Chapter 8
Aragorn stood up and walked around the tent in a daze. “This is all my fault…I am the sole reason this horror has come to pass…why so many have already died! And now…Legolas…” the Man’s voice broke.
“Aragorn,” said the Istari, “Arwen’s madness brought this terror back from the darkness…”
“Nay,” said the King of Gondor, “Haldir was right. If I had not betrayed my love for Legolas…If I had simply been honest five years ago, none of this would be happening…Legolas would not have come close to death and Thranduil would still be King of Mirkwood…”
Legolas stood from his seat and walked over to the Man. He looked at Aragorn but the Elf’s face was devoid of emotion. The Elf King turned to the Wizard, “Tell me what I must do, Gandalf. How can I defeat something even more foul than the creatures we have already seen?”
The Wizard rose and walked to the young Elf. He placed a hand on Legolas’s shoulder, “My dear boy, your father would be most proud of you…You are about to enter into a ritual that stretches back several millennia, to the days of your great grandfather. The answer lies in the crypts deep inside the cavern where the creatures now reside. In the pit of fire.”
Aragorn and Haldir both protested, but the Istari raised his hand for silence. “It can be no other way…the die is cast and the creatures have awakened from their slumber. If something isn’t done they will spread like locusts to cover the forest and eventually all of Middle Earth.”
“Then I will face this foe!” cried Aragorn, stepping in front of the Mirkwood King, to face the Wizard.
“Nay, Aragorn, you cannot. It is an ancient magic that will require a Wood Elf. None other than the King of the Woodland Realm must do this. I am sorry,” he concluded, seeing the stricken look upon the Man’s face.
Gandalf turned to Haldir. “I believe you have something for the King of Mirkwood, Marchwarden.”
Haldir stepped forward and withdrew the second stone of the trio from about his neck. He approached Legolas and held it out to him. “From the Lady of the Golden Wood, my Liege.”
Legolas accepted it mutely, looking down at the black shiny stone in his hand. It seemed to slither in the sunlight against his palm. Gandalf walked up to the Elf and handed him the one from Imladris. The Wizard looked at him expectantly. Legolas reached into his tunic and withdrew the third stone, suspended in a chain around his neck. “My Ada gave it to me when he left and told me never to remove it from my neck. I always knew he wore it but I never understood its significance until now.”
Gandalf nodded. “It is time we go.”
The caverns where dank and humid, a fine mist floated up around their feet as they walked silently through the tunnels. One of the Men in the party kicked a stone, which reverberated against the rock walls.
”Shhhh!” said a voice in the darkness.
Elves and Men entered the caverns in groups of twenty and followed the twisting trails. The others remained on the outside of the cave entrances along the ravine and other’s still were posted in the woods.
Gandalf led their way, his staff illuminating their steps. Aragorn walked behind him, next to Legolas. They looked at each other, in the ominous gloom, both reminded of the doomed journey into Moria. Aragorn drifted closer until he was shoulder to shoulder with the Elf. “I still say you don’t have to do this, Legolas. Let me go in your place…I don’t want you to face this foe on your own.”
“You heard Gandalf. Besides, if my forefathers were able to face this thing and defeat it then so will I.”
Aragorn stopped walking, and gripping the Elf by the shoulders, pulled Legolas into the shadows as the party of Elves and Men continued to follow the Wizard down the tunnel. “I don’t want you to do this. This is all my fault and I can’t bare to lose you again, Legolas! I …I love you, Melethron. You are my heart!”
The Man’s hands traveled from their strong grip on the Elf’s shoulders, up the gentle slope of the long neck to cradle the face that he could barely see in the darkness that surrounded them. A pale glow illuminated the Elf’s skin, just as it had in Moria, and the Man basked in the precious soul light of his lover.
“I know you love me,” said the Elf softly. “I always knew. But I was angry that you did not love me enough to face your demons.”
“I loved you with all my heart and soul, I always have! I was a coward. It was not lack of love that stopped me from standing up and speaking the truth. It was my own fears that I was not good enough, not for Gondor and not for you.”
“I would have stayed if you had but asked it of me,” whispered the Elf with tears in his voice. “I understood your situation, better perhaps than you think.”
