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Chapter Thirteen

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The smell of blood overwhelmed him. Standing alone in the narrow street, Faramir stared numbly down at the mottled sword he held, turning it over and over in his hand. It had been many months since he had wielded it last; long ago, during the age in which he had his turn to fight against the Dark Lord. His life had changed much since Sauron's defeat. Middle-earth had changed. Aragorn's reign was almost as if a new dawn; the birth of a new Gondor – a Gondor that Faramir was inexplicably grateful to guard at his friend's side. He had hoped never to have to raise this blade again to kill. But he would do so every time, for his people and for his home, and he had fought this enemy until the hilt in his hand had felt as though it was fused to his bones.

Even then it had not been enough. Even then he had been unable to save his King.

The harsh guilt of this reality hit him like a blow to his chest; sharp and agonizing as he let the sword slip from his hand and hit the road. The ring of metal on stone zipped through his ears as he stood there and listened to the sobs of men dying yards away.

There were three people he wished desperately to follow to the House. But one most of all. His lord. His friend whom he loved as though he had known him many more years than this. He could see clear as day the pools and the smears and the trails of the man's life blood on the road as he looked down at his sword in disgust. It was not long before he realized what the blade had fallen to rest beside. Which other sword had been left there on the bloody street, cold in the sun as its master died. Andúril. The sword of the King.

He had just bent to reach a trembling hand towards it when suddenly he heard footsteps hurrying to his side. He was grateful for the distraction that pulled him from his grief as he quickly turned to see the exhausted face of Joln. The other man smiled at him weakly. "Faramir, my lord. He has been moved. You're dead on your feet–"

"Pot, kettle." He knew his own return smile was a pathetic excuse for one. He grabbed the chief's arm for a moment to hold him tightly. "I'm beyond relieved to see you alive, Joln. I can't thank you enough for fighting at my side."

Sorrow shown in Joln's eyes as he shook his head. "Never may you thank me for that. I know you need a moment, my friend. And I would let you have it. But the men are awaiting their dismissal."

Nodding sharply, Faramir swallowed hard and cleared his throat, doing his best to focus on the rationality of his friend's words. He would follow whatever motions of self-preservation he could grasp onto in those moments of complete devastation, as was the burden of his post. "I've my words already. I have sent for the all clear and our field teams as well."

As he turned to follow Joln down the road, his voice died in his throat. Elrohir stood twenty feet away. Eyes swollen with tears; jaw locked with grief and spattered with blood. His broken voice cut clean through the noise of death nearby.

"Leave the men with your captains. You should be there."

"He's alive." When he heard the words leave his lips Faramir was not sure if he was asking this of the Elf or if he was resolutely telling himself that it was true.

Elrohir said nothing. He took a step back, turning his shoulder, wide eyes locked unblinkingly on his. When Faramir looked back over at Joln the man gave a single, solemn nod.

Soon he was flying through the streets of Gondor at the son of Elrond's back with his sword clutched in one hand and Andúril in the other.

Victory was never really victory.

Victory only ever came on the back of loss.

–

"Do not fret so, Legolas."

When Aragorn's soft voice drifted up into his ears, Legolas turned back to raise an eyebrow at the man who was walking several paces behind him. His friend grinned, giving an exaggerated shake of his head. "Your hair looks lovely."

Rolling his eyes, Legolas turned back around, watching the trees once more. "Appropriate; it's been a bit since you've mocked me for my self preservation."

"I have eyes." He heard Aragorn kick at something on the forest floor. "Nothing escapes me."

Legolas scoffed. Soon after, he felt something softly strike his back, and he had to stifle a grin as he continued to tug at the small stick that was twisted – quite mercilessly – into a strand of his long hair. "Alright; strike two. One more solidifies yet another heartbreaking parting of ways."

"Perhaps we should stop for some food," Aragorn laughed. "I sense a famished rage."

He quickly ducked and grabbed a branch of his own, whipping it back at the ranger. He heard Aragorn 'oof'. "He doesn't scare me you know. He can glower at me 'til my ears fall off. I am not required to subject myself to being picked on all the way to the Marshes."

"I would give my left arm to see you take your leave."

"Do not think you can use our time apart to your advantage; I planned on our reunion consisting perhaps a fortnight of a hunt, maybe even a celebratory stay in Bree with your men. I never planned on the recruitment of Mithrandir to hunt down a monstrosity."

