The War of Light and Shadow

By Freddie23

Disclaimer: I own nothing Tolkien created.

OIOI

A/N: Please review. They spur me on and help me whenever I get stuck on this story.

Thanks to everyone who already has left a review and added me to their Favourites/Alerts.

Warning: Mentions of abuse, torture and cannibalism in this chapter.

OIOI

Chapter 8 – The Bitter Taste of Freedom

TWO DAYS LATER…

Aragorn was hungry. And hot. And tired. And his feet hurt. Heat pounded on him mercilessly from the overcast sky and rose from the parched, dusty ground beneath his feet. His body was glistening with sticky sweat and had already consumed almost all of the water contained within the two canteens in his bag.

As he reached for one of the almost dry flasks, he, not for the first time since leaving, wondered about Legolas and if the Elf had found water in his absence. A pang of guilt shot through him for taking all the water without so much as thinking of his guardian. Of course Legolas could take care of himself but Aragorn found that he still worried. It had only been two days but he had to admit that he already missed the Elf.

No, he shook his head firmly, taking a gulp of the warm, stale water. This had been his choice and he still believed that he had chosen correctly.

Aragorn's confidence was momentarily shaken in his decision as he lost his footing and tripped on a rock in his path, falling flat on his face to the ground, the opened canteen spilling from his hand, leeching its precious contents into the dry and dusty earth.

"No!" Aragorn exclaimed, grasping for the flask, only to discover that only very little water remained inside anymore.

Certainly he could live without Legolas – but not without water.

Dragging himself up off the hot earth, Aragorn angrily shoved the nearly empty flask back into his bag and looked around himself. He had to find a river or stream to replenish his supply. So much for resting for the night. He could not afford to pause without plentiful water. There must have been a river somewhere nearby, he reasoned.

With a twinge of sorrow, Aragorn realised that although he often went without food, Legolas never let him go without water. There had always been enough to sustain them even when the world was in the midst of a drought, as it seemed to be now. Never before had Aragorn questioned or even wondered how his guardian had always provided for him from the barren land. Now, on his own, he wished he had paid better attention.

Aragorn walked well into the night in search of the elusive river he hoped to be nearby, although in the dark he could see next to nothing. Legolas' eyesight was infinitely better than his own and Aragorn always thought that the Elf took some delight in making him walk nearly blind during the dark hours whilst he remained almost completely unbothered by it. Personally, he had never liked the dark very much. His mind too easily played tricks on him in the shadows.

Alone, this darkness was even harder to bear.

Stumbling onwards despite his irrational fears, Aragorn sought the water he desperately needed in order to continue his solitary journey. The falling of night had so far done very little to ease the soaring temperatures that had smothered the daylight hours and already he was sweating and thirsty again.

The ground under his feet was becoming more and more uneven and he tripped again, falling to his knees with an exclamation of annoyance.

"Damn," he repeated the word he'd heard often Legolas use when things were not going his way.

Scrambling to his feet, Aragorn dusted himself down and regained his bearings. He looked upwards to the black sky, unsurprised that if offered him no help with anything at all.

"Alright," he muttered to himself to spur himself onwards.

Taking more care over where he placed his feet, Aragorn started walking again but it was not long before he was once again thwarted by the rugged ground and he fell. This time, instead of climbing to his feet, he merely sat up straight, finally admitting defeat and deciding that he would give up on this impossible search for the night.

From his bag he pulled out the blanket he had taken from Legolas and laid down on the ground, wrapping the thin cloth around his body for comfort even through the heat. He firmly closed his eyes and tried to sleep but found that he couldn't. His mind still spun in the wake of his argument with his companion as it always did when he was forced to sit still, unable to work off his tense energy. Despite all his bottled-up anger at Legolas previously vented, Aragorn now just felt a kind of dejected regret at the unthinking words that had been exchanged between them in the heat of the moment.

The night dragged onwards and brought him little peace. So, before the first grey light of dawn, he threw his blanket off and shoved it, unfolded, into his bag.

Trudging through the dark landscape, sweating even in the night, which had yet to cool off much, Aragorn felt thoroughly miserable. His hunger had grown impossible to ignore and his mouth was too dry to speak.

