Dwimmerlaik

Author’s Notes: This was one of the most fun chapters for me to write! (Aside from the next one, hee hee.) You have a couple of more OCs to meet so I hope you’re not too tired of new faces. To make it a bit easier, I’ve also started including notes on elvish terms and archaic words at the end.

Part Eight

Amon-en-Achas

Haldir’s knees jarred against unyielding stone as the flat edge of a blade cut his legs out from under him. Blood streamed down his temple from the cut on his brow, mingling with the rain and sweat beading there. His bruised and cut forearm seared with slow fire as one of his guards twisted it meaningfully, daring the elf to move. The tip of a sword appeared, just brushing his chin, stilling his struggles.

“So, my bold elf,” Critz’s voice held a wicked chuckle in it. “Any brave words for your weak and pitiful rebels?”

If his mouth hadn’t been so dry, Haldir would have spat at his tormentor.

“No? Not a word? No pithy stubborn remark from the martyr? ‘Down with tyranny!’ ‘Born for freedom!’ Nothing? Tut tut I expected better from your ilk. Oh, well. Bend his head.”

Raking his hair away from his neck, the orc guards forced ruthlessly down until his forehead connected with the flagstones.

Haldir’s shoulders tensed. He could almost hear the rain drops tinging off the blade as it rose to sever his head from his shoulders. In the odd, elongated moment preceding he could think of nothing but that Aragorn would never know what had become of him. He almost felt sorry for arguing so much with that ginger-haired ranger and making their last days together so tense. He would have liked to have parted with his friend in peace. He closed his eyes.

But the death strike didn’t come.

Unconsciously it seemed, the orc sentries’ holds loosened and he was able to unbend his spine. Critz had frozen, the sword hanging slack from his hands. He was staring at the sky. Haldir followed his gaze.

A shrike hovered on a gust of wind above the assembly before diving to alight on a saddle horn.

Haldir had not seen the Witch-king since he had been brought here but the lord of Angmar looked as terrible as ever seated high in the stirrups of a black steed. The horse’s hooves echoed off the corners in the cowed silence that fell in the wake of the Nazgûl’s presence. Cold dread swept over the elf as the Rider halted mere paces from him and his would-be executioner.

Critz fidgeted with the hilt of his sword. Clearly the master did not often make an appearance in the slave quarters. “He’s their leader, my lord,” the orc said, nudging the elf with his boot. “We caught him trying to escape with these others. I was just going to finish the troublemaker off for you, sire.”

“I could have slain him the moment he came to us and spared you the trouble, Critz. I did not do so because he is of use to me, alive. Yet in your arrogance and injured pride you do not think so.”

“My lord?”

The wraith explained, his voice like wind over a frozen pond, a sibilant hiss yet no one missed a word. “None have ever succeeded in even nearly escaping this place and yet he was beyond the walls before you caught him. That kind of cunning spirit can serve me well if taken proper care of.”

Haldir didn’t like the sound of that though it seemed for the moment he was spared instant death; he listened intensely though the proximity of Sauron’s feared servant electrocuted his already-jangling nerves.

Critz’s eyes widened, intrigued, though the vicious way he stabbed his sword between a chink in the stones betrayed his disappointment. “Aye, sire.”

All along its back, the shrike’s feathers bristled as though in a blast of cold when iron-tipped gloves touched the top of its head. “My spy has brought word that there are enemy movements in my lands.” The Nazgûl pulled something from the bird’s beak. “The Dúnedain have returned home. We must prepare for them a fitting welcome.”

Coherent thought fled Haldir’s mind. He stared at the glittering thing in the wraith’s hand, a claw of deep fear sinking into his chest. He knew that ornament. A rayed star-shaped brooch that only a very select few wore. One name, one blissfully hopeful and damnable name blossomed on his lips, unspoken and stifled, as the orcs grabbed him up roughly and hauled him towards the fortress’ main stairs.

Aragorn.

----------

Aragorn held very still as the knife brushed his throbbing jugular. He couldn’t see who had him by such a tight grip but the voice that had warned him did not sound like an orc. He heard the others shifting uneasily in the dark behind him.

“What’s going on?”

“Estel, you all right?”

“I can’t see a blasted thing.”

The hard, un-orclike voice rapped out again. “All of you, be still! I have one of your men under my knife. Be still, I say!”

