After hours of travelling in the blackness of night, the Old Forest borders loomed up at last. The trees were skeletal and unfriendly, and I felt Legolas shiver imperceptibly next to me. Wood-elves were more deeply connected to the trees than any other folk, and I knew the bitterness of this forest made him nervous.
The night was about us still. It was pitch black, but it could not have been more than an hour before dawn. Our hobbit informer had spoken the truth: the cold in these parts was more than climate deep. Gandalf, riding beside me, was tense, his sword already unsheathed. Around us, the rangers' fear was palpable. The thought of fighting long-dead lords who lured the unwary with the voices of the dead frightened me more than I cared to admit. However, the mood of my mortal companions was far worse than my own, or that of Legolas, whose eyes, despite his trepidation in the Prancing Pony, shone bright with wrath in the darkness, his steady hands urging his horse on. Gandalf had a similar expression playing on his weathered face. He looked grim but some steadfast will kept him going despite the unwelcome task that lay before us.
Something swooped out of the darkness towards us, and I barely disguised my jump. Calanon tossed his head in distress. I spoke a few quiet words in my native quenya to calm him as we began to climb a steep hill, but no matter what I murmured into his mane, he would not settle. Legolas, Aragorn and Gandalf were having the same issues with their mounts.
"We should leave them tied here." Gandalf said quietly to Aragorn.
Calanon gave a frightened whinny as he was tied to a tree stump. I nestled my head guiltily against his neck. "They'll be alright", Aragorn reassured quietly, unsheathing his sword, "the wights have no interest in animals."
"You must think me a fool to worry about my horse so much."
Aragorn gave me the ghost of a smile and shook his head. "There is no shame in having a heart as kind as yours, Ness." He watched as I quietly unsheathed my swords, spinning them in my hands. This would be the first time I had used both together in a battle, for bows were no use against spirits. "Try and stay close to us." I opened my mouth to protest but he held up a hand "I know", he said patiently "but it is my job to worry about inexperienced warriors. I said the same to Mallor earlier." His stern look quelled my protests.
Just as I turned away from Aragorn to look around, a pale set of eyes seemed to float towards me. They were blindingly white, so much that I could see the creature they belonged to. The wight was made of a deeper darkness than that of the night. I could make out a figure, shrouded in something ragged and black, a hood over it's head. Its face looked skull-like, but inhuman, nonetheless. One rotting, skeletal hand protruded from the shroud, reaching out for my neck. A voice floated towards me. I supposed it must have come from the demon before me, but it seemed to reach up from the very depths of the earth.
"Daughter. Come and find me. I am here."
I knew that achingly familiar voice. I had tried with all my strength to recall the tones of it, the way it would lighten at the end of a sentence. The soothing sound of my mother.
I gasped, stumbling backwards. The earth seemed distant, as if I no longer belonged to it, as if it had let me go. There were bony fingers digging into my neck.
There was something wrong with the voice. It was too deep, too raspy. The spell broke as quickly as it had been set. My mother would never call to me again. I gasped again as the realisation swept over me. An unbearable grief crept into my heart and lungs; every bit as bad as the night she had been slain.
A distant shout brought me back to reality. All around us, the wights were swooping down on the rangers, then shying away from their blades. With more effort than I ever thought it would take, I brought my swords upwards and thrust them forwards. The shade let go immediately. I thought I heard a wail, as if from long ago, as it swooped away in the dark.
Another unearthly call assaulted my ears and I whipped around to see a second wight swooping towards me. This time, I was ready for its tricks. I ignored with a quaking, terrified imitation of courage the pleas of the thing emulating my father's voice and clashed by blade against it. However, this creature seemed to have a blade of its own. It brought up the rusted dagger almost to my neck. Though I knew them to be strong, those bones were surely brittle. Using my left sword, I swung upwards with every ounce of strength I had. With my right, I crashed downwards. The dagger not only fell out of the wight's ghastly fingers but broke in two between us. However, the creature would not stop advancing.
"Nesseldë, you could have prevented this."
I stumbled backwards. My father's voice was speaking again.
"No", I gasped "I couldn't save you".
"It's your fault."