It wasn't long before his tired, shuffling feet tripped over something again but this time he managed to catch himself with his outstretched hands before falling on his face. His hands scraped against the rough rocky ground and he hissed in pain when they came up scraped. Dusting himself off, Aragorn looked around himself.

The cry that his throat would have previously been too dry to create now poured from his lips before he even had a chance to consider that it might not have been the wisest idea to make a lot of noise. He frantically scrambled back away from what he – due to horrifying previous experience - easily recognised as being a warning placed on the ground by the murderous Wild Men that roamed around the road.

Panic rose in him and threatened to overwhelm. Desperately, he struggled to his feet and tried to run, even as he was tripping indelicately over his own boots. He remembered all too well the horror of the last time he had unwittingly stumbled upon the territory of the unstable, cannibalistic monsters born of Men and he didn't want to run into that kind of trouble again, not when he was all on his own in the world.

So he ran. Or tried to.

Stumbling through the darkness, Aragorn tried to force his weak legs to move faster in his desperation.

Flashes of the last time he'd come upon such a place came to his mind, blinding him to the present through fear.

The present, however, came suddenly – and painfully – back to him. Vice-like jaws snapped around his ankle, toppling him over with a yelp of surprise followed by a howl of sheer agony as sharp teeth bit into his flesh. His mind could not process what had happened through the intense pain, until, that was, he tried to struggle free and found himself trapped. His ankle was caught in a huge, rusty trap. With shaking hands, Aragorn reached down to touch the iron jaws, recoiling at the pain that shot up his leg. There was no blood, which surprised him; he would have thought that the blood should be leeching from him, the pain was so great and dizziness assailed him, although he considered this could be from shock rather than sudden blood-loss.

Whimpering, he curled stiff fingers around the top of the cold contraption with the intention of perhaps prising its jaws open but it would not budge and even the minute movement shot red hot pain all the way up his leg.

Tears rolled down his face as realisation kicked in. He was caught in a trap in the middle of the territory claimed by cannibalistic madmen.

As terror and nausea mingled dizzyingly, Aragorn's panicked mind screamed only one thing, which his mouth translated soon after.

"Legolas!"

OIOI

Pain tugged and pulled at Aragorn's awareness although in his hazy state he couldn't quite accurately pinpoint where the pain was coming from. It shot up his right leg and all the way across his right side, the source difficult to determine. A moan of discomfort slipped from his parched lips as he became more coherent. Cracking his eyes open with great effort, Aragorn realised that it had become lighter. Night had turned into day in the few minutes since he'd closed his eyes.

Despite the heat that pounded on him from all angles, Aragorn shuddered. The ground was hot and hard beneath him but when he tried to drag himself up to ease his discomfort, white hot agony shot up his right leg and he cried out, suddenly reminded of the cruel device holding him.

Now once more wide awake, Aragorn realised that he had been unconscious for all that had remained of the night. He couldn't tell what time of the day it was, but that he had wasted so much time already made panic stab through his chest again.

Once more, he tried to prise the trap open with his hands, which were already aching and bloody from his previous desperate efforts. Fresh blood was now also starting to seep from between the jaws clamped unyieldingly onto his ankle. Through the frenzy of renewed fear that bombarded his mind he wondered how much blood he would have to lose before he passed out again, leaving him once more completely vulnerable.

"Help! Help me! Legolas! Please," he cried despairingly.

A small, sensible part of his mind remembered that all the grisly warnings impaled in the ground around him, which had become visible in the daylight, meant that he was in the lair of madness and he should not attract said madness towards himself. But the other, more frantic, part of him just didn't care. He couldn't get himself free. He needed help.

"Legolas! Help me."

His voice was loud to him but it had been days since he had left Legolas on the Old Forest Road and he was probably far too far away for even the Elven ears to hear his cries.

Tears of desperation rolled down his cheeks as he continued to yell for help.

His cries stopped suddenly when he heard pounding footsteps coming towards him.

Within moments, filthy, angry faces covered in what seemed to be a kind of foul war paint, came into view. Men wielding all kinds of weaponry rushed towards him, surrounding him.

Fear overcame pain as the crazed Wild Men raced towards him and Aragorn clawed at bruised and bloody flesh in an attempt to get the trap off his leg. He felt skin and flesh rip and tear but the jaws remained stubbornly tight around his ankle.

