There is a point where I imagine that we might succeed, that we might escape this without further incident, because the assassins that surround us have left us unmolested for a while. We have progressed far enough that we have almost caught up with the majority of our company. I cannot see them, but I can hear the occasional voice or splash or curse, and we are almost to the edge of the fallen village, where the walls are low and the houses least damaged.
The mountain looms here, sways toward us and chokes our progress. An escarpment, as high as we can see: thick with moss and crumbling stone, running fast with water. It flows across the grass and mud, tugging at ankles and pouring into our boots, but my greatest concern is that we are hemmed in here.
We can either push on through the narrow gap between the low walls of the village and the cliffside, or move even further out into the darkness to skirt the whole thing. Both are dangerous, and we have slowed our pace considerably as we consider our options.
I hear Legolas whistle:
Enemy waits hidden. Thirty paces. Numbers greater, better vantage. Counsel against progression. Suggestion: into the heights. Faengolen argues. Advise.
I sigh, roll my eyes until it is actually painful, and I wet my lips to whistle back that we are not blasted elves. I change my mind; I shout it instead… quite loudly into the thundering rain. A pause and then:
Noted. Alternative plan requested. Dwarven minds superior.
I think Legolas is the only creature I have ever met who is able to convey sarcasm in a whistle, but then he has had a long time in which to hone his skill. I consider suggesting that he consult the winds, or perhaps my backside, but the others are watching me as though we are conducting some deep and important conversation, rather than squabbling, which is what we are doing. I think for a moment, and then I recall something that I have heard from them before. It is a laegrim tactic, it works far better in woodland and with wood elves, but we do not have the numbers for brute force and I cannot think of anything else.
I call out a two-toned whistle, sharp at first and then flat at the end. It means 'dandelion seeds' of all the daft things, but he is quiet for a long time and then sends the sound back for his agreement. A small part of me had hoped that he might argue, because it is so risky… so very risky, but I think it is the only way that we will be successful. The formation is no formation at all; it is to scatter our forces to the winds. If our enemy waits clustered, ready to dominate us by funnelling us into a choke-point, then we will not be there… we will scatter and spread and vanish.
On one hand we might lose one or two of our number, but the most of us will reach safety. On the other, we will all be on our own.
I stand by my decision, take a breath, and try to look confident when I face the others. I tell them our plan, and I can tell that each of them wishes nothing more than to argue with me, but they are soldiers. They are frightened and soaking wet and they have seen their friends killed tonight. This has not gone at all how we had planned, not even slightly, but they look to me now for guidance and by Mahal and his Grace I hope that I have not just doomed them.
Legolas and I confer only briefly, short and sharp, and I prepare the three beneath my command… they tense and bunch and crouch, breathing heavily and shaking, and when Legolas' shrill whistle cuts through the air I shout a mighty bellow of command and they sprint into the blackness. They disperse like rats, forward and sideways and backward, and I launch myself into the thundering night with my heart in my throat and my stomach sick with worry. I run toward the glimmer of summer in my mind, just as I know he runs toward me, because I am an orc if we are to be separated again.
We might have led them into this, but by my ancestors and all their beards I will remain behind to ensure they survive the flight home.
~{O}~
Our enemy realises quickly what happens, know that they have been seen and their trap sprung early, and that we seek to scatter to the winds to evade them. They cluster tightly, too tightly, and I know in an instant that I have made the right decision. I know it when I see our flock part and wash away with the rain, disappear into the darkness like ghosts, whilst the army of assassins still rush toward us in a silent knot. They are clever and experienced and many of them pare away, chase after our hares, but Legolas is visible to me now and it is just he and I – as it so very often is. We will remain, we will try to give them time to run, because how can we do anything else?
The Prince of the Woodland Realm is bright in the darkness, starlight soaked and moon touched. His hair is plastered to his face, bone white and cut sharp in the black, and his eyes burn like ice. He sways and cuts and dances with his blades, fluid and light, and these last days have done him well; he is moving better than I have seen in a long time. I join him and it is as though we are whole, as though something fits into my side that I had not realised was missing.
I feel a push at the edge of my mind… gentle… and I let him in. I let Legolas show me the world through his eyes.