Aragorn gaped at his Elf in the darkness. “Nay! How could I have asked that of you? You were a Prince! I should have told everyone from the beginning!” His fury at himself hissed into the silence. “Instead I almost killed you! And now…now it looks like I may yet do so! My love, my love…what have I done to you?”
The Man’s misery reverberated into the stillness. “Shhh…I forgive you me sweet Human,” whispered the Elf King, his face inches from the Man’s. “I do not want to go into this thinking you hate yourself. In case…in case I don’t make it…I want you to remember that I loved you. I love you still.”
Aragorn groaned and slipped his fingers possessively across the silky skin. His lips brushed against the smooth brow as tears flowed down his cheeks into his beard. “Nay, Legolas, you will defeat this foe and then, my Elf, I promise you things will be different.”
“Yes, my Love,” whispered the Elf sadly, “things will be different.”
The Man leaned forward and pressed his lips to the sweet mouth. His arms came around the slender Elf, pulling the warm body against him and he deepened the kiss. The Elf’s lips parted for him and his tongue plunged into the inviting cavern. Legolas was his again! The Man moaned with desire and longing as slender arms came around him.
“Here! A chamber up ahead, be careful now…” came the call from the Istari.
The Man and Elf pulled apart reluctantly and made their way to the front of the line. Haldir’s eyes snapped to the face of the Mirkwood King, reading the depths of sadness, hope and fear in the unsheltered moment. The Wood Elf suddenly turned to look at him and his mask of placidity quickly dropped back in place. Blue eyes questioned the Marchwarden silently.
“Aragorn, stand ready,” whispered the Istari. The King of Gondor nodded to Faramir who signaled the Gondorians behind them to hold their weapons high in preparation. Haldir signaled his Elves. Aragorn looked at the Mirkwood King but Legolas had retreated into his façade of the stoic Monarch.
Legolas stepped forward and stood at Gandalf’s shoulder as a Lórien Warrior and a Wood Elf pushed aside a stone that covered the entrance to the ancient chamber marked by a red ‘x’ on the map.
The two Elves took the point of the expedition and plunged through the opening. Silence greeted them as they peered around them. They turned back to the waiting group and one of them signaled that the way was clear. As the soft whistle left his lips, the Lórien elf turned into the darkness and was suddenly speared by a long spiked tail that drove like a sword through his chest to protrude out of his back.
Screams suddenly rent the darkness as black bodies descended from holes in the ceiling of the stone cavern and dropped into their midst. The group of Elves and Men scattered as the creatures shrill cries reverberated off the stone walls. Bared fangs and razor sharp claws sliced Elven and Human flesh as the inhabitants of Middle Earth were picked off with shameful ease. Archers let their arrows fly into the black shapes to no effect, Men hacked frantically with their swords. Above the din, the Wizard’s voice rose like thunder uttering words of an ancient tongue and his staff flared to life flooding the narrow cavern with light.
Aragorn gaped in stunned horror at the hideous black insectoid things that shrilled in the burning light. The Marchwarden cried out in warning and plowed through the crowd of fighting beings to knock the Mirkwood King out of the way of a whipping black tail that flayed wildly from the ceiling above Legolas. The Wood Elf was pushed roughly to the ground as the Marchwarden fired arrows at the creature that had aimed its sights on Legolas.
It vaulted out of sight into a crevice into the ceiling above them. Aragorn ran to Legolas’s side and lifted him from the ground. Just then Haldir screamed as long skeletal fingers descended from above and closed around him, piercing his flesh and lifting him into the air. The Lórien’s legs thrashed wildly in the air as the Galadhrim tried to pry loose of the ghoulish thing.
“Haldir!” screamed Legolas, as the thing crushed the Lórien against its hard chest and climbed the rock walls seeking escape into the shadows. The Wood Elf shot arrows at the black nightmare thing that held the Marchwarden captive. They bounced off it’s armor plating and failed to slow it down. Legolas threw his bow over his shoulder and sprinted after the thing, as it disappeared through a crevice in the wall, which opened into yet another black tunnel.
