Adult-FanFiction.org : Lord of the Rings

Nothing Gold Can Stay	By : TAFKAB Category: +Third Age > AU - Alternate Universe Views: 5309 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, The Silmarillion, nor the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 16
- 17
- 18
In the morning, Gimli woke to find Legolas had returned. He rose in relief to find the elf and Strider bent over the ground together, scratching rough maps with a bit of twig. “I do not like the layout of the keep,” Strider fretted, scowling at the messy earth in front of him. “Once we have crossed the bridge, it may be held against our return, and there is no other way to leave at speed. Escape will not be easy.”

“It gives me hope to know Legolas saw evidence of occupation from afar. The magic there is not as strong as it once was.” Gandalf sipped from his mug. “Before the Council banished the Necromancer, a glamour concealed the occupation of the keep from all. I do not think he has returned, though there will be some great captain there. With me along, you should be able to fight through.”

*****

They arrived at a vantage point before nightfall and climbed so they might see Dol Guldur.

Gandalf frowned, leaning on his stick, and closed his eyes as if he could see better with them shut, extending a hand. The gem in his staff waxed and glowed white. Legolas stepped between it and the keep so it might not be seen.

“Khamûl,” Gandalf muttered to himself. “A wraith indeed, Legolas. One of the nine. And aware of us already, so you need not hide my staff.”

“If he knows of our approach, why has no force attacked us?” Strider answered himself at once. “They wait for us to come to them. It is a trap. We must not go in.”

“They have prisoners. Living elves.” Legolas’s voice turned hollow. “I see Giledhel. He is in a cage, hanging from a ruined tower.”

Gandalf frowned. “Can you see if there is activity in the forges?”

Legolas stared for a long time without speaking. “I see smoke as if from cookfires, but if any forges are lit, I cannot tell it.”

“We march on the keep in the morning, regardless.” Gandalf pursed his lips. “Khamûl is less powerful by day, but he is a cunning adversary at any time. I do not know what he hopes to gain by luring us in. He knows he cannot defeat me without his master’s aid.”

“We must be cautious,” Legolas gave the keep a last, lingering gaze.

*****

They kept careful watch through the night, sheltering beneath their cloaks from sleet and bitter rain, but still no attack came.

“Khamûl is a master of illusion and trickery. Doubt your senses when he is near.” Gandalf led them toward the verge of the ravine. “The light will grow no more today; the clouds serve his bidding. Watch your step on the ice!”

They stepped onto the crumbling bridge in single file, Gandalf leading and Legolas following in the rear. Gimli put himself between Strider and the elf, watching the young lad’s back. They moved cautiously, weapons in hand and arrow on the string. Far above, Gimli thought he could hear the creak of the iron cage swaying on its chain. There was no other sound except the wind groaning through the ruins, lifting from time to time to drive dust and grit into their eyes.

The place was much larger than it had looked from afar, acres of crumbling stonework reinforced by new additions: cruel metal spikes had been set at intervals along every wall to support the ancient stone. The place twisted and turned on itself, pathways winding in and out of plazas, courtyards, tunnels and half-demolished buildings in an impenetrable maze, once elegant and fair, now a foul, reeking warren of orcs.

Despite the silence, Gimli's every nerve sang with certainty: foes lay in hiding, watching and awaiting a signal to attack. The little company climbed cautiously through the ruins, climbing many narrow, steep stairs whose treads might shatter or crumble beneath their feet without warning. No one spoke, but a shadow of terrible dread steadily grew in Gimli’s mind, and he knew the others felt it also. Strider’s hand tightened on his sword, his knuckles white, but he did not falter, pressing forward at the wizard’s heels.

Legolas too closed the gap, climbing close behind Gimli as they drew near the summit.

“Here the White Council fought the Necromancer,” Gandalf murmured as they stepped onto a lofty courtyard between weathered pillars of stone. “And there is the cage with Giledhel.” The dark-haired elf lay within, unmoving.

