Legolas sensed rather than actually saw darkness surround him. He opened his eyes and looked around as much as he could from his position hanging under the pole.
He groaned silently. A cave. Of course, these awful creatures had to live in a cave. He had to admit that it really made sense. Even howlers must need shelter from the more unpleasant moods of the mountain. However, the logic of that thought offered no comfort to the elf. He couldn’t get around the fact that, when all was said and done, it was still a cave.
The tunnel he found himself being carried down was low and narrow. It was just the right size to accommodate the small howlers. Had they dug this tunnel out? It didn’t seem likely. The mountain was made of solid granite, and these creatures were hardly the equal in strength to the stout dwarves whose digging of tunnels inside mountains was a way of life. These howlers probably just made good use of what they had found here.
Legolas wondered briefly, if there were other groups of howlers. Surely these were not the only ones on this very large mountain. There may even be more in this group, waiting deep inside the cave, waiting for him.
The howlers and their captive had not been traveling long, when the creatures suddenly turned toward an opening in the wall to their right. Just before crossing the threshold of this side entrance, Legolas looked down the main tunnel and caught a glimpse of a large cavern. He couldn’t see more than dancing shadows on the far stone wall cast by flickering firelight before it was lost to sight.
A few feet farther down this passageway brought them into a small rock chamber not more than a dozen feet in diameter. The rough floor slanted slightly toward the back wall. The only light source was a torch held by one of the howlers.
The two howlers holding the pole Legolas was tied to took the pole ends off of their shoulders and unceremoniously dropped their burden to the floor.
Legolas saw stars explode in his head, when it hit the hard stone below him. Then the rest of his body impacted the floor. It all hurt, but nothing caused as much pain as the searing flash of agony in his shoulder above and beyond the pain that was already there.
The elf managed to keep from crying out, but he couldn’t avoid a hiss, as he sharply drew in a breath. He thought he heard a mocking laugh from somewhere nearby, but between the dizziness he was experiencing and the pain he was trying to fight, he couldn’t be sure.
There was a flurry of chattering and then the two howlers, who had carried him, untied him from the pole but left his hands and feet firmly bound together.
The elf was grabbed and roughly dragged over to the side wall on his left. One of the howlers jerked him up into a sitting position and pushed his back against the unyielding stone. It didn’t help any that his left shoulder hit a small protrusion in the rock, causing another hiss from the elf.
The small creature then wound a rope between the elf’s wrists around the rope already there, It tied off that end and then took the other end and tied it to a metal ring embedded into the wall slightly above Legolas’s head.
Stepping back, the howler joined its friends standing in the center of the chamber and staring at Legolas with something akin to craving. Their eyes glittered and most of them were displaying their hideous teeth. Yes, craving was the perfect word to describe the look they were giving their elven captive.
The elf, refusing to let the pain he felt consume his thoughts at this point, stared back with a critical eye. All of these creatures looked exactly alike. There was no distinguishing feature about them for anyone to be able to tell them apart - except for the leader. It was a tiny bit taller than the others. Mortal vision probably couldn’t have seen the difference, however, the wood elf’s keen eyes could make that distinction rather easily.
"What do you want with me?" Legolas demanded rather harshly.
The leader took a few steps closer to the elf. "You have been told that already," the creature’s voice, dripping with disdain, replied.
"You want to taste my flesh. Is that not that what you said?" Legolas’s own voice sounded sarcastically skeptical, not wanting to believe that what he had been told could really be true. He was certainly hoping his doubts weren’t misplaced.
The leader waved his hand at the others, and they filed out of the chamber. The one with the torch paused long enough to set it into a hole in the back wall. It then followed its companions, leaving Legolas alone with the leader, who grinned, once again displaying those horrid yellow teeth.
Legolas could have sworn that the sight of that mouth full of pointed objects made his shoulder ache even more.
"There will be guards right outside this room, so it will do you no good to even try and escape." Without waiting for a comment, the howler walked out, leaving Legolas alone in this chamber that had now become his prison cell.
Legolas leaned his head back against the rock wall behind him, momentarily forgetting about the bump he had received, when he was dropped. The elf was quickly reminded and jerked his head forward.
What was he to do now? He tried to formulate a plan but found it increasingly difficult. Every thought came only after great concentration, but even that did not allow him to string thoughts together in proper sentences. ‘Guards outside. Does not matter. Must get out of here. Must escape, find Estel and the twins. Must warn them before...’ Before what? Legolas’s eyelids began to droop. ‘Before they are taken. Yes, that is it. Before they are taken. We must leave here.’ He paused, suddenly confused. ‘Why must we leave here? Where is here?’
The elf’s thoughts were drifting away, as the haziness in his head and the sharp throbs in his shoulder began to overtake him. He felt all of his physical energy and mental resolve wash away, as if they had been floating on a tide that was now moving farther and farther from the shore. He tried to grasp the fleeing coherence, but it probed too illusive. ’We must...’
