Chapter 78

To the Rescue

Just like I'd had no idea that Harry had ever been in mortal danger, Harry had no idea that my life was under threat. While he played cards with his new friends and rooted out a traitor in between games, I stood in a tower room, watching as orcs broke down the gate to the Hornburg at last and butchered whoever happened to be standing in their way.

It was not a pretty sight.

I thought I had been prepared. I'd seen fights before. I had been in fights that I knew I would not survive if I didn't fight as hard as I could. Orcs knew no mercy, Thráin told me, and everything I had seen so far only confirmed that. So I thought I was prepared.

I was not.

I had observed the battle for most of the night and that had not been pretty either, but this was different. This was worse. This was an army that had finally broken through the last defences and they happily went on a killing spree. I'd never seen anything quite like it. The Rohirrim and the elves put up one hell of a fight, but it was clear there was no way to beat this back anymore.

The orcs advanced so quickly that they were soon between us and the caves. And we were trapped…

Beth

We're all going to die.

Théodred was the one who kept his head when the panic gripped Beth by the throat so tightly she couldn't breathe. 'Fetch Gamling inside,' he ordered. His tone and posture had both changed completely. She had only known him as a patient, a bit of a reluctant invalid and her unexpected confidante. She had never seen the soldier and the commander, though she knew he was both those things. 'We will barricade ourselves in this room and hold out for as long as we may.'

I'm going to die. They're going to kill us.

His voice cut mercilessly over her fears. 'Do it, Beth.'

The fear was so strong it was paralysing, but the instruction was like a lifeline, something to hold onto. What's more, it gave her direction. And she needed that, because right now she had no idea what to do.

We're all going to die.

She opened the door and addressed Gamling. 'Théodred says that you should come inside so that we can barricade ourselves in.' It sounded nowhere near as decisive as she would have liked it to sound, but there was no helping that now. 'They are coming,' she added just in case the sounds had left any doubt.

'I will guard this door, my lady,' he said, not unkindly. 'Go back inside and bar the door.'

Her mind was slow, but not so slow that she didn't realise that he intended to die out here. 'No.' There had been too much death tonight. Boromir's face flashed across her mind's eye and she banished it. By the looks of things we will not be far behind. 'That's stupid.'

Gamling blinked at her.

Like a dam that had broken the words tumbled out of her mouth one after the other: 'You're not doing anyone any good staying here and basically holding up a sign saying "important people right here" and getting yourself and us killed. Of course we might not survive inside either, but at least we're not advertising our presence and we'll have a better chance and will you please hurry up, because I can hear them!'

She could. The screams echoed off the walls. Sound was deceptive in these stone hallways, but she could swear an oath on it that they were a lot closer than they had been two minutes ago. Her rational mind told her that it didn't make any difference whatsoever, that she was doomed anyway no matter what she did, but self-preservation spoke a lot louder.

Perhaps it did for Gamling as well. Either that or she'd actually made some sense just now. Already it was hard to recall the words she'd used when the fear shouted over everything else. Whatever it was that changed his mind did not really matter either. He came in with her and shut the door before bolting it.

He was a military man, so like Théodred he didn't lose his mind or courage whenever things went wrong. He took the empty chair and added that to his makeshift barricade. If he even noticed all her strange equipment, he never said a word about it.

Get a grip, girl. It was hard to do that, but the certain knowledge that she would die if she sat here and did nothing overruled the fear. She didn't know for how long, so she had better make the most of it.

There was a table in the far corner that looked heavy enough to keep the orcs out if she could get it before the door, so she entered into the spirit of things and started dragging. It was not long before the two men came over to help. Théodred still moved with difficulty, but he wasn't about to let his injuries stop him. Inaction came at a greater price than overexerting himself.

'Take your sword, Beth,' he told her once they had run out of furniture to put before the door. 'You will have need of it.'

'In a moment.' For now the sounds were not too near and she still had a job to do.

The fear had gone for the moment, leaving a cold clarity in its place. She was going to die here, she knew that now, but she also still had a job to do. Her equipment still functioned and perhaps Gandalf, if he ever came, would know what to do with it. She positioned one on the windowsill, pointing it at the slaughter below. The other she angled to capture the room itself. Théoden ordered us to record the last stand of the Rohirrim, so that is what I will do.

