Chapter Five: A Little Illumination
Music of the insects sang with a riotous clamor in the brush. The cicadas chattered inanely to the breeze wafting through the trees. The poplars hissed in the stiff wind that blew from the west. The brown grasses, dried and brittle in the drought season crackled under even the softest footsteps. The heavy rains had done little good but to pound them flat. The nights were growing cooler.
Fedorian shook his long hair back over his shoulders as he looked up through the shadowy needle-strewn branches that revealed very little sunlight to his elven eyes. Darkness ruled underneath these trees- even more so with dusk approaching. They had followed the track of the two wanderers all day, their hope growing as the marks grew fresher with each hour's passing.
"There was a struggle here," Orophin said quietly, bent over the ploughed up earth. "Someone fought- and lost. The woman- I would guess by the small boot marks."
"Fought against whom?" Déorian wanted to know.
"There is blood here," Rúmil interrupted urgently, hovering over a spot near the edge of the clearing. The grass blades bore scarlet tinges and spatters.
Fedorian knelt beside his youngest soldier, his keen eyes searching the area as he reached into the long grass and plucked up a narrow wedge-shaped object.
The arrow tip glimmered dully, the serrated edge and the few inches of shattered wood below it also darkly stained. The two elves exchanged a look, fearing to confirm what they saw in the other's eyes.
"It is elven blood," Fedorian said at last, tossing the ugly implement from him and straightening.
Rúmil and Orophin felt their chests tighten a little more. Orophin silently clenched his fists; if someone had hurt his brother they would pay and pay dearly! Tight-lipped and white-faced, Rúmil said nothing but knelt still on his knees, staring at the arrow his commander had cast away.
"Wither does the trail lead?"
The men had covered their tracks well as though knowing they would be followed and the elves had searched long and hard before finally admitting momentary defeat with twilight coming upon them fast. The elves decided to stop here until daylight
"Come, Commander, show us some of your skill to take our mind from our weariness!" Ancadal invited with a grin, tossing a stick of dried pine into the small campfire. The small twig caught flame at the edge, burned brightly for a spare moment and crumbled slowly into ash.
Fedorian seemed hesitant but with several rousing cheers and encouragement, the commander got reluctantly to his feet.
Rameil was already up and ready, pinning a palm-sized leaf to one of the tall-trunked pines several yards away.
"Oh, come now, Rameil, surely that's much too easy for him!" Déorian scoffed.
Fedorian smirked a little as he withdrew a slender, finely balanced knife from his belt. Gold-trimmed, the hilt was carven from a heavy wood to give the steel blade excellent balance as it glittered brightly in the flame-light. His command watched attentively, mesmerized by the golden figure of their commander standing just outside the firelight's reach.
Slowly, Fedorian lifted the knife to eyelevel, balanced easily by the haft. His bright verdant eyes sighted on the target. Taking in a deep breath, he held it.
Ssssstt.
The blade flashed end over end and thunked solidly into the tree bark, splitting the leaf directly down the center.
"I told you it was too easy," Déorian snorted as, with a little difficulty, he wrenched the blade from the tree trunk.
Rúmil, though he had seen the demonstration many times before, stared up at his commander in frank admiration. "You are truly skilled, sir."
Fedorian shrugged modestly. "With practice, anyone could do it. Even you, Rúmil," he smiled, suddenly beckoning the younger elf to his side as Déorian returned the blade to him. The elven captain handed it hilt first to Rúmil who took it carefully. It was heavier than he had previously thought but with the subtle balance of a perfectly honed weapon.
Mimicking his commander's stance and movements, he held it up to his eye, feeling the weight, the shift of the steel in his fingers, the wild excited beat of his heart. Fedorian adjusted his posture a little, making a few corrections here and there.
Inhaling sharply, Rúmil let it fly.
The blade spun too far- missing the tree entirely- and clattered into the brush. Rúmil winced and glanced apologetically at his commander. Fedorian tried hard to conceal his smile as he jerked his head in the direction of the lost blade.
"It takes some time to adjust to the balance." He tossed his head in the direction the blade had flown. "Well, those who cast, retrieve. Go find it."
