Chapter Fourteen

Legolas froze. Not only had Tack sat up, but the moon had made its way out from behind the a thick cloud at just that same instant. To make matters worse, it was the first night of a full moon for that month.

He knew he could make it to the trees where Aragorn waited without Tack hearing him. That was easy. But even an elf couldn’t defy the laws of physics. Movement by its very nature was motion. And motion could be seen, especially if the surrounding area was not moving.

Aragorn’s heart leapt into his throat. He was sorely tempted to rush to the elf’s aid, but he knew there was really nothing he could do. After all, he would be moving, too. Besides, Legolas knew what he was doing.

The archer was afraid even to try and indicate to Aragorn that he should move farther back into the trees. He was faster than Aragorn, so if they had to run, he wanted the ranger to have a head start.

There was one more potential problem, and it was the biggest one. Legolas was able to dim his natural luminescence, but he couldn’t ‘turn it off’ completely.

Even though Tack didn’t turn around, he might be able to see Legolas out of the corner of his eye. The elf gave a silent prayer to the Valar that Tack wouldn’t notice.

From his place just inside the tree line, Aragorn offered the same prayer. He thought briefly about making a noise to attract the troll’s attention but realized that tactic, at least in this situation, might not be the best action to take. He stowed it away for possible use later, if things got even more dicey than they already were.

Tack yawned, scratched and yawned again but did not turn to look in Legolas’s direction. After a while, he leaned back against the cages, evidently forgetting all about the irritation he had experienced a short time before.

Legolas took that opportunity to make his bid for freedom. He hunched over to make himself as small as possible, lowering his face to hide the visible glow of his skin. He then made his way into the woods on silent feet.

When Legolas reached his friend’s side, Aragorn gripped the elf’s good shoulder and squeezed it. “We made it.”

Now that Legolas was free, as well, Aragorn allowed himself to appreciate the fresh air of freedom. It was sweet, and it got sweeter as Legolas began to lead the way deeper in among the trees, who sang to the elf of their joy at his escape.

The two friends had not taken more than a dozen steps, when there was a loud yell behind them, clearly coming from the camp. A second yell was joined by several others. Before long the whole camp was in turmoil.

Another troll came up behind the first one and pointed toward the trees. “They musta gone that way.”

Aragorn groaned. “Don’t tell me we’ve been discovered missing already.”

Glancing back through the trees, Legolas saw several trolls running toward the cages. One of them kicked Tack, who was apparently dozing again. “I am afraid so,” the elf replied with a strong note of despair in his voice.

“I don’t believe this,” the ranger grumbled. “When is our luck ever going to change?”

Legolas laughed mirthlessly. “We have to make our own luck now.” Then he turned to flee.

The ranger was close on his heels. “What about the horses?”

“We have to find a way to get to them. I will not leave them behind.”

“Nor will I,” Aragorn agreed. But there was clearly no way to free their animals until they could remain free themselves long enough to do it.

Legolas and Aragorn picked up speed, while still moved as quietly as they could. Legolas had no trouble with the dark or the trees. Aragorn did. The dark night was an aid in hiding them, but it also kept the less keen-eyed human from spotting all of the roots and partially embedded rocks from grabbing at his feet. He felt clumsy as he tripped and stumbled along behind the swift elf. He didn’t fall, but the noise he was making was loud even in his own ears.

Still they ran.

*~*~*~*

When the door to Pickett’s hut banged open, almost coming loose from the one rusty hinge that held it, the troll leader jerked upright from a sound sleep. “What’s gonin’ on?” he asked gruffly. When the answer didn’t come quick enough, Pickett yelled, “Why did ya break in here? I was sleepin’” His burns had kept him up a long time, and exhaustion had just reached the point where it had overcome the pain enough for him to find sleep.

The troll, who had volunteered to get the leader, was beginning to have doubts. He had wanted to gain favor with Pickett by being seen as someone who was thoughtful enough to inform the leader of what was happening. Seeing Pickett’s shadowed but still visible anger made him decide that it wasn’t such a good idea after all.

“The...uh...the captives have...uh...escaped again.” The troll turned and left the hut before Pickett could throw anything at him. Hatch had sometimes done that whenever he received any news that displeased him. More often than not, though, he would just reach out and punch the messenger.

