Chapter Twenty Seven

“Can you see anything?” Aragorn asked his companion. Feeling the need to make such an inquiry of a keen-eyed elf instead of simply asking what he saw struck the man as extraordinary. But then, most of the things that had happened to them since they had first been captured had been anything but ordinary.

Legolas did not answer. He heard the words, but for some reason he couldn’t fathom, he didn’t know if they formed a question or a simple remark. There was something wrong with that lack of distinction he was sure, but he couldn’t quite figure it out.

It was too much of an effort to ask again, so Aragorn simply assumed the answer was no and trudged on, barely able to drag himself and Legolas, because by now, the elf was of little use in helping to move them forward.

Then, it happened.

Aragorn stumbled over a tree root, and he and Legolas both went sprawling. The sensation was startling. One instant they were upright and the next, they were on the ground. What made it worse was the fact that it was Aragorn’s bad foot that was the cause of the misstep. It was now hung up under the slightly raised root, twisting as the man went down. He couldn’t hold back a yelp of pain.

The knowledge of a painful hurt being suffered and the concern for his friend that it elicited penetrated the fog in Legolas’s mind, but the fall surprised him so much, he could do nothing more than yelp at the pain he himself suffered an instant later when he hit the ground on his bad shoulder.

Aragorn was stunned but still in control of his thought processes. They had been taken over by the need to see what damage had been done, because the result might mean the difference in finding shelter and being at the mercy of the elements.

The ranger realized he couldn’t even sit up to inspect his foot, so he just curled up until he could reach it with both hands. He had to wiggle around in order to be in a position to grasp the trapped appendage and work it loose. Several groans accompanied the maneuver, but at last the throbbing foot was free of its woody trap.

‘That’s all I need,’ the ranger groused to himself, as he massaged his foot the best he could without removing his boot. It was the strong leather of that boot that probably kept the bones in his foot from snapping. He sighed. The result could have been a lot worse.

Aragorn suddenly felt a hand on his left arm. Turning his head, he could barely make out Legolas no more than two feet away. It frightened him to see that the natural, elven glow from the elf was almost non-existent, making his golden hair almost as visible in the darkness as his pale skin. He immediately forgot his foot. “Legolas, were you hurt in the fall?”

“I do not know,” the elf replied in confusion. There was a pause, and then Legolas said, “Did I fall?”

Aragorn groaned.

“You are hurt,” came the archer’s worried voice.

The ranger didn’t realize until then that Legolas had thought he was groaning from pain. The wood-elf couldn’t know the groan was a result of his concern for the elf’s mental state, which seemed to be diminishing by the moment.

Gritting his teeth, Aragorn forced himself into a raised position, leaning on his elbow for support. He opened his mouth to say something, but just then thunder rumbled ominously in the distance.

Another storm was brewing, and it wouldn’t be long before it would be upon them. They were already wet and cold, but the ranger knew that it wasn’t just a case of “We can’t get any wetter or colder”. A storm, as they were well aware, brought other things with it, like lightning. And being under trees was not the best place to be should lightning enter the area.

“We have to find shelter,” the man said. He knew he was repeating himself, but the way Legolas was right now, it was probably the first time the elf was aware of the remark.

“There are rocks to the right, at the foot of the hill in front of us,” Legolas said in a mater-of-fact tone, as if the subject had never come up before. “We may find shelter there.”

Aragorn almost laughed, though there was no humor in his heart. He shook his head and then scooted over to Legolas. He made sure he had a secure hold on the elf’s good arm. and then tried to get them both to their feet. It wasn’t happening.

Legolas frowned. Why weren’t he and Estel able to stand up? He looked around but saw no reason for their inability to accomplish that simple task. The elf knew he was hurting, and he seemed to remember that his friend had some hurts, as well. Maybe they were both worse off than he believed.

‘We move or we die.’ That seemingly extreme thought ran through the ranger’s mind, and he didn’t much care for it. He tried to push the idea away, but it kept repeating itself over and over, becoming more irritating each time. Yet, it may well have saved their lives, because Aragorn, in an effort to defy those doom-filled words, summoned the last reserve of strength he possessed.

