So, it turns out I needed all the time in the world to write my dissertation. That shit was the most time-consuming thing I have ever done. But, now it's all over, and I can finally get back to being creative - hooray! Thank you to the readers and reviewers for their patience and understanding and willingness to continue with this story! I hope you enjoy the next chapter.
If anyone's a fan of Marvel, by the way, I've started a new story in that universe, so head on over and check it out!
Chapter 16 – Hunting Uruk-hai
They had been running for days, and every step Maethoriel ran only strengthened her resolve to close off her compassion. First, they had lost Gandalf, then they had lost Boromir, and now they were running further and further away from Frodo and Sam as the hobbits navigated their own way to Mordor, without protection. She was infuriated by the whole situation, knowing that she could not help Frodo without abandoning Merry and Pippin. It was cruel, the way their quest had strayed from their plans. It had been bound to happen somewhere along the way, she just had not expected it to stray so far.
But she refused to feel lost or upset. She was angry, and she needed to stay angry. Anger was safe and would keep her motivated to save Merry and Pippin while looking out for Aragorn. Anger would not hinder her the way her fear and distress had hindered her on the beach. From here on, she would remain angry and determined, she would adapt to whatever changes were thrown at them, and she would work at a mission a time. Their mission now was to rescue Merry and Pippin, and she would not fail them.
Aragorn and Legolas knew the way best, and so they usually assumed the front position. Gimli, as short as he was, did a fantastic job keeping up with them, but remained solidly last at all times. Maethoriel just ran, in whatever position she found herself. One foot in front of the other, they ran and ran and ran, hunting their prey. If she ever caught herself wondering where they would be right now if all the tragedy had not befallen them, she would push herself harder, using the burning of her muscles as a distraction. There was no time for "what if's", and certainly no use in them. This was how their quest had changed, these were the new objectives, and she had better adapt to them or she would be left behind.
The four of them ran up and over mountains, following the peaks for miles along the edges of ravines and valleys. They ran through day and night, through rain and sun, over rocks and grass and mud, and they did not stop longer than an hour to rest. Gimli was the chattiest, complaining about the lack of food and sleep, while Legolas threw back witty retorts to keep things light. Aragorn's words were instructive and informative, keeping them updated on the Uruk-hai they were hunting. Maethoriel barely spoke a word, only opening her mouth when she was explicitly asked a question. She needed time alone in her mind to build her stone wall around her compassion and weakness. It had gotten her this far, but it would only bring her down from here. She needed to be focused and objective, and she could not let herself get any closer to the others, lest she be distracted by them and enable harm to befall Aragorn.
After running for three days and three nights, Aragorn spotted something in the mud and knelt to examine it. Maethoriel slowed as she approached him, trying to see what he had found.
"Not idly do the leaves of Lórien fall," Aragorn said.
Maethoriel and Legolas drew closer to him to see the leaf that one of the hobbits must have removed from their cloak themselves. "They may yet be alive," Legolas replied hopefully.
Aragorn stooped to examine the ground as they started running again. "Less than three days ahead of us," he observed, "Come!"
"Come, Gimli, we're gaining on them!" Legolas shouted behind them to their dwarf companion.
"I'm wasted on cross-country!" Gimli shouted back, "We dwarves are natural sprinters!" The rest of what he said faded as Maethoriel put more distance between them, spurred on by the knowledge that they were catching up to Merry and Pippin.
Another hour went by before they ascended an incline to a sea of grass and rocks. Maethoriel stopped behind Aragorn and Legolas as they took a moment to look out over it.
"Rohan," Aragorn said, "Home of the horse lords. There's something strange at work here. Some evil gives speed to these creatures. Sets its will against us."
He sent Legolas ahead of them a while to gain a better view. "Legolas, what do your elf-eyes see?" Aragorn shouted to him.
"The Uruks turn northeast!" Legolas shouted back. "They're taking the hobbits to Isengard!"
"Saruman," Aragorn whispered next to Maethoriel.
