Yikes, this is a monster of a chapter compared the the last dozen! I couldn't find an appropriate place to split, so here we are. Enjoy!
A low sound in the distance shook Shayla from her stupor. Her eyes had been shut for what only seemed like a moment, as she had curled herself underneath the coat she stole from the King's Chambers, attempting a chance at what little sleep she knew she would acquire over the coming months.
She had found herself a small nook in a craggy outcrop some metres from the edge of the forest, a space she had hoped no one would come across her, but as the sound far on the breeze came to an end, Shayla wondered just how long she would be able to continue in solitude.
Shayla looked towards the East, her vantage point not quite advantageous enough to see right to the beginning of her journey this morning, but she could see the sun lingering on the mountainside of Erebor, far in the distance, shining as a crimson flame erupting from the earth.
Hours and hours had passed, and the sun was beginning to fade in the West, though she would have guessed the time if not for the way her body ached. Shayla shifted her weight from where she had hidden and stretched her exhausted legs. The muscles there were tired and tight, and she knew she would have nearly run a marathon.
Shayla removed the most pertinent map from her pants pocket, unfolding it to read the markings of the countryside, using her fingers to measure the scale and work out the distance between the Western-most point of Erebor and the edge of the Mirkwood Forest. She didn't think she would be able to tell how far she had run after she had reached the forest edge until she started to turn due West, but she estimated she had run, and jogged, and walked, around seventy kilometres.
She rubbed her weary eyes with an open palm and pulled her feet towards her. She had double layered her socks, but as she untied her boots and slowly removed them, Shayla knew that it hadn't avoided the pain of blisters. A hiss escaped from behind her teeth as her damp skin clung to the socks she delicately attempted to remove, until she could finally see the obvious blisters next to her largest toes and the backs of her heels.
Shayla wished there were a cool stream nearby, or a small puddle of freezing water or ice to help relieve the sting, but she was unlikely to see anything of the sort until she was further north, and she wouldn't waste her drinking water on a vapid comfort. As soon as she was following the river South towards the Elves, she wouldn't need to worry about maintaining a personal supply of water.
Yeah, like that was a totally normal thing to think about. Elves. Shayla didn't even really know what they were supposed to look like. Were they like Christmas Elves?
If only you had stayed true to the original plan, the thought drifted through Shayla's mind, you would be able to ask Ori these questions.
Rubbing deep circles into the soles of her feet with her hardened fingers, she thought about her friends reluctantly. A full day of light had passed; the sun was whispering goodbye to the extended fingers of the forest before her, the orange light beginning to pale under the weight of the approaching twilight.
They would have found her letter ages ago.
Her heart clenched as she imagined the responses of Riley and Kili. She wondered as she had done hundreds of times while she jogged, as her legs ached, and her lungs heaved, whether she had made the right choice.
Should she have asked for help?
No, she reprimanded herself, once again. You are not splitting up one family to reunite another, no matter how desperate you are. The discourse raged on within her mind, until she sighed heavily and spoke aloud in an attempt to quieten the debate.
"It doesn't matter now. You are on this path regardless of the consequences." Shayla readjusted herself from underneath the rockface, pulling a ration of bread and an apple from her backpack.
It didn't matter, yet she felt it was the most important thing in the world. She only needed to worry about herself, but she also had no one bar herself to watch her own back. Shayla had never once worried about her surroundings until she had been dragged into this place. Her mind skirted back to the first moment she truly realised something was wrong. She had stared down a creature not of the world she knew, golden eyes shining in the moonlight, and a chill reverberated down her spine at the memory.
The further her steps drew her away from her friends, the more conflicted she became in her plan.
A second drawl of the horn, longer than the first, roused her from her internal conflict.
Shayla was unsure what the sound was. It was low, a dull drone as though from a trumpet or a horn. Where could it be coming from? What did it mean?
Biting her nails in anxiety, Shayla knew that she must decide on her next move. Should she nestle herself back in the crevice she had been resting in, hoping to get a full night's sleep, or would she need to continue without, risking the darkness so close to the fearful forest. With the remaining twilight, she took in her surroundings. Erebor was a behemoth, and while she couldn't see much bar the shape of the mountain on the horizon, the flame slowly dying in the wake of darkness, she knew that she had travelled far enough to warrant a full night's sleep.
