Chapter 76

Damn and Blast

It is hard to describe the way things were before the battle, the hope and fear all mingling until it was impossible to tell where one ended and the other began. We were continuously tossed between the two. And yet at the same time there was this odd calm that descended over the fortress. Everyone had moved into position. The board was set. We were on a collision course with the armies of Isengard and anyone who could not face that basic fact of life was a moron. The Rohirrim, as a rule, are nothing of the kind.

Some might have been resigned to their fate, others more prepared to put up a fight, hoping against hope that they would live to see another sunrise. They were men with their backs against the wall, who had nowhere left to run and so turned around to stand and fight, because what else could they do? Lying down to die was not their way.

And so they waited. As the last light of day faded they stood on the walls of Helm's Deep as thousands of orcs marched on them. I had never seen an army so large before. It must be numbering into the tens of thousands, all of them almost indistinguishable from each other, different only in the placement of that disgusting white hand somewhere on their bodies. I had to zoom in to see it clearly, but as far as I could tell, they all had it.

It must have taken a lot of paint.

The last light of day had gone when the orcs moved into formation before the walls and soon after the stars disappeared one by one as well as the clouds moved in. It was hard to tell with what little light we had, but they seemed unnaturally dark to me and threatening. The lightning that flashed to light them up occasionally did nothing to contradict this idea.

And they could be seen far and wide…

Thráin

'Thráin, look.'

Thráin had been stuck with his nose in his pack in a vain attempt to locate a dry pair of socks when Legolas drew his attention. The elf sounded concerned and so he abandoned his fruitless search in favour of looking up.

Legolas pointed to the northwest. Thráin did not need to ask what he meant; he could see it with his own eyes. Dark clouds gathered above Rohan. They were not the same sort as the ones that hung above Mordor, but neither were they natural.

This is Saruman's doing, he knew. And the battle for Helm's Deep is begun tonight.

It was hard to keep track of time, but he knew that it was early in comparison with the book's timeline. It had come weeks ahead of schedule. But if I am right in thinking that Théoden was freed days ago, then Saruman would not have waited for Rohan to gather its strength. He needs to strike while they are still weak.

If Beth and Boromir were yet alive, he had no doubt that they were under the shadow of those clouds now, preparing to fight for their lives and this world both. Maker keep them safe. Grant them victory. His fingers itched to draw a blade, but he could do nothing for them now. This battle was not his to fight.

'The clouds move against the wind, Master Gamgee,' Legolas answered a question that Thráin had missed. 'And they have no natural origins.' They were altogether dark and evil; Thráin could tell that much from looking at it.

He felt weary to the bone. 'It is Saruman's work,' he agreed. 'This is the battle for Rohan's future. If they fall tonight, Gondor stands alone in the fight to come.' And how will they ever survive that?

Several heads snapped in his direction.

'It is in the book,' he said. This was not entirely true. The battle of Helm's Deep was in the book, it must happen. Likely enough it would happen anyway, no matter what had happened to the other members of their Fellowship. But it was not meant to happen yet. It was still February, not March.

This worried him. He had truly believed that leaving Lothlórien far earlier than planned would make a considerable difference and it hadn't so far. The orc attack had split them up and so far his road since had been littered with obstacles the book had never so much as mentioned. They had lost so much time already.

What if I made the wrong decision?

Thráin did not allow himself to dwell on that. That way madness lay. It was done. It could not be undone.

'Are the others there?' Sam asked, his eyes wide. He alternated between looking at the distant clouds and Thráin.

He did not know. 'If Beth, Boromir and Aragorn yet live, they will be in Helm's Deep,' he replied. It was the best answer he had. 'Beth will have sent Merry and Pippin on an errand of their own, if she could.' So much could have gone wrong with that. If she had died and Merry and Pippin had not been taken by orcs, they would never have come near Fangorn. The Ents would not now march on Isengard. The war in Rohan might be lost in the end, with even more catastrophes following in its wake. He could picture it all on his mind's eye and found it sickening.

