Hope everyone enjoys this new chapter ~ thanks so much to Agape4Gondor for the lovely reviews this week :)

Chapter 45 – Games

Legolas was shivering when he awoke, his body pressed against the sodden earth. He did not remember feeling cold since the endless dark of Moria, and even then he could not recall such a chill as this. It seemed to be soaking into his flesh not only from the cold mud beneath his body but from the knowledge that Saruman had outmanoeuvred them. They had evaded him long, through the mines and then with the aid of the Elves in Lorien, yet their luck had now ended.

A light rain was falling, and the sky was dull and darkening above. A sea of black Orcs stretched into the small valley to their left, their odour rank and their voices drifting up to Legolas' ears as they crowded together to receive orders.

To their right a field of tents was pitched a hundred paces away, as though keeping their distance from the Orc and wolf masses. Legolas could see green Rohirric banners raised above them, and figures of men moving warily about the newly constructed camp.

The space around the three companions was unoccupied apart for one small tent and one large, Saruman's Legolas presumed. Fallen trees and tree stumps must have provided a small area of conference for the wizard, for boot prints from the largest Orcs had trampled the earth around them into flowing mud.

Legolas finally moved his body, biting hard on his lip as wounds from that morning awoke and made themselves heard. Every inch of his body felt bruised, and he shuddered with remembrance of the pain the Uruks had inflicted as they had searched them. Levering his restrained arms beneath him, he finally recognised Pippin and Faramir lying unconscious beside him. Violent dark bruises had formed on the Hobbit's neck where the Istar's fingers had choked him, and Legolas could see others beginning to form on his pale face where the Orcs had been less than gentle.

They were all three of them streaked with mud and soaked to the skin. Legolas worried that Pippin, who felt the cold so much more than he himself, would freeze if he did not soon find warmth. He edged himself closer to the Hobbit, pressing his body against him just enough to warm but not waken.

It was a moment before he took his eyes from Pippin's childlike features, for they reminded him of brighter times, and when he did so he found Faramir's half-open eyes upon him, watching his movements.

He heard the young man sigh quietly as he eyed their surroundings with a weary gaze. "Breakfast with Saruman after all." Faramir gave him a weak smile. "Pippin will not be pleased."

Legolas did not even bother restraining his short laugh at the absurdity of the comment, though it turned quickly into a hoarse cough as he felt bruised muscles tense excruciatingly.

It eased after a moment, and he shook his head as far as he was able. "I have noticed," he said, his dry throat making speaking painful, "your tenancy towards flippancy in times of peril."

He thought he caught a ghost of a smile on the other's face at the suggestion. "It is far better than indulging fear," Faramir replied after a moment of thought, "and generally more entertaining."

Legolas raised his eyebrows. "I would drink to that, as Gimli would say. There's certainly little enough humour to be found in this situation."

Seeing Faramir's gentle smile of amusement all of a sudden forced into his mind the image of his friend's features contorted by fear and pain as Saruman held him over the brazier in Meduseld. He shuddered at the recollection.

"Legolas, are you in pain?"

He licked his lips and met Faramir's concerned gaze, wondering what words could express his remorse. "It is I who should ask this of you," he said after a moment. "I would have saved you pain of Saruman's touch..."

The man looked relieved at knowing Legolas' concern. "Our plan went as intended. It was a show of power to frighten us into submission, but we have gained our small victory."

Hearing what he knew to be true did not make it any easier to bear. "I would that our places had been exchanged, that you would not have had to face that fear."

Faramir seemed touched by the sentiment, however futile. "I should have guarded my thoughts more carefully, leaving parts of my mind... unprotected."

"I thought I could take any pain to support our truth, and yet when the blade was turned upon another and I was asked to choose..."

"That is the power of the shadow for without loyalties there is no limit to our actions." Faramir sighed and rested his head back upon the muddy ground, looking up at the first stars in the night sky. "And yet we may yet hold the advantage; Saruman knows no ties of allegiance and even as he follows the Dark Lord's commands he seeks to use Sauron as his weapon and supplant him..."