The part about fleeing to the caves hadn't really worked out according to plan, but surely the people would all be gone by now. Even if they hadn't, it was out of her hands. The end had come.

For them it came just after she'd pressed record, a bang against the door that dislodged spiders and rains of dust from the ceiling. The door itself however held. Beth grabbed her sword and took her place beside Gamling. He, as the most able-bodied person in the room, stood both in the middle and closest to the door. Théodred wielded his sword too, but the effect was rather spoiled by the fact that he had to hold onto the wall for support. And no orc in his right mind would ever be stupid enough to consider Beth a legitimate threat.

They kept quiet. It seemed unlikely that the orcs would just assume that nobody was here and would go away to bother somebody else, but it was worth a shot at least. Beth held her breath and for a moment nothing else happened.

Then the next bang came and shattered her illusions. Orcs were incapable of simply walking past a closed door. They had to open it or, even better, unhinge it and blast it into oblivion, because why on earth would they leave anything standing at all? They only knew how to destroy.

The fear churned in her stomach, but her hands were still steady. She took a deep breath to keep them that way. If you're going to die, better go down fighting. It beat crying in a corner and waiting for the inevitable end to come. I'll take a few of them with me, she promised herself.

Another bang. The door shook on its hinges, but still stood, which was nothing less than a miracle in Beth's eyes. But the bit in the middle began to look like it could fall apart at the next blow.

It never came.

From somewhere deep within the keep came the sound of a horn. She knew that it was a horn because its sound vaguely resembled Boromir's horn in sound, but it was bigger and its sound so low that she felt the vibrations of it in the floor below her feet. It was blown three times and then she heard the cry go up.

The first light of dawn fell through the window.

Something tugged at her, a memory perhaps, something buried so very deep that she had almost forgotten that she knew it at all. But it felt important, so she reached for it. I know this. I remember this. And she did. In a flash she was back in the living room of Peter's first flat, trying to get interested in a film she didn't particularly like to humour him – and because she had lost a bet – when she saw one bit that made her pay attention. A bunch of people breaking out of a keep with rousing music behind it. Dawn and more people on horses arriving to lift the siege.

Could it be? She hardly dared to hope.

'Keep an eye on the door for me,' she told Théodred. 'I need to check something.'

Beth rushed to the window and looked. And yes, she saw the Rohirrim and the elves charging, riding down as many orcs as they could. Théoden was at the head of the army and Aragorn was not far behind, cutting down any orc stupid enough to come within reach of his blade. Haldir was still there as well, as was the one who didn't know how to knock. But Boromir was not with them. She didn't know why she looked for him when she already knew that he was gone. She looked and was disappointed all over again.

She had no time to dwell on it. From somewhere far away another horn sounded. She looked up and over the battlefield, where she saw them, just like that one scene from the movie she remembered. They came from the east, not the west, like the book would have it, but she did not care one bit. The sun came up behind them, so she could see only silhouettes of men on horses, but she bet her every last penny that Gandalf and Éomer rode at the head. They must, because the dark clouds fled away from them.

We're saved. A laugh bubbled up and escaped her lips. 'We're saved,' she said, aloud this time. 'It's Gandalf and Éomer! They've come!' She could have wept with relief. We are not going to die after all.

It seemed that the orcs had got the message as well. They scrambled out of the way and assembled into lines. But the game had shifted. The orcs were now suddenly faced with a battle on two fronts. Théoden had broken out of the keep and a rather surprising amount of people had come out with him. He'd assembled a sizeable cavalry and quite a few people on foot had come out behind them. Beth estimated that perhaps half of their fighting force was out there before the gates.

So many losses.

She was not allowed to dwell on that either. The new arrivals charged and they made one hell of a lot of noise doing it. The orcs did a few steps back. Beth could pinpoint the exact moment they caught sight of Gandalf, because the fight went out of them. They didn't flee, but only because they were packed so tight that there was nowhere to flee. This suited the Rohirrim well enough; it made it so much easier to ride them down and finish them off.