The night floods into me, bursts into my mind… so familiar and yet so different. The storm burns my blood like coal, makes my heart thrum and sing, scratches the inside of my skin… aches and aches for me to run and race the scudding clouds that steam across the sky… it catches tight in my throat so that I could weep, but I shove it down as best I can. The night is lit like day to me now. The stars call, a bell-like song, and the lightning is playful and mighty rather than frightening. I hear the Song of Iluvatar, and although it is not the first time that I have heard it, it always feels as though it is… as though it is the only thing. All that I should ever hear.
Legolas falters, steels himself, and I feel him push his walls into place… flimsy and new things that they are. I saw these walls once, deep in a dream, and they were gossamer fine but undefeated and strong. Now? Now they are lesser things, wavering and quaking, but they are sufficient. They blunt and dull the Song so that I can function. Enough to grant me strength that I could never experience without him, but with clarity.
I grin, I laugh, drunk with the sense of it… of being so connected and powerful, of being rooted to the earth as a dwarf but flying with the winds like an elf. I meet Legolas' gaze – just for a flicker of blue and just for a moment – but I can see the same thing in his eyes. Legolas must always feel like a leaf upon the wind, and I grant him power and solidity. He craves it, feeds upon it just as I do, and his mouth parts in a sliver of joyful madness just as mine does.
We turn back to back, and we face the storm.
~{O}~
When Legolas fights, it is as though the wind carries him. There is no other explanation for how he moves so easily, can turn so sharply and strike so swiftly. When I fight I can feel the whole world and all of its heart thrumming deep beneath me, and although I know nothing of how I look, I feel mighty and powerful; a part of the land that I walk upon and the Song that sings in the deep. When the two of us fight together… ai it is a glorious thing.
Legolas and I simply fit. We are jagged edges sometimes – grinding horribly – but when we let go… when it is nothing but heart and blood and instinct. When our blood roars through our veins and our minds are free of unnecessary things. When we are the clearest and most raw, the most ourselves, we complement one another perfectly. Stone and tree, grace and strength. I am the everlasting mountain with years that were numbered the day I was born, and Legolas is the changing wood that fades and dies and re-grows, but he will see every year, every season… every sunrise and sunset in between.
We fight side by side, back to back, moving and ebbing and flowing to where we are most needed. We know exactly where the other is – he will move and dance and send those silver blades of his singing, but he will duck exactly as my axe swings above his head to dispatch his opponent. I take risks that I never would before, I over-extend myself and am reckless because I know that those same silver blades will always be exactly where I need them to be.
The rain hammers, a rain like I have never known it. My shoulders ache from the barrage, my calves from trying to keep purchase upon the mud and running water, my thighs and hips from keeping a solid stance. The sound of it is constant, a physical presence, hissing and roaring and blinding me so that I am relying far too much on the ghost of elven sight that brushes my mind. Legolas must be in high blood indeed if he can do this again, because it has been months since he has been so able to gain access to my mind, to share the world with me. It is not the first time that we have done this, not the first and I hope it is not the last, and it is addictive, heady and wild. My awareness of the world around me is giddying, but I have learned a small measure of focus and I employ it as best I can.
The skies flicker and blind me, shudder and stutter, flash again and the thunder booms – shakes my very bones and heart – then rolls heavy and languorous almost instantly. The storm is right above us, and it is declared by a hastening of the deluge so that I can hear it tapping and hammering against the head of my axe. Beating upon my back and shoulders, the flood waters gushing now against my shins. My wrist and elbow ache from the impact of my weapon upon flesh, my shoulders and back from controlling a weapon with such an uneven weight distribution, and I am starting to grow weary.
No matter our mastery and skill, no matter how Legolas and I fight well together, there is no skill in all of the lands that can compensate against numbers this way. I think perhaps our opponents grow frustrated, angry, because we are the only ones left to vent their rage upon and so they pour forth like rats from a hole. So many, so very many of them, and they are well trained and skilled and the elfling and I are run ragged keeping track. We are hemmed in, pinned back to back, and I start to feel the fervour of battle shrink back and be replaced by a thrill of fear.
Eru, I am not entirely sure we are going to survive this.
After all that we have encountered, all that we have survived, all that we have done and seen and experienced together I think perhaps we are going to meet our end here. Beneath a furious sky and at the mercy of an army of assassins, far from our friends and with not a damned thing to show for it. This is not a worthy end for us!
I roar my anger at the next man I come upon, because this is not right… it is not right at all! By Mahal we have done so much, we have provided such service to these lands, I will not be cut down for the sake of a coup where the necromancer and the Shadow never succeeded.