The Men came to a sudden halt when they realised that the intruder remained trapped.

"Well, well, what have we got here?" one of the Men laughed, slinging his sword carelessly against his shoulder as he stepped over – or rather sauntered over – to Aragorn. "Looks like we've trapped an animal for supper at last."

The other men laughed and Aragorn struggled even harder to get free even though it was proving so far impossible.

"There's no use in squirming, boy. That snare's designed to hold stronger prey than you."

'Prey'. He was prey for them. Legolas' words from years ago when he'd explained what the Wild Men were capable of filled his mind and he cried out the Elf's name again.

"Scream all you like; it won't get you anything." The tall man turned to the others – about a dozen in total – and told them, "Start a fire and sort through the day's hoard."

"Help!" Aragorn screamed, futilely trying to get away.

Chuckling, the man crouched down and tapped the metal jaws of the trap gripping Aragorn's ankle, examining the red blood that came off on his fingers. "Well, aren't you a feisty thing." His fingers moved up to Aragorn's leg and the young man felt nausea rise in his stomach when he saw the hungry light gleaming in the man's dark brown eyes. Hungry for what though was what truly terrified him.

"Don't touch me," he growled out, wincing inwardly when it came out as more of a whimper.

"Ohh, little butterfly, don't get angry with me," the foul man laughed. The roaming fingers reached over and scraped down Aragorn's cheek. Then the man leaned into him, his face just inches from Aragorn's own. "You're in my net now and there is no escape."

This time Aragorn did actually gag as he felt the man's hot, putrid breath against his cheek. He smelled of sickeningly sweet decay. Black teeth, chipped and broken, grinned at him; long, lank hair brushed against his shoulder.

"Leave me alone," Aragorn choked out thickly.

"You should mind your mouth, boy," the filthy man said, his mood changing in an instant. Long, black fingernails, cracked and chipped, now dug into Aragorn's cheek.

"Legolas!" Aragorn cried out as loud as he could.

"Shut up!" The man reached into the pocket of his jacket and whipped out a filthy rag, which he balled up and stuffed into Aragorn's mouth. Then he grabbed Aragorn's hands and bound them with a blood-soaked length of rope from his belt behind his back. Patting Aragorn's cheek once he was bound up, the man smiled tightly. "Be good now."

With the same, horrible smile, the man climbed to his feet with a grunt. He strutted over to his fellows and Aragorn did not dare take his eyes off them, wide as they were through his terror.

Already the men had built up a fire from wood they carried on their packs and had lit it in the most fumbling way Aragorn could imagine possible and were now gathered about it. Two more men emerged then, between them carrying a long, bulky object wrapped in a thin brown blanket, stained with Aragorn didn't want to know what. It couldn't have been too heavy as they didn't seem to struggle with its weight, although it made a loud thud when dropped to the dry ground not far from Aragorn. The young captive flinched at the sickening crack the bulk made.

In all the years they had travelled together, Aragorn had never seen Legolas catch anything near this big. Perhaps these Men had managed to trap a deer, Aragorn considered hopefully. It was indeed a wishful thought, one which was proven horribly incorrect when one of the Men ripped the blanket off their kill.

Aragorn retched against his disgusting gag when he saw the naked, wasted body of an old woman laid on the ground near him her chest split open, no blood spilling from the cavity. Milky-filmed, dead eyes stared unseeingly at up him, a thin-lipped mouth gaped at him, inside a sickening shade of black – the body was rotten already.

The sound of his gagging attracted towards him the attention of one of the sweating, newly arrived men.

"What is this?" he asked curiously, flashing his own nearly toothless smile in appreciation.

"Leave it alone," the long-haired man, who was clearly their leader, snapped from next to the fire.

"Did you catch it?"

"No, he got caught by the trap."

"Ha!" the younger man exclaimed excitedly. "I told you that thing would be of use one day. Didn't I tell you?"

"Shut up."

"Can we have him instead?" He kicked at the dead woman on the ground. "I reckon this thing is rotten to the core."

"No. Leave it alone."

"But…"

"Would you stop complaining? Hurry up and prepare the food," their leader commanded angrily.

"Hey, we hauled the thing all the way over here," the second man, who'd carried the woman moaned.

