Hello everybody!

This is a short interlude, unconnected to "The Beckoning" (which will continue very soon!), about winter´s dangers, a man, an elf and a dwarf (sort of).

Please read and review :-)

This story is for you, San.

Alinah

Rating: PG 13

Disclaimer: Not mine

Vanished traces

The light was blinding. Even though the short day was already nearing its end, the first tinge of red mingling with the brightness, the sun's cold force was without mercy. Legolas squinted his sensitive eyes against it, seeking to see the end of the deep footprints he was following. They went straight on, without wavering, steadily keeping up with the smaller imprints of a deer's hooves. Both sets of tracks disappeared into a slight depression that was framed by two low hills - but only the animal's prints re-emerged.

The human's had vanished.

Vanished in the brightness of the fading daylight, sun reflecting off the perfect layer of glittering snow that covered the sleeping earth with a spectacular cloak. Colors flickered and danced as the light happily skidded across the fresh crystals, rejoicing in its rebirth after two days of stormy darkness. They had both been happy to be greeted by the sun again this morning, to come out of the hiding the storm had forced them into and breathe in the clear air.

Yet now, in the middle of Winter's splendor, darkness descended upon the elf's soul at the sight of the ranger's trail disappearing. Legolas shivered, wrapping his arms around himself lightly as his protecting himself from the bitter cold, but he did not feel nature's bite. It was the cold of fear that made him tremble, the underlying dread of what he might find in that slight dent that he could not look into. What would be revealed to him when he reached it? Pictures emerged from the dark corners of his mind, unbidden, and showed him a sprawled and broken body, ripped apart by a wolf pack's greedy teeth; sliced by orcs' blades.

Legolas shook his head angrily and willed the horrid visions away. There were no further tracks leading into the depression, neither by wolf nor orc, and he would not help his friend by standing there, contemplating everything that might have befallen the ranger. It would take hours to go through everything that could have harmed a frail human body anyway, he concluded with a dry smile, almost hearing his friend's angry protest at such a judgement on his abilities.

With a sigh, Legolas forced his unwilling legs to cooperate and moved on. His feet lightly touched upon the frozen crust with hardly a sound, inflicting no more damage than the glittering light. Yet, he moved with a tense insecurity that had nothing to do with the surface he was walking across, and the closer he came to the dent, the more tightly his heart constricted within his chest.

Please, he silently pleaded within his soul, please let it just be his footprints that are lost. Let it not be him.

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Aragorn groaned. He had awoken to pain before, but that did not mean that he welcomed the feeling. His eyes fluttered open with the return of consciousness, but as soon as the first rays of light hit his pupils, pain exploded all across his vision. The ranger could feel his mind slipping again, and part of him just wanted to let go and embrace the sweet loss of feeling, but a shrill warning rang out throughout him at the thought. As tempting as oblivion might seem, he instinctively knew that this time it might let him out of its grasp again.

Painfully, he struggled back to the surface of his awareness, but he forced his eyes to remain closed. Instead, he opened his other senses and took in what they told him. Damp earth. That was the first impression he got. He frowned and then quietly winced at the discomfort even this small movement caused him. Yet, he was sure that he should smell something else. Fresh air and snow. He had been walking across snow, tracking a deer.

With the return of this memory Aragorn found some new confidence filling him, his momentary helplessness softened by the control he had over his thoughts. Yes, he had been following a deer, eager to bring something edible back to their camp, back to Legolas who had remained behind to repair the shelter that they had found in the wilderness by a pure stroke of luck hours after the storm had swallowed them.

The tracks had been fresh enough to promise a good kill in this otherwise still and frozen landscape, and Aragorn had been following with the swift precision of the skilled ranger that he was. Yet then - nothingness. The world had just gone from white to black around him. No, it had twisted, had turned upside-down and thrown him off his feet. He remembered that now, remembered how the blue sky had suddenly been beneath the soles of his boot before he had been plunged into darkness.

His situation slowly dawning on him, Aragorn tentatively reached out with his hands and felt around him. What they found supported what his nose had already told him. He was lying on an uneven ground of damp soil. There were stones embedded in the earth and even roots, as if once trees had stood here that had long since died to make room for the gentle plains that lay above him. Above? A tremor ran through the man when suddenly his senses drew their conclusion from what they had found. He had to be under ground. But what, then, about the light?

The ranger drew a deep breath, steeling himself for what he was about to do. He had to know, had to find out where he was even though the price would be more pain. Very carefully, he allowed his eyes to open. The light hit him without mercy, piercing the small slits that he had offered it, and a hot punch of nausea connected with his stomach, making him try and curl in on himself. The movement served to distract him from the brightness as a sharp pain flared up his left leg, spreading like lightning throughout his bones. He gasped, willing himself to keep looking, for else the torment would have been in vain.