And yet if we succeed, there is reason for hope yet.

The two hobbits still had their eyes fixed upon him, so he continued: 'If all has happened as we planned, they will be far safer than even we are at this moment.'

It was the best reassurance he could give and they knew it. Frodo nodded and Sam even smiled a little. They must know that it could be nothing like what it should be, just as their own journey was nothing like it was meant to be.

He reckoned that he could lead the Fellowship out of this place in another day. The waters had receded visibly now that it had not rained for a few days and the paths that he knew had resurfaced. They were harder to tread, but it was doable. Tomorrow he need not scout ahead. When they broke camp, they would all leave this place and, Maker willing, never return to it again.

Legolas gave him an odd look. 'Are our people?' he asked.

Thráin knew what he meant. But he was surprised that Legolas had asked the question. He had expressed worry when they had seen the armies of Mordor moving north, but strangely enough had not asked for what the book said of the war in that region.

'If they have any sense, they have brought your people and mine both behind the walls of Erebor,' he said. One siege had been broken, but another could not be long in coming. A great battle had already been fought. How many of those I know perished in that battle? He knew that his brothers had lived through it, but no reassurances had been made about any others.

Legolas asked no more.

The others ate their meal, such as it was, and went to sleep. Thráin did no such thing. He had drawn first watch, but he intended to see them all through. He knew he would find no rest tonight and there was no point in anyone else being awake. Let them sleep.

He kept his eyes fixed on the blot of darkness in the far distance. Those who fought there were not his Maker's creation, but he beseeched him all the same to keep them alive and to strengthen the walls of the fortress that contained them.

'How can we ever stop this?' Frodo's voice came from behind him. Here was another one who found that sleep eluded him. It was no surprise. Despite all of their best efforts, Frodo had got the Ring tonight. Despair was always lurking just around the corner when the Ring was close. It fed grief and painted pictures of hopelessness so vividly that the bearer at last had no choice but to believe them and take them as wisdom, when they were neither truth nor wisdom, but foul witchcraft instead.

Thráin gestured for him to sit down and Frodo did.

'We keep moving forward,' he said. 'There is nothing else we can do. They battle the symptoms of a disease that only we can now destroy entirely.' He did however not underestimate the importance of these battles. Their final victory was no good if everyone they intended to save was already dead. 'The others know that.'

Frodo was silent for a while as he pondered that. Thráin did not press him.

'Do you believe that they yet live?' was the question at last. 'What does your heart tell you?'

Thráin was not an elf and therefore did not hold with their nonsense about being able to sense things that they could not possibly know for a fact. But he had grown up with Elvaethor as an honorary uncle and Elvaethor was an elf. More than once he had claimed to know things he could not know with absolute certainty because of a feeling in his heart. Thráin's father had grumbled a good deal about that and his mother always preferred additional evidence to back up these claims, but in the end Elvaethor had never been wrong.

'My heart knows the truth even when my mind argues against it,' he'd once told Thráin. 'You dwarves do not listen to it enough.'

'We listen to it, right enough,' Thráin replied. 'But not in the way elves do.'

But for Frodo's sake and his own peace of mind, he searched his heart now. Did he believe truly that they had died? He'd no evidence either way. But he knew he had not mourned. He had despaired, but that was no proof. Reason dictated that they could not have faced such odds and lived, but no boats bearing bodies had floated down the river. There was no proof.

'I believe they live,' he said and found that it was the truth that he spoke. It took speaking it to be sure of what he felt. 'I do not know for sure and I do not know if they will survive this war, but they did not die on the banks of the Anduin.' And if that was the truth, then he had to believe that they were now under the shadow of those clouds.

It was not the encouraging thought he had hoped for it to be.

The lightning flashed at irregular intervals within those clouds. Orcs relished this weather, but men did not. The orcs would be stronger for it and the men weaker.

Everything hangs in the balance tonight.