Maethoriel looked at him, at his downcast eyes. She had to look away and clench her own eyes shut, refusing to let herself react more than was necessary. She could feel her compassion at the back of her mind, threatening to overwhelm her. She needed to be logical; she needed to be rational. Feeling despair for the hobbits was not going to help them in any way. Her fists clenched once, twice, three times, and she took a deep breath.
She looked back to Aragorn and said, "We knew they were going somewhere evil. This changes nothing."
His eyes glanced to her face quickly. "We must hurry."
Maethoriel looked to Gimli, and saw a queer expression on his face as he observed her. She turned away and pushed herself forward into a sprint again, determined to leave his face behind her where she could not see it. This was an additional factor she had not considered: how her companions would react to her inner change. She could not let them stop her.
They ran through the grasses of Rohan, the sun beating down on them. Maethoriel had tied her hair away from her face, but it still fell onto her neck, stifling her skin. Her breathing was heavy but even, and she was yet to feel any physical exhaustion, but she knew that even Elves tired at some length.
After a while, Legolas caught up to her. She could hear his own even breathing behind her, his soft footsteps hitting the soil and rocks. She thought that he would continue and join Aragorn in the lead, but he drew near her and matched her pace for a moment, silent. She did not look at him, opting instead to focus on where her feet were going next as they navigated the terrain.
"You are closing yourself off from us," he said.
Maethoriel clenched her jaw against the emotions that threatened to express themselves. "My compassion is a hinderance," she replied tensely.
"I do not believe that. Your compassion has driven you throughout our journey."
"Yes, and when the Fellowship ended, my compassion threatened to leave me lost and hopeless."
Legolas glanced at her. "We are suffering through this all as friends," he told her. "You are not alone in this."
"I was sent here for a purpose. That purpose was not to make friends, it was to protect Aragorn and Frodo, and to ensure the destruction of the One Ring."
"And what of the people who have come to care for you?" he asked.
She halted abruptly, causing him to stop a couple of paces ahead of her. She looked him in the eye, cold-faced, as her heart threatened to take over. "I care for you all too," she explained, "But I cannot allow further investments when they pose risks to the fulfilment of my purpose." The words had stuck in her throat, but she had fought against them and pushed them out, difficult as it was. She had to immediately start running again, knowing that if she looked at the expression on Legolas' face for any longer, she would crumble.
As always, they ran through the night. Time passed steadily as the horizon stretched on before them forever, always out of reach and never growing closer. The air was cool in the nights, a welcome respite after the heat of the sun, and just when it threatened to become uncomfortable, the sun would rise again. That night, the stars shone brightly in the darkness and the moon lit their way over the landscape, casting a silver glow across the fields. Maethoriel would look up at them from time to time, wondering what her father thought of their journey so far, of their tragedies, and of her mistakes. She wondered if he approved of how she planned to tackle the rest of their journey, or whether he thought it was too late, that she had doomed it all.
Maethoriel had struggled a few times already when trying to predict her father's reactions. It was true that Emberlings had been sent to different worlds to aid in different quests, and while some succeeded, there were those who failed. Emberlings who failed either died on the world or came home to the Night Sky, but they would not be judged nor shunned; nobody was invested enough to warrant any judgement. However, Baramaethor was different – he had spent hundreds of years watching over Middle Earth, and was genuinely invested in the lives he sent her to protect. He had never sent her brothers on a mission like this, nor had any other Star sent their Emberling on such a mission, so Maethoriel really had no past experience to draw from to help her predict her father's support or disappointment. All she could do was hope for the best, but expect the worst.
When the sun rose and turned the sky red, it gave Legolas pause. "A red sun rises," he said. "Blood has been spilled this night."
Maethoriel jogged past him, her face cold and hard, wondering whether she should expect the worst here as well. It seemed too much to hope that the spilled blood did not belong to their hobbits; their luck had been terrible so far, with Gandalf and Boromir, and Frodo and Sam going a separate way - it would not surprise her if luck failed them now. But the thought of Merry and Pippin lying dead somewhere was almost too much to bear, so she pushed the thoughts aside and focused on where her feet were landing.