Aragorn squinted against the light, and even then his vision danced and wavered as if he were on board a vessel in a fierce storm. The perceived swaying added to his nausea and bile rose in his throat, but he forced his eyes to do their work. Dimly, he could make out rough walls of earth that rose around him. Within them, marks that seemed to have been left by gigantic hands collected living shadows, giving them the appearance of eerie life. With a gasp, Aragorn allowed his eyes to slip closed and concentrated on his heaving breathing. The light hammered against his eyelids, demanding re-entrance, and the ranger could feel the shadows creep closer again, beckoning him into their cold embrace.

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There was a shadow on the ground. For a sickening moment, Legolas thought that his nightmares had come true and he would be forced to recover a frozen body to bring it home to Imladris, but then his elven senses overrode his rising panic and calmly informed him that it was, indeed, a hole he was looking at. A hole that swallowed the human footsteps he had been following. Legolas quickened his steps. His senses insisted that he had not seen all, that he should take in the low hills around him more closely, but he ignored them in his haste to reach his friend.

"Estel!" he called before he had even reached the hole. "Estel, lastach nin?!" [Estel, do you hear me?] No answer eased his heart and he had to force himself to approach carefully. No matter how light he was, he would add weight to the edges of the hole and the last thing he wanted was to make the walls crumble, possibly hurting his friend even more. When he gently eased himself onto his stomach to glance down, a groan drifted up to him and his heart leapt from both joy and concern.

"Estel, hold on, I'm almost with you", he urgently reassured. He edged closer until he could finally peek into the hole. What he saw made his heart ache. The hole was at least four meters deep and Aragorn lay at its bottom, eyes closed in a face that shone from intense pain. Legolas could hear that his breath came in ragged gasped, and even his relatively untrained eye could clearly see that one of the man's leg was broken, standing out from just beneath his knee at an odd angle. There was blood on the ranger's forehead, and more lazily oozed from the wound and pooled on the ground beneath him.

"Estel, lastach nin?" Legolas asked again, the head wound letting a new worry grow in his heart. "Do not fall asleep, do you hear me? Estel!" His voice rose far beyond his usual level in his fear, and at least he got a reaction. Aragorn's faced twisted, showing even greater pain, and a second, louder groan escaped him. Legolas had to get him out as quickly as possible. The elf tore his attention from his friend for a heartbeat to think. The hole was deep and he did not have a rope to pull the human out. Neither would he be able to climb out again carrying his friend - he would have to rouse the ranger enough to stand him up, maybe then he would be able to drag him up.

The decision made, Legolas aimed carefully and then jumped, landing cleanly beside his friend. He quickly took in his surroundings and was surprised to see a second hole, this one in one of the walls - a small tunnel leading away. The elf shuddered involuntarily at the thought of such a dark and cramped place, but this was not his concern. Another soft moan drew him to Aragorn's side and he gently placed his hand on his friend's face. Aragorn's brow furrowed at the touch as if he was not sure what it meant.

"Estel, I'm here to help you now", the elf said quietly, watching the ranger's reaction with tense apprehension, "please open your eyes and look at me." For long heartbeats there was nothing. The rays of sunlight that travelled down to caress the pale face began to turn red with the approaching night and Legolas noted how even now the temperature dropped. Their breath danced in the air before them, and before long its moisture would begin to freeze on their lips. They had to get out.

"Tiriach nin?" [Are you guarding me?] The ranger's words were a mere shadow that floated out on the white mist that was his breath. Even more quietly, he added, "show-off."

Legolas could have wept with joy at this sign that his friend was not only conscious but coherent enough to locate his friend's pride and aim small darts of taunt at it. "You should be grateful an immortal is making the effort to go after you, ranger", he answered in a light tone, hoping to draw out his friend even more, "for else a mere deer may have bested you." The edges of Aragorn's mouth twitched in a smile too weak to break free. "Aras? Nay, hniof." [Deer? No, trap.] Legolas chuckled. "I'm sure this is", he said seriously, "placed here to catch inattentive rangers who..." As he spoke, the elf's eyes travelled over the walls of the hole and his words froze on his lips.

This was indeed no natural prison. The lower parts of the walls were covered in marks, clearly signalling that others had been caught here and tried to get out. It was obvious that none of these attempts had led to the desired goal, though, because higher up the only imprints left were those of huge hands. Giant hands. Suddenly, the information that the elf's brain had stored even before he had jumped down furiously reminded him of its presence. And this time he was not foolish enough to turn away from it. "Oh Valar", he breathed, looking up at the fading daylight that was rapidly receding, leaving them unprotected.