'We're saved,' she repeated over her shoulder.

They were. All the fight had gone out of the army of orcs the minute they saw Gandalf, like the book said. It had been right about precious little else last night, but at least it behaved itself for now. Beth picked up the camera that was pointed to the outside and resumed her duty. This was one task she was more than happy to perform.

We're winning.

If only someone would have passed that message on to the orcs still camped outside their door. They had been quiet for so long – and that in itself was very unlike an orc – that she had just assumed they'd gone away when the battle started all over again. The impact of something heavy on their door put an end to that idea.

They'd found some sort of battering ram.

The fear and panic came back with a vengeance. No. They were here, isolated, cut off from everyone else. Nobody even knew that they were in trouble.

Her eye fell on the horn Boromir had pressed into her hands when they said farewell. He'd charged her to use it if her need was dire. If any situation qualified, then surely it would be this one.

Please, please, please, she thought, though she couldn't have said who she was pleading with. Whichever deity or higher power was prepared to come to her aid, she guessed. This did not seem like the right moment to be picky about that sort of thing.

The orcs knew that there were people in here, so any need for quiet was over. That was just as well, because this horn could make a lot of noise. I was never meant to even hold it, let alone blow it, Beth knew. It had been Boromir's, it was an heirloom of his family and his people. She had no right.

But the need was so high that she went ahead and did it anyway. She filled her lungs with air and blew into the instrument with everything she had. The sound was deafening, which was the effect she'd hoped for, so she took another deep breath and did it again and again and again.

The frantic pounding on their door increased.

It wasn't going to exist for much longer. The first hole appeared on the third blow and then another when the battering ram – something that had been a bench in a previous life by the looks of it – was swung another time. The next blow took it off its hinges completely.

Beth exchanged the horn for her sword and joined in the fray. Stab, parry, dodge, lunge, swing. Thráin had trained her well and by now she had some experience under her belt. It probably greatly helped her chances of survival that the orcs had not anticipated in any way that she was going to put up much of a fight. Their surprise however would not last and so she'd better make the most of it while it lasted.

She lost sight of what the other two were doing and even if she wanted to blow the horn again, she could not remember where she put it down. Time lost all meaning and her world had shrunken to only her and whoever he current opponent was. Nothing else mattered.

How long the fight went on, she couldn't say. It could have been minutes, but it could also have been hours. She only knew that her cry for help had been heard when she heard the shouting in the corridor.

It was loud and getting louder and no orc was capable of a war cry like this. It sounded nothing like the war cries she had heard thus far either, but before she had the chance to reflect on this, their rescuers burst into the room, swords at the ready and very much prepared to lay into the orcs with a will.

Éowyn led them, this unexpected group of rescuers, and she had brought the numbers. True enough, none of these new arrivals were warriors, but they knew their way around axes and knives and they really, really did not like orcs. They'd been shut in the caves for a whole night and from the looks of them they wanted in on the action.

This room was suddenly not a place the orcs wanted to be anymore. The women and the old people swarmed into the room, brandishing axes and bread knives and walking sticks with deadly intent. It was spacious enough for three occupants, but there were a lot more than three people here now and the orcs had nowhere left to run.

Beth witnessed old and frail Gárbold swinging an old and rusty sword with all the enthusiasm of a man half his age, effectively ensuring that if the orc in question did not die from the stroke, he would die of blood poisoning instead. His sister – or wife – Éohild was behind him, smiling a toothless grin filled with malice as she clobbered her chosen victim around the head with what appeared to be a bucket previously used for the water removal scheme. Beth even saw Éorryth – minus the toddler – swinging her axe with fervour and the same displeased expression that she always wore.

It was over in under a minute. Éowyn finished off the last of their assailants with a skilled stroke of her blade that betrayed she had some experience in this area. 'We heard your call,' she said. 'And we answered.'

'You saved our lives,' Beth said. Wouldn't it have been bitter irony if outside their people achieved victory while they were slaughtered here with no one being any the wiser? And the horn enabled her to save us. And she couldn't think of the horn without thinking of its rightful owner. Oh, Boromir.

