Yay! Chapter 17! The ending here is going to change up a bit. I changed my penname. The original was too plain and ordinary for me. The shorthand shall remain the same!
- xHx
They had been tracking the Uruk-hai, as Hermione now knew the beasts were called, for three days and nights without so much as a moment of rest, save the few seconds it took for her to recover from her dizzy spells, which had grown frequent. These were the only indication they had that Ginny, Merry, and Pippin were still alive.
At this point, however, Aragorn had his head upon a bare stone, listening to things Hermione couldn't even begin to understand. Her last dizzy spell had been almost a full day ago.
"Their pace has quickened," Aragorn finally said, lifting his head. "They must have caught our scent. Hurry!"
He began running. Hermione let Legolas rush past her, though he paused just a moment later and turned back. "Come on, Gimli!" he shouted.
Hermione just shook her head. Gimli was the slowest member of their small group. He also protested and complained the most.
"Just think of this, Gimli! Once we find them, we can sleep and eat all we want," she called back to the Dwarf, running to catch up to Legolas. Occasionally, the two Elves would make a game of it, a race to see who could overtake Aragorn the fastest. Legolas usually won, but she'd succeeded a couple of times.
"Not idly do the leaves of Lórien fall," Aragorn said. They stood between two rocky hills that made it seem like a roofless corridor. The Man had just picked up one of the brooches from Lord Celeborn and Lady Galadriel.
"They may yet be alive," Legolas replied, taking a single glance at the brooch.
Hermione suddenly felt like the world was spinning. Her hand found the stone wall for support as Legolas hurried toward her, worry in his eyes.
"What do you see?" Aragorn asked.
Hermione shook her head. "It is not so much sight as feeling this time. Feeling and hearing." She closed her eyes. "The Uruk-hai were late for something. Someone was waiting for them here. Orcs, I think."
"What else?"
"Pippin was worried. Merry seemed hurt. They made him – Merry – drink something. It was vile," she muttered. "Ginny was not far from them. She was struggling against one of the Uruks, trying to break away from him. She was fairly bruised up. Pippin commented on it."
She opened her eyes. "The Orcs said something, the ones waiting. 'Our master grows impatient.' That's it, that's what he said."
Legolas and Aragorn both nodded, and Aragorn turned to Legolas, standing up, finally. "Less than a day ahead of us. Come on."
The three began to run, Hermione taking a sip from her flask of water and coming up beside Legolas.
She paused when she heard Gimli's groaning and the sound of his armor clattering against the stone hillside.
"Come, Gimli! We are gaining on them!" Legolas shouted. Hermione grinned and continued her sprint.
Not fifteen minutes later, they came to a stone outcropping, from which Hermione could see for miles. She looked over the landscape in absolute awe. She was first to reach it, and now stood above Legolas and Aragorn.
"Rohan," the Man said, "home of the horse-lords. There is something strange at work here. Some evil gives speed to these creatures, sets its will against us."
Legolas ran ahead, down the rocky hillside. Hermione rolled her eyes and leapt down to the stone below her perch, running after the blonde Elf.
"What do you see, Legolas?" she called.
"The Uruks turn north-east," he shouted back. "They're taking the Hobbits to Isengard!"
"Saruman," Aragorn said, his eyes filled with some form of fear. Hermione knew why. As he said it, her heart filled with dread and her vision blurred.
She no longer gazed upon the landscape of Rohan. Instead, she stood, dream-like, in a room of blackness with a tall man in a white cloak sitting upon a carved throne. She could hear nothing, but she knew who it was.
Saruman.
Another man, this one in filthy brown rags, stood before him. He was saying something.
When he pulled the knife from his waist, she flinched. She knew what he would do.
He sliced his palm and clenched his fist. This time, she could read his lips.
"We will die…for Saruman!"
"Hísiven," Legolas whispered as the girl opened her blue eyes.
"Wild men," she muttered, pushing herself up to her feet.
Aragorn seemed to understand what she meant better than the Elf did. "What happened?" he said, putting a hand on the girl's shoulder.
"There was a knife…and blood. He said something." She closed her eyes for a second.
"What did he say?"
She shook her head. "It should not be important."
They ran through the night, chasing after the Uruks. As dawn approached, she and Legolas were in the middle of one of their competitions.
She blew past him when he suddenly stopped and turned to gaze into the East. She stopped and turned back to him.
"A red sun rises," he said, almost to himself. "Blood has been spilled this night."
His words were like a sort of death-blow. Hermione's heart filled with ice. There was now true reason to worry.
When they came to a small hill, they stopped, for Aragorn had knelt down to pick something up. But he was interrupted by the sound of a horse. The Man motioned for the group to follow him and hide. Hermione did not hesitate.
She watched in awe, crouched behind Legolas, as a great number of Men on horseback rode past. They wore the clothes of war, and were heavily armed, so when Aragorn stood from their hiding place, she watched him for a moment in fear before she followed him and Legolas to the top of the hill.