Frodo only nodded and was silent again. He was not done speaking, Thráin suspected. The air was heavy with unspoken words, but he did not hurry them. Frodo would speak them in his own time.

'They cannot win,' Frodo said at last.

There was little he could say to refute that, but in this the book was his unlikely ally. 'And yet they will.' They must.

Frodo looked at him, incredulity written all over his face. 'You cannot know that.'

But he could. Or at least, he could if his understanding and reasoning did not let him down. His theory was by no means tested enough for certainty, but it was hope they needed tonight, Frodo more than any of the others.

He explained it as best he could: 'The book is, as you know, unreliable at the very best. It offers twists and turns and sometimes abandons us entirely. And yet through all of this it has still accurately predicted every major event that happened. It did not always tell us where or how or why, but we crossed the Misty Mountains through Khazad-dûm and lost Gandalf to a Balrog. We travelled south by river and were separated on the banks of the Anduin in much the same manner as the book described. We found Gollum in the Emyn Muil. Details have been altered, but the victory at Helm's Deep is not a detail. And we must hold to that. This night is dark, filled with doubts and fears, I don't deny that. But I believe that the book is not wrong, not in this.'

'It's like it is in the old stories,' Sam's voice said behind them. Thráin hadn't heard him approach; hobbits were quick and quiet on their big feet. He sat himself down on Thráin's other side and then leaned forward so that he could look Frodo in the eye. 'The great ones, the ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were and sometimes you didn't want to know the end, because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end it is only a passing thing, this Shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come and when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you, that meant something, even if you were too small to understand why.' Thráin didn't think he had ever heard kind and gentle Sam speak with such passion and conviction before. It strangely suited him.

'And such is the story that we are living now,' Thráin understood.

This was the great struggle of their time. They knew what the end should be, which was more than many folk had. In time, when all was said and done, songs would emerge and the story of what they had done was likely to be told so many times that they'd all get sick of hearing it. That was the way of it with his parents – 'Let them tell it to their heart's content when they actually get their facts straight for once,' his mother had muttered once when yet another storyteller got it wrong – and it might go that way with them. It was an odd thought to be looking forward to being put out with folk, but a pleasant one all the same.

'And we have something the heroes of those tales never had,' Sam continued. 'We know the ending and we know that it is happy. Miss Beth said so at the Council.'

She had indeed.

'The clue to what you are is in your name, Master Samwise Gamgee,' Thráin said. 'You are wise indeed.' It was not the deep wisdom of the elves, nor the practical wisdom of the dwarves. This was a kind of hobbit wisdom, firmly rooted in the earth and the simple things of life. Sam had it in spades. This was the wisdom of a gardener who sat on his knees in the dirt day after day and witnessed a garden come to life after even the harshest winter. It was exactly what was needed here.

It pierced through the wall of despair that the Ring tried to build around Frodo. The Ring-bearer's eyes became clearer and though he did not smile, he seemed more at peace. It had been the right decision to take Sam along, Thráin reflected. He had even managed to divert his attention from the clouds over Rohan.

It was not long before Gimli joined them and Legolas was not far behind. They came one by one and sat down, cloaks drawn around them against the cold and damp, silent all the while. Only Gollum forsook them in favour of sleep. But he does not care as we do.

This is a vigil, Thráin understood. Nothing they did had any effect on that war, but they sat with him all the same.

'They are our friends as well,' Legolas said and Thráin recalled the friendship between the elf and Aragorn.

The clouds no longer moved now. Thráin had kept his eye on them and although his eyes were not as sharp as Legolas's, he was sure of this now. There did however appear to be more of them. They grew and spread out until much of Rohan was covered beneath them. Sam's words were true enough, but even knowing what he knew he found it hard to hold on to the hope he had preached. The world had grown very dark indeed and the darkness very powerful.

'I know,' he said. 'I do not object.'

And he did not. As the night wore on he was glad of their company. Not much was spoken, true enough, but the presence of friends – and friends they had all become through the many trials they had faced together – was calming and reassuring both. These days he even thought of that annoying elf as his friend.

