The Two Worlds

††Chapter Six††

Chapter Six

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Cody cradled Frodo in her arms and let her tears fall on his frozen face. She couldn't believe that he was actually dead. No, she wouldn't believe it, she couldn't! Yet there he was, a still child in her arms. She rocked him back and forth like a mother rocks her sleeping baby.

'Now is your chance!' a voice hissed in her head, 'Grab it now!' the voice left her head but she knew that it wasn't gone. Gently, she laid Frodo on the cave floor and clawed her way up to the mouth of the cave. She felt Sam's questioning stare at her back but she did not turn around.

When she had made it to the top her heart almost stopped beating. A lone figure stood several meters away and had a wicked sword drawn at its side. Its black cloak billowed around from a small breeze that did not exist. The white light of the moon reflected off of the black blade and turned it silver.

"Why did you not take the Ring when you had the chance?" it demanded.

"Why not wait and take it when the Ring is at its most powerful and the hobbit is weak?" the Darkness asked. The dark lord considered this for several moments before finally saying, "Very well."

"

When he had said those two simple words she heard an agonizing scream from deep in the cave.

"What have you done to him?!" she screamed at the lord. He did not respond to her question and simply walked off. She yelled her best battle scream and charged at the lord with her sword raised high. When she was only a mere foot from him she lunged her sword forward into his back. The sword was deflected by an unseen force and searing pain, like she had never felt before, raced up her arm.

She screamed in pain and clutched her arm as she fell to her knees. Her sword laid at her side, unscathed, and gleamed in the moonlight.

"Foolishness! Did you actually think you could defeat me?" he asked. He turned back around and disappeared into a thick fog that had formed around the marshes. In the midst of it she could hear the beating of wings and the horrible shriek once again but she never saw the steed itself.

Slowly, she got up, grabbed her sword and screamed out again as inconceivable pain shot up through her arm and jarred her shoulder. She stumbled back to the cave and slid down the entrance as if it were a slide. The screaming had stopped but had picked up again when she entered the room.

She looked over at Frodo and almost became sick from what she saw. His eyes were wide open but they were no longer the crystal clear blue that they were. Instead, they were a pale color, almost white and threatened to roll back in his head. His breathing was jagged between screams of pain. He clawed at his chest like he had a horrible itch there.

"What's happening to him?" Sam demanded.

Cautiously, she approached him and drew away his filthy shirt to reveal the wound that had been inflicted upon him. He clawed more desperately at the exposed wound and she had to cover it up once again.

She placed her hand over his chest and uttered a spell in a language that had not been spoken in many years.

"Waíse hail!" she murmured this over and over until he stopped his clawing, his eyes turned bright and he fell back asleep.

"What happened to him?" Sam asked, more forcefully this time.

"I am not entirely sure myself," she confessed. "I am sure that the Dark Lord did this to him; made him stop breathing, brought him back to life and placed the horrible pain on him."

The two sat in silence and watched Frodo as to make sure he did not have another attack. After what seemed like years, the two hobbits retired to their own make shift beds and fell into an uneasy sleep.