"Atar!" I fell to the ground at the anger in that voice, tears in my eyes. The wight swooped down on me. It's robes smelt of decomposed flesh. Like my father himself must now. (Q: Father!)
"Join us".
I tried to raise a sword, but I had no strength left. I choked on a sob. The wight closed its bony fingers around my left wrist tightly, digging into the delicate skin around my veins. I shouted at the pain, but even my own voice seemed distant now, as if I no longer belonged to it. I couldn't breathe anymore, but what was the point of trying?
A shout of fury came from somewhere above me. Air forced itself through my lungs again. The wight was thrown from my heaving figure and I sat up, gulping in the air while the first vestiges of dawn heralded a new day. Legolas was beating back the creature, hatred etched into his every pore. I struggled to my feet and stood beside him, forgetting my wrist and turning my swords towards the wight. He stepped slightly back to let me have my revenge. I cut the hands off, then the head, just to be sure. The creature screeched, painfully loud, swooping away.
Legolas turned to me once it had gone. His eyes were wide with shock. "Are you hurt?" He said urgently, forgetting himself and sheathing his hunting knife so he could clutch my upper arms with his hands.
"I-" My breathing was fast. Thoughts swirled around my head: my father dying in front of my eyes, my footsteps rushing away from the scene with barely a whisper, the furious shouts of the men. I looked down at my wrist. The force of the wight's grip had loosened the buckle on my arm guard. "I don't know". My voice was shaking.
"It's okay. You're okay.", Legolas said quietly. We both looked around as Halbarad was assailed by a wight. "I swear I will stay close." He added, speaking quicker and quicker as the battle seemed to materialise around us. I nodded, wishing for a few moments longer to collect myself. The mocking imitation of my father's voice was still ringing in my ears. Legolas kept a strong hold on my arms as I panted.
"Chase it!" I glanced around to see Halbarad on his knees and shouting, the wight he had been fighting retreating to the barrows. Mastering myself fully and tearing away from Legolas, I obeyed him unthinkingly, running towards the mounds a few feet away. As I reached them, the wraith turned around to attack again but, just as my brother called to me desperately from its evil depths, a flash of bright light exploded around me.
Gandalf stood on the mounds, his staff aloft and his lined face full of fury. He pointed his light at the wight assailing me and, with my blades and his staff, we drove it back into a barrow. Tar ran over to help push the heavy stone of the grave on top, trapping the creature in its tomb.
I turned at the cry of a familiar voice. Legolas was close by, as he had promised. I could hear not what the wight said to trick him, but it was clear from the wide, tear filled eyes, the open mouth, that the words of the demon had distressed him. My stomach dropped. The wight reached my terrified friend and went to grip his arm as it had mine. It swopped closer, whispering something into his ear.
I ran to him, throwing myself in front of the wight and cutting through the half-rotted bone of its arm, clashing my blade with the rusted iron dagger it carried as it turned from Legolas to face me.
"Nesseldë, please".
"No." I gasped to myself "It's not real, it's not you."
"Sister help me!"
I drew in a sharp breath and gathered strength. There was no time for this.
My left-hand sword reached for its neck, but this creature seemed more skilled than its fellows. It whipped away from my right-hand sword and parried my blow. I could feel myself shaking as it beat me gradually backwards, but I gritted my teeth and clashed both swords with the wight's.
Legolas had clearly recovered. He joined me on my right, both his knives raised and the fury on his face frightening even me. Together we fought the wight, beating it back into the light of Gandalf's staff. It retreated into a barrow almost gratefully and we dragged a stone on top.
Beriadan gave a cry of joy as the sun rose up from the depths of night. It seemed she had waited until the spirits of the dark had been defeated to reward us with her reassuring light. The remaining wights screeched, melting away to find solace in the darkness of the Barrow downs.
I sunk to my knees, shuddering with nausea rising in my stomach. I breathed it down again, trying not to vomit onto the grass before me. My swords dropped to the ground. Legolas beside me seemed to have had a similar collapse. He shifted over to me and pulled me into his arms. He, too, was shaking like a leaf. I reached up to wrap my arms around his neck and we gasped together in the dawn of a new day, like two elflings who had survived a slaughter.
It seemed like hours before either of us spoke a shaky word. "Are you alright?" I nodded silently.
