Lapsus Memoriae [Rávamë's Bane: Book 1]

Part II : Chapter 13 ~ And Then There Were Nine

Part II : Chapter 13

- And Then There Were Nine -

~ ♕ ~

When I was human, my running coach once jokingly boasted that I could have outrun a Mongol horde if I was motivated enough. I’d laughingly replied that he only said that because he was the one who’d trained me. 

But it ain’t boasting if it’s true. 

I’d been fast as a human. 

But as an elf, I reckon I could have given an Olympic sprinter a run for their money, literally. Especially with an army of howling blood-thirsty goblins snapping at our heels. 

Like there were right now. There were hundreds of them. Maybe thousands. It was impossible to tell in the near pitch darkness. Where there was enough light to see, they were coming up through holes in the fool, and crawling out of cracks high in the ceiling like spiders. Spiders with swords, knives, spears, and other various implements of nastiness. 

We ran fast. We just weren’t fast enough. 

Gandalf’s staff light shone on the path through the Dwarrodelf halls ahead of us. They were already there, waiting for us. 

I’d been flying ahead of the others in a sprint just behind Gandalf when Aragorn suddenly seized me by the wrist, jerking me back behind him and Boromir. One of the goblins made a snarling grab for my hair, but Gimli clobbered it in the face with the pommel of his axe, snarling back just as viciously. They were everywhere now, forming a hissing, snarling circle around us like wolves boxing in wounded cattle. The hobbits had been pushed back behind us into the centre of our little cluster. They were trembling almost more than me as they held their short swords, ready to fight their way free if they had to. Not that that looked like a viable option. With how many there were now, and with how hungry they looked, I estimated we might make it fifty feet before something hideous and screeching cut us into sashimi.

Something deep and booming, so low pitched it was almost inaudible, rumbled through the cracked stone floor. The cavern went abruptly, eerily silent. All the shrieking and howling of the goblins stopped, and I saw a couple of them look suddenly and very nervously at each other over Boromir’s shoulder.

The sound came again. Louder this time.

Thunder. Underground.

‘Ok, I take it back.’ I murmured quietly inside my head. ‘That was definitely not a good sound.’

Another low rumble rattled stones on the floor near our feet. A huge shadow moved somewhere in the darkness, followed by a dim glowing orange light appearing not far off through the forest of pillars.

‘We need to run, boss!’ Tink’s voice suddenly rang franticly through my mind. ‘We can’t handle this! Not yet!’

I’d almost started adjusting to the feeling of the fear pulsing through me. But the panicked sound in Tink’s voice redoubled the feeling until I had to fight the urge to literally run for my life.

‘… What is that thing?’

‘Pray we don’t get to find out.’ Her voice was very near panic, whispering at me as if she was afraid it might hear her if she spoke too loud within vaults of my mind. ‘For sod sake, Eleanor, we need to run! Now!’

The goblins clearly thought that was a splendid idea, because they all gave collective shrieks of terror and began falling back, scurrying back down the cracks and holes in the stone from whence they’d come. Gimli gave a deep rumbling growl of satisfaction next to me, but icy dread had started pooling in my belly again. Whatever it was that had scared the goblins away, I didn’t think it was anything we should be pleased about.