Chapter Thirteen

Pickett sat and ate his dinner, surrounded by those who he now ruled. He was pleased to be treated with deference by the other trolls. Not only were they eager to get in good with the new leader by constantly complimenting him, but they were also practically falling all over themselves to keep his plate piled with food and his cup full. He clearly remembered that Hatch had been treated the same way.

Pickett had tried at first to be respectful, but Hatch didn’t like him, so in the end, he just ignored the leader whenever he could, sitting as far away from Hatch as possible and keeping his head down. Sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn’t. Now he didn’t have to keep his head down to avoid anyone. Some would have to do it to avoid him.

It wasn’t until the meal was half over that the pain started, or at least, got bad enough to draw Pickett’s complete attention. The burns he had suffered after his run through the gauntlet were now being activated by the nearness of the campfire and the heat it was throwing off. He would have welcomed it in the winter, but now it just plain hurt.

Pickett was not about to display any of his pain to the other trolls. They would see it as a sign of weakness and immediately start thinking that maybe Pickett wasn’t the best leader they could have. Then, he was sure, some of them would question his fitness to lead. Tack would undoubtedly be the first to offer a challenge, since he already thought he should have been the one to replace Hatch.

Pickett had snatched the role of leader more or less by sheer surprise and the kind of bravado Hatch had displayed, intimidating everyone before they fully had a chance to take control. Even with his limited brain power, he knew that to continue in his current position, he had to show nothing but strength when anyone else was around.

The more he sat eating, the more uncomfortable he became. He suddenly stood up and declared, “I’m gonna finish eatin’ in...” he started to say Hatch’s hut, but corrected himself in time. “...my hut.”

Pickett held his plate out and food was heaped on it without him having to utter a word. With a grunt of satisfaction, he walked to the hut. Once inside, he closed the door, which was lopsided and had only one functioning hinge. There were enough gaps in it and the walls themselves that anyone could put an eye to one of them and see inside. However, it was better than no door at all, so it gave Pickett a measure of privacy.

The troll set the plate down on the bed and sat down beside it. He was still hungry, but more than more food, he wanted relief from the pain that permeated his skin beneath the singed hair.

He had never been burned like this before, so he had no idea how long it would take until the burning sensation stopped. In his ignorance, he thought it would be gone in only a little while, just as it had always done before.

Hatch was responsible for his current pain. But since Hatch was no longer around to take his anger out on, Pickett decided, and not for the first time, that the captives would be the ones to pay.

The troll started to get up and march out to see to carry out that idea this very minute but knew he needed to wait until he felt better. He couldn’t afford to let the other trolls see him suffering, which he was doing a lot of at the moment.

His anger, along with his pain, would only grow in the meantime.

*~*~*~*

Legolas and Aragorn had been sitting in silence all the while the trolls had been eating. They didn’t know about the pain Pickett was in, though it was a good guess, but it wouldn’t have really mattered. The elf and the ranger had their own pains to nurse.

As so often in the past, they had drawn comfort from each other using physical contact. As much as it soothed them psychologically, it, unfortunately, didn’t do much for their hurting bodies.

“Perhaps, we have received a short reprieve,” Legolas said, as his gaze went past Tack, the troll guard, and across the camp.

Aragorn raised his head and looked at his friend. “Why do you say that?” he asked somewhat puzzled.

Nodding his head toward the group of trolls, the elf replied, “Pickett came out to eat with the rest of them, but now he is taking his food to his hut, apparently to eat alone. If he does not wish company, perhaps he may just stay there.”

Now, it was the ranger’s gaze that went to the retreating back of the troll leader. “I wouldn’t want to eat with those disgusting creatures, either,” was the comment he made.

Legolas just stared at Aragorn, his expression clearly saying, ‘He is one of those disgusting creatures himself, you silly human.’

Feeling Legolas’s eyes on him and knowing exactly what was in the elf’s mind, Aragorn grinned and shrugged but did not look at the archer.

“It’ll be dark soon. We have to get out of here.” The man grimaced, thinking about how many times that had been said between them, since they had been taken captive.

