Dwimmerlaik

Author’s Notes: I couldn’t stop writing this which is why this chapter is actually the first part of a two-part mini arc. It’s also a cliffhanger. Which probably means you will either love it and curse me or hate it and curse me, whichever. Aragorn angst-lovers, glut yourselves! The next few chapters are just for you (though not exclusively—Haldir angst-lovers too).

The Lady of Light

Part Eleven

Sacrifices One: The Truth of Nightmares

Aragorn would have bolted forward save for Rancir clamping around his arm and hauling him back onto his seat. The elf’s rag-wrapped hand instantly stifled any cry of surprise as his voice grated harsh against the man’s ear.

“Start a fight now and he’s dead and you and I with him.” He waited until Aragorn calmed completely before letting him go.

Haldir remained quite still as Critz, sullen and scowling, unlocked the fetters from around his wrists. The chains fell to the ground with a muffled clink. Aragorn had not seen his friend in over a month and the change disturbed him.

Imprinted on that familiar countenance was the marble-white mark of intractable suffering. Eye sockets gaped like tunnels and the ragged remnants of a black undertunic hung loose around a wasted frame of sinew. His wrists bore ugly, healing marks from the constantly rubbing manacles and he stood oddly stiff even with the chains removed. But the wraith was speaking and the low, hypnotic voice pulled Aragorn forward almost against his will.

“You have pleased me today, elf, therefore you are free tonight. But displease me, and you will quickly find—as you already know—there are worse things than chains. Do you understand?”

The elf’s reply was inaudible but the orcs jeered cruelly.

“Master’s got him whipped.”

“They all break sooner or later.”

A sharp jerk on his sleeve startled Aragorn and he spun around. Rancir was trying to tug him back, away from the two. The ranger recaptured his sleeve brusquely.

“I’m not leaving him.”

“We came here for information, not a fight. Not yet.”

“If you think after all this time I’m just going to—”

“Yes, I do.” A harsh shove sent Aragorn stumbling back nearly into their small fire. Rancir grabbed him roughly and turned him about with another push towards the trees. There was another emotion undercutting Rancir’s irritation. Had Aragorn been less frustrated and afraid for his friend, he would have thought it was panic. “Rejoin Halbarad and the others. That’s an order. You’re not prepared for this.”

“You are not—”

A shout interrupted their whispered debate.

“You, cripple!” Both Aragorn and Rancir froze as Critz beckoned them imperiously with a spear haft. “Come with me and bring your friend. Our lord wants to take the measure of his newest soldiers for himself.”

Other orcs, all bearing weapons, drew a semi-circle around the two warriors, eyes alight with cruel anticipation. Aragorn and Rancir exchanged tense glances. There was no chance of returning to the others now.

Coerced by prods from spears and javelins, the two followed in Critz’s wake towards a dark awning where the wraith lord had seated himself.

Aragorn’s insides churned with nauseous fear. He had never encountered one of the Nazgûl and before this he had never had any intention of going near one. Questions roiled under the surface of his mask as he remembered his brothers’ stories. Was it true they could smell blood? Could they really see into the minds of others and leave them stripped of all humanity?

Haldir stood a pace behind the wraith’s seat. He did not look at Aragorn though the man tried to catch his eye. When the wraith spoke in a sibilant, dry voice that even pitched soft thrummed with power, Aragorn felt it behind his eyes.

“Critz has told me of you. You are soldiers from the mountains?”

“Yes, my lord,” Rancir answered for both of them with a respectful, if stiff, bow.

“I am familiar with many kinds of orcs…which breed are you, rat?”

Rancir’s amputated arm gave a nervous little twitch against Aragorn’s shoulder. These were muddy waters indeed and Aragorn thought he hesitated a fraction too long before answering. “Goblin tunnels under Silvertine.”

“I see.” Disbelieving. “With vast armies at my command, what use do you think two soldiers could possible be to me? And a maimed and a speechless one at that. Furthermore, why did you not show yourselves to my scouts—we have been hunting this region for days.”

He didn’t give Rancir a chance to answer. Instead the steel glove creaked as it touched the arm of the pale mannequin behind his shoulder. It was almost a caress. “My servant found very interesting tracks just outside this camp. Very interesting indeed. Humans’.”