The mutterings quieted. No one moved.

Aragorn felt the blade shift slightly against his skin as his captor bent. Something began to burn at the edges of his vision to reveal a woman sliding back a lantern shutter. But she was not only a woman. Her steps on the hard floor had made not even the slightest whisper though she’d come up fast and her luminescent skin shimmered in the pitch-black of the barrow. An elf, he realized with a jolt.

“Ivriel,” Off to Aragorn’s left Galen let out the breath he’d been holding in a gasp when he saw the woman’s face. “You’re alive.”

“Who are you?”

“Galen son of Gelmir.”

The knife lowered from Aragorn’s neck slowly. The elf woman called Ivriel uncovered her blue lantern completely and held it up sparkling to examine the blinking faces of the rest of the company. Her eyes rested last on the only other elf. “You are a little late in bringing aid, son of Gelmir. In fact,” she took in the sopping garments and their miserable, thin faces. “It seems you are more in need of aid than giving it.”

In the clearer light, Aragorn could see she had a messily stitched wound running through one eyebrow. Ivriel’s pale eyes rested on him for a long minute. “You are Lord Elrond’s foster-son aren’t you?”

Aragorn blinked and straightened, wondering how she knew who he was. “I am.”

“And these?” she gestured towards the rangers who were watching her warily.

“My companions.”

“Can they be trusted?”

“I would entrust any one of them with my life,” Aragorn replied staunchly.

Ivriel’s eyes crinkled in a smile that was not altogether reassuring but it was nevertheless good to know she did anything as friendly as smile. “Ah, but it is not your life that is now in their keeping but ours.”

“You escaped the orcs,” Aragorn noted, recognizing the deep blue of her uniform as that of Rivendell.

Ivriel frowned as though he had been questioning her loyalty. “We would have died with our fellows gladly had we not been in the rear guard. We were more than a mile behind the others, making sure we were not pursued. By the time we were aware of the attack, we were too late.”

To soothe her ruffled pride, Aragorn softened his tone. “I know. We found them and laid them to rest.”

Her expression gentled a little, indignation blunted by grief. “Orcs have been prowling the hills here. We could not risk discovery.” Ivriel glanced back the way she had come. “There’s more than a score of you. Rancir’s not going to like this.”

“Rancir is with you?” Galen sounded both relieved and apprehensive.

“Who’s Rancir?”

“Were you pursued?” Ivriel demanded, ignoring Halbarad’s query.

“No,” Galen answered.

“Are you certain you were not seen?”

“I doubt anyone could see anything the way it is out there,” Aragorn put in. “Of course, nothing is certain. If you feel we are a danger to you, we will leave.”

Angrad shot him a pleading look, his lank hair dripping into his eyes.

Ivriel glanced at each of their faces, closed her eyes, and said at last, “We would be poor hosts and allies if we sent you back out there. Come. Follow me. Step softly.”

They needed no further encouragement. Questioning Galen quietly, she led them across the wide antechamber and into another tunnel that led down a short flight of stairs. Other smaller passages opened at intervals left and right always heading downwards but they stayed on the straight way until another, larger entrance opened up right in front of them. Instead of striding directly into it however, Ivriel stopped and faced them.

“Galen and the human commander come with me. The rest of you must wait here.”

Aragorn glanced back at his men. Halbarad took up an easy posture leaning against the wall, his cloak thrown back pointedly from his sword blade. He nodded at his chief. With a reassurance he did not feel, Aragorn nodded back, took a deep breath and plunged after the two elves.

The first thing he noticed was the smell: a sour, musky odor like preserving salts. But he forgot it in the next moment as he stared around in awe. The chamber they now entered was far larger than any they had yet traversed; forty feet and more it stretched from floor to vaulted ceiling and it was not empty. On either side were long niches cut into the walls. Within each one of them, all half-hidden under a gauzy curtain lay a figure, bony elbows and knees making lumpy shapes. It was a charnel house.

A clammy shiver crawled up his spine. He had the unsettling sensation that the bare eye sockets under the shrouds were watching him and did not like the intrusion. He averted his gaze to the back wall as Ivriel led them towards the middle of the mausoleum where a vast, stone vault sat.

The ancient tomb must have belonged to a great lord or king for the stone casket concealed the once-vaunted body under intricate, gold-leafed carvings and a foot-thick lid a host of dwarves couldn’t have lifted. It stood boldly, almost defiantly in the exact center of the hall, watched over by the slumbering knights.

