Chapter 16 – The Fight Nobody Wanted

After the fight with Aragorn, Boromir's attitude seemed to tank. He was always moody. He tried to hide it, but Kylie noticed. Maybe it was a girl thing, noticing strange 180 in attitude that the guys seemed to ignore.

Days… or weeks… well, time went by and Boromir was still acting strange. But the fellowship was camped right by a waterfall and it was time to make a decision. A decision that Aragorn had been putting off for a long time.

"Well Frodo, I am afraid it is now time to choose. Here we must either cross the river and find a safe path… if such thing exists… to Mordor or to go to Gondor. I would counsel against any further delay, but in the end the decision is yours."

"If you come to Gondor, I assure you that my father would welcome you and aid you in this quest in any way possible," said Boromir slowly.

Frodo looked torn. Kylie knew that Boromir's proposal seemed great, but there was something wrong about it. It looked like Frodo might know.

"I need some time. To consider I mean," said Frodo getting up.

"Of course," nodded Aragorn and Frodo walked off.

Kylie knew they were in for a long wait. She decided to go find some lembas and sit down. She reached in her bag, but instead came up with an unopened bag of Reese's cups. How long had those been in there? Even if they were stale, she figured some candy would be nice after literally months without chocolate.

"I have been meaning to ask, how are you holding up?" said a voice next to her as she opened the bag.

"Huh?" she looked at Aragorn. "Oh I've been fine. Reese's?"

"What?"

"Oh, it's candy from my world." Surprisingly fresh candy, Kylie wanted to add.

Aragorn accepted the cup and sniffed it. Then took a bite. "How do you come by things like this?"

"Oh, I don't know. I guess I put it in my bag before I left home."

"And it's still good?"

"We put… stuff in them. Stuff to make them stay fresh longer."

"Like salt?"

"… salt? Well…" Kylie flipped the bag over to see the ingredients list. "Yeah, they do have salt in here. They call it something else though."

Aragorn nodded. "I suppose you've noticed Boromir."

"Um, yeah! It's sort of obvious isn't it?"

Aragorn shrugged. "I'm just worried that he will do something rash."

"It just doesn't seem like him at all. At least, not to do something too stupid when he's been told not to."

"I think…" Aragorn lowered his voice, "… it's the ring."

"The ring? How?"

"It does that. It offers power to men and we want it. We want it so much… it frightens me sometimes. It truly does."

"Have you… has it offered you power?"

Aragorn nodded. "In a way. It is tempting at times and I thank the Valor at those times I brought my pipe with me! What about you?"

Kylie thought. No, it didn't offer to become queen goddess of the world or even to go home. But… at times… there was this strange buzzing sound in her head. She didn't notice it at first, but when she left Lórien it got louder and more annoying. It was kind of like when you try to talk to somebody on your cell phone but it just doesn't connect. "No, nothing," she lied (only sort of though).

But Aragorn did look comforted. "Then if you can, please keep an eye on Boromir. I fear he will try to force Frodo to Gondor or worse… steal the ring."

"Yeah! Will do!" Kylie looked around for Boromir, but didn't see him.

"Thank you. I just worry that if I'm too attentive to one aspect of this quest, I will miss something just as important."

"Yeah, it's like tennis. If you only worry about the ball you'll trip." Still couldn't see Boromir.

Aragorn laughed. "I know naught of 'tennis', but I'm sure you are one of the very few who need to worry about that."

"Hey! Not fair! You've never seen me play!" Kylie now stood up to find Boromir.

"What is it?"

"Umm… where did Boromir go?"

Aragorn looked around and Kylie could tell his heart was sinking. He muttered something that sounded like "shit", except in an entirely different language.

"Pippin, have you seen Boromir?"

"Yes, he went out in the woods to collect some faggots."

Kylie snickered.

"Frodo's been gone for over an hour," said Legolas worriedly.

"Oh no… Mr. Frodo's been worried about us for a long time Strider… you don't think he'll try to leave up on his own, do you?"

The whole camp was chaotic. The Sam suggested that Frodo would leave on his own, Merry and Pippin ran off in the woods and Sam trotted after them. Gimli grabbed his axe. Aragorn stood up and tried to keep order.

"Wait Sam… Pippin…Legolas if you run into the woods blindly I swear your father will hear… please! No you don't!" He said, grabbing Kylie's arm as she rushed away. "We must have some sort of plan! There may be orcs!"

"Then Frodo…" said Gimli.

"Legolas go east for a while and circle a parameter. You are by far the fastest. Gimli, come with me we are going to find Frodo. Kylie, find the other hobbits and convince them to come back to camp. If you see anything, scream!"

"See what?" The very idea terrified Kylie, but she did exactly as she was told. She ran as fast as she could and eventually caught Merry and Pippin.

"Come on!" she cried. "We've got to go back to camp! Aragorn said…."

