Disclaimer - The usual - I am but a poor student who is therefore not part of the Tolkien estate in any way. I don't own LotR, its characters or any place mentioned and I am not making any money out of writing fanfiction involving them.

A/N - This fic is somewhat AU as I have altered timescales and invented a few... shall we call them... mishaps?!

Chapter 3 - Darkness Increasing

Pippin opened his eyes. The pain emitting from his wound was beginning to subside, and he was able to take a look at his surroundings. Piles of gold and silver lined the far off walls of a great cavern, and heaps of jewels lay nearby. Rubies, there were a lot of rubies, Pippin noted. And garnets: blood red and sparkling in the dimmed light. Pippin tried to move to reach them and he realised that his movement was constricted by a great lump of rock. There must have been an earthquake or something, he thought. But what was I doing in a cavern in the first place? Thundering footsteps coming his way answered the question.

Ah yes...... I was looking for dragons.

A great roaring sound filled the space. It seemed that Pippin had found what he was looking for. He wondered faintly if Merry would find him before it was too late.

The footsteps stopped and there was another roar. It had seen him.

Before Pippin lost consciousness the last thing he was aware of was the weight being lifted from his body.

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"Pippin.... Pippin..."

What was this? Dragons didn't talk? Did they? At least not in such a concerned tone of voice, thought Pippin.

"Pippin! I need you to raise your left arm for me...."

The pain had returned. The whole of the left side of Pippin's body was now throbbing, unrelenting in its quest to cause him misery. Conceding to the voice, dragon or no, he lifted his arm a couple of inches off the ground. The agony doubled. It was burning now.

"Good. Now can you clench your fist?"

Pippin did so, struggling all the time not to cry out in anguish. He heard the voice murmur something, some utterance of the dragon folk. Only something, or someone replied.

Now being more curious than afraid, Pippin pushed himself up from his position on the floor of the cavern and opened his eyes once again. He was confused by what he saw; Aragorn, Legolas and Gandalf were sat crouching over him and he was in the middle of a tent.

He smiled, relieved. "Where did the dragons go?"

"Dragons?" said Gandalf, "I do believe, Peregrin Took, that you have been dreaming. There are no dragons here."

Pippin eased himself back down on the blanketed floor. He would have to recall this tale to Merry when the soldiers returned to Minas Tirith - it would make him laugh. Then Pippin remembered that he would probably not be returning home. The soldiers were marching to their death, to the final battle. For perhaps the first time he realised the enormity of the task he had taken on: he was a tweenage hobbit, alone and on the way to fight for the saviour of Middle-earth. A great wave of homesickness washed over him, but was replaced by a second influx of pain. He felt as if his skin was almost going to explode, the pain was pushing ever upwards so strongly.

"W..what happened?" he asked shakily.

"You were attacked," said Legolas, "An orc, attempting to escape from the battle, stumbled upon you and thought he'd get himself a pretty prize."

"You were lucky Legolas reached you when he did." continued Aragorn, "Of course he did not realise you were there until you uttered such a haunting cry of pain that you could not be ignored. You have taken a knock to the head that could have killed many greater than you and a shoulder wound that appears to be superficial. Fortunately, you seem to have taken no lasting damage and should be fully healed within a day or two."

The third full day since the soldiers left the White City had begun, and it was in fact day for Pippin saw the red polygons that only sunlight can bring dancing inside his closed eyelids. Perhaps the dire situation was improving. Perhaps the end was beginning. Pippin could only wonder between bursts of pain as he took a sip of a concoction Aragorn administered to him. He would see no more daylight for some time.

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It was at the Cross-roads that Pippin awoke. In the gloom of shadow and dusk he could see little, and in the aberrant silence of the place he could have been forgiven for thinking that the soldiers had grown tired of bearing him as their burden and simply left him at a convenient point. As it was, he was not afraid, nor had he any thought that he had been abandoned. Even Gandalf the White, to whom he had proved himself to be a trying companion at best, held too much affection for him to just leave the injured young halfling in the relative wilderness.