He held tight to Legolas and, using the trunk of the tree whose root he had just tangled up with, he worked his way up until he and Legolas were upright once again. Aragorn was almost panting with the effort, as was Legolas, who had done his best to help, but they were on their feet.

Legolas pointed toward the rocks that he could see at the foot of the hill they were slowly and painfully moving toward. It should have taken them two minutes. It took fifteen.

When the two friends reached the rocks they stopped and leaned against them, as they had done several times with the trees on the way there.

“Do you see anything that might offer us a safe place to rest?” Aragorn asked.

Legolas stared, trying to make out some kind of refuge among the rocks. He had to blink several times, because his clear vision lasted only a few seconds before it clouded again.

Aragorn could tell that these rocks were similar to the big boulders by the river, not surprising since the stone of this area would most likely be the same. However, at this point in time, he didn’t really care what kind of rocks they were, as long as they offered some shelter from the elements.

The one good thing about these rocks, as opposed to the ones on the riverbank, was that these were far enough apart that Legolas and Aragorn were able to move between them with no trouble other than what the weakness of their own bodies caused. Had the elf and ranger needed to step over the bases of the rocks more than once or twice, they would have been completely stymied and forced to continue around the stones or simply stop where they were and take whatever came.

The move into the rocks was accompanied by more thunder, this time much closer, adding a sense of urgency to the search for a a place to find refuge.

‘There has to be a cave,’ Aragorn thought. It was apparent that the hill was made of stone, not earth, so he hoped there would be some kind of tunnel into the interior of the hill. “It must be here somewhere.”

“What must be here?” Legolas asked.

Aragorn hadn’t realized he had spoken out loud. “A cave.”

Legolas frowned. Not remembering that the man had never been here before, he asked, “You know of a cave around here?”

“No,” Aragorn had to admit. “I was just hoping. We need a place to get out of the approaching storm.”

“It must have rained already,” Legolas reasoned. “We are both wet.”

The ranger closed his eyes. Although he had seen many concussions in his time as a ranger and a healer, he still found himself surprised at the extent of Legolas’s memory loss. It seemed to be progressing to include more recent events.

“It stormed earlier,” the ranger said, totally leaving out the harrowing time they had spent in the rapids. “We need the chance to get out of the cold air and dry out.”

Legolas nodded, apparently not questioning why he didn’t remember the earlier storm but understanding the current need to escape the torrent that was heading their way.

It seemed that they were forced to stop each minute and lean against a rock to rest. That made progress extremely slow, yet they moved on relentlessly, pushing themselves beyond what could be expected of man or elf. Still no cave made an appearance.

“Up there,” Legolas said suddenly, as he pointed to a spot about ten feet above his head. Leaning against Aragorn with his good shoulder meant his only free arm was his injured left one, so he had to hold his elbow against his side to raise his hand, forefinger aimed almost straight up.

Aragorn followed the line of the elf’s finger. There, slightly darker than the surrounding rock, was the entrance to a small cave exactly where Legolas indicated.

The ranger groaned before shaking his head.
“There is no way we can get up there, Legolas. We can barely stand, much less climb.”

In his mind, the elf knew he was a nimble climber. He could find the tiniest of hand and footholds that would easily support his light weight. It had often been the source of humor for him and great consternation for the ranger, who couldn’t hope to follow him up the straight, almost smooth face of a cliff.

Before Aragorn knew it, Legolas had pulled away from him and fallen into the rock in front of him. Then the elf began to climb. He managed to put one foot in a tiny depression and pull himself up. When he tried to do the same with his other foot, his strength gave out and his feet slipped back to the ground.

Aragorn had recovered from his surprise, and his quick reaction saved the archer from another hard landing, possibly flat out on the ground.

Legolas tried again to get free for another attempt, but this time, Aragorn held him back before he could get another foot into the rock. “You can’t make it, Legolas. You are hurt and too exhausted. And so am I.”

