Chapter Eleven

The first sensation that Legolas felt was pain.  That in itself was nothing new.  He had certainly been wounded often enough in his long life to know what that was like, but the pattern of his current pain was unusual.  Instead of one specific source, like from an arrow wound or one overall body ache, as if from a fall, there were numerous points of pain on his chest, his back and his legs.  It made no sense to his muddled mind.  Perhaps, it was playing tricks on him.

Blinking rapidly to clear the fog that was obstructing his vision, Legolas lifted his head and looked around.  In an attempt to discover where he was, he blinked several more times. 

All the archer saw were dark shadows and tall boulders, which he was lying among.  He sat up slowly and gingerly leaned against one of the big rocks, trying to keep from aggravating his injuries any further.

Looking down at himself, he confirmed that he was indeed injured.  Dark stains covered the front of his tunic and the upper portion of his leggings.

What could have made such wounds? It looked like - teeth marks.  Then, the memories hit him.  The snake!  He had been grabbed and carried in its huge mouth.  The elf was stunned all over again.

He took a deep breath, attempting to calm his suddenly racing heart.  He quickly discovered that the action was a painful one.  Had his ribs been broken?  It seemed likely, judging from past experience.  He tried not to think about that, though, because such an injury could very well lead to something far worse, especially if he managed to puncture a lung with the pointed end of a rib bone.

Abandoning thoughts of his injuries, since he couldn’t do anything about them right now anyway, Legolas looked around him again.  His line of sight was blocked in every direction by the boulders that towered above him.  He would have to move out of their encirclement if he was to determine where he was.

Gritting his teeth, Legolas began the difficult task of trying to get to his feet.  It was a painful pursuit but one that needed to be made.

Once he reached an upright position, he began to inch his way around the boulder in front of him.  It led to another boulder, which in turn led to another one.  He quickly realized that he was completely surrounded by a number of the large stones.  Where had the snake left him?

It was frustrating not being able to see anything but stone all around him.  The dark blue sky above was the only clue that he wasn’t in a cave. 

As he watched, the sky became perceptibly lighter, and the stars dimmed, one by one, until they disappeared from view.  Morning was fast approaching, as the silver glow of moonlight gave way to a pale, golden hue tinged with pink.

Despite the way he felt, a small smile spread across Legolas’s face.  The elf loved the night sky with its myriad of stars that sparkled like diamonds scattered across a dark expanse of midnight blue velvet.  Yet, it was the daylight that always signified a new beginning.  Another day that Ilúvatar had granted to him, and he was determined to make the most of it.  And, that meant finding a way out of these rocks and locating Aragorn, whose fate he had no way of knowing.  Though  deep inside, he felt that the ranger was alive and was hopefully well. 

It had to find a hiding place, especially one that would offer some kind of warmth.  This giant structure of rock was cold, as was the air around it, and It was finding that simple movement was becoming harder to accomplish.  It didn’t need the sun, which It had never known.  But It did need the same kind of warmth It had thrived in within It’s underground home.

It wondered, in It’s primitive way, if the prey also felt the cold in the same way.  The light one had been relatively easy to catch, once It had caught up with the being, so maybe it had also found moving hard to do, as well.  Yet, as It had carried the one, its body had been as warm as the things It had always caught in the tunnels.  The two thoughts warred with each other in the simple brain, and soon It lost interest in even attempting to figure it out.

The other being must have already made its escape and, slowed down or not, may now be out of reach.   Such a possibility made the search for a warmer place to hide a little more urgent.  It was hard to envision the dark being taking this one from It.  But, in this strange place, strange things might happen.  It was better to keep the one It had in It’s possession than to end up with nothing.

The slowness of It’s advancement was frustrating, but there was nothing It could do but continue to search for a place that could hide It’s bulk from the cold and from any prying eyes that might be lurking in this land of stone.

While the snake was looking for suitable shelter, and Legolas was making his slow and painful way through the boulders, Aragorn was on the other side of the huge depression.  The ranger lay watching the snake make its way toward him.  He couldn’t decided which was worse,  seeing the huge beast in the shimmering moonlight or in the fast approaching light of day.

The creature turned its head from side to side, flicking its tongue in and out, obviously searching.  That meant that it was not intentionally coming after him.  A deep sigh of relief escaped the ranger.  He hadn’t been spotted after all. 

It hadn’t been until then that common sense told the man that the snake, whose eyesight wasn’t nearly as acute as its sense of smell, couldn’t possibly have seen him.  He was lying flat on a cliff top over a hundred feet high.  Still, seeing the huge beast coming his way had been enough to cause alarm.

What now caused even more alarm was one question: Where was Legolas?  He still refused to ask himself the obvious question, because just as Legolas had felt that the ranger was alive, the ranger felt that Legolas was also alive, though in what condition he couldn‘t begin to guess.

How the two friends were going to meet up was another matter altogether. 

The ranger bit his lower lip.  He may believe that Legolas was alive, but how long would he remain so?  There was no way the archer could have been taken by the snake and not been harmed in some way.  The elf’s life may be hanging in the balance at this very moment, so lying here and staring at the snake was not going to get his friend rescued.

Pushing himself backward until he could stand up without being seen from below, Aragorn got to his feet.  During his surveillance of the hollow spread out before him, Aragorn had noticed a break in the cliff face almost a quarter of the way around to his left. 