"As Sauron no doubt thinks to use Saruman," Legolas finished.

Pippin was stirring, and Legolas looked down at him, sad that the little Hobbit should be caught up in this.

"They are coming for us." Faramir nodded over Legolas' shoulder to where the Elf could pick out the voices of Orcs growing louder. "There is one thing that gladdens my heart," the man said solemnly.

"What might that be?"

"At least now you are as muddy as I." The man's face broke out into another small smile.

Legolas sighed in amazement, straining at the cords that bound his arms as he felt his strength returning. "Please," he begged, "Do not make me laugh, it hurts too much."

Frodo could feel the wizard's hawk-like eyes upon him in the dark, yet somehow it was comforting. They had been sitting side-by-side for sometime, as the others slept quietly. Their clothes were beginning to dry now, and the mud from the marshes no longer swamped the ground upon which they slept.

"I had never thought to ask Gandalf," he said softly, "why wizards involve themselves in the troubles of the world."

He thought he had not been heard, and yet after a long pause Radagast spoke. "We were sent here, long ago."

Frodo could not see his face in the darkness, just the outline of his sharp features against the sky, but there was a wistful tone to the words.

"But now our time has come, and we too are uprooted from out homes and comforts - to fight for the land, even against one of our own."

Mist moved around them, swept up by the cold wind. The wizard's hair seemed to stir also, caught by the breeze.

Frodo thrust his hands further into the warmth of his cloak, speaking softly so that the words were nearly taken by the wind. "Saruman."

"He was great once, strong and possessing knowledge higher that all the rest. Saruman the Wise, we named him, not knowing then that the knowledge gained was not wisdom but something far more dangerous. A leader should never treat with contempt those less mighty than himself. Saruman lost sight of this and began to truly believe that others were not fit to govern their own fates."

Frodo nodded, "I understand, and begin to see that perhaps it is right that the smallest most insignificant people of all should take up this quest."

"But you wish it had not fallen to you?"

He looked out into the dark night, stretching with his mind for Bag End and his fireside. "Do you think me selfish?"

Radagast replied quickly and with feeling, "Nay, none who have witnessed your struggle or seen the strength of your heart could do so."

"You begin to sound like Gandalf."

"I sincerely hope not. If I become half so fond of cryptic riddles you must promise to put me out of my misery."

A companionable silence followed. "At any rate," Frodo said at last, "you have not yet begun to smoke."

Something resembling a snort followed. "Eccentric habit."

Frodo decided to voice something that had been weighing on his mind for some time. "Before I left Rivendell the Lord Elrond showed me several maps of Gondor and the ways east into Mordor, but that was long ago, and I remember little. Perhaps I never thought to make it this far. Besides, we had Aragorn with us then, a company of nine full of hope and of people greater than I. In the end I did not expect the burden to fall to me."

"I am no traveller, as you know already, but nevertheless I am more familiar with charts than you might think. I have an idea, if you will hear it, of a way to pass through the black mountains undetected..."

"How could I have fallen asleep?" Merry jerked up into a sitting position as he heard a step close to his ear. It had been a terrible rest, full of dark eyes and golden scimitars.

The rangers of Ithilien had returned late in the morning bearing stretchers. Merry had heard them talking, their conversation able to be overheard from where he slept in the corner of the small cave. There was a sandy floor beneath his feet, curved walls and a rocky roof overhead. If not for the fact that the ceiling was the hight of a man rather than a Hobbit, and that the entire cave was perched above a waterfall, he might have considered Henneth Annun as Hobbit-like a dwelling as he had seen for many months.

Merry absently pulled at the bandage on his wrist. The joint was stiff and sore, having been crushed under the Harad Captain's boot for so long. It was a small hurt in the expanse of wounded and dead brought into the cave after Merry had alerted the rangers to their plight. Few had survived it seemed, the dark arrows and spears picking out their victims where the soldiers had been at their most vulnerable.

