A Better Place - The Hobbit Fanfiction

Twenty-Seventh Entry - Devastation

He went rigid again, raising his bow, and I dove for the safety of the mountain.

I was not fast enough, and Legolas's bow was too strong for him to be able to safely shoot the bat while I was out of sight behind it. When I tripped the bat wrapped its bristly claws around one of my legs-I thrashed, screaming-and it dragged me out of the mountain and off the balcony.

My hands grasped at air as though the spinning snowflakes could save me. My hair fluttered around me and completely obscured my vision-I had no concept of how high I was other than the solidifying of my back and belly with fear. There was a strange pause in my hearing of the howls and crashes of the wars being waged below, I heard an approaching hum, a thump, and then the bat and I fell.

I grabbed it by the claw as we spun together and roared back down toward the ground, since holding onto my dead enemy was better than pretending the air could save me. The battles seemed to come and go but I could hear very little past the surge of air as it buffeted around us.

I woke in silence and in pain. Rolling over and falling off the crushed corpse of the bat that had tried to kill me I would have thrown up in the pale green grass if there had been anything for my body to lose. I cried out once when I hit the ground. I couldn't stop shaking-my entire back had rent open this time, not just a few tears up where my shoulders had stretched. My bones felt as though they had been ripped apart. My dirt-smeared face was wet with tears already as I climbed up the rise that had probably saved my life in its steepness, and when I reached the top I collapsed again, on my belly in the snow that steamed around me, crying as I watched the scene of absolute devastation spreading out before me.

There were enough bodies, I thought, to entirely dam the lake. Dwarves and men and elves and orcs and wolves and Goblins and Wargs. I couldn't yet smell the death but as I dragged myself to my knees, then to my feet, I could smell the splashes of blood that scattered the ground. I recoiled from the first body I came across-a gray-skinned orc, presumably-and fell in horror to my knees at the sight of the coarse braids of the next one. But I managed to flip the body and found that the unfortunate dwarf he used to be wasn't one I had known. I folded his hands across his chest and stumbled on.

Many people who saw me wandering the death-crowded battlefield with tears streaking down my face and blood streaking down my back tried to stop me. If they weren't immediately occupied with their own wounds or wounded they rushed to my side and took my arm or my shoulder, rightly thinking me a child, but wrongly thinking me lost. I don't really know what they thought. They offered me water, and shelter, and tried to take me to safer places but I couldn't go with them. I took the water from their battered water flasks then fought free of their helpful hands and continued searching for those I loved. They, determining that if I was strong enough to fight them was strong enough to survive on my own at least a while longer, let me go. After all, they had people they knew better to look after. One strange child ambling through this mess must be addled to begin with. They had other people who needed saving who wanted it.

Of the people I knew I found Thranduil and Legolas first. Legolas was resting on his back on a healer's narrow table, one hand on his stomach, the other at his side, his tunic cut from the neck down past his ribs to expose the gash running from his left shoulder to his right hip. Thranduil stood straight-backed at his head, silently cupping his son's waxen face as Nesetha sang over the son's grievous wound. Legolas's bright blue eyes were closed, but I swear I could almost see their color glowing through the lids. Perhaps I was addled.

I picked my way through the rubble to his side, my feet skidding unevenly through loose stones and dropped weapons and the occasional body part. I reached Legolas's side and tearfully took his hand. His eyes opened and came to rest on me.