"Yeah, and now you can finish the job," the long-haired man told them, throwing a machete-like knife onto the ground near them,

With a sigh, the impatient youth who still looked hungrily at the trapped Aragorn, bent down to retrieve the dull knife. Gazing almost longingly at the boy, he ran his thumb along the seemingly dull blade, grinning at Aragorn as he did so.

Unable to do anything else in his ensnared state, Aragorn merely glared at the man, who couldn't have been much older than him.

"Hey! Get on with it," the leader barked.

"Fine," the youth retorted, turning from Aragorn and crouching down next to the woman.

Aragorn desperately wanted to look away as the men hacked indifferently at the grey corpse, first stripping it of any meaningful flesh, then removing the head, arms and legs, throwing them along with all the other useless parts in a separate pile. That same terrified, morbid curiosity that had pinned him to the spot six years ago in that gruesomely decorated copse of trees now kept his eyes fixed upon the gore that splattered the now sodden soil just feet from where he sat still held painfully in the rusty trap.

The poor, wasted woman was far beyond pain but Aragorn still felt empathy towards her. She did not deserve death – and even if she had, surely no one deserved this cruel fate.

What terrified Aragorn more though was the thought that he could very well be next. Hungry, maddened eyes stared at him from the fire where already parts of the woman were being cooked on a spit. He was in far better condition than the emaciated body the men were currently cleaving up, surely they would not wait long before preparing their next meal.

Once the two men were done with the woman, they joined the others by the fire, carrying the remaining slivers of flesh in bloodied hands, uncaring of the gruesome sight it presented. Aragorn was left alone, bound, gagged and trapped on the edge of their grim campsite.

He stared blankly with tears running freely down his face at the grisly remains of the woman. He recalled Legolas trying to explain to him after that horrible day amongst the trees but he hadn't really wanted to know back then and he had given the whole subject of Men consuming Men as little thought as he possibly could. But there was no escaping this. This wasn't a no-holds-barred cautionary tale told by his mentor in the darkness of night. This was real. The cruel trap on his leg was impossible to get out of and now he was all alone. There was no one to rescue him, no one to help him.

"Hungry?" the leader of the madmen called from where the Men had gathered around the fire. When Aragorn turned his gaze towards the flames, the leader, having shed his shirt to reveal a quite full form, held out in a filthy hand a rare piece of cooked meat.

The mere thought of consuming human flesh made Aragorn gag again and he turned his head away from the sight of the men eating greedily of their kill. Laughing rowdily at the reaction, the men turned back to their food, unfazed it seemed by its source. Aragorn wondered how long ago they had been like this and supposed it must have been some time for them to be so nonchalant about killing and eating their own kind.

The smell of cooking meat wafting in his direction was also sickening and he fought desperately against the rising nausea, forcing it down. Tears fell unchecked down his cheeks. The pain in his leg was getting worse by the second as the adrenaline of the Men's return began to wear off and he found himself growing increasingly tired, probably from the blood loss, he reasoned. He wondered how much longer he had to live; when the Men would dispose of him. Would they do it right away or were they full from their current meal? He didn't know which he feared more – dying soon or hanging around, perhaps bleeding to death.

"What have we got here, then?" the leader startled Aragorn from his thoughts.

The dirty man was crouched next to him, apparently finished eating his macabre supper, with Aragorn's bag in his hand. He had forgotten all about that. Not that it would have helped his current predicament much; when he had left Legolas three days ago, he hadn't thought to pick up his dagger and it was Legolas' pack that contained all the weapons, at the Elf's over-protective insistence.

"Huh, interesting," the man muttered as he tipped the bag's contents out onto the cracked earth just out of Aragorn's reach to examine. Immediately, the leader of the madmen picked out the flask and shook it to check its contents. "Useless," he announced when he realised there was no water inside, throwing the canteen aside carelessly. "Ah, excellent." He laid out the spare blanket that Aragorn carried – Legolas' blanket. "And what have we here?"

Aragorn looked up at the curious question and saw the man's blackened, greasy fingers examining a small, battered leather pouch. His already erratic heartbeat sped up and he shook his head fervently.

"What is this? Important to you, is it?"

The man pulled the delicate strings apart and peered inside. With a frown, he picked a small, golden ring attached to a dull metal chain out of the bag.

