Chapter Thirty Three

Frustrated by the thickness of the trees around him, Aragorn began to feel that he was being cowardly by hiding among them. He understood the need for caution, but at the same time, he decided he would have to be bolder, if he was going to get anything accomplished. So, knowing what he had to do, the man turned and moved toward the river.

Breaking free of the forest and coming out onto the rich, red soil of the riverbank, Aragorn looked upstream. Because of the bend he had just come around, he wasn’t able to see much, but he couldn’t shake the sudden feeling that there was something back there that needed his attention. Of course, Legolas came to mind immediately. The elf was in trouble. Aragorn was sure of it.

The riverbed was hidden from sight due to the amount of churning silt that the upstream current had sent this way, so the ranger felt a little uneasy about trying to cross here. There was no telling what pitfalls lay in wait for anyone hoping to make their way through the water blindly.

Aragorn deemed that it wasn’t worth the risk of reaching the middle of the river and finding himself involved in a mishap that could prove deadly. Sturdy though horses are, their legs are vulnerable. A slip on a shifting rock or a wrong step into a hole, and Aragorn knew he and his horse could go down. Since horses cannot walk on three legs the way dogs can, the ranger didn’t want to think of what would transpire if his horse broke a leg. It certainly wouldn’t help the situation either, if he was the one that ended up with one.

Looking downstream, Aragorn saw that the river broadened out considerably from the width it had been to this point. Therefore, with the same amount of water covering a larger space, the current had settled into something resembling gentle.

Squinting his eyes, he could barely make out the trolls that had moved farther ahead of him. They were much farther along than he had expected them to be, though he could see now that they were moving faster than before. ‘You won’t find us down there,’ he thought with a grim laugh. “Stupid creatures,” he mumbled aloud.

The ranger believed the trolls far enough away that even if he was spotted, and they came after him, they wouldn’t be able to reach him before he got away. That was certainly his logic anyway.

Aragorn made his way swiftly along the riverbank. The speed at which he was traveling was bringing him closer to Tack’s group, but they had their attention aimed farther in front of them and with luck, wouldn’t notice him moving behind them.

When the ranger finally reached the widest part of the river, he was pleased to see that the current had slowed as much as he had at first hoped. The silt was settling with the slower movement. The water was still too murky for him to be able to determine its true depth, but he couldn‘t wait any longer.

With a deep sigh and a few rubs on his horse’s muscular neck, accompanied by words of encouragement, Aragorn urged the stallion into the river. He only smiled when he heard Legolas’s horse, who had been faithfully following this whole time, splash in behind him.

The trio moved cautiously one step at a time. They were half way across when it happened.

One of the trolls in Tack’s group turned around and looked behind him. There was no particular reason he had done it. He wasn't thinking that someone was behind the group. It was just dumb luck.

The troll stared for a moment and then began yelling at Tack and waving his arms in the air for attention. The members of the group around him became excited, as they saw what had attracted his interest.

The leader ignored the shouts, still single-mindedly focusing ahead, where he believed his prey was located. The yells became louder and more insistent, as more shouts were soon joined by others.

Angry and ready to lay into somebody for the distraction, Tack stomped back until he was standing in the middle of the group. “What’re you toads yelling for?”

“Look!” the first troll to spot Aragorn said. “Ain’t that one of them captives we’re chasin’?”

It was a good thing for him that Tack didn’t consider his question an insult. It could have been looked upon as a slap in the leader’s face since he had been heading them in the opposite direction.

Also not recognizing how his words could have been taken, the troll instead felt sure that even if who he saw wasn’t one of the captives, Tack would be pleased to have someone in his clutches. It always paid to be on the leader’s good side.

Tack hesitated for just a moment, straining to see who exactly it was that had been pointed out to him. He really wanted the two who had gotten away from them before. Their escape was what he considered an insult. However, he was smart enough to know that the others in the group wouldn’t stand for letting someone they could see get away in order to go after two others they had no idea the location of. Such a decision could bring about a challenge to his leadership.

Running through the back end of the group, Tack started toward the one human and two horses in the river. As he got closer, his eyes widened in shock, and he almost came to a complete stop. It was one of the former captives. That spurred him on even faster.

The trolls headed into the river, their sturdy, long legs making easy work of the current. They were hoping to catch the human before he made it across and could disappear into the forest. That would make him more difficult to catch but not impossible. Tack gave no notice to the fact that he was about to enter Sump’s side of the river.

Sump, however, did notice. He had been leading his group down the riverbank on his own side of the river, keeping Tack’s group in sight. Then he, in the lead, spotted Aragorn and realized why Tack was coming across into his territory.

All of the creatures in Sump’s group began shouting, as they started running toward the rider and the riderless horse with him.

Aragorn saw Tack’s trolls enter the river and make their way toward him. It seemed like only a few seconds later that he heard Sump’s trolls moving toward him along the riverbank. His heart almost seized up, because it didn’t take a genius to know he was about to be the rope in a tug-of-war contest.

Disregarding the dangers that may be lurking in the murky current, Aragorn urged his horse into as quick a pace as the animal could manage in the water. If luck was with him, he could gain the shore and make it into the trees before either group reached him. It would be his only chance.

He gained the trees and began to run. He could feel his horse’s muscles tense up and figured he, and surely Legolas’s horse as well, remembered the trolls and were just as anxious as the human to get away from them.

The elven horses were used to traveling swiftly in forests, so they were efficiently able to navigate the trees, the exposed roots and the various ups and downs of the terrain.