Aragorn heart slammed against the wall of his ribs and part of him almost wanted to scream the truth of it to the wraith if only to relieve the terrible pressure in his head.

“What have you truly come for?” the Witch-king rose as he questioned them, the span of his powerful shoulders like an encompassing bulwark of night, insubstantial but deadly. A glitter of red eyes underneath the deep cowl made Aragorn avert his face.

It was the wrong move to make. The wraith’s gauntleted hand lashed out and seized the ranger’s chin, dragging his gaze back. Aragorn clenched his jaw against the iron spikes digging furrows into his skin as those eyes assailed him, probed deep as though searching for the lies he knew he must conceal. A sharp pressure lanced through his temples and he squeezed his eyes shut against it as unwillingly Haldir’s face swam before his eyes.

The wraith dropped his chin. The voice that next issued from the hood purred with malicious pleasure. “You are not what you seem. Did you truly think me so senseless that I could not smell the blood that courses through your veins, tark?”

The orcs stirred and muttered at this pronouncement. The Witch-king ignored them. He turned instead to Rancir whose steely expression gave away nothing. “You who shield yourself from me should have chosen your companions better. The boy’s mind is weak. I know who you are. Critz, I believe you do too. A former guest to our humble camp.”

The orc lieutenant glanced at his master curiously then swaggered forward to examine the prisoners. His carmine-flecked stare flicked from Aragorn to Rancir. He grasped the elf’s tangled, dark mane and wrenched his head back, exposing his face to the firelight. After a long moment, his gash of a mouth opened dumbly in surprise.

“My sweet!” he addressed the wolf who had prowled to his side. “It’s the morsel.” A sick, wormy smile curled the black lips. “You know, morsel, I’ve told her tales about her pack mother once tasting elf-flesh. How sweetly you scre—”

Rancir jerked out a knife, forcing the orc to back off fast. “Challenge me, pen gwaur, and I will rip out your intestines and feed you to her!”

Instantly, the guards jumped him and Aragorn. Borne down by three, Aragorn cracked his head on the ground and a javelin haft robbed him of breath. Gasping against the sharp, painful lance through his ribs, he was dragged upright by the hair and his hands bound behind him. Rancir, bleeding from a mouthwound, had two swords against his neck while a noose slipped around him, pinioning his arm to his side. They were summarily relieved of their weapons.

The wraith drifted closer to his captives, his long shadow casting a dark veil over their faces. “Before the night is out, I will find the rest of your companions and where they lay hid. And you can watch them die screaming before you follow.” He gestured for them to be taken away but Aragorn resisted, his wide eyes finding the one who had made no move or sign the entire time.

“Haldir,” the name came out an anguished croak. “Haldir…”

The elf’s eyelids flickered but the once-keen silver eyes remained blank and pupil-less. The sheer lifelessness behind his friend’s familiar gaze frightened him horribly, more than the orcs crowding ever closer, more even than the wraith whose very presence sent icy pricklings of terror stabbing down his spine like shards of glass.

“What did they do to you?” Aragorn could not believe his friend was looking at him like that—as if he were a stranger. He didn’t know what had happened in the weeks since their parting but this was not the Haldir who had left him in Imladris. “Why won’t you help us?”

“I heed only the command of my lord.” His tone was as empty as his eyes.

“I did not know Lord Celeborn approved of his wardens making acquaintance with the dross of Mordor,” his eyes darted back at the orcs whose claws dug painfully into his shoulders. “I thought the marchwarden of Lothlórien heeded only his own counsel and did not let himself be swayed by others. Clearly I was wrong.”

The elf did not react to his biting, hurtful tone.

The Witch-king touched his slave’s shoulder with mock-fondness. “You will find, youngling, that things change. Orders and lords crumble into dust, new ones take their place.”

Ignoring the wraith’s poisonous insinuation, Aragorn spat, his words made all the more venomous by the burn of betrayal stinging the corners of his eyes. “Since when do you serve the Shadow of Mordor, Haldir?”

