I apologise for what's about to happen. Please don't kill me. Yet.
Chapter 115
To Make an End
Now that the preliminaries were at last out of the way, the real battle was all set to begin. I had absolutely no idea what it was that Gandalf and Boromir had cooked up between them and from such a way up as I was, it was often difficult to see anything clearly. I had set up my cameras, pointed them at potential points of interest and zoomed in as far as I could. Then I crossed my fingers for luck and hoped for the best.
At first nothing much happened. I could see the Nazgûl flying from one side of the army to the other, probably issuing instructions. If I were to hazard a guess I'd say that Faramir's antics had thrown a bit of a spanner into the works and now they were not entirely certain of how to proceed. All they knew was that they were faced with a man who had the Ring and who yet remained in control. Their usual parlour tricks of death and despair failed to have any effect whatsoever and Faramir showed no signs of actually wanting to put the wretched thing on his finger either.
I think that although they themselves would never have put it like that, they were really getting rather worried.
Our side was very pleased with all the delay. It gave us more time to prepare. Not only that, but every moment that we didn't lose the war was another moment the Fellowship had to get closer to their destination…
Thráin
'I mislike this.'
The words in themselves were mild enough, but the distaste in the tone and the revulsion on Legolas's face made it beyond clear what he thought of this whole scheme. He was however the only complainer. Gimli had taken one look at Thráin's face and hastened to comply. Sam had taken the instruction with a nod. There'd not been so much as a hint of protest from him.
'I mislike being the one to perform this act,' he countered. 'Yet you'll not hear me whining about it.'
He reached out to the patch of mud and ash – because the ash was everywhere – to collect a handful of the stuff.
'You have excluded yourself from this venture,' Legolas pointed out.
And with good reason. 'It is not my hair that can be seen from a mile away.'
His first look at Mordor had left him with the distinct impression that he did not in any way want to explore it any further. There was no life here. Nothing grew. There was only fire and dry heat. The ground was scorched. Most of the Fellowship had shed several layers of clothing since they had entered. It was not winter here, but neither was it summer.
It was just too hot.
Amidst all the blacks Legolas's hair was a beacon that practically invited prying eyes. If they were to cross this land without drawing attention to themselves, they'd need to remain undetected. So the lighter-haired members needed to do something about their hair. That was how they'd ended up here.
'It doesn't half smell,' Gimli commented, sniffing at the pile. 'It's the water here, young hobbits. Drink it sparingly. It can't be wholesome.'
No arguments from Thráin there. Nothing in this land was wholesome, the water was no exception. They had a trickling source of it – refilling the waterskins had taken far too long for his liking – but from what he had seen there would not be many opportunities to refill.
We will not last long without.
'Use it sparingly anyway,' he said. 'This land is not rich in water.'
How did Sauron feed and water his forces? It was bound to remain something of a mystery, because he simply did not have the time to find out.
'Hold still,' he added to the elf. 'Or I shall smear this where you do not want it.'
'You smear it where I do not want it whether I hold still or not,' Legolas retorted.
True enough.
'Almost done,' he said. He applied the last of the makeshift dye and then stepped back to examine his handiwork. 'Not too bad.'
'Dare I ask?' Legolas did not sound hopeful.
'Less prince, more pauper,' was Gimli's helpful commentary.
Legolas glared at him. 'For the sake of the peace I shall refrain from offering some choice remarks on the state of your hair,' he said in tones that suggested he very much would like to offer those comments anyway should Gimli be fool enough to ask for them.
Gimli was. 'And what would those be, Master Elf?' His tone implied that Legolas need not worry about the state of his hair for much longer if he complied with that request, on account of having his head chopped off.
'Peace!' Thráin decreed. 'We have more important matters to concern us. When we make it back to civilisation, we will wash and then we will laugh about this in good humour.' If we ever make it back at all.
He kept that thought to himself.
Instead he went over to Sam to help him apply the last of the muddy paste until he too was suitably disguised. It was not ideal, but it was all they had to hand. The elvish cloaks would have to do the rest. Even so, if orcs came close enough to see them there was no mistaking what they were.
Maker give that we will pass them by unnoticed.
