Disclaimer: I do not now, have not and unfortunately will not ever own Lord of the Rings. (I am a bit obsessed though, with the story not individual people)

36.

We rode in silence upon the Dimholt road. The only conversation we'd had was when Aragorn had told us of Lord Elrond's visit and the decision to summon an army of the dead. A new sword was strapped to Brego, and I knew which sword this was. I had seen it in Rivendell, held in the arms of a stone statue. Narsil had been reforged, the blade which was broken had been remade, and Aragorn carried it at his side. Aragorn had chosen his path, he had accepted his destiny. Aragorn was choosing to become king.

There was something oppressive about the narrow road between the mountains, something which forbade speaking. It was Gimli who finally broke the silence, his voice loud even though he whispered. His voice echoed down the narrow pass.

"What kind of army would linger in such a place?"

"One that is cursed." Legolas quietly answered him, yet even his voice echoed in the stillness. "Long ago, the Men of the Mountains swore an oath…to the last king of Gondor, to come to his aid…to fight. But when the time came…when Gondor's need was dire…they fled, vanishing into the darkness of the mountain. And so Isildur cursed them…never to rest until they had fulfilled their pledge." All of us were more alert, for Legolas's words sent chills down our spines and made us more watchful of the rock around us. Yet, he was not finished speaking.

"Who shall call them from the grey twilight? The forgotten people. The heir of him to whom the oath they swore. From the north shall he come. Need shall drive him. He shall pass the door to the Paths of the Dead."

His words echoed oddly off the rocks, sounding almost as Gandalf had when he had spoken atop Caradhras. Legolas had seemed to be reciting a prophecy, and his words made Aragorn uncomfortable. It was as though Aragorn had not realized exactly what he had done and how it had been prophesied that he would do it. The words had further solidified my decision to protect Aragorn, he had to survive and become king, I could not fail in protecting him. I know that if I were to fail, then all Middle-Earth would fall into darkness. I must not fail.

We did not ride much farther through the mountains, before we came to the end of the road and a doorway in the side of the mountain. The horses would not go any farther. The four of us dismounted and approached the doorway with caution. It was surrounded by the skulls of Men, a warning carved above the door in strange symbols, the very sight of it made me shiver in fear. Gimli sounded almost scared when he whispered hoarsely.

"The very warmth of my blood seems stolen away."

I had to agree with him, it felt cold here, unnaturally so. Legolas stepped forward and read aloud the meaning of the symbols etched into the stone.

"The way is shut. It was made by those who are dead. And the Dead keep it. The way is shut."

The instant that he finished speaking, a groan sounded from the darkness beyond the doorway. Dry, cold, and stinking air wafted out of the darkness—the scent of thousands of dead things wafted out of the opening and made us stagger back—as though the mountain were exhaling. The horses could not take anymore. They wrenched free of the hands which held their reins, and they bolted. No amount of calling would bring them back; they ran back the way we had come, running away from death.

Aragorn turned back to face the doorway, his sword drawn and at his side. There was no fear in his voice when he spoke.

"I do not fear death." Then he walked forward through the doorway and was instantly swallowed up in the darkness.

I did not hesitate to follow him and I did not glance back. I was instantly overcome with a sense of despair, hate, and longing for the life after this. I could not move the despair and hatred rooting me to the spot. I had never felt such things before; this mountain was filled with these feelings. Every rock, every wisp of fog, everything exuded hatred and a deep sorrow. It was so strong that I could not think, I could barely breathe. I could feel it consuming me, drawing my very soul into the surrounding darkness, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. I felt my knees buckle, and I saw hands rise from the fog and reach out to grab me.

A hand grabbing mine and gently tugging me forward snapped me out of the daze which the mountain had me in. Aragorn was looking at me with concern, his hand around mine as he moved me forward and away from the hands reaching out towards me. I had not noticed that Legolas and Gimli had joined us, the former doing his best to look unaffected while the latter was not bothering to hide his distaste and discomfort for this place. Aragorn pulled me to him and put his arms around me. He held me for a moment, then he half-smiled at me, took my hand and led us on through the Paths of the Dead.

