Joy

Legolas POV

"The eagles!" I heard Pippin cry somewhere amidst the battle. "The eagles are coming!" My heart filled with hope. Maybe, maybe… I cast my eyes upward while stabbing an Orc. Pippin did not deceive- in the air, almost blocking the sky, soared eleven eagles. They were even more massive than I remembered them, the largest wingspan reaching a near twenty fathoms. Yet among the giants of the sky, I saw no sign of her. There was no familiar streak of black across the sky, or even a heavy flap as she hovered. She was not there. Lived long enough to get the message across; but any further there could be no certainty. The connection still felt broken. I fought with a renewed vigour.

Darke POV

A clang of metal upon metal filled my ears. There were yells, screams, roars, growls, every sound imaginable. The smell of iron, blood and sweat was overpowering. The eagles began to fly over the battlefield, soft whistles of arrows signalling we were being shot at. I gulped as Gwaihir performed a roll attempting to hold on and not be sick. Harder than it sounds.

"What now?" Gwaihir asked, "Manwe says to follow your orders." I almost forgot we were in battle, and just sat there in total shock. Manwe? Orders? Me? I mentally slapped myself out of my daze at the roar of a troll. I was not leader material; how was I meant to do this? Suddenly a shriek rose into the air, piercing the ears and making the eagles flap haphazardly from the noise. Nazgul. "Attack the Nazgul!" I cried. There was nothing to it. The eagles obliged.

But low behold, the Nazgul were not what was creating the most havoc. I cringed at their every scream as the sound of ripping flesh signified the eagle's beaks and talons ending lives; or deaths. But it was not the worst of it. Massive cracking sounds echoed throughout the battlefield, soon followed by the yells and screams of many men. More foreboding though was when there was silence. Valar be damned silence. Four times the cracks echoed before I was completely distracted by Gwaihir diving atop a fell beast. It was then I realised I had no weapons on me save one dagger.

I hung on for dear life as Gwaihir bucked and twirled, flipped and flapped everywhere as the Nazgul writhed beneath him. To many times to count I came close to losing my grip on his feathers. After what felt like centuries(but was actually only about a minute) the movement stopped, and the beast lay dead as it possibly could be.

I heard the crack echo again, the screams continuing. An intense heat radiated from the battlefield below. I had felt that heat before. I dreaded it. Feared it. Despised it. I shook, and my hands began to slip. "Gwaihir. Let me down." Normally he would have argued, but by some blessing from Manwe he had the chance to get close to the ground so I could jump down.

That, I immediately realised, was a big mistake. It's all fair and well to be in battle fully clothed and armoured, with your weapons by your side. But I wasn't. The ground of Mordor was burning hot, making the soles of my feet hurt. Not to mention the high likelihood of spiky sharp objects lying around. I heard one of the eagles skim near the back of Mordor's host, knocking the enemy over like pins. "The eagles!" I heard a familiar voice cry. Pippin? "The eagles are coming!"

So now they notice, not that I could blame them. The first cry was met by hundreds of others. The eagles! The eagles are coming! They are here. We are saved! Then was when I realised. It was not the eagles themselves that were needed to win this battle, but the hope they brought. Yet not even they could defeat Nazgul solo. "Rally!" I called to the sky at the top of my voice. "Minel randii! Rir minel, thrin um lonil iv okhin pel!"(Rally my friends! Come rally, for the hour is now upon us!) "Two on each Nazgul!" I screamed at them, randomly switching language with nerves.

Distracted as I was directing the eagles, I did not notice what was happening around me. I had only seconds to react as I felt the vibrations of an Orc running up behind me. Almost instinctively I reached for a dart to find that I did not have my quiver. I cursed as I reached for the dagger at my waist, turned around and stabbed the Orc where its face should have been. It crumpled to the ground groaning. I stepped away, but not before it managed to make a shallow cut down my bad leg. Nothing serious.

Crack. Scream. Silence. Once again I was too preoccupied to comprehend what was happening. But the silence directly in the vicinity I was in was deafening. A skin peeling pure heat radiated from the center of what seemed to be a circle; a circle I was in.

"Now is your end." I heard an angry whisper come from the center, near the heat. There was a whistle of a mace and a deafening clang as metal met metal.
"The sword has been reforged. Your doom is near." I realised who the two fighters were. The one speaking was Aragorn, no mistake. The lordliness still held strong in his voice, even as his chain mail was no doubt melting next the flame they called Sauron. A bone chilling, roaring laugh rolled over the battlefield, stilling the men of the west. The dark army took up a battle cry and clashed with yet more vehemence. The men of the west fought back. Later on I would feel ashamed; that laugh had made me clutch at my stomach and want to run and hide behind Treebeard's branches, whilst my good friend and the king of Gondor was but ten meters in front of me fighting the greatest dark lord of the age.

Clash, whistle, deflect, roll, clank, slash, swipe. I could hear the fight between them just in front of me yet I did nothing. I stood there frozen in terror of the dark lord. Long story short, it was a terrible idea. A lone Orc was brave or stupid enough to come in the circle and attack me. Not that attacking me wasn't a good idea if I were on that side; but there seemed to be a mutual agreement between the two sides to stay a certain distance away from the battle raging between Aragorn and Sauron.

I heard the beast rushing toward me from the side, and the squeak of rusty armour as it raised its weapon above its head. I couldn't have pulled out my dagger any faster, stepping to the side as the blade whistled down and stabbing right at the Orc as it turned to my direction. A single stab however, did not end the blasted thing. It grabbed my shoulder and wrenched me so close that its breath misted on my face. Doing the only thing I could think of, I kneed it in the groin then punched it in the face right across the jaw. The thing fell heavily to the ground, as I massaged my fist. There would be a bruise there.

