AN: This is the chapter that earns this story its M warning. Please be aware that it is violent. I have toned this chapter down in comparison to the original, which you may find a link to on my author page. Again, I have done my best to make this chapter fit the TOS of this site and it is not explicit, but if for some reason The Powers That Be delete this story, then remember it is also posted on AO3 and the link is on my author page. I sincerely hope it is not deleted because I rewrote this chapter with the best intentions to tell a story without offending any readers!

Estel opened his bleary eyes groggily, certain that if he could only determine who was speaking, he would know where he was. What has happened? Stretching his fingers out, the Ranger realized that he lay on his side on the ground with his hands bound behind him.

Blinking rapidly to drive the haze from his thinking, the healer tried to identify the voice that inquired dolefully, "Are you with me? I know naught of healing, mate, so you'd better wake up if you want to live. Not that you'll live that much longer if Ament don't find the Elf. What were you thinking, Strider? Telling that one to run. Even I know the story of Ramlin and Ament's parents, and now, knowing who the Elf really is, you'd better hope that they find Ramlin before he kills it. You'd better wake up, mate, you need..."

Legolas. I hope he has escaped. The Ranger tuned out the inane exchange that the mercenary held one-sidedly. Jalian is telling me what I had better do? Great. Advice from a ruthless mercenary. Aragorn caught himself before groaning. I am back at the camp.

Finally, the healer spoke, interrupting Jalian's nervous discourse. "Untie me," Aragorn quietly entreated, breaking Jalian's rant.

With more kindness than the Ranger had expected, the disfigured mercenary explained, "Doran told us what happened, Strider. He told us you were freeing the Elf, and that you told it to run. He said Meika is dead." Jalian paused, and then asked, his soft voice suddenly hard with emotion and his hand fisted in the Ranger's sleeve, "Did you kill Meika?"

"I did not, I promise you." Strider did not expect the mercenary to believe him. I have been lying this whole time. He has no reason to have faith in me.

Surprisingly, Jalian released Aragorn's coat, sighing, "Of course not. You wanted to free the Elf, just like he did. Meika told me he heard you and it talking. Said you told it to leave that night but it wouldn't."

Strider listened in baffled alarm. Jalian also knew of this?

The mercenary continued, peering out into the night as he sat back on his haunches, "Said he would make it leave. Didn't like what Ramlin wanted to do to it." The glum man looked down at his hands, studying the shaking palms intently, while he quipped angrily, "Always was too soft, that one. Knew I wouldn't tell on him."

He is grieving, the healer thought, observing the ashen and quivering countenance of the human beside him.

"Jalian, you have to untie me." The Ranger held his tied hands out behind him for emphasis, disregarding the undulating ripples of agony this action caused in his arm and side.

The mercenary shook his hanging head, not bothering to look the healer in the eye. "Can't do it, Strider. Boss'll be back with the Elf soon. Just tell me what to do for you."

Strider tried again, "It is not worth this, Jalian. It wasn't to Meika." It was an undeserved blow to the man to use Meika against the sorrowful Jalian but Aragorn was desperate.

"Just tell me what to do for your arm," the mercenary repeated, raising his head to face the Ranger, his eyes squinting with firm decisiveness. It is worth it to him, apparently.

The young healer debated whether to press the matter further, wondering if Jalian might be persuaded; instead, as the mercenary aided him into sitting, a task that aggravated the wound in his side such that Aragorn inadvertently groaned lightly, he asked, "Why am I still alive if Ament knows that I tried to free the Elf?"

"You're the only one that knows healing. Ament said he'd need you if Ramlin caught it."

Its name, the healer thought rancorously, is Legolas. While the mercenary fetched the satchel of herbs and bandages that the Ranger never traveled without, Estel reflected on the complications further perplexing his and Legolas' circumstances. If they do not bring the Prince back, I am of no use to Ament. If they do bring him back, I fear in what condition he will be. I have become a liability: either way, one of us is dead immediately with the other soon to follow.

"Here." Jalian tossed the bag to Aragorn ere he remembered the man's hands were still tied. With a phantom smile, the mercenary stooped down, grabbed the satchel and opened it as he said, "Sorry. What do I need to do?"

