Lathron's first thought was 'oh great, not another cave'. Then, the sense of evil came on him again and all such thoughts were crushed. He felt as if the darkness had a will, and it was beating against his. His torchlight flickered and wavered. He wanted to leave and never return, but the thought of Dorongúr entered his mind - he couldn't let the old Elf down now. He pressed on deeper into the tunnel.

As he went on, he began to hear, or believe he could hear, noises - whisperings in the dark, rattling breaths, always just out of hearing. He tried to look around him for the source, and nearly fell down a gaping hole. A chill uprush of air came from it. 'There, it's only the wind,' he told himself. It didn't work. He edged cautiously round the hole, sending a trickle of grit and dust showering down. He hoped there was nothing at the bottom.

Not far beyond, he came across something heaped in the middle of the tunnel. He bent closer to see what it was - the object gleamed in the firelight. It looked like a coiled rope, but as thick as an arm, hard and smooth, like a shell, or carapace...

The object moved. From the centre rose a head, one eyed, with a writhing mass of tentacles. Lathron recoiled. The creature hissed, slime dripping from its underside, then glided off into the shadows with a ripple of tiny clawed legs.

Soon, Lathron was passing many more of the crawling creatures. Most ignored him, or scuttled away from the light. A few reared up at him, hissing, and had to be chased off with the torch. With a wet thud, one fell from the ceiling in front of him and burst, spraying stinking slime all over Lathron's legs. He jumped and gasped loudly before he could stop himself.

Ahead, there was a clatter.

Lathron froze. Did these vile things have some sort of queen? He drew his sword and it gleamed in the torchlight.

Something hissed. Another clatter. Then, footsteps, very faint.

"Stay back," Lathron warned. "Are you Dwarf or Goblin?"

Another hiss. Then, very faint, he saw eyes glowing in the darkness. They were an icy blue. They drew closer, and Lathron saw the light glinting off a short sword and a round shield. Closer still, and Lathron could just make out the pale shape of a body. It took another clattering step, and another. Finally, it lurched into the light, and Lathron gave a strangled yell.

No flesh, no skin, just milk white bones. Instead of organs, the grinning skull and hollow ribcage were filled with what looked like swirling, ice-blue fog. The Wight had clearly been there for a long time - its weapons were almost rusted away, its clothes were gone completely, and spiderwebs grew between its bones. It hissed again, setting its ribcage rattling, and raised its sword.

Lathron lunged, darting between the sword and shield to stab at the Wight's chest. His blade passed straight between the skeleton's ribs. Then, the Wight turned violently, wrenching the weapon from his grasp. He drew his other sword, but as he did so, the Wight charged, and he barely got his weapon up in time to parry. Then, the shield was driven into his stomach, winding him. He knelt and gasped for air as the Wight bore down on him. In a last-ditch attempt to ward it off he raised his torch hand.

To his surprise, the Wight hissed like a nest of vipers and stumbled back, flailing with its sword, hiding behind its shield.

"Oho! So you're scared of it, are you?" Lathron growled. "We'll then, let's see what we can do about that." He brandished the torch in front of him, driving the Wight even further backwards. He thrust it in its eyes and it wailed, then darted in to smash his sword pommel into its sternum. The breastbone popped out and fell through the Wight's ribcage, landing in its pelvis. The Wight looked down at itself in confusion as the front of its ribcage began to collapse. Lathron took his opportunity and stabbed it through the eye socket. There was a disembodied scream. The skull went flying off into the darkness, trailing blue vapour. There was a flash and a rush of air, which blew the Wight's remains apart and showered Lathron in bone meal. It also extinguished the torch.

Lathron groped about among the crumbling bones for his sword. Finally he found it and stuck it back in its sheath. Blindly, he stumbled forwards. The whispering began again, but this time, it seemed to press against his eardrums. He heard a faint whine, so high pitched it was barely audible.

More clattering footsteps. He pressed himself against the tunnel wall, willing himself to fade into the shadows. Four glowing forms appeared down the tunnel - Wights, their ribs and skulls silhouetted against the faint light within them. Lathron held his breath, drew his cloak about himself, slid back along the wall. He stumbled backwards into a narrow alcove - thank the Valar! Then, the Wights were level with him. Three walked straight past, their eyes dead ahead. One stopped. It sniffed, then rotated its head through a full circle with a horrible grinding noise. Finally satisfied, it followed its brethren. Lathron let out a long, shaky breath.

From the direction the Wights had come, he saw a faint light - too bright to be more of them. He crept towards it, down a steep slope. At the bottom, light glinted off metal - railway tracks. This must be a section of abandoned mine.

When he got to the bottom, the source of the light was revealed. The walls and ceiling were coated in patches of glowing algae. They gave off an eerie green-blue glow, not unlike that of the Wights, which did nothing to comfort him. To his left, the mine ended abruptly in a rockfall. To his right, it twisted into darkness. He followed it.