Resting on what would have been the deceased’s chest another blue lantern, a mirror of Ivriel’s, threw piercing rays out over the smooth, dusty floor and seated languidly on his feet was a living figure who cast a long shadow, a sheet of parchment and smudged charcoal pencil in hand.

Galen greeted this figure in a voice hushed by the immensity of the funereal space around them, “Lieutenant-Commander Rancir.”

Aragorn’s first impression was this was not an elf to cross. He was rangy as a starved wolf with a long, dark mane trapped at his nape by a leather thong. The curve of his jaw underlit by the lantern was sharp-cut and stern. His features though as fair as any of the Eldar had a pinched, saturnine cast to them, bone-white instead of elven pale from lack of sun and a decent meal for several weeks. The solid dark cloth of his uniform made his face and visible hand oddly disembodied. He was left-handed, Aragorn noted idly.

Ivriel bent and spoke inaudibly to him. Aragorn couldn’t make out anything except his name and what might have been “trespassing” which didn’t sound very reassuring. The noble-looking elf nodded curtly and the woman backed away.

Exchanging a nervous fleeting look with Galen, Aragorn nodded for the elf-scout to speak first. Galen cleared his throat loudly but the elf didn’t so much as bat an eyelid, still tracing something on the parchment. “Sir, it’s good to—”

“You’re a bit late aren’t you, Galen?” He had a hoarse, rasping sort of voice that nonetheless carried a bark of authority startling in the eerie silence.

“Sorry, sir. I was detained.”

“So Ivriel tells me.” Lieutenant-Commander Rancir crossed something out with an irritated flourish, threw down the charcoal stick and stood up.

As hunched as he’d looked bent over, Aragorn noticed he was quite tall and straight as an oak. The ranger’s eyes drifted downward and his mouth fell slightly open in surprise. In the dim half light he hadn’t remarked it but now Aragorn saw the elf was left-handed because his right was gone. The navy tunic sleeve was folded up and pinned against the shoulder leaving nothing but empty space beneath the elbow. He had never seen an elf so maimed. It took him so completely by surprise he couldn’t help reacting.

Rancir’s eyes were bright and hard though the light in them appeared slightly jagged as he turned them on Aragorn who shut his mouth guiltily. “Is that how you greet a commanding officer?”

Aragorn snapped to a rigid attention that would have done the most hard-bitten officer proud. Raising his fingertips to his forehead and lips in salute, he sank into the courteous but proud bow of one leader acknowledging another.

Rancir nodded approvingly but a flash of astonishment lit briefly in his eyes. He returned the gesture. “The courtesy of Lindon. It has been a long, long time since I’ve been so treated.”

“I had good instructors of courtesy in the Lords of Rivendell and the House of the Golden Flower, sir.” Aragorn said, straightening.

“So, what Ivriel tells me is true. You are the fosterling of Lord Elrond and his house.”

“I have that proud honor, sir.” Aragorn’s brow furrowed slightly and he decided to ask the question that had been bothering him since he had recognized Ivriel’s uniform. “Forgive me, sir, I do not mean to slight you but I know most of the guard by name as well as rank and I do not recall seeing either you or yours before.”

“Nor I you. That would be because Ivriel, Lalaithien who you have yet to meet, and I do not ride with the regular patrol but keep watch in an inactive and useless outpost near the Bruinen outside the valley. No slight perceived, soldier. Where is Lalaithien anyway?” he shot this at Ivriel.

“How should I know?” she retorted, disregarding formal manner with an abruptness that shocked Aragorn—he guessed many did not dare speak so flippantly to the commander. “He went up the south slope this morning. I suppose you’ll want a report from him when he gets back?”

Rancir bore her reply with long-accustomed indifference. “Immediately.”

It was like talking to Haldir in the early days of their friendship. Aragorn fell easily into the rhythmic repartee of soldier and commander, thinking as he did so that the Lórien marchwarden would probably have gotten on with the strange Rancir. The distrustful atmosphere relaxed slightly and hands lingered away from weapons as Aragorn explained what had brought them up here.

Wondering what was taking their chief so long, the other rangers had gotten worried that something had happened. Halbarad led the way down the long aisle. The older ranger’s brow crinkled when he saw the elf sitting on a king’s tomb as though it were a common stool. The company stood in a protective semi-circle around Aragorn, looking as though they had just climbed out of a lake but prepared nevertheless to defend their leader.

