Sword and Arrow

Chapter 63

This was it. Beruthiel pivoted, picking off orcs that seemed important, taking careful shots at the trolls and war-beasts that the orcs had brought and at the mounted Haradrim chieftains.

Even as she took down enemies, she knew that this was it. The end. This was the dark battlefield she had seen in her vision. This was where she would meet her end, where she would say goodbye to Aragorn. And she would not leave this world as a Ranger.

Beruthiel was keeping an eye on Legolas as he climbed up on the mumakil - he was an elf, yes, with superhuman balance, but he still did rash things. So he was well within her sight when he tumbled down its trunk with an arrow in his back.

Beruthiel pushed her way through the battle, careful not to trip over the bodies lying on the ground in her haste to get to Legolas. When she finally reached him, he was laying on the ground, his arm at an awkward angle, face twisted in pain.

"Legolas," she gasped, crouching beside him. "Legolas. What happened?"

"Arrow," was all he could manage.

"Okay." She took deep breaths to calm herself before approaching the situation. "Okay. It's your back that's hurt. I can manage this." Beruthiel took him by the shoulders, then hesitated. "This might be awkward."

"Just do it."

Beruthiel heaved him up to somewhat of a sitting position, maneuvering his arm around her neck so she could get a look at his back. His shirt was already a bloody mess; she would have to take it off to get a better look at the wound. It was a clumsy business to keep him upright while unbuttoning his shirt, but she managed, holding an arm around his back and pushing the buttons aside with the other hand. Once the front of his shirt was unbuttoned came the tricky part of peeling it off his back without hurting him too much.

"This will hurt," she warned him. "Just keep talking to me - tell me about Mirkwood." As Legolas began a tale of a hunt under the trees, she crawled around him until she was behind him, able to cut off the patch of fabric surrounding the arrow wound.

Once the majority of the shirt had been removed, she snapped the shaft of the arrow off - not without what went between a gasp and a scream from Legolas - and carefully removed the bloody cloth from his skin and set it aside.

She winced: it was a clean wound, but the arrow was a Haradrim arrow, and they were famous for using barbed heads. She could not treat this on the field; and she did not know where Aragorn was.

"I have to take you back to the city," Beruthiel said, struggling to keep tears out of her eyes. She couldn't let this stop her. Legolas had a family, a wife and a son, waiting for him; parents that wanted him home. "Come on."

Legolas was still in somewhat of a daze. "Ruth," he slurred. "Ruth. Where is the silver light?"

Oh, Valar above. Poison. Beruthiel forced him to look at her - for someone so slender, he was heavy. Her heart nearly stopped in her chest: his ice-blue eyes were turning green. Fiend's rapture. One of the most deadly poisons in Middle-earth, made from the venom of a rare Haradrim snake.

"Ruth," said Legolas again, his eyes looking dull. "I cannot hear the singing. The trees, where are the trees?" Panic came over Beruthiel. He thought he was back in Caras Galadhon - no, back home in Mirkwood? "Ruth- no, Beruthiel -"

"Ruth is fine," Beruthiel said through clenched teeth, still trying to get him up. "I'm going to take you back to the city, Legolas. You have to help me. I can't carry you, you have to walk."

"Anything," he said. "Oh, make it stop, the song hurts!"

The two of them made an odd pair; a bloody, delirious elf supported by a small, messy woman. But they made it, and they slowly but surely made their way through the fallen bodies towards the white gates of the city. Beruthiel had to readjust his grip on his back and shoulders many times as he broke out with cold sweat. It worried her: with each step Beruthiel feared it would be his last; that the poison would take over and he would be a dead weight on her shoulders. But elves were tougher than their slender frames gave way, and they made it to the mangled silver gates of Minas Tirith.