After a few hours, the red sky turned blue as the sun rose higher and higher. Maethoriel had managed to keep her mind relatively empty as they ran, keeping her gaze locked on Aragorn's back or the grass and rock beneath her feet. And then, they came to a hill.
Aragorn stopped to feel the ground, crouching down to reach it. A queer sound hit Maethoriel's elf ears, and she looked to their left, swiftly followed by Legolas and Aragorn. Their leader waved for them to follow him as he ran to the other side of the hill, where a cluster of rocks would shield them from view. Maethoriel hunkered down with the others, the sound of a hundred hooves growing steadily louder until they were upon the small group.
They breathed in relief when the horses galloped past them, recognising them as belonging to Rohan. Aragorn left their huddle first, stepping out onto the hill again and shouting out to the large company.
"Riders of Rohan, what news from the Mark?"
The group, following their leader, turned left and back towards the four strangers, cantering up the hill towards them again. Maethoriel rolled her shoulders back and flexed her fingers when the horses showed no signs of stopping. They merely slowed to a trot, coming in too close for comfort to create a foreboding circle with Maethoriel and her friends in the centre. The horses were pressed close against each other, allowing no gaps for them to escape, save perhaps through the horses' legs. Then the riders dropped their spears, herding the four of them in even closer, with a much sharper barrier this time.
A man urged his horse forward quickly through the others, demanding from them, "What business do Elves, a Man, and a Dwarf have in the Riddermark?" He looked down at them with an angry face, pure threat and authority. "Speak quickly!"
"Give me your name, horse-master, and I shall give you mine," Gimli retorted.
The man did not look pleased. He passed his spear to one of his men and dismounted, stalking towards Gimli. "I would cut off your head, Dwarf, if it stood but a little higher from the ground," he bit out.
Maethoriel felt herself bristle at the threat, but Legolas was more offended. Faster than a blink of an eye, he had retrieved an arrow and knocked it, aiming the shaft at the man's face. "You would die before your stroke fell," he assured the man.
The riders around them lifted their spears in a more ready stance, all of them aiming at the four strangers. Aragorn stood between Legolas and the man, putting his hand on the elf's arm to lower it.
"I am Aragorn, son of Arathorn. This is Gimli, son of Glóin, Legolas of the Woodland Realm, and Maethoriel of the Night Sky," Aragorn said. While the man of Rohan gave Legolas a dark look, his face softened somewhat in weary curiosity when he regarded Maethoriel. "We are friends of Rohan, and of Théoden, your king."
"Théoden no longer recognises friend from foe. Not even his own kin," the man replied, clearly affected by the subject, as he removed his helmet. Maethoriel recognised him now without the metal in the way. Éomer's men pulled their spears back at the gesture, assuming a more relaxed and amicable stance. "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," he said, looking at each of them individually with mistrust.
"We are no spies," Aragorn replied. "We track a party of Uruk-hai westward across the plain. They have taken two of our friends captive."
Maethoriel did not like the look on Éomer's face. "The Uruks are destroyed. We slaughtered them during the night," he claimed. Maethoriel glanced at her friends, concerned, but they were all staring at the man.
"But there were two Hobbits. Did you see two Hobbits with them?" Gimli asked desperately.
"They would be small. Only children to your eyes," Aragorn clarified.
"We left none alive," Éomer said. Maethoriel's lips twitched, her heart hurting in her chest. "We piled the carcasses and burned them."
She looked to where he pointed, watching the smoke billowing into the sky. She closed her eyes and looked down, her fists clenching. She wanted to kill someone.
"Dead?" Gimli rasped.
"I am sorry," Éomer replied.
Maethoriel opened her eyes, fighting off the despair that threatened to consume her. Aragorn put a hand on her shoulder in an attempt to comfort her, but she felt beyond that; she felt like she would feel nothing but pain and sorrow for the rest of her life.
Éomer whistled suddenly and called out, "Hasufel! Arod!" Two horses approached him obediently, rider-less. "May these horses bear you to better fortune than their former masters. Farewell," he nodded, turning away as he redonned his helmet.
