CHAPTER 20:  BREATH OF LIFE

As his eyes confronted a scene he had never expected to witness, Aragorn felt his world come crashing down about him.

His immediate impulse was to call out the name. That name. He moved his lips but no words came. He was choking, strangled by a knot of grief that welled up from his heart to seize his throat in an excruciating, unrelenting grip. His eyes went wide and wild with horror as he sank to his knees, trying desperately, desperately, to draw breath.

With an agonizing effort, he inhaled. One deep gulp of air. And another. And he was breathing again, rapid, panicked breaths that seared his lungs and rendered him weak as his mind recalled what his eyes had witnessed. What he thought they had witnessed.

He was still not sure he had seen it, for not even in the darkest hour of the Quest had the elf faltered. Not once.

Had he really fallen now? Here?

He looked up. In the distance, a group of men surrounded a figure on the ground, shielding it from his sight, and Aragorn gagged again when he realized that his eyes had not been mistaken. He had seen Legolas fall.

He tried to get up and run. Run there, run to that accursed spot. But his feet were as lead, and he was not running. He looked around frantically. Rallias! Where was Rallias?

The horse was nowhere within sight. He spun round again to look beyond the gully, trying to see more, trying to part the barrier of men with his eyes, but the figure was still hidden from him. He was hidden from him. Aragorn grew frantic again.

Oh Eru, he cannot be gone, he cannot be gone.

Gone. The word gripped his heart like an iron claw, and a wave of nausea assailed him anew. He bent over again, forehead on the forest floor, hands clutching at nothing and everything in an effort to grasp at something that made sense.

In the brief moments that followed, a hundred images and thoughts assaulted his mind, cruelly declaring what death would rob from Legolas and from all who treasured him: a Firstborn’s desire to sail to Valinor, a dream to return Arda its birthright of green peace, an elven kingdom’s tribute to a noble prince, a father’s final embrace of a worthy son, a little boy’s shining admiration… When Aragorn’s thoughts finally turned to his own loss, he felt his heart shatter: he would not even have the chance to express his own regrets or to repay the debts of love he owed his truest friend.

The Ranger would have ranted his despair right then had his voice not failed him and all strength abandoned him. The only sense he could make of anything at that moment was the light sound of footfalls beside him. Slow, gentle footfalls that rustled sleeping leaves.

Rallias bent its long neck and nuzzled its master tenderly. So tenderly.

Something soft fell on Aragorn’s back. From reflex more than conscious thought, he reached up, felt it, drew it to him. It was Legolas’ cloak. He had not bothered to roll it up again; it had sat before him on the whole ride, on the whole journey through the forest.

And now it came to him. Numbly, he looked at it. Felt it. The scent of the Woodelf was there, taunting him. Saying he had come too late. Too late.

Helplessly, the face of the King and the Ranger and the friend fell into it, and from where his grief had been pushed down, it now gushed up and spilled over, thick with sorrow. Finally, from total silence, total muteness, his voice found release again. Aragorn screamed his life into the cloak, calling over and over the name of his friend, his painful shouts and cries muted by the soft cloth as he drowned in the terror of a feeling of utter loss.

“Now you’re for it, oaf!” a gruff and angry voice shouted up at a sallow-faced man dismounting from his horse. The speaker was frantically pressing a wad of material torn from some dirty garment against the wound in Legolas’ side, watched by numerous faces blanched with fear. “The master will have your head for this.” 

The dismounted rider walked haughtily up to the group of men surrounding the still figure on the ground. Brûyn was among them. His bonds had been cut and he had been staring with wide, panicked eyes at the ashen face of the prone and bloodied form. Now he joined the first speaker in berating the approaching figure.

“Pöras, you’re a fool! I did not bring him all this way for you to kill him!” he shrieked in a shrill voice. “I wanted to deliver him to Sarambaq alive and kicking. He already had two darts in him, enough to take him down. Why did you have to do him in?”

A growl of irritation was the reply that came from the one being accused. “Gah! My blade did not swing to kill, only to stop him.” He glared at his companions. “What? You would have him slaughtering us? All of you numbskulls? You saw how he was fighting with the fury of ten mad men, even with the darts in him!”  He turned to the first speaker, a challenge in his hard eyes. “You, Närum! Were you at the end of his knife, would you still not let me slay him?”