The admission was bitter in the ranger’s mouth. He winced when he saw Legolas turn and stare at him. He couldn’t see the wood-elf’s eyes clearly in the dark, but he could guess the emotion they held.

Had he seen the look in Legolas’s eyes, Aragorn would have known that he was right. The elf’s eyes held disbelief and hurt that his friend would have so little faith in him. They also reflected a fierce determination that he could do it, despite what the ranger said.

With a flash of anger, Legolas jerked away from Aragorn and tried for the third time to climb the face of the rock. He couldn’t even get his foot high enough to reach the first foothold. Frustrated, he leaned against the cold stone and buried his head in the crook of his arm.

Aragorn laid a gentle hand on the elf’s shoulder. “There’s no shame, Legolas. We have both been through a lot these last days.”

“But, I am an elf!” Legolas declared vehemently, once again staring at the ranger.

“No elf I know, not even my father, or yours,“ he added to give his statement a personal touch for Legolas, “would succeed in these circumstances.”

Clarity dawned in the elf’s mind. “We cannot stay down here. We must reach that cave.”

He looked upward as far as he could see into the darkness but saw no way to reach the cave from above, even had they been able to find an easy way to the top of the hill, which in itself would have proven impossible.

“Then we keep looking,” Aragorn said grimly, still not yet willing to give up on their quest.

They trudged on, each step becoming harder to make. Their legs felt like lead, and they could barely keep their eyes open.

Legolas suddenly sank to the ground, and Aragorn was unable to keep it from happening, nor was he able to raise the elf. He sighed and sank down next to his friend. After pushing and pushing his body to continue to handle more than it was designed to do, it, like Legolas’s, had finally come to the end of its endurance.

They were hard pressed to keep the air moving in and out of their lungs.

Aragorn leaned his head back and was shocked to see that they were actually on the outer edge of a lean-to formed by one large rock leaning against the rock face of the hill. It wasn’t large enough to keep them completely out of the elements, but between the cover it did provide and the trees that were growing close by, maybe this little rocky shelter could keep the worst of the rain and wind away from them. With the storm nearly upon them, it was all there was.

Wearily, the ranger on the outside rolled over Legolas and then pulled him under the rock slab until they were both as near the center as they could get. The top was high over their heads, which meant rain would most likely come in on them, but it would be so mild compared to being out in the thick of the storm that Aragorn thought the confines of the lean-to quite cozy.

Suddenly the man’s stomach growled. It was a loud reminder that he and Legolas hadn’t eaten in a long time. Aragorn reached into his pocket and brought out a handful of sodden berries. He had completely forgotten hat he had them. They had once been dried, but of course, the river had taken care to plump them up again. Aragorn was surprised they hadn’t been smashed to mush by the river and the rocks. He sighed. It wasn't much, bit it was better than nothing at all.

He handed the majority of them to Legolas and was gratified to see the elf make the effort to eat them, despite both his and the berries‘ poor condition.

As he ate his meager share of berries, the man couldn’t’ help thinking back to the slab tunnel he and Legolas had been hiding in by the river. This was larger and much more open. He knew that being in here wouldn’t have the same effect on Legolas the other had done.

In an odd way, Aragorn was thankful that the elf didn’t remember being there, though in truth, he wanted his friend’s memory returned to him.. Perhaps, when they were free of this nightmare ‘adventure’, and the elf’s concussion healed, the memories would come.

A moment later, the storm hit with all of the ferocity of the previous one - and then some. Rain lashed the covering slab of rock and slanted inward toward the two friends.

Aragorn shuddered to think what would have been their fate had they been out in the thick of this display of Nature’s fury.

Aragorn was glad to note that this shelter had another advantage over the one by the river than just more space. The back wall just below where the slab leaned against it, had a long protrusion with a little trench that ran across the top. It caught the water that ran down the hill and deflected it to either side of where Aragorn and Legolas sat. They were able to lean against the rock wall without worrying about water running down their backs.

The shelter was a Valar-send, and it was here that the elf and the ranger would ride out the storm.

TBC