Chapter 77

Inevitably Trapped

The book mentioned that Saruman had cooked up some sort of concoction that would breach the wall. I had read it and penned "gunpowder?" in the margin. The book did not answer that question, perhaps because its characters couldn't. The Aragorn in the book named it some devilry of Orthanc, which was not strictly speaking wrong, only incomplete. Saruman was definitely the one to invent gunpowder, or something very close to it, in Middle Earth. Perhaps he had enhanced it with magic, I simply don't know, though it would fit his style of overdoing things.

In the book it had been through a culvert that the orcs had entered. Boromir, having read the book thoroughly, knew this and had urged Théoden to block of every single hole in the wall, even if it was only as big as a mousehole. Théoden had agreed with this on the basis that it was better to be safe than sorry. He simply couldn't afford to take any risks at all with so many civilians in the caves.

I had seen the men of Rohan block the culvert off when I was on water-scooping duty. Some of my fellow scoopers had grumbled about it, because now the stream had nowhere to go and we'd had to work that much harder to get all the water out. I was one of the few who hadn't complained. I'd rather work harder than have the wall breached.

And then the wall was breached anyway and I had no idea how they'd managed it. It couldn't have been through the culvert, but perhaps they'd placed their bomb against the wall and hoped for the best. If they had, it had worked.

Either way, the result was very much like what I knew to be true of gunpowder. It didn't care about the minor detail that there was in fact a wall; its force tore through stone and limbs alike. I saw elves being flung into the air like they were rag dolls, puppets whose strings had been cut carelessly.

It was quick and brutal and the blast was not the worst of it, not by a long shot…

Beth

Damn and blast.

That was the first thought that shot through Beth's mind and it was correct on both counts. Yes, there was one hell of a blast and yes, that blast might have damned them all to a horrible death at the hands of the orcs.

At first her mind simply refused to take in the full scope of what happened. Like it had been when she had fought on the way to Helm's Deep, the information came to her in jolted fragments rather than a fluent whole from start to finish. And the bits she did remember might not be in the right order.

She remembered the blast, the force of it. She also remembered looking at her cameras and being very relieved that they had survived, which went a long way in showing that her priorities were not what they should be. Théodred fell and had to be helped up again. She saw the rocks and the elves all flying through the air like they had been shot into the air from a catapult. And then there was the water.

Now that the wall was breached, the moat was in danger. The water flowed freely into the breach and into the places beyond. Beth saw a small lake form before her very eyes. And all the water that flowed beyond the wall was all water that no longer protected the rest of the wall.

No, no, no, no!

It was at this point that she realised she had seen nothing of Aragorn or Boromir. Haldir she found on a section of wall that was undamaged, shooting down arrows at anything that tried to cross the breach. Bodies piled up, so he was evidently rather good at his job. But Aragorn had been near him, just a few steps to the right, where there was no more wall.

And she had no idea where Boromir was.

'They are bringing a battering ram up the causeway,' Théodred reported, for the record as much as for Beth's benefit. 'It's shielded above and to the sides. The archers can't get a clear shot from any direction.'

It had been a while since Beth had cursed, especially in company. 'Damn them all to bloody hell!' she growled. It was not particularly bad – Peter was far worse in this department – but swearing women were not a thing often seen around these parts. Théodred turned around and blinked.

Beth pointedly didn't look back. This was no time to have a word or two about different customs and Harry was not here to set an example for, so why on earth shouldn't she? It was the kind of day for it.

We've been lucky so far. They've toyed with us. They let us kill enough so that we believed we stood a chance. She'd been guilty of hoping herself. It was hard to quench that spark of hope when all those who died were orcs instead of men and elves. She should have remembered that orcs did not care about death, even if it was their own. And now here they were, the wall breached and a battering ram on its way to the gate. The despair and disappointment hit harder this way.

'Keep recording,' she told him and prepared to do the same. This was her duty now.

It didn't look good. The orcs converged on the breach like moths to a flame. The defenders, those that hadn't died, were still getting their breath back and their feet back under them. Many of them were bound to be a bit concussed.