“He is wounded.” Legolas darted forward, and Gimli went with him.

“I will help to get your friend.” The dwarf set his hands upon the lever to hoist the cage back just as Gandalf shouted warning.

Bleak terror flooded over Gimli as a pale silhouette rose between the cage and the party, shining with sallow corpse-light: a narrow-eyed man clad in fluttering robes of deepest black that showed only his hands and face, pale and watery, insubstantial. His head was crowned with tall spikes and deep-set black eyes shone forth from a face of bare bone, gleaming with malice. The wraith seemed to ripple though there was no wind, lifting a long, sharp sword.

Legolas’s arrow flew, piercing the thing without slowing. The shaft clattered against a pillar half-visible through the wraith’s floating robes. It smiled, a terrible rictus, and Gimli froze as it stepped forth, long bony fingers reaching out to clutch at him.

Legolas leaped forward to drag him back from the wraith’s outstretched arms. As his hand settled on Gimli’s chest, the world spun away, the elf’s hand on him the only constant.

Time stretched, an instant turning infinite. The hand on him turned harsh as Thranduilion dragged him from his father, hooded him, and took him from all he had known.

Gimli was stripped, bathed, and left naked, chained to the foot of the elf’s bed and given a velvet cushion where he might sleep. His wrists were cuffed together, and the chain gave only enough slack that he might lie down or kneel.

“You will live or die at my command. I alone will give you food or drink,” Legolas told him. “If you obey you will be rewarded. If you disobey….” The elf smiled, a wicked expression that turned his carved perfection into something truly terrifying in its dark joy. His hand brushed over Gimli’s hair, and the dwarf snapped at it—his teeth his only weapon. The elf evaded him easily.

“I am going to enjoy taming you,” he whispered. “My adar has given me a great gift.”

He brought food: fruit and bread and wine, setting them just outside Gimli’s reach and leaving them there. Legolas went to his window and stood, watching the stars wheel, watching the sun rise. He might have been a statue.

“When you are ready to eat, ask,” he said. Then he departed, going about the normal business of his day.

Gimli lasted until the fruit began to shrivel on its plate and was replaced. The loaf returned steaming, drizzled with butter; the wine goblet was so cold mist condensed upon its side. His stomach growled so loudly the elf laughed. He tore a segment from the loaf and ate it, creamy butter painting his lips with shining moisture that he licked away, his tongue darting over his narrow lips with sensual pleasure. “It is good,” he purred, and took a long swallow of wine. “Would you like some?”

Gimli turned his head away, prepared to starve before he would eat, his parched lips moving dryly against one another.

The elf set the half-goblet of wine where he might reach it and departed.

Gimli drank, cursing his weakness, and slept.

Each night the scene repeated until Gimli was so weak his head swam, aching, and he had not the strength to fight when the elf pressed bread to his lips. His shriveled belly lurched and rolled as he chewed, then growled its desperation.

Thereafter the elf ate always in his rooms, leaving the remains for Gimli: crusts of bread, cores and rinds of fruit. Gimli picked them up and ate them slowly, not looking up. He would live; he vowed. He would survive. When his service was done he would kill the elf slowly. He must eat so he might take vengeance.

The elf brought meat and ate it with his fingers, sitting at his table to write. The savory scent and the vision of slow chewing drove Gimli mad. Legolas ate slowly, placing each morsel between his lips with his fingers.

“Would you have meat?” His eyes danced with gleeful knowing.

He ate from the elf’s fingers that night, and thereafter. Savory bites of roast pork, bread with honey, grapes and apples. Never quite enough, always leaving him hungry, his belly growling. Legolas’s fingers touched his lips, and he did not bite, though his neck ached from the strain.

He did not know how long he lingered before the elf began to offer food only with his mouth, but it was all to be done again: pear juice melting on the elf’s lips as Legolas leaned forward. Kisses steeped in wine. The desperation of the starving body, the hatred of surrender. The elf’s sweet, sculpted mouth stained red.

