Chapter Seventeen

Aragorn didn’t know what woke him up.  He lay quietly for a moment, taking stock.  Cold.  That was the only thing his mind registered.  He was very, very cold.

When he finally opened his eyes, all he saw straight above him were low-hanging, gray clouds.  He realized that snowflakes were no longer falling, but he didn’t know how long it had been since they stopped. 

The ranger lifted his head slightly and looked down the length of his body.  He saw that he was covered with snow but was unable to see any of his clothes, so he knew there was more than just a thin layer covering him.  Only the points of his boots were visible, poking up into the frigid air.  How long had he been lying here?  His numb legs told him it had been too long.

Aragorn groaned, as he rolled over to see if Legolas was awake, as well.  While the elf’s body was also covered with snow, his face was dripping wet.  The man sighed.  Legolas still had fever, which meant he was still in danger of...  The thought was forcibly ended there.  No way was he going to accept anything other than complete recovery for his friend, so there was no reason to let the dreaded ‘D’ word enter his mind.

A loud, crunching noise, perhaps   similar to the one that woke Aragorn up in the first place, came from below.  There was only one reason that any sound would  be coming from that direction.

This time Aragorn did groan.  Then he slid over to Legolas and began shaking the elf.  “Legolas.  Legolas, you must wake up.  Please, mellon nin.  Wake!”

There was no response from the archer.

With the noise almost continuous now and getting louder, Aragorn knew he couldn’t wait until Legolas regained consciousness on his own, assuming that he even would.  So, rising to his knees, the ranger leaved over Legolas, putting himself in a better position to get a good grip on the elf. 

When the noise continued at an alarmingly close distance, Aragorn dropped all efforts to be gentle.  He grabbed Legolas, threw him over his shoulder and, with an effort, rose to his feet.  He began trudging away from the cliff edge.

The going was rough.  With each step, the man sank down into the snow.  The volume that fell the night before and this morning had been so heavy that even the high wind couldn’t ‘brush’ the snow from the ground up here on what had been bare rock when he and Legolas had first shown up.

A loud crashing noise, somewhat different from the previous sounds but ominous just the same, caused the ranger to turn and look behind him.

Shock seemed to seize his legs, and he stumbled and almost fell down when he saw the head of the snake appear above the depression’s rock wall. 

Aragorn, spurred on by fear, tried to run, which was an impossible task in the deep snow.  He stumbled again, and this time he did fall.

It was making slow progress but progress nonetheless.  It didn’t understand the cold.  It only knew that the uncomfortable feeling It had had since the little white things began falling from above was what was making It hard to move.

Those white things had stopped falling now, but the uncomfortable, sluggish feeling remained.

It knew the prey beings were up ahead and that they were attempting to get away from It.  That was nothing new.  Prey had also tried escaping in It’s tunnels, but had never been able to do so.  It always caught whatever ventured there.

This time might be different, though, since there was openness all around them.  Here there were no tunnels to ‘trap’ the prey or chase it around in wall-in circles until whatever it was dropped from exhaustion.

Now, It was the one becoming exhausted, and that was a new and unpleasant experience.

Still, It would not give up.  The cold had driven hunger to the background of It’s thoughts, but the unfamiliar gnawing at It’s insides had not disappeared.  Time changed that.  It was now so ravenous, It could barely think of anything else.

It finally reached the place in the rock wall It had first come down when It had arrived here.  It raised It’s head and looked upward.  The task of getting It’s considerable body up to the top was a daunting one, but it was the only way out of this cold place, so up It went.

The sound of rocks and snow crunched under the huge body, slowly but surely reaching the top edge.

At last, It raised It’s head and looked around.  The ground was as covered in the white stuff as the ground below had been.

The prey beings were not in sight - at first. 

It tried to pull itself up onto the flat ground, It couldn’t do so.  It’s body, which had always been so pliable and easy to command, would not respond this time.

It placed It’s head flat on the cold, white stuff and used it for leverage to pull the rest of It’s body up.

It pushed down as hard as It could, but It’s body was just too heavy.  Strong as It’s neck muscles were, there was no way It could accomplish It’s goal.

It tried undulating It’s body, trying to use the thick edges of the scales on It’s belly to grasp the irregular rock and thus get It moving upward.  It soon became apparent that that wasn’t working, either.

Then It spotted the prey beings.  One was carrying the other, as It had seen before.  It didn’t care.  They were both there, just ahead, just out of It’s reach.

