Chapter Text
The High Pass
-o0o-
Elrohir
The High Pass remained a hateful, desolate place. The mountains were ragged and barren, pocked with caves and crags where thunder giants had ripped the stones out of the heart of the mountains themselves, leaving only dark scars behind. Open, ragged wounds that had allowed the infestation of the goblins to take root, to spread.
Elrohir could sense them on the air, could see the signs of their passing in discarded rags and refuse, and his skin crawled with the imagined stares of uncounted malevolent eyes. Despite his and his twin’s efforts, despite the forces of the Reunited Kingdom that had started to aid them - the loathsome beasts remained. And still their foul presence poisoned the air, haunted the passes and preyed upon the weak.
Hatred stirred in him, coursing through his veins, a rushing in his ears that grew in lockstep with the sense of the orcs’ presence. There were less of the foul beasts now, he tried to reassure himself, forcing a deep breath of air into his lungs past tightly clenched teeth. Less reports of attacks on homesteads in the Angle and on the new Arnorian settlements north of Imladris. Agandaûr’s failed insurgence, the quashing of his forces of Hillmen and goblins, had done much to reduce the numbers of orcs in the area, to buy a tenuous peace for these lands.
But that peace was now at risk. The Beornings had sent word, and their own scouts had confirmed it: a new Goblin King had declared himself. They did not know where the creature had come from, but it had rallied the remaining orcs and goblins of the Mountains, had drawn them from as far away as Gundabad and Moria - setting up a new realm close to the abandoned tunnels of the Great Goblin - the one that had found a timely end on Gandalf’s sword.
Elrohir scanned the mountains around him and Elladan, his skin still crawling, an innate warning that something was amiss. But the ragged mountain sides, the steeply rising slope on their right remained empty of enemy activity. He turned left, to the edge of the slim path they were on and the drop into a steep but shallow ravine - only to find it filled with dense fog, rolling clouds of broiling steam that were rapidly rising.
“The weather is changing,” Elladan said and Elrohir turned to find his twin looking up towards the sky where thick clouds were similarly rising, rapidly blocking out the sun, promising imminent rain. The weather always had been treacherous this far up in the mountains. “A storm is coming” Elladan said, then cursed softly.
Elrohir could hear the frustration in his brother’s words, could feel it in their bond. His brother had welcomed this excursion, the news that their enemies were banding together, giving them the opportunity to decimate them in one fell swoop - nevermind the increased danger. He was driven, even more so then was his wont, to be done with their self-appointed mission of cleansing the mountains, of providing safety to their brother’s realm and to the settlers, the mothers, of Arnor.
Increasingly, it seemed to Elrohir, that Elladan was getting ready to leave Middle Earth behind. Perhaps it was the absence of Vilya, or the tenuous promise of peace bought with Sauron’s downfall, likely it was that Elladan would want to say farewell to their sister and adopted brother on his terms, rather than on those of Mandos. Either way, Elladan was craving a final confrontation, an end to the scourge of the goblins in the Misty Mountains, one brought about by his own hands.
But they could not rush this scouting mission. Estel had already assembled the Knights of Arnor and would be awaiting them at the base of the mountains. By the time they met up with their little brother, Elladan and he had better have found the hideout of the goblins - and the best point of access to their tunnels. Getting lost in fog or rain and breaking their bodies upon the stones at the bottom of a cliff was not going to accomplish anything.
“We should find shelter,” he suggested, just as the first heavy drops of rain began to fall. In truth, he was loath to suggest it, for the feeling of unease that had hounded him kept increasing. Their enemy was close. Much too close as it turned out.
For just when he turned to face Elladan, something heavy slammed into his side, making him stumble. Fiery pain struck a moment later, almost its own physical push, and he barely registered when his foot slipped, when the momentum of the arrow propelled him sideways and off the narrow path. Vertigo briefly claimed him as sky and ground flipped, as he tumbled headfirst into the ravine, but then he hit the sloping wall and the arrow shaft snapped as he crashed into a boulder and pain blocked out all else. A moment later he hit the bottom of the pit and awareness fled.
-o0o-
Elladan
Elladan watched Elrohir step to the edge of the ravine that was likely housing the entrance to the goblins’ new caverns. He did not need to see the gorge itself to know that they would not find that entrance today. He could read it in the dejected slump of Elrohir’s shoulders. And he could guess from the dark clouds that were rolling across the sky, swallowing the mountain tops and the higher reaches of the pass, that the weather was to blame. His own frustration surged as he looked up at the clouds. “The weather is changing. A storm is coming.”
He made no effort to hide his frustration, Elrohir would pick up on it regardless, and by the Valar, he longed for a confrontation. The oppressive air of these accursed mountains called for violence, stoked the darkness in his soul and then taunted him with his own impotence, his insignificance before their whims. Would that the cowardly beasts came crawling from their caves for him to find, to fight. Would that he could erase their existence and cleanse the North of Middle Earth once and for all.