Aragorn led the way deeper into the mountain, his sword in one hand and a torch in the other. I followed close behind, doing my best to shut out the feelings coming from the mountain and its people; Legolas and Gimli walked behind me, looking warily around at our surroundings. There were many alcoves which were filled with skulls, there was only one way out of this place, yet the off-shooting tunnels looked deceptively like another path. If we were to follow one of those, we would have met a swift and painful death. It was imperative that we stay on the correct path, and for this reason we moved cautiously through the mountain.

Gimli was more jumpy than the rest of us, and once more it was he who broke the silence with a question directed at Legolas.

"What is it? What do you see?"

"I see shapes of men. And of horses." Came the forcibly calm reply.

"Where?"

It was with this last question that I realized that Gimli could not see the dead around us, he could not see the way that they followed and threatened us with their ghostly weapons.

"Pale banners like shreds of cloud. Spears rise…like winter-thickets through a shroud of mist. The Dead are following. They have been summoned." Worry crossed Legolas' features and he sped up, leaving an even more worried Gimli behind.

I had to wonder if Legolas was alright, for he had made two rather creepy speeches this day and had unnerved the rest of us with each of them. Perhaps he enjoyed unnerving the usually unshakable Dwarf.

We turned a corner and were met by dense fog which sat at waist height; our feet crunched something which was upon the floor. Once we were halfway through the fog, ghostly hands rose up from it, reaching and attempting to grab hold of us. The Dead wanted us to join them, and they would drag us down under the fog to our own deaths if we did not detach the hands from ourselves. Legolas brushed the wispy hands away with his bow and spun out of their reach. Aragorn looked at them and moved forward unhindered, the hands shrinking back into the fog. I brushed them aside as Legolas did, moving faster to keep up with Aragorn, as he strode purposefully through the fog. Gimli stood near the beginning of the fog, attempting to blow away the hands as they reached for him; he waved his hand through them and hurried to catch up to us.

Aragorn glanced down as he crunched a particularly loud something under his foot, he closed his eyes briefly and said urgently.

"Do not look down."

It was then that I understood what we were walking on, the strange almost perfectly round objects which we were crushing under our feet, were skulls. More of the skulls of Men, skulls of the arm of traitors who fled to the mountain. Gimli must have looked down, for he began treading more carefully, yet even then he crushed the skulls under his feet. The Dwarf flinched with each crunch, then he resorted to tip-toeing as quickly as he could until he was upon normal rock once more.

I am not sure how long we travelled through the mountain before we made it to a large cavernous room. We could not see the ceiling, to one side there was a drop off which led into the depths of the earth, and the other appeared to have been carved into a wide staircase leading to a larger building. Aragorn looked around in confusion, unsure of which way to go. Then we heard a voice. It grated upon our minds, it was almost like a wind as it flowed and echoed through the room. It spoke with power and barely concealed malice, yet there was no source.

"Who enters my domain?"

We turned to the stairs and beheld a ghostly form of a man, a man who must have been the leader of the traitors. He wore a crown of faded gold, his raiment was in rags and showed his bones and rotted flesh underneath them. His eyes were pale and filmed over; his voice was hard and cold with no pity and no mercy. Aragorn squared his shoulders and spoke with a command in his voice.

"One who will have your allegiance."

"The Dead do not suffer the living to pass." The figure replied without any emotion whatsoever.

"You will suffer me." Aragorn said firmly.

The ghostly man laughed darkly, morphing into something far more sinister than a mere ghost. As his laugh became more evil and dark, more specters appeared all around us. Specters of Men as well as those of the cities which they had built inside the mountain; they swarmed towards us. Circling us until we were completely surrounded by figures who wished us ill, yet we could not harm them. They glowed green, their weapons at their weapons at their sides, or in their hands. I had no doubt that while our weapons could not harm them, we could easily be killed by them.

"The way is shut. It was made by those who are dead. And the Dead keep it. The way is shut. Now you must die." We turned as the cold and angry voice spoke once more, his words echoing those which Legolas had said earlier.

Legolas drew his bow and released his arrow so swiftly that I doubt anyone else could follow his movements. His arrow flew straight through the king specter's head, landing with a clatter somewhere behind him. Gimli gripped his axe in both hands, and Aragorn spoke with power and command.

"I summon you to fulfill your oath."

"None but the king of Gondor may command me." He stepped forward as his words left his mouth, his sword rising.