He was not an expert tracker but he did not need to be, not with the silvery, claret drops of blood that splattered the foliage and forest floor that lead him in the direction of his brother and the Elf. The Prince has lost much blood to leave us such a trail as this. Ament hurried after Doran, who sped in front, his head darting back and forth in his effort not to miss any clues as to his friend and captive's whereabouts. The leader knew that Ramlin's actions were not his own, that he was acting only as he had been taught, as Ament had shaped him into being – this did not mean that he would not hold Ramlin accountable for his actions.

His thoughts turned to Strider and his supposed role in the Elf's flight. I've no doubt that Ramlin turned the situation to his advantage. The throbbing headache from the spider's poison had not yet left the leader, and each footstep's pain resounded throughout his mind like the sound of Oliphants dancing. With little time for the fang wounds in his leg to heal, Ament was further aggravated by the unceasing ache each footstep also afforded him. They were all warned. Each of them. If Strider has interfered, if he has become a liability, he will meet his end. The same goes for Doran, and my unruly sibling.

"Why do you stop?" Ament had nearly crashed into the man in front of him, having been too caught up in his thoughts to notice that Doran had ceased walking.

"I think we are going the wrong way, Ament. I can see the blood no longer with the moon behind the clouds. It is too dark."

Stifling the urge to strangle the mercenary with his bare hands, Ament merely growled in irritation. "Can you not see the footprints on the ground? Surely Ramlin has left them, if the Elf has not." The two searched the ground about them, losing precious moments that Ament knew could mean the difference between the fruition of his plans and the premature death of several disobedient mercenaries who were under his direction.

Leaning in to whisper in the Elf's ear, the mercenary promised, "Long have I desired to watch you bleed, to make you suffer, Thranduilion. You will pay the price for your father's misdeeds."

Ramlin delighted in the tremulous form under his body, the feeling of the Elf's weak resistance exciting him beyond any longing he had experienced prior to this moment of extreme resolution. He held the Prince's body tightly against the tree with his own and continued to whisper his vows of torture and grief that he intended to inflict upon the injured creature.

"Beg me for forgiveness and perhaps I will not wait too long ere I release you from your suffering... after, of course, I am through with you." With this, the mercenary tangled his hand in the Elf's hair, pulling the captive to face him. "Beg me, pretty."

The proud Elf's voice did not hesitate, nor did the nobility in his eyes waver, as he replied, "If I pay any price for the misdeeds you claim against my father, I do so unwillingly, for I do not doubt that your blame is misplaced, and I will not supplicate myself to a filthy human."

Ramlin was astonished at the Prince's resolve. He had not expected the Elf to surrender his dignity easily but he also did not anticipate the pretentiousness with which the Prince spoke. It is no matter. Nothing will stop me. I will watch the Elf draw his final breath broken and despairing.

"Fine, Elfling. Have it your way, although I assure you your way is much more painful." Removing Legolas' support in remaining upright by removing himself from the Elf's body, Ramlin grabbed his captive's neck, using it to sling the Prince to the forest floor. Legolas landed with a thud; he made as though to rise, but Ramlin viciously kicked the Elf back down with a well-placed boot to the stomach. Again, the Elf tried to gain his feet. Allowing his prey to move to his knees, the mercenary rammed his fist heartlessly into the bleeding, battered Prince's lower back, driving the Elf to the ground.

"You are weak, Princeling. You are no warrior. Perhaps living with the benefit of your father's ill begotten riches has made you soft," Ramlin taunted, circling his quarry.

Legolas did not try to rise, though he lifted his head from the ground, shook his blood matted and tangled flaxen hair from his eyes to glare at the mercenary, and retorted in a voice rough from the abuse of his throat, "Warriors fight with fealty. What comparison can be made when I am bound, weaponless and you have fidelity for none but riches?"

Incensed at the Elf's maddening response, the mercenary tackled the Prince, slamming the smaller figure into the leaf-strewn dirt as he straddled Legolas' chest. Panting heavily, unable to breathe, and ostensibly lightheaded from both this and the blood loss, the archer's eyes were closed in misery. "Don't die on me yet, pretty one. Not until we have had the chance to finish what we started the other day."

I need this. This is what Ament and I have wanted all along. The Elf Prince will die. I will have him, and then he will die.

Legolas strove to hide his increasing panic: as much as the circumstances were similar to the day before, there was no Strider to aid him, and the Elf held no optimism that the other mercenaries would find him before Ramlin had tortured him, excruciatingly slowly. His newly injured leg had become numb and his body ached with the pain of repeated beatings. However, the Elda's thoughts were not on his own safety but for Strider's; moreover, Legolas feared that with him and his human companion dead, there would be no warning to Eryn Galen of the coming danger Ament had planned, whatever plans these were. I have to find a way out of this. I will not die like this, not with my father and Eryn Galen in peril, not with Strider's safety unsure, and not at the hands of this madman.