Finishing the piece of soft bread and allowing herself a small drink of water, Shayla hid her backpacks further into the nook, following into it herself. She gently replaced the socks and boots on her bare feet, threw the coat over her entire body and attempted to lull herself back to sleep.
Shayla stirred, restless and cold. A freezing breeze lashed at the coat around her body, and her dreams were riddled and writhing with terror. She saw Riley's face, contorted with anger, vengeful eyes piercing her own. Riley then morphed into Kili, heartbreak plain on his features, and before Shayla could say a word, he disappeared and shifted into the faces of her parents. She saw her Mum's blue eyes and freckled cheeks, disappearing completely before her as though she had never existed. Shayla reached for her Dad, but he too, begun to disappear. His umber eyes full of warmth, framed by rich mahogany skin and curled locks the colour of a moonless night disappeared from Shayla's sight, and she collapsed beneath her shaking legs.
Shayla opened her mouth to call for her parents, to call to her kin, to release a desperate plea to her ancestors, but her own voice felt trapped; all that escaped her lips were a serious of snarls and blood curdling grunts. Her dark, panicked eyes flashed open, startling awake. She was a moment away from sighing, relieved to be free of the nightmares, but the snarls that seemed to still be ringing in her head were more than just that. Shayla's heart pounded in her chest as she heard growling and a series of fragmented words which grew louder, drawing closer.
"There…. Footprints…."
"Not far…."
There were words in another language, a tongue which was rough and pitched to Shayla's ears. Whatever they were, they were getting even nearer to Shayla. The skin at the back of her neck pricked, and her heart pounded against her chest so loud she was sure it would give her away.
Shayla moved her fingers to the blade she had rested next to her pack, attempting with little movement and noise to remove it from its sheath. The voices stopped, and though the words they spoke were unrecognisable, the harshness of their tones told her instincts that there was malice in their actions. Her shaking fingers struggled against the sheath, desperate to stay silent but desperate in the need for swiftness.
Shayla was so focused on her attempts at removing the blade that she missed the moment the voices quietened, and the footsteps softened. She had a split-second of realisation before the warmth of her world was ripped away from her and she was thrown into the chill of the dark night.
A jagged scream ripped from Shayla's throat as she was wrenched upwards by the back of her neck, a scream that only amplified as her racing mind absorbed what was happening around her. A smothering stench stung her nostrils and her throat, as though something dead wafted from her attackers. She could see the evil glinting in their eyes from the sliver of moonlight overhead, and the way their eyes seemed to leer and goad at her reaction set her heart pounding in her throat.
The creatures were taller than her, more than a head taller, and she struggled against their rough grip as they attempted to gain control of her on the rocky footing.
Another scream seemed to have caught in her throat along with her heart, and she tried to find the words, the cries to help her, but she seemed to have lost her tongue, too. All she had in her was to flail her arms and kick her legs against their grip.
Finally, another piercing shriek sounded the air, but when the creatures stopped all movements, she realised that the cry hadn't escaped her. It sounded close by; a desperate, furious cry.
A screech rung from right next to her ear, bloodcurdling and deafening, before she was thrust sideways and grabbed roughly by the other creature. Shayla managed to tilt her head enough to see what was happening before her.
Fireballs waved through the air, coming increasingly closer as Shayla saw what, or rather who, was attached to them. The flames lit up the exhausted and enraged faces of Jessika and Fain, who had their weapons drawn and were running directly for the creature before her.
The creature snarled in their foreign language to the one that still held her, gesturing furiously towards the forest, before leaping from the stony outcrop to meet the young Heirs of Durin with a shrieking battle cry.
Shayla's hair was ripped forwards by the creature as she desperately attempted to dig her feet into the rocks below her feet, but she was much smaller than the thing that held her, and it was just as desperate as she was to take her away.