“I will have you,” Legolas whispered against his lips. “I will break you.”

Gimli bit him, and was given no food or drink for days, until the elf’s swollen lip was smooth and pale once more. Then he stretched out his neck to meet the elf’s mouth and received food from it and moaned.

“You are ready,” Legolas whispered, and caressed Gimli’s chest with his warm palm.

They tried to brand him, but his dwarf-tough skin would not burn, and so Legolas carved the mark on him with the tip of one long silver knife: the mark of Thranduil’s house. The stag’s antlers, a beechen leaf. Blood dripped down, red and rich as wine. The elf’s fingertips trailed through it.

“Who is your master?”

When Gimli would not answer, he was unchained and moved to the elf’s bed, legs and arms spread. Legolas rarely used it himself. Gimli quivered with fear, but the elf did not touch him, looking at him with a faint, knowing smile.

Servants came to tend the room, as they always did—but now they also laid hands on Gimli. Palms curled around his cock and roused him against his will, then left him aching. Lips touched his nipples, his fingers. His body was cleansed and oiled, and a carved instrument put within him. He turned his head aside and growled his rage, but he could not fight, left to lie there aching, his flesh no longer his own.

He could not come; he was not left to grow calm, but continually roused—day and night, never allowed to sleep. Legolas came often to see him; his long slender fingers touched the carved wood that protruded from Gimli’s body.

“You will have your pleasure only from my hand.” It curved around Gimli’s cock, slippery with sweet oil, and stroked him until he found release. He lay gasping, semen wet upon his belly. “You will not come again for many days, I think,” Legolas whispered. “But you will ask.” He trailed his fingers through the sticky stripes, smiling at them, and painted Gimli’s lips with the bitter fluid and kissed it away.

Gimli trembled, for he knew now the depths of the elf’s guile, and knew Thranduilion would have what he wanted.

They did not let him rest; they did not let him come. He ached, his balls burning like white iron. The elves never slept, their bright eyes cool as they wrapped Gimli in flame-hot hands, as their fingers invaded his body, as they put rings of gold in his nipples and hung a chain between them, then used it to torment him as mouths touched his cock—never letting him come. Never letting him sleep for more than a shattered moment. Oils and unguents and lips and hands.

When Legolas came to him again Gimli moaned and shifted on the bed. The elf sat tenderly at his head and fed him, giving Gimli wine from his own lips.

“Shall I give you release?”

Gimli turned his head away and the torture resumed anew.

Head swimming from lack of sleep, body aching beyond bearing, Gimli lost track of what was real and what was not. He knew only the times when Legolas came to him, touching him with gentle hands and lips that tasted of summer berries.

“Please,” he did not know who spoke, voice cracked and broken, but the elf’s hand touched him in answer. The spasm thundered through him and he was lost.

They took him from Legolas’s rooms and set him to work in the laundries, lifting heavy vats of wash water from the fires and hanging garments to dry. He still took his food only from the elf’s hand, but now Legolas tormented him in other ways. He lay beside Gimli each night, his long lean body the only warmth against the chill as autumn, then winter, poured in through the open windows. “Shall I fuck you?” he asked, his wicked hands on Gimli’s cock, his teeth grazing Gimli’s shoulder.

Tears wet Gimli’s face and he trembled. “Do what you will.”

He did not. Once again there was no release—though he was let to sleep and work and bathe and eat, the elf would not give him his pleasure, and Gimli was chained so he might not seek it on his own, save if he touched himself while he worked among the staring eyes of women.

He would not.

Spring came, and Legolas brought him to the verge of climax many times every night, placing oiled wooden cocks inside him and pushing him open, spending hours behind him, fucking him with them, until the pressure against his prostate made him growl and moan, his hands clutched to fists, knuckles bloodless white.