Yet, the Elf could not seem to gather his wayward limbs as he pulled together his errant thoughts: too much had been inflicted upon him with too little time for recuperation. Ramlin's gaze was filled with his destructive appetite, and its only whetting would be Legolas, ruined and dying. Mercilessly, the foul human twisted the leash wrapped about the archer's wrists, yanking Legolas onto his side and then onto his stomach as the mercenary lifted himself from astride the Elf's chest, sitting on his captive's back. Legolas was face down in the carpet of leaves, twigs, and other forest debris, eyes still shut fast in his concentration to escape his terrifying predicament.

"Too bad I've not my pack with me. I have many toys I would have wished you to see." Ramlin's fingers dug into the Elf's maltreated body, across the smooth but bruised back and over his cracked ribs, the human's nails biting Legolas' flesh carelessly. He leant forward from his perch atop his captive's lower back, murmuring into the Prince's ear huskily, "Do not worry, Elfling, the most important toy I have remembered." Scraping his nails across the black-mottled, ivory skin once more, Ramlin scooted himself from his position and set about making the focus of his annihilation available.

Legolas shuddered in recollection of past events and fear of future ones. No, not like this. Not Ramlin. I cannot die this way. Picking his weary head from the ground, Legolas sought something, anything, hoping to find a rock, a sharp stick, whatever he could use to stop the unfolding events that threatened to drag him into hopelessness.

The sensation of the fetid human's hands on his flesh panicked the Elf into renewed struggle. He kicked uselessly outwards while rearing up, his futile efforts rewarded with another cruel punch to his ill-treated kidneys. He did not stop struggling. Ramlin paused in his pawing, and Legolas could hear the man's heavy breathing. Fraught with horror, the Elf continued his search for a suitable weapon even as he willed his tired body to move, to fight. Abruptly, Legolas' efforts were brought to a halt when Ramlin laid himself over the Elf, pressing the captive's body harshly to the ground and the air from his lungs.

"Do not fight it. I will destroy you either way, Thranduilion. You could well enjoy your last moments," Ramlin goaded, knowing that the Elf would do no such thing.

Legolas did not bother to reply but writhed under the heaviness, trying to free himself and keep himself aware. The lack of air was taking its toll on the archer's already faint disposition. At the moment, all Legolas wanted was respite from these dire circumstances, and he found himself despondent, almost desiring the gray haze that began to drift over his consciousness.

Not like this, please, Legolas, he beseeched himself, do not die like this. The Elf forced his slackening body into action, trying to pull away from the mercenary by plowing his hands into the soft dirt in front of him for leverage as he attempted to haul his hips from Ramlin's meaty grasp.

Legolas' hands grappled to find purchase on the forest floor but instead found an even greater ally. Above the groans of the human behind him, abusing him, and the victory song of the tainted trees, ecstatic to see the Elf hurt, and even the untainted trees' woeful song, Legolas could hear a single voice that seemed to emanate from within him, though the voice was not his. The arrow lies to the left, Legolas. Reach to the left. Unable to look down to see, the Prince trusted the advice instinctively, recognizing it as friend through the veil of abhorrence and torment that flooded his mind. The Elda fumbled through the branches, leaves, and soil to his left in search of the arrow he had pulled from his leg earlier, his only weapon then and his only chance now. His long, white fingers finally wrapped themselves around the blood-slicked shaft of the arrow.

Mightily, Ramlin snarled, releasing Legolas' tresses and both Elf and mercenary falling to the ground in an entangled heap. The man had defiled him but it did not matter to Legolas. He has taken nothing of importance, not when so many others are at stake, the Prince of Eryn Galen declared, using the last of his waning awareness to roll to his side, effectively rolling the entranced mercenary off him. Not bothering to stand, Legolas enveloped the arrow between his two hands, holding onto the shaft, arrowhead pointed towards the mercenary, who quivered, eyes closed in his completed rapture and obviously not thinking that the wounded Prince could attack him.