Would that he could take his twin to the West to see their mother, to find the peace he deserved.
“We should find shelter,” Elrohir called, having made his own assertion of the approaching thunder clouds. He was probably right. Their vengeance would wait another day. Aragorn and his troops would certainly wait another day, he knew. And the orcs were not going to simply disappear – not without granting him the pleasure of dispatching them to Mandos, of repaying a bare fraction of the suffering that their mother had endured.
But it seemed suffering was not through with him yet, for even as he nodded and opened his mouth to acquiesce, a slim dark shadow sped from the fog-filled valley behind Elrohir and struck his twin in the side. Elrohir staggered, but the small step he took to regain his balance landed on thin air, above the very abyss he had been studying before.
Before Elladan could even call his brother’s name, Elrohir fell.
He shouted it anyway and jumped forward. In two steps he was next to the cliff’s edge, his heart racing, his despair mounting. He saw nothing but dark roiling clouds, malevolent fog that suddenly seemed more than mere formations of the weather. It was smoke, and fumes, he realized, vented from the caverns below on purpose. A trap set for enemy scouts. And it had sprung on them.
A sudden disturbance shifted the clouds below and Elladan dove to the side just in time to evade the black feathered shaft of another arrow. He cursed. That had been all too close for comfort. The orcs knew he was here, knew he would rush after his twin. And they were waiting.
Above, the storm clouds swallowed the last of the sky and despite the early hour, darkness fell. A time for beasts. A time for traps to close on the unwary.
A time for hunters.
Adrenaline coursed through his veins, awakened by the shock of seeing Elrohir fall, compounded by the muted pain that radiated in their bond and it fed the smouldering flames of his rage, his hatred. If the orcs thought they were ready to face his vengeance let them reap what they had sown.
Mustering the edge of the cliff face, Elladan planned the first few handholds, only enough to set him on his path. Determination would see him to its end. Without hesitation, without wondering whether the goblins below could see his progress, he knelt and started to climb.
Foul smelling smog closed around him, the reek of sulphur and decay clear in the unnatural mist vented from below. He could not see the ground beneath him, could see no more than a few feet, but his focus was only on the wall in front of him. On the cliff face that was pocked with loose stones and fog-slick edges, making for a treacherous descent. Elladan’s pace was unrelenting, his grip unforgiving, nevertheless. A warning whispered in his heart, a shadow of foresight that spurred him forward, urging him to hurry. He was running out of time.
The sight that met him a moment later confirmed it. He set his foot on a jagged protrusion that jutted from the cliffside, almost wide enough to be a ledge, only to slip. His foot slid off the slick edge and for a moment pure panic overtook Elladan as gravity tried to pull him down after his twin. But his hand caught the jagged, wet rim of the rock shelf and with a jolt that jarred his shoulder brought him to a sudden, blissful stop. His scrabbling feet found a secure hold a second later. He was safe.
Elladan closed his eyes and took a breath. That had been too close.
He allowed himself only the briefest of rests before he continued his downward climb, finding a new place to set his foot, then moving his hands, already slick with the moisture that clung to the stones. He would have to – Elladan hesitated as he caught sight of his hand. It was not moisture that clung to it, not mere water, but blood.
Swallowing against the sudden lump in his throat, Elladan reversed direction and climbed the single step back to the ledge above him. He found exactly what he had feared he would. The ledge was coated with blood, and there - wedged between two rocks was the black-feathered shaft of an orc arrow, broken in half, drenched in crimson. Elrohir had hit this shelf, hit it with enough force to snap the arrow that had pierced his side.
Elladan shuddered to consider the damage that had been done, knowing too well the risks of the arrow being driven deeper or torn from the wound entirely by an impact such as this. But he needed to find Elrohir to assess the damage, and more importantly, to do something about it.
So he set his sight downwards again. Now that he knew to expect it, he could see the trail of his brother’s blood spattered across the cliff face. A gruesome marker drawing him down. At least it was not far anymore - a sudden gust of wind parted the rolling fumes below to reveal, finally, the bottom of the ravine.
He sped up, unheeding of the danger, driven only by the need to find his twin. Foreboding still urged him forward, a constant throb of unease, fueled by the dimness of his bond with Elrohir and the perverse presence of the goblins that had only increased on his way down the ravine. Were they expecting him? Had their beady eyes followed his entire descent? Elladan did not think so. Surely the orcs would have tried to shoot him off the wall if they had tracked him, if they had expected him to follow after his twin. He tried not to consider what would have held their attention instead - and failed.
And when he at last reached solid ground, he found all of his unspoken fears realized: Blood coated the ground in front of him, smeared along a trail that left no doubt as to what had happened: The goblins had found Elrohir and dragged him off to their lair.
tbc…