Enduring the gentle taunts of his friends and brother, Rúmil moved off into the pine trees away from the warmth of the fire into the cool darkness beyond their camp. Searching the needle-strewn ground for a glint of silver, he saw nothing and began to methodically rake his gaze over every pile of brush over every root, moving further from camp as he did so.
He could not have thrown it this far…
He was just about to turn back to look again when he stumbled over something in the dark. Thinking it a root, he looked down to step over it and froze.
Dark hair splayed oily tendrils over the lighter pine needles. A bright red cloak, black in the filtering moonlight, had fallen across the face, concealing features stricken with death from sight. But Rúmil knew him to be human in a glance and his heart sank through his stomach as he looked upon the dead man.
For he had found Fedorian's knife.
Embedded in the man's back.
Shakily, he called for the others who, hearing the distress in his voice, came to his side immediately, freezing in shock when they realized what Rúmil had found.
"I-I didn't know he was there! I didn't mean to kill him," Rúmil gasped, dismayed.
Rameil frowned and bent over the body. "You didn't. He is ice cold. He has been dead for many an hour- perhaps a day." Indeed as the dark-haired elf lifted away the cloak that concealed the face, they saw the man's skin was already ghost white and soot-blackened by filth and creatures that had been nosing around him. The body had already begun to swell during the midday heat of the afternoon.
Rúmil glanced back down at the man wondering how he had met his end out here in the wilderness.
Suddenly the wind changed, blowing in from the east and an acrid scent of smoke assailed his nostrils. Rúmil turned into the wind, senses fully extended, trying to catch every whiff and turn of the breeze to pinpoint what drifted on the air.
Then he saw the graves.
A trace of ash and smoke upon the air and the sight of charred bone and blackened, twisted metal upon the ground left little remaining doubt. This had been a battlefield of late. Further back stood a forest of black ash spears, embedded point-first in the ground, straight and somber. Silent sentinels standing guard over the freshly turned earth they cast deep shadows upon.
A funeral mound.
"What happened here?" Orophin wondered aloud what was running through the minds of all of them.
"A mystery I think it will remain to us," Fedorian said softly, urgently, pointing back towards their campsite.
Fire shone in the night- far too near for comfort and growing closer as it threaded along the stream the elves had passed that very day. Torches, Rúmil realized with a jolt as they rushed back to their camp, dousing the fire and snatching up their packs. They could hear a murmur now- voices conversing in a low, rich tongue strange to the ears of the elves.
Tense, they waited in the brush where they would easily be discovered should even one of the humans look in the right direction. Nothing could conceal them in this pine forest. So they huddled near the thick overshadowing branches of a hefty old pine, trusting in their woodland skills to keep them concealed. The torches followed the exact path the elves had taken that very day no more than a few hours ago.
The strangers had entered the elven camp now, moving warily, their black eyes glittering like pitch in the torchlight, hands on the hilts of their bone-carved weapons. But the elves had carefully wiped away all traces of their ever having been there and not even the best hunters on Middle-Earth would find mark of their passing. Fedorian felt a small swell of pride in this fact as he looked over his command.
Rúmil was inquiring softly of Rameil. "Do you see Haldir among them?" he whispered urgently.
"Díno!" their commander snapped his green eyes smoldering as he watched the humans trailing past so close Rúmil- who was nearest- could have reached out and touched one of them. He moved back a little.
The men continued to file past. At least three score of them Fedorian counted if not more. The keen-sighted elves who needed no light save of the stars could clearly see their swarthy faces in the bright torchlight they carried high above their heads. Gold glinted on their clothes, around their necks, on the hoops in their ears, entwined in their long tangled black hair.
Armor seemingly woven together from fire-treated bamboo draped their chests like the scales of snakes. Before the front lines, a standard-bearer carried unfurled a scarlet banner upon which a sable snake rode rampant. And Rúmil was fairly certain that the wains pulled by odd-looking dusk colored horses carried not only food and supplies- but war gear as well. They wore rich garments for nomads: scarlet cloaks beaded with precious gems and wore wooden war frames about their shoulders to add to their fearsome appearance.
"Those are southern men or my eyes know not their sight," Rameil whispered softly, his eyes shimmering in the blue starlight as the last group, these armed with heavy spike-tipped pikes marched past.
