. The glittering eyes of the wretched orcs who had been chosen to scale the trees forgot their fear and hunched in preparartion. Furnash's raised arm fell in signal. The foul and grimy bodies of the orcs sprang into a delirium, working faster than one would have expected their race to. But not fast enough for the elves. As soon as the first viciously clawed hand raked itself against Elrohir's back trying to grasp him, he arched in surprise and cried in alarm, springing up and away while instinctively clinging to one of the thick branches for support. Immediately awakened by his brother's cry Elladan started and took in the situation in a glance. They were vastly outnumbered. He quickly grabbed for his bow but only got two shots or so before a flying knife thrown at a great speed sliced the string.
"Elrohir!" Elladan yelled while motioning to his brother and kicking at the advancing orcs in the process. Elrohir understood completely and tossed him one of his smaller knives and continued to hack away at the offending creatures with his sword, which was his preferred weapon. Furnash laughed evilly at the struggling elves – he knew they would soon be contained. But the horses were never meant to be. For they were horses of elves and were stronger than the average. After the first few rapid slices marred their gleaming silvery hides, they rolled to their feet neighing and snorting and reared up, knocking down many orcs in the process with their powerful legs. They continued to kick out in all directions beserkly and trampled themselves a path through the dead bodies of the dim witted orcs, racing back to their home in Rivendell. If one could have seen Furnash pale under his permanent filth, they would have.
"Elladan! We must get higher, we cannot hold them off forever!" Elrohir called desperately to his brother, his normal calm disappearing once he realized they were in a very bad situation. He continued to dispatch many orcs with short strokes of his sword.
"I agree, but the tree won't go up forever, then what? They are all around us, even in the surrounding trees!" Elrohir didn't answer and concentrated on a particularly ulgy grinning head and wiped (or rather sliced) it off his face. He had been in tight situations before, but this was bad. The fact that he knew they weren't going to make it made him fight even more viciously, and Elladan who seemed to realize the same thing, copied him. Elladan darted his eyes around trying to decide who was the biggest advancing threat and after choosing one, thrusted his knife into the disgusting body with a sickening slurping noise. The impaled creature began to fall off the tree and Elladan made a sharp snapping motion with his wrist to draw the knife out. But it didn't happen. The knife was lodged into several ribs and he could either fall or let go. He chose the latter. He turned his head despairingly to see how Elrohir was faring, just in time to see another throwing knife come flying through the air straight towards him.
"Elrohir!" he shouted, knowing his words couldn't save him. But instead of striking his unprotected chest, it sliced at his hands grasping his sword. Elrohir gasped in pain and the only thing that saved him from dropping it and loosing their only weapon was his training. But another knife came flying towards him once more, striking the same spot, harder this time and that was enough. During Elladan's brief lapse of concentration, he failed to see the scimitar slice his foot until he felt it. Yelling in pain, he quickly grinded the heel of his boot into the orc's head with his good foot and inched backwards even further. Through his mental torment of helplessness and burning sensation in his foot, Elladan realized that where they could have fatally injured Elrohir, they didn't, only causing him minimal damage. The same thing went for himself, he would have a harder time walking with his foot injury. He shuddered; being captured by orcs and at their mercy was much worse than being killed by them. Set into this action by this thought he called yelled to Elrohir once more, this time agreeing with his previous plan, "get up the tree as far as you can!".
Elrohir heard his brother's agreement and nodded, grimacing at the pain this action caused. "How did this happen?" he wondered, still in shock, "there haven't been any orcs here for the longest time… Father will need to be alerted of this immediately". He grasped the branch as well as he could and hoisted himself up. But his bleeding hands slipped, leaving bloody trails down the bark which dug into his lacerated hands as he tried to hang on – and failed. He dropped to the nearest branch and was instantly pulled down by the surging orcs.
"Elrohir, no!" Elladan cried once again in vain. He stared in shock, forgetting his position in the tree as Elrohir was knocked out by Turga's iron fist and bound. His eyes bored into Turga, the one with the throwing knives at his belt. He was the assaulter. He came to this conclusion just as an orc uttered a guttural war cry and lunged out of a neighbouring tree and tackled Elladan. The merciful ground rushed towards him and he knew no more.
A/N: Dun dun duuun…
