Lapsus Memoriae [Rávamë's Bane: Book 1]

Part III : Chapter 23 ~ The Language of Creation

Fear is strange, insidious thing.

Everyone has it, in one form or another. It lurks inside you constantly, even when you can't tell it's there, influencing your choices and actions, and occasionally springing up out of the depths to cause you grief. More often than not, in people my age, it manifests in the form of crippling social anxiety at college parties, or those nasty little jump scares you get while watching bad horror flicks at 2am with your best friend.

A little dash of fear, a little dash of adrenaline — you know, just in case you need some help mustering up the courage to ask that guy to dance with you, or to hypothetically run away from a madman wielding a chainsaw. Once upon a time, those had been the kinds of fears I'd been most familiar with.

A very tiny, weirdly calm segment of my brain wondered — to the sounds of a horde of bloodthirsty monsters charging through the trees towards us — what I would have said had I know that only a month later, I'd find myself longing for the days when Katie would insist on watching all three versions of The Ring in one night.

You heard me. The Ring.

The wondrous irony of that particular memory would not normally have been wasted on me, were I not suddenly neck deep in such bone-chilling fear that, for a few seconds, I almost completely stopped thinking. I couldn't remember backing away from the trees towards the stone monument, or drawing my hunting knife — but it was suddenly in my hand and held at the ready in a reverse grip guard, prepared to at least make an attempt at defending myself.

The howls and snarls were growing louder, accompanied by the sounds of dozens of heavy foot falls. I tried to move, but my body couldn't seem to decide wether to hide or flee — or even in which direction to do either.

Thank God Aragorn did.

Without a second's hesitation, he seized my arm and tugged me behind the ancient stone wall of the monument, pulling me back against it beside him, and pressed a hand over my mouth. I didn't resist. Were he not there, I would have likely done the same with my own hand, keeping the sounds of my sudden, shallow breaths from giving us away.

A crackle of branches and the clear sound of angry growls and snarls rumbled from right around the corner. We both held perfectly still against the stone wall, and I silently thanked God we were down wind of them rather than the reverse, meaning they hadn't caught our scents yet. Although that still meant we could smell them, and the scent of the beasts hit me in a wave of rotting meat, body odour and raw sewage. I almost gagged and felt Aragorn carefully release his hand from over my mouth. He shifted just enough to get a look around the corner, and as a result, I got one too.

There were dozens of them, dark-greyish skinned, human shaped monsters and all over six feet tall, more beast-like than the orcs we'd encountered in Moria, and garbed in roughened, black armour of metal and thick leather. Each of them carried wicked looking blades that would have made a serial killer turn pale, and each of their helmets had been adorned with a large handprint — the mark of Saruman, I recalled — in stark white paint.

From the depths of my memories, the name of the creatures hunting for us floated to the top of my consciousness like a piece of driftwood off a wreck.

'Uruk-hai.'

I felt bile rise up my throat, and pressed the back of my head against the cold stone. I shut my eyes, smothering the urge to vocalise my panic. Beside me, Aragorn took a gentle, but firm hold of my wrist just above my hand, and leaned close enough to whisper as close to silent as was possible.