Rise (Lord of the Rings)

30 - A Shred of Hope

I screamed wordlessly in my head, the fury started to build inside. If only there was at least one Uruk still breathing...I needed something to lash out at. I wanted to feel the enemy's pain as I shoved my sword in their throat or up their ribs! I would not get satisfaction by hacking away at a corpse, I wouldn't be able to see and hear their pain.

The next time I saw an Uruk-hai, an Orc, or anybody loyal to Sauron, I would make them pay.

Past my mourning of Merry and Pippin, I heard Legolas whisper something under his breath—probably some Elvish prayer. I felt a disturbing sense of déjà vu. It felt like Gandalf's death all over again. This time, the deaths were more personal for me than they were for Aragorn, Legolas, or Gimli. I had known Merry and Pippin for a good portion of my life, and now, they were gone.

My body trembled from shock and pain. I dipped my head to the ground, only to soon stare at Legolas' feet. With bleary eyes, I looked up at the Elf. He knelt in front of me with soft, solemn eyes.

The Elf's eyes flickered to his left; I dared to turn my head the same way. Aragorn was on his feet, slowly examining the ground before him. I rose on my wobbly legs, my head pounded furiously. I looked at Aragorn with confused brown eyes.

"A Hobbit lay here," he murmured.

My ears perked up. Aragorn's words pulled me to the piece of ground he was examining. "How can you tell?" I asked hoarsely, trying to control myself.

"See how the ground looks?"

"Yes." The grass—what was left—was flattened.

"One lay here...and the other." Aragorn slunk forward, as if a trail was before his eyes.

I looked over my shoulder at Gimli and Legolas. They looked just as confused as I did. Were Aragorn's tracking abilities helping him deduce what had happened to Merry and Pippin, or was he being delusional, believing that they had been here, when they never were?

"They crawled," Aragorn noted. A little curious, I tailed him, trying to envision what he was. "Their hands were bound."

I gasped, seeing a thick strand of rope lurking within the grass. It was cut, they had somehow freed themselves. Clever boys. But it still did not prove that they were alive in any way at the moment, only that they had been last night.

"Their bonds were cut," I breathed.

Aragorn stalked past me, still following the trail Merry and Pippin left him. "They ran over here." I hadn't realized that their trail made an arch, as though following a path of a circle. "They were followed."

Sadly, though I tried my hardest to not, I pictured the boys being tailed by a hungry, bloodthirsty Uruk who had noticed them escaping.

I heard footsteps behind me as Legolas and Gimli now joined me in watching Aragorn figure out what happened on the night of the battle. Was it possible that there was a glimmer of hope? After all, Aragorn was guessing what happened based on his findings.

I kept my eyes on the ground, trying to compose a picture in my head: a dark night; Uruks being intercepted by the Riders of Rohan, chaos all around; in the madness, Merry and Pippin manage to free themselves from their bonds and make a dash to escape the battle.

The scenario seemed very possible.

"The tracks lead away from the battle," Aragorn reported. I hadn't realized he had stopped until I bumped into him. I moved to stand beside Aragorn to notice that we were at the border between open land and forest.