Chapter 116
A Fiery Prospect
So, to recap: on the third of March two major battles raged. The battle for Minas Tirith I will cover in some detail later on, but for now I should like to tell you a little more about the battle that the Free Folk Alliance fought against the might of Mordor. Thoren was in the very middle of it and therefore there are many things that he missed. It is my job to shed some light.
After the bomb went off, Thranduil did exactly what Thoren ordered him to do. He even grabbed a furiously protesting Tauriel by the back of her tunic and frogmarched her away from danger. I imagine that he got an earful for that, but at the very least it kept Tauriel safe. Celeborn took Galadriel away while Tegalad and Dwalin went after Thoren, to absolutely no avail. It was not long before they stumbled upon a wall of resistance that they could not seem to break through, try though they might.
The rest of the Free Folk Alliance was not faring too badly at that moment in time. True, the line had been breached and yes, Thoren was not wrong when he concluded that this was the beginning of the end of that battle. But the retreat was conducted in an orderly manner. This was mainly because Mordor's troops had no more bombs to hurl at their foes. The art of bomb-making was still very new to Middle Earth. Saruman had experimented with a substance that I still suspect was gunpowder or something very close to it. He had made exactly one bomb. Helm's Deep was his guinea pig.
Needless to say, it was a resounding success.
Sauron then took that knowledge and ran with it. He made several bombs even before the battle for the Hornburg was fought and sent them north to deal with the massive thorn in his side that was the Free Folk Alliance. Still, it was a new technique and, at the time that Sauron took a chance and sent several examples of Saruman's invention north, unproven. He did not truly need the bombs. The sheer size of his armies would do just as well, so only very few bombs were truly used. Those that were used wrecked up one hell of a body count.
This next bit is speculation, but I do believe that the facts support my hypothesis. The Nazgûl knew that they had a vastly superior weapon at their disposal and that they had only one more chance to use it. Presumably they had now identified Thoren as one of the greatest obstacles to their victory. Not so long ago he had killed one of their own. Some time before that he had been instrumental in the killing of two more wraiths. To top it all off, he was also the unquestioned leader of the Free Folk Alliance, the one who had through sheer force of will taken several smaller groups who liked nothing more than squabbling among themselves and forged them into a cohesive unit that was offering Sauron a defiance he had not known for an age. So it was on Thoren that they converged. He had painted a target on his back and now the day had come that the Enemy decided to deal with him once and for all.
Many miles to the south, Faramir set himself up as a similar target…
Beth
The battle began with a bombardment. The Enemy had made balls and set them aflame before hurling them into the city. Most of them went over the wall and did no damage to the defenders there, but the lower city was instantly transformed into an inferno.
What a waste.
That was Beth's first thought. The second ran more along the lines of: I can't see a single bloody thing from up here! She was someone who valued facts highly and right now most of the facts were far beyond her reach. She was at the highest level and all the fighting was going on at the very lowest.
Well, look at it this way: it's bound to come closer at some point.
That was a thought she shoved away almost right away. It had been bad enough at Helm's Deep. At least then she'd known that there was another way out. She had not got round to using it, but at the start of the battle she had known that it was there. There'd be no slipping out the back door here. If the orcs made it this far, she'd be dead beyond the shadow of a doubt.
Best not to think about that.
To distract herself she fiddled with the camera. 'Keep an eye out for the Nazgûl,' she told Faramir.
'I am,' he said. And so were his men probably. 'What are you doing?'
'Trying to get some quality content,' Beth replied, trying to make the camera zoom in further without reducing everyone to blurry bits. So far it really wasn't working. 'This thing is supposed to capture everything that happens, except everything that happens is too far away and I can't bloody see!'
That was the whole point. She couldn't see. She couldn't see what was going on, how the battle was going. So she was up here, second-guessing everything that happened, fretting over things she couldn't control. She'd been effectively side-lined. There was nothing she could do here. She was no warrior.
And as things stand, a pretty crappy war correspondent.
In other parts of the world the sun must have risen by now, but Minas Tirith remained cloaked in gloomy and perpetual twilight. It was not fully dark, but neither was it fully light. Perhaps we will remain that way until this battle is decided. For now light and dark were locked in a struggle for dominance. If we win, the sun returns. If we lose…
It did not bear thinking about. The only consolation was that she was unlikely to live very long to see how it all turned out. That thought was not nearly as encouraging as she had intended it to be.
