Author's note:
Sorry for the delay, it's been a hectic summer, though you probably don't want to know about that. Anyway, I've made a few changes in the beginning part of the story which I shall list here for those who'd read it before August 26th:
Daven is now the Prince of Gondor, and all that entails. He is Aragorn's son, a topic I won't explain until the next chapter. I originally had planned for "Prince of Dol Amroth" to be like "Prince of Wales" is today, but I was convinced this was both unnecessary and idiotic. (Yes, Aragorn's canon-sons still exist, I just made up a new character… so don't riot just yet…)
Also: please let your mind wander on the fact that he's 22, and Aragorn has only been married for 15 years…
Remember to Write that Review,
Neohtan the Wise (Slayer of dragons and all the jazz)
8
Alethorn awoke in a stir, his head pounding ferociously, his limbs bound tight to the all-inclusive strands of webbing that trapped him in the spider's grip. Struggle was, as he'd learned, out of the question. Death was only moments away, and those last few minutes of life were quickly becoming a period of anxious fidgeting while he waited for his executioner to descend the sheer rock face he was bound to and have his entrails for supper.
He thrashed his head suddenly, a slight whimper escaping his lips as he tried and failed to ignore his current situation. Any attempts to escape the web would cause it to constrict still tighter, until finally parts began to go numb from the loss of circulation. Breathing was all the more difficult as the white ropes wrapped themselves around his chest and squeezed.
"Shhh…" a voice whispered, just a few feet off to the right.
"What?" Alex managed to gasp, his eyes perpetually widened as he forced himself to not look down at the hundreds-foot long descent into blackness that greeted a potential escapee. Up against the wall indeed.
"She'll hear you. I've been watching. They can feel the movements in the web. You want another shot of venom? Go right ahead, but don't drag me down with you."
Alex groaned, his mouth felt like it was filled his lead, his eyes as if they had been sucked dry. Every muscle in his body writhed in pain and screamed to be left alone.
"Like I said, shut up. You move, you die. They can't see well but they make up for it with the feelers."
"W-who are you?" Alex ventured, careful not to sneeze, the web had a strange, itchy quality to it.
The voice, apparently emanating from a bound lump of scarcely recognizable white coils, seemed to pause, "My name is Elhokar, son of Yevenarr, Knight of the Order of the Eternal Light. My job," Alex's fellow prey chuckled harshly, "was to bring you in."
Before Alex could reply, however, both prisoners froze at a harsh clang resounding from above, followed by a brief spurt of muffled cursing. Footsteps, very… human footsteps rang along a presumed passageway, before dissipating into nothingness with an indecipherable parting note.
Alex strained once more at the slight quivering in the web as someone… or something made their way downwards, finally reaching the area just above his face, a sharp metallic glint thrusting downwards towards his exposed flesh…
"Right, there you go. Vistaar has the big'un running ropes down there but gods only know how long that'll keep up so we've got to move fast…"
Alex blinked, his mind doing flip flops… am I dead?
"No, but near to it, would've been nothin' but a lump of meat if we'd stopped for that ale break I was asking for, good thing for you Vistaar wanted another check at the stacks."
Alex gasped as the webs began to peel away, every thread cut by the stranger's knife leaving him another to breath in, his chest filling with the stale but still welcome air of the cavern.
He furrowed his brow, the dark picture of his prison coming together all too slowly. He gasped, suddenly, as he recognized the face hovering above him.
"… Spike?"
The stranger grinned, "The very same. Feeling dizzy?" Spike asked, lifting Alex bodily out of his deadly cocoon onto his broad back.
Alex didn't need to answer; his head felt like a cave troll was using it for a footrest.
"Shit," the bandit muttered, "we gots to get you out of here fast, got you with the bloody stinger, she did…" he paused, shifting position on the cliff face so that Alex was thrown backwards, his stomach lurching as he was given a full view of the terrible drop below. He gulped, suppressing the urge to wretch. Stretching for what seemed like miles were thousands upon thousands of faint, white blobs, cocoons much like his own, suspended from stalactites, hanging from the walls, draped over formations as tall as a Fangorn Ent. His breath quickened, a sickening feeling descending over him as he was reminded in force of the precarious nature of his position. One slip of his "rescuer's" hand and he'd never see the sunlight again.
"Hello? Kid?" The gruff voice grumbled.
"Hunh?" Alex blinked, shocked back to reality after his near-fatal reminder of gravity.
"He alive?"
Alex nodded, his wide eyes still riveted on a spider chomping down into a nearby trap with gusto, each bite kicking up whimpers from its helpless meal who thrashed with ever-weakening blows until finally lying still. The moans stopped shortly after.
"Alright," Spike thrust out a pair of black gloves, the palm sides studded with iron bolts, "wear these, it'll keep you from getting stuck."
Alex nodded again; his jaw set as he gingerly slid the instruments on, trying to keep the thought of a slippery slope to certain doom at the back of his mind.
The few minutes it took to release Elhokar seemed an eternity. All the while his arms quaked, his vision swam and his limbs seemed to dance furiously, every movement a sick game of hit or miss as they stuttered back and forth, seemingly deaf to the commands he attempted to give them.
"You alright to climb?" The big man asked, "this one's near killed, and I can't 'old two of you so…"
Alex gave a weak grin in the affirmative, his fears reflected in the eyes of his rescuer, who hefted the now-limp Elhokar on his back.