"What are they-?" Ancadal questioned, cut off abruptly as Fedorian clamped a hand over his mouth.
"Not here."
Moving stealthily backwards, he slid noiselessly down the embankment and swept his pack up onto his shoulders. Silently, the others followed him.
A thousand questions raced through Rúmil's mind on that dark trek through the shadowy featureless land. Who were those dark soldiers? What were they doing here? And most importantly. Where was Haldir? Had he escaped those men or did he lie somewhere in this foul night… injured… maybe… But Rúmil would not think the word 'dead.' He would never believe it.
Looking up from his dark thoughts, the younger elf realized he had fallen to the back of the small group. He could see his brother striding beside Ancadal, their heads lowered in earnest discourse. Déorian and Rameil walked silently side by side. Passing them swiftly, Rúmil walked alongside his leader.
"Sir, what's going on? Where are we going?"
"We must not be seen by those men," his commander answered shortly, swinging away from the stream and taking a course that climbed swiftly upward through a knot of close-growing pine trees.
"Who are they?"
"Of late, Men have been roaming over our lands like the wild dogs. And like them, they have no regard for our boundaries," he explained as they passed the shadow of an old dead tree, crooked and blackened in the scant moonlight.
"Rameil was right. Those men are the Haradrim. Men of the South but what they are doing so far north I can only guess. They have been seeking refuge within the trees from those that pursue them. The Lady has refused us to contact them wishing to remain apart from this human conflict and to keep vigilant watch on the borders, barring their entry."
"Who is that pursues them?" Rameil asked curiously, his brow dark with this news.
"The rangers of Ithilien in southern Gondor- we have seen the wains pass by. But what they are doing so far north pursuing such an enemy I can't-"
"Do you think… perhaps Haldir has fallen amongst their company?" Orophin ventured hesitantly, fearing for his brother amongst men of which he knew so little save the tales of bitter warfare long ago.
Fedorian cut a glance over his shoulder at him. "I saw him not among the dark people, Perhaps the men of Gondor will remember old alliances and deliver our friend to us should we find them."
"If they have not forgotten in these darkening days," Déorian added, surprisingly darkly as they passed on into the darkness.
The black waves ebbed slowly away leaving only the sharp edges of consciousness in its wake. Haldir squeezed his eyes closed tighter, ignoring the bewildering fact that his eyes were closed at all and concentrating on attempting to drift back into the painless darkness.
Then clarity returned and his eyes snapped open. He closed them again immediately as a brighter light than he had been accustomed to, stabbed at his vision. Cautiously this time, he opened his eyes to mere slits, waiting while they adjusted to this new illumination.
The light was actually quite dim for it trickled only through a thin slice against a darker something that his focusing eyes could not quite make out yet. It looked silvery- moonlight. He knew its familiar shimmer well. He shifted gingerly, still feeling groggy and only half-aware despite his best intentions to remain alert. His head felt heavy and foggy- as though he'd been drugged.
Fear grew like a poisonous flower in his heart and his chest tightened until he could scarcely breathe. With a jolt, he forced his protesting body to move stiffened muscles in a sudden spasm of panic.
A twinge of not-quite pain shot upward from his shoulder. He glanced at it in surprise and realized that it had been tightly bound, the bandages stained lightly with a tinge of scarlet. A thick pad held a poultice against the wound to prevent infection. That increased his confusion and the amount of questions streaming through his shaky consciousness. His last memories were of the forest clearing.
What had happened?
He tried to shakily piece together what he knew. His wounds had been bound. Canvas flapped noisily over his head in a strong breeze. A tent. A strand of hair that had worked loose of its braids tickled his cheek.
Leather cords lashed his wrists together, stapled to a long strip that lay deeply embedded in the earth to hold him securely on his knees, tight enough to prevent movement but not so tight that his circulation was cut off. But it was enough. His hands were bound.
Trapped.
For a moment, fear surged a more powerful wave through him. He was a captive. Again. And that familiar feeling of the unknown and horrible premonition that this was certainly not good gripped his heart tightly. Disconcerted and dazed, he furiously sought to separate memory from reality… the fearful past from the uncertain present. Panicking darkness pressed upon his eyelids.