'Let it dry before you pull your hood up,' he counselled Sam. 'In this heat it will not take long.'
'We must be on our way soon,' Legolas said. 'It will not do to linger.'
Thráin nodded. 'Have you seen the tower yet?' he asked. There was supposed to be one, a watchtower originally built by men to keep an eye on the pass. Of course it now belonged to Sauron, as did everything else this side of the mountains.
'It is not far,' Legolas replied. 'And we must pass close by it. I have looked for ways around and out of sight, but it seems to me that there are none. The men of Gondor chose their place well.'
Thráin nodded. 'Would that we could sneak past by dark.'
'There is no light here,' Legolas said.
'Neither is there true dark.' It was not pitch-black here. Rather they existed in a constant twilight and even that was not quite the right name to give it. Twilight at least occurred naturally and this half-dark was entirely of Sauron's making.
'I have seen the tower of Barad-dûr in the distance,' Legolas said. He placed his hand on his chest, over where the Ring rested beneath his clothes. 'It calls to me. It is much stronger here than it was before we crossed.'
Thráin feared as much. 'And heavier?'
'Its weight too has increased.'
It was not in any way unexpected, but he dreaded it all the same. 'We must perhaps pass it around more often,' he suggested. 'I would see us all reach our destination alive and with our minds under our own control.'
Legolas considered this for a while. 'I believe that I am strong enough to carry it till dusk.'
'Not so long ago I thought the same,' Thráin said softly. 'And I was mistaken.'
It was a hard lesson to learn, but he had taken heed. He had come closer then to falling than he had with the cursed thing around his finger.
The Fellowship gathered up their few belongings, checked their waterskins one last time and followed Legolas on the road down from the pass. They pulled up their hoods and drew their cloaks around themselves. It was hot and stuffy, but better this than to be seen by unfriendly eyes.
Legolas had scouted ahead during the night. He was too restless for sleep, or so he'd claimed, so he left Gimli in charge of the resting Fellowship while he had gone to take a look at their road. The Tower of Cirith Ungol was not far off, but heavily undermanned from what Legolas could tell, a state of affairs reflected in everything he had observed. High up as they were he had stood on the mountainside and beheld Mordor. By rights it should have been crawling with orcs.
It wasn't.
Maker keep you, Thoren, Thráin thought, who at least could hazard a relatively educated guess as to why this was so. He had seen the armies and if he had counted the days right – not always a given in a place where night and day had blurred into one – then the army must have arrived. If not, it was certainly close now.
If this was Thoren's plan – chances were that it was, because Thráin knew his brother very well – then it had worked. The road ahead was far emptier than it should have been. There were barely any orcs around. Trolls, Legolas reported, he had not seen at all, though it was well known that Sauron utilised them. Of Nazgûl he had seen nothing either.
Yet there must be. Three had gone north and three had gone west. Where were the remaining three? He did not know and by now he began to feel slightly worried over it. He scoured the sky with any regularity as they walked, but there was nothing there.
They marched in silence. Legolas led, Gimli behind him. Then came Frodo and Sam. Thráin walked at the end to guard from dangers from behind. There was no sound but the wind and even that was not a relief in this place, dry and hot as it was. They'd tied strips of cloth over their noses and mouths to protect themselves from the worst of it, but it was little use. It was the work of moments for the wind to blow through. Their lips cracked and their mouths and throats were dry. Thráin tasted the ash on his tongue even though he had not opened his mouth once since the start of their march.
Without water we shall not last long.
It had been two hours altogether – their pace was slow – when Legolas halted suddenly. 'There is the tower,' he said. 'Once we pass this bend we may be seen from it.'
Mahal's beard! 'Can you see if there are guards who are keeping watch?'
Legolas peered around the corner, stared for a while and then reported: 'I am unsure.'
The novelty of hearing an elf admit to not being certain of something paled in the light of this development. 'Sorcery?' Gimli suggested.
'It is well possible,' Legolas admitted.
'Would you see better without the Ring?' Thráin wondered.
The time the answer was immediate. 'No. This is not the Ring's doing. There is something that surrounds that tower that confounds my senses.'
