Disclaimer: You recognize it, I don't own it.
A/N: Okay, I was dying to write this. It's past eleven now and I just finished, so some of this will not make sense, I don't think. Sorry, and I'll fix that if you point out which parts.
They were up in arms in under an hour. Between Aragorn and Arwen, they had managed to organize the entire army to be ready for a full scale attack and gotten everyone in safe confinements for the duration of the fight. Arwen now acted as warden to make sure no one went out to retrieve something they had forgotten or to try and help the soldiers prepare for the fight to come.
Ruth, Louise and Leigh pulled away from the group to talk quietly amongst themselves. They, too had been put underground for the fight. They had been talking long with the rings, or rather been listening to their rings talk to them, and now were conferencing over what they had heard while their rings held a whispered conversation heard only be themselves and their possessors.
"Vilya's going to at least not change me anymore," Ruth said thankfully, not bothering to mention the fact that it had only changed her into an elf once before. "Whatever your rings said to it, it's nicer now. But it wants to go out there."
"Same here," Louise said. "Narya said something about missing being in the action. I don't think I want to stick around and find out what it does when it's mad. I'm going out there."
"Nenya sounds like she's already planning how to get rid of me for chickening out on this," Leigh said, looking around for an escape already. She was definitely more afraid of Nenya's anger than of any fight that may be the initiation of a war. "Hey, over there," she suggested, pointing to a doorway half covered by a tapestry.
They filed out that door, going quietly and drawing no attention to themselves as they. Finding it unlocked and leading to a winding stair long overgrown with cobwebs and dust had collected long on the steps making them slippery, they began on their long trek up to the top of an ancient tower.
Liz had meandered off herself. She could not talk to her friends at the moment, though she dearly wanted to. She was anxious about the upcoming fight and did not wish to be trapped down here by any means. She was a literary wizard, surely she could contribute without getting involved in the actual fighting. If only she could find a way out.
She wandered away through doors that were not blocked off into room after room of people, some families huddled closely together, others filled with newly wed women who were now wondering if they would soon be widowed. She came to a door with no one behind it, but found something far more interesting there instead. She found, laid out on the table in the center, a number of wooden crates that were half packed.
Growing curious, she went through them, shifting the straw to the side while keeping it inside the crate and found the first had a few items of clothing, a pack and a bow and arrow. These are the things they took from Janet, she realized. She went through three more boxes; Nicole's, Ruth's and Leigh's, before she found her own. She drew out the shirt and pants, the comfortable boots and the sword, looking at them with a speechless smile.
Uncaring of whether or not she would be walked in on, she went to the corner of the room and changed into the clothes, now clean despite the occasional bit of straw. She strapped the sword to her side and threw the pack on her back, ridding herself of everything but food and clothing. She put the clothes she had been wearing back into the crate and covered it again in straw. She did the same with the rest of the crates until it looked as it did when she entered. She then proceeded more stealthily onto the next room.
It wasn't until a few halls and rooms later, long after she had become completely lost, when she found another room which seemed to serve as a chute to carry food or other necessary commodities to other levels. She found the box which would have held the items was lowered to this level and decided to see it rather as a very small manual elevator. She climbed in and began to pull herself up to another floor.
Nicole and Janet looked around to find that everyone had gone off and left them behind, though they did not know quite where they had slipped off to. They had been talking of old times, and what would be next in the series that Nicole was presently engrossed in at school. Janet had given up testing the limits to what she read at home was.
"Hey, so what's going to happen up there?" Janet asked suddenly.
"Hard to say," Nicole replied, numbers and factors going through her head at the question. She had been thinking of it for a while before she had been asked and she only put more effort into her calculations now as she tried to puzzle it out. "We are going to win, but there's going to be a lot of losses. The orcs are going to back off after the mist becomes too much to bear and the- What? This doesn't make any sense."
"What?" Janet asked, not seeing much of a problem. "The weather is going to go all weird and make them back off? That's great! Now, what happens to Legolas? Is he going to get hurt in all of this?"
"Grazed shoulder from an axe," she replied. She fiddled with the dress again, this being the first time in years that she had worn one and not liking having to endure it every day. She let out a frustrated noise. "I'm going to find pants, wanna come?"
"Yes, yes I do," Janet replied controlling her excitement for now. She followed Nicole on a wayward path to rooms with varying numbers of people, although that number seemed to lessen the farther they got. Finally, they found themselves in a room with a number of crates in the center of a large table.
"Yours is that one," Nicole said, pointing to the closest one. She went along until she found her own and pulled it off of the table. They both went through and cheered as they found things they thought forever lost within the straw. Janet immediately returned her bow and quiver to her back while Nicole struggled to find a place on the dress to strap the vial Galadriel had given her.
They took turns changing, setting up a curtain in the corner from the blankets in their own bags. They stood much more contently in their jeans and long sleeved shirts, cloak draped around them to keep them warm should things become cold or to hide in these halls if they needed to.
"Hey, Janet?" Nicole asked suddenly as she went through the contents of her bag. "What did you think of Radagast from the books?"
"He talked to animals," Janet replied, trying to think of a more decent answer. "He was never really mentioned. Just a bit about he found out information and he was kind of a loner, staying in the wild with the animals most of the time. Why?"
"We need to find Aragorn, or Arwen, or someone in charge of the armies," she said. "The attack is a decoy for something else, but I don't know what. Um, this way." She led them once more through the maze of rooms and hallways until they encountered Arwen in one of them.
"Why are you not in your dresses?" she asked curiously, she herself in riding clothes. "What has happened?"
"We have to get to Aragorn," Janet explained quickly. "The attack isn't what they are actually trying to do. Nicole's trying to figure out the real reason right now, but this fight's a decoy to keep our eyes off of whatever they are actually trying to do."