“You were not sent for,” Ivriel told the ginger-haired warrior sternly.

“We’re not much for ‘being sent.’ ” Halbarad answered, ignoring Aragorn’s quelling look and addressing his words to the lieutenant-commander. “Whatever you have to say to our chief, you may say in front of us.”

The others looked embarrassed by this bold pronouncement. Angrad fiddled nervously with his cloak collar which flapped loose. His brooch was missing. Veil, too, hung towards the back, scrunching himself into as small a space as possible.

Rancir to his credit took no offense at the man’s impudence and kept his attention fixed on Aragorn who finished explaining their errand and how the storm had disrupted their hunt for the missing elves.

“There, at least, our purposes coincide,” Rancir leaned back against the stone tomb with a challenging glance at Halbarad. “Four of our company are still missing. We weren’t going to pack up and go home without them or without discovering what had become of them.”

“Do you know who they are?”

“By name and rank. Three of Rivendell: two scouts and a lieutenant, and the captain of Lothlórien whose sword you seem to carry,” Rancir’s probing eyes narrowed slightly at the saber hilt poking up out of Aragorn’s pack.

“He bequeathed it to me. He said it was too conspicuous where he was going.”

“An officer does not lightly relinquish his weapon. Why should he give it to you?”

“He had his reasons.”

“Oh? And yet you traipse about the countryside with it while he is missing...”

“I am going to return it to him.”

Halbarad had had enough. Already annoyed and now stung by this unfounded suspicion shown his chieftain, he bulled his way past Galen and Ivriel’s restraining clasp. Even sitting the elf commander was almost as tall but he planted his hands akimbo fearlessly.

“Listenif you think he stole the sword then say so and be done with it. You’d be dead wrong which only shows you’re dim as well as disrespectful.” He jerked his chin at the casket. “I somehow doubt these people fought and died so you could have a seat.”

Galen closed his eyes with a little, despairing moan. Ivriel leapt forward, her face stormy but Rancir held up his hand. He leveled his hard stare at the man until Halbarad’s eyes started to water with the effort of holding his gaze.

“These people,” the elf said at last, gesturing to the walls. “are of Rhudaur. Allies of Angmar and traitors to the Dúnedain. They are not worth your self-righteous outrage.” He released Halbarad from his eyes and leveled his stare in Aragorn’s direction once more. “You are courteous, Chief of the Dúnedain, but you need to instruct your men in it as well. I have slain men for words less proud and insolent seeing as you came unannounced bearing arms in the middle of the night.” A short-handled glaive, pointed at both ends, rested against the corner of the stone casket within the elf’s easy reach.

Aragorn grasped his friend by the scruff of his neck and hauled him backwards, warning him with a stern glance to keep his mouth shut and his comments to himself. “In truth, sir, we did not know this place was habited by the living and sought only shelter from the storm. I ask your pardon for any offense—Halbarad is simply bad-tempered and weary. Our road’s not been an easy one.” He was careful to keep eye-contact as the elf’s almost-black eyes bored into his own. He felt as though he were being tested or measured in some way and was anxious not to be found wanting.

“Hasn’t all of ours?” Rancir bent back over the parchment he had been examining. He perused it for a few minutes in silence before barking. “Galen, your compatriots are dripping all over my floor. Why do I still see them?”

That seemed to be the signal to relax. Ivriel shook her shoulders loose and Galen smiled weakly, a sign Aragorn took to mean they were welcome to stay at least the night.

The chieftain kept his grip on his friend’s collar as Ivriel led them out of the great hall. “Must you fight with every elf I introduce you too?”

Halbarad defended himself indignantly, yanking free. “I am not a child, leave off, Estel. He was nearly accusing you of thievery. Forgive me for telling him he was terribly mistaken.”

“I’m sure you convinced him by calling him dim and disrespectful.” Aragorn threw up his hands.

Halbarad had no argument to counter that and so held his peace.

Ivriel showed them a side room off the main burial chamber that held the king and his guards’ worldly possessions. “You can lay your things out in here to dry.”

It was a smallish square room, more comfortable than the large hall though a little stuffy, smoky and crowded when they all spread out. A veritable mini-arsenal of spears, swords, armor, and chests of clothes lined the walls and floors though much had been shifted around to make room for the gear the elves had brought with them.

