Author's Notes: An update, at last. This was painstakingly cobbled together in one hour snatches these last couple of weeks and I have since revised it several times afterward. Even after posting, I probably will revise it again but here it is at last. I know you've all been waiting anxiously (at least that's the hope).

Warning: This is a long chapter, as I'm sure you can tell. I would not advise reading it on a computer if at all possible.

Hope you all haven't forgotten where we left off,

The Lady of Light

Part Fourteen

A Light from the Shadows Springs

No, there is not a dawn in eastern skies

To rift the fiery night that's in your eyes;

But there, where western glooms are gathering,

The dark will end the dark, if anything

-E.A. Robinson

Quietness and agility even in utter darkness ran in the Dúnedain's very blood. Making no more noise than ripples, they stole through the man-high grass into the shadow of Fornost's vast north wall.

Aragorn breathed in the cool, sweet smell of the wall rue sunk in the limestone's fissures. He couldn't think of anything except that he had never seen a clearer sky. By habit, he sought the clump of tiny, blue stars that shone brightest above Rivendell's gorge. They were hidden behind a hilly shoulder of the Weather Hills.

Beside him, Lalaithien, also searching the spangled sky, sighed. "It's a beautiful night at least."

"The last some of us may see," Halbarad murmured, tapping the pommel of his longsword grimly. "Where's this door of yours?" he addressed Veil who had limped closer to the wall and was running his fingers over the contours.

An architectural quirk made the particular portal they were searching for recede down a short passage into the wall so it was hidden from sight if one approached from either right or left. An intruder had to come straight at it and even then the thick blanket of ivy draped across it made it difficult to spot.

"This is it." Veil hissed after several, long tense moments, stripping away handfuls of leaves and stubbornly clinging stems until he'd cleared a larger section, revealing a door bleached and cracked by countless years and rusty at the hinges. He applied a liberal dollop of sword oil to the hinges then stepped back to let Halbarad squeeze past him.

"Your scouts did good work," the former slave said, leaning against the wall to take the weight off his injured leg. "I'd forgotten this door was here—Arvedui fled Fornost and died before my great-grandfather's lifetime. Lucky for us, it seems the orcs forgot about it too."

Rancir's eyes glinted in the faint light as he watched Halbarad fit his sword into the marginal space between wall and door, endeavoring to catch the hook that secured it. "Let's hope this works before you congratulate them."

Halbarad cast a half-smile over his shoulder. "These kinds of skills aren't appreciated by some in Imladris but as luck would have it, it's needed here," Holding his breath, he levered carefully upward, making several adjustments, with his ear pressed to the door until he heard a faint clink on the other side. He tugged on the crumbling iron handle and eased it back and forth experimentally. It squeaked faintly at first then whispered wide open.

"Congratulations to us," Lalaithien threw a triumphant grin at his leader but faltered under the return of a stern glower. "I know, I know. Close my mouth. Yes, sir."

"Orchards should be just beyond here. They'll lead us into the main courtyard where the cages are next to the quarry."

Aragorn issued final orders to his men who, varying looks of apprehension and determination meeting his. "Advance in pairs, six yards apart, straight across. Be careful. Watch for the orc, Critz, and his guard."

Without another word between them, they slipped one by one through the gate and onto the dark grounds.

The pair of rangers a few yards ahead and to the left of him suddenly stopped. Their chieftain crept up to them. "What's the matter, Menelir?"

"Movement, sir," the ranger breathed in his ear. "There. I saw it."

Aragorn squinted in the direction indicated but only a clump of thick, ragged brambles met his eyes, glinting a deep purple in the scarce light. Exchanging an uneasy look with Rancir, he and the elf lieutenant slipped soundlessly forward, Halbarad and Ivriel on their heels.

The thorn-laden bushes sprawled over a dilapidated wooden fence that separated the espaliers from shrubs and herbs. A little ways beyond the fence, Aragorn caught a shimmer of moonlight on water and guessed there must be a pool there. Something rustled through the reeds and a lithe, black shape rose up, ducking between the fence's horizontal braces.

A startled gasp at the sight of strangers. A muffled thump.

It was a child.

Aragorn held a finger to his lips as he gently reached down and righted the fallen bucket she had dropped in her fright. The girl couldn't have been more than ten years old, withy with an oddly familiar, narrow face and long fingers. Her large, hollow eyes watched him warily and she didn't move to retrieve the bucket from his hands.

Ivriel smiled softly at her and asked as if they were but chance-met strangers strolling in a garden. "Hello there. What's your name?"

The sight of a feminine face seemed to reassure the girl and she switched her gaze to the elf woman's. "Henna."

"What are you doing out here, Henna?" Ivriel crouched so as not to startle or intimidate her. Aragorn could feel his men's eyes on his back, wondering what was going on.

Henna nudged the bucket. "Fetchin' water."

"Henna?"

Veil had come up behind Halbarad and Ivriel. He stared at the little girl as if she were a ghost. A sudden thought struck Aragorn like a bolt when he looked at the lean-faced man. Now he knew why her features had struck him as so familiar. He snatched her up in his arms before Aragorn had seen him move. She hung limp against his shoulder like a rag doll, her eyes wide. Slowly, her thin arms closed around him and she squeezed him tight, burrowing her face into his neck.

"Papa."

Rancir let them have a moment longer before he stepped forward. His dark eyes settled on Henna speculatively. "How many sentries are on duty at the slave cells? Orcs," he explained when she looked at him blankly.

"Two, I think. Duruk and Yarg. They're watching for me."

Veil seemed to cling even more tightly to her. "Not anymore they won't."

Rancir peered over the low wooden fence. "It'd raise their suspicions if she didn't turn up."

Veil's eyes narrowed over the top of his daughter's head. "You can't mean to send her back there. No, I won't let you."

"She's our best way of snagging the element of surprise," Rancir explained with a bite of impatience in his voice. "The biggest flaw in your plan was time. We don't have it. Either let her give it to us or a whole lot more people are going to die needlessly."

"This is my little girl's life you're talking about!"

"And does hers outweigh the ones of those who will die for her sake?"

"To me, yes."

"We'll be with her the entire time. She'll never be left alone."

Henna still had her head pressed into her father's chest. She lifted it slightly. "Can we go now? Please?"

Veil stroked her hair absently. "Soon. Very soon. I promise."

"We're going to bring Egle with us, right? She doesn't like it here either."

Veil swallowed and leveled a hard glance at Rancir even as he addressed his daughter. "You're right. We can't leave her here. We can't leave any of them. We'll get Egle out and Burran and the rest." He sighed and said almost warningly at the elf lieutenant. "She doesn't leave our sight."

The elf nodded brusquely and crouched until he was looking up at Henna who turned in her father's clasp to meet his eyes curiously.

"What happened to your arm?"

"War wound." He spoke in a far kinder growl than Aragorn or indeed any of the company had yet heard. "We're here to take you home. But, we need your help."

She nodded slowly with a wide-eyed glance up at her father who barely managed to mask his disapproval.

"Good girl. You just take up that bucket and do whatever it is you do every night. Take those in the cells their water; we'll be right behind you."

"Then we can go home?"

"Then you can go home," Aragorn's heart ached for the little girl. He smiled reassuringly at her. She smiled tentatively back as she picked up her bucket.

Rancir straightened and gave his company a last, satisfied once-over. His fingertips hovered ever so slightly over Ivriel's shoulder before he gave her sleeve a brisk tug, straightening out the creases. A shadow of a smile quirked his lips. "Let's open the ball properly shall we? Maimed before beauties."