I feel my blade hit flesh, I feel it reverberate through my arm and into my shoulder, I hear the wet sound of a man's last breath… but it is not all I hear. I pause, and it is long enough to have Legolas' elbow quite firmly in my ribs and a lightning blue glance shot my way. I pause, blink rain from my eye, and I shudder a breath.
"Legolas!" I hiss, and I feel him tense at my back. He turns to me and his face is blood spattered but white, marble and cruel, his eyes burning like fire. His lip is lifted into a snarl, and he looks like his father but I do not fear him… I cannot fear him. He looks at me with trust, with questioning, and he sees the urgency in what I return to him. "The mountain!"
The elfling knows me, almost as well as I know him, and it is all that I have to say. He asks no further questions and instead he simply grabs me by the jerkin and yanks me away from the stone escarpment that looms to our side. He fights off our combatants but it is half-hearted and perfunctory, nothing more than a passage away, but it is too late. I slap his hand away and fist my own hand into the sodden fabric at his shoulder, we drag one another away from the mountainside, but it is too late. I have had warning, but not enough.
The first rumbles I feel in my blood, my heart, my gut. I feel them in every part of the fabric of my being, but quickly upon the heels of that comes the sound. A crack, sharp and huge, felt in my teeth and chest and then followed by a soft noise that is almost buried by the rain, but only just. The clattering of stone and rock drowns it out almost instantly, the gush of liquid mud that throws and then tugs at my ankles precedes what is to come. Legolas and I run as fast as we can as the mountain severs and splits, falls to the storm… as the hillside slides with the fury of Mahal drawn deep, pulling the mountain home to the depths.
I hear the first cries as our enemy realises what it is that we flee from, what rushes upon our heels. Debris and fallen wood, loose stone and flotsam push at our legs as the floodwaters run ahead of the landslide. It is a slog, it is not a run at all, and I feel my boots sinking heavily into the slurry of mud that the ground has quickly become. Legolas tugs me onward so that I am nearly tripping and falling, I do not think that I would be able to keep my footing were he not here to keep me upright, and we continue as best we can. But we are not going to be fast enough. I know it as well as I know that the sun will rise.
I see something, I take a split second to weigh my decision… a mere heartbeat but it feels like an eternity, because I am risking both our lives on this. We run past the ruin of the smithy that I saw earlier, the angle of the building is perfect to take the brunt of the deluge, but I do not know if it is strong enough or deep enough. It hardly matters; we either take our chances here, or are buried beneath the falling rock.
I yank Legolas to a halt, and he trusts me… bless his pointy ears he trusts me enough to stop. I have a moment to see his face turned behind us, pale and drawn and frightened, his wide eyes seeing far more of what heads toward us than mine do. I tear my gaze away, lay my hands upon the foundation of the ruin, and I push with my heart, with all of my might as fast as I can. I read the stone with brute strength, no finesse in it at all, but I have no time to do this properly. What I feel is just enough – eru I hope it is enough – and I grab at Legolas and yank him into the sheltered lee of the building.
We crouch there, clinging to one another like lost children, and I can feel him hot and shaking against me. A sparrow heart hammering in his chest, every cord and sinew of him as tight as a bowstring, because elves do not do well with falling mountains. Not at all.
It is a moment. Just a moment of hushing rain, our gasping breaths so loud now that we have stopped, Legolas' grip painful upon my arm. A slow build of thunder again, thankfully further away this time, but I know… I know what is coming. The mountain has cracked, sheered away, and there is no possible way that we have run far enough… could ever run fast enough to outrace it. There is silence, just for a moment, and then the sky falls down around my ears.
A deafening roar, the cracking of stone, the cries of terrified men, and then there is nothing. Nothing at all.
~{O}~
Not a lot of things frighten Legolas. Not even when they should.
He fears enclosed spaces, most wood elves do, and he has never been particularly fond of deep waters although he manages it well enough. He fears wasps although not many people are aware of it. I am fairly certain that I would be declared an enemy of Lasgalen and possibly even stabbed in the leg should I allow that particular snippet of information to become widely known. I do not think less of him for it; I am not that fond of earwigs if I am honest with myself, but in short… there is very little that Legolas fears. Nothing real, in any case. Nothing sensible.