It was hell, pure and simple. Hell. Every fiber of his body straining, Alex hauled himself up what seemed an eternity of sheer rock faces, hand over hand, sweating like a stuck pig despite the cold, his teeth gritted, his sight still trying to configure itself before giving up completely and letting him do the work with his hands. His "vision" as it could be called, seemed to throb, an ever-shrinking halo of clarity surrounded by a pulsing cloud of grey smudge, each beat sending electric pain racing through his skull. Yes, an eternity it was before he reached the top, a sightless purgatory punctuated only by the sharp grunts of Spike below and the menacing aura of pain that nearly knocked him from his tenuous grasp on the cliffside, every moment things getting foggier and foggier…
Finally, blessedly, he felt a hand grab his wrist, tugging his limp body up over the side of the wall onto hard stone, the distorted notes of a whispered conversation barely audible over a frightening but barely noticed rush of white noise.
"Godsdammit he's slipping too fast!" A voice cried, invisible hands gripping Alex and hefting him high, barbed tips of pain raking his skull once more.
"She's coming soon; I'm not sure whether the guard can hold her off for long…."
"Stay with me…. Stay with me…"
And all was lost to blackness.
He awoke in a blur, his head pounding, his tongue weighted like lead. He felt around for a moment, fingers groping through a wall of impenetrable dark, grasping something… something soft…
"It's a miracle you survived," a deep, raspy voice called, "Most are nothing but sacks of meat after taking that many stings," a sigh, short and to the point, "but then again, you aren't exactly most are you?"
"Wha-?" Alex mumbled, almost automatically sitting up, his eyesight still a meaningless blur.
"I told you to keep to the right." Another voice said, familiar somehow, made harsh with concern.
No, Alex thought, fear.
Suddenly, the picture before him cleared. He was half lying down, he gathered, on a cot of some kind, stuffed into a dark recess that smelled of "hospital" but felt more like a servant's closet. His sheets, he realized, were soaked in blood and pus.
"Who-?" He started, the alien muscles in his mouth conveying his words sloppily at best.
"Are we?" The familiar voice finished his sentence. With a start, Alex recognized the speaker. It was the man who'd saved him from the raid. And beside him, arms folded across his broad chest, sat a hooded figure, obscured not only by the absence of light, but it's opposite. Sitting in what a Peacekeeper might call true darkness. Light, that is, that wasn't light. A shadow that seemed to radiate from the cloak as if from a miniature sun.
The familiar man, or at least, the thing that Alex recognized as human, gave the shadow a long, searching look. The shadow nodded silently. The man, taking his que, fell to his knees and bowed low before the sodden cot.
"My Lord- Heart of the Shadow- King of Mordor- son of Our Eternal Lord Sauron son of the God Melkor- Breaker of Elven Kind. I pledge fealty to you, that I will serve until the last breath of myself, my loved ones, and my clients, so that my every endeavor shall be aimed toward the greater good of the Shadow and the Great Eye- that in accord to our Laws I will defend My Lord to the last, pledge Him above myself-above everything I hold dear- so that My Lord might do the same. I swear upon all Gods and the Holiest Center of the Shadow, for I am Nazgûl, I am the Sword of the Shadow."
Alex's jaw dropped. For a moment, he could only stare, his mind ground to a halt by the sudden impossibility of the declaration he'd witnessed. The thought "this has to be a dream" was miles away. The process of thinking it was focused to a point on the kneeling figure who'd just lifted his head from the floor.
"M-my Lord. Before you bid me rise, I must ask humbly for a boon." The shadow turned sharply, as if to say damn you're impertinence! You have just taken you're oath! But the man on the floor stood firm, his piercing blue eyes fixed on the dumbstruck Alex.
"A-anything…" Alex stammered, shocking himself that he possessed the power to speak.
"Deliver us My Lord. Make good your father's promise. Let Mordor Rise again."
The shadow strode through corridors of hewn rock, a silent tune hummed on long-dead lips. His sword floated conspicuously at his side, his slow, even gate making even the most stout-hearted quiver with fear.
Ah, sweet Deliverance, he thought, Kihmul was right after all. The boy is a whelp, but even a whelp can become a great warrior in time. It is all in His hands now.
He shrugged, or as much as the dead could shrug, his bony fingers clasping the hilt of his hallowed blade. A tremor of excitement, an emotion he thought long buried, swept through him. It is not over after all. Our efforts have not been in vain.
He paused at a short, barred doorway. The two Orcs positioned on either side of the entrance, a sad reminder of the once mighty Morrannon Guard, stood to attention with a hard-bitten slap of Halberds on plate armor.
"My Lord?" One of them acknowledged, his harsh mouth butchering Mordor's native tongue. Orc's always sounded so… barbaric. Another shrug, it was a wonder they were able to speak the ancient form of Elvish at all.
"How is our… guest." He asked, the words devoid of emotion.
"Hasn't said a word My Lord." The guard replied, the inevitable subtext clear: can we eat him when you're finished?
The Nazgûl sighed inwardly. Despite the popular image, humans were not the chosen prey of Orcs; in fact, from what he'd heard, most of the foul creatures believed they tasted like shit. But, then again, desperate times called for desperate measures. At least it was better than the cannibalism displayed by the Uruk-Hai; those horrendous freaks of nature the Dread Wizard had created.
"Let me see him," The Lord of the Nine spoke, the two creatures nodding in both assent and dismay. Eight now, he thought, the pained memory of his brother and Lord kicking up the embers of his fury. There could be no mercy, he though, not in an age of fire such as this.
"Come, Elhokar, son of Yevenarr, let me see your soul."
For the Heir of Mordor had come, and the Great Defilers would pay for their sins.