The hand that still lingered on the human's cheek registered the change in the man and Legolas glanced down on his friend. With an effort, Aragorn forced his eyes to open slightly. Pain shimmered in them, and a tremor ran through his body that forced a whimper over his lips, but he still managed to utter the thought that had pulled him fully out of his reverie. "Trouble." It was not a question. It was the statement of a man who knew both to read his friend's voice and his own instincts. Legolas did not bother to contradict him.

"Aye", the elf agreed, "I may not have long to aid you, my friend, but I will do so to my best abilities. Please assist me."

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Aragorn hurt. Very much so. The athelas he was chewing helped, even though his stomach flinched and protested at even this slightest hint of food. The light was dimming, allowing him to open his eyes with less pain to his head, but his vision was still blurry and wavering. He knew that he had a concussion and had reluctantly told Legolas so, knowing that their chances of survival were best if the elf knew the facts. There was no room for pride, no point in hiding.

He did not know what danger awaited them, because the elf refused to talk of such matters now, rather urging his friend to guide him through the help he was offering. Even though Legolas was an able warrior and no stranger to treating injuries, Aragorn was the by far better trained healer and his guidance served to spare him pain. It also served to keep him alert and away from the darkness that still waited at the edge of his vision, only waiting for him to let down his guard. He had to fight it off with all means possible.

Moving swiftly, Legolas had bound the man's head wound and splinted his leg. While he was working and talking to his friend, he kept glancing up towards the darkening skies and Aragorn was sure the danger was awaiting them up there, even though his hurting mind could not figure out what the problem could be. He had listened for the tell-tale cries of wolves but there were none. The cold was the worst enemy he found. And a deadly one he was, but he was sure that Legolas had not meant it.

"Tell me", Aragorn ground out between heavy breaths when the elf fastened the last strips of cloth around the arrows he had used as splints. A look of reluctance flickered across the fair features, but the man would have none of this now. "Told you my injuries", he panted, "no hiding today."

The elf sighed and looked up again. Darkness had fallen now, and with it came the crisp cold of a clear winter's night. He turned serious eyes to his friend. "Maybe I was mistaken", he said quietly, "for there has been no sound yet, no movement. I will go up and make sure we are safe." He held up his hand when he saw the protest on the man's face. "If the danger remains, I shall come back down to fight at your side." Aragorn grimaced. "To protect me, more likely" he murmured, but he allowed his friend to go. Part of him screamed in anger against this, but he knew that his strength was limited and he might need it for more pressing matters.

Squinting his eyes in a vain effort to minimize the dizzying blurring, Aragorn followed the elf's nimble ascend. As if guided by invisible hands, the slender fingers found the deeper marks in the walls and used them to pull his lithe body up, his feet lightly touching the walls to keep the momentum. The ranger had seen elves climb many times, but it amazed him yet again how they seemed to defy the laws of nature.

In mere moments Legolas had reached the edge and straightened up, his slender frame darkening in front of the stars' awakening light. Tension quivered around the elf so clearly that the air seemed to shimmer around him. No sound was to be heard but Legolas' gentle breathing. Until he heard the roar.

It was so loud that it seemed to rattle the very ground Aragorn lay on. Legolas let out a shout and the bow was in his hands faster that the ranger's hurting eyes could follow, the first arrow leaving the singing string within less than a heartbeat. A second roar followed, more furious now. A huge shadow fell on the elf who backed away a few paces, firing again. And again. But the noise would not abate. A massive arm swung at the elf, snow falling off the scaly skin with the motion, and a club swung out, forcing Legolas to jump back and out of the ranger's sight.

Troll. A troll!! Aragorn's mind raced. It was not unheard of for trolls to hunt in winter, hiding under the snow in daylight and bursting from it at night to rip apart their victims. He had never heard of a troll, however, who had been clever enough to dig a whole to trap its prey. Dimly, the man's mind concluded that this trap might have been there before and had just been utilized by the creature. He strained to get a better look at what was going on outside but it was useless. The movement was not worth the pain it caused and so he waited in tense apprehension.

He heard the gentle swoosh of yet another arrow, followed by the sickening thud of an impact, and the pained cry that followed almost drowned two similar sounds that spoke of the injuries the troll sustained. Yet, its hide was thick and its rage mounted. Aragorn could almost sense its next blow - and to his horror this time it did not just hit air. With a sharp cry of pain Legolas stumbled above him, just at the edge of the hole, teetering at the brink, and then he fell. Some laws of nature still applied even to him.

Aragorn watched, helpless to do anything to aid his friend but pray.

TBC