Elrohir had crawled free from the tunnel's exit to see his twin and human brother lying motionless on the ground; he had promptly forgotten all the many years of training he had undergone in healing, for nothing could have prepared him for his panic at seeing both his brothers unconscious, bleeding, and seemingly dead. His recreant skills had returned when he had seen the hilt of a dagger obtruding from the Ranger's chest, and he had ran across the clearing, forgetting his intent to question Legolas, who had quickly disappeared into the surrounding forest without the Noldo's further notice.
He had forced himself into checking the pulses of Aragorn and Elladan; the stale breath in his lungs that he had held with dread of finding that Estel or Elladan were dead had burned until he had finally felt the confirmation that his brothers were living. After seeing that his twin's neck was not broken, the Noldo had quickly carried Elladan, laying him beside the Ranger so that he could keep watch over his twin while seeing to the horrific sight of the dagger hilt protruding from the unconscious Ranger. To reach the horrifying wound on the Ranger's chest, the Noldo had painstakingly cut through the human's leather overcoat and then tunic, removing the impediments with care. He wanted to see how gruesome the injury truly was, but he had not wanted to remove the dagger until he could see the depth of its entry. It had been to Elrohir's delight that the mercenary's dagger had become caught mostly in the leather and cloth instead of in his human brother's chest, and though the point had pierced the flesh, it had been stopped by the Ranger's ribs and not Aragorn's heart or lung.
Elrohir had tended his twin only after seeing to the worst of Aragorn's wounds, for Elladan's injuries had also appeared much worse than they truly were, and the elder twin had merely suffered a broken collarbone and what would be a tremendous headache when he awoke. The laceration across his twin's forehead would eventually need sewing but the break in Elladan's bone had not been hard to set. Elrohir knew that with more time and tending than either wounded brother would be willing to tolerate, the Ranger and twin would mend.
You should thank whatever animal has given its hide to save yours, the Noldo mused distractedly, moving the tattered leather of the Ranger's overcoat out of his way to see that the white cloth over the human's chest wound had grown no redder with blood. He is in shock, I am sure of it, Elrohir decided as he examined the Ranger's coloring and checked the human's rapid heartbeat. The slight rise and fall of the Ranger's chest with his shallow breathing was reassuring to the Noldo, despite the human's pallor. Compelled to check on his twin yet again, the Noldo reached over Estel, holding Elladan's wrist between his fingers to feel the steady, familiar beat of his twin's pulse. He did not need the physical confirmation of his twin's well-being to know that Elladan was well, however, for he could feel it. Elladan was waking slowly from his soporose injuries, and the brief but agonizing absence from his twin's being was ameliorated with each passing moment of increasing awareness on Elladan's part.
With both his brothers tended as well as he could manage in such circumstances, the stunned Noldo had nothing to do but worry. Glancing around the clearing, Elrohir scanned the destruction, damage that gave him no clues as to what had happened, or what was happening now. Splintered arrows were strewn about the forest floor, the discarded possessions of the mercenaries littered the area, and Estel's shattered bow lay forgotten across the way. It may well have been a massacre, as much wreckage as Elrohir could see, but there was little blood, and no fallen enemies.
His foremost worry caused Elrohir to reassure himself, Legolas will find the witch. I know it. He is too stubborn not to find him, the Noldo decided. He wanted to make certain that Melfren was dead, that the Prince was well, but he could not leave his brothers injured and defenseless in the Mirkwood Forest, nor did he think that the Wood-Elf would want him to do so.
"Legolas will not let him escape," Elrohir told the quiet clearing. Hearing the words aloud boosted the Noldo's belief in them, and he smiled down at his brothers, his worry subsiding in momentary relief at seeing his family safe and the witch's downfall portended.
Taking a roll of bandaging in hand, the healer began to wind the linen around his human sibling's forearm. "You look like a pin cushion, muindor," the Noldo told Aragorn in a whisper. Upon removing the Ranger's overcoat and tunic earlier, the wounds that Elrohir had not seen or could not tend while in the witch's tunnels were laid bare. The Ranger had been stabbed in the stomach, his upper arm, and his legs and throat were covered in shallow gouges. A jagged puncture in the human's arm had been poorly wrapped and left mostly untreated; it looked to the Noldo healer that the wound was caused by an arrow that someone had merely ripped from Aragorn's forearm.