Aragorn's mumbled reply was exhausted beyond his years. "Which monstrosity in this wreckage do you refer to, my friend."

Guilt tugged at him for the disappearance of the warmth in his friend's voice. He had been glad to hear the man speak after they had walked together for many leagues in the silence of separate, heavy thought. He had not intended to turn Aragorn's perhaps singular moment of contentment into the same, consuming fear as before.

"I'm sure we will be the ones to find it," he said after a short pause, his voice only slightly strained. "We're much more vigilant than the wizard. He does not pay enough attention to his surroundings when he's on the pipe you know. Your skills are easily solid enough to best his time."

"I'm telling him you said that."

Legolas chuckled. "That is fine; just be so kind as to tell him as I hand him his prisoner."

"Admit it, my friend." He was grateful to hear the smile returned to Aragorn's voice. "This is quite the perfectly fitting way for us to have set out on the less traveled road together once more. Fate, it would seem."

"Always." Rolling his eyes, Legolas turned to attempt to level an exasperated glare at his friend. Instead he grinned helplessly back into Aragorn's smiling face. "If we are to follow Middle-earth on her coattails into darkness, there's no one else I'd rather bicker my way with than the future King of men."

The man's smile did not go, yet a shadow darkened his eyes all the same as he hoisted his pack father up his shoulder, giving a short shake of his head. "So long as your drama doesn't keep me from any trail finds. Remember; we have an Istari to best."

Legolas turned back around. "I think perhaps tonight I'll boil you for my supper."

"Most assuredly a famished rage."

Even in the midst of Aragorn's fond words did his own amusement go abruptly, frighteningly cold. As if it was stolen from him, chilling him down to his bones. He knew instantly that the presence he could suddenly feel was not the one which they hunted.

It was one who hunted them.

He felt Aragorn shift quickly to high alert as well, coming up beside him and staring into the trees. "What is it?" the man breathed, hand on the hilt of his sword. He put out a hand of his own to quiet his friend, straining hard to hear more of what was not yet visible to him.

"Can you see anything?" he whispered after a moment of silence. There was no answer. He did not realize that Aragorn had crept away until he turned and suddenly his friend was a yard across the cove. All at once the Elf found himself watching in horror as a hooded figure stepped from behind a tree, raising a bow in the direction of the ranger. He threw out desperate hands towards him and lurched forwards;

"No—"

But he was too late. Again, he was too late. He watched an arrow slide clean through the chest of his beloved friend; monstrous and fatal. It hit him so violently that it spun him round; round to face him so their eyes could lock as he stumbled towards the man and heard himself sob out a mangled resemblance of his name. Blood fell instantly past Aragorn's lips as he reached one hand up and grabbed the arrow, staring at him in shock. Legolas was three feet from him when the ground opened under his feet and swallowed him down into nothing.

–

The last sentiment that Elrohir expected to find a tie to reality in amidst the total devastation that filled the healing hall was the clear voice of the Queen.

"Keep his arms down; do not let him knock it away – Elrohir, please–"

He turned numbly, eyes fastening for a moment on her familiar and earnest face. He loved his sister especially for the steadfast, unyielding strength that simmered always like a beast in her heart. Never had he seen her bow to a foe; never had he seen the light that was her gift be snuffed by shadow. In all of his memories of her over their long years of life, she stood as a blinding beacon, soft and healing and enduring as the sun.

She shone now, as she knelt beside him on the hard floor and helped him cradle their dying friend, ignoring her own grief and snapping him round. Her arm was strong and firm around his back as she held up Legolas' bloodstained head with the other, tilting his chin so that Elrohir could feed him the cure. No sooner had the last drop of syrup disappeared between blue lips did Legolas' entire body seize, his limbs locking and his head flying back so fast that Elrohir barely caught it from viciously hitting the ground. The Peredhel gathered him close as the convulsions quickly became violent, turning horrified eyes on the Queen.

"Remember to breathe," she said firmly, even as he could see the absolute ruin in her eyes that he knew was the agony of watching her soul's other half lay dying feet away. His heart tore for her. "This will not be easy. We take it one second at a time. He needs you; stay with him."