Aragorn reached out to take the reins of Hasufel, while Legolas secured Arod. The four of them shared looks that spoke a thousand words of their loss.
"Look for your friends," Éomer told them after he had mounted his horse again, "But do not trust to hope. It has forsaken these lands. We ride north!" he called out to his men, before he spurred his horse forwards.
The mass of horses that had boxed them in rode off in a wave, exposing them once more to the wind and expanse of Rohan. The sound of their hooves faded as they descended the hill, leaving only dust and sorrow behind them.
Aragorn turned to them, slow and sad, but still determined. "If there is any chance our friends may yet be alive," he said, pausing for a moment. "We must be certain."
Maethoriel did not want to hope. If she did and it was proven true that the hobbits had been slain, she was not sure she could stomach that. However, she mounted Hasufel behind Aragorn upon his offer without a word, and they set off in the direction of the smoke.
The fire had done its damage and fizzled out by the time they got to it, leaving nothing but scorched corpses. The stench was near unbearable, strong enough it made Maethoriel want to gag. But they tried their best to ignore it and dismounted to search the pile for anything that would tell them of Merry and Pippin's fate. After a few minutes, Gimli paused next to Maethoriel, and she turned to look at what he was holding. She had thought that if she neglected hope, finding evidence of their deaths would not hurt so much. But she was wrong.
"It's one of their wee belts," Gimli whispered to Legolas and Aragorn, holding it up for them to see.
Maethoriel lowered her head and clutched at it with her hands, threading her fingers through her hair to grip scalp. She felt like a failure. She felt as though she had made no difference to the fate of Middle Earth through being here, and so what was the point? Why had her father sent her here if she would do nothing to improve the lives of the good peoples?
Legolas was quietly uttering a prayer somewhere behind her. Aragorn kicked something and let out an enraged yell, falling to his knees.
"We failed them," Gimli said lowly.
It was quiet for a moment, until Aragorn observed, "A Hobbit lay here." Maethoriel let go of her head and lifted it to look at him brushing dead grass to the side. "And the other." He frowned, inspecting the ground as realisation dawned on him. "They crawled," he said, walking while he crouched, following their tracks. "Their hands were bound."
When he stood and walked away from the pile, Legolas and Gimli followed after him. Maethoriel stood where she was, watching numbly. Aragorn knelt and picked up a short piece of rope.
"Their bonds were cut," he said, an edge to his voice that suggested something other than death was happening here. Maethoriel tried to stop herself, but she followed after them anyway, a spark of hope flickering within her. Aragorn started to walk faster, with more urgency. "They ran over here," he told them, inspecting the ground. "They were followed." When he broke into a jog, Maethoriel followed suit, watching him with bated breath. "The tracks lead away from the battle!" he exclaimed, running with the others at his heels up to the treeline, where he stopped. "Into Fangorn Forest."
"Fangorn?" Gimli repeated, awed. "What madness drove them in there?"
"You can ask them yourself when we find them," Legolas replied, optimistic.
"We are not done until we find them alive," Aragorn told them, walking forwards into the forest.
Maethoriel followed him into the darkness, allowing it to restrain her hope from growing any further than it already had. Yes, the hobbits made it away from the battle and were not among the burned corpses, but they were still followed into the forest and Maethoriel knew it was itself dangerous.
They trekked slowly and quietly, adjusting to the darkness to see past the first layer of trees around them. Aragorn was at the head as usual, being the most skilled at recognising and following tracks. The other three walked behind him, keeping their gazes on their surroundings in case they spotted the hobbits somewhere between the trees. Maethoriel wondered what had been going through Merry and Pippin's minds when they escaped into the forest. Were they panicked or calculated? Did they have a direction or were they running franticly, doomed to be lost amongst the trees? Did they feel as uneasy as she did?
Gimli paused after a while to taste something he found on a leaf. He spat it out loudly and hissed, "Orc blood."
Whatever orc had followed the hobbits into the forest had come upon them here, it seemed, but who had won the fight?
Aragorn crossed a stream and started jogging alongside it, the others following closely. He knelt to examine the ground and remarked, "These are odd tracks."
