Thanks for reading!

Eleiriel: You are frighteningly quick with the reviews XD;; glad you liked Gimli's shameless question ;)

Ninjagirl2211: I have a lot of fun writing Gimli, Legolas, and Cornelia, together. They (Legolas and Gimli) act so tough and pretend to hate each other and come off as uncompromising, but they'd be the first ones to accept a tenth walker, no doubt.

Imamc: Thanks for reviewing! I generally update quite frequently ^^

princesaangelbebe: Three musketeers XD that's actually really cute. We'll see where the relationship with Haldir goes, if she ever meets him again ;O

Spirit of Wynter: Glad the last chapter gave you something to laugh about :)

Koal(Guest): KEEP CALM and CARRY ON

Minerakfbeinlazy(Guest): XD Not this chapter, but the next, Cornelia seriously just tosses the war horn into the Anduin and Boromir gets so pissy.

Noxy the Proxy: Glad you think so!

Sorry for the delay, everyone! I have trouble with fighting scenes, so please be patient with me ^^;

Chapter 20

Whether it's because of Gollum's gruesome appearance or Aragorn's biting words to Boromir, I dream of nothing pleasant this night.

I dream in such a way that I know I am asleep, but cannot wake no matter how I twist and turn. And I'm aware of Legolas standing over me for a while, likely considering if he should wake me. But he walks away instead.

Then, I slip deeper into unconsciousness and my body finally rests—or rather my mind, maybe even my soul, disconnects from it entirely.

I drift down a grassy lane of small hills and tall trees, and in the farthest reaches of my vision I see rolling bodies of great glowing worms. I find that I cannot be alarmed by their presence and cast my eyes skyward.

Above me is the night sky in the palest blue with the brightest stars, and the milky way clear for me to see. I forget that I am dreaming and find my jaw hanging agape. I think I see the constellation Orion.

Something stirs to my right and I look there, finding a strange blue spirit burning like a candle light. His form wavers and bobs in place and he holds a finger to his smiling lips, wordlessly commanding me to be silent.

I'm suddenly in Isengard again, underneath the earth in the stifling hot breath of a raging fire. Uruk-hai are being made in the hundreds of thousands, birthed from the mud and christened with weapons, armour, and the White Hand of Saruman.

I look around for a moment, wandering from one carved cavern to another, until I find it—the dragon from before.

He appears to be asleep, his station of bellows burning, but only just. Somehow he looks thinner, like he's begun to shrink in old age, and the chains and spikes that bind his wings and legs to the ground look all the more terrible for it.

His eyelids pinch together and slide open after a moment of struggle. He blinks a couple times and I'm fascinated by the movement of the semi-transparent inside lid.

"Mortal. You are back?"

I don't respond immediately. This is a dream, right?

He snuffles, closing his eyes again. "You know not where you are . . ."

"I'm in Isengard," I dispute. "And this is a dream,"

"A dream it may be for you," he drawls tiredly. "But this is an inescapable reality for me."

"Who are you?" I ask. I've seen him twice now, any more than three times and I'm going to have to consider that he's real.

"I am Bregolben, the last Urulokë. This," he gestures with a slight raise of his long snout, "is my prison, and my grave."

I nod, glancing about. "How did I get here?"

He snorts at me. "Do not ask me why the Valar move as they do."

"The Valar brought me here?"

He breathes a little hard at me, louder than a sigh at least. "Brought you here, no—but they do not simply allow outsiders onto the path of Olórë Mallë either."

"Olórë Mallë?" I don't know what it is, but figure it's got something to do with the Valar. Duh.

Bregolben, the fire breathing dragon, is getting impatient with me now. "The spiritual path between Arda and Valinor, and even that of the worlds innumerable."

"Oh." Was this dragon saying he knew there were other worlds out there? What a fourth wall breaker.

"How you managed to come through that path, with your flesh still intact," he continues, "is unknown to me . . . but stranger things have happened."

Yeah, I think, like me talking to a dragon.

A swirl of ungodly odour waifs around me and I make a face. Bregolben's eyes widen in curiosity, and he swishes the very tip of his tail, the only part unbound.

"Something calls to your Fëa, small mortal."

"Oh, I know that one, it means—"

"Soul." He answers for me. "Return quickly—for something dire calls your soul to your body."

A harsh scream jars me awake, and the horrible stench from earlier nearly chokes me. Likewise, the other sleeping members of the Fellowship have awoken.