A cloak of darkness settled over the Mirkwood prince, and then there was nothing.
When Legolas woke up, he slowly opened his eyes. All that greeted him was his own lap. Blinking, he raised his head. Once his vision became sharply focused, a wavering light appeared in front of his face. The elf saw that he was staring into the flame of a torch.
"You have decided to rejoin us," came the voice of the leader of the howlers.
Legolas grimaced. He was hoping that all of this had been a dream, somewhat similar to what Estel had described to him as nightmares. Elves rarely experienced such dreams, naturally preferring to let their minds wander the paths of pleasant memories while they slept.
The elf stared at the howler in front of him. "Who are you?" he asked, not able to figure it out by sight alone. These beings were like nothing he had ever heard of before. There was certainly nothing close to them in any of the wide-ranging books he had ever read.
The howler regarded the elf curiously. It was not the same look of curiosity that was currently on Legolas‘s face. The creature had no idea who Legolas was and wouldn’t have cared, if it had. But it did know exactly what Legolas was. It was familiar with the race of elves. Rather its look reflected one in the throes of trying to make a decision.
The creature decided to let the elf suffer a bit longer, so he coolly answered, "You will have to wait for your answers."
"Why, if you are going to kill me?"
The howler laughed. "Impatient elf. A very odd combination. I always knew elves to be the most patient creatures in Middle-earth. Since your kind is immortal and time means nothing to you, impatience is a useless emotion."
"What does time mean to you?" Legolas asked, hoping to draw this creature into a conversation so that it might reveal some answers without realizing it.
The question surprised the howler. Laughing, it replied, "No more than it does to you."
"So you are immortal, as well," the elf stated. That possibility had never even occurred to him.
"It was not always so, but yes. We have all been cursed with immortality."
"Cursed?"
A frown cross the creature’s hideous face. It showed its teeth again. "To keep living on and on with no end is most certainly a curse. Do you not find it so?"
"No, I do not,’ the elf replied firmly. ‘It is the way of the Firstborn. I have never questioned it."
Legolas felt that he was getting close to tricking this creature into revealing who he and the other howlers were. The howler’s next words convinced him otherwise.
"I know what you are doing, elf," the howler snarled. "I may look repulsive and therefore stupid to you, but I assure you that I am not."
It was time to get back to being more direct. "How can my knowledge of who you are possibly harm you?"
A moment of silence followed, and then the howler said, "We were of the Drughu."
Legolas was shocked. "You are Drúedain? "
"That is an elvish name for our kind. What you see is what happened when we opposed Morgoth. We fought him, and this is the result of losing that fight. We were turned into these creatures and sent to this forbidding mountain, never to leave it again." The howler’s voice betrayed no emotion whatsoever. He might as well have been talking about the weather.
"You are...were...a man." Legolas’s voice, on the other hand, was full of shocked wonder.
The howler looked at Legolas and grinned. "If you are thinking that I or any of us will become your ally, because we have been cursed by evil and wish to seek some small measure of revenge, you are greatly mistaken. What was done to us not only transformed our bodies but our minds, as well. We have no souls, no conscience, and therefore, no mercy. You will die just as I have said you would."
Before Legolas could utter another word, the howler slammed the torch down into the hole where it had rested before and walked out of the room with parting words of warning. "Remember, there are guards, and they are not too pleased that they have not yet tasted the elf flesh they were promised."
Legolas didn’t know if that was merely an empty and none-too-subtle threat or if it was a reminder of what was truly being planned for him. He had the feeling that the howler’s whole purpose in coming in here and waiting until he woke up was simply to reinforce the idea that he was to be killed and eaten. It was most likely a means of mental torture.
An involuntary shudder ran through the elf at the prospect of his death and in such a grisly manner, as well. He hated admitting, even to himself, that the howler’s ploy had worked.
With a resigned effort to change the subject, Legolas sat and mulled over the revelation he had just been given. These creatures were once men; men who had opposed Morgoth back in the First Age. He knew that the Drúedain had not all been cursed, at least not like these had been. The Drúedain were a dwindling race, though. Those that remained were confined primarily to the Drúadan Forest around Eilenach, one of the seven beacon hills that lay between the Gondorian capital of Minas Tirith and the kingdom of Rohan. Perhaps having a race that would probably soon die out and disappear from Middle-earth was a form of curse, though an unintended one.
Those men of long ago had not been sent here to die alone on these black granite slopes but to live for all time in their misery. Legolas couldn’t read their minds, so it was impossible to know for sure whether they were indeed miserable. From what he had seen and been told so far, they didn’t appear to be, having adapted completely to their circumstances.