"The air is so close in here," Gimli said loudly.
"This forest is old. Very old," Legolas spoke up. He frowned as he searched the feeling of the forest. "Full of memory and anger." He started to look more uneasy as Maethoriel shivered, the hairs on the back of her neck standing up.
Suddenly there was a loud creaking noise and Gimli exclaimed, drawing his axe.
"The trees are speaking to each other," Legolas told them.
They turned to look at Gimli, Aragorn hissing at him to lower his weapon. Gimli slowly loosened his grasp, letting the axe slide towards the ground. He held one hand in the air in defence, glancing around him.
"They have feelings, my friend," Legolas told him. "The Elves began it. Waking up the trees, teaching them to speak."
"Talking trees," Gimli grumbled. "What do trees have to talk about, hmm? Except the consistency of squirrel droppings."
They continued on for a moment, but Maethoriel steadily felt more and more uneasy to the point that she kept brushing her fingers against her weapons, ready to draw them at a moment's notice.
"Aragorn, something's out there," Legolas said tensely in Elvish, marching forwards.
They walked quickly until Legolas stopped, Maethoriel and Gimli approaching from behind. The Emberling put herself behind Aragorn, gripping the hilt of her dagger but keeping it sheathed for the moment.
"What do you see?" Aragorn asked.
"The White Wizard approaches," Legolas replied, for Gimli's benefit. Maethoriel felt the wizard's presence as Legolas gestured his head for the others so they knew where their enemy stood.
"Do not let him speak, he will put a spell on us," Aragorn whispered.
Maethoriel unsheathed her weapons, only concerned about protecting Aragorn. How she would keep him safe from a wizard, she was not certain, but she knew she would die trying.
"We must be quick," Aragorn said.
They turned as one, Gimli throwing an axe into the blinding light that greeted them while Legolas sent off an arrow. Maethoriel squinted at the figure in the light, wondering at the strange feeling that consumed her. She no longer felt uneasy nor cautious. She went so far as to sheath her weapons again and took a step forward. Aragorn's sword burned red-hot in his hand until he dropped it, but she was not attacked.
"Maethoriel, stop!" Legolas urged.
But she stepped closer to the rock the figure was stood on, staring openly into the light, finding it no longer blinding.
"You are tracking the footsteps of two young Hobbits," the figure spoke. His voice was akin to Saruman's, but not identical.
"Where are they?" Aragorn demanded.
"They passed this way, the day before yesterday. They met someone they did not expect. Does that comfort you?" the figure replied.
Maethoriel reached out to touch the stone the figure stood on, her skin tingling all over. There was something about the tone of his voice, the way he articulated his words, it all felt so familiar to her.
"Who are you?" Aragorn asked.
Maethoriel felt a breath leave her as realisation dawned on her, and she mouthed his name, completely awed.
"Show yourself!" Aragorn snapped.
Gandalf stepped forward out of the light, with smooth white hair, a white beard, white clothing, and a white staff. Maethoriel felt tears in her eyes, beyond bewildered and in utter disbelief.
"It cannot be," Aragorn whispered.
"Forgive me. I mistook you for Saruman," Legolas said.
"I am Saruman," Gandalf replied. Maethoriel tilted her head, sensing the truth in his words. "Or rather, Saruman as he should have been."
"You fell," Aragorn hissed from behind her, in as much disbelief as she.
"Through fire and water," Gandalf agreed. "From the lowest dungeon to the highest peak I fought with the Balrog of Morgoth. Until at last I threw down my enemy and smote his ruin upon the mountainside. Darkness took me and I strayed out of thought and time. Stars wheeled overhead and every day was as long as a life age of the Earth." Maethoriel watched him speak, entranced. "But it was not the end. I felt life in me again. I've been sent back until my task is done."
"Gandalf," Aragorn whispered, stepping up next to Maethoriel.
"Gandalf? Yes. That was what they used to call me. Gandalf the Grey. That was my name," their wizard smiled.
"Gandalf," Gimli chuckled, emotional.
"I am Gandalf the White. And I come back to you now at the turn of the tide."