And true friends they were; they kept their watch with him throughout the night.

Beth

There are so many.

What little optimism she'd had deserted her as quick as blinking when orc after orc moved into position. She'd zoomed in on them just now, to make sure she got on record how tall they were, what sort of armour they wore, what weapons they carried. The experience was utterly disheartening. The orcs were tall and brutish. They were the kind of thugs you'd see in second-rate movies, the muscle without the brain.

This was not a second-rate movie and the brute force of them was by no means laughable. Saruman is the brain behind this. He doesn't need intelligence in his orcs, not when the sheer size of his army will lay this whole fortress to waste. He didn't need any clever orcs to identify people who would be valuable prisoners either; he only wanted them all dead. No brains were required for mindless slaughter.

This is war.

Beth had never seen war, not for real and not like this. She'd seen photographs in newspapers. Not even the most gruesome war movie could come close to this. We are too few. How could they ever win?

Théodred said nothing. When Beth glanced in his direction she found that he was following her instructions to the letter. She'd explained the basic features of the camera – how to record, how to zoom in and out, which buttons not to press – and had given him free reign to do what he wanted. And Théodred took to filming like a duck to water. He had a sharp mind and this required little to no understanding anyway. This was just doing as he was told.

'How many are there?' Beth asked for the benefit of the recording.

Théodred, who had more fighting experience than Beth ever wanted to have, was quick in answering: 'Thirty thousand that I can see now and more are entering the valley behind them.' Tens of thousands, as the book had said. If ever there was a good time for it to be wrong about something, this would have been an excellent moment for it.

So naturally it disappointed yet again.

Beth knew that at present there were about ten thousand Rohirrim within the confines of Helm's Deep itself and over half of that number consisted of women and children and those too hurt to fight; all the refugees that had come into Edoras before they had to flee again. Haldir had brought about two thousand elves with him, which brought the number of defenders up to around four thousand. She didn't need to be a mathematician to know that they were hopelessly outnumbered.

Keep it together, Andrews. She turned to her audio device. 'The orcs number well over thirty thousand. The number of defenders is around four thousand.' She was somewhat astonished to find that she could report all of this without stammering or clamping up.

Théodred watched what she did and frowned. 'What are you doing?'

'My job.' There were more facts on this patch of land than she could shake a stick at and not a single one of them was lightening her mood. 'This thing,' she pointed at the audio equipment, 'records sound.' Of course it now also recorded what she just said, but that didn't matter; it was not as if this was ever going to end up in some sort of documentary. 'You can add to it if you like.'

She turned back to her sweep of the battlefield-to-be. This was not exactly the work she usually did, but it came closer to it than what she had done these past few months. It's all I can do now.

She checked to see that Théodred's attention was back on his own section of wall and then risked a glance at her own friends. She found Aragorn first, standing close to the elves. He had stopped to exchange a few words with Haldir and then moved on, talking to the folk around him. Boromir on the other hand was stationary. He could have been carved from stone for all he moved. His gaze was focussed on the skies.

And rightly so. 'The stars are disappearing,' she reported. 'There are clouds moving in from the north, against the wind.' And she had seen that before. 'Possibly Saruman's work?' She'd have to ask someone if they survived this. It was not in the book.

So many things had never been in the book.

She cast her gaze back to Boromir. Did it mean what she thought it meant, that stolen moment that already did not seem real anymore? Did she want it to? No matter how much she tried to banish it from her mind, it kept creeping up on her. Her skin still tingled. She brushed her hand across the spot, but the sensation did not disappear.

I never wanted this. I never searched for it. This is not fair.

How had Kate done this, fight a war and kindle a romance at the same bloody time? How could she love so freely with a death sentence hanging over her loved one? How could she love with death and danger in her every waking moment?

Beth was not nearly so strong as that.

