Author's Note: Hey all. This is the next chapter, first part of the battle, so hope you all like it :). My updates are probably going to be slower and I may not be able to update every week.. I'm sitting my Highers this year and they need a lot of my time :/. But, I'll try! Read & Review, please :).

Thanks to;

RoseKnott
aliben - I think you'll like this one ;).
Crystal-Wolf-Guardain-967
coolsweetness55
Thegoldenlock

I do not own Lord of the Rings.

Twenty: The Battle of the Deeping Wall

Rae watched as the army of Uruks advanced on them, her hands shaking where she held the arrow in place. The way every single drop of rain could be heard as it hit the armour of the surrounding soldiers was getting on her nerves and it was taking all she had not to scream. Perhaps it was just her nerves eating at her. She took a deep breath, watching intently as the Uruk who seemed to be leading the army climbed onto a rock, lifting his sword into the air.

The Uruk army stopped marching suddenly and Rae tried to focus on what Aragorn was saying as he strolled through the line of Elves, each prepared to release an arrow at a moments notice.

"A Eruchîn, ú-dano i faelas a hyn an uben tanatha le faelas!" He cried. He stopped behind Haldir and Rae, noticing the lone Elleth among the Elves. Rae heard him step towards her before she felt his hand on her shoulder. She looked over her shoulder at him, never loosening her hold on her arrow. He nodded simply before walking away.

Rae frowned as the army of Uruks began stamping their spears on the ground and beating their chests. Aragorn walked away back down the line of Elves and drew his sword, holding it out in front of him. The men of Rohan began loading their bows and Rae tightened her grip on her own. The Uruks weren't making a move to charge and Rae was growing restless.

"Why won't they attack?" She muttered to Haldir but he didn't answer.

Just when Rae was about to shoot an Uruk, another soldier beat her to it. An elderly Rohan man had accidentally let loose his arrow and, amazingly, it had hit an Uruk in the weakest area; the neck.

"Dartho!" Aragorn cried. The Uruk's had stopped beating their chests and stomping their spears on the ground. The Uruk that the arrow had pierced fell to the ground, dead. The others growled and Rae prepared herself. The battle was about to begin. The Captain Uruk lifted his sword into the air and the charge began.

Looking around her, Rae realised she was the only Elf to have already loaded her bow and she raised an eyebrow. Ignoring the impulse to let loose her arrow, she waited for Aragorn's order.

"Tangado a chadad!" Aragorn yelled. Rae aimed for an Uruk, her forehead furrowing in concentration. Aragorn shouted, "Leithio i philinn!"

Rae's arrow flew from her bow with deadly accuracy, hitting the Uruk she aimed at in the neck. She loaded another, waiting for Aragorn's order.

"Ribed bant!" He yelled at last and the next batch of arrows was let loose. Rae shot down another Uruk and another, her attempts getting more frantic as she noticed Uruks with crossbows. Her heart leapt into her throat when the Elf standing next to her fell, an arrow embedded in his chest.

"Pendraith!" Aragorn shouted and Rae glimpsed downwards, in time to see the black contraption being placed against the wall.

"Rae!" Haldir yelled, grabbing her arm and pulling her back from the wall, in time for an arrow to whiz past where she had been looking. Rae gasped.

"Thanks, Haldir," she sighed, shooting down another Uruk. Five. Rae mentally groaned. Legolas was probably on ten by now. Biting her lip, she didn't hesitate to shoot down more.

Aragorn's order for swords went ignored by Rae until it was too late. The ladder crashed right in front of her and she fell back, her bow slipping from her hands. An Uruk scrambled over the top and bore down on her. Taking a deep breath, Rae slipped Kalina out of it's sheath and slashed at the Uruk's neck, quickly moving on to the next.

When she could catch her breath, she spied her bow laying a few metres away. She made a mad grab for it, fighting off an Uruk that had paused to pick it up. After successfully retrieving her bow, she slid it back in the quiver, continuing the battle with her twin blades.

"Legolas!" Amelia heard Gimli roar. "Two already!" The Elf grinned back, pausing with an arrow in his hand.

"I'm on seventeen!" He yelled back. Amelia gaped at him. Seventeen? She'd only just taken down her fifth! Gimli grumbled something else that Amelia couldn't hear properly before she continued, stopping an Uruk before he could slaughter her from behind. She already knew that Legolas was looking out for her but Amelia was looking out for Rae. She hadn't seen her sister since the Elves arrived and it worried her not knowing where she was.

She swallowed, focussing on keeping herself alive when commotion began around them. The causeway was being swarmed by Uruk's, intent on storming the keep. Amelia's eyes fell on two Uruk's carrying a spiked ball. She raised her eyebrows, confused before they Uruk's dropped the ball under the wall, next to the gates.

"Aragorn!" She screamed. "Aragorn, the Uruk!" Aragorn looked at her and followed where she was pointing, to where an Uruk was sprinting to the spiked ball, a lit torch in his hand. The horrible realisation hit Amelia like a tonne of bricks.

It was a bomb.