"Hm." The man turned the golden ring around in his fingers, unimpressed. "Gold is worthless compared to you, boy." Nevertheless, he crammed the trinket back into the small pouch and stuffed that into the pocket of his tattered trousers.

"This, however…" The man held up the thick jacket, in which the pouch had been carefully hidden by Aragorn inside the pocket; that Legolas had one day returned with, never telling Aragorn where he had gotten it from.

The man tried the jacket on despite the heat. It was too small for him and yet he looked pleased with the find.

"Nice," he complimented himself. "Now, what to do with you…."

Panic raced through Aragorn's heart again. Was he going to die now?

"My friends all want you, you know?" he said, drawing a knife from the belt holding up poorly fitting trousers. It gleamed slightly in the firelight. In the flickering light cast by the flames, the man looked even more sinister and Aragorn tried desperately not to look at the grisly pile of human remains close to him, which soon he may be added to. "But I think that we should wait a while." He trailed the tip of the knife up Aragorn's leg, coming to rest at the top of his thigh.

That hungry gleam was back in his eyes and it had nothing to do with food. Aragorn wondered if death was preferable in this case.

"You are such a pretty thing. It seems a shame to waste you."

Aragorn mumbled, "Please," through his gag but it was so muffled it was unintelligible.

The man laughed but made no move to remove the gag. He moved the knife up further, lingering with a gappy smile at his groin, and then moved all the way up to his chest.

"Well fed, aren't you? How does an innocent like you stay so plump?"

Aragorn wondered if he should tell this crazed man that he was not alone, that he had a friend nearby, fully armed and dangerous and that he could come for him at any moment. Several factors prevented this, however. Firstly, he was gagged and unable to speak. And second, he didn't want the Men to actually start searching about for Legolas. The thought that the Elf might get caught as well frightened Aragorn and tears pooled in his eyes again.

Shrugging off his own question, the man trailed his fingers across Aragorn's cheek, gripping hard when the young man tried to escape him.

"Don't fight me, boy," the man growled through gritted, rotten teeth.

As Aragorn stilled at the warning, the man smiled again, shifting so close that Aragorn felt hot, rancid breath waft nauseatingly across his face. Aragorn looked desperately around himself, looking for some way of escape, something to get the man off him. However, nothing was nearby to aid him; only the remains of the woman, serving as a reminder of his own eventual fate once the leader of this band of madmen was finished with him. The Men around the fire were watching their companion with equally hungry eyes, thrilled by what they obviously knew was coming. They were excited and this only served to intensify Aragorn's terror.

"You are so very young. So very…beautiful." Hot lips were pressed to the edge of Aragorn's own lips and he closed his eyes with a whimper. "Yes, cry for me," the man breathed huskily.

The pain in his torn leg paled into insignificance through his overwhelming ice-cold fear. He wanted to scream for help even though there were no friendly ears around to hear, but the gag filling his mouth prevented much more than a whimper escaping his throat. Tears ran freely down his face as greedy hands roamed over his untouched body, his only protest against what was happening to him. He couldn't scream for help, he couldn't even struggle free from the man's grasp as he remained secured in the horrible contraption on his leg. He clenched his eyes tightly shut in revulsion as those filthy, groping hands wandered back down to his groin, seeking pleasure from the child.

"Please no," Aragorn whined through his gag. He may have been an innocent but he knew instinctively what was coming and he feared it beyond all else.

"Oh, yes," the man breathed in ecstasy, groping madly at the young, innocent man who squirmed deliciously beneath him.

"No."

As a rough hand desperately cupped him, Aragorn felt the man's own desire pressing hotly against his trembling body. He longed to escape from this thing worse than any nightmare he could have conjured. He willed himself to ignore the touches, to pretend this wasn't happening although he failed miserably.

"Yes, my boy, you go ahead and…"

The man stopped suddenly in his actions and Aragorn's eyes shot open when there was a sudden, unfamiliar whooshing sound, followed by a soft thump – obviously the cause of the man's pausing. Then, stunned shouts echoed around as the other men jumped up from their places, staring in wide-eyed amazement at their dead companion, face down on the ground with a roughly hewn arrow protruding from his back.

To Be Continued…