Pickett growled. Why didn’t those brothers just give up? Thanks to them his sleep was being interrupted, his burns were making themselves known again, and now his head hurt.

He stood up. “They’ll die when I catch up to ’em,” the troll leader vowed. He stomped outside to begin the search that he was determined would lead to that conclusion.

*~*~*~*

Aragorn was so intent on trying to keep his feet from catching on something on or near the ground that would send him flying, that he wasn’t paying attention to the things that were higher up.

As he passed a particularly dark patch under a group of close growing trees, a tall whip-like branch of a spindly bush slapped him in the face. Unfortunately, the part of his face that was struck was across his eyes.

A cry of pain turned Legolas around and sent him hurrying back the way he had just come. He found Aragorn bent over almost double, hands over both eyes.

The pain was incredible, and Aragorn was almost breathless from the intensity of it.

“Estel, what is the matter?”

After several deep breaths, Aragorn straightened up but kept his hands over his eyes. “I didn’t see the bush. It attacked me.”

“Let me have a look at it.” Despite the darkness under the trees, Legolas could see relatively well. His eyes were like a cat’s. They could pull in every available speck of light to give him thea kind of night vision only dreamed of by humans.

When Aragorn didn’t make a move to comply, Legolas tried to pull the man’s hands down with his good hand.

Aragorn jerked back. “I can’t, Legolas. It hurts too much to open them.”

“It’s a reflex action. They are clamping shut to protect themselves.” Neither of them thought about the fact that it was Legolas who was giving that explanation to a healer rather than the other way around. Healer he may not be, but he had learned a lot about wounds and injuries as a warrior fighting in the forest of Mirkwood, not to mention as a traveling companion to the trouble-prone ranger.

It took a few moments, but gradually Aragorn was able to open his eyes. They still hurt.

“Can you see?” Legolas asked, as he titled the man’s head back and looked to see if he could detect any damage.

“Yes.”

“Are you sure? Do not try to push on, if you are not able to continue right now. You will only injure yourself further.”

“That’s what I usually tell you, for all the good that does.” The sarcasm was evident, but it had not been said harshly. He tried to give his friend a glaring look through red and now puffy eyes.

That attempt at a glare only drew a laugh from the elf, but it did not distract him. “Hold still,” Legolas said sternly, as he continued to examine the ranger’s eyes.

Finally, Legolas dropped his hand and stepped back. “I see no scratches on the cornea, though I imagine there are a few tiny ones. Most of the damage seems to have been done to the surrounding flesh.”

Aragorn breathed a sigh of relief. A badly scratched cornea could be serious, especially if left untreated. That, unfortunately, was the case out here with no supplies and no real chance to take care of the problem.

“You should tie something around your eyes to avoid straining them,” the elf advised, even though he was surel what the ranger‘s answer to that would be.

“I can’t afford to do that right now. We both need our eyes in this situation. I’ll rest them later.”

Knowing further argument would be fruitless, Legolas slapped his friend on the back. “Come on then. I can hear the trolls moving through the bushes not far away. I will guide you, my half blind friend.” The elf was not above a little innocent teasing.

Aragorn knew he would need to stay closer to Legolas and match the elf’s swift strides, which he was determined to do. It soon became evident that the pace had slowed.

“You don’t have to coddle me, Legolas. I promise I won’t run into any trees.”

“Do not make promises you cannot keep, Estel. Besides, it is me I do not wish you to run into. I have one bad shoulder. I do not need you to give me another.” The thought of both shoulders hurting the way his left one did was almost too painful to joke about. The archer did manage to grin to himself, however, he did not increase his speed.

This territory may have been the home of the trolls, and they may have known it well, but they still did not have the kind of sight that allowed them to maneuver all that well in the dark. So far that made it advantage escapees. How long that would hold true remained to be seen.

Except for the darkness, the search was just like the previous one. The trolls were scattered all over the area. Rather than organizing their search patterns, they were each looking around in hopes of simply running across their former captives.

“Do we climb another tree?” Aragorn asked after a few moments of zig-zagging through the forest, avoiding whatever trolls they heard nearby.

