A new first-person POV for the amazing website Living Like Heroes. It was written in response to a poll done as to which POV I should write next. This was the winner.
"I Fall to Defend"
I am pressed forward in a crush of tired, sweaty bodies, one of a hundred men who fill face their end tonight. I try not to fear and I find success, at least in myself. But no matter how I attempt to empty my mind, there is still fear in it for the boy, who is little more than a child, who stands at my right and for the man at my left who has seen too many battle but must now fight this last one. We three will die tonight and victory will elude those who live long enough to see the battle's end. Strangely enough, I am without sorrow at the prospect of loss.
A notched and rusty sword is pressed into my right hand, a coat of mail and a worn helmet into the other. I take them without complaint, moving away from the press of flesh, outside, to don them. The sword is pitifully light in my hand but I test its song anyway, swinging it in mighty strokes in the damp night air. It slices the air with its metal voice and I exult in it, but the angry melody of blood will soon make slick its edge. I have known this music before, though, and face it with a steady hand and hard countenance.
The prospect of assistance, though, is still encouraging. So, when a procession that is beauty and grace embodied, enters the gates, my heart leaps with joy. Heralded by the full-throated cry of an Elven horn, they march into our ranks with confidence and poise. I envy them that. They are perfection and I am merely another nameless face. Still, I feel privileged to be able to die beside them.
I line up against the Deeping wall alongside my Rohirric brethren as well as my newfound Elven companions. A bow and a single arrow is pressed into my hands with only the words "Make your shot count" as advice. But, as I peer into the darkness at ten thousand enemies I know that finding a target will be an easy business.
The air is thick with the promise of rain, and soon thick drops begin to fall. The sound of water hitting armor becomes a bell-like music that would make me laugh if the situation at hand were not so grave. As if this din were not enough to torment my ears, the roaring of our enemies adds itself until the rain is drowned out in their cries. And when they begin to pound their spears into the mud at their feet I am tempted to cover my ears. Instead, I grimace and notch the arrow to the bow before stretching it taut.
I hear a cry of "Tangado chadad" and then the sharp whistle of arrows splitting the air. Soon, there is an answering cry of a hundred Uruk-Hai falling with arrows embedded in their flesh. Their comrades bellow with rage and are also silenced by a second volley of deadly missiles.
Thus far it is only the Elves who have bloodied their hands. Now, from above the gates, Gamling's voice flies to the ears of the archers. "Fire!" he shouts, and I am only too happy to let loose the arrow which I have been straining to hold. As soon as I have let fly this single arrow I throw my bow to the ground and draw my sword, just in time for a ladder to clamp into the wall directly in front of me. Almost immediately, a sea of Uruks flows over the wall, their ugly faces full of rage and the treachery that is inherent in their race. I hate them for the evil they embody and perpetrate.
I want the heat of their blood to run over my hands and run forward to meet them, my sword introducing me. Soon, I am surrounded by death howls and the sounds of flesh pierced with all manner of weapons. I think of nothing as I attack and defend without pause. A dozen Uruks fall under the worn blade of this sword who has seen too many battles but still my bloodlust is not sated.
At least not until I peer at the ground and into the pleading eyes of a child made into a man too quickly. Blood bubbles on his lips as he struggles to cry for help. The sword falls from my hand, forgotten, as I kneel at his side. I reach for his hand and place my other on the gaping wound in his abdomen. He will not live long.
He is crying, and the sight of those long wet tracks on his cheeks breaks my heart. I pity him, as a father would a son, and think of how I will never know this emotion again. My wife of ten days huddles in a cave far below us, hoping against hope that she will see her husband again. She longed for children, and I would have made her a mother, but not now. Now, she is already a widow, for my death is promised.
The boy's grip on my hand suddenly tightens, and I know the end has come. His eyes lock on someplace far away, a place I know I will see soon, and then he is gone.
I reach forward and close his eyes, muttering a prayer to usher him to the Halls of Mandos, before picking up my forgotten sword. Enemies sward around me, but for some unknown reason, I have gone unnoticed until now. I renew my fight, felling the ugly beasts with a vow, to avenge the boy, on my lips.
I am a frenzy of killing motion until a chance blow swipes my sword arm. It stings but is not serious, and I fight on. But with this arm weakened, my attacks are not as successful as they once were. An Uruk blade breaches my defenses and cuts into my chest. I stumble, my hand going to the wound and my sword falling from my grasp. My knees buckle and I fall to the ground, where I meet a blade again, this time, though, to my back.
The air around me swims with color and sound which slowly begins to fade, and I feel light and free. The throbbing pain of my wounds diminishes and there is only peace. I see the beautiful face of my wife, and leaving her is my only regret as my body fails.
Fifty Uruks met their end by my hand this night and I am proud in my hope that I have defended my wife and those who shield themselves beside her. But this pride disappears along with all other emotion as all fades to black