The trail leading downward was steep and would surely prove difficult and dangerous, but it was the only way he had seen to reach the bottom of the gaping hollow.

Moving a little farther back, so he would give himself an extra feeling of security, Aragorn began to run. 

The terrain was slightly uneven, but with careful scrutiny of what was in front of him, he was able  to cross the far end of the mountain plateau in long strides.

He didn’t stop or even slow down until he reached the head of the broken trail that led downward.

Carefully making his way to the edge, Aragorn looked down.  The trail, if it could be called that, was a lot steeper than it had appeared from where he had first spotted it.  He would have preferred to wait until the sun was overhead to make such a descent, but waiting was not an option.  At least, the light was strong enough make the attempt.

If he made a misstep, no matter the strength of the light, he would fall, and only protruding rocks would stop him.  That wasn’t a very reassuring thought, considering that hitting one of those would break bones, unless of course, he managed to hit his head, which would be a death blow for sure.

The one saving grace he saw was that there didn’t appear to be a lot of little pebbles he could slip on.  The man laughed, thanking the Valar for small favors.  Then he prayed in earnest, asking that he would make it to the bottom in one piece and that he would find Legolas in the same condition.

Aragorn was slowly making his way down the steep trail.  He couldn’t afford to let his impatience to find Legolas cause him to make a foolish mistake.  He had to keep moving at a crawl, making sure he had a good grip on a rock before even attempting to move his feet downward.  He also had to make sure at least one foot was secure before letting his hands go.  It was a maddeningly slow pace, but one that he had to take or risk severely hurting or even killing himself.

The ranger was only halfway down when the sun finally rose high enough over the cliffs to shine directly on him.  He had been concentrating so hard on his movements that he wasn’t aware of it until he noticed the sun shining on his hands.

His first thought was that now he would be visible to the snake should it turn its head to look his way.  Almost immediately, he realized that the creature’s sight wasn’t good enough to pick him out against the rocky cliff face. However, its sense of smell was.  The ranger wasn’t the least bit hidden, so the wind, which was just now beginning to swirl around the bowl-shaped depression, could take his scent right to the beast, and it wouldn't take too long for it to follow that scent to its source - him.

There were times when caution had to be abandoned, or at least tempered, and the ranger determined that now was one of those times.

Aragorn still tried to keep his concentration on the task at hand, but he nonetheless increased his speed to whatever pace he felt safety would allow.

Once he slipped and slid a good fifteen feet before he was able to grab onto a protruding piece of rock and stop his descent. 

When he finally got himself back under control, both physically and emotionally, he let go with one hand and, before trying to grab the next rock, saw that his hand was shaking. 

During the slide, Aragorn had heard a few loose rocks rolling down the trail, hitting other stones and the rock wall and as they went.  Now, Aragorn turned his head and looked out across the depression, hoping against hope that he wasn’t going to see the snake turning his way.  He didn’t.  The creature was still facing the way it had been when he had first spotted it.

Moving again, this time more slowly but still with a sense of urgency, Aragorn made it to the bottom, planting both feet firmly on the rocky floor of the hollow.  

With the snake to his right, he had no choice but to go to his left, hoping that Legolas would be found in that direction.

What neither the elf nor the ranger knew was that they were each moving to their left, which meant that, unless Aragorn could overtake Legolas, they would either remain the same distance apart or stretch that distance even farther.

It was a good thing that the cold did not affect Legolas, because moving with no other hindrances than his wounds was proving to be all he could handle.

Well, actually it was proving to be more than he could handle.  After moving up and down and around the boulders, he found that he had to stop and rest more and more often, his breaths coming in painful gasps.  Though, he didn’t taste blood in his mouth, he still feared a broken rib may have penetrated a lung.  He prayed he was mistaken.

During one of his many rest stops, he came to understand that the throbbing he was suffering was more than the result of flesh wounds.  It was true that the sharpest pain was from the torn skin and punctured muscles the snake’s teeth had inflicted.  However, now he couldn’t deny the fact that there was a deep ache that made him think his very bones had been pierced.  That realization made him shake his head in dismay.  Even an elf couldn’t stave off infection from dangerous wounds like that.

Legolas couldn’t decide whether to stay where he was or keep moving.  If he had been alone, he would have rested his quickly tiring body.  But, knowing that Aragorn may be in need of help urged him forward.  So, with great difficulty, the elven archer pushed himself upright and continued on. 

Had he known that Aragorn was currently making his way in the elf’s direction, Legolas would have gratefully stayed right where he was.

Whether his decision to proceed would prove to be life-threatening was yet to be determined.

It kept moving,  turning It’s head and testing the air with It’s tongue.  The sun had made its way into the depression, and was beginning to alter the cold air. It was not actually going to  get warm to any great degree, but any semblance of warmth was welcome and would restore It to a more active state.

It felt the familiar pleasure of warmth spread along It’s body, as the sun pushed aside the worst of the cold. Deciding It no longer needed a shelter, It could now return to the prey being It had left in the rocks  and could at last enjoy the feast It was looking forward to.

It turned around and headed back to the far side of the depression, now glowing in full sunlight. 

Dinner was waiting.

TBC