While enjoying the obvious pain this revelation caused the miraculously speech-restored human, the wraith did not have time to waste on pleasure. He waved Critz towards his new slave and handed him the black vial. “Dose him again in a few hours. Stronger this time. I want his mind fully mine before the slaughter begins. You others, guard them well.”

Hurt and bewildered by his friend’s condemning silence, the ranger didn’t even have the strength to fight as the orcs tugged him away.

----------

Halbarad didn’t like this one little bit. Because of the danger of being spotted by the perimeter guards, he had pulled his rangers out of sight of the orc camp. Of course this meant he couldn’t see what was happening inside it. His legs ached for want of movement that might take the edge off his tension but he stayed perfectly still. He wasn’t exactly in a place that benefited movement. More than fifty feet off the ground, a misstep in the dark now would send him plummeting to his death. Then what use would he be to Estel?

He just knew something was wrong. Apart from his jangling nerves strung already taut from being so high off the ground, it had been too long without a report. Galen said he had spoken to Aragorn—hours ago. Nothing since. The frequent patrols coming and going had ceased too which at this time of night was unusual behavior for orcs. Unless something had happened…something to make them stay in the camp…

A rustle in the branches directly overhead made him instinctively grope for his sword before he realized his ‘attacker’ was a breathless elf climbing swiftly down to his position. The look on his face did not reassure Aragorn’s deputy.

“They’re in trouble,” Galen panted. “The wraith returned…knew who they were…found our tracks outside the perimeter. They’re tied up at the south end of the camp surrounded by guards.”

Halbarad struck his fist against the bole of the hawthorn so hard he hurt his hand and nearly lost his balance. “I knew something like this was going to happen! I shouldn’t have let him go!”

“Don’t panic yet. Rancir’s been in worse scraps than this; he’ll bring Estel through all right,” Lalaithien assured him from below though his lower lip was raw from gnawing on it.

“We’ve got to get them back,” Ivriel appeared on Galen’s other side, her eyes wide and glowing with ferocity. She twitched her drawn rapier until it sang through the air. “We can take them by surprise! They still don’t know where we are.”

“Watch it with that! You’re going to take someone’s eye out!” Halbarad snapped, shielding his face. “We can’t just go charging right in there. Knowing orcs, they’ll slay their captives rather than risk them being freed. No, we’ve got to think of something else.”

“Then think swiftly. I’ll not wait long.” Ivriel sheathed her blade slightly waspishly and descended as though a flock of bees were on her heels.

Halbarad whistled in soft admiration and remarked to Lalaithien as he began his much-slower, more cautious descent. “A firebrand when roused! If it weren’t for us, she’d charge in there no matter if she had one or a hundred at her back!”

“And she would too,” Lalaithien agreed as he leapt into space, landing on a lower branch some twelve feet below with the perfect equilibrium of an elf born to the trees.

It took the heftier, less accustomed ranger several disgruntled minutes longer to reach the ground but as soon as he touched blessed earth again, he muttered, brushing his hands together. “I’m no squirrel for shinnying up and down trees, I’ll tell you that. What on earth—?”

A scuffle had broken out among the bushes. As Halbarad darted forwards, Angrad and Veil tussling wildly fell almost at his feet. He wrenched the lanky thief off by the collar and threw him bodily from the younger soldier. “Get off him! What do you think you’re doing?”

Veil staggered but caught himself and came back with blazing eyes as Angrad rose shakily to his feet, wiping a bloodied lip on his sleeve.

“He attacked me, sir!”

“Fight your own battles, whelp!”

“You’d better get out of my sight quick before I take a swing at you myself,” Halbarad spat at the former slave. “You’re supposed to be with Eldacar’s group.”

Veil still hadn’t taken his eyes off Angrad. “Caitiff.”

Halbarad lunged but Galen abruptly intervened. “Stop this senseless bickering. Any longer and Rancir and Estel will know too well the hospitality of orcs.”

Aragorn’s subaltern reluctantly dropped his glare from Veil’s face and glanced up into the foliage, a plan already forming in his mind. “Right. Galen, go fetch Eldacar’s group over by the split trees, tell them to gather their best archers and meet me here. I have an idea.”

----------

Aragorn leaned his head back against the trunk. Cords of rough hemp bound he and Rancir around its girth and pinched across his chest as he inhaled deeply. The ache in his heart made every blow the orcs had bestowed on him throb like a brand of iron.