It was as though she was stabbed through the heart, yet she stood and breathed and lived. It was not quite the sort of pain one felt after losing a lover – Beth was familiar enough with that pain thanks to Alex – but more the pain of missing out on what could have been. Only now that he was gone could she admit to herself that a life with him was what she had begun to want.

And now that option was gone forever.

She bit back the tears and turned back towards the window when she lost that fight. She glanced outside just in time to see Théoden cry victory from the back of his horse, sword held high into the air. Some orcs still lived, but that number was dwindling rapidly and those that still lived collectively decided that this was a fight they could not win. They made a run for it, straight toward a line of trees that had not been there an hour before.

It seemed prudent to assume that not a single orc would ever make it out again alive. At least the book was right about that as well. That was a relief. Merry and Pippin had done what they were meant to do.

And yet the book was not always right on the big plot points. She didn't know where the orc came from, where he had been hiding. It all went too fast. All Beth knew was that he was suddenly there and that he ran the King through with the cry of victory still on his lips.

Thráin

'The clouds are moving,' Legolas reported.

Thráin squinted in the right direction, but he could see little difference. 'Are you sure?'

Legolas nodded without hesitating for even a moment. 'Yes,' he said. 'They are moving west and it appears to me that they grow thinner and less powerful as they do. Something has broken the enchantment that created them.'

Thráin looked closer then, but it took him several minutes to see what Legolas's keener sight had seen earlier. Yes, there was movement again. At first he took it for a trick of the light. Sunlight streamed across the land and made even this inhospitable place seem friendly for a while. It also made the clouds seem less dark and it wasn't until he saw them break apart that he could truly find it in his heart to believe the elf.

'The battle is won,' he said. The book was right in this at least. He breathed easier for knowing that.

The collective sigh of relief almost bowled him over. Throughout the night he'd come to realise that there was a great difference between knowing what should be and what was. At times he'd almost wished he had never read the book at all.

But he had and it was right on this at least.

'And we must go.' None of them – save for Gollum – had enjoyed any sleep this night, but they could not afford to linger here for a day to regain their strength. More than before he'd been reminded of what was at stake and the price of dawdling was higher than he knew how to pay. Their fates ultimately rest with us.

Sam was already on his feet, collecting the packs and handing out breakfast to the others, again, save for Gollum. Frodo had offered the creature some lembas when he had first joined the Fellowship, but Gollum had spat it out and outright accused them of wishing to poison him. Perhaps the food of elves was poison to one who had lived under the Ring's shadow for so long.

It was not poison to him and so he ate.

'How much longer in this stinking marshland?' Gimli asked over what passed for breakfast.

'Only today, if all goes well.' The end was in sight, but, to be fair to Gimli, it had been in sight for the past two days. Distance was a deceptive thing here. The edge of the marshes was perhaps two or three miles off as the crow flew, but the Fellowship could not walk there in a straight line or at speed. 'And we must take care that we are not seen by orc patrols passing close.'

The days that they crossed lands that were devoid of any life except them were now behind them. Thráin had no illusions on that count. The lands they were to cross were at open war and neither side would be pleased to find strangers crossing it without permission. For that reason alone he hoped that Faramir had the time to meet them and provide them with an escort for at least some of the way.

'I'll be glad of it and no mistake,' Sam said, who had interpreted this in rather the wrong way. 'I'm sure this elvish food is very good, but I'd like to cook something properly if you take my meaning, Mr Thráin.'

Thráin smiled wryly. 'I do take your meaning, Sam. But we cannot risk a fire going forwards. The lands beyond the marshes are riddled with orcs and they must not find us. A fire would advertise our presence to them.' All their hopes lay in secrecy. If Sauron ever found out who they were, what they carried and what they intended to do, he would have them hunted down and killed. 'Speed and secrecy are the most important things we need now.' And after tonight the need for urgency could not be lost on any of them.

Sam didn't like it, but he did not offer protest either, for which Thráin was grateful.

'We must pass the Ring,' Legolas reminded them all. 'If you would offer us the sticks, Master Baggins, we would be much obliged.'