“Legolas, no!” yelled Gandalf. Aragorn cursed and grabbed a small torch from one of his men. The King of Gondor pushed past the Wizard to plunge into the narrow tunnel after his lover. The tunnel turned sharply to the left then traveled downward at a sudden decline. The Man had to crouch as he ran blindly into the darkness. He gripped the small torch and held it aloft in front of him. Suddenly the tunnel branched off into three separate paths. Each winding tunnel disappeared into the blackness of the earth. There was no sign of Legolas or Haldir.
Sweat poured down his brow as Aragorn paused to listen for some sound that might point him in the right direction. Each second that ticked by took his beloved further and further from him and towards certain death. Then he heard it! A scraping sound, something dragging against bare rock. He plunged forward into the tunnel directly in front of him, his breath coming in sharp gasps as the small tunnel grew even tighter. If the thing had carried Haldir down here it would eventually have to drag the Lórien though the passage.
He prayed he was going the right way and would not encounter any of the foul beasts before he found Legolas. The tunnel grew hotter and he paused to pull off his over tunic, leaving it behind him on the ground. Legolas’s name was a perpetual whisper on his lips. “Wait for me, my Love. Please, Valar, let him be safe…”
His boot scraped against something and he paused, lowering the torch to see what it was. His heart skidded to a halt at the sight of the broken golden arrows. Legolas had passed through here only a mere moments ago. Aragorn broke into a frenzied run, scraping his arms and hands against the jagged rock walls that closed in around him.
Suddenly he fell forward, when the ground abruptly disappeared from under his feet. He tumbled out of the tunnel that ended without warning and rolled headlong into the small circular chamber. His torch flew out of his hands but Anduril stayed locked within his firm grip. The Man rolled from the fall into a crouch and raised the sword of Elendil before him. His eyes peered through the steamy darkness as he turned carefully in a circle, looking for any signs of movement. He was surrounded by dark ominous shapes. Sweat rolled down his face as he began to realize where he was.
He carefully reached for the torch, as the sound of his breathing filled his ears harshly and his tongue darted out nervously to moisten dry lips. Aragorn’s hand closed on the wooden torch that thankfully still burned, but his fingers encountered a slippery wetness that covered the ground. Shaking the strands of thick mucus from his hand, Aragorn raised the light and gasped at the hideous sight before him. There, in a strange theater of the macabre sat a circle of several pulsating greenish Eggs.
Each oozing Egg undulated from the movement of the offspring still safely ensconced within their protective pod. Many others sat motionless, their tops peeled back to reveal an empty ribbed interior. A cloying sweetness rose from the empty shells. Aragorn rose slowly to his feet, realizing that he was standing in the center of a nest. A pool of strong smelling ammonia was gathered in the center of an indentation in the floor. A sound drew the Man’s eyes up the sides of the slippery walls. Stretched upon the rock face clung a thick mound of the slippery substance, hardened into a ball, to encapsulate the form of the Marchwarden. Haldir looked unconscious, wrapped in a slippery cocoon of hardening resin. His head hung limply forward so that his pale strands of hair fell in front of his bruised face.
“Haldir!” Aragorn ran to the captive Elf and wedged his torch into a crevice, he used his sword to hack at the clumped hardening pieces of the cocoon that glued the Galadhrim to the rock wall. Large chunks of it slowly peeled off to release an arm from the sticky binding. Haldir began to stir. His eyes opened and such a look of horror swam in them that Aragorn wondered if the Lórien had gone mad.
“Haldir, look at me,” said the Man, as he touched the Marchwarden’s face. “It’s Aragorn. Where is Legolas, Haldir? Where is he?” Aragorn pleaded.
Haldir’s eyes focused slowly on the King of Gondor and then they widened in horror. His head began to thrash back and forth as if caught in the throws of a terrible nightmare. Aragorn captured the Lórien’s head in his hands.
“It’s all right, Haldir!” cried Aragorn, but the Elf only increased his spasming movements. And then he opened his mouth to speak but nothing came out but a rasping sound. “What?” prompted the Man, in a panicked whisper.
“Behind you!” Haldir finally croaked in terror.
Aragorn raised Anduril just as the long spider-like fingers of the small parasitic alien pierced the white membrane and cleared the flowerlike opening of the egg. It lunged out of its cocoon at the Man in a streak of lightening. Fortunately, the Man’s reflexes had not slowed since his years as a Ranger and he managed to hack the loathsome creature in half. Its multitude of legs twitched for a few moments longer as the acidic blood leaked out of the two halves.