“Shall I fuck you?” Amusement, crystalline and sharp. And no release. Endless longing, the elf’s fingers tangled in his chains, his nipples aching, his whole body stretched taut and quivering against the elf, who bit lightly at his throat and seemed content to torment him for eternity, malice mingled with tenderness, shining upon him from eyes of sapphire crystal.

“No,” Gimli spat, and Legolas laughed.

“I will have you, begging, before my king and his court,” he promised, nipping Gimli’s ear. “It will please my father to see you broken by my hand. I will take you with me when I journey to Erebor, so I may show my beautiful, willing slave to all. I will feed you from my fingers before the king of the dwarves, and you will kiss them and eat.”

“No.”

“I will do it in a year—or two, or five, or ten. In thirty, you will plead for me to fuck you even before your father.” His eyes sparkled with wicked pleasure, and the certainty of the eldar.

Gimli gasped as skilled fingertips circled the head of his cock. He lay still, his face burning, his heart a livid coal of hate—his cock white iron against the elf’s teasing fingers.

“When your time is over, you will go to your knees and grovel that I not make you leave,” the sweet voice wound around his spine and slithered into his brain, rustling dry across his ears like a serpent.

Gimli wept.

“Beautiful dwarf.” Legolas licked the tears tenderly from his face, but did not let him come. “My treasure.”

He withdrew into his mind, refusing to speak or meet the elf’s gaze. Legolas tolerated it for a week, then unchained him and laid him on his back.

“What do you mean to do?” Gimli’s rusty voice cracked as the elf bent, oiling himself. There was no answer.

Legolas mounted his cock with a sigh and eased himself down, his body fluttering with involuntary spasms as he took the Gimli’s powerful girth within himself. He waited until he was seated firmly. Tilting his head back to bare the long, pale column of his throat, Legolas rode, arching back at first and then leaning forward to drape over Gimli, his long silver-gold hair falling about them, his moans sweet. “Who is your master?” His body squeezed Gimli without mercy, a slick, tight glove.

“Thranduilion,” Gimli whimpered, and came.

Legolas kissed his lips and held him. “Meleth nín,” he moaned in Gimli’s ear, and painted Gimli’s belly with translucent pearl.

He led Gimli about with him by his leash thereafter.

The dwarf knelt by Legolas’s chair as he entertained Bard of Laketown, who stared on him with horror. Gimli kept his head bowed, the better to avoid the man’s eyes. How long before the tales reached his father? He shuddered, his knuckles white.

“You did well today.” Legolas rewarded him with his pipe, and let him smoke it at the window of his rooms, petting Gimli’s hair. “Shall I fuck you?”

“No.”

The wooden cock returned, and Gimli was forced to go abroad with it inside him so others might see. Legolas took the chain that bound Gimli’s nipples and toyed with it idly while he spoke to Bard, and Gimli’s cock stiffened, arching hard and desperate, dripping against his belly despite all he could do; he struggled against himself until his skin streamed with sweat and his breath came harsh and the man could not focus on negotiating trade for staring furtively at Gimli’s anguish.

“My slave is needy,” Legolas murmured in a voice like honey. “We will finish later.” He took Gimli away.

“Perhaps tomorrow I will lay you across my lap and put my fingers inside you while the scribes draw up the agreement.” Legolas laughed, breathy and hot against Gimli’s ear. “Or I might fuck you tonight.” His fingers played across the scar on Gimli’s breast, making him shiver.

Gimli’s face burned. “Do as you will.”

“You are not eager enough,” Legolas laughed at him and left him chained to the bed, aching and desperate.

The elf did exactly as he promised, and the envoy of Laketown departed in haste at noon the next day, having signed whatever Legolas suggested in his desperation to escape the sight of Gimli splayed across the elf’s lap, his wide-spread thighs on either side of the elf’s thighs, his face wet with tears of shame as the elf’s long, slender fingers pressed and stroked within him, making him whimper and writhe.

“You did well, my treasure,” Legolas whispered in Gimli’s ear and withdrew his fingers, allowing him to arise from the negotiating table. “Soon now you will beg.”