When I awake it is to noise, far too much noise, and none of it makes sense. It takes me far too long to sort through my mind, to form thought and make sense of the things I am experiencing, but I gradually find clarity. I am cold, I am lying on something extremely hard and there is something stabbing into my ribcage. The noise that I can hear is rainfall, but it is furious and unlike anything I have heard in a long time. It hammers, hisses, and there is a grumbling in the skies that overshadow everything; huge and heavy and angry. I hurt, I am bruised in every part of me, but I bring a hand up to my face and I can definitely feel that my head is still attached to my shoulders. I test my limbs, muscle by muscle, and find that nothing is about to drop off although it is certainly uncomfortable.
I hear something though, and it is this that has woken me; this that has brought me back from the soft blackness and into the rain. I have just had a mountain fall upon me, and still it is Legolas that brings me back.
"Get away from him," he snarls. It is raw and full of the promise of violence, but I cannot see a damned thing. It is so dark out here, the moon and stars shadowed by the storm, and despite that I am a dwarf, and despite that I can still feel the glimmer of Legolas' enhanced sight granting me light where there was none before, we are not both in the same place. I am buried, I realise. I am still in the forge, and my legs and chest are trapped in rubble and mud – whatever Legolas is facing, he is outside, and he is on his own.
I begin to struggle against the landslide that traps me, and I bite back a cry of pain – ai everything hurts so much! My head thrums and bangs, my back hurts terribly, something is awry in my arm, but the elfling is on his own and he thinks me hurt. Legolas does not fear much, but he has never thought particularly clearly when it comes to the safety of his friends. I have no doubt that he would protect my life at the risk of his own, and he would lose his mind entirely if I were to die here.
"Legolas!" I call to him, "do nothing foolish, I live!"
I continue to fight and struggle, and I am almost free. There is a huge slab that has my leg pinned – part of the building we sheltered within – and although it is uninjured, it is quite thoroughly stuck. I see Legolas now, backing across uneven ground until I can see him around the edge of the stone wall. He is a glimmer of moonlight all by himself, that strange nimbus of the elves lighting him brightly for all to see, and he navigates the landslide as though it is nothing but a stone corridor. There is barely anything to step upon, it is jagged stone and fallen masonry, huge blocks and smaller boulders, a slurry of mud and water rilling through the gaps. He walks easily, but I am unsure how. He is in a bit of a state himself, and I only just got him recently fixed.
There is a slice across his cheek that has cut almost to the bone, and blood runs freely in the pouring rain. He is sheltering one arm to his side, and I cannot tell if it is his arm or his ribs that ail him but as I watch he straightens and corrects his stance. If there was anything else wrong I would not know now in any case, he is hiding any injury the way he always does, allowing his enemy no glimpse of his hurts. He is very definitely guarding me from someone, but I cannot tell who is out there. He stands with his blades ready, every part of him loose and prepared, fluid and dangerous.
He backs up carefully, peering into the shelter of the forge as though he does not believe me that I live… checking the facts for himself. I see the moment that he accepts I am not simply shouting at him from beyond the grave, and I see something drop away from his shoulders… something the weight of the mountain itself. I see him relax and calm, centre and focus.
"Why do you still lie about?" he hisses from the side of his mouth, returning his gaze forward, toward our hidden visitor. "Get up!"
"Oh aye," I snap, suddenly annoyed. "I am simply so comfortable, Legolas. My leg is trapped, you fool!"
A blue gaze flickers toward me, takes in everything in a glance and returns to the fore. I am still tugging and pulling, heaving and swearing.
"Lever?" he asks.
"Aye. Axe if you can find it. We are not alone?"
He is silent a while, casts his glance again over the shelter of the forge but it is not searching – he has already found my axe. It lies upon the ground by the door, carefully stowed, and he backs up carefully, hooks his foot beneath the haft and flips it in my direction. I know for a fact that he had Idhren learned to do that as boys – kicking sticks is a laegrim game – and I am suddenly glad that they have odd customs. I would have flipped that right into my own forehead, or sent it spinning into the night, but instead my axe wobbles though the air – oddly weighted and cumbersome – but it lands close enough.
"Oren," he tells me finally, and I swear again. I set about trying to lever the slab of rock just enough to pull my leg free, and Legolas no longer has time to help me. There is a flash of movement, Legolas melts away, and I hear the sound of blade meeting blade but I can no longer see anything. They have moved from my field of vision, I am missing everything, and Legolas is hurt and on his own. I wrestle with the stone that holds me pinned to the ground, I slice my hand upon the blade of my axe, and I shout angrily as nothing shifts at all.