With a grimace, the Man turned back to the awakened Marchwarden. He hacked at the remaining cocoon that imprisoned the Elf as Haldir pushed his way out from the inside and collapsed on the floor of the cavern.
“Haldir, please, where is Legolas?” Aragorn asked again in growing anxiety as he knelt next to the coughing Elf.
Before the Marchwarden could speak, a groan from the wall behind him made Aragorn whirl, with his sword raised. Aragorn gaped in disbelief at the nightmare before him. Men and Elves hung, plastered to the rock face, in sticky mounds of resin. Most of them were obviously dead. The putrid smell of the corpses was almost stifling as the Man took a step closer and held up the torch to light the horrific spectacle. Their chests were burst open from the inside, ribs shattered outward to release the mature off spring of the unearthly denizens.
Another groan drew the Man’s attention past the dark obscure bundles of cocooned victims. His torch cast shadows on the wall as he frantically searched the bodies for someone alive among the stiff hardened mess. A soft moan drew the Man forward with shaking hands. Aragorn’s heart beat loudly in his ears as he stepped up to a wet mound, freshly attached to the rock. There amidst the sticky clumpy mess peaked out strands of silver silk.
“AHHH! Legolas!!!” Aragorn dropped both his sword and the torch to the ground at his feet as he frantically pried the large slabs of congealing resin from the golden Prince. Huge chunks of the fibrous material came off, oozing strands of mucus. Aragorn hefted chunk after chunk off the unconscious Elf.
“Legolas! Legolas can you hear me? Wake up, Meleth nin!” The Man begged as his shaking fingers stroked the pale cheek.
“Aragorn,” grated the voice of the Marchwarden in a rasp, “get him out of there, hurry!”
Then Aragorn heard it. The shrill sounds of the adult creatures. They were coming from the tunnels! Aragorn ran to the opening in the wall that he had come out of only moments ago and, peering inside with the soft glow of his torch, saw what looked like dozens of the foul things lumbering slowly towards their chamber. More shrill alien cries came from the narrow passages on the opposite sides of the cavern. “By Eru!” whispered the Man through frozen lips.
“Aragorn,” said the Istari, “Arwen’s madness brought this terror back from the darkness…”
“Nay,” said the King of Gondor, “Haldir was right. If I had not betrayed my love for Legolas…If I had simply been honest five years ago, none of this would be happening…Legolas would not have come close to death and Thranduil would still be King of Mirkwood…”
Legolas stood from his seat and walked over to the Man. He looked at Aragorn but the Elf’s face was devoid of emotion. The Elf King turned to the Wizard, “Tell me what I must do, Gandalf. How can I defeat something even more foul than the creatures we have already seen?”
The Wizard rose and walked to the young Elf. He placed a hand on Legolas’s shoulder, “My dear boy, your father would be most proud of you…You are about to enter into a ritual that stretches back several millennia, to the days of your great grandfather. The answer lies in the crypts deep inside the cavern where the creatures now reside. In the pit of fire.”
Aragorn and Haldir both protested, but the Istari raised his hand for silence. “It can be no other way…the die is cast and the creatures have awakened from their slumber. If something isn’t done they will spread like locusts to cover the forest and eventually all of Middle Earth.”
“Then I will face this foe!” cried Aragorn, stepping in front of the Mirkwood King, to face the Wizard.
“Nay, Aragorn, you cannot. It is an ancient magic that will require a Wood Elf. None other than the King of the Woodland Realm must do this. I am sorry,” he concluded, seeing the stricken look upon the Man’s face.
Gandalf turned to Haldir. “I believe you have something for the King of Mirkwood, Marchwarden.”
Haldir stepped forward and withdrew the second stone of the trio from about his neck. He approached Legolas and held it out to him. “From the Lady of the Golden Wood, my Liege.”
Legolas accepted it mutely, looking down at the black shiny stone in his hand. It seemed to slither in the sunlight against his palm. Gandalf walked up to the Elf and handed him the one from Imladris. The Wizard looked at him expectantly. Legolas reached into his tunic and withdrew the third stone, suspended in a chain around his neck. “My Ada gave it to me when he left and told me never to remove it from my neck. I always knew he wore it but I never understood its significance until now.”
