Aragorn looked into Legolas’s eyes, holding back a groan, when he saw the intense pain and confusion reflected there. Understanding that walking would be a great effort for the elf, yet also understanding the prince’s pride, he forced himself to avoid sweeping Legolas up into his arms and carrying him. Instead, pushing down his own idea of what he should do, Aragorn asked, "Do you think you can walk?"
The elf’s normal inclination would have been to say yes immediately. He hated admitting to any kind of weakness, but now was not the time to let his pride rule the practicality of the situation. He realized that he was beyond that. "I do not know," he reluctantly admitted. "I will try."
All three of the Rivendell brothers helped Legolas to his feet. The elf swayed a bit but gathered himself and nodded. His legs were barely able to support his light weight, but he was determined to make them carry him wherever he and his friends needed to go.
The ranger knew that even if he could walk on his own two feet, the archer needed assistance.
He had noticed the torn tunic and the bloodstained silk shirt underneath with the strange circle of tiny holes in it. He had no more of an idea of what could have caused such an injury than Elladan did. However, now was not the time to question his friend about it.
Realizing that Legolas no longer wore his cloak, Aragorn put his arm around Legolas’s waist and then pulled the elf’s right arm under his own cloak and draped it over his shoulder, holding the elf’s hand on the other side.
Elladan quickly reached over and pulled the left side of Estel’s cloak over the young archer. No matter how well an elf could withstand the cold, he knew the presence of an injury could sometimes adversely affect that ability. The fact that Legolas’s body shivered in occasional spasms was a clear indication that Elladan’s suspicion might be correct.
Looking up to study the sky, Elrohir could see that the gray clouds above them were getting darker, and it had nothing to do with the thickness of those clouds. The sun was descending into the west, and he knew that it wouldn’t be long before it would be too dark to see where they were going. "Night is coming soon."
Elladan glanced upward and grimly commented, "Too soon."
Aragorn’s grip tightened around Legolas, as he prepared to take the archer’s weight should he not be able to stay on his feet. He guided the elf, as they all turned and started down the trail.
"Where are we going?" Legolas asked.
A mentally aware Legolas would have known that they were headed back down the mountain. The fact he didn’t seem to know that worried Aragorn. "We are going to get away from the howlers and find shelter for the night," Aragorn reassured his friend.
Elladan and Elrohir were walking side by side behind Estel and Legolas, placing themselves between them and the howlers they believed were above and behind them. "Where is that shelter we spent last night in?" Elrohir asked, looking around to see if he could spot it.
"We passed it a few yards back. At least, we passed where it used to be," Elladan corrected. "The shaking must have sent it crashing down, because it was not there any longer."
"I heard that," Aragorn said. "I told you it wasn’t safe."
Despite his weakened and pained condition, Legolas couldn’t hold back a chuckle, which made him wince. Even the humor he loved to share with these special friends could not make him forget, even for an instant, how much he was hurting.
"It took a whole mountain shaking to its very foundation to bring that shelter down," Elrohir said, still unwilling to admit that his initial assessment of the previous night’s shelter had been anything but safe. Indignantly, he said, "It was destroyed only by the quaking of an entire mountain, Estel. It was perfectly safe while we were in it."
"Says you."
Elrohir snorted at his brother‘s continued aspersions about his judgment. "We survived, did we not? So I was right."
Before Aragorn could offer any further argument, Elladan’s body tensed, as he called a halt to their progress. "What is that over there?" He was pointing to his left at a spot a few yards off the trail that appeared darker than the surrounding rock. "Wait here," he said, moving quickly past Aragorn and Legolas.
As he got closer to the object of his curiosity, it became evident that the darker area among the black rocks was an alcove of sorts formed by several tall boulders that had been shaken until their leaning tops touched each other. The shelter they made was not as large as the one the foursome had spent the previous night in, but it did provide enough of a depression to keep the worst of the snow fall off of them.
After moving forward and making his own cursory examination, Elrohir said, "Not perfect, but I think we may all be able to fit into it." ‘At least if we all fold our legs up tight,’ he added to himself, motioning for the others to join him.
Once he got to the small alcove, Aragorn nodded, not willing to criticize this shelter the way he had done for the previous one. He leaned into the four foot deep space and turned Legolas around to face the right side of it, easing him down a couple of feet from the rock that formed the back wall, if wall it could be called. He motioned for Elrohir to sit beside Legolas, and his brother did so.
The dark-haired elf held his hands out and pulled the younger elf’s right side toward him. In this way Legolas was sideways to him, allowing Aragorn unhindered access to the archer’s left shoulder. He felt heat radiating from Legolas’s body. His concern grew, as he brought the prince’s head down against his own left shoulder. Legolas was much too hot.
Aragorn immediately knelt down facing Legolas and opened his pack, going through it until he found what he was looking for. He unwrapped a small leather pouch containing the leaves of a plant. The twins recognized it as athelas, the best herb the range had with him that would fight the infection stemming from Legolas‘s wound.