He couldn’t—wouldn’t—believe Haldir had betrayed him willingly. They’d done something to him…He had seen the wraith hand Critz some kind of vial…That had to be it. Whatever it was had taken control of his friend’s mind. Elves’ wills were difficult to break or harness and he knew Haldir was strong enough to give a good fight if one attempted to master his. Whatever had happened to make him lose so much of himself must have been horrible. And despite the fact that Aragorn knew he could have made no more haste than he had, nevertheless a nasty guilty knot tightened in the pit of his stomach.

So entrenched was he in these despairing thoughts, he didn’t give any to his own predicament.

Rancir, however, had no such distractions from considering their fate at the hands of the Nazgûl. He was calmer now though there was a granite-like set to his jaw. “Have you ever been put under torture, pen neth?”

That jarred Aragorn harshly out of his preoccupation. His mouth went dry. He had had that question put to him before. “Yes. It is not my preferred way to die.”

“Nor mine.” The dark-haired elf licked the crusted blood from his lip and shifted slightly. The rope that secured them was tight but he had been working steadily on getting his hand free. Since he was bereft of one, the orcs hadn’t bound him quite as snugly as Aragorn who had ties fastening his wrists in addition to those about his chest.

Interrupted sleep and dull hours of boredom had numbed their guards’ hypersensitive vigilance. The elf torqued his shoulder and managed to slide his fingers into a small pouch concealed at the back of his tunic. Inch by cautious inch, he extracted several purple-blotched stems hanging with deceptively beautiful, white blossoms.

“When I decided upon this course, I took it upon myself to be…prepared for every eventuality. Though I’d rather you didn’t have to share in it.”

Aragorn recognized the highly toxic hemlock instantly—it was just like the patch he had knelt in when they’d first spotted the orc scouts. Had that just been this morning? “Do you think that’ll be necessary?”

“No, I rather hope your and my troops will come charging in here blades flashing but there again, I believe in being prepared. The herbs will grant us a much kinder mercy than the orcs will.”

Night deepened with little sleep for either of them. Even though most of the camp dozed, the prisoners were never unguarded even for a moment. Crows and a large shrike perched in the branches over their heads and cawed loudly if they moved even to adjust their tingling limbs while the large wolf paced restlessly to and fro, always eyeing them with a disturbing hunger.

Grishtag, who had accosted them when they’d first entered the camp seemed to have taken their true identities as a personal insult. He stood guard near them and flicked them with a whippy branch he’d hewed from a willow. When they ignored him, he resulted to threats.

“You ought to tell us whatever you’re hiding. The master’ll drag it out of you sooner or later. Believe me when I say you’ll want it sooner. They all break in the end…like that one over there.”

Aragorn had tried to speak to Haldir to no avail. The elf was chained up and staked down not far from them. The ranger didn’t know and didn’t care to know where the wraith sequestered himself but his hold over the marchwarden seemed to dim, especially as dawn approached.

As the sky lightened to a moist deep blue, the silver eyes had grown clear. Aragorn couldn’t be sure but he thought they met his briefly before Critz, given strict orders to guard both their prisoners and the master’s newest thrall, went to where the elf lay prone, unsleeping.

With a sharp, violent movement, he ripped back the tattered shirt, displaying a hard-muscled chest mottled with dark purple-green bruising and an inflamed, infected-looking wound beneath his ribs. A small groan escaped his patient as Critz’s ungentle hands worked the venom deep into the cut. The soft admission of pain from the elf sent a frenzied tremor straight through Aragorn’s stomach and up his spine. His bonds tightened as he unconsciously fought their knots, yearning to go to his friend and tear off the head of the one who hurt him. When it was over, Critz departed, visiting a last malicious kick to the reeling elf. Haldir slumped as one mortally wounded, his eyes lifeless once more.

Grishtag’s whippy branch struck without warning, stinging across Aragorn’s cheek.

The ranger kicked out hard with his bound ankles making the orc guard stumble with a curse. Eyes glowing with the promise of retribution, he whirled on the ranger. Aragorn curled his legs up to protect his face as the orc laid into him with the makeshift whip, striking stinging blows to the back of his neck and shoulders.

