Weaving a Song

Chapter 15

c. 2065 TA

Oiolairë's screams were all silent for some spell kept her from voicing any plea for help. She was being held in the air by the neck by a sinister thing of evil while her husband remained soundly asleep with nary a motion. Her mind still felt foggy, the only thing she was feeling was fear from the twisted fiend before her. He seemed to laugh at her pain, which she was not at all sure was real. The only thing she really knew was that visions that gave her the fear were dancing around her mind and penetrating her soul. Some poison of the Black Land for sure.

Suddenly she collapsed against the floor where she remained gasping for breath. Then a blade entered her line of sight and it rested its cold tip on her neck. She eyed the creature with fear. Then the Ringwraith laughed. "Do not worry, your husband will wake to see you die, and then Mirkwood will be without a King for I shall find and kill the rest of your bloodline as well." He moved toward the bed, still somehow managing to keep the sword on her neck, though if she had had any strength perhaps she could have moved it.

"Rise, my worthless King, and see your doom be decided." Thranduil shivered in his sleep and his body began to sweat. The Ringwraith turned back to the Queen and stepped in front of her. "Are you prepared to die?"

*

Almiel ran for her parents without waiting for Legolas. The pain she felt was too much and they needed her. She almost collapsed several times with new outbursts of pain every so often. She came sliding to a stop before the door and looking in she saw what she had felt so much fear and pain from and as it rushed over her in new waves, she screamed. Not to mention, she screamed out loud.

*

Legolas might not have felt whatever his sister had from his mother, but Legolas felt it when Almiel screamed. He tripped down the corridor he had been following and collapsed on the ground. However when he straightened all traces of the mysterious toxin, which had slowed him down and kept him asleep before, vanished. He doubled over again though when he finally felt his mother's pain. Mother! He cried and, now able to move freely, he sprinted toward the Queen as fast as his feet would carry him.

*

Thranduil, who the Ringwraith had been purposely waking up slowly and torturously before, woke with quite a start at his daughter's scream. The Ringwraith pierced the room with its shrieks of rage and rounded on whoever had dared to scream aloud in his presence. It came to a stop, however, when he saw nothing but a child standing in the doorway.

Meanwhile, the shrieks of the Witch King had paralyzed both Thranduil and Oiolairë. The King now fell out of bed reaching for his sword, which had been removed by the Witch King previously. The Queen, however, was still too paralyzed to move. "What's this?" The Witch King hissed. "A child? What child can resist my magic?" Almiel stared at him, no longer screaming, but not looking scared either. This fact particularly disconcerted the Ringwraith and made him wonder who she was. "Who are you child?" He hissed again.

Almiel stared at him intently but to him, it seemed more intently curious rather than scared. This too, alarmed him and set him on edge. "What is it you fear so much?" Almiel asked wonderingly, for his fear had another sudden spike in it.

The Witch King finally put two and two together and decided this must be the King's daughter for she matched him perfectly save her eyes which were her mother's. "Princess, eh? Perhaps I should kill you first. It might get your father to do things I only dream of." He said and he reached out quickly to grab the child.

"No!" He heard the King scream. Thranduil had by now moved and come behind the Witch King even though he had no weapon. The Nazgul laughed again and he wrapped his arm around the child putting his sword against her body.

"No?" he glanced at the child. "Perhaps instead I shall take her with me, and all of Minas Morgul will be let loose on her?" Surprisingly, the child was still calm, and that just made him angrier. Then he felt a great searing pain like he never had before and he gasped releasing the child. He did however have the sense to push her behind him where the Father could not get to her. Thranduil's eyes filled with the rage of the Eldar, but the Witch-King only laughed again. "You have no weapon, poor Elvenking." Thranduil's lips curled into a snarl.

"I do." He heard a voice behind him say. The Witch-King turned and saw the Prince holding his sister around the middle while in the other arm wielding a knife against the Ringwraith himself.

"I fear no knife." He hissed back. Legolas stood still holding his sister back.

"But you do fear this." Legolas replied and grabbed a torch from the wall. The Nazgul screeched, still partly at a loss as to how this Prince even awoke. Legolas shrank back slightly but he still held the fire in front of him.

The Nazgul turned back to Thranduil who would have been imposing before any mortal, sword or not. However the Nazgul simply put his sword to Thranduil's throat. The Elvenking stiffened but made no move to push it aside yet. "Give up your sister." The Nazgul said to the Prince, "or your father dies." Legolas hesitated but knew that the Nazgul would probably kill them all anyway. That, and Almiel was simply exuding confidence into him and it rather killed any fear the Nazgul was trying to give him.

So, instead, Legolas threw the torch at the Nazgul, who expected Legolas to hand his sister over and hence was completely taken off guard when the flames collided into his cloak. He screeched.

The Nazgul shot one last look at Thranduil before he flung a small dagger at the Queen who had just found the strength to sit up. Almiel let out one last shout before the Nazgul disappeared and returned from whence it came, except this time in flames.