However, it was the burns on Estel's stomach and the side of his chest that Elrohir had found to be the most gruesome, for the flesh was scored deeply, the punctures scorched and raw, and the Noldo had wept at the pitiful sight of the young healer's lacerated torso. He was proud of his human brother, though, and reminded himself with a smile of relief that the Ranger would be awake later to hear him say it. Ada will be proud of him, also. Though he had yet to hear the story of all that had occurred, he had seen the violence that Ament and his brother Ramlin were capable of, and so could only imagine what the human had undergone to keep Legolas and himself alive.
Elrohir cut the bandaging, sitting the roll on the Ranger's stomach. Tucking in the end of the linen he had wrapped around the human's forearm, the Noldo began to shudder violently when tormented screams echoed unexpectedly throughout the still forest. The woodland birds singing their morning melodies in the boughs of the trees squawked shrilly in surprise, and the clear sky overhead was momentarily darkened by the shadows of their flight. Sweet Eru. The rolled bandaging fell from its resting place on the Ranger's belly. Elrohir watched it without truly seeing as the white linen unfurled across Aragorn's bared stomach, tumbling over and down the Ranger's side before falling to the forest floor. It rambled, teetering back and forth in its wayward progress to paint a white line amidst the emerald, trampled grass, until it came to a stop upon hitting Elladan's side.
He is dying.
So close did the failing wails of the mercenary sound that when Elrohir closed his eyes, he could imagine the mouth that made them, the thin lips that had scowled at him while taunting Elrohir and Elladan with Aragorn's life. Elrohir could imagine those same lips licked clean by the foul tongue hidden behind them, the mouth tainted with Tirn's blood. Through what seemed to Elrohir to be a haze of ash, the Noldo could see Ament screaming, and smiling, as though he were standing nearby the mercenary. Around the human was only an anemic, waxen version of the forest, which seemed to be dimming with each slowing beat of the mercenary's heart.
He opened his eyes but the fantasy did not leave him. No clearing, no camp, and no brothers were around him; instead, Elrohir could still see the mercenary, his smiling mouth ajar from the last of his keening howls, his limbs as contorted and warped as the bed of twisted roots on which he lay. I am watching Ament die, the Noldo thought. The mortal's voice gave out, its final bellow sputtering until the forest was quiet once more, and the stillness returning though the peace remained absent.
Elrohir. He is dead.
The Noldo jumped at the voice resounding throughout his head, his knees rising from the ground several inches; thrusting his arms out for balance, Elrohir barely caught himself before falling forwards onto Aragorn's chest. He rose so that he stood on his knees and looked aimlessly about as though to survey the clearing around him, but still he was blind to all, all but the dead human and the huge, glossy backs of the arachnids preying on Ament's blood and flesh. Recognition came to the Noldo when he became mired in sorrow and grief, submerged in a symphony of tormented desolation that was accompanied by a palliative, satisfied relief so overwhelming that Elrohir felt tears sting his eyes at the joy of such release. The desolation he had felt once before, however, and the confused Imladrian realized that his thoughts were connected to the Wood-Elf's mind. The sensations were similar to those he had when aiding the Prince in finding the arrow that killed his attacker, but Elrohir had not had such a coherent image of the surroundings then as he did now. The Noldo could see what the Prince was seeing. Moreover, Elrohir realized that it was the Silvan's slackening heartbeat, and not the human's, that was the cadence by which the image was slowly fading to black.
Legolas? The Prince's utmost relief at seeing the mercenary's demise became instantly clear to Elrohir. Not yet, Legolas, he begged, his restless hands finding the unused bandaging draped over the Ranger's chest. He stuffed the linen back into his bag in absentminded, unnecessarily forceful motions. You cannot let go. I need you here. Legolas?
The Prince looked down and Elrohir's insight changed. A single, deadly spider was creeping towards the Silvan, its hesitation apparent in its slow moving limbs. Come back, Legolas. But the Wood-Elf did not respond, and the arachnid's timidity became daring; the wounded Elf before it did not wield the weapon he held in hand. Picking each of its hairy, knobbed legs from the ground in a ghoulish, slow dance, the spider charily walked closer to the Wood-Elf. Elrohir became desperate; the distress of seeing the Prince's abuse returned to him, and once more, he felt helpless to stop the events he could only observe.
And so the Noldo beseeched Legolas, using the Prince's sense of duty, that which had kept the Wood-Elf from fading thus far, to endeavor to keep the stricken archer from yielding. You cannot leave us alone in Mirkwood, Legolas. Elladan is injured, Aragorn is injured, and what of Tirn? I cannot protect them all, nor take them to safety without your help.
Tightening his grip on Elrohir's sword, Legolas replied, I am tired, friend.