Fighting off the Uruk's around her, she joined Aragorn as he yelled at Legolas, who was busy trying to stop the suicidal Uruk. Aragorn was desperately yelling at Legolas to kill him but his attempts were futile. The bomb went off and Amelia was thrown off her feet. The Deeping Wall had been breached. This was all Amelia could think before she knew no more.

Rae grabbed the side of the wall for support as the ground shook. She looked over, astonished, to see a gaping hole. She threw a hand to her mouth, stifling her sob, but could not pause for long. More Uruk's were charging at her. Gritting her teeth in determination, she began fighting her way to the gap in the wall. When she reached the edge, she spotted Gimli on the other side, unconscious, his axe lay forgotten in his hand.

"Gimli!" She cried but her voice was drowned out by the surrounding battle. She barely had enough time to block the Uruk sword behind her, before she threw her opponent over the edge.

The weight of the Uruk proved to be too much for her and she teetered on the edge, unable to balance herself. She barely had time to shriek before she fell off the wall and into the water below. She surfaced, just in time to defend herself from the oncoming Uruks. A nearby spear sliced her across the arm but the pain didn't slow her at all.

"Rae!"

Pausing to look back at the voice, if only for a moment, proved to be her downfall. She turned to face Aragorn, who was trying to rouse Amelia, who lay beside him with a very scary bruise on her head, and she didn't have time to defend against the sword behind her.

There was a shooting pain across her thigh and as she looked downwards, she was horrified to see her own blood dripping from a deep cut on her leg. Twirling Kalina and Mori dangerously in her hands, she spun, suddenly angry at herself for dropping her guard.

"Thirty," she muttered. Another Uruk fell. "Thirty-one." Another. "Thirty-two."

She continued like this for sometime before arrows began piercing her enemies around her and Gimli threw himself off the wall to help her. The Dwarf stood in a pool of water, his trusty axe in his right hand. Rae didn't comprehend what had happened until a moment later, when Gimli was nowhere in sight. She spotted his axe waving through the air and almost chuckled, realising he was trapped underwater.

Aragorn charged past her, his sword coming down on the first opponent he spotted. Rae spun to find Amelia, getting to her feet a little unsteadily, her sword in a loose grip in her hand. Going as fast as her injured leg would allow, Rae hurried over to her, grabbing her arm.

"Come on," she said. "We need to get out of here!" Amelia nodded and together they raced over to some nearby steps and back onto the Deeping Wall.

As they emerged at the top, they were greeted by a group of Uruk's, who they promptly took down, Amelia gaining a few cuts in the process; some shallow, some deep. By the time Rae and Amelia had moved a few steps from where they started, the wound on Rae's leg was throbbing.

"Amelia," she gasped, "cover me!" Amelia nodded as Rae leaned against the side of the wall. Ripping off a piece of her tunic, she fastened it securely around her thigh, hoping to help against the bleeding.

She nodded to Amelia and together they continued the battle. At the top of some nearby steps stood Legolas, still using his bow and arrows but his quiver was dangerously low in stock. He noticed them and grabbed a nearby Uruk shield and threw it in front of him, sliding down the steps to meet them. As Rae and Amelia took down Uruks near them, Legolas shot as he slid, leaping off the shield at the bottom of the stairs and smiling as it took down an Uruk on its own.

"Show off!" Amelia shouted but secretly, she had enjoyed the show.

As Legolas stopped in front of them, his eyes scanned their injuries, worried about how beat up they looked. Rae nodded to him, determined to show she was alright and, despite her environment, grinned.

"Thirty-seven," she told him. "So far." Legolas raised an eyebrow and shook his head, taking down an Uruk coming up behind her. Rae sighed. Obviously, things weren't completely okay with them yet.

Her throat constricted as she thought about what would happen if one of them didn't survive. What would happen to Amelia is Rae died there, on the wall? Or Legolas? Rae's eyes darted to Legolas for a fleeting moment. How would she feel if he died there? Her heart ached just thinking about it. A life without him wasn't worth it.

And then, as Rae took down an Uruk coming up behind Legolas, she did something completely spontaneous. Forgetting where she was or what was happening around her, she grabbed Legolas and kissed him. He tensed at first and didn't relax (she couldn't really blame him, they were on a battlefield after all) but he gave her as much as she gave him. It wasn't what Rae would have wanted their first kiss to be like but it would have to do. After all, she mused. I may not survive tonight. Better now than never.

She pulled away from him and looked into his eyes, expecting to see the same emotions she usually saw. She expected him to be indifferent to her and push away her feelings like he would any other elleth. Instead, he smiled softly.

"HEY!" Amelia shrieked. "Some other time, please!" Rae nodded to her sister and turned away from Legolas, the feeling of continuing what she started giving her new hope and grit to live. She decided, after that kiss, she couldn't die. She wouldn't die here.

Then there was the order for retreat.

Elvish Translations.

"A Eruchîn, ú-dano i faelas a hyn an uben tanatha le faelas!" - Show them no mercy! For you shall receive none!

"Dartho!" - Hold!

"Tangado a chadad." - Prepare to fire!

"Leithio i philinn! - Release the arrows!

"Ribed bant!" - Full volley!

"Pendraith!" - Ladders!