Lighting Up These Dark Days
by Slaying the Dreamer
Battle of the Hornbug
Helm's Depp
3-4 March
TA 3019
Lighting Up These Dark Days
Helm's Deep, The Battle, Part I
i.
"Legolas!" Gimli bellowed above the chorus of Uruk-hai and their guttural cries of defeat, the axe-bearer's gruff voice hoarse from both his dwarvish genes and from the gruelling duty of Orc-slaying, "that's two already!"
"I'm on seventeen!" Legolas countered over the throaty hollers of a fallen Orc nearby. The elf conjured a mental target atop the leathery skin of the enemy before launching yet another feathered arrow at the Uruk-hai warrior. The arrow plunged into the victim's heart, quivering from its fire just as Gimli did from rage, as he watched the Orc's head loll to the side. The bowman tilted his head to the side unassumingly, being careful to show no signs of conceit, but Gimli sensed his friend's silent haughtiness. It was something about Legolas' false meekness that irked the dwarf as he gritted his arylide-tinged teeth and held back a string of unpleasant profanities directed towards his friend.
"Eighteen, now." Clearly, the retiring bowman wasn't finished with gloating.
"It was already dead."
Two could play at this game, Gimli decided.
"Nay, it wasn't."
"T'was."
"Nay, it was as alive as ever, my dwarvish friend. T'was writhing amidst the dead. You just missed it."
"Aye, was so," Gimli repeated. "Never considered you a liar, elf, but I'm 'aving second-thoughts."
Legolas scowled, his pastel face contorting to an expression exceedingly out of character for the fair and flaxen elf. Gimli may not behold the same skill and grace with the bow that Legolas did, but he was one of very few that could succeed in riling the typically tranquil elf to the point that it showed.
"So be it. I still have well over a dozen to your two."
The way he sneered the 'two' made Gimli all but growl. The dwarf's revelling was cut short as well, and his stout features flushed sanguine as blood rushed to his face, out of spite and rage. The dwarf saw red.
"Huh? I'll 'ave no pointy-ear outscoring me!"
In his fury, he pivoted gracelessly and violently swung his axe, knocking down both enemy and friend, yet failing to slay neither Orc nor Man. Legolas' suspicions were confirmed long ago but this was yet another sign that Gimli, Son of Glóin, was indeed born with the stomach of a victor. Nay, the dwarf was stubborn, determined and thirsted for the win. It was such a pity that his lack of versatility took toll – otherwise, Legolas would fear the competitor much more than he did, and his unmistakable confidence would be nonexistent. Yet both were there, and as evident as can be. That said, Gimli's mind power alone was quite alarming: armed with his dwarvish blades and his brutish temper, Gimli had the intentions of condemning any enemy to Hell (though, in his rage, neither enemy blood nor allies would be spared from Gimli and his wrath's ugly head.)
One ill-fated Orc who had been scaling the face of the Hornbug fortress walls was fated as the axe blade's next victim; its grimy fingers lodged and extricated betwixt putrefying stone as it clambered up the Orc-folks' ladder could only help it so far, but certainly had no protection against the wrath of Gimli's boorish swings. Gimli, though not intending to slay that Uruk-hai warrior per se, watched in glee as the Orc's weight concluded in its loss of balance. The dwarf's prey was knocked to the ground below, the fall subsequently luring the life away from the fallen enemy, leaving an unsightly carcass in its aftermath, soon lost in the haze of battle as good fought against evil.
Gimli guffawed unattractively: it was now his turn to gloat. Yet Legolas, whom had witnessed the slaying of the Orc, didn't appear to be daunted nor deterred. Gimli's three was still lost in the maze of Legolas' eighteen.
On the contraire, Gimli seem to momentarily forget about the lack of Orcs he had slain when put against Legolas' total. He continued to dance to the song of victory, cackling with delight. Legolas had seen every moment, too! And it wasn't just any Orc death, either: it was such a swift slaying that Gimli was sure it would make even Strider proud. Alas, the blonde bowman neither complemented nor criticized Gimi's kill: he simply nodded as though he had taken it briefly in account with little consideration, before drawing back the bowstring of his weapon and firing an arrow. The shot swerved and danced to the Hunter's music, curving elegantly before flawlessly impaling two unfortunate Orcs that had been following Gimli's Orc up the castle walls.
The dwarf's ego deflated as his jaw tilted open slightly. Twice…as…many! Gimli's face fell in what could have been disappointment (a rare sight for one as bold as the Son of Glóin). Yet the dwarf's melancholy fled before Legolas could sanction what he suspected (despair, in the eyes of a dwarf, was one's fall) and the elf watched as Gimli's brows furrowed, forming a slanted line of vehemence. Milking it for all that it was worth, Legolas called:
"Nineteen!"
Gritting his teeth, he cursed vociferously and lashed out with his sanguine soaked axe, yet again.
It was going to be a long night.
Battle of the Hornbug
Helm's Depp
3-4 March
TA 3019
Lighting Up These Dark Days
Helm's Deep, The Aftermath, Part II
ii.
Slate grey was the sky; bare of life as was much of the battlefield and its bleak ashen environs. Save the occasional soul and his associates nearby (most of whom he had come to know through the blasted One Ring affair), Gimli sat atop an obnoxious, putrid corpse – most likely that of an Uruk-hai warrior - wallowing in the solitude of the Hornbug aftermath, the emptiness of Helm's Deep and caring very little for the smell of rotting flesh that emitted from nearby as the Uruk-hai corpses were burnt. Many had vanished overnight, most likely taken from the frontline, deep into the heart of the surrounding forests and feasted upon by many a hunting animal. Many more were currently being sifted through by the survivors of Rohirrim.