Aragorn raised his sword, and lunged forward to meet the blade coming towards him. The blades met with a clang of steel which rang through the entire cavern. Aragorn moved his sword so the blades were locked together and he trapped the ghostly blade beneath his own. The specter looked at him in shock and disbelief, astonishment in his voice when he spoke.

"That line was broken. "

Aragorn grabbed the ghost by his neck and placed Anduril against the ghost's throat. "It has been remade."

Aragorn shoved the specter away from him and stepped back towards us. I slowly unclenched my fists, and breathed again. I was so worried that he would be attacked and there was nothing that I could do to help him as his was the only weapon that worked on them. Aragorn saw that he now had their undivided attention, and he chose this moment to call upon them for aid and to fulfill their oath.

"Fight for us…and regain your honor. What say you?" Aragorn walked through the gathered specters, searching for any sign that they would respond. They all backed away from him and from his sword, he tried again to get a response from the ghosts. "What say you?"

"You waste your time, Aragorn. They had no honor in life, they have none now in death." Growled Gimli.

"I am Isildur's heir. Fight for me…and I will hold your oaths fulfilled. What say you?" Aragorn spoke with authority as he turned to the leader of the Dead.

The leader began cackling, and the army of the Dead began to disappear from sight. They all vanished row by row, the leader cackling evilly as we were left alone in the darkness of the cavern. Aragorn tried one last time to persuade them to fight for us.

"You have my word! Fight, and I will release you from this living death! What say you?!"

"Stand, you traitors!" shouted Gimli, yet the cavern was nearly empty and even as his last words fell, the last of the Dead vanished.

A fell wind blew from somewhere deep in the cave, it blew the fog away and we all turned in the direction the wind was blowing from. There came a deep rumbling and crashing from all around us, yet we could not find the source. Even so we knew something was coming, something was happening to the mountain. Then something began falling from the ceiling, slightly circular objects which were now very familiar.

Skulls rained down on us, clattering across the floor and falling into the dark abyss. All at once, huge slabs of stone began to fall from the walls and ceiling of the cave, releasing thousands of skulls in a river-like torrent. The Dead were bringing the mountain down on top of us. Aragorn shouted one word, "Out!" and then we ran for the traverse tunnel which we hoped would lead us out of this accursed place.

Skulls and rocks poured out of the walls, making it nearly impossible to traverse the cavern and not get pulled over the side by the flow of rock and bone. Aragorn grabbed my hand when I lost my footing, and he pulled me along behind him. I tried to hurry and not slow him down; I would not let him die because of me. We fought our way through the avalanche of skulls, struggling to stay as far from the edge as possible. We were up to our waists in skulls, and more kept falling. Falling over our shoulders and nearly burying us as we struggled through them to the other side. We finally made it through the growing piles of bone and to a tunnel entrance. Aragorn once more shouted at us to run and we did so without hesitation. The tunnel caved in behind us, and we ran faster to keep ahead of the crumbling rock which would crush us if we did not move fast enough.

We finally stumbled out of the cave and into sunlight; Aragorn released my hand and breathed a sigh of relief that we were all safe. His relief was short lived. For there on the river before us, was a fleet of black ships. Ships that were headed towards Gondor, ships which would aid in its destruction. They had burned villages upon the banks of the river, murdering anyone who dwelt there.

Aragorn sank to his knees in defeat. All hope had been lost. We had not convinced the army of Dead to aid us, and now the armies of Rohan and Gondor would stand alone against the armies of Mordor. They stood no chance, and they would fall. Middle-Earth would be consumed by darkness, and the free peoples would be enslaved by the Dark Lord. We had failed not only Theoden, but all of Middle-Earth as well.

I stood beside him, wanting to offer him some small comfort, but not sure what to do. There was no comfort I could give him, no words which would reassure him. Legolas moved to his side and placed a hand upon his shoulder, letting him know that he was not completely abandoned. Then there was a sound from behind us, Aragorn turned and we followed suit, to see the leader of the Dead walk out of solid rock and stop in front of him. The specter growled two words at Aragorn, yet those two words filled us once more with hope.

"We fight."

There was hope now. Hope for Middle-Earth, hope for Gondor, and hope for Frodo.

Please review and I hope that you have enjoyed reading this so far.