I am completely trapped.
~{O}~
It feels as though I am left an eternity on my own.
I can no longer hear Legolas, and he does not respond to me calling his name. Our enhanced link has been severed – the gift the elfling gave to me at the start of this fight far too difficult to maintain when he is fighting someone like Oren – but the link granted by the Shadow is still strong, even if it is a glimmer of what it once was. I know that he is still alive, I know roughly what direction he is in, and I know that he is in one of his ice cold and focussed minds. That is well… he has kept his madness at bay thus far, but it does not make me feel any better about him being out there alone.
I have been fighting with this cursed hunk of stone for so long that my hands are shredded by the blade, blistered and bruised. I cannot get enough purchase upon it – I can jam the haft of my axe beneath the lip of the rock but I cannot sit up far enough to lever it, I am too close and too low, and after what feels like an utter eternity I change my approach. I can get one hand beneath the stone slab, just the one, and although it skins my arm and wrist almost instantly I start to dig at the looser mud beneath my leg. It has started to go numb, but I can move it slightly within the confines of its prison and I know that I simply need to get some damned movement freed up.
I scrabble and dig, pelted by rain and desperately afraid for my friend, and I have no real time for other thoughts but they sneak upon me in any case.
Where are the others? Did they escape? Where are the rest of the mysterious assassins, because there were so many of them I am unsure that the landslide caught them all. It was a blessing – a gift from Mahal – because the mountain protected the city from these men far better than we did, but I doubt they are all dead. There must be a few still alive. There must. I dig and scrabble, loosening the mud, but although I can move my leg far better now, it is still pinned at the thigh. I have done barely anything at all, I am still stuck, and I shout again into the rain in sheer frustration.
Damn it all! Damn and curse it, this is utterly ridiculous! I do not think I have ever been this frustrated in my life, never felt so helpless and alone. I shout again, drawn out and furious and a bit childish if I am honest with myself, but then I quickly shut my mouth. I strain to listen, because… there! I am not mistaken!
"Here!" I shout, bellowing into the thundering rain and grabbing a fair sized rock to hammer against the wall. It clacks sharply, ringing out against the sound of the retreating storm, and I shout like a madman. "Here! Over here, curse you! Inside the forge!"
There is more shouting from outside, from the utter mess left behind by fallen mountain, and then there is the clatter of loose stone and shifting rock right outside… and then they are here. I flop back against the mud and stone and blink up into the rain in relief, and my new visitors fall around me as though I have fainted dead away.
"Gimli! Friend Gimli do you live?"
My face is patted a trifle roughly, if I am honest, and when I raise my head it is to scowl at Ren. Dear Ren, his face filthy and bloodied and concerned. I point at the offending slab of rock that has me so useless, and then there are many sets of hands… many men all working to free me. It takes only a few strained moments – annoyingly – and then Ren heaves me to my feet. I wobble, stagger, feel a rush of giddiness that he supports me through and then he drags me into a tight embrace.
"We thought you dead," he tells me earnestly. "You and Prince Legolas both. We saw the mountain fall, but we were too far to do anything. We came back as soon as we were able; it is treacherous and has not settled. Did you do this?"
"Did I collapse a mountain?" I ask in surprise. "No, of course I cannot collapse mountains! Well … I have collapsed one mountain before now. And I have been in a few that have collapsed. This was simply the rain and storm and a fault in the stone. Who is here? Are all alive?"
His face falls, goes stony pale.
"I do not know," he admits. "As I say, when the mountain fell, many of us turned back to find you and we met along the way, but I do not know who was lost. We have reinforcements though, which was quite the surprise."
I blink at him questioningly, try my hand at walking unaided, but my leg is a roaring tumult of burning and firing nerves as the blood returns to where it should be. I hurt, and I know I will stiffen to a stone later, but I can manage for now. I hop, limp; gingerly test my weight. I feel the bone deep bruise in my thigh promise repercussions later, but I can manage for now. Reinforcements? From where?
I glimpse over at the edge of the broken building, and I see Shutter leaning against it as though we do nothing but take in the sights. His hood is pulled low over his face, but I can still see it – that grin of his, that insouciant smirk.