Letting his curiosity discard the thought that he should probably stay where he was, Pippin stood up, using some care to avoid placing weight on his injured arm, and began to walk in the direction where he fancied he could see some glow of torchlight. The herbal infusion he had been given to dull the pain remained in his system and so Pippin was somewhat disorientated as he went in search of his friends and fellow soldiers. After all, several thousand soldiers could not be that difficult to locate.

The sound of voices punctuated the still evening air. Far away though they sounded, Pippin followed them, assuming that the discerned distance was just his hazy mind playing tricks on him.

For perhaps fifteen minutes, Pippin trudged through the damp grass, his injured arm aching more with every jolt of movement. In his pained state, Pippin did not realise that, had the soldiers indeed come this way, the grass would not be in the 'fresh' state that it was. A sudden screeching sound brought the hobbit to a halt, and he flattened himself to the ground, listening to the tortured shriek that was only to familiar to him. A dart, swift and poisoned, seemed to pierce his heart and he became almost paralysed with fear.

The Nazgûl were abroad, leaderless but not powerless. Wraiths on wings.

The sound passed and the chill left Pippin's heart. After a moment he was able to prise himself away from the grey, almost greasy, ground and he peered into the distance, hoping to see some sign of the troops. Nothing. They have forsaken me then, he thought. Yet there are some lights still ahead.

The injured hobbit began to walk again, little knowing the peril he was heading towards.

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It was Beregond who was sent back to the camp to fetch the groggy halfling. Aragorn had said that he wanted all present for his announcement, so that everybody would have the same choice to make. The point to which he was to take Pippin was perhaps a quarter of a mile to the east, and he was also to fetch the young soldier who had been appointed as Pippin's guard.

The camp was empty when Beregond arrived. The fire, which had been burning so brightly when the soldiers had left, was now smoking, flakes of ash catching the wind with each icy breath. The tent where Pippin had lain was gone and the only other sign that any life was ever there was the tattered shred of black material that was fluttering in the breeze, having been snagged on a prickle bush. Beregond picked up the scrap of fabric and then dropped it instantaneously as he felt it burn his skin. It floated back onto the flattened grass before disintegrating and disappearing altogether with the night air. Beregond thought back to the far off screeches of the ringwraith.

One had been to the camp, no other force would make a piece of fabric do that.

Pippin was gone.

Evil must have taken him.

Beregond ran as fast as he could towards the field where the thousands of soldiers stood.

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The night was closing in. Pippin lay, sobbing silently, on the ridge that faced Minas Morgul. He had tried to move away from the watching eyes in the tower, but found that they penetrated even trees and solid undergrowth. He was waiting for them to take him - he knew they were watching him. Ceaselessly, the pinpoints of light in that haunted tower watched every movement he made. There was no chance of rescue now: hours must have passed since he woke alone. There was no chance of his escape either. The enemy would take him and torture him until he knew all: about Frodo, about the Ring.... about everything.

It was over, and he had failed them all.

In any case, Pippin did not think that he could walk far enough to return to Minas Tirith. His head felt as though it would implode, and there was a crashing inside it that felt like fifty thousand dwarves mining for Mithril. How he wished Merry was with him.

A second Nazgûl passed high in the night sky through the shadow. Hope renewed itself in Pippin's heart: he would not stay there and do greater damage to his friends by being found by the enemy. He would return to the troops, where ever they may be.

Then he would go home. He did not belong here.

Before he realised what was happening, Pippin was sobbing once again, and he collapsed onto the shoulder of land. The extra, unexpected weight, however, was too much and it crumbled, sending the halfling tumbling into the darkness, too late to see the concerned face of Aragorn appear in the nearby night.

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A/N - Well? I'm not so sure about this chapter, but I would like to know what you think! I promise I will stop with the hobbit torture soon.... I don't want to get a reputation (mentioning no names..... AJ!)!

Please review me!!

Rachel xxx