The sound of weapons clashing reverberated through the air, and Shayla tried frantically to see Jessika and Fain, but her now loose hair and the tears that flew from her eyes made it impossible to see anything but the blurs of orange in some part of her eye line.
The creature was dragging her forwards with it, and she battered her arms against it, feeling more than seeing their proximity to the forest.
She didn't know what would happen if it managed to take her through the tree line of Mirkwood, and she screamed frantically, using what little strength she felt she had left to try and wrench it's fingers from her hair.
A loud thwack sounded from near her ears, and she was suddenly thrown forwards, tumbling to the ground at the edge of the forest. Shayla twisted herself onto her throbbing palms, scrambling backwards and casting her hair to the side to clear her vision.
The creature stood before her, turned away in a half-crouch as it snarled at the person before it.
Shayla's eyes widened in fear as she watched Riley, with her staff in hands and sweat dripping down her temples, face the creature with an indecipherable expression on her face. A guttural gurgling sounded from behind Riley, before Jessika and Fain appeared at her side, their blood-stained weapons at their disposal.
The creature growled menacingly, before turning and making for Shayla. Shayla screamed, crawling backwards as the thing reached for her, but a blade pierced its chest before it had the chance to touch her. Shayla watched as the life fell from its eyes, the rage dying with it, as it was pushed to the ground.
Shayla jumped as she saw two more figures approach, and despite the orange glow of their firelight illuminating the faces of Ori and Bilbo, Shayla still couldn't calm down. Her breathing quickened, her heart pounded in her chest as her eyes wildly looked between her friends and the corpse of whatever creature was lying on the dirt at her feet.
Her breathing became more audible, frantic, as tears streamed down her face.
"Miss Shayla! Miss Shayla, listen to me, it is okay. You are alright. Take a deep breath." Shayla finally focused on Bilbo's fearful blue eyes as he knelt before her. Shayla took in deep breaths, focusing every ounce of her attention and energy on the basic function and away from what had just happened.
"It's over. It's over." Bilbo repeated, and Shayla lurched forwards, clinging to him desperately.
It could have been minutes or hours before Shayla's breathing finally begun to even out, and before anyone spoke a word.
"We need to make a decision and quickly." It was Fain's voice that finally broke through the silence of the midnight air.
"This isn't enough of a decision already?" Riley cried angrily, turning to face Fain. "We need to get the fuck out of here and back to the mountain!"
"No." Shayla whispered, breaking away from Bilbo and regaining her footing on her blistered, tired feet.
"What do you mean, no?" Riley bit back. Shayla could tell she was furious, but Shayla couldn't relent.
She wouldn't.
"I can't, Riley. I won't go back if it means I won't get to see my family again!" Tears begun to fall from Shayla's eyes again, and she wondered briefly how her body had any left to give.
"Look around you, Shayla! You won't live long enough to even get to the Elves! Fain, tell her." Shayla's gaze fell back to Fain, who had been looking around them, assessing. He sighed and turned to face them once more.
"You are being tracked by Orcs. For whatever reason, they were tracking you specifically." Shayla looked about her to each of their faces, finding in them different mixes of fear, desperation and exhaustion.
They weren't lying.
"How… How do you know that?" Shayla's whispered, terrified. Her legs felt shaky, as though they would give way at any moment.
"Our suspicions were just confirmed, Miss Shayla." Ori's small voice piped up, and he took a step into the group, wringing his hands as he did so. "The Orcs spoke in their common tongue, a language I have taken the time to learn. The Orc that Jessika killed first told the other this:
'Go! Take the Enchanter to the Master while I kill these Dwarvish scum.'"
Ori's head dropped down as he spoke Fain's confirmations, but not before Shayla saw the fear lingering between every line sketched within his face.
"Enchanter? What does that even mean?" Shayla cried desperately. Maybe she had made a mistake. Maybe she should have stayed where she was safe. What did this mean? What did this have to do with her? Why was she being tracked?
Fain and Jessika looked at each other, a conversation passing between their eyes, while Riley took the moment to flare Shayla with another bout of fury.