I slip naturally into my own tongue. I often make fun of Legolas for slipping into his native tongue when he is irked, it is natural for him – he has not been a part of this world long enough for the Common Tongue to become natural – but I find myself doing the same thing now. My own tongue is better for insults, and they flow naturally. I limp toward him and grab him by the jerkin, shake him roughly, and although he prises my hands away he is not unkind about it.
"Where have you been?" I demand furiously. "This has been nothing but a rout, an utter disaster! They knew exactly where we would be, exactly what we did… they knew, Shutter. How did they know?"
"I know nothing of how," he tells me, "I know only that it happens."
"Legolas is out there somewhere fighting Oren again," I gesture wildly in the vague direction that I know Legolas to be. I can still feel him, feel his weariness and frustration, and I can feel his mind starting to slip. It is making me extremely agitated.
"You do not understand, Master Gimli," he tells me, and his voice is weary and flat. His face falls, the mask slipping away entirely, and I think it is the surprise of it that quenches my anger so quickly. I silence, still, and let him speak. "It is not just here. They are in the city, they are in the second circle. The City Guards do all they can but there is fighting in the streets, Minas Tirith is under attack. The second circle has defences, men who will fight, and the King has sent his best men but it is like fighting an infestation of rats! I could not find her… I came here once I realised, but I could not find Briar. She can look after herself, but…" he trails off, and my anger is gone in a second. I know that look. I know it well.
I do not wish to, but I remove my hand from where it is twisted in his cloak and smooth it out, pat him carefully. It is the best I can do – the movement understanding and forgiving – but it is all I can give him. He looks so afraid, so worried, and his words worm their way into my chest and sit there cold and hard. Minas Tirith as well? It is not simply here – if anything we are out of the way when we should be helping the city.
"Return to Minas Tirith," I tell him carefully.
"I go nowhere," he shakes his head. "Ren can return. I have gathered men to follow him, but I remain here."
I peer at him, narrow my eyes, and I know I will not be able to change his mind. Out of the two, I would probably prefer to have Ren at my side, but Shutter – for all that I do not like him – is a more than able opponent. He does not wish to be here, but I feel a grudging moment of respect that he intends to remain.
"Fine," I concede, because I am not foolish enough to waste time in argument. I turn to Ren. "Take these men. You must go to the palace, because the King must be protected over everything."
"They are not here for the King," Ren objects, and I open my mouth but it is Shutter that speaks.
"They are here for the second circle and for Briar, but the circle is protected. There is no one more important than our King."
Ren looks unsure. He is afraid – not of battle but for the safety of his friends; for Larke and Captain Hob, and all the others that are missing. The three of us are all twisted by worry for our friends, but it is certainly not the first nor the last time this will happen. We are all seasoned in battle, we have all lost those we love, and we all worry because we know the pain of that loss. We will fight through regardless.
"It is unlikely that Legolas needs our help," I muse, almost to myself, "but he was hurt in the landslide. If he cannot beat Oren, then we must be there to ensure that man gets no further than the foothills of the city. He cannot find entrance there."
Shutter nods his agreement, Ren finally accepts what we say, and I spend a moment massaging my thigh. I knead the last of the pins and needles from my leg, feel the deep and angry throb of what is going to be a spectacular bruise, and I know that if I survive the night, this leg is going to be useless for days. My head hurts, I feel dizzy, something is jabbing and shifting in my rib cage, but dwarves were built sturdy. Mahal made us from the mountain, we slept beneath the earth and became as stone, and even now we are solid and firm. I am well enough to continue.
Ren turns, goes as if to leave but pauses and glances back. Rainwater drips from his nose and chin, there is a florid bruise over the better part of his right jaw and he looks exhausted, but he locks his eyes with mine and nods just the once. It is an acknowledgement, and it cannot be translated into words. I return it, and then he is gone.
It is just Shutter and I left.
~{O}~
I would love nothing more than to run. To push my speed to its limits and race across the ground to where I know Legolas is, but I cannot. It is treacherous, slippery and littered with broken stone. If I am not slogging through loose mud then I am tripping over rubble, clambering over giant slabs of mountain, falling into holes, and I would have broken my ankle a thousand times over if it were not for sheer dumb luck. Shutter and I try as best we can at speed, but we are hobbled by the terrain and although we are slow, the both of us are breathing heavily and moving sluggishly by the time we reach the foot of the mountain. We are both exhausted.