With that, he strode to the garden gate, flipped the latch and strode through, Ivriel and Lalaithien flanking his back. Dropping back to let Henna take the lead, the two younger elves notched their arrows as they proceeded, talking softly, the Dúnedain filing like shadows behind them.

"Make me proud of you now, roquin."

"Always."

"It's not enough I have to do as I'm told; now I have to make you proud as well?"

Rancir cut a sidelook at the youngest in his command. "Brethwen and Mallion have seen the warrior you've become, Lalaithien, I have no doubt of that."

Though he never took his eyes off the gently swaying bucket, Lalaithien's smile shone. "My brother and sister teased me that I could eat like a soldier but never fight like one. I always told them one's as good as another—if your sword doesn't work, you could always brain the enemy with that break-teeth cram cook liked so much."

The commander's smile froze.

"If you don't quit dawdling, gruel-brat, I'll hurry you up with this," an orc-voice growled. One of the sentries appeared, brandishing a long knife at Henna as she fumbled with the heavy bucket sloshing water over her bare feet.

Rancir extended his arm slightly, motioning them back into the deep shadows between cell blocks. Veil stood right at his shoulder, every muscle rigid.

His little girl skirted the threatening knife with the ease of too much practice and kept her head bent submissively as she rushed to the cells with a little dipper dropped in the bucket. Her arms were thin enough to slip through the bars as the figures behind them shuffled up to her for their water. There were over twenty of them crammed into the one cell alone. Aragorn regarded their limbs and hands worn and strengthened by hard stonework in the quarries. A thin woman with wispy white hair and calloused fingers reached through the bars and touched Henna's head in affectionate thanks.

"That's enough," one of the orcs clanged his spear haft against the bars jolting the slaves back on instinct.

But he had made his fatal mistake. He had turned his back on the courtyard.

A puzzled scowl stole the sneer off his face as he glanced down at the glaive tip sticking out of his chest. His body crumpled as the weapon jerked free.

The other unlucky guardsman only had time to turn over his shoulder to see what had slain his comrade before Ivriel's first arrow struck him in the mouth, hurling him back against the bars where he slid limply down in a heap.

Veil jerked his daughter away from the dead as Lalaithien and the rest of the Dúnedain dragged the bodies out of sight, their eyes warily raking the palace's dark windows. Nothing stirred.

The slaves had watched the slaying of their captors with interest and now crowded as close to the bars as they could get to look at their rescuers.

Veil snatched the keys from the guard's belt and threw the cell door wide. "Come on. Everybody out. Hurry up."

Accustomed to such brusque orders, they jumped to obey. He flashed them a quickly reassuring smile as they passed him. "Time to take back what's ours."

"Veil, you cur!" the scarecrow man was almost lifted off his feet as a burly, swarthy slave enveloped him in a rib-crushing embrace. "You must have the luck of the very devil! Thought you'd gone and died on us."

"Won't be livin' much longer if you squeeze the breath out of me, Burran," he croaked. He staggered back, rubbing his chest when the other man released him apologetically. "See the quarries have treated you all right."

Burran flexed powerful shoulders. "All right enough for cracking some orc skulls."

"That's the spirit," Rancir tossed him a long knife.

Aragorn watched the slaves as they filed out of the cage, a few of them wept openly. Even tough Burran wiped something suspicious from his eye.

Halbarad caught his chief's attention as he approached with another group. "We haven't enough to arm them."

"I can help. They put me in the armory," volunteered one of those he had freed, a man with a limp and quick, empty eyes. Reddish-white burn scars gleamed across the length of his forearms. He'd filched one of the dead guard's heavy scimitars and hefted it easily.

Veil's brows lowered. "Why should you help us, Torenul? Critz always rewarded you so well for giving up the lives of your friends. That sword suits you."

Torenul's eyes narrowed with open contempt. "Your daughter would have been wolf meat a long time ago, Veil, if I hadn't done what I had to do. Who do you think got her placed as gruel-brat after you abandoned her? I could have let her die in the quarries and I didn't. Show at least a little gratitude—if you're capable."

"You felt guilty because you let Sayna die—that's the only reason you'd do anything for anyone," Veil shot right back. "Had her aunt been alive to protect her, Henna'd never—"

"Bicker amongst yourselves later," Aragorn interrupted. They were dangerously exposed in the middle of the courtyard. He turned to Torenul, his eyes radiating intensity. "You say you have weapons? Where?"

Veil shook his head.

Meeting Aragorn's gaze, Torenul beckoned them with the scimitar. "This way. Follow me."

The invading warriors watched only the windows which would betray their enemies' presence first. None remarked the black shrike perched against the leaded glass fixing on their progress with its predatory, butcher's eyes. A moment later, it fluttered from its perch, banked sharply around the corner and vanished.

"Weapons've gone missing," growled a low, unctuous voice. The bulbous eyes of the orc refracted shatterpoints of flamelight from the stoked furnaces. "Not a lot but

Duruk on his last watch said he missed a couple of those new blades."

Critz's clawed fingernails scratched edgily at a stain of smooth melted steel, hardened over an anvil as he absently absorbed his subordinate's report. "Probably stole a few of them himself, greedy fool. I'll string him up later. And you too if you brought me down here just for that."

A raucous clanking interrupted them as one of the workers gingerly tugged on a heavy chain to tip its contents of melting iron into a large vat. The thick, gelatinous liquid smoked red-hot, lit up the armory's scorched stone floor and glittered in the orc overseers' eyes.

It was the worst kind of assignment, one Critz usually bestowed on those he felt were too uppity for their own good. The armory had an oft-rotating list of workers due to the frequent accidents which resulted.

The orc overseer cast an eye over the workers' bent, sweat-soaked backs and shook his head, lowering his voice so Critz had to bend forward to hear him. "I've got a cold ache in my bones ever since we got back. Something slipped back in that charnel house; we should've killed all those tarks—" He yelped as his leader's nails dug into his cheek.

The mention of his recent failure had not endeared him to his subordinate and he pinched viciously.

"Your old bones ache because you've lived too long, snaga. Don't talk about what you don't understand," he snarled into the unfortunate miscreant's ear. He shoved the orc soldier from him. The lieutenant's crimson eyes widened when a galling smirk curved the other's lips.

"What the blazes are you grinnin' at, wolf-meat? If you think for a second, it's safe to flout me, I'll—"

"What are you going to do, Critz?" his subordinate sneered contemptuously even while as he rubbed his clawed cheek. "I understand more than you think. You won't be officer for much longer if the rumors are true. We didn't slip up with the tarks. You slipped up. Mayhap the Shrieker's already looking for another to take your place—one smarter than Critz, one who knows how to deal properly with rebels…" A hand inched slyly for a long knife at his belt.

Critz didn't give him a chance to draw it. Seizing a half-finished sword from an anvil close to hand, he brought it cleaving down on his fellow's head.

In the cool corner, the large wolf raised her head from her paws.

"Or maybe the Shrieker thinks some shoulders need relieving of swollen heads," her master addressed the corpse, chuckling as he tossed the sword carelessly onto the body.

He turned to find the slave workers watching him. A strange quiver raced through him at their grim, oddly watchful expressions. The looks of some of his men were hardly more assuring—less in fact. The humans were not armed and not renowned for eating those they slew.

Deciding bravado would do, Critz scooped up the gory sword and clanged it against the anvil brusquely. "Ho la, all you! Get those blades sorted and put away! What are you waiting for it to rain fire and blood! Move, maggots, or I'll let firelight into your skulls too!"

To his satisfaction, his guards found more interesting prey to distract them as most of the workers did as they were told. One, however, a tall slave with a grey wrap wound protectively around his mouth and nose even in the unbearable heat, continued to stare at the orc lieutenant. Long, dark hair pulled loosely back swept forward over his face but he didn't tie it back. And he didn't drop his eyes when Critz's landed on him.