The answer had been too quick in coming.
'Perhaps we should pass it around even so,' Thráin said. 'If we are to be attacked, it would not do to see you hindered by the Ring.'
The deliberations on Legolas's part took too long.
Maker be good, but it has grown strong. He had feared that it would do so in Mordor, where it was very much at home and the Fellowship was not. These were the lands it knew, the lands that were favourably inclined towards it. Legolas had only ever been in danger on the flight to Osgiliath, but now he was again.
Thráin did not save him this time. Frodo did. He walked towards Legolas, the light of Eärendil cradled in his hands. He held it up so that it was before Legolas's face. What it did Thráin did not know – Legolas certainly never said – but when Frodo tucked it away in his pack, Legolas nodded and asked for the sticks to be given to him.
The routine did not take long. Sam drew the shortest stick and accepted the Ring from Legolas's hands. He hung it around his neck and concealed it under his clothes. If he were asked to carry it from here to Mount Doom and throw it into the fires, he would do so with nary a complaint, Thráin thought. He is perhaps the strongest among us. Frodo in time would have been undone by his selflessness, but not Sam. As for Thráin, he may have resisted Sauron with the Ring on his finger, but his own arrogance had nearly ruined him.
I shall not make that mistake again.
Legolas turned to him. 'I thank you,' he said, hand over his heart. 'You were wise to suggest it.'
'This is not wisdom,' Thráin objected. 'Only sense.'
'My eyes serve me better now,' Legolas said.
Thráin did not say I told you so, though it took him considerable effort not to. 'Look again,' he urged instead. 'You have the keenest eyes in our Fellowship. We must rely on that.' Thráin's eyes were good in the dark, but the elf's were better for long distances.
Legolas repeated his spying posture from before. 'The windows are empty,' he reported. 'And I can see no orcs on the grounds. Yet while the Ring may have played tricks on my eyes, there is still a sorcery on that tower that hinders me. I fear that what I saw is not the truth. If it is, I am convinced that it is not all of it.'
'Well, we can't stay here and linger forever,' Gimli said. 'We must chance it if we wish to continue. It might as well be now.'
Frodo too spoke up: 'Our friends are fighting and dying to give us the time we need.' He sounded heartbroken over it. 'We cannot let their sacrifice be in vain.'
Thráin concurred. Sam nodded vigorously.
'We must go now,' Gimli said, never one to let something go until he got what he wanted. In this he was remarkably like his father. 'Lest our courage deserts us by waiting.'
Thráin disagreed. It was not a matter of their courage failing. The thing he feared most was the loss of water and the ever increasing power of the Ring. Discovery by orcs was only third on his list of fears. Orcs at least he could fight by sword, but the Ring's mind tricks were harder and subtler. And none he knew had ever successfully combatted a complete lack of water.
So they went. Indeed the tower came into view the moment they rounded the corner. It was dark and formidable, though now it was impossible to tell if the tower itself had always been black or that it was the constant ash on the air that had done for it in the end. Men on the whole were not naturally inclined to build structures that seemed to suck all the light out of their environments.
He knew what Legolas meant then when he spoke of enchantments. The air around the tower simmered. He might have mistaken it for the way air behaved when it was too hot, but it was only around the tower itself. It obstructed his vision only a little, but just enough that he could not seem to get a clear view of what happened on the grounds around the tower.
He liked it not.
'Keep your cloaks drawn tight around yourselves,' Legolas said. 'And keep your hoods up.'
Nobody needed telling twice.
Their road led further down. Even from where he was, still some distance away from the tower itself, Thráin could tell that the path led straight past the tower. The mountain made itself made it impossible to even consider clambering over the rocks and around. The rocks were sharp and unstable and even if that were not a concern, they'd stand out there even more than they did on the path itself.
We must be seen, he thought. If there are any orcs yet here, they will see us and they will be waiting.
And yet there was no other way.
He kept his hand on the hilt of his sword, ready to draw it at a moment's notion. It was unlikely that the orcs would come at them from behind, but even so it made him feel a little more secure in having a weapon ready to hand. Before him Legolas, Gimli and even Frodo were doing the same.