Arwen nodded, paying close attention and summing them up to see if they were telling the truth or not. "Come with me," she said curtly, leading the way up to where the army was gathering and getting ready to meet the enemy.
Liz reached the floor she wanted, recognizing one of the rooms at last. She stepped lightly out into the Queen's bedroom and made her way out the door. Making her way to her own room, she stopped first in the seamstress' work room and gathered as much strong string and leather as she could find.
In her own room she worked quickly, ignoring the first few pangs of rain on the window as she created more places to put her knives. Utilizing the power that Sandry had in Tamora Pierce's Circle of Magic series, she willed the string to sew itself together, then to attach the knife sheath to it. After she finished, she threw her cloak around her shoulders and threw the rest of the spare lembas into her pack before setting off for one of the towers. From there, she would work her magic on the battlefield.
Nicole and Janet had followed in Arwen's wake until they finally met Aragorn. Quickly, Nicole explained what the opposing side's plans were and that the weather would change from this subtle rain to something much more horrible, directed at the other side, and to watch for it.
"Be fortunate that you're predictions have yet to be wrong," he commented at the end of her warnings. "This seems like a work of the imagination that may never come to pass. Do you know yet who will be manipulating the forces of nature so?"
"That would be Leigh, Louise and Ruth," Janet said matter of factually. "Because they have the elven rings, right? Galadriel mentioned it."
The trio had made it up to the top of the tower to find themselves standing on a very high parapet with rain sprinkling down on them. The rings had been able to encourage them, their first time in ever doing so, to continue despite their trembling height and the falls that they suffered on the way up. The now looked out onto to horizon and saw the orc army approaching swiftly.
"I thought it would have been bigger," Louise commented while watching their approach. "So, what do we do now?"
"We control the weather," Ruth said. "I think." She began to concentrate and let the power of Vilya flow through her and as she did so, she felt the winds and gained control over them. Leigh followed, finding strength in the rain that was beginning to pour. Louise drew on the fires and torches that both armies held aloft, as well as the heat that seemed to be pouring from the earth itself.
They pushed back the rain and began their work to keep it falling only on the enemy. Louise was trying to summon enough heat to turn the rain to a mist, then to a fog so that the orcs would be blind to attacks hurled at them by archers.
Liz, try as she might, could not find her way through the castle, settling finally for a balcony which overlooked where they would be coming from. She looked out and down to see that the army was beginning their short trek out now to meet them, and that the rain seemed to be shifting to elsewhere. Perhaps someone else was playing with the weather. She would have to be careful in her choices for what she would do today.
Aragorn led the troops out, Janet at the head but far from Aragorn so he would not notice, along with the line of archers. Afterwards, she would fall back and stay with Nicole, who was now in the rear ranks with the lesser trained warriors that had come out. The orcs they met here were of a normal breed, not crossed like so many of the others that they had encountered along the way. Janet let off three shots before falling back and letting the professionals do the fighting.
It was fifteen minutes into the battle and Liz was growing impatient, waiting for something to do to come to her. The clouds were moving slowly to the orc's side, but not quickly enough for her. *Tris, from Circle of Magic,* she said, making sure whoever was granting her these powers knew where her source was. She began to help the force, who or whatever it was, push the rain back so that they could continue on with whatever plans they had.
Leigh and Ruth started with surprise. "Someone's helping us," Ruth said in confusion, but continued on her task. Louise was growing bored of her own job and began to set a few flames wild amongst the orcs, letting it catch on their clothing and passing it along to a few around them while she waited for the rain to be in place.
Once the rain was where it was supposed to be, Liz watched as the rain slowly began to turn to mist in amazement. She, herself, began to summon a little more power from within herself and sent a great bolt of lightning down to the farther reaches of the orc army.
Nicole and Janet marveled at the wonders that they had done with the weather and how well controlled it was. The mist, now becoming a fog, formed a wall right behind the first four lines of orc troops, leaving the rest blind to the arrow showers that were periodically sent their way. The crashes of lightning seemed to be strategically placed to wipe out larger clumps of troops that may cause problems later. Janet even moved up a little to help out the archers, though Nicole stayed where she was, trying still to figure out what it was they were truly after.
Ruth and Leigh were beginning to tire, becoming mentally and physically worn out from the chore. Louise kept going, not having done much until the rain was in place and not tired yet. They all wondered how much longer they would have to keep this up and who the person sending the lightning was.
Nicole looked back to see where everyone was on the castle and how they were keeping up, despite the fact that long distances meant that they were only specs. There were three on a parapet and another standing in a balcony a few floors below and far to their right. In the sky she saw a number of unusually large birds, eight of them, flying in a passive V shape. Orcs! Nicole realized. Those weird ones with the wings, but what… She looked at their path and saw their target. She knew now that there was no chance to rescue her before it was too late.
Liz could feel support for the rain and wind being pulled away and bore the extra weight with some difficulty. She was growing tired now herself, finding that lightning was most draining when you did not have a large amount of anger to back it up. Still, she managed it, and hoped that the other who had borne it before would quickly regain their strength.
She almost did not notice when the flying orcs attacked her. Her support to the wall she drew back as slowly as she could, flicking out her knives quickly and throwing them at the enemy she now faced. One she killed on the spot, the knife going straight through his throat. The others, she was not as lucky, only hitting them in the arm or leg, or even only getting the feathers in the wings.
She was nearly out of knives when they flew in, swarming her. She drew her sword to try and fend them off, but found it to be of no use when surrounded by so many. One of them slammed into her with a dagger, plunging it into her lower left abdomen. She doubled over in pain, dodging another dagger which now only grazed her head. The chain around her forehead that Galadriel had given her fell daintily to the ground. Liz, however, blanked before it hit the stones beneath her feet and knew nothing more of it.