Gandalf nodded. “It is time we go.”
The caverns where dank and humid, a fine mist floated up around their feet as they walked silently through the tunnels. One of the Men in the party kicked a stone, which reverberated against the rock walls.
”Shhhh!” said a voice in the darkness.
Elves and Men entered the caverns in groups of twenty and followed the twisting trails. The others remained on the outside of the cave entrances along the ravine and other’s still were posted in the woods.
Gandalf led their way, his staff illuminating their steps. Aragorn walked behind him, next to Legolas. They looked at each other, in the ominous gloom, both reminded of the doomed journey into Moria. Aragorn drifted closer until he was shoulder to shoulder with the Elf. “I still say you don’t have to do this, Legolas. Let me go in your place…I don’t want you to face this foe on your own.”
“You heard Gandalf. Besides, if my forefathers were able to face this thing and defeat it then so will I.”
Aragorn stopped walking, and gripping the Elf by the shoulders, pulled Legolas into the shadows as the party of Elves and Men continued to follow the Wizard down the tunnel. “I don’t want you to do this. This is all my fault and I can’t bare to lose you again, Legolas! I …I love you, Melethron. You are my heart!”
The Man’s hands traveled from their strong grip on the Elf’s shoulders, up the gentle slope of the long neck to cradle the face that he could barely see in the darkness that surrounded them. A pale glow illuminated the Elf’s skin, just as it had in Moria, and the Man basked in the precious soul light of his lover.
“I know you love me,” said the Elf softly. “I always knew. But I was angry that you did not love me enough to face your demons.”
“I loved you with all my heart and soul, I always have! I was a coward. It was not lack of love that stopped me from standing up and speaking the truth. It was my own fears that I was not good enough, not for Gondor and not for you.”
“I would have stayed if you had but asked it of me,” whispered the Elf with tears in his voice. “I understood your situation, better perhaps than you think.”
Aragorn gaped at his Elf in the darkness. “Nay! How could I have asked that of you? You were a Prince! I should have told everyone from the beginning!” His fury at himself hissed into the silence. “Instead I almost killed you! And now…now it looks like I may yet do so! My love, my love…what have I done to you?”
The Man’s misery reverberated into the stillness. “Shhh…I forgive you me sweet Human,” whispered the Elf King, his face inches from the Man’s. “I do not want to go into this thinking you hate yourself. In case…in case I don’t make it…I want you to remember that I loved you. I love you still.”
Aragorn groaned and slipped his fingers possessively across the silky skin. His lips brushed against the smooth brow as tears flowed down his cheeks into his beard. “Nay, Legolas, you will defeat this foe and then, my Elf, I promise you things will be different.”
“Yes, my Love,” whispered the Elf sadly, “things will be different.”
The Man leaned forward and pressed his lips to the sweet mouth. His arms came around the slender Elf, pulling the warm body against him and he deepened the kiss. The Elf’s lips parted for him and his tongue plunged into the inviting cavern. Legolas was his again! The Man moaned with desire and longing as slender arms came around him.
“Here! A chamber up ahead, be careful now…” came the call from the Istari.
The Man and Elf pulled apart reluctantly and made their way to the front of the line. Haldir’s eyes snapped to the face of the Mirkwood King, reading the depths of sadness, hope and fear in the unsheltered moment. The Wood Elf suddenly turned to look at him and his mask of placidity quickly dropped back in place. Blue eyes questioned the Marchwarden silently.
“Aragorn, stand ready,” whispered the Istari. The King of Gondor nodded to Faramir who signaled the Gondorians behind them to hold their weapons high in preparation. Haldir signaled his Elves. Aragorn looked at the Mirkwood King but Legolas had retreated into his façade of the stoic Monarch.
Legolas stepped forward and stood at Gandalf’s shoulder as a Lórien Warrior and a Wood Elf pushed aside a stone that covered the entrance to the ancient chamber marked by a red ‘x’ on the map.
The two Elves took the point of the expedition and plunged through the opening. Silence greeted them as they peered around them. They turned back to the waiting group and one of them signaled that the way was clear. As the soft whistle left his lips, the Lórien elf turned into the darkness and was suddenly speared by a long spiked tail that drove like a sword through his chest to protrude out of his back.