"Blasted corpses," Gimli muttered under his breath as he rearranged his seating position o'er the fallen Orc, "making such a gar of a mess with their ugly carcasses an' smell an' all that."
Regardless though, they made better seats that the cold, hard battlefield did, even if Gimli's legs didn't quite reach the ground when perched atop of one. As he smoked his pipe and admired the clouds it created when he exhaled, the dwarf soon became aware of Legolas nearing where he sat, playing with the tip of his bow with a slender finger.
"Final count. Forty two."
This time, the elf couldn't even begin to deny the self-sufficiency within his words. Gimli held back a snort and let Legolas enjoy the moment before he found out the true 'final count'.
"Forty two? That's not bad for a pointy-eared elvish prince like yourself."
He watched Legolas raise his head, listening intently, fingers still resting on the curve of his lady's neck, his treasured bow.
The dwarf continued, removing his pipe from betwixt his lips, "I myself am sitting pretty on forty three."
He brought the pipe back to his mouth and inhaled the smoke as he watched the enraged elf comprehend the truth. Oh, to read the pointy-eared elvish prince like Legolas had never been more of a joy.
'Nay, that couldn't be right,' Legolas thought amidst the haste of emotion and thrush of rage and humiliation at being beaten by a maladroit and graceless dwarf, 'mere hours ago, it was eighteen to three!'
Legolas couldn't lose – it was a ludicrous thought, an image not worth conjuring up. He should order a recount! Gimli must have lied, or cheated. Or, perhaps, Legolas miscounted, somewhere. Perhaps the citizens of Rohirrim had taken Legolas' Uruk-hai before they had all been counted. This was barefaced stupidity!
But his raw confusion and misperception of thoughts was soon put to rest as the miasma of anger returned once again. Seeing the blasted dwarf, 'sitting pretty' upon his forty third victim…it was madness. Utter madness at its most insolent, preposterous, nonsensical, ridicu-
In seconds, the Sindarin bowman had withdrawn a remaining arrow from his quiver and fired it, with more speed than he had done at battle with Sauron's army, less than a few hours ago. Both he and the dwarf – the latter taken aback by the sudden attack - watched it plunge into the foul cadaver of the Orc that was now Gimli's 'seat'. Gimli's smugness had vanished just as Legolas' rage had diminished.
"Forty three."
The elf all but leered as his grace, his bow and arrow expertise and his coherent thoughts returned. Despite his somewhat smirk, Legolas made no witticism on the draw though. While an impasse of the such would be much less mortifying than losing to a irascible, ungainly dwarf, the elf's mood had not improved to the point that bowing out with a gibe was needed.
Gimli, however, was the least bit awe-struck with the bowman's firing. Pipe forgotten, tone pressing and impatient (and what, if Legolas wasn't mistaken, could also be classed as urgent), it dawned on Gimli that he couldn't lose now. Not after the battle atop of the Hornbug fortress, where he had so tremendously displayed a spectacle of wits and courage and skill with his axe (he could at least pretend with the former).
"He was already dead." Gimli growled.
"He was twitching!" Legolas insisted, nodding his mane of long, silvery blonde hair towards where the Orc lay, an arrow protruding from its side and Gimli's axe projected from its head, where the Uruk-hai helmet had once been borne. The arrow had barely ceased quivering by this time.
That was the last straw for the vexed dwarf, who was having trouble keeping hold of his pipe as he shook from rage. He would not lose this to a lying, cheating, thieving, pointy-eared elf! His natural instinct to despise the elves was returning – what had gone through his mind when he had agreed to this absurd competition in the first place? To do his own battle with an elf?
Because we can all agree on one thing, an aggravating voice at the back of his mind vocalized, interrupting his string of exasperated thoughts, we all hate those blasted Orcs and that flaming One Ring!
"He was twitching? Because he has his axe embedded in his nervous system!"
Legolas glowered. How did a dwarf know about all that homoeopathic jargon? Back on track, the two friends glared at one another, at battle for the third time with just the language of silence. Yet their eyes were the axes and bows and arrows, this time.
Legolas sighed inwardly. It dawned on him that the dwarf was not just a sore loser but was also persistently stubborn and, to be frank, the elf could be putting his bow and quiver of arrows to much better use, by slaying all the remaining Orcs out there and helping Gandalf and Frodo to destroy the One Ring. It was his destiny, of course. The fellowship's destiny and arguing with a dwarf over numbers was far from heroic. Aragorn would be furious, Gandalf would be disappointed in him, and he whole of Middle-earth could-
Nay, that was unlikely, but when he did put it that way, he realized that he was being the hero, here. As much as it pained both the elf, his dignity and wounded his warrior reputation to give in to the dwarf and let down his fellow elves, to be the loser, as shameful as it was, he could just let the dwarf win. Just this time.
Legolas sighed, glaring at Gimli for the final time. So be it. But the wretched dwarf would have to watch his back.
The games were only beginning.
A/N: I took the final scene from the extended edition of the Two Towers. Such a brilliant scene, but I can see why they deleted it from the film. Gimli and his knowledge of the central nervous system in such archaic times isn't very convincing. Still a great scene though, and I'd advise anyone who enjoyed Legolas and Gimli's Orc-slaying contest at Helm's Deep to watch it. Regardless of nervous systems and all that jazz, it's a great way to end such an excellent addition to the movies. Also, might I add, I really do love Legolas and Gimli's friendship. Henceforth, this has been my favourite Lord of the Rings fanfiction to write so far. Enjoy!