Throwing himself forward with all his capacity, Legolas watched impassively as the arrow broke the skin on the man's throat before it broke through the other side. The rich red blood spilled from the wound. Ramlin opened his eyes, his face lit with shock and his mouth sputtering the dark liquid of his final moments over his chin in rivulets that met with the sanguine fluid pouring from his pierced throat. The mercenary reached his hand out as if grab the Elf before him but Legolas moved backwards in agony, easily evading his attacker's grasp. Finally, when no more blood ran from the wound, Ramlin's eyes lost their light, his body ceased its twitching, and he fell back. The Prince merely watched, desiring to be sure that the mercenary's pleasure at the Wood-Elf's expense was his last.

Black tinged Legolas' vision. The immediate danger may have been resolved but his task was not over, so after finding a dagger in Ramlin's boot, the shaking Elf pulled himself to his feet. Strider. I must get Strider. Ignoring the desolation that ate away at his steadfastness to find his human benefactor, the Prince stumbled away from the clearing, his mind cluttered with unchecked fear and his heart breaking. Ada. Eryn Galen. Strider. I must move. I've no time for despair. He cut his binds as he walked. His legs quaking and his lower body aching, Legolas put the rising sun to his back, hoping he was traveling in the right direction as he began to sprint recklessly back to the encampment, to Strider.

Tirn watched Elladan stroke his brother's hair helplessly. They had slowed their gallop into a trot when Elrohir had begun to thrash in his twin's arms, flailing his limbs, and muttering to himself. Neither Elf had been able to ascertain what Elrohir had been saying but both listened intently anyway, afraid to miss an important bit of information that the sleeping Noldo may give them. Not able to take the silence any longer, Tirn asked, "The sun rises. Do you think we are too late?" Elladan did not answer but acknowledged the sentry's question with a morose frown.

"...left, Legolas. Reach to the left."

The two sentient Elves started at the sudden clarity of Elrohir's ramblings, and both nearly jumped from their skins when the slumbering Elf suddenly awoke, trying to bring himself to a sitting position in the awkward space left on Elladan's overburdened horse. "Hold, brother," Elladan ordered gently, "Be still a moment."

Elrohir either did not hear his twin or did not care to acquiesce, for he sat upright, glancing wildly about him. "What has happened?"

"You were sleeping, muindor, be still, please, else you will knock us..."

"Where is Legolas?" Elrohir interrupted as he fell gracefully from the moving steed, while his companions reigned in their mounts in confused exasperation, dismounting, also.

"Legolas? We know not, Lord Elrohir."

"We have to reach him before he reaches their camp. He is grievously injured. He will not survive long, though he tries to return for Estel. If he returns to their camp they may both be lost to us." The Elven Lord climbed atop his horse, not waiting for his brother and the Mirkwood guard to do so also ere he kicked his horse into motion, making towards the rising sun in the east.

With only a moment's pause to glare at the receding, inscrutable figure leaving them behind, Tirn and Elladan remounted, shooting each other a shared look of vexation before following suit.

"Ament, look." Doran stood still, his hand outstretched, pointing to a clearing just beyond their current position. Astonishment and bereavement, it seemed to Ament, painted the mercenary's bearded visage.

Lacking Doran's height, Ament could not see over the tall underbrush of thistles that blocked him from seeing what his lackey saw: he strode through it, heedless of the pricks of the thorns. The sight that met him drove him to his knees.

Ramlin lay in a pool of his own blood, the fletching of Doran's arrow barely visible above his brother's throat as the shaft had been pushed so deeply in the flesh that the greater part of it laid on the opposite side of the wound's origin. Ramlin's mouth lay open, another pool of blood within, and his eyes were unfocused. Little else could be seen in the clearing, save for trampled scrub and his brother's footprints.

The Elf has done this. Once again, the royalty of Mirkwood has robbed me of my family.

In some sane part of Ament's mind, a part whose advice was not often regarded anymore, the leader realized he had been looking for his sibling with the full intention of killing him for his insolence; however, now that the choice had been taken from him, now that the Elf was responsible, Ament's crazed ire knew no bounds. He leapt up from his knees, turning from the gory view to Doran, who stared, still standing quietly, his blond hair falling forwards as he wiped the tears from his dirtied face.

"They will pay, Doran. We will make them all pay. If it takes the rest of our lives." The mercenary nodded absently, following behind his leader as he searched for the path the fleeing Prince had taken. Ament exuded intense hatred, his desire for revenge again taking hold over him, forcing him from his grief as it had long ago.

The Elf will pay. As will all of them.