Legolas shook his head both for the cruel past of these Drúedain that could not be changed and determination for his own future - if he had one. The howler leader had given him a warning. It must be heeded. He could not afford to think of these creatures as men, who might eventually befriend and then free him. They were an enemy, who wanted him dead, and they wanted to eat his flesh. No, these were definitely no longer men, and he had better keep that in mind. He dare not trust them.
No matter how intriguing the revelation was, Legolas had to turn his thoughts to other things. He became aware that his shoulder was hurting as much as ever, and he had a creeping feeling that it was not healing the way it should be. He needed to check it.
There was enough play in the rope that was tied to the ring for him to reach over and unhook the top of his tunic and the silk shirt he wore beneath it. As carefully as he could, he pushed the fabric away until the wound was exposed. He had to grit his teeth at the amount of pain this small gesture generated.
The archer stared down at the wound in utter surprise. There were two rows of puncture marks where the howler‘s teeth had penetrated his flesh. The creature had bitten down over the top of the elf’s shoulder, leaving one row in front and one in back. Even having seen the size of the howlers’ mouths, Legolas couldn’t believe how large the bite was.
He was dismayed to see the amount of swelling there was and more particularly the vivid redness all around the punctures. There were also red streaks radiating outward from each of the tiny holes left by the teeth.
Legolas had seen Aragorn suffer infections, both large and small, often enough to know that his shoulder was indeed infected. He gently placed his fingers on the area around the wound and noted that his skin was hot to the touch. That should not have been possible. His elven healing ability should have begun the healing process long before that would have had time to occur.
Since there was nothing he could do about what was happening to his shoulder, Legolas pulled his shirt and tunic back into place and took a deep breath. How could this happen? The two possibilities came to him as soon as the question was formed. Either the howler blood he had swallowed had somehow interfered with his inborn healing ability or the bite itself contained something that did the same thing. Neither of those possibilities was encouraging. If both were true....
Forgetting for the moment that he was supposed to be on the howlers’ menu, Legolas’s only thought was that he needed to get out of here and find Estel so that the ranger could use one of his herbs to stop the infection before it could do any real harm. Estel’s infection always healed with no lasting effects, however, there was no way to know what this howler poison could do. An archer with a damaged shoulder would soon cease to be an archer at all.
There was only one thing to do. He had to somehow untie the ring rope, free his hands and feet and get past the guards without alerting any of the other howlers that were most likely down in the cavern he had seen briefly before being put in here.
Clenching his jaw tightly, Legolas reached up above his head and began trying to untie the knots in the ring rope. He had to stop several times and lower his arms to ease the pain in his shoulder. He chided himself for giving in to the pain, but he just could not help it.
Legolas had loosened the knots about half way when dizziness hit him again. ‘Please, Valar, not now,’ the elf pleaded. ‘I have to escape. I have to.’
Knowing that time was not on his side, Legolas raised his arms and continued with the knots, this time with a stronger feeling of urgency. No matter how tired his arms became or how much his shoulder protested, Legolas simply gritted his teeth harder and continued with his single-minded task.
After what seemed like ages, the rope came loose, and the elf’s arms fell down into his lap. More pain erupted, but there was no time to spend thinking about that now. He untied his feet and rose to stand but had to lean against the rock wall to steady himself. Besides a woozy head, his legs felt as if they were not strong enough to carry even his light weight.
Taking several deep breaths, the elf looked down at his hands. There was no way he was going to be able to untie them. One end of the ring rope was still tied around the knots in the rope that bound his wrists together. Even his long elven fingers could not reach the knots, and it would take much too long to try untying them all with his teeth.
Whatever he was going to do, he had to do with his hands bound, At least they were in front of him, although he was limber enough to pull them down behind him and over his feet, if there had been the need.
With elven stealth, Legolas crept down the short passageway to where the two howlers he had been told about stood guard. Getting the drop on them would have been much easier, if they had been standing together. Unfortunately, they were standing with one on each side of the entrance.
So much for the plan to grab the howlers together and overpower them. Now taking out one would not only alert he other, but he would have to have his back at least partly turned to it.
It was time for plan number two. The elf almost laughed. He didn’t have a plan number two. ‘Improvise,’ he instructed himself. He certainly had done that often enough. The life of a warrior, though highly structured in most cases, was true only to a certain degree. A great many situations called for decisions to be made on the fly, and that was what Legolas knew he would have to come up with now.
Thinking, however, was becoming harder for the elf to do. The fog was once again starting to take over and cloud his thoughts. It seemed that now, in his time of most need, both his body and his mind were betraying him.
Shaking his head, he forcefully pushed everything away that didn’t involve finding a way to escape this deadly situation he found himself in.
A small voice that he recognized as his own penetrated the haze. ‘Think, Greenleaf. Think, or you will not get out of here alive.’
TBC