A snarl interrupted the rapidly heating stare and the orc leader pulled his gaze irritably away in time to see his wolf snap at the tall slave who stepped smartly backwards, snatching his tattered clothing away from the animal's teeth.

Critz was in no mood for play-games. The wraith had already reprimanded him once for wasting precious "resources." He had no desire to endure that wrathful temper again. Kicking out sharply, he landed several blows to the yelping beast before she leapt clear, fur sticking out like spikes, her displeasure voiced with low, surly growls. She balefully eyed her master but his red glare forestalled retribution. With a disgruntled huff, she twitched away but abruptly stopped, her fur pricking on end.

Though he didn't have all his pet's quick senses, the orc's eyes were just as keen if not keener. One of his sentries had fallen asleep in the heat of the furnaces. Critz stalked over, his red eyes glittering at the prospect of waking the errant soldier with a little tickle from his knifeblade, but he slowed as he drew nearer. Something skimmed uneasily over his mind like a shadow of doubt.

The guard's yellow eyes were staring brazenly right at him but they were vacant, glazed as black glass. A thick, viscous liquid swelled from a gaping hole in its chest. The orc lieutenant's wicked heart thrummed faster as he gazed into the dark. The sentry was dead.

"Where does this lead?" Aragorn asked attempting to relieve the burnt-egg stench of wasted slag with a sleeve across his mouth and nose. Grit stung his eyes and combed through the sweat-soaked tendrils clinging to his forehead.

Torenul didn't flinch as another gust of scalding air seared the walls of the narrow tunnel just off the quarry pits. "Bloomery. Ironworks and forges. This lot is all from the bellows. It should quiet down in a bit. We'll have to hurry before then—the shift's almost run out. All the guards'll be rounding up everybody."

An orange glow the size of a candle grew steadily brighter and broader before Aragorn's eyes until he stood on the threshold of a great cavern. It stretched away into darkness so complete he couldn't discern the far wall. However, the corrugated floor in front of him was smeared visibly with melted iron and coated filth. Intervals of low-banked fires recessed into niches threw the shadows of forge anvils onto the walls like vengeful hammers. Trailing down from the invisible ceiling dangled chains tipped with serrated hooks as thick as Aragorn's forearm.

Beneath one of these, not two yards from where the motley army crouched stood an orc sentinel. He had his back to them, arms indolently folded across his chest, eyeing the weary slaves with sleepy disgust. Others of his kind were similarly dotted about the cavern herding together the workers for the night. They were enough to make a decent fight.

Aragorn, glancing over his shoulder at his men, was glad they had hidden those too sick or weak to fight with Henna in the orchards.

Torenul crouched down close to the wall, cursing under his breath. But he wasn't looking at the guard. "What's Critz doing down here? Armory's not his beat."

"Critz?" Rancir pushed through the ranks, Lalaithien right behind him.

"We have to worry about him first," Halbarad jerked his chin at the orc guardsman.

"Leave that one to me," the dark-haired commander slipped past like a shadow, his dark garb and hair blending perfectly with the mottled stone walls.

Cautiously Lalaithien and Ivriel drew arrows to their strings as their officer silently stole up on the sentry, keeping well out of sight.

The guard never knew what happened. The lethal glaive tip snuffed out his life like a gust of wind to a candle flame and Rancir caught the heavy body as it lurched to one side and lowered it softly to the floor before beckoning the others forward.

A protruding rock ledge concealed them as Aragorn darted into its shadow with Halbarad and Torenul at his back. The burn-scarred slave shook his head at the elf officer, seemingly caught between awe and fear.

"You could have been killed doing something like that."

"It's not worth doing otherwise. What, Lalaithien?"

Lalaithien had grabbed his commander's arm in a tight clench. He couldn't speak only jerked his head.

Critz was drawing nearer their hiding place, his gaze fixed on the lax sentry, a knife half-drawn in his hand. Aragorn held his breath as those red eyes settled unmistakably on the hole in his guard's chest then probed the darkness beyond it searchingly.

Ivriel twitched, her fingers curling warningly around Rancir's which trembled on the glaive handle.

The orc lieutenant visibly swallowed, seeming to sense without seeing the enemy gazes on him. Hastily, he spun on his heel, hauled a tall figure out of the slave ranks and shoved him towards the dark ledge.

"You! Go check that corner!"

The slave blinked blankly. "What am I checking for, sir?"

Critz cuffed him brutally. "Don't question your betters! Just look, maggot, or I'll feed you to my fanged lady. Tell me whatever you find."

The unfortunate slave had no choice. Tentatively, he headed towards the corner, glanced at the dead sentry with some surprise then peered over the rock ledge behind which Aragorn and the others crouched. The ranger had a feeling that the slave's sight was not as easily deceived as the orc's. He looked straight into Aragorn's face and the keenness of the glance made the Dúnedain chieftain frown, a frisson of familiarity rippling in his mind.

Before he could venture anything, the slave turned abruptly to Torenul, lips barely moving as he spoke. "The people you take up with, Torenul. First, orcs, and conspirators, now, armed ruffians out of the wild."

Aragorn gaped. He knew that voice like his own. "Elrohir! What are you doing here?"

Elrohir glanced over his shoulder then swiftly stooped behind the rock ledge as though pretending to search for something. Tugging off the rags that concealed his fair visage, he pulled his little brother into a fierce embrace. "You frightened Elladan and Father and I half to death with your little stunt, Estel," he hissed in his ear.

"But how did you—?"

"You didn't really think we wouldn't come after you?" Elrohir teased lightly. "I'll have to explain in fullness later—as I'm sure you'll have to do some of your own—but the middle of an orc stronghold is neither the time nor the place for it."

"Elrohir, my nightmares were real. Haldir was taken." Aragorn's throat tightened as he tried to get the rest out, "There's a Nazgûl here."

The brightness that had kindled in Elrohir's eyes with the appearance of his little brother dimmed. "I know. Father suspected. I'd prayed we were wrong. The wraith was abroad when I snuck in here. I haven't had the chance to report back to Elladan and Glorfindel. We brought more than a full patrol with us."

"Those weapons in the back are ready?" Torenul asked his fellow conspirator.

Elrohir started to nod.

"What's taking so long, wolf-bait?" Critz's voice snapped like a whip-crack, shrill with impatience and the edge of panic.

Hurriedly rewrapping the rags about his distinctive features, the elf looked over his shoulder at his "master" who was watching intently. "I'm searching every inch, sir. Sentry's dead."

"I know he's dead, maggot! Anything else?"

"Couple of lurking spiders. He probably fell asleep and speared himself, sir."

Accepting the easy lie, Critz sneered and started to lay about indiscriminately with the flat of his swordblade. "All right, you lot! Get those maggots back in the cages! Plenty o' work left for tomorrow!"

Aragorn and his men pressed even further back into the shadows as the slaves passed them. Unobserved by the guards, Veil insinuated himself beside Elrohir at the tail of the line, keeping his head down, a long knife hidden against his leg. He gave Aragorn a conspiratorial wink which the ranger acknowledged with a nod.

The cavern was empty as far as he could see and quiet save for the sputtering of the dying furnace flames casting a dim, dark red glow across the hall. Aragorn and the others edged warily out of hiding. Torenul, however, strode forward boldly towards a recess which Aragorn discovered was lined with barrels. Finished swords, unrefined ones, axes, spear heads, hammers, tongs—all could be used as weapons.

Rancir examined a sharpened pike edge critically. "Good steel."

"You sound surprised," Torenul grinned bitterly as he handed out a sheave of blade-tipped poles. "These aren't orc-made. Some of us were blacksmiths before we were slaves."