"Riders of Rohan," Aragorn shouted. "What news from the Mark?"
The riders turned around. Hermione, still in awe, watched the speed and grace of their steeds as they turned and came to surround the four travelers. She only realized that the four of them were in real danger when the riders lowered their spear-points toward their faces. She stood essentially back-to-back with Gimli.
"What business does a Man, two Elves, and a Dwarf have in the Riddermark?"
One of the riders had come around to speak to them. Hermione still had her back to him. She felt almost too threatened by the spears to do more than stand still until Legolas's hand touched her back. Only then did she turn around.
"Speak quickly!" the horseman said.
"Give me your name, horse-master, and I shall give you mine," Gimli said. Hermione put a hand to her forehead. Of course Gimli would be the first one to try and say something insulting!
The horseman handed his spear to the rider next to him and jumped down from his steed, walking closer to the four travelers.
"I would cut off your head, Dwarf," he said, "if it stood but a little higher from the ground."
His statement drew rage from Legolas. He drew an arrow from his quiver, notched it, and drew back the string before he said to the horseman, "You would die before your stroke fell!"
Hermione ducked slightly as spear-points drew near to Legolas's head; reacting on some forgotten instinct, she drew her wand, but held it against her forearm, hidden from view. It was a trick Molly Weasley had shown her before her fifth year. The woman had told her that it was always better to have an advantage over your enemies, no matter what it meant.
Aragorn, the only one who really maintained a level head, put a hand to Legolas's bow and forcing him to lower it before he began to speak.
"I am Aragorn, son of Arathorn. This is Gimli, son of Glóin, Hísiven of Rivendell, and Legolas of the Woodland Realm," he said. "We are friends of Rohan, and of Théoden, your King."
"Théoden no longer recognizes friend from foe," he said. The horseman lifted his helmet. "Not even his own kin."
The other horsemen lifted their spears. Hermione's strange feeling of dread eased slightly, but not enough.
"Saruman has poisoned the mind of the king and claimed lordship over these lands. My company are those loyal to Rohan, and for that we are banished. The White Wizard is cunning. He walks here and there, they say, as an old man, hooded and cloaked. And everywhere his spies slip past our nets."
The Man finished with a look of severe disgust and hatred, directly aimed at Legolas. Hermione's fingers twitched.
"We are no spies," Aragorn said. "We track a party of Uruk-hai Westward across the plain. They have taken three of our friends captive."
"The Uruks are destroyed; we slaughtered them during the night."
"But there were two Hobbits," Gimli began. Hermione put a hand to his shoulder. "Did you see Two Hobbits and a young woman with them?"
"The Hobbits would be small, only children to your eyes," Aragorn added.
The Man looked uncomfortable as he shifted his footing and shook his head. "We left none alive."
Hermione gasped involuntarily.
"We piled the carcasses and burned them."
"Dead?"
The horseman nodded. "I am sorry."
Legolas put his arm on Gimli's shoulders. Hermione, afraid to return her wand to its place at her belt, placed her hand on his back, her breath hitching with a sob.
The horseman whistled suddenly and turned to his left. "Hasufel! Cúron! Arod!" he called, extending a hand. Three horses, two with saddles and one without, cantered into the gathering. "May these horses bear you to better fortune than their former masters. Farewell." He turned back to his own steed as the black horse without a saddle came up to her. She took the mare's reigns in her right hand and patted her snout. She had a white blaze upon her forehead, the rough shape of a crescent moon, and a sort of look in her eyes that reminded her of Minerva McGonagall.
"Look for your friends, but do not trust to hope. It has forsaken these lands. We ride North!" the man said.
As the horses and their riders left the group in the dust, Hermione felt a traitorous tear slip from her eyes. She blinked fiercely, trying to banish them all as she mounted Cúron.
"Are you sure bareback is how you wish to ride?" Legolas said as he helped Gimli up.
"It is how I have always preferred to ride. It's a lot smoother to me," she said, smirking.
They rode to the source of the column of smoke a lot faster than she would have liked, and when they reached the pile of burnt bodies, she was overwhelmed by the scent. She leapt down from Cúron's back and covered her mouth and nose slightly. Burning flesh never smelled good.
Gimli began to search through the wreckage with his axe, as Hermione leaned against Cúron, feeling the start of one of her dizzy spells.
"It's one of their wee belts," Gimli said. This came through the haze of shouts and screams playing in reverse in her mind.
"They live," she whispered. No one heard her. Another sound came through the haze. It was Aragorn, screaming in anguish, thinking Merry, Pippin, and Ginny dead.
"They are alive," she said, her voice a bit stronger. She began to move, her eyes open but not seeing that which was before her. Instead, she saw a nighttime battleground.
"They laid side-by-side, all three of them, Rosmir between Merry and Pippin, over there." She pointed vaguely in the direction. "Pippin barely escaped being trod by a horse.
