The sound of drums jerked him awake once more to find himself alone, rolled in a heap in the corner where they must have dropped him. The walls of the tiny cave ran with moisture, the stink of it filling his nose. Where had they gone, the creatures with their bloody knives and pikes? Frodo swallowed a sob deep in his throat. He knew they hated him. He could see it in their eyes, hear it in their harsh, gutteral shouts. Hated the cries he made, the tears flowing down his cheeks like dirty rain. With his eyes closed, he could still see their faces, grim and terrible in the flickering torch light, laughing... Long black and yellow teeth covered in blood. Frodo shook in the chill of the ancient rock. Who's was it, that blood? Their mouths dripped with it and he hated to think from where it had come. If only they wouldn't stare and shout at him, their voices like rocks breaking in a winter storm. Frodo clenched his teeth, shivering in the tatters of his wet clothing. And remembered the blood. Dried under their claws, sticky on their fingers, dripping in shiny rivulets from their faces. Much of it was his own, from the cuts and rips in his skin, from the knives, claws, teeth, anything they could use to carelessly part his flesh, to set the blood free. Trickling, flowing, streaming...
Too much blood...
Frodo huddled as tightly into himself as he could. He'd given up wondering where the rest of his friends were. Or what they were doing. Surely Strider had not been killed. Surely he was following, planning some careful raid, but only when the time was right. He was too strong, too clever to die...
Merry and Pippin would surely have gotten away. They were quick and light on their feet. They could easily have run, escaped his own fate, gone to get help...
Squeezing back the tears beneath his eyelids, Frodo tried to see something besides ripped flesh and broken bones.
And Sam. Sam was clever, too. He would know to hide, to not come after him, to save his own neck until others could come. To help him... To rescue...
Frodo moaned into cold, clenched fists. No. Sam would never run. He would follow this ragged band of beasts until he could fall upon them with his little sword and his sturdy heart.
And he would die...
Frodo felt a sharp pain blossom in his head and, as sudden as the shot from a drawn bow, the creatures were back, screaming at him, hauling him upright with clawed fingers that pierced his skin, cuffing him forward to catch himself hard against the walls of the cave. Through bleary eyes, he glimpsed his own hands in the torchlight. They were streaked with black and red and Frodo bit back a cry of anguish. Where did it all come from? Shoved hard from behind, he stumbled forward, jaws clenched against the scream waiting to suck his breath away.
Oh, Sam. My dear, loyal Sam...
In the cold, wet light of the cave walls, Frodo could still see his hands.
Too much blood.
Body numb, Frodo marched to the pace of the drums until he felt he had been doing nothing else his entire life. He had no idea how much time was passing. He seemed to always have been there, surrounded by these horrific beasts, trodding corridor after long, dark corridor. And always the drums, pounding until they filled his body with agony.
He lowered his head and trudged through the cold and the dark, until nothing remained in his mind but hopeless horror and the wish for an end.
And then, after one bout of blessed darkness, he woke to a body on fire from within. Forcing his rigid jaw open, he tried to breathe. And the drums filled his head, pounding until he thought it would burst. Voices babbled in strange tongues and all he wanted to do was claw a hole into the stone and hide while he screamed himself free of the pain.
Oh, where were they all, his own dear friends? In the red haze of Frodo's mind rose Sam's face, homely, sweet, beautiful in the light of loyalty and determination. But only for a moment, for the ugly faces and twisted bodies of the beasts came to hover closely all around him. Why did they stand there staring, leering at him through streaming rivers of red?
Frodo tried to close his eyes, turn his head away. But it was too much.
Too much blood...
He thought he might have shouted that, but he couldn't hear his own voice and the beasts only laughed and held out things for him to see, things that looked as if they might once have been arms and legs, still covered in shredded clothing.
"Frodo... Frodo!"
With a shrill cry, he tried to dash through the ring of mishapen bodies, but they caught him amidst howls and moans, passing him from hand to hand before casting him onto the middle of the floor. Gasping for air, Frodo watched in horror as, one by one, each creature stepped forward to toss a raw, bleeding offering onto his body. The horrible pile of flesh grew so fast that he was covered before he had time to think of rolling free. And from the rock upon which he lay, underneath his burden of hacked and beaten bodies, a great pool began to spread, cold and hideous as it rose around him, gushing from the mangled mass now towering almost to the ceiling. And Frodo knew he would die. And no one would hear him, no one would save him from the horror threatening to engulf him in a thick, red tide. He opened his mouth to beg, to plead, to cry out in his fear and his horror, but the blood had grown too deep and it spilled into his mouth and throat. Shaking his head, he gagged.
Too much blood...
"Frodo! Frodo!"
He shook from the effort not to choke. How had the beasts learned his name, for though it seemed the pain would crack his head in two, he could hear them.
Underneath the suffocating pile of meat and offal, he could hear them.
Drowning in the rising sea of blood, he could hear them.
And it was too much.
Too much blood...
This time he heard his own scream, throat growing raw in the effort, arms and hands wildly grasping for purchase through the horrible weight above him. He screamed until he gagged, screamed until he couldn't breathe. Until he begged for death to come and free him from the horror of the mangled bodies pressing him into the center of the earth...
"Frodo! Frodo, please! Frodo!..."
The voices deafened him, shouting words he couldn't understand. And something had hold of his feet and his legs. And something wrapped itself tightly around his chest. He thought he would die from the terror. Sobbing for air, he fought to breathe, to beg, to shriek for death through the groans and cries and the crack of bones around him...
Then a great bolt of lightning, sharp and cruel, stuttered against his eyes and in his shock, he felt arms encircling his neck and a wet face pressing against his own, crying words into his ear. For the space of one deeply drawn breath, he listened to that voice, listened and cried out once more as sobs wracked his body, "Sam, Sam, Sam... Help me..." For there was not rock beneath him, but a bed. And strong hands gently lifted his head and shoulders and set him, shaking as if he would never stop, back down into Sam's arms.
The babble of voices slowly began to resolve itself into ones he knew. There was Merry, muttering harsh words under his breath, with Pippin sobbing in ragged agreement. Somewhere nearby he could hear Gandalf quiet voice speaking of water and herbs and things with strange sounding names. Still gasping, he let his own tears flow unchecked as fading thoughts of strange beasts with cruel knives lost their fight to remain real. Little by little, his body relaxed, quilted now beneath the warmth and familiar scent of his own beloved friends and he drew strength from their nearness, their soft words, the soothing hand laid on his brow by an old wizard he'd thought never to see again.
In the soft flicker of candlelight, what was real and what was not began to come clear.
"Sam..." The pain of his throat made him shudder. "Where...?"
"No. No, my dear. Don't talk, not yet. You're safe. You hear me? Safe! And you're going to get well and be just as fine as you was before. Don't you ever doubt my words. And don't you ever, ever, ever..."
Sam's forehead touched his own and Frodo felt a rush of hot tears stream down his face. He welcomed those tears. They were salty and real and they would stop given time. And he hoped with all of his heart that there would be no need to cry any more. And that the beasts were gone for good.
And there would be no more claws or knives or rending teeth.
There would be no more pain.
No more blood...
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Tales From Middle Earth 8. Too Much Blood by MJ
Story notes: This takes place in the same AU as the rest of my F/S stories, during the time of FOTR. If you're squeamish about violence, blood and gore, even the tiniest bit, don't read on.
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The Tales of Middle-earth series.