Then she heard it. They all did. There was an evil cry and she could hear clashing of swords.

"Come on!" cried Merry and he grabbed Kylie and almost tossed her between two rotten trees. He and Pippin jumped back there minutes later.

Kylie sat there barely able to breathe. Suddenly there was a rustle of leaves from a few feet away and then Frodo was standing behind a tree. She almost stood up to motion him over, but dozens of orcs flew by.

When the orcs appeared to be gone, Pippin started motioning like crazy.

"Come on Frodo!"

"He's leaving," said Merry slowly.

It took a minute to register. Frodo was going to leave the fellowship? Sam warned he might, but….

"No!" shouted Pippin and he hopped out of their cover.

"Pippin! Get back…." Too late. About 18 dozen growls told Kylie that they had already been spotted.

"Frodo run," said Merry, "hey you! You looking for us?" he shouted to the orcs. Pippin followed suit and they started running for their lives.

This was not happening. But it was either fight or flight at this point so Kylie took the later.

At first she sprinted, but then she knew that she had to stay with the hobbits. She really didn't want to die… but the orcs weren't firing anyway. What was the deal?

"It's working!" said Pippin.

"Great! Now shut up and run!" replied Kylie, but she skidded to a halt.

There were orcs coming from either side now. Damn, she had to fight. Breathe, Kylie breathe, she told herself. She was spouting out prayers to God and whoever was in control of this place, and then notched an arrow.

A voice cried out. "Gondor!" Boromir ran through a side of orcs, slicing through one side and at least immobilizing all of the ones he passed.

"Get back! Get back!" he cried, moving the hobbits and Kylie behind him out of the way of the orcs then he blew the horn.

The horn. A cry for help. It gave Kylie hope, but it also helped her realize exactly how desperate the situation was.

It was time to act. Kylie was shooting off her arrows like crazy, trying to make sure a few of the more dangerous orcs didn't reach Boromir. Sometimes it worked; sometimes the arrow clinked harmlessly off of their armor. Soon she couldn't reach anymore and grabbed her dagger and finished a few orcs that were giving Boromir trouble.

Slash!

Slash!

Bang!

Something large and heavy collided with Kylie's face and sent her flying into Boromir, knocking him over and barely missing the large black arrow that thudded into the tree next to them.

Kylie was stunned… but she noticed the arrow. It was sort of impossible not to; she literally felt it rush right past her ribcage. Where did it come from? She had to get that orc!

Boromir rolled Kylie off and continued fighting as if nothing had happened. Kylie, meanwhile, rolled onto a few arrows (what were the odds?) that managed to find the hard parts of the orcs armor. She backed up to where the orcs ignored her and saw a very large orc with a big white hand on its face and a very large black bow. She took aim and fired. For good measure, she fired again. The arrow hit its face and Kylie turned around to find three orcs staring in her face.

One picked her up and she screamed at the top of her lungs, kicking, and finally reached her dagger and stabbed it in the back. The orc fell down almost on top of Kylie. But somebody rolled it off and helped her up quickly.

Boromir was bleeding and looked very tired but determined as he gave the horn a few more blows. Kylie pulled her dagger out of the orc's back and turned around. There was more screaming. She could see two other orcs running away with Merry and Pippin. No!

"Boromir! Left!" she called and started running after them. But a very large orc stood in her way. Very large, with a white hand on top of its wet black face, and a small arrow sticking out of its eye socket.

"You're no Halfling!" it screamed with its harsh voice. Kylie doubled back as the thing drew a very large sword.

Once again, Boromir pushed her out of the way. "For Gondor!" He screamed as he charged the thing.

It raised its sword, and Boromir brought up his shield just in time. All the other -orcs were gone… it was just Kylie, Boromir, and the vicious one-eyed orc. Kylie had to help… but she couldn't shoot! What if she hit Boromir?

She looked down at her hand. The dagger was still there. She sprinted around the orc, jumped up, and stabbed its neck.

That should have killed it. It really should have. But the thing only seemed to register that something attacked it and it turned around and smashed Kylie to the ground.

Kylie would have died there. She should have. But suddenly the orc's head fell on top of her and Boromir pushed the body aside.

"Kylie? Do you hear me?"

She nodded. "Thanks…." Her vision went black.

TBC

A/N: I know… I'm mean ending right here. But thank you so much to all of those who read and reviewed and added my story to your favorite/alert system! That has kept me motivated to finish up to this first section! And in case anybody was wondering… no. I do not own Reese's. But I'm allergic to peanut butter, so I guess it's all good

A(nother)/N: I'm following the movie timeline (for the most part) with my stories. Just so you guys know. I'm trying to mesh the movie details with the book details, so I'm going to have to read a few chapters in TT to see how I want things to go, but I'll try to publish the first chapter before I go back to school!