No, no, that was grass beneath his knees- not hard stone. Leather straps bound his wrists not the icy pinch of manacles. Men. He latched onto that thought desperately. I am among men. Though it gave him no comfort, the thought gave him stability. Desperately, he cast about for something, anything to free him of his constraints: a file, a knife- anything!
Nothing but the grassy floor beneath his knees.
Welling up from the deep depths of his mind came recollections unwarranted. Such helplessness he had felt before and the familiar darkness encroached upon his senses, sending him to places he would rather not have ventured into again under any circumstances. Memories pressed against his mind insistently. He had to keep reminding himself, this was no stone floor. No binding chains or blood. He would just explain who he was… and he could leave. It would be that simple.
If only he truly believed that.
The elf's head snapped up at the soft fall of footsteps. He thought he saw an orangish unsteady light wavering about the lip of the tent mouth. An instinct to cover his back forced his hurting body to move, pressing himself against the tent wall furthermost from the entrance flap.
"I'll be waiting just outside," a low, unfamiliar voice muttered just shy of sight.
Haldir tensed slightly as the flap lifted and a small, lanky form stepped in. A young boy entered, a steaming bowl cradled gingerly in one hand.
He paused upon entering, his thin face pale and nervous-looking.
"I-I was told to bring this to you," he stammered a little, slowly edging nearer.
A torch clutched in his opposite hand cast a wavering light through the shadowy tent. The smoky sweet stench of burning pine branches clung to the lad's tunic as though he had been near many campfires. He was a boy- a child to Haldir's eyes- and stared at the elf for a moment in mingled fascination and fear.
The boy held a bowl of what looked like broth- a watery substance at the very least mixed with those roots and edible greens found nearby. He set the bowl down and immediately jumped away as though he expected the elf to try to bite him.
"I'm supposed to wait until you're finished and then bring the bowl back," he said as though that explained the matter entirely.
The elf waited expectantly for the boy to untie his bonds but when he merely retreated toward a corner Haldir began to wonder. He raised an eyebrow, prompting him that he had forgotten something.
The lad missed the point entirely after several wordless seconds of staring between them. "You will not eat?" he asked, his brow furrowed worriedly.
Haldir looked keenly at the boy. "If you intend to loose my bonds then yes, I will."
The sandy-haired boy shifted from foot to foot anxiously, his youthful face clouding. "Well… uh… you see… I-I was ordered not to," he said finally with regret, tugging nervously at his forelock.
"I see," Haldir said with little regret as the unappetizing steam wafted across his face. "You must obey your superior officer's orders of course."
But he would be damned if he would eat like a dog. He had his pride after all. And at the moment he valued dignity above hunger so he turned his face away from the offered meal and leant back against the tent wall, keeping his eyes trained on the entrance and doing his best to ignore the child's avid stare.
The boy shifted anxiously from foot to foot, fiddling with the hem of his tunic a bit as he looked nervously away from the elf. "You sure you're not going to eat?" he asked almost desperately after several, long, spiraling minutes had passed.
The elf merely continued to stare wordlessly at him.
With a sigh, the boy moved forward to take the bowl away. Before he'd even lifted it, the tent flap burst open sending him startling backward, nearly stepping on the elf in his haste.
A figure suddenly tumbled into the tent, closely followed by the odious dark-haired man Haldir recognized as Ramir. He shoved the dark woman roughly, sprawling her upon the grass on the floor of the tent.
Catching a full look at her face Haldir's eyes widened in indignation and anger at the blood marks across her cheeks and lip. But Khiris quickly spun about on her knees away from him to spit at the man who had pushed her. Her arms and legs were both bound tightly- unlike Haldir she had been shackled.
A low growl erupted from his throat and he sprang forward, backhanding the woman across the face and splitting her lip again.
The message-runner stumbled away from the irate man, his young eyes wide. He had never seen anyone hit a woman like that and it stirred something painful in him.
"Get out, boy," Ramir snarled and the lad shot off, only too glad to leave the man's presence.
Haldir stared up at him, anger tightening his jaw. He hated this kind of thing. Fighting for honor was the only way he knew. What honor was there in this? Hurting a fellow human- and a woman- who could not fight back?