Screams suddenly rent the darkness as black bodies descended from holes in the ceiling of the stone cavern and dropped into their midst. The group of Elves and Men scattered as the creatures shrill cries reverberated off the stone walls. Bared fangs and razor sharp claws sliced Elven and Human flesh as the inhabitants of Middle Earth were picked off with shameful ease. Archers let their arrows fly into the black shapes to no effect, Men hacked frantically with their swords. Above the din, the Wizard’s voice rose like thunder uttering words of an ancient tongue and his staff flared to life flooding the narrow cavern with light.
Aragorn gaped in stunned horror at the hideous black insectoid things that shrilled in the burning light. The Marchwarden cried out in warning and plowed through the crowd of fighting beings to knock the Mirkwood King out of the way of a whipping black tail that flayed wildly from the ceiling above Legolas. The Wood Elf was pushed roughly to the ground as the Marchwarden fired arrows at the creature that had aimed its sights on Legolas.
It vaulted out of sight into a crevice into the ceiling above them. Aragorn ran to Legolas’s side and lifted him from the ground. Just then Haldir screamed as long skeletal fingers descended from above and closed around him, piercing his flesh and lifting him into the air. The Lórien’s legs thrashed wildly in the air as the Galadhrim tried to pry loose of the ghoulish thing.
“Haldir!” screamed Legolas, as the thing crushed the Lórien against its hard chest and climbed the rock walls seeking escape into the shadows. The Wood Elf shot arrows at the black nightmare thing that held the Marchwarden captive. They bounced off it’s armor plating and failed to slow it down. Legolas threw his bow over his shoulder and sprinted after the thing, as it disappeared through a crevice in the wall, which opened into yet another black tunnel.
“Legolas, no!” yelled Gandalf. Aragorn cursed and grabbed a small torch from one of his men. The King of Gondor pushed past the Wizard to plunge into the narrow tunnel after his lover. The tunnel turned sharply to the left then traveled downward at a sudden decline. The Man had to crouch as he ran blindly into the darkness. He gripped the small torch and held it aloft in front of him. Suddenly the tunnel branched off into three separate paths. Each winding tunnel disappeared into the blackness of the earth. There was no sign of Legolas or Haldir.
Sweat poured down his brow as Aragorn paused to listen for some sound that might point him in the right direction. Each second that ticked by took his beloved further and further from him and towards certain death. Then he heard it! A scraping sound, something dragging against bare rock. He plunged forward into the tunnel directly in front of him, his breath coming in sharp gasps as the small tunnel grew even tighter. If the thing had carried Haldir down here it would eventually have to drag the Lórien though the passage.
He prayed he was going the right way and would not encounter any of the foul beasts before he found Legolas. The tunnel grew hotter and he paused to pull off his over tunic, leaving it behind him on the ground. Legolas’s name was a perpetual whisper on his lips. “Wait for me, my Love. Please, Valar, let him be safe…”
His boot scraped against something and he paused, lowering the torch to see what it was. His heart skidded to a halt at the sight of the broken golden arrows. Legolas had passed through here only a mere moments ago. Aragorn broke into a frenzied run, scraping his arms and hands against the jagged rock walls that closed in around him.
Suddenly he fell forward, when the ground abruptly disappeared from under his feet. He tumbled out of the tunnel that ended without warning and rolled headlong into the small circular chamber. His torch flew out of his hands but Anduril stayed locked within his firm grip. The Man rolled from the fall into a crouch and raised the sword of Elendil before him. His eyes peered through the steamy darkness as he turned carefully in a circle, looking for any signs of movement. He was surrounded by dark ominous shapes. Sweat rolled down his face as he began to realize where he was.
He carefully reached for the torch, as the sound of his breathing filled his ears harshly and his tongue darted out nervously to moisten dry lips. Aragorn’s hand closed on the wooden torch that thankfully still burned, but his fingers encountered a slippery wetness that covered the ground. Shaking the strands of thick mucus from his hand, Aragorn raised the light and gasped at the hideous sight before him. There, in a strange theater of the macabre sat a circle of several pulsating greenish Eggs.