'Draw Sting, Frodo,' he said. 'It might give us the warning we need.'
Frodo nodded and did as he was bid. Too late, as it turned out. The blade was already glowing blue. Even as they all looked at it and realised what it meant, a patrol of orcs moved out from behind the next bend in the road.
Thoren
'They have been seen.'
The words were delivered without preamble and in the same matter-of-fact tones that Dwalin usually favoured. It was the morning of the third of March. They had been given some respite, but that was now at an end. It had been longer than Thoren had dared to hope for and yet still not long enough. He had sent their wounded home at dusk last night, but they progressed but slowly. If the defences did not hold and the orcs broke through, there was no chance that they reached safety before the orcs fell on them like starving wolves.
'Approaching?' he asked for good measure, though he knew the answer already.
Dwalin simply nodded.
'Then we must make ready to meet them.'
By now he was weary to the bone. Although it had not been war for more than two months, he felt as though a lifetime had passed in that timespan. There were moments that he could almost forget that he had ever known days of peace at all, for all that he knew there was, was war and death and bloodshed and loss. All else had disappeared.
Yet still he stood and took up his sword.
Hurry, Thráin. Our strength is dwindling and our people are dying.
More than before he missed Elvaethor's steady presence at his side. Even though Jack had not been able to come with him on this campaign, he had not truly felt bereft of kin until Elvaethor was gone. Thoren had sent him away with a heavy heart and with many protests from Elvaethor's own lips. Yet it was the right thing to do.
'You are not well,' he had told the elf kindly, but firmly. 'I will not send you into danger when you are in such a state. The walls of Erebor will protect you.'
Or so he hoped.
The images of the night they'd had to flee the hill were still dancing in front of his mind's eye. Against such a force they could not stand. They had held against the Nazgûl. That had depleted their numbers and their strength, but against that force they could prevail. There was no such guarantee against this new trickery.
All around him he saw folk who were as weary of battle and war as Thoren himself was, yet they came when called. They clutched their weapons and stood tall, because if they fell, there was nowhere to run anyway. The orcs would find them wherever they went. Nowhere was safe anymore. Somehow that worked wonders for men's courage. If there was no other choice, they would find some last reserves of bravery and they would stand and fight.
What else could they do?
Of course they could lay down and die, but self-preservation was just too strong. At least when they fought they yet stood a chance of survival. So here they were, striving for survival.
The army they faced now was vast. Many orcs had died on the hill, yet it did not seem to have made much of a difference. The numbers Sauron sent north were so great that thousands dying made hardly any difference at all.
The Nazgûl were there too, but they held well back. They hovered in the air on their winged beasts, commanding a good view of the battlefield. They will not come close today, Thoren suspected. He took his place near Galadriel all the same. It would not do to risk her falling into Enemy hands.
'How are you, my lady?' he inquired. He had barely seen her these past days. Thoren had been too busy organising everything and she had needed the time to recover. These days her face was as pale as her dress, but she stood tall and straight. It was however telling that Celeborn joined them here today instead of commanding the Galadhrim into battle.
'My full strength has not returned,' she replied. 'But it will serve us all the same.'
He did not ask her to have a care for herself, to not tire herself out too much. He asked that of no one, especially not of himself. 'If the battle goes against us, you must make for Erebor with all due speed.' This was the last place where they could make a stand. After this they needed to seek refuge behind the walls of Erebor and fight the war from there. He turned to Celeborn: 'It will fall to you to see her there safely.'
The elf lord inclined his head.
They had not spoken much. Celeborn had to see to his own people and Thoren had many things to concern him as well. These were not the days for idle talk.
The Nazgûl clearly fully supported that idea, for they commanded their troops into battle only moments later. No time was wasted on any preliminaries, on throwing threats and insults back and forth. They had already been spoken.
So the battle commenced.
Yet something was different this time. It took Thoren some moments to put his finger on it. The violence was not new. Neither was the utter disregard for life with which the orcs went about their business. They fell upon the front ranks possessed with a fury and malice that Thoren had never seen in another race. They cared not whether they died, so long as their foe was overcome in the end.
Maker give that they don't have any more of those infernal devices.