Ramir caught his angry stare and glared right back, his beady dark eyes narrowed menacingly. "You'll get your turn soon enough, elfy," he gritted out. "The captain's going to question you first," he growled as though he thought the captain's opinion mattered very little to him. "Wasted good herbs on the likes of you." His small eyes passed over the tight bandages about the elf's shoulder.
A voice hailed him from without and he turned with a last vicious glance at the pair of them and stumbled over the bowl still lying where the boy had abandoned it. Cursing, he kicked it. The bowl shot across the tent, spilling its contents. Khiris wriggled away from the boot like a cat, scuttling up onto her hands and knees before the man had taken another step.
"Ramir!" a harsh voice barked and the man stepped immediately back, the displeasure clear on his face as Anaric stalked into the tent, throwing the man a withering glare.
"Leave us. I would speak with the prisoners."
Haldir sighed deeply in irritation as he leaned his head back against the slack canvas that made up one of the tent's four sides.
The man's endless questions had been met with frustration. What he thought to be the elf's blatant uncooperative attitude aggravated him as time pressed upon his shoulders with a heavy hand. Even his threats had done no good. The elf had remained stubbornly, wretchedly, cursedly silent. However, protocol and a distinct respect for the elven race along with the rules of his country regarding prisoners of war prevented the human commander from using more stringent methods to force the elf's hand.
For the moment.
Haldir for his part knew that nothing he said they would believe- they had already made up their minds that he was somehow in league with this apparently dangerous woman and the belligerent people she represented. He could not make them see reason and in the end he had fallen silent, tired of speaking when they would not listen. Anaric had left him in disgust several hours ago and he had tried to sleep but it eluded him. The troubled thoughts of his situation and his uncertain future prevented him from seeking the rest his weary body desperately needed.
In the darkness that blanketed them in the silent tent, he could see Khiris who lay on her side a little ways from him. She had not spoken in a long time.
"They call you an 'elf,' yes?" she inquired lightly with a curious glance at him, her voice hoarse and thick. He started a little at the sound of her voice after empty silence for so long.
"That is so," he answered calmly, warily. She nodded, mulling this over for several silent minutes.
"They say you magic. Free us with your magic, elf?"
"No."
She shrugged- as though she had expected as much. A deep silence fell between them once more, neither speaking nor sleeping.
"Have family do you, elf?" Khiris asked, quite suddenly. Her question so startled Haldir that he answered without thinking.
"Two brothers."
She rolled over onto her back and smiled, staring up at the ceiling. The dried blood had crusted black on her dark face. "I hope you live to see them once more."
"So do I."
"My people not bad. They simply want what is theirs and are willing to go to any lengths to get it," she said after a moment, following a subject of her own choosing.
Why she justified herself to him he didn't know. But he listened anyway, having nothing better to do and intrigued despite himself. But she said nothing more- as though she feared she had already said too much. Taking no further notice of the elf, she rolled over onto her side again and lay with her back to him as though to sleep though how she had learned to sleep in comfort in chains, Haldir neither knew nor wanted to know.
He was uneasy at heart and restless. He did not like the close quarters of the small tent he had been enclosed in and a growing threat troubled his mind. Something was coming- his senses screamed it! Near holding his breath, he leaned back against the tent wall and waited- he wasn't sure for what- but he waited, listening, watching though he could see nothing but the light canvas shrouding the outside world from sight.
Khiris remained silent as well but Haldir knew she did not sleep.
Suddenly her eyes flashed open, glittering sharply in the moonlight slanting through the tent flap and she struggled to sit up.
Haldir heard it too.
New sounds had taken place of the silence that had fallen like a blanket over the camp: frantic shouts, boots thumping upon the soft, still-muddy ground. He even thought he heard a scream.
Suddenly bright light was everywhere as torches sparked to life. The violent clash of steel rang in his ears. Haldir frowned and sat up a little, trying to get his stiff chilled limbs to move as he inched towards the entrance flap. He started as the man that had been standing guard over the watch tent fell half-through it, his wide, brown eyes glazed and blood running in a thin rivulet from under his helmet.