The words dropped into a well of silence. Frodo did not speak or react in any way and one by one the others turned to look at him. And Thráin did not like what he saw. He had not paid much attention to Frodo during the night, but he did now. The Ring-bearer was pale. The dark circles under his eyes made him look both old and exhausted. They had sunken deep into his face and his skin was no so much pale as white as a sheet. He'd seen corpses with better colouring.

Sam had seen it too. 'Why don't you have breakfast first, Mr Frodo?' he suggested. His voice was calm, but Thráin heard the tension he felt himself. 'I'll fetch the sticks. They're still in my pack.'

Frodo still did not speak, but he took a small bite of lembas. It was a filling substance, but the little Frodo took could not keep a sparrow alive, never mind a hobbit.

'You must eat, Master Baggins, to keep your strength up.' Gimli was not a master of subtlety – no dwarf was – but he excelled in speaking truth. 'The ground is not sturdy enough to carry you if you pass out.'

'I have no appetite,' Frodo said.

Curse that Ring! 'You have no appetite because you still carry the Ring,' Thráin spoke briskly. 'You will feel better once you have taken it off.'

'I do not want to take it off.' The vehemence of the response took all of them somewhat by surprise, even though it was not entirely unexpected. 'It is my burden. This task was appointed to me.'

'So it was,' Thráin replied. He had to take great care to keep his voice calm. 'And then you agreed that it was a burden better shared.' He remembered that he'd had this conversation not so very long ago. He had known then that he would have it again very soon and that it might have a different outcome. The Ring had grown so much stronger of late.

And yet it could never make someone do something that they did not want to do, which was a blessing. What it could do was blind someone, trick them into believing that what the Ring wanted was really what they wanted to do themselves. If only they could reason with Frodo, this situation might yet be salvaged.

And what will you do if it cannot? Everything within him balked at the notion of having to take the Ring from Frodo by force and yet the day might come that there'd be no other choice. When Frodo refused to be separated from the Ring, it'd be a clear sign that he had lost the only fight worth fighting. Mahal help me.

'So you did,' Gimli chimed in.

Frodo ignored that. 'You swore on your life that you would not take it from me,' he said, accompanied by an accusing glare in Thráin's direction.

He almost grimaced to remember it. Yes, he had made such an oath. He also knew that, apart from Gollum, none of the others had made any such vows. He wondered now if that was deliberate. His hands might be tied, but theirs were not. He did not like to have to think like this, but the situation was fast becoming desperate.

'The choice remains yours,' he agreed. 'But recall that you agreed to this. I did not make you. I told you why it was the wisest course of action open to us and you agreed when you told me to take it.' It took effort to keep his voice calm. 'Have any of us ever tried to take it for themselves? Have any of us ever been reluctant to hand it over to its next bearer when the time came?'

He knew the answer to that and this worried him too. It seemed as though the Ring centred its plotting around Frodo and left the others mainly alone. Oh, there was the whispering and the tempting and the invasion of every single thought he had, but if he compared the effect it had on Frodo with the effect it had on the others, it seemed to him that the Ring was not trying all that hard.

It will take us down one by one. Hadn't that been its method when the Fellowship was still whole? It hadn't worked then either, but this was different. Boromir had created distance between him and the Ring and that was a luxury that Frodo did not have. He'd also carried it for longer.

'No,' Frodo spoke at last, but it sounded as though the mere action of speaking that one word took a tremendous amount of effort.

'We only seek to see you reach the end of this journey with your mind intact.' He'd gained a foothold, but he did not know how long he could hold it, so he pressed his advantage while he still could. 'You agreed to that, do you remember?'

Nobody spoke. Thráin felt reasonably certain that he was not the only one who held his breath in anticipation. If he failed to get through to Frodo now, what would he do? What could he do without breaking his oath?

Frodo looked at him again, but it was not all Frodo. 'You lied to me,' he said, the words calm and measured. For all intents and purposes he looked like he always did, but the eyes gave him away; the look in them was far too cold.

'How did I lie to you?'

'You told me you didn't want it.'

'I don't.' The Ring tried to persuade him that he wanted it, but that was not the same thing as actually craving it and Thráin did not. He wished they could be rid of it instead.