He had little in the way of hope in that regard; Sauron did nothing by halves.
It was Dwalin who realised it first. 'They are coming for us.'
Of course they were. Now that he identified what it was that was different this time, he could see it too. The orcs converged heavily on the front line that was directly before the slightly more secure spot where Thoren and his little group stood. The pressure was heavy everywhere, but it was heaviest there. The orcs overcame the ditch before it in the same manner as they had done on the hill; they filled it up with their own dead.
Stonehelm commanded that section and he had seen it too. He drew as many troops as he could towards that area. Thranduil, who was nearby, saw it too and did the same. For a while it appeared as though the danger was averted – as in so far possible in these circumstances anyway – but then a cheer went up among the orcs.
Thoren's blood ran cold.
Maker be good.
But he wasn't. Perhaps this was the day that Mahal forsook them all. It was hard to see what had brought on this amount of joy with the orcs, but he suspected from the behaviour of his own people. They backed away, elves and dwarves whose courage never had been in any doubt before.
Maker be good.
'Back,' Dwalin ordered. 'For Durin's sake, get back! My lady, now. It's you they come for.'
It was the most sensible thing to do, so Thoren made ready to obey. This was one thing that he could not fight. Yet it was too much like running away. How could he justify this when he had taken Dáin to task for it?
'Go, go!' This was Thranduil, running at them, flapping his hands in a most unelvish manner. 'They have another one!'
Thoren knew even without being told. The problem was that they were so tightly packed together that there was nowhere to move. Most of the fighters were focused on their own patches of land, on where the threat came from. For most of them the orcs were the thing to worry about, not that devilry of Sauron's invention that the orcs brought so close to them.
There was nowhere to go.
It was too late.
He remembered the next moments in sharp detail and as though they were happening far slower than they truly did, even though it was over as fast as blinking. Someone cried to take cover. Thoren did not see who it was, although everyone heeded the suggestion. From the corner of his eye he saw Celeborn reach out to Galadriel. Thoren himself reached for Tauriel, whom he knew to stand behind him, but he never touched her. Something barrelled into him and knocked him off his feet.
The explosion happened before he even touched the ground.
The blast knocked him back even further. He came to a halt against another person, who groaned. Thoren meant to turn his head to see who it was, but was distracted when someone else fell on top of him. This person he did recognise, though.
'Maker be bloody good!' he swore. 'Thranduil, stand up.'
He doubted that they'd have very long before the orcs poured through the newly made breach and wreaked havoc wherever they came. Best to be long gone by then. We should never have risked another battle, he knew then. It was always doomed to fail and the damage they could do to the Enemy was so small to be almost insignificant, especially in the light of what the Enemy could do to them. This was folly from the start.
Thranduil groaned, but did indeed move. Thoren helped him the rest of the way up; he himself had come away better out of this encounter than the elf. Thranduil favoured his left side. The left side of his face was covered in blood. His own, Thoren feared.
'Run,' he said. 'For Durin's sake, lead the retreat. Don't stop until you reach Erebor.'
This had been foolishness. He could see that now. Now that he was once more standing on his own two feet the carnage was undeniable. Where elves and dwarves had been, there was nothing anymore. A dirty-smelling smoke covered the breach, but not for long. Something moved. A great many somethings moved.
He'd never relinquished his hold on Orcrist, something he was now infinitely grateful for. 'Get them out of here,' he told Thranduil. 'I will buy you as much time as I may.'
He did not wait for a response. His course was clear. He would go where he could do the most good.
The distance to the breach was not far. At first he passed folk who were still scrambling out of the dirt and onto their feet, but the closer he came, the less bodies still moved. Closer still, the bits lying scattered all over the ground were barely recognisable as bodies at all.
He never stopped.
The orcs had to cross the smoke to get to the Free Folk. While it lasted this was to Thoren's advantage. They were still blinking to restore their vision while he was already at them, slaying them before they had the chance to defend themselves. At first it was easy because of this. But the orcs poured through the breach at a rate that he could not keep up with. The only luck he had was that the breach did not seem to widen any further.