“I am not a dwarf,” Gimli whispered in despair as Legolas led him away and fed him strange fruit: a red globe that he peeled, feeding Gimli small, tart pips of purest ruby, the juice dark upon his fingers.

“You are my dwarf.” Legolas laughed, low and dark and rich, and the sound of it made Gimli’s flesh rise and ache.

*****

“Fuck me.” Words torn from anguished lips, body quivering, muscles locked taut. Cock quivering, a rigid bar of straining flesh. Hands upon him, dragging forth pleasure and pain, a desperate aching dream of need.

“No.” The soft merciless laugh of an elf. Fingers withdrawn, hands lifted.

*****

“Fuck me, elf.” Gimli growled, need and lust feverish through him—he had lain alone for many days.

“Where and how?”

“Wherever you will.” And yet he was empty, and Legolas touched him not.

Gimli was once again chained on his pillow at the foot of the bed.

“I go to hunt spiders. Await my pleasure.”

*****

Stone hard beneath his knees, hard, unyielding. The golden chain heavy, dragging at his nipples, a constant ache. His hair unbound, his only shield. Legolas upon his chair, writing, the scratch of ink and quill. His hands upon the elf’s thigh, the velvet nap of buckskin. So long away, so cold upon returning.

“Please.” Gimi’s lips brushed along the thin leather, but the elf’s hand pushed him away. Legolas spoke no word, but only wrote.

Tears came, and he hated himself for them—hated himself with a bright and burning hate.

“Shall I fuck you?” The words came delicate and tender, a bell-like whisper. A tender hand settled in his hair, and Gimli shivered, leaning into the caress.

“Please, master.” His throat burned.

“Before my father?”

“Yes. Please.” Gimli bent his head and laid it trembling upon the elf’s long thigh. All pride, all fire was gone from him—all but his need.

*****

The silvan elves came to their prince’s call; fires were kindled in the great hall, torches leaping with golden light. Thranduil sat upon his throne, icy and elegant, his autumn crown laced with rowan berries, his fine silk cloak lined with russet. Legolas brought Gimli before him, leading him upon his golden chain. Gimli wore nothing but the elf’s brand upon his skin; he trembled, his body oiled and ready.

“Here is the gift my king so kindly gave to me,” Legolas bowed to his king. “I have tamed him to my hand.”

“Show us.”

Legolas closed his fist in Gimli’s hair and pushed; Gimli sank to his knees, then bent to kiss the elf’s feet, his cheeks flaming with shame. “Please fuck me, my master,” he whispered, his voice broken, barely there.

Legolas lifted him to his feet. “Where does it please my king to see this done?”

Thranduil tilted his head, the smallest smile gracing his lips, and rose, yielding his throne.

“Here.” Thranduil swept his austere, silver gaze across the gathered elves. “My son will prove his mastery of the naug here, where he will one day reign.”

Legolas bowed his head, a smile curling his narrow lips, and touched his heart. Then he went to the throne and sat, sliding his elegant hands down the smooth-polished arms, caressing the grain of the wood. The light of torches leaped and danced upon his face, gilding him with a strange, ruddy light. He reached to open his robe and his long, slender cock was revealed, pale and taut, the crown gleaming wet.

“Mount me,” he told Gimli, his voice soft but pitched to carry. The elves stirred and murmured.

Gimli trembled and obeyed. He approached and turned himself, spreading his thighs, awkwardly hitching himself up onto the elf’s lap.

Legolas did not help, his hands at ease upon the carved arms of the throne as Gimli struggled to do as he was bidden. The elf’s flesh pushed at him, eager; he could hear a soft hitch in Legolas’s breath as he tried to position himself and failed—then succeeded.

Legolas sank deep, his hips lifting. Gimli closed his eyes, uttering a low, desperate cry—hot living flesh inside him rather than cold wood, a solid sturdy cock so much better than fingers and torment.

