A Fatal Mistake
Excerpt from The Book of Earth, the last known copy of which is held in the restricted vaults of Minas Tirith:
Dendrobite – a small, insignificant and extremely rare creature of approximately 2-3 inches in length. It is pale, almost translucent, and has the appearance of a deformed frog. Otherwise unremarkable, the dendrobite excretes a slow acting but nevertheless deadly poison through its skin. Living almost exclusively at high altitude, it frequents dark, damp locations such as rotting logs and amongst rocks.
If any animal, be it human or otherwise, comes into contact with the poison they experience severe headaches, nausea, hallucinations, paralysis and renders the victim unconscious. If ingested, the poison ultimately leads to coma and death.
While there is some evidence that recovery has been seen in victims who have come into contact with the poison via their skin the methods used to heal them remain unclear.
There are no known survivors of those unfortunate enough to have eaten or drunk anything containing even trace levels of the toxin.
Winter hadn't quite let the chill out of the wind. The bright, brittle sun shone in the sky and danced on the tiny buds clinging to the bare branches. Spring was coming. It was so close you could almost taste it but there was a bite to the wind that hinted that the cold was not quite over. Aragorn, high in the hills three days walk from Rivendell, hoisted his pack onto his back and turned towards home.
Home. It had been almost five months since Aragorn had been to the Elven refuge of Imladris and relaxed in the company of his adopted family and he was keen to get there quickly. The winter had been as hard as any on the ranger but he'd spent much of it in the relative safety of the North with his own people. He hadn't originally planned it that way but the heavy snows had restricted travel with almost all routes impassable. As a result, he and many of the other rangers had spent an unusually quiet winter in their small settlements fighting nothing but the elements.
As the day wore on, heavy clouds rolled across the hills bringing with them a relentless, heavy drizzle. Aragorn trudged on through the rain thinking of little except the warm fires of the House of Elrond. Preoccupied by his thoughts, he was caught unprepared when the muddy ground gave way to rain soaked leaves as slippery as ice. With a grunt of surprise, Aragorn twisted as he reached out for the nearest tree branch to grab onto. As his hand made contact with the rough wood, he felt a sharp tug on his pack and heard a loud ripping noise followed by a pathetic splash. Cursing, Aragorn turned to see his last remaining loaf of bread and a few scattered strips of dried meat partly submerged in a puddle. A small section of his now ruined pack lay trapped under the bread like a mockery of a tablecloth.
Night was drawing in and the temperature was starting to drop. Still high in the hills and with the rain looking to be set on for at least several hours, Aragorn picked up the sorry remains of his food and continued on through the trees keeping his eyes alert for somewhere to shelter for the night. Intending only for a brief rest through the worst of the weather, Aragorn was grateful to see a small, overhanging rock with dense bushes around its base. The cave was small but the floor was dry and the trees and bushes around the entrance provided some protection from the wind.
With a sigh, the ranger took his pack off and sorted through his belongings. There, wrapped in cloth right at the bottom, was a flint and some dry tinder and it took only moments for Aragorn to get a small fire going. Peeling off his sodden cloak, the ranger neatly hung it across a rock near the fire to dry. The trickle of water running down the edge of the entrance to the cave provided an easy enough water source and Aragorn quickly filled his mug and put it in the fire to heat through. With a snort of resigned humour, Aragorn decided to forgo dinner of sodden bread and decided on his pipe and some tea brewed from a handful of leftover herbs.
"Waste not want not," muttered Aragorn to himself as he spread the ruined food on the ground near the fire. The meat was really past rescuing but there was a chance the soaked bread would dry out enough to be edible again given enough time. With the rain set in for the night, the ranger threw another dead branch on the fire and watched idly as it hissed and spat as the heat of the fire drove the water out of it. With a sigh, Aragorn lay down as best he could in the small cave and set to doze through the hours of darkness.
Around moonrise, the Dúnedain ranger finally drifted off to sleep. The fire burnt low and a damp chill crept into the air as mist replaced the rain. Tiny flies and insects crept out of various cracks in the rocks as they were drawn to the fading heat of the fire like moths to a flame. Aragorn turned over in his sleep, the movement dislodging a few small rocks and exposing a tiny creature the size of a mouse.
For a long moment it stayed there, faintly glowing in the pale moonlight. Slowly, tentatively, the tiny creature hopped away from the protection of the rocks and headed towards the damp darkness of some sphagnum moss across the cave. It paused again, feeling the presence of a warm obstacle in its way. Almost painfully slowly, the little animal scrambled up the stair-like obstacle only to jump away in horror as the hand it was sitting on flexed slightly. Shying away from the heat and light of the flames, it crawled across the sandy floor and wound its way through the rocks and pebbles in its path.
At the sound of the ranger giving a slight cough, the creature leapt into the air and landed on top of a much larger, softer rock still soaked in water. For a full minute it sat there poised for flight with its dark eyes searching out the safest route to the moss. Eventually it carefully crawled along the loaf of bread, dropped back onto the sandy floor and slipped away into the darkness leaving no sign it had ever been there at all.
Hours later as the first streaks of pink touched the sky, Aragorn woke. With a half-hearted sigh, the ranger prodded the ashes of the fire with his boot and resigned himself to a cold breakfast.
Well, that's something, Aragorn thought as he surveyed the food he'd rescued from the puddle. The bread had dried out well but the meat scraps wouldn't last the day so with a sigh Aragorn stowed the loaf in his pack and made the best he could out of the dried boar meat.
As far as breakfasts go, Imladris can't come soon enough, he thought dryly. Still, only three days to go.
After fastening his cloak, Aragorn picked up his pack and swung it over his shoulder. As his did so his right hand gave a slight tingle not unlike pins and needles. The sensation was gone as quickly as it had come so with an unconcerned shrug he stepped out of the cave and turned South West.
Three days and I'll be in the Halls of Fire listening to Elladan and Elrohir argueing over whose turn it is to muck out the stables.
As the first rays of sunshine came over the horizon and fell across the hillside, the ranger had no idea just how wrong he would be.
A/N: Obviously, all the characters you recognise are not mine, I've simply borrowed them and promise to give them back in (near enough) the condition I took them in ;-)
Reviews are of course an author's only payment and are greatly appreciated!
For those of you who know their biology, the Dendrobite originates from "Dendrobates", the Latin name for the deadliest of the poison dart frogs.