Legolas and Tauriel: What I Did For Love

26: Rescue

Torchlight flickered on the rough stone walls of a tunnel as one by one, seven unconscious figures were dragged across the floor. A few moaned softly, roused by the rough hands of their goblin captors.

"Throw them in there. Keep the prince separate," snarled their leader, pointing down a long hall filled with iron-barred cells.

Satisfied that all was in order, he made his way up through the levels of tunnels until he reached a huge open chasm. Rough, rickety bridges that looked like they were made of old tools, fraying rope, and bones with bits of rotting flesh still hanging off of them, were flung across the expanse at odd intervals. In the center, supported by an intricate system of dusty beams set every which way, was a platform and on it was a large throne. A throne made predominately of bones. On the throne, with his rather large belly bulging over the sides, sat the Goblin King.

It was towards the platform and the throne that the goblin captain made his way. Upon reaching it, he bowed low to his king.

"We have captured seven more of the Elvish dogs, your excellence," he said.

"More messengers, I suppose?" The king leaned on one arm of the chair, the entire platform groaning under the shift in weight. "What do they hope to gain from sending seven at once? Only an army could make it through that pass without falling into our hands."

"They were part of an escort. Going to Mirkwood, not from it."

"To Mirkwood?"

"They know nothing of the situation there. It was a group of vacationers, nothing more."

The Goblin King waved his hand in dismissal. "Get rid of them, then."

The captain hesitated. "The elvish prince was among them."

"The prince?" The king stood, suddenly. This time the platform definitely moved, sending a cascade of rocks down into the chasm. Far below, a goblin, intent on its kill of rotting fish, caught several days before, had his dinner spoiled by a rather large boulder crashing on his head.

"He seemed to be leading the escort," the captain answered.

The king nodded, thoughtfully. "Keep him. Get anything out of him that you can. Kill the others."

"Yes, my lord," the goblin answered, cackling and rubbing his fingers together in anticipation. There would be feasting tonight.

[Tauriel POV]

The tunnels reeked with the rank stench of rotting flesh and refuse. Everywhere I looked, the torchlight danced across cobwebs and nameless objects that were littered across the floor.

We had been travelling for nearly an hour, with no sight nor sound of any goblins, when we came to a fork in the tunnel. Here, we halted while scouts crept ahead, searching out the tunnels before us.

We didn't wait long before they returned. We had reached the levels of the dungeons.  Unfortunately, there was a lot more goblins here.

Both branches of the tunnel led to cells and accordingly, Elladan split the soldiers, half taking the left-hand way with him and the other half following Elrohir to the right. I accompanied Elrohir.

I and several others moved ahead of the main group to take care of any outer guards in the tunnel. This done, we continued forward, taking out any goblins we could without alerting the others. Soon, however, we came to a group of about fifteen. There were too many to take on our own so, while the others stayed, I and another soldier returned to Elrohir. He wasn't far behind, having continued to move forwards, albeit at a much slower pace than us.