“No. We should not linger here any longer than is necessary. We should get the horses and make our break as swiftly as possible. Our best chance is in the dark of the forest. The horses will be an advantage there, as well as in speed.” He avoided mentioning that fast horses hadn’t helped when they were first captured. No need to bring up anything negative. They were both aware of the odds.

Aragorn was usually quite good at finding his way in the dark, but as Legolas suspected, he wasn’t seeing as well as he had let on. “Do you know where they are in relation to where we are?”

“Yes. They are that way.”

Aragorn assumed Legolas had pointed in the right direction, but he couldn’t see which way that was. Not willing to tell the wood-elf that, he simply nodded. The man would just follow the elven warrior wherever he went.

Pickett’s voice yelling out that the worthless trolls had better find the captives or face his anger was sudden and much too close.

Legolas pulled Aragorn down to crouch behind a thicket of bushes. Then he raised his head above the surrounding greenery and looked around but couldn’t spot the troll leader.

“Do you see him?” Aragorn asked from his crouching position.

“Not at the moment,” Legolas replied before adding, “and I hope that will not be changing any time soon.”

An owl hooted angrily almost directly above their heads. The night hunter was not at all pleased that all the raucous noise was scaring his prey into scurrying for cover.

“I hope that owl doesn’t attract Pickett’s attention. The last thing we need is for Pickett, or any other troll, to make his way to our hiding place to see why that normally silent owl was so flustered.” The man looked up and tried to pin the owl with a scathing glare. The best he could hope for was that he was staring in the creature’s general direction.

Legolas lifted his head, held his hand up to the side of his mouth and hooted in soft tones up to the bird of prey, as it sat in the tree to their right.

Aragorn did not hear the bird fly off, but in a few seconds he heard the owl screech from much farther away in the opposite direction to where the elf and the ranger had been traveling.

Looking at the wood-elf, Aragorn said, “You did that, didn’t you?”

“Did what?” the elf asked in all innocence.

“Sent that owl away to draw the trolls’ attention elsewhere.”

The elf just grinned and changed the subject. “How are your eyes?”

“They itch,” was all that the man would admit to, much like a certain stubborn elf, who minimized every hurt he had. As if to prove it, the man asked, “And how is your shoulder?”

“It is all right.”

“Of course it is.” He couldn’t see Legolas’s features very clearly in the darkness and with his bleary-eyed vision, but he knew the elf was grinning at him.

“Come,” Legolas said. “I do not hear any thrashing in that direction.”

Aragorn had no idea which direction was being referred to, but he stood up and prepared to follow Legolas whichever way he headed.

Walking around the thicket to their left, the elf moved off. No matter how many times they had turned, sidestepped or backtracked, Legolas never lost his sense of direction. That was an inborn elven gift that never failed to impress Aragorn.

He himself was good at finding his way, but he could never compete on the same level with an elf. He had learned that lesson many years ago when trying to either track or get away from his foster brothers. After meeting and traveling with Legolas, his shortcomings only became more apparent. Even so, for a human, he was a good tracker. And to their credit, neither the twins nor Legolas ever did anything but help and encourage the man to make the most of his abilities. And he had not disappointed them.

After avoiding several trolls along the way, the two friends finally heard the whinny of two horses.

“They are just beyond those trees,” Legolas said, pointing toward a dense wall of trees about twenty yards ahead of them.

More troll shouting to their right sent the elf and the ranger ducking for cover behind a large tree that split about five feet from the ground and formed two separate trunks from there to the top, some forty feet above.

Legolas stood behind one of the trunks and Aragorn stood behind the other.

A minutes later, the two friends were moving again, and this time when they left the trees, they found themselves staring at a crude corral, containing their two beautiful stallions.

Approaching cautiously, Legolas whispered in elvish that the horses should remain quiet. He was afraid that the animals might be too boisterous in the welcome of their masters.

Slipping under the rough wooden rails of the corral, Legolas and Aragorn greeted their horses. It felt good for animals and riders to feel each other after what seemed like a very long absence.

Legolas never used a saddle or bridle, so seeing his stallion without them was normal, however, now Aragorn was going to have to use his riding skills without either of those items, as well.

They mounted up.

The gate was located on the far side of the corral nearest the troll camp. The two companions weren’t willing to risk being spotted, so they simply jumped the low fence and headed into the forest, hoping to leave the whole horrendous affair behind them.

TBC