Hissing in frustration, It tried combining the pull using It’s neck muscles with the pull of It’s belly scales and thus managed to move itself a few inches.  It tried again, and again another few inches were gained.  However, the longer it took to advance, the more frustrated It became. 

Then It saw the prey beings fall!

Aragorn cursed - three times -  once in elvish, once in dwarvish and once in the common tongue.  None of it did him any good, except perhaps, to relieve a tiny bit of tension.

Legolas had fallen out of Aragorn’s grip, rolled a few feet away from the man and lay motionless. 

Aragorn himself lay face down in the snow.  Lifting his head, he cleared snow from his eyes and looked first to Legolas to make sure nothing worse than the fall had happened to him, and then he looked behind him.  He feared what he would see, but he had to know if the snake was gaining on them.

It appeared that the creature was struggling to get its huge body over the edge of the cliff.  If it was succeeding, Aragorn couldn’t see it.  Only its head and a small portion of its neck was visible.

There was still a good chance it wouldn’t make it at all, which gave the ranger time to get Legolas and start again to get away.

It took more time and effort than Aragorn believed possible to get Legolas over his shoulder again and then get to his feet.  The problem was only partly due to the deep snow he was foundering in.  The main problem was that his strength was failing. 

When he finally got moving again, Aragorn began a prayer to the Valar for their help.  It wasn’t meant to be self-serving in and of itself.  He was willing to sacrifice himself if it meant Legolas would survive.  He knew, though, that if he didn’t make it, Legolas had no chance.  He was the one that needed to gain the strength necessary to get them to safety, so his prayer included both of them. 

With a renewed will that slowly but surely infused that strength into Aragorn’s very being, the man forced one foot in front of the other.

Each time he wanted to look back to see the status of the snake, Aragorn stopped.  He was not willing to risk falling again, which might well prove too difficult to recover from. 
He was pleased to see that the snake’s head was still the only part of the serpentine body that was above the level of the cliff edge.

“Not doing too well, I see,” the man said aloud, jutting his chin toward the creature.  “That big body is a definite hindrance right now.  Too bad,” he added with mock sympathy.

It wasn’t long before the ground began to slope downward.  A grin appeared on Aragorn’s face.  They were descending the mountain.  The snowfield stretched out before him, and it was a long way to the bottom, but each step would take them closer to freedom.

The angle of the downward grade was steep up here where they were now, but luckily the snow was powdery and not icy.  It made the going harder to negotiate but less dangerous in the long run, which was by far the more important thing.

By the time that Aragorn with his still-unconscious ‘passenger’ found a small shelter under a rock overhang, the ranger’s legs were shaking from exhaustion.

He lowered Legolas and lay the elf out straight.  The shelter would not protect them much from the elements, but it did shield them from the sight of the snake should it be able to follow them.  Of course, should it move down past them and look back, they would be spotted immediately -  trapped with no real hope of escape.  It would only have to climb back up to them and...  Well, it couldn’t be helped,  Aragorn thought.  He had to rest his legs, and it was a long way down to the next spot that could hide them.

As much as Aragorn wanted to rest his entire body, he was driven by the healer in him to check Legolas’s condition first.

When he pulled the elf’s tunic up, he could almost see steam rising up into the frigid air from the elf‘s overheated body.

The multiple wounds were as red and inflamed as they had been before.  They weren’t any worse, which was a blessing, but the elf’s natural healing ability hadn’t kicked in, either.  It was obvious the infection was very strong.

All that Aragorn could do was put snow on the punctures.  He also put some on Legolas’s neck and at his wrists,  hoping that the cold crystals at his pulse points could cool his blood down and thus cool his whole body from the inside. 

The ranger had seen too many men succumb when their bodies couldn’t fight off the intense fever that destroyed first their brain and then the various organs of their bodies.  It had happened to him, nearly killing him, on more than one occasion. 

While it was true that Legolas wasn’t a human and was greatly different in a number of ways, elven physiology in general was similar enough to be affected in the same way.

After doing what he could for Legolas, Aragorn stood up and peeked around the overhang.  He was too far away to see the top of the cliff surrounding the depression, so he wasn’t too upset when he could see no evidence of the snake. 

The man sank back down.  Maybe things were going their way for once.

Aragorn refused to lie down or  lean back against the rock.  He was even afraid to lay his head down on his knees.  He couldn't take the chance of falling asleep again.  His rest would have to come while sitting straight up and watching over his friend.

TBC