The quietude that had settled over the cavern with the departure of the slaves and their guard made Aragorn uneasy. He drummed chilled fingers against the sheathed saber, pacing back and forth between the weapon barrels under the stairs and the nearest forge. Something fluttered on the verge of his senses like a black cloak, like a hiss of icy breath, like the glint of red eyes from an invisible face.

The clatter of footsteps made him spin sharply about startled, saber unsheathed before he realized he had drawn it.

Veil, closely followed by Elrohir, and a band of workers emerged from the tunnel-darkness, triumphant and bloodied.

"Your 'brother's' quite the warrior," the thin-faced man clapped Elrohir admiringly on the back. "He almost took all of the scum by himself."

Aragorn lowered the saberblade slowly, realizing vaguely that the fingers gripping it were shaking. "He does do that."

Elrohir's eyes followed the direction of his brother's knowingly. "I sent Henna and a few of the younger ones to our encampment to warn Glorfindel and the regiment…" He dropped his voice so the others wouldn't hear. "Are you all right?"

"I just want to find Haldir and get out of this place as fast as possible."

Rancir's glaive tip rapped Elrohir's black-streaked blade, diverting his attention to the Noldor elf perched on the bottom step. "You cheated me, my lord."

"How so? You've slain more orcs than I could ever have hoped in my lifetime, you old battler," Elrohir said with a wan smile.

"Ah, but the value is not in the number. One captain's head is worth more than twenty lowly infantrymen."

Elrohir quirked an eyebrow bemusedly. "I'm afraid you've lost me, my friend."

"You slew Critz."

Now Elrohir's frown held less puzzlement, more growing apprehension. "Critz wasn't out there. I thought you had slain him already."

Aragorn's insides jolted with cold alarm as red eyes appeared over Rancir's shoulder at the top of the stairs.

"Then you'd be mistaken." Critz raised his blade in a signal to the score of archers pooling down the stairs on either side of him. Horn bows creaked as their bearers pulled them back to full draw, poisoned shafts aimed point-blank at the enemy beneath them.

The sword arced down like an executioner's axe.

Rancir sprang clear but staggered as he hit level floor. Aragorn snatched his arm as Elrohir thrust them both down against a water trough usually used for cooling glowing iron. The almost-instant thuds of impact told them how close death had–and still might—come.

Something sharp and slender pricked Aragorn's finger as he hunched against the trough. He glanced down and his stomach flipped over. Black feathers and an inch or two of wood were all he could see of the arrow transfixing the elf commander's side.

"You've been struck."

Rancir grimaced and grasped the wood haft almost angrily. "It's a low hit. I can still fight."

Elrohir glanced at it worriedly but did not dissuade the other. "They could loose those at us all day." His sharp eyes scanned the cavern ledges. "We need to get above them. If we can get an archer or two to keep their heads down…"

"Well, I'm not he," Rancir craned his neck around and whistled shrilly. Lalaithien's head came up, grimacing as an arrow ricocheted off the iron vat he crouched behind with Ivriel. Dodging missiles whistling past their heads, they threw themselves down behind the water trough.

"You're hurt," Lalaithien's eyes searched his commander's face anxiously.

Rancir batted his hands away, his breathing a little labored. "We need you two up there on those ledges, pick them off, thin their ranks. Take any other archers you can find with you."

"And let you have all the fun down here? What a wrench."

Though she did not protest, Ivriel held his gaze for a long moment.

He met it squarely. "That's an order, Ivriel."

She rose and bolted towards the ledges, sheltered only by the dangling chains and vats. Lalaithien followed, firing arrows rapidly back into the midst of the orcs to buy her time as she snatched up several men with bows and quarrels. Black arrows pinged off the iron anvils or hissed with a straight blaze into the fires as a few erratic ones missed their mark. Some were not so unlucky, however, and one of the archers fell with a soft gasp, a black-fletched shaft sticking out of his throat.

Aragorn quickly wrapped a rag around the arrow in Rancir's side to try to staunch the worst of the bleeding. If Ivriel and Lalaithien couldn't clear the way they could be pinned down all night. Or until they were all slain. He had no sooner thought that than the arrows stopped.

Tying off the makeshift bandage, the ranger slowly raised his head. Rancir, whose eyes until this moment had never left the cavern ledges, twisted around with a grimace. Ivriel and Lalaithien stood within the shadow of the far wall but their bows were only loosely strung, arrows lax in their hands. Their faces were white.

"They've stopped," Elrohir's whisper sounded unbearably loud.

"I do not think that is a good thing," Aragorn whispered back. The familiar chill swept over him and his breath froze in his chest. A great metallic groan cut the cavern's thick silence. Aragorn spun around in time to see an iron gate crash down over the mouth of the tunnel they had come through, sealing it off completely. They were trapped.

At the other end of the hall that had previously been in darkness, an entourage of orcs emerged bearing torches. The ruddy glow stained their bared fangs the color of blood. In the center, a vast shadow sucked the light out of the cavern and drowned it. The tall form of the Witch-king towered above his soldiers, an iron crown of decaying steel set upon his invisible head. Red eyes gleamed in the dark of the hood and a shrike glared beadily from its place on a powerful shoulder.

Aragorn felt Elrohir's hand tighten on his arm.

Before the feet of the Nazgûl knelt a pale figure whose matted golden hair glinted dully in the torchlight. Aragorn couldn't see Haldir's face but he knew it was he. From the broad, bowed shoulders to the long, abused fingers, he recognized his friend.

"This is what you came for is it not?" the Witch-king dug his fist the long, golden locks and wrenched the white face back. Haldir's eyes held nothing in them as if it were only his body the wraith held in thrall, his spirit already flown. Cold slithered down Aragorn's spine like snow.

"Commanders of this rebellion, stand forth. Claim your comrade," the wraith taunted. "What remains of him."

Both Elrohir and Rancir grabbed Aragorn and forced him back down in place as he started to rise.

"Stay, you damn fool, they'll kill you," Rancir hissed at him.

Across the cavern, Halbarad shot a fear-laden look at his chieftain's taut countenance.

The fell voice rang out again, clanging against the ears of the breathless listeners. "Stand forth now or I will bleed him here and hunt you out where you cringe."

The chilling gleam of a knifeblade withdrew from the depths of the sable cloak and sank lightly into the curve of the captive elf's jaw to emphasize the truth of his threat.

With a supreme effort, Aragorn tore free of Elrohir and Rancir's restraining hands and strode forward despite the rapid thudding in his chest and the trembling in his knees that threatened to buckle him as he approached.

His voice rang out stronger than he'd thought he could have managed. "Stay your hand! I am here, carrion master."

Immediately Elrohir sprang up beside him. Unwilling to remain behind, Rancir. Lalaithien, Ivriel, Halbarad and Veil closely followed.

The wraith surveyed them one by one, the cold-glinting gaze settling on Aragorn. As he had in the orc camp, the ranger felt that brush against his mind, that hint of probing pressure. Hurriedly, Aragorn wrenched his eyes away from the hypnotic fire-glints that sought his and focused instead on the pale figure he could almost lean forward and touch.

Haldir knelt where the wraith had left him, his staring eyes opaque, the steel color bleached away like the irises of a drowned man. His neck had been pricked by the Nazgûl's knife and a tiny spot of red stained the blue-veined throat. The filthy tunic he wore sagged at the collar and the long fingers so deft and skilled with a saber curled in his lap, upturned and listless, a puppet whose strings had been cut.

"He does not know you are here, little one," the wraith all but purred, guessing what the human eyed so intently. "There is only darkness before his eyes."