Rancir lunged against his bonds to help the ranger but one of the other guards thrust him back with a spear against his breastbone.

Flinging the broken branch away bad-temperedly, Grishtag produced instead a wickedly curved, serrated knife which he waved under Aragorn’s chin.

“You just cost your friend ‘is other arm. We’ll see how snappy you are after that, my fine young lad. I’ll save you for taking apart slowly. You two, grab hold of that elf. Master never said we couldn’t play with them a bit,” Grishtag leered at Aragorn as the bidden guards sank their claws cruelly into Rancir and pulled his arm straight against the tree trunk like a slab of meat across a cutting board.

Grishtag sniggered evilly as the knife caressed the elf’s strained elbow joint. “Critz says he squalls like a—.”

The orc abruptly stopped speaking and a choked gargle rattled from his throat as the knife slid out of his limp hand closely followed by the rest of him, slain by a green-fletched barb.

Before the other guards had realized what happened two more arrows zipped vengefully from the woods and snuffed them out.

Black feathers rained down and crows screamed as Ivriel dropped out of the branches directly overhead. In a trice, she slashed their bonds while the Dúnedain loosed arrows rapidly into the mass of orcs, easy targets in the brightening dawn sky. Several more fell before the orcs realized they were under attack and officers shouted orders to organize.

Galen grinned in relief as he pulled Aragorn to his feet. “Well, Estel, did you have fun? Enjoy the company?”

“Oh, yes. Remind me to send them a thank-you note,” Aragorn ducked, pulling his friend down as a return arrow thocked solidly into the trunk where he’d been tied a second before.

“It’s just a handful of tarks! Kill them!” The cry went up.

“Kill! Kill!”

“Ivriel, get them out of here,” Halbarad shouted, sighting another shaft down his short-range bow. “We’ll give them one more volley and follow you.”

The capable elf woman nodded once. But Rancir snatched the knife out of her hands and without a word stalked deeper into the camp, slaying with a brutal thrust one of the orcs who got too close. Aragorn knew exactly what his counterpart was going to do and snatched his arm, restraining his knife.

“I have a reckoning to attend to. Leave off, boy,” he tried to throw the ranger aside but Aragorn clung on stubbornly.

“This is not the time for vengeance—” A scream drowned his words as an orc toppled into one of the bonfires, a spear through his middle. “We need to go.” He stared around wildly for Haldir and found him. The elf stood beside the Nazgûl whose black shape was horrifically visible in the center of the camp, silhouetted by the bonfires, a merciless, mesmerizing figure.

With an agile twist the Imladris soldier sent the ranger staggering. “Then go. Nothing is keeping you here.” Ivriel had paused at the edge of the perimeter and he barked at her. “Take them! Redannao!”

The red glitter of battle light shone from the commander’s eyes. He seemed beyond reason. He whirled again towards their attackers, seeking the one who had called him “cripple.”

Lunging at his back, Aragorn blitzed him as arrows buzzed overhead from both sides. Rancir swore and fought him viciously until Ivriel ran to his aid. The audible crack of bone so shocked Aragorn he released his grip as the commander’s head slammed back against the earth. Unconventional, but Ivriel’s fist seemed to have brought Rancir to his senses at last. She latched onto his arm and didn’t let go.

“Go!”

A last salvo of arrows erupted on the other side of the camp from Eldacar and his group and caused total confusion among the orcs as they wheeled about, trying to figure out where the attacks were coming from.

Just as suddenly as it had started, the hail of arrows stopped. The rangers broke off and in full flight, vanished into the blue, smoky light of dawn.

----------

No trace could be found of them. The Witch-king was furious and let everyone within his reach know it. Of his sixty creatures, fifteen were dead, another several wounded. Search parties had been sent out to scour the perimeter and the wolf picked up the Dúnedain’s trail as far as the stream where it abruptly ended. Through some elvish trick, not even a broken reed could be discerned on the other side where they’d left it. Snipers that had sped ahead of the main body of trackers floated dead in the shallows.