They told Merry he had saved the lives of the wounded. A degree of freedom had been granted to him for this service, though he was not to stray from the cave. The rangers' stern eyes warned him that questions would be asked once all the wounded had been seen to.

He sat, then, by the side of the man he had given everything to save, reprising the decision in his head over and over until he thought he would go mad. He stared at the man on the litter beside him, trying to find comfort in what seemed to him as the only familiar or friendly features in the cave.

The lord Boromir was, however, unaware of the Hobbit's hopes. Merry watched as the strong body fought off the poison, lying deathly still for long intervals in which Merry barely dared to breath. If this man dies, he could not help thinking, it will all have been for nothing.

He massaged his wrist once more, wincing at the movement.

"You are hurt."

Merry started at the voice, it was strained, but touched with a caring and sincere undertone that caused Merry's heart to jump slightly as he looked down to find the grey eyes of the lord Boromir fixed upon him.

"I know your face." The man's eyes shifted across the Hobbit's features as though unable to bring them together. "In a dream... a halfling."

"Not a dream, my lord." Merry reached forward and grasped the man's limp hand eagerly, so overwhelmed with relief that he could barely speak.

"The sky grew dark..."

"Try not to speak," Merry hushed, seeing that the man had lost sense and how it was taxing him.

"His errand and no other's. Chasing shadows, I said, yet he has not returned..." The man's breast heaved and he looked away from Merry for a moment before calming and looking once more as if to refresh his memory. There was blood on his lips and Merry began to grow concerned.

The Hobbit half rose to his feet, looking for assistance from the healers when he felt the slack grip of a hand at his sleeve. Boromir was still looking at him with half closed eyes, as though holding onto the tail of a dream.

"Of whom do you speak, my lord?" Merry asked as a way of calming the man while he silently urged the healers to come quickly.

Boromir did not reply. His eyes were closed now, and there was something of a smile on his lips.

The healer arrived, giving the Hobbit a suspicious glance as he felt his patient's wrist. "What has happened?"

"He awoke," Merry told him, "and spoke. He made little sense. He said I reminded him of a dream, and that he had lost someone... Perhaps the man who died beside him in the forest?"

"Nay," the healer shook his head, placing his hand gently on his lord's heated face. "Our Captain-general has lost many men fighting on the front line, but no grief can fell so heavily as that of a family, I can understand that. I lost a cousin at the river under the lord Boromir's command - nor can I blame him - a better leader you cannot find - but it hits hard."

When Boromir woke later in the afternoon, Merry was still sitting beside him. He regarded the Hobbit carefully, as though his mind was trying to make sense of what his eyes told.

Merry thought he seemed weaker than before. "I thought I had dreamed."

Merry touched his hand to reassure him that he was real. "Fear not, my lord. I am no apparition."

"I can see that you are flesh and blood - more so, perhaps, than I."

Something hard rose in Merry's throat and it was difficult to speak. "Do not say so. You are wounded, but you will heal."

The man smiled, as though touched. "You were very brave, little one, under the spears of the Haradrim, and yet I do not know your name."

"My name is Merry, my lord, and little courage I can claim. I could only lie still and hope not to be seen."

Boromir swallowed before speaking again, "And run for aid under threat of arrow and spear. I call that bravery."

Merry heard the deep voice praise him and knew at once why the healer spoke with such regard for his Captain, why any man would do all in his power just to earn his favour.

"How many of my men survived?"

Merry looked down as he answered, trying not to picture the arrow that had sliced through the Lieutenant's throat before Merry's eyes. "Five, my Lord."

Boromir's voice was broken when he finally spoke. "A foolish errand. The Haradrim are savages." He closed his eyes, leaning back against the cot. "I will not ask you now why you were in Ithilien, for I see you would not tell me. But why risk your life for mine?"

"You remind me of someone, a friend," Merry said, and he could not disguise a glimmer in his eyes as he said it.

"I find it hard to believe any of your friends would be of my stature," was Boromir's gruff reply.

"Nevertheless it is so - and I believe he would have wanted me to look after you."