"Legolas" I said softly, looking at his white face. "It wasn't real. It wasn't them."
I had no idea whose voice the wights had chosen for my closest friend, but I could see the effect they had had. I wondered, for the hundredth time, who he had lost. He stroked back my hair while our breaths shook, settling my head on his chest where I could feel the pounding of his heart.
Perhaps it helped him to comfort me for, after a couple more minutes, we had both stopped shaking. Legolas' heartbeat seemed steady and my breathing was back to normal. "Did it hurt you?" Legolas asked again when we were calmer. I unbuckled my armguard to reveal a red, swollen mess. In the centre of my wrist was a large bruise, already turning purple. I poked the most swollen area and winced. It was hot to the touch.
"Is it broken?" Legolas asked, unable to hide the worry in his voice. I moved it around cautiously, then shook my head.
"Badly sprained."
Legolas took his quiver off his back, lifted out the arrows and placed them on the ground. From the bottom he took a small square of canvas and opened it out. Inside there were a few bandages, and a needle and thread. He took a strip of starch white linen, holding out his hand for my left wrist. He bandaged it tightly from my hand up to my forearm, tying it off neatly just below the crook of my elbow.
"Hannon le" I muttered, avoiding his eyes. Legolas knew I was not only referring to his efficient bandaging. He held out a hand silently and I squeezed it hard. (S: thank you)
As he replaced the medical supplies and arrows into his quiver, we sat in silence for a while. I could not help but think on what I had just heard from the wights. It was a cruel fate indeed to be forced to hear the cries of one's family from beyond the grave. I swallowed.
"Are you sure you're alright?" Legolas was watching closely, his eyes narrowed in concern. I mustered a smile.
"I'm fine, dear friend. I am glad that is over, though." He nodded, attempting a smile back.
I stood, putting my left armguard in my pocket, and offered him a hand. The rangers surrounding us looked as shocked as we. Only Gandalf seemed relatively unaffected. He was checking the coverings on the graves, muttering an incantation as he strode among them. His power was great; if anyone needed to keep a steady mind and hand, it was him.
Aragorn stood alone, watching his people with unmistakable tears in his eyes. With a glance and an unspoken decision, we walked over.
"I'm fine."
I could see Aragorn was lying. Wordlessly, I wound my arms around him. He pulled me closer as Legolas wrapped an arm around the man's broad shoulders. "They were not real", Legolas reassured, "they were a cruel trick to deceive us."
"They've never sounded so real", Aragorn sighed.
"Creatures of evil grow stronger in these dark times." I said shakily. "At least they're gone now."
"They will be for a few months", Aragorn conceded grimly "maybe even a year. In these times, we cannot beat them back indefinitely."
"We cannot worry about that", Legolas reasoned, "there are other things which require our attention."
Mustering his strength and drawing in a deep breath, Aragorn nodded. He let go of us both and walked over to Beriadan and Halbarad. The rangers seemed relieved, at least, that all was over. They could go back to their families soon enough.
However, something stirred in my mind. Some sense reared its head. I looked across at Legolas in sudden fear to see the same expression mirrored in his fair face.
Something else was coming.
I drew in a sharp breath as the present faded from my senses. I could see a legion. Grey flesh, grunting voices, dull blades, deadly crossbows.
This wasn't over yet.
When I came to, Legolas was holding me up. I swayed, disoriented from my most recent foray into the enemy's plans, and he tightened his hold on me, lowering me gently into a sitting position and bending to peer concernedly into my face.
"Orcs", I gasped. "There is a legion coming towards us. They will be here in minutes."
"Wh – are you sure?" Legolas stuttered. I nodded and he frowned but did not move. Why wasn't he taking this seriously?
"Legolas, there are thirteen of us, battered and battle-weary, and over a hundred of them!"
Legolas hesitated for a second but, seeing perhaps my clenched teeth and wide eyes, the way I gripped my swords at my sides, he nodded. "We must tell Aragorn."
I got to my feet with Legolas' help and we ran to the ranger. At that moment, however, there came the sound of hooves thundering towards us. All the rangers whirled around to see Elladan bent over his horse's neck. He skidded to a halt in front of Aragorn.
"A legion of orcs come towards us. We are outnumbered, Estel."
