Sorry it's been so long I've just been unbelievably busy this week and I still have stuff left to do! Anyway here's the next chapter and I hope you enjoy...

With a pounding heart, Legolas sprinted on. The stairs were smooth and slippery with orc blood. The black liquid stuck to the bottom of his boots and hindered his progress. When he eventually reached the top, for all his Elven agility, he was panting heavily, chest heaving unevenly.

Glancing around, Legolas saw five long dark corridors stretching away from where he stood. One behind him, two at a fork in front of him, the other two spread out halfway in between the other three. They were all identical, and all the exact same distance apart. Legolas had no way of knowing which way he was supposed to be walking. For all he knew, he could find himself back in the same damn corridor he had just escaped from. Whoever designed this place, He thought resignedly, had obviously never heard of originality, uniqueness, interest, ease of escape. Ok, maybe not that last one. But still... Legolas was fed up of seeing the same grey walls and floor pressing in on him like an overlarge coffin.

Shaking himself out of his reverie, the Prince thought for a while. If the stairs behind me went down, surely one of the two in front of me must lead up. I mean, there must be some way to remember your way around this place. Unless...

Quickly, he turned, facing back into the passage that led to the descending stairs. From here it looked identical to the other four. At least, at first glance it did...

Running his fingers quickly and efficiently over the smooth stone, Legolas began looking for any sign at all of direction. There! Right beneath the fingers of his left hand there was a dip in the wall, peering closer, his elvish eyes picked out something etched crudely into the wall. Feeling it with his hands, he suddenly realised what it was. It was an arrow. Pointing down towards the floor. And underneath that, there was writing. The letters were elvish, although the language was not.

Legolas shuddered as he spoke the language inside his mind, instantly regretting doing so. It was the black speech of Mordor. Any such dark tongue was forbidden in all Elven homes, so he had no way of reading it. He could, however, safely assume what it meant.

DUNGEONS.

Faster than ever now, his heart pounding loudly, Legolas made his way around the tunnels, feeling each one for an arrow. Each one had an arrow pointing a certain way, although none pointed upwards, as Legolas had hoped.

This all changed,  however, when he reached the third doorway. This arrow was even better hidden than any of the others. It was in a crevice in the wall, and it took Legolas several minutes of searching frustratedly to find it. This one pointed towards the ceiling. Towards the sky. And the word was not etched in black speech. It was in elvish. It read clearly:

PÂDE.

Way out.

Way out.

Way out.

This was it. Freedom was so close Legolas could nearly touch if, brush his fingers against it. He imagined the wind in his hair, the clear air on his face, the sounds of the forest echoing the song of his rejoicing heart. This was it. I'm coming. He thought again. I'm coming.

Without waiting any longer, Legolas grabbed the human, rather roughly, and ran on.

———

Just when he thought that his legs would collapse beneath him from his long sprint, Legolas turned a corner and saw it. For the first time, he saw it.

The entrance to this place was huge. The gaping blackness of it reminded Legolas of a giant mouth swallowing him and the man in his arms. It was as if gigantic teeth were about to come smashing down and crush them both to nothing. And even though he was unconsciousness and more than half dead, Legolas found the presence of the ranger strangely comforting. A sort of calm radiated from his feverish body. Legolas couldn't explain it.

He turned back to the entrance.

Steeling himself, he began to take step after tentative step towards the maw before him. The gaping mass, the sheer scale of it, terrified him. But on the other side, another world away, lay open air and freedom. Lay his father. He would not abandon his father.

He took another step.

And another.

He was almost beneath the archway now. He could feel the shadow pouring from it like a dark cloud surrounding his mind. For a second, his steps falters. And then he plunged on past and out into the open air beyond.

The feel of the wind caressing his face, rustling his hair and his clothes. The soft touch of the weak sunlight on his face. The song of the forest in his heart, his soul, his very being.

He was free.

It was as if a wave of despair hanging over him had finally broken and rolled away. The darkness was, even now, receding into memory. Over at last. Legolas glances down at the human in his arms, a smile tugging at his lips despite the man's critical state.

He was free.

———

It was dark and the night was cold. Three days since Angmar and Legolas knew they were being followed. Everywhere he looked, there was a shadow hovering at the corner of his vision, just out of view. But whenever he turned to look, it had vanished, only to return a few seconds later, right at the corner of his eye.

For the  five hundredth time that night, Legolas shook his head violently. It was infuriating. As if the terrible memories he still bore from Angmar weren't enough, there was this. The deeper shadows in the night. Slipping in and out of sight. Invisible one moment, infuriatingly impossible to make out the next.

A sudden gust of wind tore through the night. Trees creaked and groaned in the sudden onslaught. The fire flicked once. And went out. Darkness fell all around.

And just like that, the wind died and silence invaded once more. Legolas was sure now of his earlier suspicions. They were being followed. They were being watched. Panic threatened to rip all control away from him. Tensing, he listened in the pitch black for any sounds.

He nearly jumped up in shock as the man next to him let out a low groan. Calm down, Legolas. He thought. Stop being so jumpy. Taking deep breaths, he listened once more. It was no longer safe to build a fire, he decided. It was no longer safe to stay here. They needed to leave. And leave quickly.

But the Prince was exhausted. He's been carrying the human all day, and guarded all night, for too long. Although his eleven body could rest somewhat on the way, the constant shadow around him had kept him alert and prevented him from drifting out of consciousness. Despite this, he had kept going a remarkably long time, even for an elf. But now the endless escape was taking its toll and he was struggling to move. He felt his eye closing and was powerless to stop it as he drifted into an uneasy sleep.

———

You fool. You think you can get away from me that easily? Wrong. I will find you. I can see you now, with that pitiful excuse for a human you're so valiantly trying to save. He's going to die, Princeling. He's going to die and there's nothing you can do about it. Only I hold the cure for that poison. And you took him away.

So when he dies, you will know one thing. You killed him. It's your fault. Murderer.

So yeah, pretty rubbish chapter even for me, but please comment to let me know what you thought and VOTE if you enjoyed!

By the way the next chapters gonna be pretty exciting: this was meant to be a filler despite the fact it's one of the longer ones!

Thanks and until next time,

EstelElfstone