Another World

Chapter 34

The air constricting around him was almost suffocating, slowly squeezing the very air from his lungs. His body rebelled at the sensation, yet he was unable to break free from this invisible restraint.

He had to get back to Charlotte...

As suddenly as it had taken hold of him, the sensation vanished, along with the haunting silence that had enveloped him.

His senses came alive all at once, his hearing flooding with the sound of war that now raged around him. Cries of death, screams of pain, the clanging of metal on metal – it all pummeled him at once. Coupled with the metallic smell of blood, gore and death that permeated the air, there was no mistaking where he was.

He had been returned, back to the exact moment from whence he had been taken, no time having passed at all...

His heart gave a painful twist.

Charlotte...she was gone...

Thranduil closed his eyes in pain. It would be so easy to give in to his grief and let death claim him now...

The heavy treads of orcs surrounding him broke him from his inner turmoil. Thranduil slowly raised his head, his sight blurred by unshed tears.

At the sight of the foul creatures, something within him snapped, and what filled him now was blinding fury. It was an anger that stemmed from losing the woman who had claimed his heart and knowing there was nothing he could do. Not then, not now. There was no bringing her back from death.

His sights focused on the beasts surrounding him, snarling and snapping as they advanced.

He had found an outlet for his anger...

With swift and precise movements, Thranduil slashed out, his swords biting through foul orc flesh. He became lost in the flawless dance of death as he laid waste to the filth. No sooner had one dropped to the ground than his attention swiftly turned to the next, his movements now a blur of pent up fury that stemmed from his anguish.

Soon the bodies of the orcs littered the ground, and still it wasn't enough. He wanted to make them feel what he was experiencing right now: crippling agony that threatened to tear his very being to shreds.

He soon got his wish. The enemy started swarming the city of Dale with their infestation, and he narrowed his concentration on fighting orc after orc, the burn in his muscles a welcome distraction from what plagued his heart and mind.

The battle waged with ferocity, countless bodies of humans, elves and orcs blanketing the ground in tangled heaps, their blood seeping into the stones and turning grey to red. But he saw none of it. He was mindlessly bent on causing as much destruction to the plague that threatened to overrun them. He knew that if he stopped for but one moment, his grief would consume him. Unfortunately, he had forged an alliance with Bard, and he had no choice but to see this through to the bitter end.

When this was all over, though, he would seek out solitude to mourn Charlotte's death, and soon fade from his torment...

The passage of time had little to no bearing as he fought bitterly, but after the last orc surrounding him was slain, he became acutely aware that this section of the city had been cleared, and there was now a brief moment's reprieve.

Thranduil straightened and slowly surveyed his surroundings.

He needed to keep move, keep fighting...else his grief would consume him.

A bitter thought came to him, like a whisper on the night: maybe it had been a good thing that he had withheld from bonding with Charlotte. If what he was experiencing right now was any indication, then the loss of Charlotte - especially after forging a bond with her - would have reduced him to ashes in the wind.