I don't understand what is happening at first—body numb from fear. I stiffen further as a dark shadow passes over us, leathery wings glowing translucently against the half moon in the sky. Wraiths on wings, I realize.

"They've found new mounts, I see." Aragorn observes sarcastically, unimpressed. From what I can tell he wasn't on the night shift, and is groggy from sleep. I didn't peg Aragorn as the cranky-when-woken type.

"Fell beasts," Legolas breathes, through his mouth. They really stink that bad, to break even Legolas' composure. "They are looking for the Ring."

Astute observation, Watson, I feel like saying. Too bad he wouldn't get it.

Legolas notches an arrow and a wave of queasy unease passes over me.

"Shall I shoot it?"

Yes, let's shoot the giant wyvern so it knows exactly where we are. But, I think I remember something about Legolas scaring it off with one shot, so I say nothing.

Aragorn allows it anyways, and I'm thinking his judgement is really impaired post-sleep state. I personally would have recommended keeping our heads down and our asses wiped.

Unfortunately my hunch proves correct as it circles back our way with two more fell beasts and their Nazgûl masters in tow.

"Great!" I complain. I'm not normally so quick to anger, but that's when Nazgûl aren't involved. "Why does no one ever ask me my opinion before deciding to act upon stupid ideas?"

Legolas shoots me an offended glance, but he'll get over it. One does not simply live to be a couple thousand years old without taking some verbal abuse. Speaking of 'one does not simply', Boromir decides to snarl at me too. He's decidedly not in a good mood.

"Maybe you should voice your opinions," he spits, "before we do something stupid, next time!"

"If there is a next time, laddie." Gimli comments dryly, preparing his stance and axe for the approach of the Nazgûl.

"Trust me," I snort, just dripping with self-confidence. "There will be a next time."

My bluff at least seems to calm down the Hobbits. I slip my arm through the leather straps of my shield and squeeze the enarmes until my hand protests from gripping it so tightly. The Nazgûl circle above once more, having not yet spotted us.

I take a deep breath and try not to be too overwhelmed by the smell of the fell beasts. The Vanyar spear is reassuringly cool to the touch and I snap it open with a flick of the wrist, shivering in the predawn darkness.

My heart is in my throat and I wish I were anywhere but here. And, if I hadn't just spent a month training for a moment like this, I would gladly crawl into the nearest crevice and wait for the fighting to end.

I nearly blanch when the trees behind us stir from the powerful beats of the fell beasts' wings, and I think I'll be lucky to survive this encounter at all.

Finally, the Nazgûl spot us and their shrieks cut the air like a blade. Worse still, because we are so closely camped to the river it actually becomes easier for their fell beasts to swoop down and perch on the rocky shore.

And, Galadhrim bow aside, arrows seem to do little more than agitate the great serpents.

But Legolas does know how to hit them just right—so that even their riders have to circle away and get them under control again. Two of them circle away like that, shaking lose arrows as they go.

Frodo chooses this moment to crumple to the ground, clutching his head with an expression of pure agony torn on his lips. The remaining Nazgûl is directly above us, fell beast almost hovering in place.

I see that he's gripping the Ring, about to put it on, and dive to cover him. It'd be impossible to find him if he disappeared on us now—and God only knows what else was lurking in the woods around us. I curse the Ring plenty, and hope it hears me.

I shake Frodo by the shoulder as I block the Nazgûl from sight, and his eyes clear, though the fear is still there.

Then, the other two Nazgûl return and dive onto the shore, separating us and the rest of the Fellowship—and on our side the other lands as well.

There's something different about the Nazgûl we face—he's more opaque than the others, and from his torn robes seem to protrude some kind of elaborate armour. It bothers me for a second, until the fell beast crawls over the rocks towards us, head bobbing on its long neck—like a cobra.

I shove Frodo behind me and run backwards with him, the toothy beak of the monster rushing towards us.

It strikes at the very end of its reach and I take the brunt of it on my shield, rolling with the force and only just barely pulling Frodo along with me. The resounding clack of its teeth has my ears ringing, and the vibration through the shield shivers through my entire body in painful waves.

I brace my arm for a moment and get myself back on my feet before drawing my spear up and onto the small indent at the top of the shield.

The blade of the spear is smaller than even the shortest short sword and I can't hope to chop the serpents head off with it—but if I'm lucky I can force it to retreat by gouging it full of holes.