Aragorn took several of the leaves and looked down at them. "I regret that we have no way to make a fire," he said. "Boiling these leaves would be best." His idea was that he could use the softened leaves to place directly on Legolas’s shoulder and the water containing the juice from the athelas, he would make Legolas drink. Thus the infection could be fought both inside and out. With no way to heat the snow into boiling water, another method would have to be employed.
There was only one way the human healer could see. Legolas would have to chew the leaves. Aragorn hated the idea. The young archer was weak and didn’t need to spend his waning strength chewing leaves. But he needed the juice it would produce, and there was no other way for him to get enough of it to do him any good.
Reluctantly, Aragorn took some of the leaves and said, "Legolas, I want you to chew on these leaves. Swallow the juice as it accumulates, but do not swallow any of the pulp. Do you understand?"
Legolas nodded. He opened his mouth, reminding the ranger of a little bird waiting for one of its parents to feed it. Instead of offering the man a touch of humor to ease his concern, it did the exact opposite. It brought more worry to his heart. Legolas should not be in such a state. But he was, so Aragorn knew he would have to concentrate on alleviating the problem.
The ranger gently pushed the leaves into Legolas‘s open mouth, and the elf began to chew slowly, swallowing every few minutes. He ignored the bitter taste. It mattered not at all compared to the pain he was in and the thought that what he was doing would soon bring him at least some measure of relief.
"Let me see the leaves," Aragorn instructed his elven friend after a while. When Legolas opened his mouth again, the ranger nodded. "Let Elladan have them." Legolas spit the green mash into Elladan’s hand, when the elder elf held it up against Legolas‘s chin.
"Just a few more," Aragorn said, as he put the remaining leaves in Legolas’s mouth, and the procedure was repeated.
Aragorn looked up into the darken ing sky. There would be no moonlight to aid them this night. Elladan had judged that they had little more than halt an hour of usable light left. Hopefully, that would give Estel time to treat Legolas’s wound sufficiently before complete darkness descended over them.
Once Legolas had finished chewing the second mouthful of athelas leaves to Aragorn’s satisfaction, the man looked hard at the elf. "Legolas, you know I have to look at your shoulder, and it will hurt. I’m sorry."
Legolas nodded again. Without a word, he reached out with his right hand and gripped Elladan’s free hand. The eldest twin thought Legolas was wanting to hold onto him in preparation for the pain that was coming. Instead, the prince put Elladan’s hand up near his face. "I do not want to scream, but I do not think I can stop myself. I must not alert the howlers." With that, he placed the elder twin’s hand over his mouth and then put his own hand over his friend’s and pressed down. He nodded to Estel to begin.
Aragorn took a deep breath, unfastened the elf’s tunic and then began pulling it up to provide more space between it and the elf’s shoulder. Then he pulled it down, not letting go until the fabric had cleared the elf’s shoulder far enough not to work its way back up and interfere with what the man was about to do. He then did the same thing with the silk shirt.
It was the first time Aragorn had seen the elf’s shoulder wound and it sickened him. In Legolas’s skin, he noted the large oval pattern of tiny puncture marks, which were raised and puffy. His entire shoulder was red, swollen and full of infection.
It didn’t take much imagination to know what touching the wound would do to Legolas, never mind having to cut, drain, clean and bandage it. Aragorn didn’t know how his friend had endured the torment he knew such a condition would have already caused.
Aragorn chided himself, because he knew even without looking that the hadn‘t brought any kind of sleeping draught with him. He had thought, wrongly as it turned out, that a sleeping draught would never be necessary on a journey like this where he had believed alertness would be essential. Hadn’t he learned by now that you could never say never? Now Legolas would have to pay the price for that mistaken assumption.
Aragorn saw that Legolas’s eyes were closed, and he hoped that it was because the elf was either asleep or unconscious. Even though most times the latter was not a good thing, now it would be a blessing.
Barely above a whisper, Aragorn said, "Legolas, are you awake?"
When the elf nodded, the ranger’s heart sank. There was nothing that could be done now but to proceed with what needed to be done.
Pulling his knife out of its sheath on the right side of his belt, Aragorn held it up in front of him. The idea of having to cut his friend’s infected flesh was almost enough to make his hands shake. He had done this before to rangers he had traveled with and who had sustained various types of wounds. Gritting his teeth, he forced his hands to be sill. He would not cause any more pain than what was absolutely unavoidable.
The man looked at Elrohir, whose lips were pressed into a tight line. He knew what was coming, as did they all, and his anguish was reflected in his deep gray eyes.
Elrohir gripped Legolas tightly around the waist with one arm, pinning the wood elf’s left arm down so he could not fling it up and hit Estel while he worked. With his other hand, Elrohir held Legolas’s head firmly against him.