“Shut up, Pöras,” said Närum firmly, his face black with ire. “The poison just needed time, you know that, you should have waited.” He snarled at the other man. “You are not the only one who will suffer the master’s anger. It will be ugly.”

Pöras cringed inwardly at Närum’s words, for he knew they were true, but pride donned a mask of arrogance to conceal his fear. “Ahhh, move off!”  he growled impatiently, pushing aside the others to drop on one knee before the unmoving figure on the ground. He studied it with narrowed eyes.

If death had claimed the elf, its hold was but a weak one, for, even devoid of the warm blush of life and with numerous small cuts to his body, his face lost none of its fairness, nor his hair the luster of gold, nor his limbs their graceful lines. But the elven form was marred by an ugly gash on the left side of his torso that cut through his clothing and flesh beneath.

Pöras grasped one of the cold, limp wrists roughly, and a dubious look flitted across his features. With a sudden movement, he drew a dagger from his belt and poised to sweep it downward to the still face. Loud were the shouts of shock and distress from his companions.

Aragorn pushed himself up, still feeling a dead weight on his shoulders. But he was kneeling now, forcing himself to steady his breathing, forcing his tightly shuttered eyelids to relax, forcing his fists to unclench from the tight grip they had had on the elven cloak. From somewhere deep within him, inexplicably and unanticipated, a voice of resolve stirred to whisper to him.

He is not gone, he is not dead. You cannot believe it. You will NOT believe it.

The Ranger started reproaching himself. If their positions were reversed, he thought, Legolas would not lose hope. He would refuse to believe his friend was gone. Not till he saw with his own eyes all signs of life fade away, not till he held him and felt him and knew for certain.

Now Aragorn would do the same. He would hold on to hope.

After all, had they not wanted the prince alive?

That reminder was as a calmative. He controlled his breathing, slowing it, measuring each rise and fall of his chest. Training his eyes to the scene beyond the gully again, he found the wall of men still erected around the one he longed to see. But he was calmer now. He could think ahead, he could plan. He could tell himself that regardless of what his heart desired, rushing headlong with his sword into that situation could well bring death to himself and his friend. Even if Legolas were gone, it would be a rash, pointless act, but if he were still alive, it was even more imperative for him to remain in a position to help the elf. 

If he is alive. If he is alive. Aragorn’s heart lurched at the possibility.

At that point, he knew: all he needed to go on, to brave any obstacle, was some sign, some small sign, that his friend was still alive. If he had that sign, he would reach Legolas even if all the fires of Mordor stood between them.

Encouraged by how he and Legolas seemed to have been able to sense and hear each other since the night before, and in awe of that bond, he decided to let it bring him hope. However small a glimmer, it would still be hope.

With that thought, he slowed his breathing even further.

In. Out. In. Out. Slowly.

He cleared his mind of everything, everything, save the face of his elven friend.

And then, only then, did he utter a plaintive, heartfelt plea with his trembling lips.

Reach out to me, my friend. Tell me you are still with me. Let me know you have not left.

A long, deep breath punctuated the end of his supplication, and Aragorn was ready. Keeping his eyes closed and his mind open, he bowed his head, forgot his body, forgot the forest around him, and waited.

Time seemed to stand still when Pöras’ dagger poised but for a moment in mid-air, freezing everyone who watched its movement… so that when the downward sweep came, he was too quick for the few shocked Adhûnians who rushed to stay his arm.

Stopping his dagger but a hair’s breadth away from the elf’s face, he snorted in disdain. “Ho, twenty of you with but one slow mind,” he commented arrogantly without looking up. “Look!” 

Bewildered, his companions looked on in speechless anticipation.

As Aragorn cleared his mind, the trees around him seemed to stop pulsing with life and wait with him. Rallias stood quiet and steadfast at his side, and his own breath seemed to still.

Silence.

Nothing moved.

Then it came.

A weak, warm, scented breeze rippled the air, almost imperceptibly, wafting to him and sighing around him. Gently, gently, it brushed his hair and whispered against his ears, feather-like and soft.

