I Will Always Come Back

Chapter 2

It was now early morning. I should have had left a hour earlier. At least it was only that long, and not a whole day. That would have been very bad. My men and I walked from the castle and out into the forest, away from my home. Even though I had left home many, many times, I still felt as though I was leaving a piece of me behind as I watched it get smaller and smaller behind me. I had only been home for a couple of days, and now I had to leave again. I thought I would finally get some rest before I had to go. I had spent the last sixty years finding the ranger Aragorn, the heir of Isildur. He is supposed to be the one to bring the Ring Bearer to Rivendell.

The forest was in worse condition now than it was a few days ago when I came home. The leaves on the trees were turning black, and the bark was rotting and falling off. The grass was brown and drying out, and the soil wasn't rich and loose anymore. It was packed down and all one colour. I also noted that there was no birdsong. A great evil had taken place. I felt as though someone was watching me, and took the bow off of my back and fit an arrow into it. I was glad that my father had agreed to let me bring these warriors with me on this quest. I decided it was too quiet, and talked to Tauriel, who I had grown up with, ever since I was a small child.

"Something is wrong here," I said, still holding my bow in front of me, "It's too quiet. There is something watching us, I can feel it." It felt a bit better when I told her my worries. The feeling of something watching us seemed to somewhat lessen as I did.

"I have heard stories of riders in black wandering around Middle Earth. It is said that no man can kill them. Nine have been counted," she replied.

Fear crept over me at these words. "Nazgul," I whispered.

Tauriel looked confused. "Nazgul? What are those?"

I spoke quietly, choosing my words carefully, "They were once men, great kings, many years ago. They were given nine rings from the Dark Lord Sauron. Soon, the power of the rings made them insane, and turned them into servants of the Dark Lord. They are but souls from the spirit world, neither living nor dead, but somehow in between. Now, they are thought to be invincible, and now are performing to the will of the Eye of Sauron. I just hope we don't encounter any on our journey." I was even more on my guard after Tauriel told me about these rumours, except I knew that if we met any on the road to Rivendell, we would not be able to defend ourselves.

We kept walking. Then, I noticed something else. The sun wasn't out. It wasn't shining through the trees. I had never seen that before then. Brushing that thought aside, I concentrated only on our journey, not the weather, however unusual it was. The feeling of being watched never ceased. If anything, it got worse, to a point when an ordinary man would not be able to stand it, and lose focus, but Elves are very good at multitasking. I could tell the rest of my guards could feel it, too, and the all drew there weapons. I got a firmer grip on my bow. We were all waiting for something to jump out of the shadows. We continued walking in this manner.

Then, finally, I saw something move in the trees. A man would not have been able to see it, and my Elven eyes only barely caught it. It seemed tall, and covered with some sort of armour that I had never seen before. I motioned to my guards to stop walking, and they immediately obeyed. We stood there, crouched down, weapons drawn, for what seemed like ages. Then, a dozen Orcs burst out of the trees. I loosed my arrow, and the rest of the group attacked as well. Míreth was using long knives to cut down her opponents. She moved with such beauty and grace, I almost lost focus on the battle taking place. I moved just in time to avoid an axe to the arm, but it was not like any axe I had seen. It wasn't from Mordor. I looked back to the Orc in front of me, and drew my long knives from their sheaths on my back. I killed the first Orc with a slice across its chest.

There seemed to be more and more Orcs coming from the bushes, but when we counted the dead, it was only the dozen we encountered first. Upon further inspection, they were unlike any Orc any of us had seen. They were tall, muscular, and looked as though they were bred for fighting. They all bore a white hand on their helmets. I wondered what it could have meant.

After we finished searching the Orcs, we tended to our wounds. Tauriel got a cut running across her cheek. It looked deep, but we thought she would get a full recovery. Míreth had a deep slash across her arm. She looked faint. We bound her arm and continued to the next soldiers. Arnos, a tall elf with deep blue eyes, received a small scratch on his hand, but we needn't worry about that at the moment. I somehow got a long cut, from my ankle to just above my knee. It looked very deep, and as soon as I noticed it, I started to feel its pain, as I didn't know it was there before. The guards bound my leg and then, after regaining our confidence, we continued walking.

I could not walk properly, and I felt faint. I asked Arnos if I could lean on him for supported. When he agreed, I thanked him profusely. We needed to get there as fast as possible. The going was slow from that point on, and we were burning daylight without much to show for it. At about sundown, Míreth staggered, and then, she fell.