Baptized in Blood and Flame

Chapter 7: Snuffed

Third Age: 2480

Tauriel didn't so much wake as become suddenly aware.

She was standing in a hall of dark stone. It was spacious, but something about the sheer walls on all sides made it feel utterly claustrophobic. Perhaps a hundred paces in front of her, the hall dissolved into shadow, though there was no obvious source of light around her.

The air was deathly still.

Looking down at herself, she wore the same leather and steel armor she had been wearing as she passed through Arnor, no tears or scuffs to be seen. The only difference was a thick cuff of black iron wrapping around her wrist to halfway up her forearm, cold to the touch. Not in any position to hinder her movement, but strange nonetheless.

Seeing nothing else around, she went forwards, as it seemed to be the only way to go. Even stranger, the wall of shadow always stayed those hundred or so paces away. She still didn't notice any lights, but the darkened area definitively remained, retreating as she advanced. Her footsteps, usually quiet, were completely and utterly silent. The only noise was her muffled heartbeat.

At some point, she began to notice a voice, slithering around the hall, as much in her head as her ears. She stopped, trying to listen to what it said.

"Myrniel." The first word it had said clearly, loud enough in the silent hall to make her jump. Myrniel. An odd word. Maiden of Darkness. Just as Tauriel was Daughter of the Forest. A sinking feeling grew in the pit of her stomach.

"Myrniel; you're late." The voice hissed. "Trapped, trapped," it continued a moment later, sounding giddy and gleeful. "You're trapped. But if you fight, you'll be out. Now that you're here, we can finally begin."

Just as quickly and strangely as it had come, the voice was gone. Myrniel, it called her. A name clearly modeled after her own. Whoever had made this place knew who she was, and was going to "finally begin" something.

She tried to slow her racing heart and breaths. Clearly something was going on, and that needed to be found out.

Suddenly, so suddenly it nearly made her sick, without any noise or accompaniment, the rest of the hall was suddenly lit. 

At the end, not a stone's throw away, was a looming door of heavy wood. A way, at least, if likely not a way out.

The sound of snarls filled her ears as the door grew closer. The noise, even if frightful, was more comfort than the awful silence, or the voice.  When it was not an arm's reach from her, it swung open. There was a small room, with some wooden racks of swords and a few shields lying discarded about. The opposite wall was only a crosshatch of iron bars, beyond that she could see beasts scuffling in an open pit of red-brown dirt and wooden walls.

Scattered about the room, a handful of humans and one or two dwarves sat with hollow eyes and hands that tightened near-imperceptibly on their weapons as her gaze fell over them. On instinct, Tauriel took a sword from the rack; a double-edged longsword made of black metal, about five feet from pommel to tip, well-balanced. Glancing back over her shoulder as she buckled the scabbard to her armor, she could see the dead eyes of the others following her.

Tension crackled like lightning in the room, which had gone silent as the fighting of the beasts past the iron ceased. Everyone eyed each other suspiciously, and the newcomer even more so.

She was thinking they knew something she didn't.

They were thinking about who in the room would die that day.

As they will, the humans had made alliances and plans to stab each other in the back. Or the chest, even; betrayal was an open secret in this place.

A low rumble started, knocking dust loose from the stone ceiling. Metal grated on metal as the gate on the back wall rose up. The soldiers in the room stood and hefted their weapons. More growls emanated from the arena before them, different from the beasts before but no less terrifying.

No use making yourself scared. Tauriel ducked under the still-rising gate, knuckles whitening around the hilt of her new blade. The arena was wide, but not any more than perhaps a few dozen yards across the largest point of the rough circle. The ceiling was a different matter. It stretched up and up, becoming lost in the shadows, perhaps leagues above. The room was lit by a wide, glowing orange stripe that ran around the circle, about 30 feet up.

Of course, all this was processed within a second, because the large troll on the far side was occupying the majority of her thoughts. Eyes quickly adjusting to the brighter room, she tumbled to the side as it charged, allowing it to slam into the wood and stone wall. She had to roll again as a club came down where her head had been a half-second earlier.

A quick glance back told her that the humans hadn't joined in, merely watching from the door.

Another swing that came too close to taking her head off. Seeing an opening, she sliced her long blade across the troll's leg, knocking it off balance.

Jumping and kicking off its lowering arm, she stretched her arm as high as it would reach to drive her sword into its neck.

The troll was on the ground only a few moments before a different door opened, one that she must not have noticed before. Orcs swarmed in, beady eyes fixed on her. Tauriel reached out to grab her sword, but felt a tug on her wrist as she did. From the cuff on her arm, which she had almost forgotten, a chain had formed. It looked misty and insubstantial, but held firm as she pulled again.

To her surprise, the orcs didn't immediately kill her. They still snarled and their claw-like nails still bit into her skin, but they merely took hold of the misty chain and dragged her away from the arena where she fought.

Out of curiosity, and some fear, Tauriel followed where they led her, which turned out to be horribly underwhelming, to be honest.

A narrow cave in the wall of stone several twists and turns away from the arena. Each of the corridors were lit by the strange glowing stripe from before. The cave had a thick iron door, making it into a cell. A quick glance around told her there were several others in the area.

Tauriel let herself be put into the cell. She could break out once they were gone. It had to be flimsy, it was impossible to have a good forge and craftsmen in a place like this. It was impossible.

It had to be.