Aragorn gasped at the strange sensation, his instincts moving him to welcome it, embrace it. When it ceased, his breath hitched, and he almost reached out to grasp it as his heart felt a twist of alarm and loss. 

But then it returned.

Like a soft caress, it touched his wet cheeks and soothed his brow. It drew another tear from his eye and teased his lips into a slow, sad smile. And as Aragorn embraced it again, his heart perceived what his eyes could not:

He lives.

With a flourish, Pöras brought the shiny blade of the dagger under the nose of the elf and waited while Närum, Brûyn and a few others crowded around him to see what he wished to flaunt to them.

A little mist from living breath was laid on the blade, hardly to be seen, but it was there. It went, but came again. And again.

Hope and certainty kindled in Aragorn’s heart and lifted his spirits as he turned his face first to the sky and then to the forest standing in silent vigil around him, proclaiming in a hoarse voice to the listening clouds and trees:

“He lives! He lives! I feel it. He has not left.”

At the sight of the mist from living elven breath, the distress and puzzlement of the Adhûnians turned to both disbelief and relief, released in a collective gasp from the men who but a while ago had cringed at the thought of facing Sarambaq’s unrestrained fury.

“Our hides are safe for the moment,” Närum conceded grudgingly, though the frown did not leave his face. “But we have to keep him alive, take care of the wound, or it will finish him off, with all that poison already in him.” He pointed to the sword wound from which blood still seeped, albeit slowly.

“Well, tie it up!” someone suggested.

“Tear up more clothes then,” Närum growled, “or we have naught to bind it with.”

Brûyn was the first to respond, for he had vested too much interest and effort in bringing the elf here to lose his chance at a reward. Impatiently, he started tearing up parts of his shirt and those of his companions, dirty as they were, to form another rough wad against the wound and a long strip to tie around the elf’s ribs and hold it down.

“How do we keep him alive with no medicines to treat him?” Brûyn asked.

“We stop the bleeding first, and remove the darts,” Pöras said, fingering the exposed end of the first dart embedded in the elf’s neck. A quick examination led him to the second in the lean muscle of the thigh. As he started to extract them with his bare fingers, he instructed. “Someone ride back to the woods and cut long branches to make a litter; use a blanket. We cannot drape him over a horse, not with that wound. Get back here as fast as you can.”

“Get enough for several litters,” Närum added, turning to Brûyn. “For all the wounded. And bring spades for digging.”

Brûyn was reluctant to leave the elf, but complied, hurrying off with another man. If he had to go, he would use the chance to talk to Sarambaq himself at the caves.

Närum asked Pöras quietly, “Will he survive?”

The reply was tinged with annoyance. “His fate is uncertain, for I am no healer. You know as much or as little as I.”

“Sarambaq will not like this,” Närum muttered. “Where is he?”

“Tending to his beast, I wager,” Pöras replied with a grunt. “It was shot by this elf we have to keep alive. His strength and aim was something to behold, but the beast is not that easy to kill.”

“Aye, its skin is like leather, hard to pierce. The arrows could not have killed it.”

“Still, it will be wretched with pain. I do not want to be the one to tend to it. It would snap my head off,” Pöras said, shuddering.

Närum nodded but did not dwell long on that thought. Leaving the unconscious elf to Pöras’ ministrations, he started giving instructions to the remaining men to move their fallen countrymen to one side of the plain. “We will bury the dead here and not leave them as carrion. Start digging with whatever you have.”

With renewed vigor and a spirit shed of the weight of grief, Aragorn stood, clutching the cloak to his chest, and looked again across the land to where the group of figures now seemed to be talking excitedly.

Moments later, he was remounted on a willing Rallias. Fighting the urge to do anything impulsive, he left the threshold of the forest and marked a trail that would take him around the curved part of the gully to where his friend lay still and unmoving. He clung fiercely to one hope, one belief: that for now at least, Legolas was alive.

Soon, very soon, he would behold the truth for himself. 

I am coming, Legolas. I will not lose you now. Please hold on, please wait. 

A steely resolve was in his eyes as his mind raced in time with Rallias’ strides, forming a loose plan.