A dark shape that seemed to fill the entire tent leapt over the slain guard. A man, easily as tall and broad as an oak trunk stood there, a long bloody pike wielded in a strong brown hand. His fierce gaze took in both elf and human but he paid Haldir no heed and immediately knelt beside the woman, freeing her from her chains with the keys he had obviously taken from the dead Gondorian.
Freed from her constraints, Khiris staggered up, rubbing stiff, cold limbs back into life. She spoke briefly to the man in her own language and clapped him on the shoulder though she could scarcely reach it. Then she relieved him of a short dagger, turning to face the bound elf.
Haldir tensed instinctively as she approached him with a bared blade. His bonds fell away with one swipe and he rubbed his chafed wrists in amazement. Blood surged back into his limbs and dark purple spots flashed briefly before his eyes as he stood straight for the first time in hours.
Outside the tent, pure chaos reigned.
The campfires had been kicked out leaving stinging ash spraying everywhere and a heavy scent of smothered smoke on the cool air. Dark, rapid shapes darted to and fro; swords clashed in darkness as black as pitch, but whether they were friend or foe, Haldir knew not and he longed for the reassuring feel of a sword in his hand.
In the spark of dying firelight, he caught a glimpse here and there of a black, swarthy face… a bloody sword raised high… They fought like wolves, proud and fierce with bloodlust shining in their dark faces.
He had seen their likeness before- a millennium ago before the Black Gate on the plains of Dagorlad. And the sight of their blood-painted faces and fierce gleaming eyes sent a wild surge of fear and fury singing through his veins.
A hand tightly grasped his arm, startling him. Automatically, he twisted away and seized his assailant by the throat. A bright flare struck up as a dead branch caught fire somewhere beyond them in the trees and in the spare flash of light, Haldir discerned Khiris' dark face grinning wildly up at him.
"Come! You save my life. I save yours," she near-shouted over the cacophony, tugging urgently on his arm, unperturbed in the least by his slackening grip on her neck. "Come. We go."
Haldir hesitated an instant. Here was his chance. He could escape his unjust imprisonment and find a way to his brothers. And yet… something made him linger. The men would believe him a liar and a traitor if he went forth now- as a thief in the night. Somehow it was important that they believe him… Haldir did not want the dishonorable name of 'traitor' lingering over him.
"You are a fool," she snapped impatiently at his diffidence with a frantic glance around. "They will kill you."
Haldir opened his mouth to reply but a shrill scream split the air- a cry that belonged to no soldier. With his elven sight, Haldir stared across the battlefield and caught sight of the message-runner's white face in the moonlight. Gripped tightly between two tall knife-wielding Haradrim, he slumped between his captors.
Something deep within the elf stirred to life. Despite his pain, his weariness and the fact that he held no weapon, he immediately raced towards the boy.
Khiris disappeared.
Dodging several side-swiping blows of blade and other implements that had been seized where weapons had been out of reach, Haldir ran with single-minded purpose towards the edge of the clearing where he could just see the white form of the child silhouetted in the starlight on the blood-slick grass. Dead soldiers lay around him and still-fighting dark masses lay between the elf and his intended goal.
An arrow, blindly shot, grazed his arm and he flinched back instinctively but kept going. Something hard- perhaps the gauntlet of a warrior- smashed into his face and nearly sent him sprawling to the ground but he was up and moving again with the quickness of a cat, driven by one purpose: he had to get there!
His jaw throbbed and he tasted blood in his mouth but he was almost there. The two dark men had pulled the struggling boy back close to the trees, nearly invisible in the darkness. Had he been human, Haldir never would have seen them. But the sudden careening clamor of the fiercely battling men swept between them and Haldir lost sight of the boy and his captors.
On the very fringes of his keen night sight, he caught a glimpse of a low-slung hairy body, shaggy and glistening like fresh blood in the sorrowing moonlight. He stopped dead. No… not here… A chilling, familiar, high-pitched whine assailed his ears like the screams of the dying and a cold finger stroked his spine.
Snatching up a smouldering pine branch from a scattered campfire, he thrust it into the midst of a few dying embers. In a moment, the dried, dead wood sparked to life. Holding it above his head, all the light the elf eyes needed spilled over the battlefield. Instantly it made him a target, but now he had a weapon and that considerably evened the odds. Dodging several arrows sent his way, the elf moved with the swiftness of chain lightning. He ducked under the sword swing of a tall, dark man with matted, wild hair. Dealing him a quelling blow with the makeshift torch against the back of his neck, the elf felled him immediately.