"How many?" Aragorn asked, aghast. Around him, the rangers drew their swords again, looking grim. I noticed the bags under every pair of eyes. We had not had a wink of sleep for over a day and had fought twice before; now we would be forced to fight yet again.
I watched Elrohir crest the hill behind his brother and relaxed slightly. Behind him, a far larger group of rangers marched. A few creases on Aragorn's forehead smoothed away.
"We have mustered 40 men for the protection of the Shire. All are here with us, but we are still outnumbered twofold even with the addition of your men." Elrohir said, reigning up beside us with the other rangers standing behind. More than a few stared in open astonishment at me, but there was no time to care. Little though I wanted to, I took my armguard and tied it as tightly as I could bear around my sprained wrist.
Gandalf strode over to listen. "The enemy thinks something is hidden in the Shire. Even if he is wrong, this puts many different peoples in terrible danger."
"We must worry about the immediate threat first." I said rationally. "There are over a hundred orcs streaming towards us now." My eyes flickered between Aragorn, Legolas and Gandalf. "We have no time to collect our horses. We must fight on foot."
"How do you know this?" Aragorn asked incredulously.
Before I could answer, the danger in my heart grew. My head, along with those of Legolas and the twins, snapped over to the right. I could just make out the orcs at the bottom of the hill. I turned back to Aragorn, speaking quickly. "I saw it, friend. I saw in my mind what will come. You must form your ranks."
He looked like he wanted to ask further questions, but Legolas spoke up. "Aragorn, we have seconds."
The chieftain who I now knew almost as family nodded. He ordered his troops in his own eloquent manner into lines, splitting the bows from the swords. Legolas and I knew our places were by his side and moved not from the vanguard even when he made the half-hearted request.
However, we had barely taken our usual places either side of him before a roaring tide of orcs crested the hill we stood on. "Hado i phillin!" Aragorn yelled. On his other side, Legolas raised his bow. (S: release the arrows!)
Arrows sailed over our heads, blocking out the light of the morning sun as effectively as a storm cloud. One round, two, three, four. I counted them meticulously, choosing not to focus on the orcs who survived the onslaught.
The volleys were thinning. The moment was seconds away. I gripped my swords tightly in my hands, preparing to run.
"Derio!" Aragorn raised his sword to his shoulder and broke into a sprint. I followed him without a moment of hesitation and launched myself into the midst of battle. Gandalf uttered a war cry beside me. (S: charge!)
It was more crowded than I expected. As soon as I had cut the throat of one assailant, another had a blade at my own neck. Narrowly dodging a black arrow, I turned and clashed one sword against an orc's, pushing it downwards and using the other to cut through its underarm, bending to hit its heart.
I heard a terrible scream and spun around to see a ranger fall. Jumping over his prone figure, I launched my swords into the orc's chest, bringing it down and landing painfully on top of it, my knees bruising on impact.
The unknown ranger was dead. Having no time to contemplate the poor man's fate, I spun again and decapitated an orc with one swipe, my strength growing with my wrath.
I could not see any of the others. Gandalf had fallen behind me a while ago; Aragorn was somewhere in front and I had not seen Legolas since the start.
However, I needed them now. I was surrounded by a sea of stinking flesh. I wrinkled my nose and spun my swords expectantly in my hands. The first smashed its scimitar clumsily at both my blades. I knocked it away and made a 'v' with my swords, slashing at its exposed throat.
The next one took longer to kill. I could feel my heart pounding; my hands were slipping on the shining hilts of my swords. Every time one fell, another seemed to take its place. Why were they gathered around me?
They seemed to press closer. I took an involuntary step backwards and felt a blade at my back.
An arrow was embedded in a forehead, then another in an eye socket. I turned to kill another, and the crowd was finally thinning. A mannish growl came from my left. Halbarad twisted the neck of an orc towards him, snapping it in an instant. Legolas was on the other side, shooting meticulously at each orc. I killed the last one of the horde as it aimed a crossbow at him, coming from behind to cut its throat. Halbarad stepped into the pile of corpses and grabbed my waist, lifting me out of the circle and to the comparative safety of the rest of the battlefield.