Legolas’s hands moved to support him, leaning him forward until he lay suspended in the elf’s arms, his hair cascading down to trail over the floor. He lay spread open with Legolas’s long, slim body nestled tightly behind his. The elf’s cock plowed deep inside Gimli’s flesh.

Legolas’s fingers dragged over Gimli’s skin, desire burning in their wake, sizzling across his nerves. He whimpered, and the elf whispered to him, unknown words in Elvish, his languid voice hot.

Legolas thrust, a long leisurely push of his hips. Gimli moaned, feeling the burning of elven eyes upon his skin, hearing titters and sighs spread through the echoing cavern. Taken here, thus, beneath the stone, his body yielded up to the prince of Mirkwood, his very soul destroyed… tears fell, dripping from his nose and chin.

Legolas lifted Gimli into his lap and tipped his head back to rest against his shoulder, thrusting again, power and strength in his hips.

“Open your eyes,” he commanded, and Gimli did, looking out through the tangled tumble of his hair to see the elves watching, their eyes burning hot. Thranduil smiled faintly, his hand curled about the staff of office, nodding approval on his son.

“Tell them who owns you,” Legolas purred, nuzzling his ear.

“Legolas Thranduilion is my master,” Gimli’s chest hitched in a sob.

“Beg.”

“Please fuck me.” Gimli bit his lip, savage, tasting blood. He tried to turn his face away, but Legolas’s hand rose to force it outward once more. The elf’s fingers curved around his jaw tenderly. He did not let Gimli move, but put his other hand in the dwarf’s lap and stroked him, thumb circling the tip of his cock. He rocked his hips subtly, moving the tip of his cock relentlessly at just the right spot inside Gimli’s body, and gave him long hard strokes with his squeezing hand, merciless.

Gimli cried out, shuddering, helpless. Thranduil’s tongue flickered out to lick his lips and Gimli’s face flamed with shame.

“Please, please,” Gimli moaned, wanting it over, needing to come, writhing under the glittering eyes of the elves.

“More?” Legolas prompted.

“More, please, now, my master!” Bitter words tumbled from Gimli’s lips in his shame—anything it took to end this, anything it took to surrender and come so he might be taken away and laid curled in his master’s bed with Legolas holding him as he once had, licking away tears and singing soft praise to him as he slept.

Legolas laughed and his hips snapped up sharply, making Gimli writhe and wail. He tugged at the chain and Gimli’s vision whited out, his cock surging—his roar of despair and surrender echoing in the cavern, orgasm bursting through him. The elf’s teeth sank at his neck, marking him as he shuddered.

“Gimli nín,” Legolas whispered, exultant with triumph.

The vision vanished as swiftly as it had come.

Disoriented and completely humiliated, Gimli lashed out to fight. He flung off the elf’s restraining arms, frantic with panic, and fell to one knee, struggling to find balance. Beside him Gandalf strode forth, brandishing his staff. The glow at its tip waxed brilliant white.

“Wargs!” Strider’s voice penetrated the haze of revulsion and confusion in Gimli’s brain. Howling and scratching echoed through the courtyard as the pack raced up the steps to join the fray.

“Up and fight, Gimli,” Legolas urged him. “Do not heed the wraith’s lies!” His own eyes were glazed and wild. Gimli’s stomach dropped, sick with horror-- had the elf shared his vision? Mahal send it was not so!

Strider moaned low in his throat, his sword drooping until its point touched the cobbles.

“Wake, son of the west!” Legolas snapped and caught his arm, his voice sharp. “Battle is on us!”

Strider faltered, shaking his head to clear his mind. Then Gandalf was back. “Stay close!” A bubble of white light sprang up around them, and Gimli felt his fear lessen swiftly, leaving only humiliation and confusion in its wake.