Aragorn ignored the wraith, his eyes set on his friend's pale, expressionless face. "Haldir. Haldir, mellonnin, look at me. We are here for you."

The wraith chuckled, his metal glove sliding almost caressingly up through the elf's hair. "I cannot tell you how much he suffered in this house. My servants are not generally kind-hearted to those who kill their brethren. His pride did not last him through the nights we shut him away in the dark. He cried for his friend to save him. But Estel did not come. Not in time."

The barb hit its mark and Aragorn recoiled as if he had been stabbed. The realization that what the wraith said might be true that everything they had suffered, everyone they had lost, every betrayal they had endured had been for nothing, that in the end they might all die in vain because of this creature's evil burned through his grief-clouded mind, melted it into a hard, clear anger.

The orc ranks closed around their master as Aragorn lunged with a fearsome cry. He was barely aware that Elrohir and the others had thrown themselves in beside him. The only thing that mattered was reaching the wraith. He smashed through the orcs like a gale through autumn leaves and they parted before him so suddenly he stumbled when his sword did not swing down on another orc head. The corridor beyond him was empty. The wraith was gone but a doorway opened up leading into blackness. Aragorn did not hesitate, his sword hand too hot for fear. He didn't hear his brother call out to him.

"Estel! Wait!"

He couldn't wait. He charged into the darkness, the saber held defensively before him. He'd barely gotten six paces when something caught him tightly by the shoulder. Startled, Aragorn whipped out blindly at the being that restrained him. A stern hand seized his sword wrist and squeezed until the blade fell from his numb fingers. Someone barked his name again, a shred of fear undercutting it.

Blinking away the haze of rage lingering before his eyes, he gazed up into his "assailant's" face. "Elrohir?"

"You are overwrought, Estel, calm yourself first before you go chasing an enemy into his own hole." Elrohir slowly released his death-grip on his brother's wrist and retrieved the saber. "What would you have done if you had caught up to him?"

Aragorn did not reply but turned his back and started walking, his fingertips trailing against the wall to orient himself and followed after silently.

Something shifted and scraped against stone. "What are you doing?" Elrohir's voice asked.

"I am sick of this relentless dark. I found a torch in a bracket here." A few more rustlings and a soft curse. "My knife is gone. I must have lost it in the fight. Elrohir, lend me yours will you? I have flint."

Aragorn felt the smooth pommel of his brother's knife brush his fingers and tightened his grip on it. It took precious minutes to produce a spark especially with his hands trembling as they were but he managed it. He coaxed it carefully to life and tore a strip from his tunic. A little stain of sword oil flared and the torch ignited fiercely as he held it up.

Damp grey stone shivered into being stretching away down a long, narrow corridor. Elrohir hefted his own sword as Aragorn led the way.

Neither spoke. After the noise and clang of battle, the uncomfortable vacuum of soundlessness seemed particularly menacing. At least in the armories he had been able to see his enemy.

Elrohir seemed to share his thoughts. "That torch won't last long."

Aragorn looked over his shoulder nervously. For the flicker of an instant he could have sworn something moved just outside their little pool of light.

"What is it?" Elrohir asked, immediately alert.

Aragorn stared but whatever it was did not move again and he chided himself foolishly. What could he see in this pitch dark?

"Nothing. The darkness teases my eyes." Even as he said it, uneasiness washed over him.

A few moments later, it was Elrohir who stopped. "I heard something. There's someone—unh!"

An unseen blow snapped Aragorn's head to one side. The torch clattered out of his hands, guttering, but thankfully did not go out. Tasting blood and wondering what had hit him, he straightened dazedly and almost tripped over his brother who lay prone.

"Elrohir?"

A soft groan.

"Elrohir!" Aragorn dropped to his knees.

He touched his brother's dark hair and something wet and sticky smeared his palm. He knew even without light that it was blood. A lot of it was trickling from under Elrohir's hair past his ear. He didn't respond when Aragorn called his name again but a quick check assured him his brother was still alive.

The torchlight shifted and he lost sight of his brother's face. Aragorn squinted, recoiling from the heat as the torch hovered close to his cheek. He rose slowly from his knees, his eyes wide and blinking as he faced their attacker.

"Haldir."

The elf captain's hollowed face was barely two feet from his. The torch's unsteady illumination gave those cold, cloudy eyes the illusion of light, of recognition. For an instant, the ranger couldn't move for shock. Even his keenly attuned senses hadn't heard the Galadhel shadowing them. His hesitation cost him. He'd been watching the elf's face so attentively he'd forgotten to watch his hands.

A knife flashed up—a knife Aragon recognized as his own. With a jolt as if icewater had been flung over him, he leapt backwards, feeling a slight tug on his tunic as the keen blade sliced through it like silk, scoring a shallow gash across his lower ribs. The pain cleared his head. Instinctively, his hand tightened around the scarred saber hilt. It weighed heavily, reluctantly.

The longer blade was a liability in the narrow tunnel. He couldn't fully extend his arm without hitting the walls on either side of him and Haldir was so close he would either lope off the elf's head with a wild swing or find himself impaled on the knife as it darted lethally close to his chest, just barely parried.

As the blades skimmed off one another, an incongruous snatch of playful banter rose in the ranger's mind from that lifetime-ago, summer day when they had crossed blades in jest.

Do you think your enemies will spare you in combat?

You're not my enemy.

A knot of painful emotion tightened in Aragorn's chest as he ducked a knife thrust aimed at his lungs. He came up fast and lashed out, tilting his blade at the last second so the long hilt swung out like a club—it was an effective, non-lethal trick the elf captain himself had taught him.

The marchwarden's chin snapped back as the hilt caught him sharply. He toppled to the floor against the wall, losing his hold on the knife. Aragorn almost thought he saw a flicker of surprise break the clouds behind his friend's empty gaze but it was gone before he could be certain. Pressing his advantage, he let the saber brush guardedly against the elf's chest. Even as he did so, he knew he could never make the final movement, plunge that extra half-inch forward that would pierce the heart, causing instant hemorrhage and less instant death. Even to set Haldir free.

The saber blade eased away. "Haldir…"

He didn't see what happened. The next thing he knew the saber jerked out of his hands, clattering to the floor several meters away. Pain from a sharp kick to his kneecaps knocked him backwards. He tripped over his brother's legs and fell.

Before he could rise the saber slammed into his left shoulder, point-down, pinning him to the stone. An exquisite white burst washed over him, draining his strength until he couldn't even cry out. Transfixed with pain, he could only close his eyes, fighting the sudden urge to pass out.

The saber withdrew with agonizing slowness, the lame no longer glistening with only red from the torchlight. The blade had torn something, Aragorn's fingers tingled disturbingly but an iron tang on the air soon distracted him, his eyesight swaying warningly towards oblivion.

Long fingers rested briefly on the ranger's injured shoulder, blood welling up between the knuckles. Hazily, Aragorn stared up at his friend and for the briefest instant he could have sworn the elf returned his gaze.

"H—"

Haldir jerked as if stung and his eyes strayed down the corridor as if he were listening to something other than Aragorn's ragged panting. Pain swirled too strongly through the ranger's consciousness to make sense of the emotion he saw there. He struggled to raise his head but fell back weakly into soft blackness.

Halbarad ducked behind a huge iron vat, almost as tall as he was. Wolf snarls knifed the cavern and the orcs' arrows still stung the air. Wiping streaming perspiration off his face, thankful for the respite, however, brief, he tried not to look at Burran, his neck twisted at an unnatural angle. After the Witch-king vanished, the wolves and Critz's men had driven right into them, tearing at limbs, snatching swords from emaciated hands, trying to overcome them with sheer force of strength and numbers. Unfortunately, they were succeeding.