"Why does it matter what it means? You could have died, any of us could have died, and you left me! You left me behind, Shayla, why?" The fury quickly flickered to a small ember as Riley's eyes begun to fill with tears. "Why would you do that to me?" Riley's words were barely a whimper, and Shayla felt beside herself.
"You were happy, Riley. The happiest I had ever seen you. I didn't want to take that away from you." Shayla's voice cracked, and the tears begun to fall steadily once more, though she couldn't be sure who sounded more heartbroken.
"I should have been able to be a part of that decision." Riley croaked back as she angrily wiped the tears from her face.
"Riley, as much as we agree with you, we may not have a choice in our next move." Jessika was stoic, but there was an edge to them that sent a shiver down Shayla's back.
"Why not?" Riley shot back.
"We have no idea how many Orcs now lie between us and Erebor. We cannot re-enter through the Western outpost; we would need to circle around towards Dale. We know from those horns that Dale is besieged." Besieged. Is that what those dull noises had meant hours ago, Shayla wondered frantically to herself.
"More to the point, we know now these Orcs are specifically after Shayla, for whatever reason that may be. Orcs only began to test the defences of Erebor after Shayla and Riley arrived. They were never stray Orcs. It was always targeted." Fain's words lingered on the air as they absorbed what the new information meant.
Shayla's head was reeling. The panic begun to writhe in her chest once more, threatening to take control. Was this all her fault?
"Our only decision to make is whether we find a place to rest or continue on," Fain continued, but Shayla interrupted.
"You all need to go back. If it's me they are after, it's not safe for any of you out here." Shayla's voice broke, as she failed miserably to quell the fear that had taken her heart.
"Miss Shayla, we cannot go back now. We are all on this path, whether we like it or not. The silver lining is that Erebor and Dale will likely be safe now that Shayla is away, but we must get away. There is a target on our backs now that we are in the open, and the only safety we will find now will be with the Elves in Lothlorien. There are more questions we now need answered, and if Mother's stories are anything to go by, the Elves were instrumental in giving her the answers and help she needed to discover her true purpose here." As Fain quietened, Bilbo finally spoke up.
"We should move from this spot, but I doubt any one of us can continue any further through the night. We will need to rest. We have had no rest in our pursuit of Miss Shayla and the Orcs." Shayla looked at each of them a little closer then, observing the bags under their eyes, their matted hair, and their sweat-stained clothes.
They had done all of this to find her and keep her safe, but she couldn't help but wonder whether she truly deserved it.
"Come. Let's collect our packs and move these bodies into the forest. If we can conceal our tracks as much as possible, it will give us an advantage." Jessika moved with her words, beelining for the Orc furthest from them.
Shayla tentatively moved for her packs and weapon, actively trying to avoid the sight of the Orc corpses on the ground before her, while the others doubled back for the area they dropped their packs at the sound of Shayla's screams.
Meeting together as a group after about ten minutes, they begun to walk in silence, with Jessika leading the group, and Fain bring up the rear.
They continued North for no more than half an hour before Jessika decided they would find rest where they were. Fain took first watch, while everyone attempted sleep.
Shayla knew she wasn't the only one struggling to find respite as her mind was consumed with fear, anxiety, and such a deep guilt that she wasn't sure where one emotion ended and the other begun. She hardly dared to speak though, not until the morning, when their heads were clearer, and maybe the weight of her decisions didn't feel like they were suffocating them all.
Shayla instead cocooned herself within her coat and resolved to let herself suffer in silence.
This chapter was really difficult to write! I have been working on it everyday, a little at a time, but I think writers block has started to settle in. That, and it took me so long to research distances between Mirkwood and Erebor, and the average jogging speed of a human, haha!
Anyway, thanks so much for sticking with me!
Thank you Jillian Baade for the review! Oh my gosh, I so wholeheartedly agree. My partner is a Southern Arrernte and Gomeroi man, and the absolute resilience and determination he shows is amazing. I'm so glad you are enjoying Shayla! I hope I am doing her and the Mob she represents justice.
Have an incredible week ahead my loves, and feel free to leave a lil review! It absolutely makes my day and gives my brain the serotonin it needs, haha xxxx