For a moment longer she knelt there, helping him gather Legolas' taunt arms and press them against the Prince's body as his eyes rolled in his head and his mouth held open on gurgled, desperate gasps. Arwen's tears fell silently as she kissed first Legolas' forehead and then her brother's, her hand soft on the back of his neck before she stood.

No sooner had she done so did Elrohir suddenly feel the presence of their father. He looked up quickly to watch Arwen fly across the room into Elrond's arms. The Lord of Imladris held his daughter fiercely, wide and shell-shocked eyes taking in the carnage that was the healing hall.

"He yet lives?" Even as he heard Elrond's heart wither within his chest, the Elf-lord spoke over them all with such fortitude that Elrohir felt his own utter terror ease a bit, loosening for a moment the claw round his throat. The words that he heard his voice grate out like gravel he regretted even as he spoke.

"He's lost too much blood. He's gone too long–"

"Elrohir, please." The anguish in the way Elladan snapped at him sliced through his heart like a blade. He looked over at his brother, who stood at the table with the healers, hands deep in blood and face drained of life. "We stop it now and there is hope."

"How many veins have been severed?" Elrond pressed his lips to Arwen's head before stepping away so that he could pull her to the table with him. The sight of his father's back blurred through tears as Elrohir watched the Elf-lord squeeze the shoulder of the closest healer to him before casting off his wrist guards so that he could roll up his sleeves. His voice was much firmer now; he knew that seeing his mortal son covered in blood on the table before him would tender a vicious fire of refusal in Elrond's heart. "Where is the wound?"

"Here," Ruhin leaned over the stone, hand passing across the limp form that, from his spot on the floor, Elrohir was grateful he could not see. "And here. Many have, lord. His lung also; even if we repair it I see little–"

"If words are not pertinent to the medical care of our patient, there is no room for them in our mouths." Elrond dove his hands into a nearby basin; Elrohir did not see what his father did following this as he realized that, for a miraculous few seconds, Legolas had seemed to relax in his arms. Distantly he heard his father begin to task each man and woman surrounding the table with separate parts of the surgery they now faced, but his eyes watched his friend's pale features intently for any sign of wakefulness. None came. He wrapped a hand around Legolas' head and pulled his friend more tenderly against him, feeling round his body for any injuries he might have suffered in their time apart. Aside from a blunt head wound he found nothing. He knew that he was desperately attempting – and also desperately failing – to ignore the inescapable fear of the cure's possible fraudulence. He was well aware that Legolas could die from the mysterious elixir in the vial; choke on it in his arms as they crouched there.

I will follow you both. Wherever this filth has sent you, I will claw my way there and I will drag you home by your feet if I must. Take not a third of us there with you; come back to us before I must make such a journey. Hear me now. Hear me.

Suddenly he realized that his ears had gone numb to his father's words when all at once he heard Elrond very clearly say, "—as a team in this room; we are tasked together with the duty of keeping the King of Gondor alive. We shall speak purely of the steps we each must take in our purview during this surgery and nothing more. Our grief we lay aside until this task is done and Elessar rests in his rooms. We are understood, yes?"

Haythalm stumbled into the hall on the tail end of the Elf-lord's speech, red-faced and terrified. Elrohir felt his heart lurch in his chest with a mangled sense of relief as he said the man's name loudly, "Haythalm!"

The captain's eyes remained fixed in horror on the table where Aragorn lay even as he came swiftly over to them, kneeling quick at their side and blindly reaching out one of his hands. "Is he still alive–"

Elrohir would give his arm purely to never hear the terrified words said again. "We will save him. I ask something of you now my friend; I ask you to restrain Legolas to a bed and make sure that he can not fall nor hurt himself with his own body. He has been given the antidote and must be unceasingly monitored as to its effects; initially it caused a violent physical reaction and we have no choice but to be prepared for it to become worse. I know it is much to ask of you at the cessation of battle, captain, but will you do this for us?"

Haythalm instantly met his eyes. The man's gaze was clear; fiery with the focus and tenacity of a warrior. In it Elrohir's tormented heart found another flame of reassurance as Haythalm reached out to pull Legolas into his arms, holding him as he had seen the Peredhel had done. Elrohir was on his feet even before the Prince fully left his hands, but the broken voice of the captain followed him to the table he ran to. "Save him, lord. I beg you. Do not let him die."

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TBC