Each oozing Egg undulated from the movement of the offspring still safely ensconced within their protective pod. Many others sat motionless, their tops peeled back to reveal an empty ribbed interior. A cloying sweetness rose from the empty shells. Aragorn rose slowly to his feet, realizing that he was standing in the center of a nest. A pool of strong smelling ammonia was gathered in the center of an indentation in the floor. A sound drew the Man’s eyes up the sides of the slippery walls. Stretched upon the rock face clung a thick mound of the slippery substance, hardened into a ball, to encapsulate the form of the Marchwarden. Haldir looked unconscious, wrapped in a slippery cocoon of hardening resin. His head hung limply forward so that his pale strands of hair fell in front of his bruised face.
“Haldir!” Aragorn ran to the captive Elf and wedged his torch into a crevice, he used his sword to hack at the clumped hardening pieces of the cocoon that glued the Galadhrim to the rock wall. Large chunks of it slowly peeled off to release an arm from the sticky binding. Haldir began to stir. His eyes opened and such a look of horror swam in them that Aragorn wondered if the Lórien had gone mad.
“Haldir, look at me,” said the Man, as he touched the Marchwarden’s face. “It’s Aragorn. Where is Legolas, Haldir? Where is he?” Aragorn pleaded.
Haldir’s eyes focused slowly on the King of Gondor and then they widened in horror. His head began to thrash back and forth as if caught in the throws of a terrible nightmare. Aragorn captured the Lórien’s head in his hands.
“It’s all right, Haldir!” cried Aragorn, but the Elf only increased his spasming movements. And then he opened his mouth to speak but nothing came out but a rasping sound. “What?” prompted the Man, in a panicked whisper.
“Behind you!” Haldir finally croaked in terror.
Aragorn raised Anduril just as the long spider-like fingers of the small parasitic alien pierced the white membrane and cleared the flowerlike opening of the egg. It lunged out of its cocoon at the Man in a streak of lightening. Fortunately, the Man’s reflexes had not slowed since his years as a Ranger and he managed to hack the loathsome creature in half. Its multitude of legs twitched for a few moments longer as the acidic blood leaked out of the two halves.
With a grimace, the Man turned back to the awakened Marchwarden. He hacked at the remaining cocoon that imprisoned the Elf as Haldir pushed his way out from the inside and collapsed on the floor of the cavern.
“Haldir, please, where is Legolas?” Aragorn asked again in growing anxiety as he knelt next to the coughing Elf.
Before the Marchwarden could speak, a groan from the wall behind him made Aragorn whirl, with his sword raised. Aragorn gaped in disbelief at the nightmare before him. Men and Elves hung, plastered to the rock face, in sticky mounds of resin. Most of them were obviously dead. The putrid smell of the corpses was almost stifling as the Man took a step closer and held up the torch to light the horrific spectacle. Their chests were burst open from the inside, ribs shattered outward to release the mature off spring of the unearthly denizens.
Another groan drew the Man’s attention past the dark obscure bundles of cocooned victims. His torch cast shadows on the wall as he frantically searched the bodies for someone alive among the stiff hardened mess. A soft moan drew the Man forward with shaking hands. Aragorn’s heart beat loudly in his ears as he stepped up to a wet mound, freshly attached to the rock. There amidst the sticky clumpy mess peaked out strands of silver silk.
“AHHH! Legolas!!!” Aragorn dropped both his sword and the torch to the ground at his feet as he frantically pried the large slabs of congealing resin from the golden Prince. Huge chunks of the fibrous material came off, oozing strands of mucus. Aragorn hefted chunk after chunk off the unconscious Elf.
“Legolas! Legolas can you hear me? Wake up, Meleth nin!” The Man begged as his shaking fingers stroked the pale cheek.
“Aragorn,” grated the voice of the Marchwarden in a rasp, “get him out of there, hurry!”
Then Aragorn heard it. The shrill sounds of the adult creatures. They were coming from the tunnels! Aragorn ran to the opening in the wall that he had come out of only moments ago and, peering inside with the soft glow of his torch, saw what looked like dozens of the foul things lumbering slowly towards their chamber. More shrill alien cries came from the narrow passages on the opposite sides of the cavern. “By Eru!” whispered the Man through frozen lips.
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