The orcs found this all to their benefit. Never ones to waste an opportunity to maim or kill they fell on the defenders like a pack of hungry wolves. Elves shot down from those bits of wall that still stood, but they had the wall itself to consider as well. There were more than enough orcs to pour through the breach and climb the wall at the same time.

And we are stretched too thin. There were no reserves. What she saw was what they had. And there was less of them now than there had been before the explosion.

But the elves adapted. They were a very disciplined people and they were not stupid either. The main danger was the breach and so they assembled behind it. They left just enough of their people on the wall to hold off the climbers and sent everyone else down to face the army that came through the breach.

And in this the water was once again their ally. The orcs had to wade through to newly made pool with all their heavy armour and their weaponry and the water was already quite deep in some places. Their progress was not as quick as would have been preferable. They dragged themselves to the shore where the elves awaited them.

Beth had seen them shoot arrows at a speed that seemed to defy the laws of nature, but she had not yet seen them fight with swords until that moment. She'd heard they were very good. Now she knew that they were very good, though she supposed one was bound to be after thousands of years of practice.

The orcs were strong. They had that going for them. They were also more skilled with their blades than Beth could ever hope to be. But they had to walk up at the elves, who were more skilled than they were while they were also drenched and trying to keep their blades above the water.

The elves had a field day. No quarter was asked or given. The orcs fell in droves. None of this seemed to deter their comrades in any way, because they kept on coming. The lines were pushed forwards by those behind them who in their turn were also pushed towards the elves. Some elves fell – Beth caught one of those instances when she had only wanted to get a close-up of an orc struggling out of the water – but the lines closed before the body even hit the ground.

A voice shouting orders drew her attention to the foot of the wall and there she found Aragorn at last, shouting up something at Haldir, who only acknowledged this with a nod of the head before he got on with the more important task of killing orcs from his vantage point up on the wall itself.

He's alive. Her heart beat a little less frantically, but only for a moment, because a second sweep of the area revealed no sign of Boromir. She looked again, but nothing. There's too many people in the way and they're all moving, she told herself. They were crawling like ants down there and it was dark as well. It was not strange that she couldn't find him. It had taken her some time to locate Aragorn as well.

And yet.

She did another sweep with just as much result. Hadn't he been right at that point where the wall had blown up? If so, how could he possibly still be alive? No, please no!

'Does the line still hold?' Théodred asked. A sideways glance taught her that he had not taken his eye off the proceedings on his end while he asked the question.

'For now,' Beth replied. Focus, girl. There will be time for tears later. 'The elves have formed their lines at the water's edge.' They had to retreat a few steps every once in a while, because the water levels were still rising, but they made the orcs pay a toll in blood for every step they took. But for how much longer? The orcs kept coming and there was nobody to relieve the elves every so often. 'Does the gate still hold?'

'For now,' he replied. 'But not for much longer.' She heard the strain and fear in his voice.

'And your father?'

'Gone down to the gate, I think.' The answer was not very encouraging. She understood why the King did it, because he had to be down in the thick of it with his people. That was the way things were done in Middle Earth. Beth tried to imagine English royalty getting down and dirty with the rest of them and found she could not picture it. Those ways were long gone where she came from.

'You can't see him?'

The answer was negative.

There were too many negatives these days, all things told. There was no time to dwell on any of them. She had a task to perform and so she performed it to the best of her abilities. Théoden had told her to witness and to report. So she witnessed and she captured every detail that she could find on camera. She dictated into her microphone as well and after some time Théodred began to do the same, mimicking her style.

Hours passed. Someone up on the wall above the gate had the bright idea to rain down as many arrows as humanly possible on the orcs carrying the battering ram. They'd had to abandon the shields when they had a go at the gate itself and so became easy targets. That stopped their progress just long enough for the defenders behind the gate to patch the whole thing up and block it off with anything that came to hand. Sometime after that someone else had stumbled upon the brilliant notion to pour hot oil on the battering ram itself - and the orcs carrying it – when it came within reach and then sent a couple of flaming arrows into it for good measure. Beth and Théodred cheered with the rest of the Rohirrim when that put paid to that little scheme.

The news was more encouraging than the things that happened on her patch. The elves fought as best they could, but they had been fighting for hours now and they were tired. Most of the elves had begun to run out of arrows, Haldir included.