It is not how it was any longer. Not a mountain. It is a slope, the scar of the landslide pitted and hulking and frightening, and of all the things in the world to be thinking right now I realise that the storm is abating. The rain is lessening, and I have not heard the thunder in quite some time. Shutter and I stand at the foot of Mindolluin, our eyes scanning the field of destruction as best we can in the dark and without elven eyes, but I have an advantage. I can feel Legolas, somewhere up there and to the right, and I start to pick my way through the destruction. I climb and slip and clamber, until I hear a voice ring out:
"Gimli stay as you are!" Legolas calls, and I freeze. I can hear now the faintest sound of shifting feet, of metal meeting metal, quick and careful and light. I pause, squint, and I can just about see them; Legolas and Oren, fighting, although it is no fight I have ever experienced. It is a dance, they ghost across the fallen mountainside as though they are blossoms upon the wind, and I see the silver glint of blades as they catch the meagre light. I can barely capture them, barely see them, and I pause for a moment.
What help do I really think I can be here?
I am sometimes complacent, sometimes dismissive of Legolas and the skill he has, but I have never truly believed my own words. I might belittle him and sometimes I am far too blasé about his ability, but seeing it is different. He is another being, a thousand levels above where I will ever be, and suddenly I am far too aware of how cumbersome and clumsy I am. Why am I here? What did I hope to achieve?
Shutter pulls at my arm, gentle and careful, and I grant him my full attention. I can only just see him in the darkness; a cut of paleness and a glint of green eyes.
"He will not listen to me," I tell him. "Not right now. Elves… they can lose themselves. He could beat Oren perhaps, I do not know, not any longer."
There is too much at stake here. Too much to allow for Legolas' pride, too much to let him continue this fight to his own satisfaction. If he cannot win this fight, then Shutter and I will not be enough to beat him. Not in a hundred years.
"You have never said," he murmurs to me, serious and careful. "You never have, and I do not expect you to, but you are linked with the Prince?"
I pause for a second, consider lying, but cast it away quickly. I nod instead.
"The tale is a long one," I admit quietly. "But yes. We are linked."
"In the meeting with Briar, when he attacked the serving lad," he reminds me, and pulls a bow from where it is secured across his shoulders. There is a quiver at his back, and although there are not many arrows remaining, there are enough. I consider his words, I know exactly what he is suggesting, but I am dubious.
"You can make the shot?" I ask, unsure. He takes a deep breath, releases it.
"I can only try," he shrugs. I relent.
It is not a terrible idea.
We climb the cluttered ruins of Mindolluin, heaving over boulders and thick mud, but the rain has lessened. It is barely a pattering now, little more than a spring rain, but the wind picks up and sends a chill into my sodden bones. I shiver, but all I can think of is the battle that Legolas endures right now.
I can feel him in my head as Shutter and I try to reach them. He is losing his temper, becoming frustrated, and I know that he is hurt – I can feel the burn of his wounds like a ghost upon my skin, as though I bear them just as he does, and I steer Shutter in the correct direction as Legolas battles across the screed of fallen stone and mud. We climb and clamber in silence, it takes an utter eternity, but eventually we are close enough to see them properly.
Oren is just as he was the first time that I saw him; cloaked and hooded, a tattered mystery whose face I cannot see beneath the mask he wears. Legolas is exposed and raw in woodland green, his hair dripping and twisted about his face, pinked by the blood running from the injury to his face. The two of them dance as though the landslide is nothing to them, fast and nasty and lethal, slashing and weaving, hurting one another. Legolas has a few new injuries – an ugly and horrible wound to his shoulder, his midriff running with blood – but Oren is faring little better. They jump lightly from boulder to boulder, across dangerous muds and through splashing rivers of rain. They twist and duck, dance and play, all of the while their blades glinting.
They have been at this for a very long time.
Shutter looks at me, readies his bow and breathes. He nods and I take my own breath, because I am not sure I can remember how to do this. Not sure that I wish to do this.
I do it anyway.
I grab at Legolas' mind and I yank.
It hurts. The first time that I did this I was angry, I was furious, and so I did not feel it. This time I know exactly what I am doing, and when I hook my mind into Legolas' and hurt him intentionally I certainly bear the brunt of it. Legolas cries out, buckles, grabs at his head with fisted hands and drops to his knees. The sound he makes is dreadful, the fact that he makes any sound at all is all I need to know that I have hurt him terribly, but I do not stop. It hurts me, my nose is streaming with a warm wetness that I know to be blood, but I set my teeth and clench my fists and I do not let go. I cannot let go.
