Disclaimer: If I owned any of this "Lord of the Rings" stuff, I wouldn't be sitting here, writing fanfiction. I own Arwith. Steal her for your own use, and I'll send small, furry animals to eat your socks.
Thank you to teinesamoa for her extraordinarily complimenting review. I've actually been writing books in my head since I was ten. There's quite a few good ones stored up there in my head. Thanks also to lindahoyland. By the way, "The congeries had retired to a lounge" is a fancy way of saying "Everybody in the group sat around in a room with lots of chairs." My third thanks goes to Calico Cat. I'm glad you like my style of writing. I hope I'm doing well.
This is a rather unnecessary thank you, but I'll post it anyway. The whole "angles-seem-off" and all that stuff were the direct result of reading "The Haunting of Hill House." No, it's not like "House on Haunted Hill." "Haunting" is actually good and it has a plot. But the movie "The Haunting" is loosely based on it. Way to go, Shirley Jackson.
The escapee's cell had been thoroughly inspected, to no avail. The six-by-six-by-ten foot stone room was bare of any hints as to how its previous occupant might have absconded. The one-by-one foot window was eight feet up. Even if the wall had been scaled, the window was fitted with bars, preventing escape. The door appeared to have been unlocked from the inside. None of the sentries had opened the door or lost their keys. There was no sign of forced escape. The door had been abandoned for scarcely a moment. There was little or no way for anyone to escape. One might have assumed that the cell had been bare for quite some time.
So how had it happened? How was possible for her to have fled from their grasp without someone noticing? How was it possible?
These thoughts ran through Aragorn's mind as he rode through the woods with his party. They had been hunting their quarry since early that morning. It was now growing on late afternoon and their frantic search had thus far been fruitless. The young captive had disappeared entirely from her cell, with no sign of how she might have escaped or where she might have gone.
Her lack of presence was noticed at dawn, when the guards had brought her rations. Everyone had been searching for her ever since then. It was now the early afternoon.
Once added to the fact that his wife had divulged her well-kept secret- that she knew, and had known, about the orcs and the attacks and the prisoner... It was grating on his nerves and he was developing a migraine.
Aragorn hastened his horse forward when he saw that he was falling behind. He was ready to give up scowering the area and begin searching the mountains, and he could tell his men were too. He was also ready to see if Gandalf had uncovered anything from the mountains of tomes that lay slowly turning to dust in the castle archives.
"Aragorn!" Gimli shouted from his seat behind Legolas. Aragorn turned and rode over to the horse that the two were atop. "Your men are getting restless, and we're getting nowhere. We'll either have to move this search of our's elsewhere or delay it for now." Aragorn massaged his forehead in a vain attempt to rid himself of his headache. "I know. We'll go back to the castle. Perhaps Gandalf will finally have some information for us."
Gimli snorted as he considered the thought to be absurd. "We were fruitless in our attempts to pull him away from those books. He had better have found out something by now."
While they rode back to Minas Tirith, Faramir's group joined them in their short trip. Faramir himself could barely keep himself from noticing Aragorn's abnormally strained manner. The events of the previous night were hardly enough to send him into such a state. "Aragorn, there's obviously something weighing heavily on your mind. What is it?"
The older glanced in the direction of the younger and his biological age seemed truer than before. "...It is Arwen," he answered finally. "She's told me that she knows of everything that I tried to hide from her. She has told me that it is causing her no additional stress, and is not harming our child in any way, but..."
Faramir listened patiently. "Well... It wasn't for nothing that you married her." Aragorn smiled and nodded. "Yes, I suppose you are right."