A chill wind rushed past his face. He spun around. Nothing. Just the glow of algae. He carried on, trying to ignore the fact that his legs were shaking.

Again, a rush of air. Out of the corner of his eye, a movement - swift, furtive. He turned again. His eyes raked the tunnel. Everywhere, the glowing algae. There were no shadows, nowhere to hide, and yet...

There, against the wall, within the glow, did something just move?

A face was thrust into his own - green, misty, featureless, but for two glowing white eyes. He screamed, and the face screamed back, as if from a great distance. With a rush of air, it disappeared, and something swept off down the tunnel away from him - a humanoid form that melted into the glow from the algae and was gone. More peeled away from their vantage points on the walls and followed it. For a moment, Lathron couldn't move. He took a minute to compose himself, then crept in the opposite direction - deeper down the tunnel. The algae on the walls began to thin. Soon, he was in near-darkness. Then, he came against another cave-in and was forced to stop.

The presence of evil was now tangible. The air was thick, making his movements sluggish. To his right, he heard a trickle of water. He squeezed through a small cleft in the wall into a rough chamber. It was lit by a number of candles, placed in skulls that had been impaled on iron sconces. There was another light as well - an eerie acid glow that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere. Behind a lattice of rotten planks, a stream gushed past - the river, making its way out to the Vale. Some of the planks had been removed, and in their place was a black stone altar. Seven black pebbles, exactly like those Lathron had collected from the shrine, had been placed in a ring at the centre, surrounding a glyph drawn in white. From beneath the pebbles oozed a green liquid that dribbled down into the river. This was the poison.

Covering the altar and the floor around it was thick blanket of moss, but no moss grew within the circle of stones. Sweet and rotten smells seemed to fight for dominance in the air. It was as Elladan had said - the mountain was trying to purge itself of the poison, and it was losing.

Lathron grabbed a handful of moss and stuffed it into his belt pouch. Then, he had an idea. Taking another handful of moss, he reached out to remove one of the stones. At the contact, the moss in his hand began to hiss and smoke, but he lifted the stone out of place. The flow of poison began to dissipate and he grinned.

Suddenly, an icy presence slammed into him and he nearly dropped the pebble. The whine in his ears intensified, the air seemed to shudder. He fancied he could see ghostly hands grasping at the stone. Slowly, inexorably, his hand was dragged back downwards.

"Thou cannot defeat us..."

The words were faint, as if coming from a great distance, but they echoed in his mind. Above the altar, the acid light coalesced into another ghostly form. This one was more corporeal than the ones in the tunnel, and it towered over him, its eyes blazing with white fire.

"See how strong we have become," the spirit boasted. "Thou hast come too late, Elfling; long has our master provided for us. His corruption swells our power, and tonight, his plans come to fruition. Give up."

"No!" Lathron grunted with the effort of holding the stone up. He placed both hands under it, and it stopped. With a shudder, it began to rise again.

The spirit drew back in alarm. "What...?"

With a wrench, Lathron broke free of the ghostly grip. He flung the stone through the spirit and it landed with a splash in the river. The spirit gave a howl, but it was gone.

"Very well!" the spirit hissed. "Save your Dwarf friends, if you will. Return this valley to health. It matters not - after tonight, we shall have richer quarry."

Lathron thrust his torch into a candle. It kindled, and he swiped at the spirit. It screeched and dissipated into streams of fog. They swept round him and disappeared through the crack. Dimly, the spirit's voice echoed in the cavern. "Beware, Elfling; it is not over. Tonight the little Dwarf-king shall walk again, but we are the ones who shall return to life!"

Dun dun duuuun.

Hi! I posted today like I promised! Never say I don't deliver. So was that spooky enough? Bloody fun to write, I can tell you. Just wait 'til I can find Lath some fresh cadavers to mutilate... but I digress. And icky bugs ftw.

No, my name is not Hannibal Lector, why do you ask?

Happy Hallowe'en (insert creepy smile).

Oh, and I nearly forgot, this story is now a crossover - Lord of the Rings and Lotro - although if you're reading this you clearly don't have a problem with finding it. I had a suggestion that I might get more likes/reviews if I set this as a LotRO fic, seeing as that is the basic stroyline, but I am going to use original LotR canon as well, never fear, so crossover it is.

Lathrond Aleniel, Elf Hunter, Firefoot Server.

Disclaimer: almost all of the names of people, places and general things are owned by Tolkien Enterprises, New Line Cinema or Warner Brothers, and are fictitious, or if real are used fictitiously and solely for the purposes of entertainment within boring disclaimers. The others are owned by me. Any similarity to any real life person, alive or dead, is probably almost but not quite certain to be entirely uncoincidental.