I am not superior to her in any way. I never was. She had seen her example, she had studied it in detail. She had read every single letter Kate had ever written, she had read Bilbo's account, she had listened to the stories of the eyewitnesses. Beth had known what not to do and despite all her best intentions, her feet had walked the same path and so here she was, on the verge of battle watching the man who had sneaked into her heart without her permission, not knowing whether he would still be alive come sunrise.

I am a poor student indeed.

The silence drew her attention away from her relationship troubles. The orcs had taken up their position. It was difficult to tell from where she stood, but it seemed as though the front line had come to a halt some feet before the moat. Beth had seen that moat up close, just this morning as part of her preparation. It was wide, shallow in some places, but treacherously deep in others, like the rough uneven ground at the bottom. Some of it was natural, but the heavy rains and the water removal scheme had made it grow to four times its original size.

Put a creepy creature in it and we've replicated the westside of Khazad-dûm. Such a creature would come in handy now.

Lightning flashed. In the distance the thunder answered a few moments later. It was all the warning they had before the skies opened and the rain fell down. The noise was deafening. Because of that it took her a few minutes to realise that she heard another noise above the din, an odd thumping sound. She felt it before she even heard it. It was not very noticeable, but the softest tremor could be felt beneath her feet.

Théodred identified the source sooner than she did. He zoomed in on the orcs and when Beth peered at the screen she saw that every single orc in sight was thumping their spear upon the ground in unison. It must be the most united action ever undertaken by orcs.

That's another thing about these ones; they're organised and disciplined. They were not at all like the orcs in Moria. And they're more dangerous because of it.

It unnerved the men. The elves gave no visual reaction, but the men picked up bows and drew them, though no order had been given.

'No, put them down,' Théodred hissed. His camera was, as per his orders, directed at his section of wall, but his eyes were on the Hornburg. And he had seen the same thing she had. 'Not yet.'

It was no good. The thumping went on until suddenly it stopped.

'Someone shot an arrow,' Théodred reported, who must have seen what Beth hadn't. She hoped at least the camera had caught the moment.

'Bloody idiot.' Then again, the battle was going to happen at some point and it might as well be now.

And so it was. As far as the orcs were aware, the other side shooting at them meant that it was open season. They surged forward. The moat did not deter them. They ran into it at full speed. Beth could not see what happened there; the wall was in the way and her curiosity did not outweigh her wish to stay as far away as she could from this madness.

The elves joined the action. They drew their bows as one, aimed and loosed. The screams could be heard above the noise of thunder and rain. The men all shot now too. They lacked the grace of the elves, but the screaming on the other side of the wall never stopped. And so far not one of the defenders had fallen.

But they will.

Having said that, Beth realised that the attacking army began at a disadvantage. They had to cross open ground to reach the walls, during which time they were an easy target for the archers on the walls. Right now every man and elf on that wall could shoot arrows blindfolded and still be sure they hit something; the orcs were that tightly packed. Then there was the moat, which rendered them very vulnerable. It also made it difficult to find a steady base to place their ladders on. Despite all of that, they were still more in numbers than the defenders. Sheer size was bound to overcome those initial disadvantages and orcs never much cared about death. Their comrades fell beside them and they climbed over their still twitching corpses to get to grips with a foe they were unlikely to reach themselves.

Beth had never seen slaughter on this scale. Many of the bodies fell beyond her line of sight, but she heard so much more. The orcs screamed in pain as they fell while their still standing fellows bellowed war cries at the top of their lungs. Sometimes they nearly drowned out the thunder.

But battle was a fickle thing and from one moment to the next the defenders fell with arrows sticking out of them. The orcs must have brought their own archers within reach and although she suspected that somebody on their side commanded to take out the enemy archers, the assault never stopped.

They are too many and we too few.

Not long after that the ladders appeared and the orcs were not far behind. Beth captured the footage on camera and tried not to see. She looked, but never lingered. Her equipment could do that much for her. She could hear but not listen. And for a while that worked.