"Thanks." I panted to both of them. They only nodded, running off to join the fray and killing as they went. I followed them, energy surging through my body despite the lack of rest, driving one sword through a chest and cutting a throat with the other as two orcs ran at me from opposite directions.
However, I did not see the third creature and, in an instant, I was on the ground. It had landed on top of me. I gasped in fear as it wrapped its hands around my neck, already tender from the wight's skeletal hold. My legs were pinned under its knees.
With a strength I hardly knew I possessed, I flipped around, slamming the orc to the ground and shoving my sword into its throat.
As it's life gurgled away, however, I knew something was wrong. My knee was throbbing with ever-increasing violence. I slumped off the orc and saw that my right foot was definitely not where it should be. It was pointing directly towards the Barrow-Downs on my right, as if pinned to the ground. My head spun at the alarming sight, but I could see more orcs running for me. Standing was out of the question. I took my bow from my back and nocked it, loosing it into the crowd.
Nock. Loose. Nock. Loose. This was all I could do as my comrades fought around me. An orc aimed for Elrohir's back and found an arrow through its heart. Another swung up to strike Aragorn down, but it fell with a shaft buried deep in its eye. Aragorn looked around to see his saviour. My sharp eyes noticed that he paled at the sight of me. I paid no heed, shooting down Mallor's would-be killer without him even noticing.
Mercifully, the orcs seemed to be thinning. I dropped my bow to my side, my strength failing when the pain in my knee inevitably overtook. I groaned and tried to move my wrongly positioned foot, to no avail. Legolas ran past me with Tar and Galdor to the barrows, so focused that he was oblivious to my predicament. I supposed they must be setting a fire around the borders to keep the wights in for a while.
Aragorn, however, knew I was in trouble. He quickly ascertained the safety of our travelling fellows, then called the twins to him. The three of them rushed over, wincing when they saw my leg twisted 90° to the right. Aragorn bent down at my head, while the twins started to undo my boot laces. "What happened?" He asked.
"I twisted to kill an orc and-" I gestured hopelessly to my knee. "It's dislocated isn't it?" I sighed, trying to focus on Aragorn and distract myself from the twins now beginning to prise off my boot. I screwed up my eyes as they pulled. Aragorn took my hand. I almost broke his fingers when the boot was finally tugged off. "Ai!"
"Sorry". Elladan said, rolling up my trousers as carefully as he could. My teeth were gritted so hard I wondered if they would break. When he had finished pushing my trousers over my knee, I looked down at my bare leg and my eyes swam alarmingly. My kneecap had rolled to the left side, and it looked as if the muscle underneath it had been ripped away, though it was so red and swollen I could barely tell.
"Lie down", Aragorn suggested, putting an arm around my back to assist me. I could feel one of the twins pressing his fingers to the veins in my foot. "Try and move your toes", Elrohir said. I could not tell whether I was moving them, but whatever I was doing felt like fire on my wrecked joint.
"Can you feel that?" Elladan said, squeezing my big toe though my woollen socks. I winced.
"Yes".
My heart was pounding out of my chest, though I tried to hide my fear from the others. However, my hand, still squeezing Aragorn's, shook. I cast around for a topic of conversation to deflect his attention from it.
"I hope our horses were not harmed."
"The orcs came from opposite where we left them." Aragorn reminded me.
"I can see them!" Elladan said lightly. "On your left, Ness. Just down the hill, look!"
I turned to my left. It was harder to make out the bottom of the hill from my horizontal position. At that moment, though, my knee seemed to be on fire. Excruciating pain stretched like tendrils from my toes to my stomach. An animalistic cry wrenched from my throat; there was a distinctive pop.
The ache was still present, but the knee was less agonising than before. "What was that for?" I moaned, propping myself up on my elbows to glare at the twins. They grinned apologetically.
"Your knee is no longer dislocated." Elrohir said simply. "It's best to pull it when your patient is unprepared, otherwise people tense, and it makes the whole thing rather drawn out."
"Go on", I heard a voice say from my right, "We can finish this."
I turned to see Legolas standing in front of a semicircle of fires, staring anxiously at me. He thanked the rangers and ran over, bending down beside me. "What's happened? Are you alright?"