Legolas broke his contact with Aragorn and began to move slowly and painfully across the cage, being careful to keep his left arm tight against his chest. He didn’t want to attract too much attention from Tack, so he scooted rather than standing up. Using this one-handed motion was not the most graceful way to get anywhere, especially for an elf. Neither was it particularly efficient, however, at this point, Legolas didn’t really care. He just wanted to get form here to there.

At first, Aragorn didn’t know why the elf was moving in such a manner. He thought perhaps Legolas was going to lie down, though why he wouldn’t do it right where he was didn’t make sense to the man.

When Aragorn saw where it was Legolas was headed, he realized that the archer was going after the knife buried near the back of the cage. “Do you need me to create a diversion?” he whispered.

“No,” Legolas whispered back. “I can hide my intentions.” ‘I hope,’ the elf said to himself.

It wasn’t long before Legolas had positioned himself between the troll guard’s line of sight and the spot where the knife was located. It wasn’t buried very deep, but he had to go slow, so Tack wouldn’t get suspicious. The last thing they needed was for this knife to be found. Then if a search of Aragorn was made, the second one would be found.

Out of the corner of his eye, Legolas saw the guard looking directly at him. He had no choice but to sit perfectly still, because however slowly he dug up the dirt, there was no way to keep his right arm from moving.

Legolas hung his head and acted like he was in the process of going to sleep. He wanted to lie down and dig with his back to the troll, but that wouldn’t work. If he lay on his right side, he would have to dig with his left hand, and that one was all but useless to him now. Lying on his injured shoulder so he could use his right hand was even more out of the question. Thus he sat and looked as if he were nodding off.

Picking up on what Legolas was doing and why, Aragorn raised his voice slightly and said in the Common tongue, “Sleep well, my brother.”

As expected, there was no reply from the elf, but even from his vantage point, Aragorn could see a faint smile on his friend’s lips.

It took an interminable amount of time before Tack turned away. The beast was just standing there staring at them, and Aragorn was getting impatient. “Come on, you big, hairy lump’ he grumbled out of earshot of the creature, ‘stop watching us and turn back around. We have some escaping to do.”

Legolas had to stop himself from laughing. He couldn’t make a sound or even twitch a muscle. Doing so could cost them dearly, so he continued to sit, slumped over and looking for all the world like he was sleeping.

Finally, Tack did turn back around. However, what he then did was not what Aragorn wanted to see. The troll had stepped back and then sat down with l his back against the doors of both middle cages.

The ranger thought perhaps the creature was just tired and would hopefully move before too long, but then he saw another troll walking toward them. In one hand was a plate of food and in the other he held a large cup.

“Oh no,” Aragorn couldn’t help saying out loud.

The troll had his mind on his dinner and didn’t appear to have heard him or care, if he did.

Forgetting that he needed to tell Legolas, whose back was to the troll, what prompted his dismayed remark, Aragorn just sat and watched, as Tack began to eat.

Legolas made a noise, and Aragorn sighed. “He’s eating dinner.”

It was impossible for a troll to lean back against the cages without causing vibrations, so Legolas had wondered what had happened. He still hadn’t dared to look. Now he understood, but instead of being dismayed, he was relieved. Now he could dig for his knife and not attract any attention.

“It is well, Estel,” the elf said softly. “As long as he doesn’t get drowsy and fall asleep right where he is.”

“You just had to add that little tidbit, didn’t you?” the man grumbled. If that turned out to be the case, they would have no chance to escape during the night.

Aragorn decided not to think about that until or unless it happened. There was already enough real problems without borrowing any that may not even show up.

When the man looked over into the other cage, he saw Legolas digging into the dark dirt. He smiled. It looked like the troll’s distraction with dinner was proving to be an advantage for them.

Legolas’s long, slender fingers soon moved aside enough dirt that he was able to expose the long knife he had buried there. He slipped it under his tunic. Now he and Aragorn were both armed. The sigh he exhaled was one of pure relief.