Veil had valiantly gathered some of Halbarad's rangers and his own fighters about him but they were falling fast, pinned between the orcs and the furnaces. Halbarad caught sight of Rancir among them wielding his double-ended glaive with ferocious dexterity, decimating weapon and claw that ventured too close. He raced to their aid even as out of the corner of his eye he saw Ivriel and Lalaithien leaping from the ledges.

They weren't fast enough.

The slaves fell almost simultaneously to spear thrusts and the orcs drove the rangers and Veil back mercilessly as Critz tore the glaive from Rancir's hand, striking out with the flat of his sword. Halbarad thought he heard the elf commander cry out.

The laugh lines around Critz's eyes crinkled as he levered the glaive tip under the elf's chin, forcing his head up. "What was it you said about feeding me to my wolf, morsel?"

Rancir leaned away from the threatening edge of his own weapon. His side was glistening with blood. Pressing a hand to it, he sneered at Critz, his eyes hard and black in the furnace-light. "There's still time."

"Not for you."

The glaive thrust forward but Critz's triumphant snarl turned to a shriek of pain. The glaive clattered, unbloodied, to the floor as he gaped in amazement at the green-fletched arrow protruding from his hand.

A shadow dropped from the ledge above the furnace, landing lithely beside the elf commander.

"You will not touch him again." Lalaithien had another arrow strung taut and aimed at the orc's breast in seconds. Cold fury etched the lines of his youthful face, so fierce that the orcs gave back before him.

Rancir propped a borrowed sword in a crack in the stones to push himself to his feet.

Critz laughed at Lalaithien but the bowstring thrummed tighter and he stopped. "What are you going to do with that, lad? You should have killed me the second you had that shaft strung."

"Leave him to me," Rancir growled at his subordinate though sweat plastered his hair against his neck and shoulders.

"Better listen to your elder," Critz taunted the young elf who continued to advance. The orc's tunic flapped gently against his lean body as he edged backwards. "Let him die at least before I come for you."

Rancir's eyes widened with alarm. His subordinate was too close. "Lalaithien—"

"With all due respect, sir, close your mouth. He killed my brother and sister—he almost killed you." Lalaithien dropped his bow and pulled his rapier, the stabbing weapon firmer in his hand. "He will not take anyone else I love while I have breath to prevent it."

He lunged. Left-handed, Critz flicked out a cruelly serrated knife concealed beneath his tunic, ducking under the rapier thrust.

Chaos erupted as the orcs surged around their leader and Lalaithien, their desire for blood sport outweighing any orders they'd been given to restrain their hunger. Halbarad hurtled into their midst, Veil and Ivriel right behind him.

Halbarad spotted Critz edging out of the fight—he had lost his knife. The ranger lunged furiously towards him but the red-eyed lieutenant saw him coming. Ripping a blade from one of his own soldiers, the orc shoved the hapless one into the arc of the human's swing. Halbarad swore as his sword sank deeply in the enemy's body. He had to set his foot upon the slain orc's chest to free it and by the time he had done so Critz had danced out of reach.

The orc wiggled his fingers at the seething human in an insolent wav but the wicked smile melted off his face like candle wax when a lethal edge of a glaive suddenly appeared underneath his chin.

Trusting Rancir to have the orc leader well in hand, Halbarad spun towards his own men. They were still dangerously outnumbered and the slaves were losing heart against their better-armed, better-trained tormentors. Menelir was beset by six who had trapped him in a corner. Halbarad rushed to his aid but something snagged his boot and he tripped.

Someone groaned in protest. Halbarad's stomach contracted painfully as he scrambled back up. He'd stumbled over Lalaithien.

Burning to help his men but unwilling to leave the young elf lying there, Halbarad quickly stooped and seized him under the arms dragging him out of battle-range. His sword jolted awkwardly under one arm as he eased the young warrior down against the wall where he would not be trampled. He didn't look further than the pale, cold-sweating face.

Menelir was still fighting but his movements were jerky with fatigue. Halbarad watched in horror as one of the orcs knocked the sword out of his hands. Menelir's eyes widened in surprise as a javelin passed up between his breastbone and throat, nearly lifting him off his feet even as it slew him.

Aragorn's adjutant closed his eyes, not wanting to see anymore. They'd failed. Veil's mad scheme had brought death on all of them. Aragorn was gone. Their ranks were decimated. This had been suicide from the beginning as he had known it would be. Glorfindel was going to reach Fornost with only orcs and cadavers to greet him.

A heart-thudding growl snapped him out of his despair and his head jerked up. Before he could straighten, what felt like a pike pole smashed down on the back of his neck, stunning him and pinning his sword blade under him. Feeling as though his head had been split open, the ranger closed his eyes, expecting to feel a blade tearing between his shoulder blades at any second.

At first, he thought the ringing in his ears was from the blow he'd taken but if it was, it was oddly melodious and did not fade. If anything, it grew stronger, louder. The orc pike-man seemed to hear it too for his weapon lowered, giving Halbarad the chance to scoot out of range. The sound swelled, musical and unbelievably sweet-voiced. It crescendoed until it echoed off every wall in the cavern.

It was a horn.

Halbarad barely had time to grasp this thought before someone hauled him to his feet by the scruff of his neck and thrust his sword back into his hands.

"Only you, Master Halbarad, could sleep in the midst of a battle," a merry voice laughed as the pike-man dropped his weapon and fled.

The human blinked at his rescuer as he rubbed the back of his battered skull. "I got tired waiting for you to show up, my lord."

Lord Glorfindel of Rivendell, arrayed in fine armor and bearing a sword almost as tall as he, barked another laugh as he brandished his weapon eagerly. "Hope you left something for us."

Thirty elven warriors of Imladris poured down the steps from the entrance hall above. They had apparently slain the sentries and Henna had shown them the way to the armory. The abrupt appearance of so many elves dismayed the orcs but lit a fiercer courage in the slaves and battle-weary rangers. They threw themselves headlong into their enemies until the orcs broke and scattered into the dark.

Halbarad propped his sword upright in a small rift and leaned on it exhaustedly, watching the tireless elven warriors ferret out the last of the fleeing enemy. They had wrought terrible retribution for their fallen brethren and no orc would be seen inside Fornost or near the surrounding countryside for years afterwards. The ranger spied Rancir loping out of the dark and hailed him. "Elrohir will never catch up to your count after this. I think he wanted Critz for himself."

"Coward slipped me by the stairs," The dark-haired lieutenant stabbed his weapon savagely into one of the water troughs to wash off the gore. Despite his obvious disappointment, a dark, satisfied smile curled a corner of the grim elf's mouth. "Not unscathed, however."

Halbarad nodded in what he hoped was a sympathetic manner. Glorfindel, his once-fine armor spattered with dark blood, paused beside them. The elf-lord wrinkled his nose as if he smelled something other than the salty, iron tang of battle. "Ivriel tells me a wraith was here."

Pale with pain and weariness, Rancir leaned back against the trough with a sigh that was part groan. "We would have gone under sooner if it had stayed. We'll make a search as soon as we can…We need to tend the wounded first."

"Not the least of which is you," the elf-lord's brow furrowed in concern as he glanced at the other's side.

Tattered as a scarecrow after a gale, Veil limped over to them, his gaunt face quelling grave after their triumph. He stopped before Rancir. "Lalaithien's asking for you."

Lalaithien lay with his head pillowed in Ivriel's lap. Elladan hovered near, tearing cloaks and tunics into makeshift strips for bandages. When Halbarad approached with the elf commander, Elrond's son instructed Ivriel to take over staunching the wound and rocked back onto his heels to meet them. He spoke low enough so the wounded one behind him wouldn't hear.