Familiar grey eyes narrowed on him with shrewd inquiry, despite his pain. "Of whom do you speak? Give me his name."

"He has grey eyes," Merry said, enjoying finally revealing some good news that he had longed to tell, "and hair just like yours, though perhaps longer."

"Speak! speak!" There was no anger in the man's voice, only eager anticipation.

"...and already I see your temper is greater than his, and you lack his skilful way with words!" Merry did not think the other would resent this jest.

"Is it possible? You have seen Faramir?"

"I have travelled many miles by his side!"

"Then tell me! Where is he now?"

Merry suddenly stammered, "I do not know... we parted some time since, above the falls, North."

The man sunk back against the sheets, the flush of hope fading from his cheeks as his strength rapidly failed him.

After a short paused filled with laboured breathing Boromir spoke once more. "And what errand sent you in to the Southlands? Was Faramir returning to Gondor?" "He said he would follow the decision of the company."

"That is very like him. But what was the errand and what was decided?"

Merry hesitated, wondering what he should say to the injured man, and suddenly frightened that he already knew something of their quest. "We were separated by Orcs and... I came south..."

"It is a long way from Ithilien to the falls of the Anduin, you must have had some companion?"

Merry hesitated, unnerved by the feverish glimmer the man's eye. "I..."

Suddenly Merry felt his wrist being grasped more tightly than was comfortable.

"You can tell me, Merry."

When Pippin woke the world was upside-down. Everything hurt, especially his head. He heard harsh laughter, and then he was being shaken until his teeth rattled in his head.

"Now, keep the little imp alive or you will answer for it." The wizard's measured voice was now familiar to him, and Pippin ground his teeth to hear it.

Each day since their departure with Saruman's army he had been tied to the saddle of a horse and jarred along until his bones ached. Each night the small circle of Urukai by Saruman's tent had treated him as their personal slave, making him fetch meat from the fire, mead from the giant barrels. They slapped him to the ground when he hesitated, large bruises forming wherever their great fists connected. These Orcs were larger and more intelligent than those that had dragged him from Amon Hen to Edoras, but no less vicious. Pippin did not know how much further it was to Minas Tirith, but he had had more than enough of Orcs to last several lifetimes.

He closed his eyes tightly as he was once again shaken viciously in the Orc's fist.

"Wake up little rat, it's time for our games."

Even as he was dropped to the ground he felt his heart drop also. Saruman was beside him now, the Istar's robes shimmering faintly in the torchlight. Pippin saw him turning towards his tent and dared to grasp a corner of the cloak.

"Please," he gasped, "not tonight."

Saruman looked down at him, and the wizard's stare made Pippin feel like a worm in the mud. He ducked his head and let go of the cloak, not daring to meet that stare any longer. The fear already mingled with shame at his own cowardice.

"Heed my limits, Gulruk." Saruman pointedly shifted his staff into the largest of the Uruk's sights. "I have other plans for these captives." The wizard turned and left the Uruks to their fun.

Pippin choked on his breath, his eyes averted from the bloody pole set in the centre of the Orc circle and the two figures being roped to it.

Merry hesitated. He was only too willing to discuss his own part in Boromir's rescue, but he shied away from revealing the fact that Frodo, Sam and Radagast were still close.

Boromir was looking at him with eyes that seemed alight in the torch-lit cave. "I owe you my life," he said. "I only wish to understand more more about you."

Merry was sure now that this man knew something of their quest, but clearly not the turn it had taken from Rivendell.

"Tell me Merry," he asked again, and all weariness seemed to have fallen from him, "were you planning to come to Minas Tirith? Was there something of importance to be taken to my city?"

"I do not know what you mean." Merry for the first time became of the great difference in size and strength between a Hobbit and a man, and was unsure of this man he had come to admire.

Boromir's fingers were suddenly resting at his throat, and Merry saw nothing recognisable in the fevered brow and frantic gaze.

"A dream," he mumbled slipping once again into some private turmoil, "Isildur's bane is found - but where is it Merry? where is it..?"

