Unable to instantly contact Melkor, the consensus among balrogs was: "Lay siege to Nargothrond, send word to Angband".
One thing differed from ordinary sieges, though - having seen the demise of their dragon commander, the orc-hosts took positions around the canyon-mountain at respectful distance. There was an eerie resemblance in their minds... to the siege by elves of Angband.
It ruffled feathers.
Regardless, they went to the countryside to get their supplies.
Timber was needed. Excess timber should burn, lest elves sneak up under its cover.
Food was needed. On this front, Finrod's people got cursed to the bottom of it all.
"What do you mean, there is little livestock?"
"There is little of it, really."
"This city housed thousands of elves, even if many fled! There has to be!"
"There is some, enough for about a few hundred."
"Comb the forest then!"
"Already doing that. What about the roots and vegetables?"
"Keep them. In worst case, we might need to eat them."
"It will require violence, master."
"Then by violence they shall eat cooked roots, unless they find themselves a better source of nourishment!"
"Have you considered Glaurung?"
"WHAT?"
The orc-chief shrunk away from his Balrog commander, fearing for his well-being.
"I don't mean to offend... among my people, it is customary..."
"Glaurung wasn't one of your people, puny vermin! If you care for your people's culinary value, go and fetch the bits and pieces of your special troops. He carried them to the same fate with him. While doing it, remember to wave at the elves."
"Sorry, master, I should have thought ahead."
"For this time, forgiven. Now go and direct them to find heavy timber too, we have enough of flimsy sticks."
The flimsy sticks were quite respectable pine-trunks which the orcs had heaved uphill with quite some effort. And if only the bloody trolls would slouch their way here! Fortunately, among a crowd of twenty thousand orcs, effort could be divided.
The issue of what to eat during a long siege, was a serious issue, though - and surpremely ironic. It was the besieged who were supposed to feel the taste of hunger! What remained to be taken around Nargothrond was insufficient. Had Finrod dispatched all food downstream or stocked it in his fortress?
"If we can't get pork, beef and lamb, we shall eat elf, rat and the butts of our fallen chiefs!"
"Shut up, Degash, the chief might hear."
The new chief was less forgiving than the previous one who'd got himself killed in Brethil.
Degash wasn't a strategist, but he didn't like this siege.
This siege was ass-backward.
When Salgant and Egalmoth could be found, the army had already left.
They both offered to go, but Aredhel said she needed advisors too.
One day had passed when Rog's men blinked the mirror in mountains.
Aranwe again rang the tower-bell.
Rog was off to war, so they sent a messenger down instead.
Pengolodh was present and interpreted the readings.
"Something very bad had happened, that is clear. I fear that in the worst case, Finrod's ammunition stores have exploded. The only thing that leaves me hope is that the first blast is the strongest, and activity continues for nearly a minute after that."
"Send a crow after Turgon, let it try to tell him," was Aredhel's decision. "Also, please have someone climb the mountains. Ask the eagles."
For Turgon's army, the march was exhausting but uneventful.
Having beaten Boldog's remaining forces at the bridge with little effort, they descended south along the road Glaurung had razed for itself.
Destruction in its wake was great.
Quartermasters ventured into Brethil to hire horses.
Some they got, but few - most people had fled southward.
At the crossings of Teiglin they got word that Amon Obel had seen battle,
Brandir had died and Thingol's men had destroyed the eastward expedition
and with the assistance of Melian and two elf-witches repelled the attack on Brethil.
Knowing that enemy forces weren't lurking at your back gave confidence.
They marched faster, and elves could really go quick in need.
By the second day's end, they were on the Guarded Plains.
The plains were unguarded now - if bodies of elves
bearing the uniform of Finrod's guards didn't count.
The bad thing was: there were no orc-bodies.
Glaurung's host had gone through the plains at speed, unstopped, like a hot knife goes through butter.
What little elves had tried to do against him, Glaurung had settled with fire, and powers of his mind.
On the second day's end, the bridges were assembled too. The orc-host started shooting stones from catapults. They came off Nargothrond's facade like pebbles thrown by kids. They focused on the gate. The gate was solid metal and got dented much. No sign of yielding did it show however.
Inside the mountain, work went on. Soldiers off duty from battle were capable at other work, and that they did, preparing for eventualities. At dusk, when vision wasn't clear but fires didn't contrast, the balrogs came with the bridge from east.
Behind them, trolls could be seen pulling up wooden orc-bridges.
The bridge of Balrogs was a metal truss bridge, designed by none other than Mairon.
It was light to carry, quick to assemble and supported lots of weight.
It was also made to measure, and would fit across the canyon, supported from just two points.
GATE to TC: APPROACHING
TC to OBS1:
TC to OBS2: CAN YOU SIGHT THEM?
OBS1 to TC: HEAVY SMOKE SCREEN, CANNOT
OBS2 to TC: PERHAPS WITH LUCKY WIND
TC to SUSP1: HAVE YOU CLEARED FOR SHOOTING?
SUSP1 to TC: CLEAR, TARGET SIGHTED, WAITING.
GATE1 to TC: HALFWAY OVER.
SUSP1 to TC: PERMISSION?
TC to SUSP: GRANTED
TC to GATE: OPEN, DEFENSIVE FIRE, THEN CLOSE
Balrogs had set up tall masts to help installing the bridge.
Two of them there were on both sides, and well over halfway was the bridge.
At that point, a hatch was pulled open upstream of the main gate in Nargothrond's facade, where a suspension bridge could be opened to the other side. From the hatch a bow-like catapult was seen, and instantly flew an anchor, rope trailing behind in coils.
The anchor line went over one of the masts, and quickly the elves braked its speed, starting to retract it like fisherman retracts his line. Quickly three more balrogs ran to the mast, to uphold it against the pull. Lines tensed and strained against each other, while angry balrogs waved their whips at anchor-line.