'They must fall back,' Théodred observed when he spared a glance for her side of things. 'They cannot hold them back and the Hornburg itself can be better defended.'

But not indefinitely.

Aragorn and Haldir obviously agreed with Théodred's reading of things. They shouted things that Beth couldn't have understood even if she could have heard them; the elvish language sounded slippery and incomprehensible to her ears. She observed the effects instead. The elves fell back. They did so in a very orderly manner, without showing any panic whatsoever. But now holes fell in their lines and the orcs capitalised on it immediately.

And so the slaughter begins.

It wasn't for lack of discipline that the retreat of the elves rapidly deteriorated in an outright flight. Those that didn't retreat quickly enough were slain where they stood, jumped on as they ran. The lucky ones were merely stabbed to death. Their more unlucky friends were trampled underneath the feet of the invaders.

But the vast majority made it back to the Hornburg, where the gate was closed and barred. That's all we have now, the Hornburg and the caves. Everything else is gone. And so, it seemed, was Boromir. Beth had tried to find him at regular intervals for hours and she had seen no sign of him, not since the explosion.

He's gone.

Beth imagined that people might cry when they heard this sort of news, but Beth found that the tears eluded her. She only felt cold and angry and powerless. In the end she had only been able to give him a few days extra. He had survived the fight at the Anduin only to perish now. What had it all been for?

In the end nothing changed, not in any way that mattered. He would now never make it back to Gondor. Nothing could be done to curb Denethor's most dangerous impulses. And people would die because of that.

I have failed after all.

Beside her Théodred swore in his own language. The words might be foreign, but the way in which they were said was not. So Beth turned around and saw the source of the trouble. The gate had broken at last. It held for hours upon hours, but now the orcs had found another battering ram to replace the one they had lost and the gate couldn't withstand it anymore.

A terrifying cheer went up from the forces of Isengard. Their victory at the Deeping Wall had been a bit of an empty one, because while they thought it might grant them an entrance into the Hornburg itself, it hadn't. The elves had seen to that when they closed and barricaded the little postern gate behind them. Every orc they'd sent at it so far had died and this did not put them into a charitable mood.

But the break at the main gate was different and they knew it. The orcs, quite pleased with this breakthrough, poured through the gate with all the enthusiasm they'd also had for the breach. And they had it easier here than they'd had there. Here there was no moat, no lake of their own creation to get through in order to get at the foe. And most of those who stormed into the Hornburg now hadn't done one bit of fighting all night and they were eager for a bit of action.

The defenders near the gate never stood a chance.

'We are losing.' Théodred looked at her. 'Our work is done.'

They both knew that. She could tell that Théodred did not like the idea of running like a dog with its tail between its legs a lot, but his father the King had given him an order he could not countermand. Théoden had told her to leg it the moment the battle went against them and it had come to that at last.

'I know,' she said. They had to get to the caves before the orcs got too far and came between them and their only way out. 'You sit down while I switch off and pack up our equipment.' He wouldn't know how to do that and the whole point of this exercise was that they could spread the tale of what happened here today. She could not leave it behind.

It's not like the book, she thought as she packed up her own camera. Nothing is like the book tonight. Rohan was falling even now and that wasn't meant to happen. Somehow it was worse than it had ever been in the book. Gandalf was not here and there was no sign of trees anywhere either. Was it something she had done? She had no idea.

But their bad luck had not yet run its course. Théodred got up, touched her arm and pointed.

The defence at the gate broke down. Elves abandoned their gate in favour of trying to kick the enemy back out again. The fighting that she could see was chaotic and desperate on the part of their people. The orcs on the other hand knew that they were winning. They roared their victory and launched themselves at the men and elves with joy.

'They are between us and the caves,' Théodred explained.

Damn and blast.

We're trapped like rats in a barrel.

The fear, like the grief, was cold; it chilled her to the bone. This was it. There was no way out and even if there was, there were no more safe places to run to. No help had come. It all ended here today.

I am going to die.

Duria

'Will you lie still?'

'If you must be here, will you please go back to work?'