He snarled his rage, his fingers going white on the axe handle, and sent it scything through the skull of the leading warg even as the fletchings of Legolas’s arrow sprouted between its eyes. Its rider rolled off and its scimitar flashed in a brutal arc. Then Gimli had no more time to think. He countered with the handle of his axe and fell into the brutal rhythm of strike and defense.

The elf’s bow sang and Strider’s sword clattered against orc-armor. Gandalf chanted in a tongue Gimli did not know, his voice echoing among the stones, amplified until the vibrating echoes seemed they would bring the whole structure down. “Legolas!” he commanded.

The flying arrows stopped. Gimli could not turn to look, but he heard the creaking of the winch and the clang of iron as the cage settled on the stones. He blocked a savage blow, hooking the orc’s sword with the bit of his axe, and jerked it from his enemy’s hands.

“Gimli, help me,” Legolas called, sharp with urgency.

Gimli spun, kicking the orc backward. It stumbled between two pillars and toppled over the edge, screaming.

“Hold them a moment, laddie!” Gimli called to Strider. He reversed the swing of his axe and leaped over to the cage, cleaving the lock with a quick chop, then shoved away from it, returning to support the boy, who intercepted a roundhouse swing on the edge of his sword and caught a second orc in the shoulder with the dagger in his left hand, shoving it away. Legolas arose with Giledhel cradled in his arms.

“Make for the bridge and stay close.” Gandalf pushed between them, swinging his staff like a pole-arm. Wherever it touched, foes shrieked and fell away. They pushed down the stair, descending on the throng of orcs like an avalanche, sending them flying to every side. “The wraith could return at any minute!” the wizard panted. “Pray the others do not come!”

There was no time to think. They could only battle their way through hordes of orcs, Gimli’s axe and Strider’s sword cleaving the path, Gandalf finishing any who made it through. Legolas could not fight while carrying Giledhel, but he dodged blades, spinning and dancing lightly for all his burden. An arrow bounced off Gimli’s armor, clattering away.

“Their archers have found us!” Gimli redoubled his efforts, his arms beginning to burn from the strain. They ducked into a building that seemed composed of cells, iron bars and chains hanging broken and rusted everywhere. Goblins poured in after them, screaming and hooting.

“This way,” Gandalf ordered, his staff flaring with light to guide them forward through the dungeon.

“We will find the bridge held against us,” Strider warned, grim, a spatter of orc blood across his face. They clattered down a narrow spiral stair, cutting through the heart of the city to reach the bridge level.

When they could go no further inside, Gimli cleaved the hinges of iron-shod doors and they shoved them aside, escaping again into light. They neared the bridge, shouting hordes of orcs scaling the sheer walls to catch them, choking the stairs and pouring out of windows.

When they emerged from the city wall, barely ahead of an army, the wraith awaited on the bridge’s long span, insubstantial but terrible, its robes floating.

“Pitiable, weak things.” The wraith swung its unholy gaze between them. “What hope have such as you against the power in the east, wizard? Can you truly gather no better allies than a beardless boy, the unwanted outcast of a faded glory, and a stunted slave?” Its voice hissed and rasped, rising to screech beyond the audible, sending needles of pain through Gimli’s skull.

“Go back to the void!” Gandalf commanded, raising his staff, but Strider did not wait. He snarled, pressing forward to attack. The wraith swung, their swords clashing so hard sparks soared in fading arcs.

“Bravely done!” Gandalf shouted.

Not to be outclassed, Gimli rolled forward, swiping at the thing’s ankles as Strider renewed his attack. The wraith rippled and vanished, reappearing behind them, and swung again before they could re-set. Gandalf lifted his staff with a great shout. White light exploded outward, leaving purple halos at the edges of everything Gimli looked on. When it receded, the wraith had vanished.

They pressed across the bridge and into the wood, but no orcs followed.

“Were were allowed to go too easily,” Strider gasped. “The wraith toys with us.”

“Keep moving.” Gandalf hustled them a mile or more down the crumbling path until Legolas stopped, setting down his precious burden.