Nevertheless, there was already a gap in the defences to wide to be closed. This battle was lost the moment that device had been thrown in their midst. Even so his people rallied wonderfully. They were at his back, coming even when he did not call for them. They hurled themselves at the foe without a second thought.
It may not stop the orcs' progress entirely, but it did slow it down. Thoren did not look back to see if Thranduil had followed the instruction he had been given, but he must assume it. He must believe that even now as many people as possible were heading for safer grounds, else what was all this good for?
For Thráin, he reminded himself. Every moment we fight here he comes closer to his destination.
He could not say how long he fought or how many he slew. All he knew was that his clothes and armour were dripping with black blood and that at times he could barely see for the blood and sweat in his eyes. Still he carried on.
He carried on too far. His initial charge had driven him behind enemy lines, cut off from friends and from aid. Yet at the time this mattered not; he knew his kin was nearby. Dwalin had trained him well; many orcs fell before him.
At some point he realised that the distance between him and his had widened to such an extent that it became dangerous. He ought not to go that far. It was asking for trouble and as much as he did not truly believe that he would make it to the end of this war alive, he was not inviting his own demise either. If he lived to fight another day, then so much the better. So he began to fight his way back to relative safety.
It was at this point that he realised that he had perhaps walked into a trap. His way forward had been easy enough – come to think of it there had perhaps been a little too little resistance – but now that he meant to turn back the orcs put up a fight.
This is by design. He cursed himself for a fool for seeing through their motives too late. Galadriel might not have been their intended target as he had suspected. He was. I should have seen it. Orcs never hesitated to offer up their own for the sake of their cause. They'd let him slaughter as many of their number as he wanted to so long as his momentum carried him ever further forward and ever farther away from his own people.
Others might have seen their Enemy's motive and shied away in fear. The fight might have gone out of them as they realised that they were hopelessly lost. Yet Thoren was a dwarf; he never conformed to expectations. And I would rather die than be kept alive for their sport and torture.
He redoubled his efforts.
It was useless. The orcs came from everywhere. He was painfully exposed. There was no one here to watch his back. He slew many, but the truth of the matter was that he was surrounded by many foes. He had to be lucky all the time. They only needed one moment of luck when his attention was elsewhere to strike him down.
If he was lucky enough to only be killed and not kept alive for their cruelty.
I am sorry, Tauriel. In his mind he bid farewell to her, to her and to all the days that they would never have. Farewell, my love. This is where it ends.
He swung his blade again. Orcs slashed at him, clawed at him. One of them lunged for his leg. Thoren took its head off before it could reach him, but another was already there and it was more successful. It made a grab for Thoren's sword arm and took hold, wrenching it back with all its strength. Something tore. Something broke. He groaned in pain despite himself.
'Make no move, dwarf,' someone hissed in his ear. Cold steel was placed against his neck. 'You move, you die.'
It could not be so easy. Thoren laughed.
'Don't move,' the orc repeated.
Don't ever be taken alive by orcs. It was one of the first lessons Dwalin had drilled into his head when he was teaching Thoren and Thráin to fight. Don't ever be taken alive, lad, for they'll do worse than kill you, though I'm sure they'll get around to that eventually. They'll keep you alive for sport and torture. None who've been taken make it home again. Better you fall in battle before that happens.
Of course Dwalin's conclusion had been to never let it come that far in the first place and if they both worked diligently at their swordplay it would never happen at all, so they needed to fight harder and practise more.
Dwalin had probably never envisioned a situation quite like this.
Yet the advice he had given was invaluable. Thoren had no intention of being kept alive for their pleasure, nor was he keen to be used as leverage against his people. This was always bigger than he was.
The blade was cold and sharp against his skin. It would not take long.
He took one deep breath, closed his eyes and conjured the images of his loved ones before his mind's eye one last time. They flashed before him in a moment.
Then he threw himself forwards with all the strength that remained to him.
Right, I'm probably going into hiding now…
Next time: Denethor turns out to be nowhere near as docile as first appeared.
As I said before, I'm going to upload on Thursdays too whenever possible, so you can look forward to that this week. In the meantime I'd like to thank you all for reading. Reviews would be very much appreciated!
Until Thursday!