The grip at his throat became unbearably tight and Merry only barely managed to speak. "My lord, please! You are hurting me."

Merry choked, and Boromir's grip suddenly slacked, his large fist clenched rapidly in the air as he fell back against his support.

Several agonising seconds passed in which Merry could not dare to look lest the man still be possessed by the strange fever that had taken hold of him. He wondered if nearness to the Ring in the forest clearing could have had such an effect.

After some few minutes the healer returned, checking his patient and noting his agitation. Merry said nothing, gaining his breath by degrees until he was able to breath normally once more. After the healer moved away Boromir was quiet for a moment before Merry felt the touch of a hand upon his own. He flinched away before he could stop himself, but when he looked down he saw eyes half open and so full of feeling that the Hobbit could hardly bear to meet the gaze.

"Forgive me. I hurt you."

Merry realised at once that he had already forgiven. "It was nothing. Though you frightened me. Perhaps it is the fever..."

"Nay, a madness took me - but that is no excuse. I should never have asked you to betray your secret."

"I would tell you my lord," Merry shook his head, feeling tired and confused, "but it is not my secret to tell."

"Perhaps not. Even so nothing will avail us now... the darkness is spreading across the skies, and it will be at the gates of my city where the first blow shall fall."

"Lie back, they are going to take you to the city soon, you will need your rest."

"I hope," Boromir said quietly as he rested his head back on the pillow, "I hope that my brother is well, that we may meet once more before this fever takes me."

"I hope we will meet him again," Merry said under his breath, "and Pippin too."

"Don't like to watch our games, little rat?"

A large hand clamped over Pippin's jaw and brought him up to his knees, forcing his head up. Another hand grasped him about the throat until he opened his eyes. He had witnessed the Orc games nights before, and this time had hidden his face throughout, not desiring to witness it again.

Faramir's wrists were being untied from the top of the wooden pole that had held man and Elf upright as the Orcs tested their bets. As he was freed the young man fell heavily onto the blood splattered the ground beneath the pole. As before, Legolas had outlasted his companion and was still conscious, but Pippin saw the Elf was now supported mostly by the ropes that held him.

Pippin let out of soft breath as he saw that the Uruks had kept to the wizard's orders and had not done any permanent damage. Great red slashes marred his friends' torsos, but the creatures had shied away from causing any true harm. This worried Pippin in a way, what could Saruman be saving them for? Why keep them alive?

Out of the corners of his teary eyes Pippin could see Orcs exchanging weapons and large hunks of meat in acknowledgement of their winnings and losses. One Orc beat another to the ground instead of handing over his takings and Pippin squirmed out of the grip that held him, turning his eyes away and not wishing to witness any more of the infighting.

Legolas let out a soft moan as an Orc cut him down, and a whip caught the Elf across the ankles as he was slow to rise again.

"Take your man-friend before we decide we need more meat, Elf," one of the Orcs said, and laughter followed.

Pippin swelled in anger, but for once the Elf held his temper and bent to lift his companion with difficulty.

Faramir stirred but seemed calmed by the Elf's face bending over him. "Legolas?"

"Come, my friend." Legolas hefted the man's arm over his shoulder, "I have won again." There was a twist to the Elf's lips as he said it, and something was returned in the man's eyes.

Pippin waited for them in their place by Saruman's tent, where the Orcs tied them for the night. At least, Pippin thought, Saruman still considered the Hobbit unimportant and did not tie him. It was upon this small neglect that their hopes rested for escape, yet with the Orcs' brutal diversions he had had little opportunity to do more than clean and tend his friends' fresh wounds before the morning.

Sometimes Pippin caught sight of a rider of Rohan keeping well back but watching the Orcs at their entertainment. He never saw them for long, but imagined he saw sympathy in their watchfulness.

In a small dark place at the back of his mind Pippin wondered if his care was only prolonging the agony of their journey, but he saw gratitude in his companion's eyes as the raging fire of lash burns left them tormented and sleepless.