That was when I felt the vibration behind me. The vibration as a body hit the ground and the clang of a sword on the ground. Aragorn had fallen. There was the rasp of well-oiled armour as Sauron prepared to deliver a final blow. I'm not quite sure what caused me to take my next action; but I felt my hand grab the hilt of my dagger, then flip it around. I recall taking a step back, producing a high pitched whistle from my mouth to locate my target and throwing the little dagger straight at Sauron. It felt like slow motion. The whoosh as the dagger flipped through the air seemed to take all eternity- then there it was. A clang. I wanted to cry, scream, fall to the ground in exasperation. The blade had hit him hilt first. Completely useless. I could feel the evil look at me, and I fell to my knees shaking in absolute terror. It was a good thing that even Orcs were too afraid to get near him or I could have been beheaded there and then. Sauron had already caused enough near-death experiences for me thank-you-very-much. I wilted like a flower petal in desert sunlight.

Or course there is always something forgotten, or something not counted on; for me it was this. Aragorn was a seasoned warrior who had fought a thousand difficult opponents previous to this moment. I hardly noticed the fact he had regained his feet and retrieved Anduril, but I did notice when the massive heat of Sauron's gaze vanished. There was an abrasive grating sound as metal slid out of metal. Aragorn had stabbed the lord of darkness himself; right in the thigh I think it was.

Without the utter fear filling my heart though, I realised what a situation I was in. I was standing in the centre of a literal battlefield, without weapons or armour, with the lord of darkness and the king of Gondor duelling just meters in front of me. A bad situation if there ever was. In fact, the only safe place I could think of was the air. At least it would be more difficult to be shot at in the air- somebody was bound to shoot me as I stood standing there eventually.

The stupidest, most idiotic, crazy, mad plan came to my mind. There was no way I could just flap into the air- the pain would certainly hit then, medicine or not. I would fall and get impaled on a spear. I needed to run and jump- yet the only free space was directly in front of me. The idiocy in me won. I ran straight at them, opening my wings while I was running. As soon as they caught enough wind and I had gained enough momentum I jumped. Just a meter from them- one weapon in my direction and I was dead.

And by some miracle there wasn't one. My feet brushed the top of Sauron's spiked helmet. In my crowning moment of idiocy, I decided to use it as a push-off point, planting my foot directly on it and pushing off it. One of the spikes cut my foot, and both feet were burnt. My crowning moment of idiocy- but it worked. I was in the air.

I made my way to where I could hear the eagles creating a frenzy attacking the Nazgul. There were only a few left- the eagles dealt them with an efficiency that was terrifying. I quickly joined their ranks, keeping to the back. The overwhelming smell of copper blood came from the beasts- the smell of iron however, was very little. I was suddenly very glad these were my friends, or I would have been dead within seconds. No question. I could still hear an abandoned Nazgul writhing, somehow surviving the eagle's onslaught and left for dead. "Below to the left!" I yelled to an eagle named Meneldor. He tactfully left the current beast for the others, and dived upon the one left living with a screech. To put it simply, it lived for the next four seconds.

Yet there was no time to keep attacking the remaining Nazgul- with a scream they turned and fled. It was no time to run after them either, for that would have been nothing but stupidity. The noise on the battlefield halved, the enemy suddenly quaking in fear. Their cruel laughter stopped, as did their screams of war. They were afraid.

From the heart of Mordor I heard a great rumble start in the belly of Mount Doom; the Captains of the West cried aloud in triumph and new hope in the shadow of the darkness. The Riders of Rohan, the Dunedian and the knights of Gondor rallied and I heard the screams of pain and fear from their foes as they were driven back.

But then rising from the ground rose the voice as loud as that of a thousand men- Gandalf. "Stand and wait, men of the west!" Gandalf commanded, his voice rolling off valleys, mountains and the black gate. "This is the hour of doom!" Even as he spoke I could hear the earth shaking, even disrupting the air currents with its force. I felt a great heat build up from Mordor; then it exploded. A wave of wind and heat flew toward us, and blew right through, continuing on over Middle-earth. The earth groaned again, quaking, and the horses of the Rohirrim neighed as they tried to keep footing.

Building up from the mountain shook a great growl, a drumming roll and a roar. It was a long echoing noise roll of noise signifying ruin to the darkness. I began coughing as dust from the crumbling tower and gate filled my lungs. "The realm of Sauron is ended!" Gandalf roared. "The ring-bearer has fulfilled his quest!" An astonishing cheer rose from the armies below, yelling, screaming, stamping feet. In joy. A word that had no real right to be used until now. Joy. That was what I felt. Joy that Sauron was defeated. Joy for the number of us that survived. Joy that Frodo succeeded his quest. Joy for the future. Pure, undiluted joy.

I felt rising mirth bubble inside me. Now I remembered why I had been called Lailaith. "Ha!" I laughed. "Ha!" Laughing. It felt so foreign, yet so familiar. It felt nice. Nice.

But it was not yet over.

A/N- Wow, I am a bad author. My saving grace this time, is that there was a power cut and I lost half of my work *glares at storm clouds*. It's not even meant to storm at this time of year!

RV? Review and vote? Please, please, please….. :)

Now the vote stands at- silver-6 blue-5 green-3 other(aqua)-1 So silver's winning I think…*can't count*