Two or three hours later, everyone was preparing to depart once more, this time for the more mountainous terrain. Aragorn had spoken with Arwen, and all seemed to be well once more. Gandalf, as it turned out, had not discovered anything of interest. This revelation caused Gimli to go into an inward rage. Upon receiving this unfavorable news, he sputtered angrily, turned, and left with his axe, silently seething. He returned twenty minutes later in a much calmer mood, but saying the blade of his axe would now have to be re-sharpened. The cooks later came to say that the dwarf lord Gimli had passed through to the kitchens and to ask if anyone minded eating a good deal of meat for lunch, dinner, and possibly for breakfast as well. Everyone silently agreed that they had absolutely no desire to know what happened in the kitchens and outwardly agreed that they would not mind eating large quantities of meat. They also suggested that it first be presented to the hobbits, all of whom were doing quite well.
The different teams were ready to leave when they got word of another orc uprising that was occurring as they spoke. The search parties quickly formed into battle squads.
The orcs had attacked a small village an hour before. While many of the people had already fled, a small battalion had fought back. Many, if not all, had been slain on both sides. The orcs were soon ready to claim victory over their enemies when something had happened that caused the vast majority of the group to leave their comrades behind to finish the job.
They had been chasing someone for quite some time. They were tired of trying to catch this person, but they weren't about to give up chase just so they could rest their chops. Besides, the fool had slain one of them when they were attacked. It had taken a dagger from its cloak and brought it through their companion's skull. Orcs had little problem with killing one of their own kind, but there was no mercy to be shown for anyone else.
Their prey, meanwhile, had been running in every direction and simply could not be caught. The chase had become even more difficult when they had entered the woods. The chasers soon learned that they now had to keep their quarry from leaving their eyesight. This person was becoming an irritant that the orcs wanted very much to have out of existence.
The chase took a turn when they neared the edge of the forest. The victim began to climb the tallest tree while orcs could only follow with their eyes. The higher it climbed, the harder it became to see them. The orcs soon had to look away, for their prey had not climbed this tree for no reason. They were between the sun and the orcs' vision. The orcs could not look up and see their prey.
The chase came to an end entirely when arrows shot down several of the orcs. Aragorn's parade had arrived to find their escaped prisoner in a tree and the orcs shielding their eyes. The orcs received their attackers with all the fury and brutality they could muster.
The battle that followed was a short-lived, but destructive gore fest that left the surroundings littered with the bodies of a few men and many orcs. The smell of blood filled the air and the forest had grown silent.
Aragorn was taking a count of the casualties when one of the foot soldiers managed to retrieve the girl from her sanctuary in the tree. Her hands were bound in front of her with a length of rope and her tether was kept by one of the sentinels.
"There are seven men dead, sixteen wounded, Sire." Aragorn nodded approvingly at the good news. "And are any of the orcs still living?"
A howl of pain rang in the air and everyone turned. The guard that held their prisoner had been slashed across his side by an orc with many gashes and only one arm. The orc had his sword raised to finish the guard when he suddenly began to choke and gag. The captive had untied her hands and was using the rope to strangle the one-armed orc. The orc dropped his sword and began to pull at the rope, but the girl had wrapped her hands tightly around the rope and would not give. The orc's grip loosened as he suffocated and he fell to his knees. He grasped desperately behind himself but couldn't reach her. He finally fell onto his chest and passed out of asphyxiation.
The girl removed the rope, then climbed up off the unconscious body and reached for the fallen sword. Taking it in one hand and turning the orc's head with the other, the young woman made a deep cut across the orc's neck, spilling its blood onto the grass.
Of these many unexpected events, the most unexpected was the event that followed. The girl approached the injured soldier, sword still in hand. He shrank back slightly when she stopped in front of him, but looked surprised when she offered him her hand. The young woman pulled the guard up and he leaned on her as she led him across the field of corpses to where a makeshift medic was wrapping wounds.
The soldier who had been speaking with Aragorn turned to face him. His face was pale and his eyes were wide. "There are seventeen men wounded, and no, none of the orcs are still living."
The girl was very much aware that soldiers now surrounded her, but she made no motion to attack. She did not fight back when her hands were once more bound. She made no commotion when she bodily heaved onto someone's horse and a blade placed at her throat should she try to escape. She was calm throughout the entire ordeal. But her face kept its cool, distant look and everyone around her somehow knew to remain on their guard.