Furious fighting raged about him, dark and light-haired men engaged in deadly combat. Several limp forms lay scattered unmoving on the bloody field already and others were quickly joining them, the attackers becoming the attacked. Now, in the light he could see clearly, the dark mud-colored and tawny hides of wargs.
The havoc they wrought upon the battlefield- falling upon wounded and dead, friend and foe, slaying and maiming with a single swipe of their raking claws or snap of powerful jowls. But their thick shaggy hair caught alight almost instantaneously.
Catching the breath of the wind, a warg turned its head, ears flattening back against its broad skull as it recognized the hostile smell of the Firstborn, a scent it had been bred to despise above all others. The creature's evil eyes glittered with the hunger of bloodlust as it bared its razor teeth, crimson smearing its heavy-jawed mouth.
Darting forward, Haldir thrust the burning branch at the beast's nosetip, forcing the creature back, snarling in deadly anger. But wargs had long feared their deadliest enemy other than their masters- fire. The stench of singed hair permeated the air, a thick sickening smoke. The warg shook sparks from its coat and glared at the elf, recognizing him for what he was and hate gleamed in those cruel eyes as the animal began to circle.
Knowing the danger of turning his back on the creature, Haldir followed it, his grey eyes hard and even, meeting the animal's cruel bestiality. The wooden spar tightened within his grasp until his knuckles blanched.
It lunged.
Haldir dropped to one knee, forcing aside the spark of pain the movement caused his twisted muscles as he shoved the torch full into the creature's yawning maw; the animal howled in agony before the elf lifted a blackened knife from the ground and plunged it into the thick hide just behind the ear, slaying it with a single blow.
The elf leapt lithely back to his feet, breathing hard, fighting the steadily increasing agony throbbing through his battered body- especially his shoulder and side where the deepest wounds had not yet had the chance to heal. His eyes searched the ranks of embattled soldiers, searching desperately for his original quarry.
Nothing.
A shrill waspish hiss whistled in his ears but he had no time to react before a blinding pain connected unexpectedly with his shins and knocked him violently off his feet, striking the earth with such force the breath left his lungs. It took him a moment to realize a bolas lay tangled about his ankles. He began to struggle up but a heavy boot between his shoulder blades crushed him back to the earth, forcing the remaining air from his already-winded lungs.
"You're not escaping us too," a familiar deriding voice grated on his ears.
Had he had any breath left, Haldir would have protested this. But the chilling bite of steel against his throat proved that silence would help him more at this point. Ramir prodded him purposefully in his injured shoulder, making the elf hiss in renewed pain and he shifted under the man's boot, forcing him to use even more pressure to keep him on the ground.
"Ramir, what have you?" Haldir dimly heard Anaric's hoarse voice call.
The Haradrim had broken off the attack, leaving the stench of blood and death in their wake as they vanished into the shadow-lit forest. The Gondorian commander silently cursed his ill luck. Ambushed! Their camp had remained a closely guarded secret for weeks as they hunted down the last remnants of the Haradrim fighting force that continued to elude them. And now, they were utterly crippled: half of their force dead or injured, their provisions ransacked and looted, several tents had burned.
The captain's eyes narrowed as he stared menacingly down at his only remaining captive, his weather beaten face haggard and wan; he held a naked sword in one hand, the steel red-streaked. This elf would have a lot to answer for.
"I caught him trying to escape," Ramir said, twitching his blade purposefully so that it cut a little into the elf's neck.
Anaric looked down at the prone elf and shook his head.
Haldir stared back up at him as best he could from his position. No fear shone in his eyes. He was no fool- he knew what these men believed him to be. As a warrior during battle fierce and bloody, he was prepared to die at every moment and his heart was calm now as he anticipated the death blow.
But it was not delivered, despite the eager tremble in Ramir's hands.
"Get him on his feet," Anaric ordered sharply.
Strong unyielding hands yanked him up. Haldir did not resist, knowing it was futile.
He knew his situation had just considerably worsened.