So great was his rancor and hatred for the Dúnedain, the wraith lord momentarily forgot his newest charge. Removed from the action, Haldir stood apart from the others, doing whatever he was bidden but exhibiting little independent movement on his own. His eyes stared at the rushing brown water where the Dúnedain trail ended. Critz was cursing as he pushed two of his hapless soldiers into the water to retrieve the bodies of their bloated comrades.

The past few days had been pure torment for the marchwarden. The side wound was a throbbing mess from the wraith’s ruthless ministrations. As the dosages increased every time, the elf lost more of who he was. Seeing Aragorn the night before had thrust something to the fore that he thought had been buried: his friend had come for him. He had actually come. But emotion was dangerous; the wraith sensed the momentary lucidity of his “slave” and acted accordingly.

Now he could barely move without pain, though curiously, the sensation seemed duller than the all-consuming agony he vaguely remembered from his earliest days of captivity. Discomfort had become something he had grown accustomed to, like the ache from breaking in new boots. Pain was part of the life he led now.

But there was a part that still remained—for all the wraith’s attempts to drag him fully under the Shadow—solely his. Though battered and unspeakably weary, he clung to that fenced-in corner of his mind where he gamely held onto the last of his secrets. At whiles, especially at night when his despair was strongest, he retreated there and prayed for release. Aragorn was gone. If he had any sense at all, he would flee back to Rivendell, back where he was safe.

“Slave.”

Inside the only corner of his mind that remained his, Haldir lashed furiously against the bars at the hated, hissing voice. Outwardly, his body which no longer belonged to him turned towards the dark shadow on the bank, mist curling around the black cloak like a protective veil. The sun was already riding the sky.

“My lord?”

“My minions are useless, perhaps you will prove better. Go down to the bank. Find me the Dúnedain.”

“Yes, my lord.”

He didn’t feel the frigid water creeping up his calves as he waded into the rain-swollen stream. Critz watched through resentful eyes; he had found something of a rival in the master’s newest plaything and had resolved to put an end to the elf’s usefulness sooner or later.

Haldir paid little attention to the orc lieutenant when Critz followed him up the bank while he cast about in the reeds. There were signs here only another elf could read. And unfortunately, Haldir had honed his skills well hunting in the woods of Lothlórien. There was no quarry he could not track be he hare, stag or man. The evil that mastered his mind also mastered the deft skills that had made him one of the most trusted guardians of the Golden Wood.

A great willow heeled up on the further bank, its top split by the lightning storm weeks ago. Shards of exposed tree pulp hung at crazy angles and its distinctive vine-like tendrils were reduced to charred and disintegrated skeletons. Seated within a small crevice formed by a broken limb was a lean figure, elbows resting casually on bent knees, the very picture of relaxation.

He didn’t seem at all alarmed to see the blank-eyed elf nor Critz. When they approached, he stood.

Critz hailed him with a familiar nod. “Well, if it isn’t our little spy-rat. Tarks were swarming all over here, figured you were still with them.”

“I separated from them. It was simple enough. I must speak with our lord.”

The orc bared his teeth in a satisfied, predatory grin, his red eyes crinkling with joy. “You know where they’re hiding.”

The traitor echoed the feral smile. “I know where they’re hiding.”

----------

Helpful Notes: Elvish has become increasingly rare in my stories which is a pity because I love the language—it’s just a pain to translate correctly especially if you don’t have the nouns or verbs you want. So important, those nouns and verbs. Anyway… For your interest, I have provided translations since not everyone uses the same Sindarin dictionary. The less familiar archaic words are included too.

pen gwaur—the curse Rancir hurls at Critz is closely translated as “dirty one.” If I could have found, “swine” that’s what I would approximate it to.

caitiff—an archaic word expressing contempt, and often involving strong moral disapprobation: A base, mean, despicable ‘wretch’, a villain.

pen neth—“young one”

redannao—“fall back!”

Author’s Notes: I have never had so many notes for one chapter. –wipes melodramatic sweat from brow- I hope they were helpful. (I don’t think they’re going to become a regular staple of every chapter but they add a nice bit of flavor, right?)

As always, this is the part where I tell you longsuffering readers how much I adore hearing from you and hope you will gift me with a few words to spur on the next chapter (which is already written but, hey, every little bit helps).

‘Til next,

The Lady of Light