'Yet you always ask for it.' The tone was persistent. Frodo's eyes gleamed, with a fever or a madness, Thráin could not say. 'You always tell me to let it go. Why would you ask that if you did not want it for yourself?'

This at least he could answer. 'Because you must let it go if you wish to remain free of it. When we reach our destination, you must let it go for good. You know this. You have always known this. I would wish to see you reach that point while you are still you, when you are not yet so damaged beyond repair. Look at Gollum. Look at him, Frodo.'

Gollum attempted to hide behind Gimli's legs. Gimli dragged him away and into full sight without further ado. When Gollum meant to run off again, Gimli's hand clasped firmly around his arm to hold him in place.

Frodo looked, though Thráin could tell that he did not see.

So he elaborated: 'This is what you will become if you give in to it. And that is only if you are lucky. The most likely outcome will be that you cannot resist the temptation in the end and you will put it on your finger. Once you do, Sauron will find you and you will die.' Not only that, but he reckoned that it was unlikely to be a painless and quick death. Such mercy was not in Sauron's nature. 'Whatever the outcome, when it comes, you will no longer be yourself. I would protect you from that. But you need to give up the Ring, Frodo. If you do not trust me, give it to the others, but stick to the agreement, I beg of you.'

He'd never yet heard a silence so loud. Frodo's eyes were fixed on Gollum and this time, he saw. The mad fever gleam abated. Horror took its place.

'Give me the sticks, Sam.' His voice was tight with tension and he never took his eyes off Gollum while he spoke, as though he needed the constant reminder of what his future might look like if he did not do the right thing.

Sam hurried to comply.

Frodo did not even look at him when the sticks were pressed into his hand; he blindly took them. His hands shook. In his head a fight took place that could not be seen with the naked eye, but it must be at least as hard as the struggle that Boromir had faced in the last days before the Fellowship broke.

Perhaps Gimli sensed this. Either way he made sure to keep Gollum firmly in Frodo's sights. Gollum whimpered, but nobody paid him any mind. They all felt that it mattered that Frodo could keep him in his sights. The victory they had was very fragile still.

It did not surprise Thráin at all that Sam drew the shortest stick after no more than a cursory glance. He had got rather good at identifying that stick and seemingly Frodo had not yet noticed. He hoped it could remain that way. He himself had been rather less successful in his own endeavours.

And so the Ring went to Sam. Frodo did eat after he had passed the Ring over, but it was not nearly as much as Thráin should have liked. Carrying it robbed him of his appetite. And when they moved, it quickly became apparent that a constant failing to feed himself sufficiently had left him weaker than he ought to be.

Gollum moved in to help, but Gimli got there first. 'Eat, Master Baggins,' he ordered, pushing another piece of lembas into his hands. 'Regain your strength.'

Frodo tried to push it away. 'I am not hungry.'

'Just that jewellery trying to trick you into thinking that,' Gimli insisted. 'It likes its bearers to be weak. Are you going to play into its hands or not?'

It was a bit more brusque than Thráin would have done, but it did the trick well enough. Frodo was taken aback for a few moments, but took the lembas and sunk his teeth into it. Thráin breathed easier for it.

So did Legolas, who walked ahead with him to find the safe paths to tread, but the frown did not leave his face. 'He cannot have it again.'

Thráin had reached the same conclusion a while ago, but he was grateful that he did not have to be the one to put it into words. 'I know.' Somehow the words felt like a betrayal. He had to conclude to his own disappointment that the faith he once had in Frodo's strength of mind was fading rapidly. The Ring worked harder and faster than the book had led him to believe, even with the current system in place.

And yet Frodo had prevailed again today. He had needed help to do so, but the fact remained that he had given up the Ring at least half a dozen times since they had left the Anduin behind and he had done so of his own free will. Yet he was also unable to deny that it seemed to take more effort and more persuasion every time. Legolas's words had merit.

He wished they did not.

Next time: the aftermath of the battle.

As always, thank you so much for reading! Reviews would be very welcome. I'd love to know what you think about this chapter/the story/the characters etc.