The first time that I did this it was brief. It was by accident, it was alarming and frightening, but this time... this time I genuinely struggle to stop. Legolas lets out the strangest sound; wet and ragged and final, and Shutter kicks me.
"Gimli stop," he hisses. He shoulders me to one side, shoves me so I am sent sprawling and gives me a horrified look, but then his attention in entire on his aim.
I shake myself free, I realise what I have done, and I am disgusted and sickened. I glance at the elfling, crumpled and twisted and curled around the pain I have forced upon him, and I gag. I cannot wrest my eyes from him, and each breath sounds ragged in my ears, endless and drawn out. I see Shutter out of the corner of my eye, I am aware of him but I cannot focus on him. I barely see him in truth, I have eyes only for what I have done…
… eru I have done it again! ...
After the passing of moments or perhaps an eternity, Shutter loosens his bow. He releases with a movement I cannot see, but the arrow he sends forth is straight and true.
It would have landed, even I can see that in the dimness of the storm, but although Legolas is curled into a heaving knot of pain there is a flash of silver and a clatter of wood upon stone. The elfling knocks the arrow from the very air, twists upon the mud and rock where he crouches and bares his teeth at me. Blood streams from his nose and stains his bared teeth; he is furious, seething.
He hisses something at me, and although the elven language is a beautiful one, sometimes it can sound very different. In the right mouth it can be twisted into something nasty and curling and unkind, and what he says to me… it does not bear repeating. He tells me under no uncertain terms that I am to remain as I am and come no closer. The consequences are unspoken, but I hear them in any case, and when I bolster myself again to lay him low the bolt of pain that I send him is stopped, twisted, and sent back in my direction.
Eru… eru it is like my mind catches fire!
Legolas shows again that our link is not simply in one direction, it goes both ways, and he turns my attack back against me. I deserve it, in a way, because I should not be using such a thing against him. He has told me I should, encouraged it, but that was in a very specific set of circumstances. Legolas has not lost his mind, not gone mad, he is not threatening anyone who cannot manage themselves. I am using this weapon I have against him for my own convenience, and by Mahal he reminds me of this.
Legolas is an ancient prince of a warrior people. He will not be schooled by a child such as I am, he will not let me hurt him if he does not wish it, and in a way I am thankful. Through the blinding pain he sends me – that drops me to one knee, that halts the breath in my lungs and all thought in my mind – he reminds me of what he is. Reminds me that he could have stopped anything I have done prior to now, that I cannot be blamed or feel guilt for something that he has been able to stop.
I let go of him, release him, and he lets me go as well. Our minds are knotted and tangled as briars, just as sharp and jagged, and we tear them free roughly. I gasp and heave, my palms flat against the freezing wetness of the ground, and a part of me recognises that Shutter has his hand tentatively against my shoulder in comfort. I gag, wipe my mouth with a sodden sleeve and peer up through my dripping hair at where Legolas staggers back to his feet.
I am to stay out of this fight.
TBC
Hey, check me out posting a bit closer to my old schedule! I figured I owed you all a faster update this time, although chapter 18 might be a bit slower. It's almost finished, I plan on starting chapter 19 tonight, but the fic is about to move into its final arc - I like to leave myself a bit of space to change things around if I want to. Some of you might know from PM conversations that I have a very real habit of changing my mind on the direction of a story at very short notice. I point you in the direction of The Silence in the Song as a VERY good example of this. That thing was meant to be a fraction of the length, and escalated quite considerably from where it was originally meant to go!
The writers block is very definitely over, for now. This is the chapter that I've been agonising over for months; poor Legolas and Gimli have been stood in this storm getting soaked probably since the end of March. I could just imagine them huffing and tapping their fingers, shifting from foot to foot, looking at me expectantly whilst I sat here scream-crying 'I don't know words! I cannot do writing! I am sorry!' at my computer screen.
I have an overactive imagination, perhaps.
Anyway, chapter 18 isn't finishing itself so I must dash. I must apologise to anyone who reviewed the last chapter because I was absolutely rubbish in replying. I normally try to reply to everyone within a week, but I failed in this. Please rest assured that I appreciated every single one of them, and I will try to do better this time around!
Have a great weekend :)
MyselfOnly