Two rumpled sleeping rolls and one neatly made up a little further apart had been laid out in a corner alongside sagging haversacks. The Rivendell elves were hardly better off than their ranger counterparts. Orc activity and the need to stay hidden impeded their time and leisure to hunt though a pile of dead brushwood lay within the cool ashes of last night’s fire in a circle of stones. Ivriel skillfully kindled light and warmth within moments and with grateful sighs, the rangers spread their damp cloaks on the floor and huddled up close to the blaze.

They broke out their meager, water-damaged rations for a late supper while Ivriel scrounged about and mixed up a small batch of wheat and honey to make bannock. After pouring little splotches of the meal onto hot stones to cook, she placed a small kettle filled with rainwater over the fire to boil and with the ease of long practice chopped up little spring onions for a watery soup.

All sounds and thoughts of the storm raging outside vanished and the place, despite being a tomb, grew quite cheerful as the men joked and laughed amongst themselves now that there was a roof over their heads and warmth and food, however light, to look forward to. Aragorn remembered them back in the Last Homely House and a pang of longing shot through him. He wondered if Elladan and Elrohir were searching for him and if his father was desperately worried.

“Is it s-safe here?” Angrad asked, wringing a stream out of his tunic.

“Orcs fear this place,” Ivriel explained as she tasted the broth and added a couple of parsnips. “At least so far. We’ve been lucky. We’ve been here for weeks without trouble. Though our food stores are getting low,” she added almost as an afterthought.

“Do you know what’s happening? Where the others are?” Aragorn accepted the bowl she handed him gratefully.

Ivriel plucked the mildly toasted bannock cakes off the stone, “You’ll speak with Rancir on it later. I hope Lalaithien brings something back with him. We don’t have quite enough here for all of you.” She said it softly as though slightly embarrassed there wasn’t enough to go around.

“Don’t worry, we have—” Aragorn started to reassure her when a new voice interrupted.

“Hey ho, the nest! Soaked scout and harried hunter reporting back!” With this incredible pronouncement, a long-limbed elf ducked into the room from the opposite end where they’d entered, two brace of thrushes swung jauntily over one shoulder. His tunic of green-grey weave was several shades darker and his boots trailed mingled mud and rivulets. He halted theatrically short upon spying the Dúnedain. “Hel-lo! We have company! And me not fit to dine with trolls,” he tisked at his decidedly un-presentable gear.

“At last, Lalaithien,” Ivriel greeted him with a roll of her eyes. “Figures you would turn up just in time for dinner.”

“Dinnertime, you say? I brought just the thing to add to—what are we having? Broth and bannock again. Excellent,” he tossed down his catch beside the fire and reached eagerly for one of the cooling bannocks only to have his hand slapped away by Ivriel’s spoon.

“Not yet you don’t. You owe a report.”

Lalaithien’s boyish features drooped into an almost comical pout as he rubbed his wounded hand. “Aw, Ivriel, he can wait a minute while I unstick my stomach from my backbone.” He noticed the rangers watching him warily and grinned. “I see you lot have all met Rancir then. Cheerful isn’t he?”

Aragorn grinned at the elf’s buoyant lightheartedness but Ivriel was adamant.

“Go. He hasn’t eaten anything for longer than you, you might as well fetch him.”

“But—that’s twenty minutes of him grilling me, another twenty minutes of me stalling him from grilling me, and I’m about to drop dead of exhaustion as is. I just can’t take him this late in the day and after suffering the bountiful hardships of Mother Nature all afternoon too so I could bring back dinner...” He managed to snag three of the cakes and started juggling them to keep from scorching his hands. He winked at the company.

Ivriel gave up and shook her head, muttering. “Dramatist. Fine. But don’t put it on my head when he harangues you.”

“Oh, I’ve been harangued so many times I’ve grown a hide of steel. Nothing can penetrate my thick skin.”

Ivriel poked him with her ladle. “If you drop any of that, you have to eat it.”

“Certainly, my lovely ladle-beater. Even eating it off the floor, it would still taste delectable if made by your hands,” Lalaithien replied, sending the bannocks even higher with a dexterous twist of his wrists. “Did you lot ever eat anything so deliciously prepared from nothing? She shames barrack rations.”

