Transformation by chrissystriped

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Chapter One

additional warning: eye gouging

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“I think we should stay.” Faranwe looked at each of the elves of his clan sitting around the fire. “We have a good life here. Why should we give that up for a long journey and an uncertain future?”

“But Aldaron  promises safety”, Arasiel answered. Faranwe looked at her gently, she had given birth to their second child, a boy, only two weeks ago and was now very anxious for safety. “And the elves, who travelled to Aman, say it is beautiful and peaceful and full of light. There’s enough to eat for everyone.”

“Do we need another light than the stars?”, Halatir, his brother-in-law, said. “The woods are full of game and there are fish in the lake. I’m with Faranwe, we should stay.”

The discussion went on for a while longer but they didn’t come to a decision. Finally they parted, the decision postponed to another day. Arasiel sat down on their bed and gave their boy the breast. He didn’t have a name yet, it was too early.

“Are you mad at me?”, Faranwe asked.

“Because you have another opinion than me?” Arasiel shook her head. “It’s just... You know it isn’t as safe here as you pretend. Every time you go hunting, I’m afraid that you won’t come back. The Black Hunter is still out there. And think about the winter before last, when there was so much snow that you didn’t find game. What if that happens again? Our children need to eat.”

Faranwe put his arm around her and caressed his son’s head. Their daughter Aiwiel already slept on her bed of leaves and moss. Faranwe looked at her dark hair, the only thing sticking out from under the fur blanket. He sighed. “If you really want to go, Arasiel, I’ll go with you – to the end of the world if I have to. But consider that it is a long journey, there’ll be a lot of dangers on the road.”

Arasiel kissed his cheek. “I don’t want to spend our last evening together with bickering about it. Go hunting tomorrow and when you come back, we’ll decide what to do – together.”

Faranwe nodded his approval.

 

Faranwe ran as fast as his legs could carry him, hoping to lose the one who hunted him in the thick undergrowth. His arms were scratched from worming his way through the brambles. Faranwe was as afraid as never before in his life. Of course he knew the stories about the Black Hunter. Stories to keep children from wandering too far away from the fire, he had thought. He knew no one who had seen the Hunter himself.

There were enough likelier reasons, if one of them didn’t come back. Bears, wolves, even elk could be dangerous for an elf, if you got too close to a female with a young. The Hunter didn’t even try to be quiet, he broke through the bushes, heedless of the noise he was making and gained on him more and more. Faranwe realised that he couldn’t run away from him and his instinct told him that it wouldn’t be of any use to try to hide, the only thing that remained was fighting.

He pulled out an arrow, whirled around and shot at the Hunter. The arrow was brushed aside as if it were a midge.

‘You dare to shoot at me?’, the Hunter’s voice boomed inside his head.

He was only a shadow on a huge black horse, when he dismounted he was still so tall that Faranwe had to tilt his head back to look at him. He fell whimpering to his knees when their eyes met and pain exploded inside his head.

No, he mustn’t give up. If he let himself get caught, he would never see his family again. He mustn’t fail them. Arasiel, Aiwiel, the boy who didn’t have a name yet! Faranwe reached for the dagger on his belt. It was a pathetic weapon against such an enemy. The Hunter only laughed, caught his wrist and turned his arm until Faranwe let go of the dagger.

He screamed when the Hunter dislocated his shoulder with a jerk, white agony exploded behind his eyes.

“Let this be a lesson to you. You’ll soon call me Master.”

“Never”, Faranwe gritted out between clenched teeth.

The Hunter’s smile was unsettling. “We’ll see.”

A blow to his head made Faranwe collapse.

 

Faranwe woke from his blackout when he was dumped on the floor. He tried to stand up and whimpered when he tried to move his hurt shoulder.

“I have a new plaything for you, Artano”, the Hunter said.

Faranwe could see him better now, the room was lighted by torches. He wore black armour made from metal, his long hair lay on his shoulders like a black cloak. His eyes... Faranwe trembled, he couldn’t say what colour they had, every look was pure pain. The one the Hunter had spoke to, turned away from his occupation.

“Unharmed?”, he asked and gave him an appraising look.

“Almost.”

Faranwe bit back a scream when the stranger gripped his arm. There was a popping sound when the joint slipped back into place.

“I like to have them in one piece when I start”, he told the Hunter. Faranwe saw into hard, golden eyes when the foreigner gripped his chin and turned his head. “He’s a promising specimen. I’ll start immediately, aranya.”

“Do as you wish, Artano.”

“Remove the body”, Artano ordered and from the shadow between the torched stepped two... beings.

Faranwe shrank back. They had the bodies of elves, but their eyes were yellow as those of wolves and their skin was a mottled black-green, like the stone around them. Artano gripped his neck.

“Do you think yourself strong, elf?”, he asked with a cruel smile. Faranwe growled at him. “We’ll see how strong you really are.”

Artano pushed him to the table where the not-elves were untying a corpse. Faranwe retched and turned his eyes away, the body was barely recognisable as such.

“Look closely, elf.” Artano forced his head around. “He thought himself strong, too, but he wasn’t. He couldn’t take what is necessary to turn you into adequate servants for my King Melkor.”

Faranwe whirled around and tried to stab the stranger’s eyes with his fingers. He was desperate, he had no weapons, but he couldn’t let them do this to him! Artano laughed and caught his arms. He was so much stronger than Faranwe, he wasn’t an elf although he looked like one. Faranwe strained against the grip when he was thrown on the table, the blood of the dead elf seeped through his clothes.

Artano smiled when he closed the shackles around his wrists.

“You are a fighter, that’s good. Well, were to start...”

Faranwe was sick with fear, he saw that the Maia took pleasure from what he was doing to him.

“Ah, I know.”

The Maia vanished from his line of sight, Faranwe heard him move behind him. He jerked when Artano’s finger pressed against his eye.

“Don’t move”, the Maia hissed and put his free hand on his forehead to stop Faranwe from turning his head.

Faranwe screamed when the pressure increased and his eye popped from its socket. “No, please!”, he begged. What use would he be if he was blind?

“Don’t worry. You’ll get a new, a better eye.”

Artano held an eyeball in front of his uninjured eye. The iris was yellowish green and Faranwe realised that he would soon look like the not-elves he had seen earlier – if he survived this torture. He screamed.