Aragorn was also thinking about them both being armed. He would have much preferred to have his sword and for Legolas to have his bow, but what they had was certainly better than nothing. Used with skill, the twin knives were extremely deadly, even to creatures as large as trolls. They were, after all, flesh, blood and bone, possessing no magical powers.

By the time Tack had finally finished his dinner, night had fallen. The campfire had died down, though it was never allowed to go out completely. Several trolls roamed around the clearing, casting sidelong glances toward the cages. It was plain that they were anxious to get started on torturing the captives. No one, however, had the courage to go and ask Pickett when the fun would begin.

As the night wore on, and it became clear that nothing was going to be done that night, more than one troll could be heard grumbling. Such complaints were followed by glances toward Pickett’s hut in case he came out in anger. They wanted to be ready to scatter, if he did.

Tack, on the other hand, cared nothing for what might be going to happen. He was full of food and drink, tired and upset about the turn of events after Hatch’s death. Once Pickett had taken over, however, he lacked the courage to get in the new leader’s face with demands regarding the captives. It didn’t stop him from griping to himself.

Legolas and Aragorn heard him mumbling but had no idea what the troll might be saying.

Gradually, as it got later, Tack got sleepier. Soon he was snoring, if that’s what it could be called. It was actually a dreadful noise that sounded as if he were more choking than anything else.

Getting more impatient by the minute, Aragorn decided to take a gamble. He inched forward until he was directly behind Tack. He reached out and poked the troll in the back with his finger. There was no reaction.

“Estel, what are you doing?” came Legolas’s voice out of the dark.

“Trying to make him move away from the door.”

“If you miscalculate, he will move all right. Then you may find him with his hand around your neck.”

“We’ll see,” Aragorn replied in that infuriatingly self-assured tone of his. He poked Tack a little harder.

The troll shifted, as if reacting to a troublesome insect.

When Aragorn poked still harder, Tack let out snort and moved a few inches away from the cage doors, unconsciously moving away from the irritation.

Aragorn smiled. “It’s working.”

“Be careful, Estel,” the elf warned rather unnecessarily. He was sure the ranger wasn’t going to take any more of a risk than he had to. At least, he hoped not.

On the fourth poke, the hardest one yet, Tack jerked upright.

A soft but heartfelt dwarven curse word reached Legolas’s ears from Aragorn’s lips. Lord Elrond would definitely not approve, but then, he probably didn’t know his foster son knew such words.

Tack looked around, but seeing nothing, he looked behind him into the cages. All he saw there were the two captives lying down, apparently deep in sleep. The troll rubbed his back from side to side along the metal bars in an attempt to calm a particularly insistent itch.

Thinking the bars must have cause his discomfort, Tack lay back down a good foot from the cage doors.

Even in the dark, Legolas could see the ranger’s triumphant smile. He just shook his head. Only Estel.

When the troll began snoring again, both elf and ranger went to the bars, stood up on their knees and began sawing the ropes with their knives.

The maneuver was a little more difficult for Legolas. He could only use one hand, so he wasn’t able to hold the rope still while cutting through it. After it began to fray, it also began to move with the motion of the blade. Undeterred, Legolas just had to get more creative, since he certainly wasn’t going to let an uncooperative rope slow him down. He used his teeth in place of his left hand.

Aragorn finished first. He pulled the shredded rope away from the bars and slowly pulled the door back. To his surprise and delight, there was no squeaking. The cages were maintained well, to keep their captives from getting away, he supposed.

Once the door was open far enough, Aragorn stood up, bent over slightly and slipped through the opening, being very careful not to touch Tack. It would be disaster, if he woke up now.

“Do you need my help?” the man asked, seeing the trouble that Legolas was having with the rope.

“No, I almost have it. Go on out to your right. I will meet you in the trees.”

Sliding his feet sideways, Aragorn did as Legolas requested and soon found himself free of the troll body. Then he made his way around the end of the cages and into the woods, dropping down to wait for Legolas.

Meanwhile, the elf had managed to cut his rope and was also making his way around Tack and the cages, moving silently toward the crouching Aragorn.

Then Tack sat up.

TBC