“Orc food would shame barrack rations,” she retorted dryly.

“Ah, but there is not an orc, dwarf, man or elf who could rival your culinary skills. Many a long patrol has been eased with a good meal and this one’s pretty face.”

Ivriel slapped his leg again almost making him lose his balance. “Base flatterer. Watch this one, all of you, he’ll charm the gold right out of your pockets—or the food out of your mouths.”

“That’s all right, m’am, we’ve no gold worth taking and he’d be hard-pressed to steal from our famine-stricken faces,” Eldacar said to rousing cheers of agreement.

Rancir’s long fingers swiped one of the pilfered cakes out of mid-air. The other two dropped with muffled flumps beside the fire as Lalaithien jerked in surprise. No one had seen him enter.

“This is why I don’t get my report, wastrel?” the commander growled low and dangerous as near thunder. He threw the bread-cake at his errant hunter’s feet with such a scathing flick the cooled meal crumbled like dried mud. “The reason Ivriel has to make something from nothing is because there is nothing to eat and if you have the brass nerve to treat starvation so lightly, you can go without. Again. Furthermore, you can dislodge one of our obliging neighbors in the chamber adjacent tonight: learn well what it feels like when you’ve squandered away your life since the very sight of you leeches away my patience. Now divest yourself of those mud-splattered rags you dare call a uniform and get that catch plucked and smoked before it spoils.”

Eldacar nipped sharpish out of his way as the commander swiveled on his heel, tearing his two-layered vambrace off with his teeth and flinging it carelessly aside as he stalked towards the neatly made bedroll.

An uncertain silence lingered among the men in the wake of this acerbic manifestation of displeasure. However, neither Ivriel’s nor Lalaithien’s expressions altered; for them it seemed the abusive diatribe was part of the evening’s expected—and even banal—routine.

Lalaithien feigned injury, a hand pressed to his heart. “By my honor, sir, I was on my way to report dutifully. Blame Ivriel. She said—nay demanded!—that I first recover strength with what little sustenance I could.”

The so-named scapegoat threw him a partially offended, more exasperated look. “I warned you. You didn’t listen! I used the last of the meal to make those.”

He smiled an apology and obediently swept up the spoiled bannocks. Stuffing one in his mouth for safekeeping, he reached for his birds. “Noffing to report, ’m afraid, sah. S’all quiet,” he said around the gluey cake.

“There’s no such thing and close your mouth. That’s repulsive,” Rancir hurled a clean tunic at him over the fire and extracted a flask out of one of the haversacks. But before he could do more than take an experimental swig, Ivriel plucked it gently out of his fingers and replaced it with a bowl with a bannock resting on the rim on him instead.

“Eat first.”

She tossed the flask at Aragorn who caught it bemusedly. “Something to stave off the chill.”

Rancir threw her an irritated look but dunked the bannock in the soup nevertheless. “Apparently I’ll have to wait upon Lalaithien’s whim the rest of the night for a flippin’ report.”

The younger elf heard the warning snap in his commander’s voice and relented. “All right, it’s not entirely quiet. Most of the guards skived off-duty to celebrate with various customs of mayhem and disorder. That battlemented south wall they’ve been working on all spring is almost done.”

“That’ll be a problem. You are sure there’s—”

In his excitement, Aragorn interrupted the commander. “You mean Fornost? You were there?”

“It’s not that far from here. Maybe half a day there and another half back,” Lalaithien shrugged and continued. “Well, there was some kind of hullabaloo around dark. Apparently some of the slaves almost escaped.”

“Almost?” Surprisingly it was Veil who spoke up, rubbing his scarred wrists.

Lalaithien smiled sadly. “Brave fools. They must have had someone damned bold with them to spring those cell locks. But the orc captain had them boxed in without their knowing. All those who rebelled are probably dead by now.”

“Not necessarily,” Rancir shook his head and laid aside his meal, his irritation with his subordinate temporarily forgotten in light of this information. “With the high death rate in the quarries and the need to refortify that wall…Slaves are too valuable for them especially now. They couldn’t execute the whole block.”

“Did you recognize any of them? Know any of their names?” Halbarad asked with a sharp glance at Aragorn. The rest of the company had gone quiet.

