CHAPTER FOUR: Captives and Arrows
For a time the girls lay quietly. Tuima kept her back to the others. She could hear their whispers: "I think we hurt her feelings."
"What did we do?"
"You probably shouldn't have said that about Frodo, Cebu." There was a pause, then: "No, Cebu – Stop that – Snap out of it!"
"Wha – oh. Sorry."
Tuima gritted her teeth and shifted to look at the stars, picking out the familiar constellations until the urge to continue her earlier outburst passed. She tried to take comfort in the idea that despite the fact that her companions had just doomed themselves and all Arda to annihilation, the stars, at least, would remain untouched.
It didn't work.
"Look," Dilly was whispering. "We have to be serious about this, you guys. We're in real trouble. Eicys is missing, there are orcs all around us, we've got no way to escape and frankly nowhere to escape to, and the only person who knows what she's doing out here is sulking."
Tuima's teeth grated audibly.
"…Upset," Dilly amended, rolling her eyes.
Cebu brushed copper curls out of her eyes and said meekly, "What we're trying to say is… Well, sorry, Tuima."
The Elf rolled over to face them. "Sorry," she repeated, in a voice as flat and cold as ice on a gravestone.
The girls exchanged glances. "Um… yes," they said. "We're sorry."
"You have just betrayed the last hope of the West. The Ringbearer and his companions will be hunted down without mercy. The free peoples of Middle-earth have been doomed to slavery and destruction. We ourselves are likely to suffer a lingering, torturous death.
"And you wish to say that you are… sorry."
The other three stared at her.
"Um… really really sorry?" Cebu offered unhappily.
Even Eredolyn's enthusiasm seemed a little wilted. "Do you think we really screwed up the storyline that badly?" she asked her friends. "We can't have. I mean, things have to turn out the way Tolkien wrote them, right? It's his story."
Tuima narrowed her eyes warily. "Story?"
"Yeah. And the good guys win. Even in fanfiction the good guys always win. So we're okay."
Tuima started taking deep breaths. A vein throbbed in her temple.
"Oh man, Ere," sighed Dilly. "I think you set her off again."
But Tuima said only, "Let me know how 'okay' you are feeling once Saruman's minions have finished with you. Until then, keep quiet and I'll try to think of a way to get us out of this."
"Too late," said Dilly. "Here come the orcs…"
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Eicys choked. There was no way that thing was human. No possible way. To mistake that thing for a human would require a bag over its head and her own.
So how was it talking? She moaned and clutched the trunk tighter as it took a few shuffling steps closer to her tree.
"Liddle birdie, all alone in the deep dark woods," it said, showing crooked brown fangs in a grin. "Don't yeh know these woods're dangerous? These trees'll grind yeh teh pulp if they get the chance. Bad place fer a pretty liddle bird teh nest." The monster grabbed a low branch and kicked its way up, still grinning at her.
The tree shuddered. Eicys gasped and held on tighter as it began to rock as if in a high wind; the leering creature let out a yell and dug in its claws. Now all the trees around them were swaying, and a low, eerie groaning filled the air. Branches creaked, twigs snapped, and then –
Wham. The tree shook Eicys and her pursuer loose with a vicious snapping motion, and they were sent sprawling on the forest floor. Eicys lay on her back, with all the wind knocked out of her and the beginnings of a truly spectacular bruise down one shoulder.
A face – if you could call it that – suddenly intruded itself into her line of vision. Eicys couldn't manage more than a gasp, but she kicked out frantically and caught the creature in the gut. It grunted and grabbed the front of her sweater. Eicys wrenched backwards, flailing, but it held her fast and raised one hand. A dagger glinted evilly in its fist.
Eicys' world went cold and flat with terror. She couldn't seem to move; she didn't even have the breath to scream as the dagger swept down and across her stomach. Eicys and her attacker stared as blood slowly leaked from the wound.
Gray, lumpy, oatmealy blood.
The goblin-thing was so surprised to see his quarry bleeding gruel, he let go of the dagger. Eicys, numb with shock, pulled the weapon out of the ruined plastic baggie under her sweater and stared at it. It was a crude, jagged blade, hiltless and wickedly sharp. Eicys' fingers curled slowly around the grip, her knuckles turning white. Then she looked up at that twisted snarling thing, its claws already stretching toward her eyes – and without even thinking about it, she plunged the dagger straight into the monster's throat.
The next bit gave Eicys nightmares for several weeks. Inky black blood spurted everywhere, splattering her clothes and face: she scrubbed her eyes clear in time to see the goblin keel over backwards, clutching its neck. Its heels pattered frantically against the leaves, and a hideous gurgling noise bubbled out of its mouth, along with a lot more blood. Finally it went limp. Eicys stared.
Its foot kicked a few more times. There was a sigh.
Eicys staggered away into the trees and threw up. This continued long after her stomach was empty, until the heaves turned into great, shuddering sobs and Eicys began shaking too hard to stand. She sank to her knees and wrapped her arms tightly around herself as her teeth chattered and her stomach roiled.