"Critz caught him full on the blade. I cannot remove it. I'm sorry, Rancir. It would kill him."

"It's killing him leaving it in," Rancir stepped around him.

"Rancir?"

The commander slowly knelt by Lalaithien's head. "Stop talking. I'm here." Ivriel's thin fingers curled in his tunic sleeve as if to reassure herself he was there. He brushed them lightly with his bloodied hand.

A small, wistful smile quirked Lalaithien's laughing mouth. "Ivriel…I'm sorry—I shouldn't have forced you to choose between us."

"That doesn't matter now. Lie quiet." She brushed his hair back soothingly.

Rancir released her and took tight hold of Lalaithien's hand which clenched desperately around his.

"It hurts." The blue of the younger elf's irises was almost lost in black fear.

"I know, son. Just keep breathing."

Lalaithien tried to inhale deeply and his chest hitched. The knife stuck fast in his chest tremored. "I—I can't …"

"Shallow, breathe shallow," Elrohir advised, eyeing the trembling knife handle apprehensively.

The wounded elf's breathing steadied with terrible slowness. "I'm dying aren't I?"

When no one answered him, he closed his eyes. "Ivriel, now you'll have to… remind this old grouch t—to laugh every—every now and again."

Halbarad felt his heart wrench with an almost physical pang. He had grown to like the light-hearted young elf and could only imagine what the other two crouching beside him felt, having known him far longer than some handful of weeks.

Rancir didn't release the younger elf's hand though he blinked hard as if something burned his eyes. "Wretch."

Lalaithien's teasing smile became a rictus. His eyes squeezed tightly shut as he pressed his face hard into Ivriel's knee, stifling a soft sob. Elladan and Halbarad pressed urgently on his shoulders to keep him from curling in on himself.

Rancir locked eyes with Ivriel. "Do you still have that poppy syrup on you by chance?" When she nodded, he beckoned for it. "Give it to me. All of it."

She frowned at him.

"Come on! He's in pain."

The elf woman released Lalaithien's other hand long enough to fumble a vial of red-tinged liquid from her belt pouch. Her fingers shook.

Rancir tugged the stopper out with his teeth. "Lift his head up."

Realizing what the elf was about to do, Halbarad snatched his wrist, denial written in every corner of his strained visage. "No. No, you can't do this."

"Don't think because I've only got one hand I won't bite you, ranger. Let go. This needs to be done."

Elladan gently closed a hand on Halbarad's shoulder and coaxed him back. "There's nothing else we can do except ease his passing."

Once released, Rancir tilted the vial against Lalaithien's lips. "Drink it all down, that's it."

Lalaithien's hand half-rose to steady the bottle as he obediently drained it. The empty glass rolled loosely out of his grasp as his head sank back against Ivriel's leg. He blinked through a clouding gaze. "You need to laugh, Camlost… sorry, sir… know you don't…like that…" The beatific smile remained on his lips. His body relaxed, muscles loosening as he slid into sleep with a shallow inhaleHe did not exhale.

In the heavy, respectful silence that followed, Rancir removed the knife and lurched unsteadily to his feet. Ivriel snatched at him as he swayed and Elladan quickly threw an arm around his back.

"Why don't you let me take a look at that arrow now?"

Halbarad scrubbed a hand across his itching eyes. Through a haze of fatigue, he squinted across the corpse-scattered cavern. It would take some hours to separate their fallen from the chattel of Fornost. Glorfindel and some of his uninjured warriors were already starting the heavy labor.

Something moved among the dead orcs heaped near a far door. Wondering what new devilry dogged them now, Aragorn's adjutant snapped for his sword but his hand dropped empty to his side as the sputtering forge fires threw a red light across the flagstones. Instead, he rushed forward just in time to catch the figure as his legs gave out.

"Elrohir, what happened?"

Dried blood caked the elf's dark hair and ran over his eye from a high on his forehead. He looked disoriented and stared glassily up at the ranger.

Catching sight of his brother, Elladan hurried over. "Elrohir, are you all right? What happened? Where's Estel?"

Elrohir murmured something Halbarad had to bend to hear. When he figured out what the elf was trying to tell him, his face blanched almost as white as the elf he supported as he met Elladan's stricken gaze.

"Estel's been taken."

Aragorn was brought abruptly back to his senses by a rude jolt. It took a few moments for the nausea and disorientation subside enough for him to figure out he had been carried some distance from where he'd lost track. Red and gold-fringed carpet brushed his cheek instead of stone. He had a brief impression of decadent quarters and torch-flanked double doors before cold swept over him and chilled the sweat on his body. He shivered.

"Slave," though it was not addressed to him, the sibilant hiss made Aragorn clench his eyes shut as if razor blades pierced his hearing instead of the venomous tone of the Nazgûl. "Lift him. I would see his face."

Obediently, long, pale fingers dug into the linen of the man's tunic and jerked him upwards. Aragorn could not restrain a soft groan as the movement pulled at his injured shoulder. The elf's relentless grip held him subserviently on his knees. Once he had felt protected in those arms. Now only gutting fear clawed at his heart. He didn't want to look at the Nazgûl, afraid his fear would betray him to that dark servant. Instead, he sought Haldir's eyes.

"Please, my friend, look at me. Haldir, look at me. You and I are friends, don't do this."

The ranger's right hand closed around the cold fingers grasping his shoulder, not frantic or pleading or even angry. It was a soft touch that bespoke desperation more than anything else. Desperation not for himself, but for fear of losing the friend he had come so far and through so much to find.

An iron-spiked glove caressed Aragorn's cheek. The man flinched from the touch but it tightened cruelly, forcing his chin back around and up until he was staring straight into the Nazgûl's faceless hood.

"He does not hear you."

Some unspoken command flashed between master and slave and Haldir released Aragorn went to the large double doors locked them.

"He is mine, body and soul. As you will be."

"Never. What you have done to him can be undone—all darkness can be undone. You are but a—."

The wraith held up his hand and the bold, damning words lodged in Aragorn's throat and strangled him. Terror threatened to rob him of the last shreds of his sanity as he fought for breath. Dizziness overtook his sight until he feared he was going to succumb. The terrible pressure on his throat eased only painfully slowly leaving his throat raw with restrained screams. He was pressed against the floor again, the dusty stone cool against his skin.

Something like a hiss, air escaping a tight space, whistled from underneath the hood. Aragorn did not know what was in it. Anger perhaps. It might even have been laughter.

"Such defiance in one so defeated. It will not serve you, stripling. Your men die while you kneel here at my feet. My servants will slaughter them to the last man. And where will that leave you, young ranger? I will have you chained in the darkest bowels where my servants will teach you the cost of defiance through the long, slow years. You have seen the changes my arts can devise. If such can alter the very mind of an elf—what can it do to you I wonder, Ranger of the North? Yes, I know you. And yet…"

Aragorn raised his head slightly, waiting.

"There is something in you. It throbs in your veins."

As before in the orc camp and the cavern, Aragorn felt that gaze probe his mind like a dark breeze skimming the surface of his thoughts. It was searching for something. It reached down through his skin, slithered between muscles and clenched around his heart with a grasp as numbing and full of despair as the touch of a dead hand.

Aragorn fought the sensation with undiluted revulsion, repelling it with all his strength. But if anything, this seemed to feed it, the shadow glutting on his fear and miring him in its viscid webbing until he was sinking, drowning in it…Who are you? It whispered. What strength is in your blood to resist me, boy? Tell me who you are. Tell me. I order it.

Aragorn tried to block out the seductive voice but it was tearing down his walls, stone by stone, breaking through the barriers to reach that most closely guarded secret, the one that his father had died for, the one that had broken his mother's heart, the one Elrond and his family had protected for centuries…

Like a taut line snapping, the sensation suddenly vanished. Aragorn found himself able to raise his head.