It did not work indefinitely. Much as she wanted to close off her heart, she could not. Her camera was fixed on the Hornburg and its goings-on, but her eyes had a mind of their own and they wandered to the wall they weren't supposed to see, looking for Aragorn and Boromir. She found the former engaged in the rewarding pastime of pushing ladders away from the wall and the latter in trouble.

Most of the orcs were killed before they set foot on the wall itself, but some made it. One of those had entered the wall near Boromir. This was a big one, even among his own and he wreaked havoc on all sides. He had an axe that he swung around him. Elves fell in droves. They were too tightly packed on the walls to have ease of movement, not if they didn't want to kill each other in the process. The orc, who had no such reservations, carried on almost unhindered while his mates climbed up the ladder behind him.

Boromir was right in the line of fire.

If it fazed him, he showed no sign of it. He had his sword in hand and when the lightning flashed she could see his mouth moving. The thunder and rain and the noise of battle took the sound of it, but if she were to hazard a guess, she'd say that he urged each and every one of them to fight.

As he did.

Was it any wonder that men followed him willingly into battle? He didn't ask anything of them that he did not do himself first. He threw himself into the battle. He was a formidable fighter. No one who saw him in action could ever possibly doubt that. She had seen him on the shores of the Anduin, but perhaps she'd forgotten just how bloody good he was at this. He all but launched himself at the offending orc.

Beth watched, heart somewhere nearer her throat than her chest. Boromir was a highly skilled fighter, but the orc commanded the surrounding stretch of wall by standing on the battlements, so that he towered over everyone else. Boromir ducked under one blow and then solved the issue by severing the legs at the knee. One well-placed blow ensured that the orc fell backwards rather than forwards. The elves took care of the orcs that had climbed over the wall in the meantime and when that was done they pushed the ladder away.

'Let us change sides,' Théodred proposed.

His voice made her look up. Her camera was still fixed on the Hornburg and the gates, but she hadn't registered anything that went on there for a while now. She had been distracted. And so, from the looks of it, was Théodred, whose camera was pointed in the right direction, but whose eyes were covering her stretch of wall.

We are crappy war correspondents.

She smiled sheepishly. 'I'm sorry.' Even though he was just as guilty.

His idea had merits. Neither of them were very good at being objective. They both had friends and loved ones out there risking their lives. They could not remain detached.

And isn't that this whole bloody quest in a nutshell?

Kate had warned her and Beth had ignored her as best she could. The late Queen had been right in this as well; nothing had worked until she invested emotionally. And, like Kate before her, she hadn't been very good at treading the line between investment and becoming emerged either. Wasn't that why she made for such a useless witness? The only thing she wanted to witness was the fate of those she knew.

'We both have loved ones upon the field of battle,' he said. 'There is no shame in wishing to ascertain their fates.'

'All right,' she said. It was the first time she acknowledged that yes, she had a loved one out there, not just a friend. If she was incapable of doing this the way she had intended to – and really, hadn't she learned that lesson by now? – she might as well try another way.

So they swapped places and cameras. Théodred needed more time to take up his new position. It didn't take a genius to see that he was in pain, but Beth knew better than to suggest that he performed this duty from the comfort of a chair; he might bite her head off.

In the short time she had her exchange with Théodred a crisis had arisen. Aragorn waved and pointed and the elves, as one, turned their arrows to one specific point. Not for the first time – and presumably not the last time either – she wished she could hear what he shouted.

Whatever it was, it was serious enough for sizeable chunks of the elvish force to abandon the not unimportant task of pushing orcs off the walls in favour of shooting at the presumably bigger threat.

Beth wished she could see something.

It was only a minute before her wish was granted.

There was a flash of light easily as bright as the lightning. The following roar almost deafened her and even where she stood she was pushed a step back by the blast. She was only in time to see the blocks of stone flying in all directions as the wall was breached.

Next time: instalment number two of the battle. In other news, Duria's bedside manner needs some work.

Thank you so much for reading. Reviews would be very, very much appreciated.