“We can go no further,” he said, his voice eerie calm. “Giledhel is near death.”

“Come, Strider, and help me.” Gandalf ordered as Gimli lowered his axe, winded and panting for breath.

Giledhel stared up at the gray sky, unseeing. His slender form was wasted and scarred with terrible wounds, and he gave no response to Legolas. Gandalf laid his hand upon the elf’s forehead, murmuring beneath his breath.

Strider scrambled to open his pack, but the wizard reached to stop him. “You are skilled, but I fear this is a hurt beyond the reach of herbs,” Gandalf passed his hand over his eyes, his face twisting in pain. “He has already given up his fëa. Khamûl left him breathing to draw us in, but Giledhel is with Mandos.” He looked up to Legolas, his eyes gentle with grief.

“We can do nothing. His body is too badly damaged to survive for much longer. Legolas, will you grant him mercy?”

The elf drew a slow shuddering breath and nodded, bringing out one of his white knives and a whetting stone. The stone passed across the blade with a silky whisper.

“Let us give them room.” Gandalf put his hand behind Gimli’s shoulder, leading him and Strider a few steps away.

“You are right, of course," he gold Strider. "Our escape was all too easy. I do not know the wraith’s purpose in letting us escape so readily. I can only guess he hoped to draw more rewarding prey-- perhaps Thranduil himself, without a wizard to save him. But he will have done his best to harm our party through the visions you were sent. What were they?” He turned his anxious gaze to Strider. “Yours in particular I would know.”

“I stood before a vast army of men, ranged against every imaginable sort of orc or troll or foul servant of Mordor, but all my commands went awry. Every man I ordered forth died, and I knew when the last man passed darkness would fall, and the light would never return.” Strider spoke reluctantly, his voice low. “It would be my fault freedom and joy would be lost, never to be found again while this world lasts.”

Gandalf relaxed. “It is a worry plucked from your own mind, no worse. For a moment I almost feared-- but no.” He turned his gaze to Gimli. “And yours, my good dwarf?”

Gimli shuddered, casting about in desperation for a way to express his thought without speaking a lie. He would not reveal everything he had experienced, not with the elf at hand. Perhaps never. “I saw myself a conquered slave, abased and defiled, craving what was done to break me,” he muttered at last. “Corrupted and lost, no longer fit to call myself a dwarf.”

It seemed enough. Gandalf’s keen eyes rested on him for a long moment, then the wizard nodded. “A less likely fate for you I cannot imagine. Take heart, Gimli.”

Gimli swallowed hard and nodded.

“And I saw myself an accursed thing, a despoiler and a doer of rapine,” the elf spoke as he arose from the body of Giledhel, his voice terrible, his eyes fixed on the horizon where Dol Guldur loomed, dark and desolate. He held his knife, wiping it clean carefully with a bloodstained cloth. “Dark and vile, worse by far than my father, who would only kill to destroy what is given into his care.”

Gimli turned his face aside to hide his grimace. Cursed be the day of his birth!

Gandalf’s look darted between them, worry in his eyes.

“Do not dwell on these visions too much,” he advised. “The wraith is clever, but he does not know all. The images you saw were chosen to target your fears and turn your strength to weakness. The wraith would poison our minds and divide us if it could, but its dark magic can only mock. It cannot make.”

Wordless, Legolas sheathed his knife and turned away to drape his cloak over Giledhel’s body.

“And you, Gandalf. What did you see?” Gimli would not let the wizard escape unscathed.

Gandalf was silent for a long moment. “I saw the only enemy who has ever defeated me: a great eye ringed with shadow and flame.” He shook himself from his reverie. “But he was not there, or we would not have escaped. Come. We must be far from here by nightfall.”

He led them west, the swiftest way out of the forest.

NOTES:

adar: Father

Meleth nín: My love

naug: Stunted one, dwarf

Gimli nín: My Gimli

Fëa: Spirit or soul

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Nothing Gold Can Stay