"Dislocated knee", I groaned. Legolas and Aragorn both wrapped their arms around me and lifted me into a sitting position. However, as I adjusted myself, Aragorn moved to touch my left wrist, trying to help. I jerked it away from him and he frowned.
"What did you do to that?"
"Sprain." Legolas explained for me when I didn't answer. "I took care of it, but it's bad."
"Can you move your toes?" Elladan asked again, diverting my attention from Aragorn's response. I did as he asked, biting my lip at the sting but doing as he asked. "There. Back to normal." He smiled reassuringly but, at that moment, a despairing sob rose up from a throng of rangers gathered around something. My heart dropped like a stone.
"A man died", I told the group, "right in front of me. I was too late: there was nothing I could do."
"You go", Aragorn said to the twins.
The twins nodded and rose, leaving Aragorn a bag full of bandages and herbs. He ground up some of the herbs in his hands and added them to water in a light, wooden bowl, making a paste. "This should keep the swelling down and ease the pain."
I screwed up my eyes again as Aragorn spread the paste over my knee. Legolas squeezed my unhurt hand reassuringly when I bit back a yelp. A bandage was wrapped tightly around the wound.
I rolled down my trousers, tugging my boot up to my knee. "Leave the laces", Legolas advised.
Legolas and Aragorn lifted me carefully to my feet, my arms slung across their shoulders. Legolas was on the side of the dislocation, so he shifted me more securely against him and we began the long walk over to the horses. Aragorn joined his people, moving through the mourning crowd to the centre and passing from our sight.
Before we had reached the horses, Halbarad led Legolas' mount over, a chestnut courser known for her speed. I opened my mouth to ask for my own, determined to salvage some dignity, but Halbarad interrupted before I could speak. "Don't be stupid."
His words were blunt, but his hands were gentle as he helped Legolas lift me side-saddle onto the horse. I adjusted my position slightly, but it seemed there was no comfortable place for my knee. Legolas sprang up behind me. I was shaking again. The exhaustion, fear and pain of the last 24 hours were starting to sink in. He put an arm gently around my shoulders, but I winced and he pulled back again. "Is something wrong?"
I hadn't meant to do that. His touch had hurt somehow, in a way that it had never done before.
No, I thought, hurt was the wrong word. I doubted Legolas was even capable of such a thing. It was however, something I had never experienced. It wasn't pain; it was more like strength, strength and something else I couldn't define. Pain was unpleasant, but whatever it was, it certainly wasn't that.
"I'm sorry." I muttered, saying nothing of my swirling thoughts. "It's been a strange couple of days."
"I know", Legolas said consolingly. "Don't apologise." I rested on his shoulder with relief, and he relaxed slightly. He fluttered his fingers against my neck. Their tips were toughened from years uncounted upon the bowstring. "That wight gave you quite a bruise here" he muttered worriedly.
"And an orc" I grumbled.
"How on earth did you dislocate your knee so badly?"
I recounted the tale wearily – how the orc had landed on my back and tried to strangle me, how I had twisted so oddly to shake it off. Legolas rubbed a thumb along my shoulder consolingly.
"What confuses me is why that group Halbarad and I helped you kill singled you out."
I thought back to the battle with the orcs and frowned. "They didn't do that to anyone else?"
Legolas shook his head but, when my eyes widened in my frowning face, he pulled me a little tighter. "Try not to worry about it. You're safe now and that's what matters." Despite his assurances, I could not help but dwell on the orcs. What made them want my blood above all the others?
Eventually, Aragorn rounded up all the rangers we had come with and we started the slow journey home. It would take longer now, since we were half a day from Bree, and we would have to stop when night fell.
"Eight men are dead". Aragorn told Legolas. He looked muddy and exhausted, with bags the size of plates under his grey eyes. Legolas bowed his head but said nothing. There was no comfort to give our chieftain friend now; the damage was done.
"That's horrible", I muttered softly, recalling with excruciating detail the pain of losing a loved one to the sword.
Aragorn nodded silently. "There is nothing we can do for them now", Legolas sighed, "try not to dwell on it. You need to give your minds rest, both of you." Knowing Legolas spoke the truth, I snuggled my head closer into his familiar shoulder and rested my stinging eyes. He squeezed my unhurt right hand, before breaking into a canter.