Jack tried and failed to turn over so that his back was turned to Duria, but he stopped and groaned midway when his body rebelled. Duria could have told him that it was bound to happen, but saying so would only sour his mood further. Since her relationship with her younger brother was always fragile at best, it seemed wiser not to push the matter.

'Keep your voice down. You'll wake Harry and Thoren.'

'We've been awake for some time now, Duria,' announced Thoren's voice from behind the screen. 'Harry, your turn.'

'Pass.'

'Tauriel?'

'Funny that she didn't mention you, Miss Tauriel,' Harry piped up. 'Are elves such good sleepers?'

'We are generally reckoned to be light sleepers, Young Harry,' the elf replied. The sound of a card being put down was audible on the other side of the screen. 'Your turn, Thoren.'

They'd never! Duria stood up and marched around the screen of the healing rooms to indeed find her brother, his pet elf and Harry engaged in a game of cards. The cards were placed on a tray that rested on Harry's legs. The other two participants had settled themselves on either side of the young patient, their own beds not so much empty as unslept in.

For Durin's sake! 'It's the middle of the night!' she exclaimed.

Thoren, wholly unperturbed, put down a card. 'Yes, we know. About two hours to go till dawn, according to Young Harry's watch. Your turn, Harry.'

'You're supposed to be sleeping!' Wasn't he supposed to be the older one, the wiser one? True, he could only boast six years of seniority over her, but he behaved like a dwarfling still. In terms of mental age, she reckoned she had always been older than he was.

'Chance would be a fine thing,' Thoren scoffed.

Duria threw her arms up in the air. 'If Jack would only lie still I need not be here to mind him,' she reminded them. 'And must I know drag you back to bed as well? You've been through an ordeal and…'

'Mild dehydration. And I'll grant you I was a bit peckish when we resurfaced. Oh, and Tauriel's got a bit of a bump on her head thanks to Víli's inability to pull someone up in a straight line. Nothing a good meal and plenty of water can't fix,' her brother reported. He never even lifted his eyes from the makeshift table. 'Aunt Thora only kept us in for observation. We're here and you're observing. Look, I even brought a glass of water with me. Now, if you don't mind, we've got a card game to get on with.'

There were days when she came very close to throttling her brother. 'Harry is only six years old…'

'Nearly seven,' the lad interjected.

'Nearly seven,' she allowed, praying for patience and finding some last reserves only just in time. 'But he has been stabbed not so long ago and he needs his rest.'

'Well, he's not likely to get it here, is he? Between Jack's moaning and your screeching it's a miracle you're not waking up the entire Mountain. Be glad it's only us. Harry, your card, if you please.'

Harry glanced hesitantly in her direction, but the King under the Mountain's word weighed more heavily than hers and so he put his mind to the matter in hand. The card he put on made Thoren laugh – a genuine amused sound, something she had not heard from him in so long – and made Tauriel groan almost theatrically.

'You wound me, Master Harry,' she said, but she obligingly took a number of cards from the stack.

'Count me in for the next round!' Jack called. 'Which will be whenever our young cousin is done wiping the floor with the two of you, by the sounds of it.'

'Done.'

If this were any other situation, the show of unity and friendliness they put on would be one that had her full approval. There was enough quarrelling in her family usually. Only now they were all in agreement over their disapproval of her and it couldn't not hurt.

I only mean well for you, she meant to say, but the words died in her throat. I only want you to live and be well and you would jeopardise all that for the sake of a game of cards. I don't want to lose you. Again.

There were no words to adequately describe the despair that had seized her when the Mountain shook. She hadn't had words either when Cathy came in with the news or when she left to exact vengeance on the elf who had torn their family apart. She felt the dark pit of despair opening up, threatening to swallow her whole, like it had done before. And this time no words could stop it; no one could have any hope to offer her now.

Oddly enough it had been Harry who saved her from herself. He had looked so lonely and so forlorn and when he saw her he must have recognised the same in her. While she had been beyond words, he had climbed out of bed – she didn't have the words to stop him from doing that either – and crawled onto her lap. Duria's arms might have been useless – her body had not been entirely under her own control – but his were not. And he held onto her like his very life depended on it, sobbing like he didn't know how to stop anymore.