Balrogs had the advantage of great power, but mechanical disadvantage. Elves had the favour of a winch with multiple gears. Three times they switched gear downwards. Before their rope burnt through, with great grinding and strain, the mast came down, diving into the canyon. The great bridge wobbled.
Balrogs ran from rear and brought a new mast.
A new shroud-line was hoisted from it and the bridge supported so.
A new anchor went but missed, wasting expensive steel line now.
The next one hit, and also came with steel line.
Again the pulling competition was entered, but this time, balrogs started hoisting a spare mast before the old had fallen. In the middle of the struggle however, silently the inner main gate had opened, leaving only an outer grid of iron bars.
From between the bars, multiple elf-crews aimed their cannon and lit their fuses. The blasts were deafening and the hits a surprise. Shooting with scrap metal, they instantly hit a group of three balrogs. The rest of fire-demons made an unhealthy effort and threw their bridge, over a distance of twenty more steps, with a massive crash right into Nargothrond's gate.
The bridge flexed and wobbled. Rocks tumbled from the ceiling.
GATE to TC: CLOSE?
TC to GATE: WE NEED THE MAIN GATE INTACT.
TC to GATE: RELOAD, GET WATER READY - REINFORCEMENTS COME
TC to ARM: TWO HUNDRED IN BREATHING GEAR AND FULL ARMOR TO MAIN GATE
The elves who ran to fight the balrogs at the main gate, didn't look like elves.
Only in dwarvish kingdoms were such armor and such helmets seen.
No shields they bore. Of nimble elvish speed, not much remained.
They were unnerved however.
The balrogs came climbing, bearing hammer and hook, steel cable clamp and fire-siphon.
From pipes they blast great flame at the retreating gate-crew.
It didn't penetrate well, however.
"They're pumping air outwards!"
"Open it wider, try to reach deeper!"
The balrog tried.
Nargothrond's fire crews answered with long jets of water.
Clouds of steam filled the gate-hall and nothing could be seen.
Fire floated on water, water still cooled the fire, nothing came of it for either.
Other balrogs connected hooks to the gate-grid and to the bridge.
More hooks were passed up, with long cables in tow, and were passed back to the other side of the canyon.
Then hammering started, while the proximity of the gate was aflame.
TC to GATE: SHUT THAT PARTY DOWN
GATE to TC: WAITING FOR MORE ARMOR
TC to GATE: FIRE AT THE GATE
GATE to TC: AT OUR OWN GATE?
TC to GATE: YES, WITH SHRAPNEL ONLY
"Cover! Cover!", yelled the artillery crews to others through the steam.
Then the blasts rang out and deadly metal rain bounced everywhere, wounding many defenders too.
Two balrogs screamed and let go, tumbling down to depth.
One screamed and started climbing back.
Three more were dispatched from the other side, while three worked on.
Steam weakened for a moment, and the crews from armories drew near.
These elves knew no fun, for the first of them came with hand-cannons.
Each bore a pipe as thick as two hands can fit fingers around.
Immediately they ran to the gate, uncaring of the balrog spewing flame on them.
Shots rang, shells flew back from their recoilless weapons, while shot flew ahead.
Before the three new balrogs reached the bridge-head, their comrades fell into the canyon.
Whether they fell dead or alive, to live or die, didn't count any more.
The hand-cannon crews retreated, giving way to sappers. Already were the cables tensing on the gate, for the other side was deeming it wiser to pull the gate out of the mountainside from across the river. At that, sappers ran to their carts to fetch thermite, bound its canisters onto the cables and ignited them. Blinding flame burnt slowly.
"Pull faster!", Gothmog roared.
"PULL!"
"AAARG!"
The cable snapped, weakened by the charge burning through it. The pulling crew fell over to their backs.
Then another.
And the third.
"Push the bridge down," Gildor yelled through the noise, now at gate.
"The other end is anchored!"
"Sappers to the bridge!"
Now elvish sappers ran along the bridge, covered with arrow-fire from other side.
Not all could do their work and keep their safety too - many fell the long fall.
GATE to TC: SAPPERS NEED COVER
TC to OBS1:
TC to OBS2: FIRE AT BRIDGEHEAD. FIRE SLOW. KEEP SOME ROCKETS, THERE ARE VERY FEW
The observation posts high up did what they were told. Blasts littered the other bank. One killed a balrog, others hurt countless orcs. Archers threw themselves onto ground, stopped firing and ran back. Sappers on the bridge had found their weak spots and fixed thermite there with magnets, lighting it, running back too. Bright it burnt, yet Mairon's work was hard to take apart. Many trusses weakned, but the bridge not even bent.
"Place more thermite! Try pulling sideways from the suspension bridge hatch," Gildor instructed the crews.
They placed more thermite.
Anchors flew from sideways and winches were engaged.
The bridge was not designed to carry sideways load. It bent!
Finally a rocket hit the other bridgehead squarely. When smoke cleared, the truss-bridge lay on top of the wounded balrogs, on top of the dead dragon, on top of the remains of the stone-bridge, in the canyon littered by smoking debris and a whole new dammed-up lake.
TC to GATE: CLOSE
GATE to TC: CLOSING
Both sides licked their wounds. Instead of fifteen balrogs, nine were now on foot. Orcs had lost hundreds, but had thousands more to spare. Nargothrond's lower levels were flooded and healing halls full, with sixty soldiers dead. Rockets could be counted on one hand, thermite had run out. Untested cannon designs were dangerously out of shape, no longer fit to fire. What remained in some quantity were recoilless hand-cannons.
One was clear: no wooden bridge would cross this canyon and carry troops alive.
No other bridge there was.