“Didn’t get around to asking their names. Next time I’ll be sure to along with their favorite food and color,” Lalaithien’s teasing softened when he saw the effect those words had on the company. He glanced at his elder officer. “It’s a delicate business. I didn’t get closer than the field outside the walls. Just heard a rumor of the fight.”

Aragorn leaned his head back against the wall. A thoughtful frown marred his brow. “What did you mean ‘next time?’ ”

Lalaithien pointed over his shoulder. “Rancir’s going to get us ins—”

His commander brusquely cuffed him alongside the head. “Close your mouth. You talk too freely among alleged friends as it is. Next time I ask for a report you will attend me not the other way around. I haven’t the energy for chasing you down.”

Lalaithien rubbed the back of his head. “The day you haven’t enough energy to chase me down, Commander, is the day I start to worry.”

“Hmph.”

The elf watched his elder’s face a minute then, apparently believing himself forgiven, ventured. “I don’t really have to oust one of our delightfully creepy neighbors out of his little niche do I? That’s bad form that, turning a man out of his bed.”

The commander’s reply was implacable. “One stone floor’s as good as another to them. They won’t mind.”

Lalaithien laughed with the company albeit a little uncertainly. “Lieutenant-Commander likes to have his little joke…You’re joking right? Rancir?”

Slowly elves and humans alike relaxed around one another and talked amongst themselves or their neighbors as the mouth-watering aroma of roasted thrush filled the small space. Aragorn sat on a natural form carved in the rock and propped his back against the wall, close to the fire but far enough away for easy thought.

As always, his thoughts turned first and foremost to Haldir. The news of the slaves’ near-escape had heartened him a little. There was still a chance his friend was alive… Every day weighed more and more heavily on his mind. Where was he right now? Was he fed, warm? Or alone, in pain? Was there someone to help him? With him? He glanced around at his men, red-faced and laughing in the dim light. Even Angrad sat closer to the others than usual.

Nearest him, Lalaithien crouched down beside Ivriel. “Old man went off on me a bit don’t you think?”

The elf woman didn’t look up as she wrung out a cloth she had soaked and heated in the newly filled kettle. She spoke barely moving her lips, her tone threaded with unusual tension. “His arm hurts.”

“His arm always hurts.”

“The damp chill makes it worse, you know that. Mind you though, you deserved it.”

The other elf caught Aragorn’s eye and gave him a rueful smile. “The favored are always punished.”

But the ranger was watching Ivriel as she rose and walked over to the figure of the commander who had stretched out on his bedroll with his forearm flung across his eyes. He rubbed his forehead with the tips of his fingers as she crouched beside him. Aragorn pretended not to notice as she spoke softly and Rancir’s eyes darted in his direction. He looked hastily away and saw only out of the bare corner of his eye her unpin the tunic sleeve, rolling it up over the severed arm. The man unconsciously winced.

Where there should have been a wiry, muscled forearm and hand reflecting the left, there was nothing but a ragged lump of skin-encased bone crisscrossed with white scars. They were healed over but gruesome-looking, the relics of unimaginable damage. Thin, uneven scores almost like claw marks crawled up and vanished into his tunic collar.

Movements brisk and proficient, Ivriel pressed the damp, warm cloth against the puckered stump. Rancir’s eyelids flickered then drifted shut, his jaw slowly unclenching as he relaxed. He took the cloth out of her hands, still cradling his arm, and faced the wall.

“He’s a hero you know.” The confiding whisper belonged surprisingly to Lalaithien. For once, the elf’s merry face was sober as he followed the ranger’s line of sight.

Aragorn blinked hard, the firelight burning in his deep eyes. “Yes. I know a few of those.”
Notes:

Amon-en-Achas- "Hill of Dread;" That whole area along the Weather Hills was a bone of contention amongst the Dunedain and Angmar for years.

glaive—(as defined by Chris Smith The Lord of the Rings: Weapons and Warfare)A long spearlike weapon with a curved, single-edged blade at its end. I am assuming that Rancir, possessing the Eldar’s strength and time to master necessary skills, could wield such a short-handled version of this weapon one-handed. [A glaive is also an archaic name for a medieval sword according to the regular dictionary but the above definition fits better for what I have in mind

Author’s Notes: This was a quieter chapter, true, but there should be enough action in the next couple of chapters to keep even the most eager for bloodshed sated. At least, I hope so. As always, I love your comments! They enthrall and delight me, no matter how small.

The Lady of Light