It was as though that dislodged something within herself. Her arms had encircled him without her permission and then she had wept too until she found it almost impossible to breathe. The darkness had not seemed so black for a moment, as though her tears had washed some of the pain away. She wondered if that was why Aunt Thora was forever going on about the healing properties of a good cry; she had felt better after it.

And of course Thoren and Tauriel had found a way to get out of this predicament almost unscathed, save indeed for the bump on Tauriel's forehead, for which they had their own kinsman to thank, not even Cilmion. Even so, she felt better with the traitor dead and her brother restored to her. She would even take the somewhat dubious addition of his elvish shadow and not complain.

But she had to draw the line somewhere and this was the right point.

'That's enough,' she decreed. 'You may finish your game after breakfast if you so please. You've had your fun and you've made your point. I'll be quiet and then will you please go back to bed and let the wounded sleep to recover their strength?'

Thoren met her eyes. There was a searching look in them that she did not much care for and true enough, she misliked the words he spoke after as well: 'A word in private, if you will, Duria. Jack, you may take my place for the time being. Don't make me lose.'

'Wouldn't dream of it,' Jack said cheerfully.

Before Duria could protest this notion, her brother stood up, marched over and all but dragged her out of the door and into the corridor outside. The door fell shut behind them.

'What's got into you?' he demanded when they were out of earshot of those inside.

She pulled her arm free. 'Nothing.' She crossed them over her chest in an effort to appear calm and collected. Judging by the look on Thoren's face she only succeeded in resembling Uncle Dori instead.

'Aye, that's why you remained for the night, is it?' Thoren did not buy any of it. 'I believe Narvi and your sons asked you to come home with them. Cathy and Elvaethor retired for the night. They do not believe we will come to any harm here. Why did you not leave with them?'

'To ensure Jack does not do something foolish again.'

It was bad enough that Thoren almost got himself killed again, but then Jack had got it into his head that he ought to get up and quell a riot when he could barely even stand. By the time she heard of it, he was already back in the healing rooms, running a fever. He'd been feverish for most of the day and he had lost a lot of blood again. He could not rise from his sickbed now if he tried. And yet he tried all the same.

'Is that so?' Thoren too crossed his arms over his chest. When he did it, he did not look like Dori, as she did, but he looked like their father come back to life instead. 'Because I've heard tales told of what happened during my absence.'

She did not like that look at all. 'Cathy.'

He didn't deny it. 'Yes, Cathy told the tale and not out of spite, I might add before you come to the wrong conclusions. She is concerned for you and after what I have seen and heard, it is a concern that I share.'

The madness. She felt ashamed now that she knew he was aware. It was bad enough that Cathy and Elvaethor knew. 'I overcame that,' she said, which was true. But it lurked and they both knew that too. She believed that because she was now aware that she was susceptible to it, that she could prevent herself from falling. It wasn't true. If it hadn't been for Harry, she would have fallen apart as quick as blinking. Had her father ever felt like this, like there was a monster just waiting to pounce, only just lurking beneath the surface?

'Aye, so that's why you are reluctant to leave us for the night, is it?'

Was he waiting to hear her admit it? If so, he would be waiting for a long time indeed. 'I'd like to keep you where I can see you,' she replied in the most dignified manner she could manage. 'Both you and Jack have developed such a reckless streak lately. I never know if it's the last time I'm ever going to clap eyes on you, because it seems to me that I only have to turn my back for a moment and one or both of you dives headlong into trouble. I am sick and tired of it.'

His expression mellowed a little. 'We do not choose it, Duria,' he said and yes, his voice had softened as well. It almost sounded like pity. 'This is war. We are locked in a deadly struggle with the most dangerous being of our age for our very survival. We can barely hope to win, never mind survive. Especially not…'

Me. The word hung in the air unspoken, yet they both knew it.

She looked into his face and drank it in, every last detail of it. He doesn't believe he'll survive this war. He never did. The realisation hit her like a sledgehammer to the chest and left her gasping.