So I charge without so much as a war cry, lips trembling and sweat dripping down the back of my neck and pretty much everywhere else.

It rears in response and beats it wings over my head and I drop flat, kissing the ground as I do. I spring up again, like I planned that all along, and stab the razor sharp spear into its chest, wrenching it back out before it can balk and rip the handle away from me.

I'm surprised by how easily the spear bites into the fell beast's tough hide, but quickly lose that thought as a dark spray of blood spatters my face and chest, blinding me for a moment.

It burns and I instinctively lift my shield bearing arm up to my face, scrubbing at my eyes as I feel the fell beast collapse hard—ground trembling as it does. The stench from it multiplies ten fold, a tangible taste on the wind, and I freeze when a voice crackling with static cuts through it.

It's not in a language I can understand, nor want to understand, and my feet turn cold as I sense the Nazgûl getting up from the dead or dying beast.

I lower my shield to my nose and open my eyes through the stinging blood, vision blurred and skewed.

Behind me is Frodo—the rest of the Fellowship on the other side of two fell beasts, thankfully keeping them preoccupied and away from us—but I'm still on my own with one angry-as-hell Nazgûl.

I blink furiously, trying to clear my eyes of both the blood and now the constant stream of tears. I don't exactly see the Nazgûl, but where he stands there is a dark vision of a spectre holding a curved blade and wearing a horned helm and scaled armour.

In a fit of brilliant deduction I realize that this is Khamûl facing me, and I curse my unlucky stars. Khamûl the Easterling is not someone I want to be picking a fight with, ever.

He lurches forward and I balk, taking a strike on the shield with the sharp edge of a sword, and I dig the back of my spear into the ground to keep from being knocked over and probably gutted.

I swipe at him when he takes his weight off my shield and before he can attempt to break my guard, and he backs away a measured distance, sheathing the curved sword into nothingness from my perspective.

He draws a spiked cudgel from his shadowy cloak and I ready my spear while making sure to both follow him step for step, and to not let Frodo come between us as I do.

He stomps forward, weapon raised like a bat, and I swing the spear by the base—catching him on the upper arm with a light graze. This earns me a vicious shriek from Khamûl, one that hurts my head and churns my stomach.

I don't want him getting anywhere near me with a club, because getting hit (even on the shield) is going to hurt like a bitch—Haldir personally made sure I knew that after I decided I liked shields.

And he taught me the best way to not get hit on the shield is to do the hitting yourself.

So I resolve to attack, shortening the spear one length to make it slightly less unwieldy, and dive in.

It's dark though, and hard enough to see without the foul blood in my eyes. I swing, but feel no resistance—my lungs burn from breathing (or maybe from a lack of breathing) hard and my body aches with fatigue.

I wish I had fire, just enough to see by.

I take a hit on the shield and sail through the air, landing near the dying embers of our fire pit, wind knocked out of me but otherwise okay.

Life is so convenient for me sometimes, that I really wonder if the Valar aren't looking out for me. Or maybe I have Dwarven blood; didn't Tolkien say that the Dwarves could make a fire out of anything?

Regardless, I pick up an ember and pat the ground until I find the oily fish grease from our earlier supper. There are scraps of tinder, like bark and old man's beard laying about, collected by whoever was managing the fire. I soak it into the grease and ball it around the head of my spear, shaking hard as I do.

The ember is burning my hand by now and I bite my cheek against the pain, forcing myself onto my knees as Khamûl approaches.

He raises his cudgel over head, meaning to give me a really good wallop this time, and I break the ember against the spear head, tree foliage and fish oil burning hot from just a single spark.

It won't last long though, so I lurch forward, half on my feet and half on my knees, forcing the fiery spear tip into Khamûl's chest.

He bursts into flame like a witch on the stake and I fall back, shield blocking the brunt of the intense heat.

I expect him to flee, or douse himself in the river.

Instead, with a great bang like a gunshot, he crumples in on himself and disappears. The other two Nazgûl seem to sense this exchange and tear into the coming dawn with all haste. After a moment the sound of flapping wings is no more and all is silent.

I roll onto my back and just breathe.

Let's play a fun game—courtesy of Spirit of Wynter. If Cornelia and Haldir were to have a baby, what do you think that baby would turn out like? ;O

Also, I rushed to put this chapter up so if you see any spelling/grammar mistakes, don't mind—I'll try and fix them later.