"They crawled along, wrists bound together, until an Uruk was struck down in their path. Rosmir retrieved something from his corpse. It was her wand."
"This belongs to me, filth," Hermione heard her friend say, as if through a wall.
"She used her wand to sever the bonds holding the Hobbits' wrists together. You'll find them here." She nudged some grass with the toe of her left boot. "She crawled along while they walked, now ducking under horses, until she found an axe embedded into the ground. She used this to slice her own bonds. It should be right…here." She completed her statement when her boot struck upon metal.
"Into the forest, Pippin!" Merry shouted.
"They ran this way," she said, the battle turning into fog once more before it dissolved, "into this forest."
"The Forest of Fangorn," Aragorn said, much closer than she would have thought.
"Fangorn?" Gimli said. "What madness drove them in there?"
"A promise of refuge, most likely. An escape from their captors and from an unknown force that could be friend or foe," Hermione said, placing a light hand upon Gimli's back. "Rosmir would not lead Merry and Pippin into danger. Trust me on that, my friend. She is far smarter than she occasionally acts."
Hermione walked ahead of everyone else, trying to understand the feeling in the forest. Every once in a while, she'd jump at the sound of a tree groaning, but otherwise she was lost in her own swirling thoughts.
"Orc blood." Gimli's voice came through the filter of her thoughts. They started running again, hopping across a stream while Aragorn tried to make sense of what he saw.
"These are strange tracks," he said. Hermione knelt down to inspect what he saw. It was indeed strange.
"The air is so close in here."
"This forest is old," Legolas said. "Very old. Full of memory…and anger." Hermione stood, walked over to him, and placed a hand on his arm, very lightly.
The trees groaned again, and she heard Gimli raise his axe.
"The trees are speaking to each other," Legolas said, glancing at his female companion with the slightest of smirks before turning to look at Gimli. "They have feelings, my friend. The Elves began it. Waking up the trees, teaching them to speak."
"Talking trees," Gimli said in a skeptical tone. Hermione rolled her eyes. "What do trees have to talk about, besides the consistency of squirrel droppings?"
They continued walking, when suddenly Legolas said something to Aragorn in Sindarin. He replied, and finally Legolas said something in the common tongue.
"The White Wizard approaches."
Hermione tightened her grip upon her wand, thinking through a dozen spells before settling on what she would use.
"Do not let him speak," Aragorn said, "he will put a spell on us. We must be quick." He halfway drew his sword.
Legolas prepared an arrow to release against the villain.
As a group, they all spun around.
"Incarcerous!" Hermione shouted. A thick black rope flew from her wand tip, wrapping around the glowing white figure. But it dissolved into smoke after only a second. Legolas released his arrow, only to have it struck from the air. Gimli threw his axe, and the same thing happened. Aragorn's sort glowed red with flame, and the Man dropped it.
"You are tracking the footsteps of a young woman and two young Hobbits," the figure said. His voice was creepy.
"Where are they?" Aragorn shouted.
"They passed this way, the day before yesterday. They met someone they did not expect. Does that comfort you?"
"Who are you? Show yourself!"
The glowing white dimmed, and they say the White Wizard's face.
It was Gandalf.
"Forgive me," Legolas said, dropping to one knee with his head bowed. "I mistook you for Saruman."
"I am Saruman," Gandalf said, "Or rather, Saruman as he should have been."
"You fell."
Hermione closed her eyes and sat down, her mind far from where they five were, in a dark place filled with sorrow. She could see the sorrow; it was black and blue, the color of a severe bruise. She could focus on nothing; the sorrow confused her so deeply.
"One stage of your journey is over. Another begins," Gandalf said. The five were walking under the trees, leaping around a bit whenever it was needed. "We must travel to Edoras with all speed."
"Edoras? That is no short distance!"
"We hear of trouble in Rohan," Aragorn said. "It goes ill with the King."
"Yes, and it will not be easily cured."
"Then we have run all this way for nothing? How we can leave Merry, Pippin, and Rosmir in this horrid, dark, dank, tree-infested –"
Gimli's string of insults and complaint was cut short by the trees.
"I mean, charming…quite charming…forest."
"It was more than mere chance that brought our friends to Fangorn. A great power has been sleeping here for many long years. Their arrival will be like the falling of small stones that starts an avalanche in the mountains."
"In one thing you have not changed, dear friend," Aragorn said. Gandalf turned slightly to look at him. "You still speak in riddles."
The two shared a laugh. Hermione, in a mood to have a small competition, playfully punched Legolas's arm. The two, so distracted were they by their playing scuffle, did not notice that their companions were leaving until Gimli was nearly hidden by the trees. Hermione smacked Legolas over the back of the head and took off running. They were like two ten-year-old kids, carefree and wild at heart.
I kind of cut it off here. The introduction to Shadowfax kinda fell to the side, even though I had plans for the scene. Yes, Legolas is quite childish in my mind. He has every reason in the world to be!