The wraith was no longer looking at him but at something just shy. Haldir had shifted position and now stood at the human's right shoulder instead of behind him. He was staring down at the human with the most curious expression on his face. The elven saber Aragorn had carried for so long dangled from his fingers.

"I did not order you to move, slave."

Blood flowed afresh from his shoulder but Aragorn's heart leaped with hope. He caged his fear and bent ever last ounce of his energy on his friend. "You are a marchwarden of the Lord and Lady of the Golden Wood. That is your sword pledged in their service. Come back to yourself, Haldir, please. I know you're there."

The Witch-king's shadow swallowed the room, extinguishing all but a single torch just beside the door. He bent over the elf, enveloping him in its vast darkness. "Slave, you cannot lie to me. Who is he?"

Aragorn's blood iced in that instant and his heart labored in his chest: Haldir knew who he was, knew the only reason the Heir of Isildur was still alive was because the Enemy did not yet know any of Isildur's descendants survived.

When the elf didn't answer fast enough to please him, the wraith struck him across the face. "Answer me, slave! Who is he? Why does he reek of Númenor?"

Haldir straightened slowly. He looked at Aragorn. When he answered, his voice sounded rusty as if from disuse. "He is…Strider, a Chieftain among the Rangers of the North. Nothing more."

Aragorn stared at his friend in wonderment. The sheer overwhelming relief that sang through his veins almost caused him to crumple but it was short-lived.

The wraith stood perfectly still within his darkness, simmering with almost palpable frustration. It was obviously not the answer he had expected. The hood faced his prisoner once again but the human did not feel the terrible, probing eyes as he had before and wondered at it. The reason for this new disinterest was not left long in suspense.

"Kill him then. He is of no use to me save on a pike."

An indefinable emotion flickered for the briefest instant across the marchwarden's face before he saluted the wraith with his saber. With fingers un-trembling, he strode towards the captive human.

Just as he had in Amon-en-Achas, Aragorn couldn't summon the strength to resist. He was unarmed and injured. Even if he could wrest control of the saber from his friend, what would he do with it? Steel would not slay the one who held the elf in thrall—and he would have to go through Haldir first to do so. That, he could not do.

The saber paused as it reached his throat, Haldir watching him as if he weren't quite sure where to make the killing stroke, which would please his master most. The blade hovered inches before the battle-grimed throat. Red from the single burning torch glinted off the steel.

This time, Aragorn did not look away. He stared straight up into his friend's face, sure even now that some part of him could be reached, that the elf he had known and trusted was not gone forever, but trammeled inside a mind he could not wholly call his own. He was still in there. He could still fight.

"Kill him."

Sweat darkened the gold strands that clung to the elf's temples as if he were engaged in a deathly struggle that Aragorn could not possibly fathom. The long fingers visibly trembled so the saber pricked the man's throat, drawing blood, another inch further and the hope of the North Kingdom, of Gondor, of Men would die.

"Haldir." The name lingered on the air, whispered under Aragorn's breath so the wraith would not hear. His eyes riveted on the elf's.

Something broke. Like a frozen river's first crack before a spring thaw, the ice behind the marchwarden's eyes melted. Aragorn watched color wash back into the grey eyes leaving them silver and gleaming instead of the tortured, dead paleness that had become so hauntingly familiar of late.

"No."

From the wraith, a hiss, this time of surprise, Aragorn was sure. "What did you say?"

The saber eased away from Aragorn's throat as the elf took a step back, then another. Spinning on his heel, the beautiful elvish steel came up as if with a life of its own. It sheared through the black cloak with a ghastly noise, a rush of wind. The wraith lunged, a whirl of liquid shadow. Protested steel grated and snapped. The saber dropped, its lame shorn clear away from the hilt. The wraith's iron fingers closed around the elf's throat as the wraith lifted him clear off the ground with the full force of his rage behind it.

"You dare raise a blade against me, slave!" he screeched, shrill with the sudden realization that his plans were crumbling around him. He hurled the elf from him and turned towards the human. Aragorn saw in the fell, red gleam under the hood that his blood at least would not be denied the master of Fornost. Even now as his plans and longings blazed into ashen ruin, the Witch-king would take the ranger with him.

But Aragorn was already moving. As soon as the saber dropped, he staggered to his feet, groping for the only weapon to hand: the torch. He snatched it out of its bracket regardless of singed fingers and thrust it full into his enemy's face.

The flames caught hold and licked over the black cloth as though it were soaked in oil. In seconds, the whole robe was aflame. So long had he been disconnected from feeling and emotion, the realization that he was on fire did not at first register in the Witch-king's dulled, dark-enfolded senses until a flicker of red glinted in his intended victim's grey eyes. A cry of sheer rage raised the hairs on the nape of Aragorn's neck as the wraith reached for him with one clawed hand, desperate to rend him before the fire consumed his physical shape.

Suddenly a searing, excruciating light filled the entire chamber with the force of a bolt of lightning, brighter even than the blazing fire. The wraith shied from it with a squeal of agony and furious recognition.

The double doors were broken open. Glorfindel stood in the doorway behind Aragorn, framed in his own brilliance. His golden hair unadorned shone with eldritch light and his eyes were cold, hard stars in his rigid face. A long sword gleamed in his hand. He carried a struggling shrike in the other.

The wraith, caught between fire and starlight, powerless with rage and defeat, finally conceded at the sight of his ancient and hated enemy. With a powerful heave, he flung the human into the elf-lord's arms and, taking advantage of the distraction, vanished out of the room into the blackness, leaving behind only the stench of smoldering cloth and a last vengeful wail.

Glorfindel steadied Aragorn in his arms but the ranger struggled free, lunging furiously after the wraith king.

The elf-lord caught the man's wrist, restraining his forward rush. "Nay, Estel, let him flee again like the dark craven he is. His doom is not for you to decide and others need tending here."

The battle light faded from Aragorn's eyes as he remembered. He spotted the crumpled figure lying in a corner of the dark room. Haldir lay very still.

"You've been hurt," Glorfindel fingered the man's blood-soaked shoulder worriedly.

Aragorn put aside his hands and with energy borne of desperation hurriedly dropped to his knees beside the still figure of his friend.

Haldir's eyes were open but directed at nothing. He didn't even twitch when Aragorn called his name or gently touched his shoulder.

"Did you find him?" Elladan and Elrohir burst into the room, Halbarad and those who had escaped the battle in the armory with only minor injuries hard on their heels.

Aragorn barely heard them. "I'm fine, fine."

Glorfindel gently put aside Elladan and Elrohir and crouched on his heels beside the ranger and the marchwarden. He closely examined Haldir's face and, reaching hesitantly forward, pulled up the tattered, black tunic to reveal an ugly wound in the Silvan elf's side which sluggishly oozed blood and some foul, dark substance. The elf-lord's face blackened and he didn't touch it.

"I have not the skill to mend this wound, Estel. It goes deep."

Aragorn stared at the elf-lord, uncomprehending. "What—? What does that mean?"

Glorfindel's eyes seemed to be trying to tell him without words but he stalwartly ignored anything he read there and redirected his gaze to the ashen, silent warrior before his knees. He laid his hand lightly on the elf captain's chest, comforted by even a thready pulse of life there.

"Hold on, mellon nin. We cannot lose you now."

roquin— plural of Sindarin "knight." Above ohtar 'foot-soldier.' I like to think of it as distinguishing between a foot soldier and a mounted one with connotations of a higher level of regard and respect.

mellon-nin— my friend

The Lady of Light