Aragorn held his left hand over the wound and then gently lowered it. He felt Legolas jerk, but he elf did not attempt to cry out. Knowing that hesitation would only be worse for both Legolas and himself, the man took the tip of his knife and began to lance the circle of swollen puncture marks. He worked as quickly as he could and did not raise the knife until it had made a complete circle through the wound.
When he finally did raise his knife, Aragorn laid it down and took a deep breath. Now was going to be the hardest and most painful part of all. He took a clean cloth out of his pack and held it against the elf’s skin under the new cut that had been made.
The wound, now that the pressure from the swelling had been released, was already beginning to drain, but Aragorn knew that that alone would not be sufficient. Trying not to think about anything else, he placed his fingers inside the circle and pressed down, forcing the infection out of the cut.
This time Legolas could not hold back. He pressed his hand tightly against Elladan’s in an effort to help stifle the screams that was working their way up from his throat.
Between the two of them, only muffled screams could be heard, though in the small space surrounded on three sides by rock, it sounded loud.
They were all aware that the reason Legolas’s mouth was covered was to keep from alerting the howlers that might be hunting them and listening for any noise that would betray their location. However, right now, they were thinking only of their friend and what he was having to go through.
Legolas had his eyes screwed tightly shut. Just as he couldn’t avoid screaming, he also couldn’t keep himself from trying to pull away from the source of the pain. He pressed himself hard against Elrohir’s chest and tried to twist and arch his back, but Elrohir‘s grip tightened enough to hold him firmly in place. The muffled screams continued.
Pain adheres to no time limits, and each moment seemed to stretch out into an hour for each one of them.
Finally, Aragorn judged that the wound was not going to yield any more drainage for now other than blood. He prayed that the athelas would affect a cure before this procedure was required again.
Aragorn pulled the now-soaked cloth away and laid it down at the edge of the shelter’s entrance near, but not touching, his knife. He reached for the chewed up leaves that Elladan still held in his hand. Very carefully he began to spread the mash over the cut he had made.
Once the wound was covered with the athelas, the ranger took a fresh piece of cloth and laid it gently over Legolas’s entire shoulder. Taking yet more cloth, this time in strips, he bound the wound as firmly as he dared, but he did not put the tunic or shirt back in place. He didn’t want to have to remove them again, should this one treatment not be enough.
Legolas’s hand fell away from Elladan’s, and his body went limp. At least he was free of the pain for now.
After rubbing his knife with snow and putting it away, Aragorn then buried the dirty cloth in more snow outside the little shelter. He said to Elrohir, "I will take him,"
Elrohir knew how much it meant to Estel to held onto his friend, so he merely nodded and began to slide out from where he sat.
Elladan had already stood up and moved out of the little shelter so his two brothers could swap places. He also wanted to look around. He was relieved to see that there were no howlers in sight.
When the ranger had moved to the center of the space and settled back against the rock, he turned Legolas to face outwards and then pulled the elf back against his chest, being careful to avoid touching his shoulder. He sighed, as he wrapped his arms around the wood elf, whose head now rested against the man’s neck. He wrapped his cloak around them both.
Elrohir settled down on their left side, while Elladan moved back into the shelter and sat down on their right.
Both elves pulled their cloaks around the back and front of the man and the elf between them, forming a cocoon of cloaks for the four of them against the cold snow that they were not able to escape.
Aragorn didn’t know how long they had all been sitting in that same position, when he felt Legolas shift in his arms. He realized he must have dozed off, because the movement brought him immediately to full awareness.
Glancing down, the ranger was surprised to see Legolas wide awake and staring up into the night sky. There was an almost dreamy expression of joy on his face. "Look, Estel."
Aragorn saw only the large snowflakes that drifted down and had covered the lower part of their cloaks. It was those snowflakes that he thought Legolas was referring to. He was a bit confused though, because that was certainly nothing new. It had been snowing all day. Yet he also knew that elves could see much better than humans. Perhaps the archer was talking about something else he was seeing, so Aragorn asked, "Look at what, Legolas?"
"The stars, Estel. Look at the stars. Are they not beautiful?"
The man looked higher up at the low-hanging clouds that were so thick they completely hid the full moon the ranger knew was shining above them, along with all the stars. With a great deal of effort to try and keep the tears that sprang to his eyes out of his voice, he replied, "Yes, Legolas. The stars are beautiful."
The ranger tightened his grip on the elf. He then closed his eyes and rested his chin on Legolas’s head. He soon felt his friend’s body relax, as if he had gotten the confirmation he sought and had decided that now it was all right to rest.
Aragorn looked first at Elrohir and then at Elladan. Both had their hoods up, hiding most of their faces. It was done not so much to fight the cold, as it was to hide the soft elven glow of their skin that could possibly betray their location to any howlers that might happen to glance their way while out hunting them. The man could not be sure, but he thought he saw tears in Elladan’s and Elrohir’s eyes, as well.
Aragorn knew, as he was sure his brothers knew, that Legolas, Prince of Mirkwood, their friend, was dying.
TBC