Not yet. You can rest later, Legolas. Elrohir's panic grew, for he could feel the Wood-Elf surrendering to the undulating gray waves that pummeled Legolas' grieving soul. I need your help now, my friend. Please, Legolas. The Noldo hoped that the Wood-Elf did not discern the true source of the desperation behind his pleas: he could not leave his brothers to find the Prince, but nor could he merely let Legolas die in the forest alone. Although his conscience burned at his seemingly callous words, Elrohir wanted Legolas back in the clearing with him, and so he ordered, using the Silvan's full name to remind the Wood-Elf of his obligation, You must guide your guests to the palace, Prince Legolas Thranduilion.
The Wood-Elf closed his eyes in misery, and the Noldo reeled as both the darkness and desolation dominated him.
When Legolas felt the foreign pressure against his leg, Elrohir experienced the Wood-Elf's body moving backwards instinctively in a violent jerk; the Prince swung the sword in his hand, the flat of the blade merely knocking the arachnid from its attempt to sink its poisonous fangs into his leg. While the spider fell away, struggling to keep upright, Legolas fumbled backwards through the underbrush, withdrawing from the immediate danger the spider proffered. The inky figure did not crash through the thick bushes to reach the Elda: it had another meal waiting for it, and the Wood-Elf had not been as docile as it had believed.
Come back to the clearing, Legolas.
As the Wood-Elf staggered away from the spiders and Ament's remains, Elrohir was caught in a dizzying flurry of withered shapes, which he gathered must be what Legolas saw as he whirled about to leave. I am weary, Elrohir, the Silvan thought, but I will help you.
"Elrohir?"
He blinked, and the clearing was before him in all its ruin, his pale, fallen brothers lay on the ground, and the Wood-Elf was gone from his mind.
Elladan had awoken only moments before to see his brother murmuring under his breath, his eyes unfocused, and his demeanor one of utter panic. The Noldo had tried to sit up at seeing his twin's suffering: he had been forced back into laying on the grass when he had tried to roll onto his side to rise, for the action had disrupted his broken collarbone. Piercing pain had stolen his breath, and he had collapsed back onto the ground.
What his brother saw across the clearing Elladan could not tell, but the horror and alarm with which Elrohir was staring into the distance had frightened the Noldo, and now, as his twin blinked at him, looking blankly at Elladan as though he could not see him, the elder twin prompted again, "Elrohir?"
"Muindor," the younger Elf mumbled, wide-eyed and confused. Elladan watched his brother's hand fumble to find Estel's throat, checking for the Ranger's pulse instinctively though his unseeing gaze did not move from Elladan's worried stare. "Ament is dead."
Thank the Valar.
"What of Aragorn? How is he, Elrohir? What has happened?" Twisting his neck to see the human in question, the Noldo scraped the tender, swollen lump on the side of his head against the ground and accidentally pulled free the bandage Elrohir had wound over the gash on his forehead. He did not notice.
He is too pale, Elladan determined, taking in that the Ranger's normally weather beaten and suntanned skin was chalky. Reaching out, Elladan grabbed the human's hand to feel for himself the life there.
"He will be fine, brother," the young twin replied distractedly, standing and stepping over the Ranger in a nimble, rapid movement, before alighting on his knees in the grass next to Elladan. "His body is exhausted but he will be fine." Elrohir smiled gently and reached under his twin's neck, lifting his brother's head to adjust the linen so that it covered the wound once again. "And you will be too, if you will be still."
Smiling back at his twin, Elladan let his brother's assurance comfort him: the twins had never been able to lie to each other, not even as children, and so now, Elladan did not doubt Elrohir in the least. "What has happened?" With sudden remembrance of where they were, Elladan recalled why he and the Ranger were injured, and thus queried, "Where is Legolas?"
"I do not know what has happened. I was hoping to ask of you the same." Elrohir lightly pressed his fingers along Elladan's broken bone to see that his setting of it had not been disturbed; the twin winced in unwitting sympathy with each grimace of pain from Elladan. "I left Tirn with Jalian below. When I exited the tunnel, I found you and Aragorn unconscious here in the clearing. I saw Legolas running through the forest after Ament."
That would explain why the Prince is not here, Elladan complained, frustrated by his inability to find out from his twin what had happened. "Then how do you know that Ament is dead?"
"I watched him die." Shaking his head, the younger Elf's face fell, and his demeanor became distant. "I could see him in Legolas' thoughts."
His exasperation evaporated to be replaced by sorrow for his brother's anguish. "Ament is dead, then, brother. All will be well," Elladan tried to placate, but Elrohir merely shook his head again, staring despondently, expectantly into the woods behind them.