There was a distant yell, and then another. Eicys' protective mental fog turned suddenly crystalline with horror, collapsing around her in icy shards. My sister is out there, she thought. I have to go find her…
What if there are more of those things?
Eicys was no coward, but being attacked by a hideous talking monster in your own backyard is enough to put anyone off of a bold and daring rescue attempt. So she did something that no self-respecting heroine would ever do, and made a well-thought out and sensible choice.
She sprinted back to the house to call the police.
Or at least, she sprinted back to where the house should have been.
It wasn't there now. Instead, the forest cut off abruptly, giving way to a brief wasteland of stumps and scorched earth. And beyond…
Eicys' legs folded, and she landed hard on her backside. After a solid minute of staring, she squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head, hard.
It was still there when she opened them, jutting into the sky like a malignant black finger. Its base was shrouded in gouts of red-lit smoke, and its horned head was lost in the clouds, but there was just no mistaking a building like that.
Orthanc.
The Orthanc. Saruman's tower.
Well, thought Eicys, skirting the edges of another panic attack, maybe they'll let me use their phone.
Ahahaha. Haha.
Ha.
Crap.
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"I think it's stupid!" growled the uruk currently holding Dilly aloft by her tightly-bound wrists. She gritted her teeth and tried to find an unarmored place to kick him.
"Yeah!" said one of the smaller brutes. "One scrawny human mentions a piece of jewelry and you turn all dutiful, hey?" The creature spat at Cebu and missed. The redhead edged away from the nasty wet gobbet and sent up a small thank-you to anyone who might care. "I'd no be s'prised to find you was just tryin' teh cheat yer mates outta some well-deserved fun," the goblin continued. "Thought you'd have 'em all to yerself this way, did yer, Cap'n Gharluk?"
Gharluk howled, snatched a javelin from a companion, and hurled it at the speaker. The smaller creature caught the missile in his arm and toppled heavily to the ground, from which position he screamed obscenities and accusations in a tongue the girls were relieved not to know. But Gharluk just shouted over the uproar: "Anyone else?"
Several of the orcs hefted crude weapons, but no one moved forward. After a pause, one of them asked in a snarling whine, "Why can't we have some fun wiv 'em – just a liddle, hey, Captain? We could give 'em to the master after, wiv none any wiser."
"I'm takin' no chances with any vermin as what know about the master's Halflings," Gharluk growled.
"Gone soft, are yeh, Captain?" hissed an orc with an enormous livid scar across his face. "C'mon, now, we could just have one of them… this one here, say." He leered at Tuima. The Elf returned his look with a glare that should have left his smoking remains plastered against the nearest tree.
"…Or any of them, really," said the orc, looking rather shaken. Tuima smirked.
Dilly rolled her eyes. She had begun to realize that evil glares were a sort of hobby for the Elf.
"Look," said the uruk holding Dilly. He dropped her unceremoniously and grabbed a bow from a nearby orc. "We'll jest do the interrogatin' now, howzat? Lissen up, scum! Tell us everythin' yeh know about th' halflings an' we'll shoot yer friend." He pointed the arrow at Dilly's head.
There was a brief silence. Typically, it was Eredolyn who broke it. "Don't you mean 'or we'll shoot your friend'?" she asked. "That's a pretty crucial conjunction, you know; it changes the entire meaning of the sentence."
The orcs glanced at each other, their expressions the visual equivalent of a "huh?" Their captives did the same. "Tell me she isn't actually citing grammar rules at a time like this," mumbled Dilly.
"I'd like to," said Cebu, "but I can't." She lowered her voice. "I think they hit her pretty hard…"
The uruk with the bow swung it around to point at Eredolyn. "You're mighty cheeky fer someone in yer position, girlie."
Eredolyn ignored him; she was squinting at the bow. "Holy cow," she said. "That looks exactly like Lurtz's bow in the movie! Doesn't it, guys?"
"Um," said Dilly. But the orc started back, narrowing his eyes at Eredolyn. "Hey!" he said. "She knows about Lurtz! How's she know that? None o' Lurtz's crew've even come back yet!" He pulled the bowstring a little further back. "Talk, human!"
"Enough!" bellowed Gharluk. "It's just more proof that they's valuable. We's takin' 'em to the master, unspoiled. But I'll put in a word fer some brave uruks what deserve some fun. If he don't want 'em, I'll tell Sharkey to give 'em back to us."
His words were met with grumbling approval, and the interrogating orc nodded reluctantly and shot his arrow into the ground at Dilly's feet. She flinched and the brutes roared with laughter before seizing the captives. Cebu stumbled and fell with her face next to the forgotten arrow, and lay there panting until she was grabbed and shoved upright with the others in the center of the clearing.
"Now march, maggots, or the fun'll start here an' now," said Gharluk, prodding Eredolyn in the back with a spear.
"Are you taking us to Isengard, then?" she asked.
"That's right."
"And we get to meet Saruman and everything?"
"B'lieve it, runt."
Eredolyn grinned. "Cool."
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