At the same time she understood what he said and a part of her always had. Thoren was the king of their people. When their people rode out to battle, he'd ride at the head of the army, first to attack and last to retreat. Their father had led this way and he had trained his heir well. Thoren would never ask of others to take risks he had not first taken himself. Else by what right did he call himself their King? Dwarves did not value cowardice and Thoren would not be capable of it.

Maker be good.

Duria took a deep breath and forced herself to ask: 'Can we win at all?'

To his credit he took the time to think about his answer. 'Yes,' he said at last. 'If we can put an end to this treachery. And I have hope still in Thráin. He will see it done.'

He will. We cannot achieve that on our own. She'd heard him say it before, but that was before he'd ridden out to meet the threat head on. Since then they had broken the siege before their gates and had scattered what remained of the opposing army to the four winds. They had beaten the odds and won. And while Duria wholly agreed with him when he said that it was not over yet, she believed that victory may yet be achieved through their own strength.

Thoren's calmly spoken words put paid to that.

'What would you have of me?' she asked. All of a sudden she felt weary to the bone.

'Nothing that you have not always freely given before,' he replied. 'Counsel and common sense. You have not been yourself of late and if there has ever been a time for you to be yourself, it is this. We need you level-headed and thinking straight.'

This rubbed her the wrong way. 'That is rich coming from the dwarf who's recently acquired an elf for a pet.'

It was the wrong thing to say; Thoren's eyes darkened. 'Have a care for how you speak about Tauriel, Duria. She is a dear friend to whom I owe my life many times over. You will not speak about her in that manner.' He only very seldom pulled rank and that he had done so now was telling. Very telling. She wondered what Cathy made of it.

'Very well then, I shall not.' She could however wonder about it. He'd never been so prickly when someone poked a bit of gentle fun at Elvaethor, though in his defence, she had been unnecessarily nasty. She told herself it had nothing to do whatsoever with the fact that Thoren clearly valued Tauriel's counsel over hers. 'But I am not wrong; you are often in her company.'

Thoren frowned. 'Have you been in conference with Cathy?'

'Should I have been?' Interesting.

Thoren did not respond to that. 'Let us go back,' he said.

They did. In their absence the game had moved from Harry's bed to Jack's. The tray now rested on his legs and Harry was wrapped in a warm quilt from top to toe, sitting on the bed. Tauriel had joined too; she perched on the other end of the bed as though she had every right to be there. Stranger still, Jack never said a word about it.

'You lost,' Jack informed Thoren. 'To our young cousin no less.'

Thoren grinned, all the solemnity melted away. 'You mean you lost? What's this, can't win from a lad more than fifty years younger than you?'

Jack grinned back. 'What can I say? The lad's good at this, so now we're making him try something more difficult.' He gestured to the papers spread out on the tray. With something of a shock Duria realised that it was her work.

'He shouldn't…' she began. This was not work for a child. She was attempting to find some clue that could identify any remaining traitors. He was too young, no matter what anyone else said.

Thoren interrupted: 'You know your letters, lad?'

'My mum's a writer. Of course I know how to read.' It was cheekier than he usually was. Perhaps all this constant encouragement had made him bold. Well, bolder than normal. 'Sir,' he added as an afterthought. 'And it's all there, isn't it? The name?'

'What name?' Duria could not help but ask.

'His.' Harry pointed to a line on the paper. 'Ogmund?' He looked at Jack for confirmation if he'd pronounced the name right. 'He's here, with Alfred and he's a traitor, Jack says. And then he's with Jorund, who's a traitor too and…' He talked some more and it all made sense. This Ogmund did appear on lists with people who had been identified as traitors. In itself that meant nothing. Folk were not guilty of treachery because they had exchanged words with a traitor or had stood guard with him. But they just might be guilty if they had been in the same place where a fire had mysteriously started or a group of people had just been killed.

Not even seven, but he's found one. She should tell him to keep out of this, but she was inexplicably proud of him instead.

'Well done, my lad,' she told him.

The bright smile on his face warmed her heart and almost made her forget Thoren's words.

Almost.

But not quite.

Please don't kill me yet.

Next time: Beth and Théodred are fighting for their lives and trouble brews in the Fellowship.

Thank you so much for reading! Reviews would be most welcome. I always love to hear what you think.