Maybe, Aragorn thought, the two groups behind him would come together and be so intent on fighting each other that they would forget about him entirely. Unfortunately, it didn’t happen that way.

The two groups of trolls did come together, shouting angry insults and threats at the other. However, instead of fighting, they moved side by side through the trees, separated by only a few yards. Despite their animosity toward each other, Aragorn remained the object of their attention. Wanting to get there first, they were driven to an even more frenzied pace.

When the man realized that the trolls, all of them, were still after him and not each other, he just shook his head. ‘What does it take to get rid of those disgusting creatures?’ he asked himself. Regrettably, the answer was just to keep going until he left troll country far behind, which of course, he couldn’t yet do. That would have been easy, but his top priority at the moment was to find Legolas.

*~*~*~*

Right then, Legolas was listening as the roving trolls were approaching his position. He knew he wasn’t going to get any help from the oak he sat in due to the silence of the forest around him.

Not realizing the creatures were following his scent, the elf believed he was safe enough that they would simply pass him by. Even if they had found the troll he had killed, they shouldn’t be able to find his hiding place high in the tree.

As the trolls came into view through the leaves, Legolas closed his eyes and whispered, “Please keep going.”

When he opened his eyes, the trolls were heading straight for him. ‘How?’ he wanted to know. How could these dumb creatures track an elf, especially one hiding in a tree? It made no sense to him and served to shatter his feeling of security.

Jus then, a gust of wind hit Legolas in the face, rustling the leaves around him. That was the answer! Most trolls’ senses weren’t any more keen than a human’s, however, their sense of smell was very sharp.

The trolls milled around below the elf. They had narrowed the area he was in, but even they weren’t able to pinpoint his exact location, since it wasn’t a ground trail they had been following.

“He’s here somewhere,” one of the trolls said.

“Find him,” another, larger troll, commanded. This one had to be the leader. His anger only made him look fiercer that just being a troll already made him look.

Legolas watched as the creatures searched all around the nearby trees, expecting that their quarry was hiding among them. They punctuated their visual exploration with constant sniffing.

The problem for them was that Legolas’s scent was no longer sweeping through the forest in a relatively straight line from where he was to where they had been. They had found the place of origin, but the elf’s scent was now swirling all around them in the shifting wind, confusing them and causing great frustration.

These trolls didn’t know they chased an elf. They weren’t even familiar with that race and had no way of knowing that some, like the one they sought, had an affinity for trees. Therefore, it didn’t occur to them to search above their heads, just as Hatch‘s group had failed to do when Legolas and Aragorn had first escaped their camp.

One troll did look up, but Legolas was too well concealed and his clothes blended too well with the colors within the canopy of the tree for him to be spotted. All the creature saw was various shades of green and gold, shifting in the windy tree top. He finally gave up and began searching the ground once again.

To Legolas’s way of thinking, this close encounter was going to end in one of two ways. Either he was eventually going to get caught, or the trolls were eventually going to leave. Fearing the first and hoping for the latter, the elf didn’t move. He simply stared down at the trolls that went in and out of his sight.

As he watched, the elf noted that the shafts of sunlight were coming in at a lower angle. He was almost shocked when he realized that the sun had dropped into the west without him even noticing. Of course, his attention had been on other matters. He knew it would be several hours before all light was gone, but he had a feeling that darkness would deter these trolls.

Legolas thought back to all the times he had spent hiding in trees while on patrol in Mirkwood. He had spent many an hour waiting out orcs, so they would pass by, and he and his fellow warriors could ambush them from behind. Even as far back as novice training, he had learned the kind of patience that such endeavors required. That lesson served him well now.

The archer shook his head. He needed to keep his mind on what was happening now, not focusing on long ago memories.

Shouts from downriver reached the keen ears of the elf. The wind had died down quite a bit, so Legolas was able to hear the noise clearly, but he didn’t like what he was hearing. The shouts were obviously those of trolls. Had Tack’s group found a way across the river? Or was it yet another group of the horrid creatures? How many groups were there? He knew it had to be more than just one that had split up. He had visions of all the trolls showing up at the bottom of his tree and looking up. The elf shivered.

With a sinking heart, the elf slumped against the tree trunk. The more trolls there were looking for him, the higher the chances became that he would be found, high in a tree or not.

Looking down, Legolas could tell the trolls that had been searching for him had not heard the noise - so far. However, it wouldn’t be long before they did.

Suddenly a new sound made its way upward to find the Legolas. It was the sound of a horse, no two horses. They were running and heading his way. For a second his heart soared, thinking that his and Aragorn’s horses were on their way to him. He could envision himself jumping down on one of them and making his escape.

Then the thought slammed into his mind that they would run right into the trolls, who wouldn’t hesitate to kill them and eat them there and then. The idea horrified the elf.
There was no way he could just sit up there, safe high above the ground, and let the horses become the victims of these creatures. He had to find a way to save them and himself.

Before he could do more than stand up and turn toward the approaching stallions, he caught a glimpse of a rider on one of them.

Estel! No!

The man was riding directly toward the trolls near the tree Legolas was in.

These creatures had now heard the shouts of Tack’s and Sump’s groups moving fast toward them.

Legolas had no choice but to shout a warning to his friend, causing the trolls below him to look upward. This time, they didn’t miss seeing the elf, who was moving along the branch in a frantic effort to turn Aragorn aside from the doom Legolas saw coming.

TBC