'You are unused to waiting,' Faramir observed.
Beth opened her mouth to deny it, but found that she could not, so she closed it again. 'I am,' she realised.
She had grown up in a world with Internet and instant communication. If she wanted to know what was going on in the world, she only had to go as far as the Internet to find out. If she wanted to talk to Peter in Germany, she only had to pick up a phone and call him. But now she couldn't do a quick Google search to find out what the state of the war was in other parts of the world. Neither could she give Thráin a ring to ask how far he had gone in the time she hadn't seen him.
What I wouldn't give for a decent Internet connection!
'Where I come from, the information flow is so much faster than here,' she explained, feeling hopelessly inadequate. Words might be her trade, but making the translation between these two very different worlds was something she had never been trained for, because it was never meant to happen.
Thanks again, Gandalf.
Then again, when information needed to be conveyed quickly over short distances, the men of Gondor were more than equal to the task. Eradan came bolting out of the palace, two others at his heels. 'My lord!' he called. 'My lord!'
Faramir turned around. 'Eradan,' he acknowledged. 'What has happened?'
'Your father is not in his chambers,' Eradan replied promptly. 'I accompanied one of the servants to bring him some food and drink, but he was no longer there.'
Damn and blast. Beth shivered. This is the book again, she thought, desperately trying to recall what had happened in the text. Denethor had tried to burn Faramir and himself, sure that they could not win and that he could only choose his own end. The palantír had been involved as well.
But he doesn't have that any longer, she thought. Even now Pippin was guarding it with some of Faramir's most trusted men. No one should use it. To that end the thing had been wrapped in several layers of cloth before being stuck in a chest made of oak and locked with three padlocks, the keys of which were divided among Faramir, Pippin and Beth herself. And, because overkill was not really a problem here, it had also been placed in a heavily guarded dungeon cell, the same one that Thráin had once occupied.
'You mean the one that could be unlocked with a hairpin?' Beth had asked, now familiar with the story.
Faramir had only grinned. 'Not anymore.'
Still something did not feel right. Was Denethor dying a major plot point? Beth had not previously believed so. Yes, it freed the way for Faramir to take over and display a more welcoming attitude towards Aragorn, but that wasn't needed any longer. Denethor was no longer in charge. Boromir had removed him from office. Denethor's death was unnecessary.
And still.
'I'll need to check something,' she said. 'Keep an eye on my cameras, will you?'
Faramir did not ask questions, for which she was grateful. He only ordered Eradan to go with her and obey her every order as if it were his.
Please don't. I haven't got a clue what I am doing.
But she said nothing.
'Where to, my lady?' Eradan asked.
'The dungeons,' Beth replied. 'I want to check on Pippin.'
She set off, with Eradan following in her wake.
'Are we not supposed to find Master Denethor?' he asked.
Yes, they were. 'The palantír was taken from him. I reckon it's the first thing he'd go after.' Well, the first thing was probably Faramir, but he was practically surrounded by guards. Pippin only had two tower guards to protect both him and the palantír.
She felt for the key, but it was still in her pocket. Reason told her that Denethor could not possibly have broken in and got away with it. Then again, he should not have been able to break out of his room either, so perhaps she should not rely on reason so much today. Her instincts had led her in the right direction before, so they might yet do that again.
Eradan asked no more questions. He only nodded. He did however keep his hand on the hilt of his sword, ready to take it up at a moment's notice. It seemed unlikely that this was necessary yet, but it paid to be prepared.
The door to the dungeons was open. It swayed in the gentle breeze, creaking in a way that betrayed it could really do with a bit of oiling sometime soon.
'Damn and blast.'
She made to enter, but Eradan got there first. 'With your permission, my lady, allow me.' He did not wait for permission. Instead he shouldered his way in without waiting for her reply.
She gave it anyway. 'Be my guest.'
The corridor was deserted, as were most of the cells. Minas Tirith was either a very law-abiding city or all the prisoners had been evacuated along with most of the citizenry. There was also a notable absence of guards.
Damn again.
'Pippin?' she called out. 'Is everything all right?'
Her words dropped into a well of silence.
Everything sounded too loud: their footsteps, the noise Eradan's armour made when he moved, even their breathing. There should have been other noises here. Pippin should be chatting at the guards about the Shire, pipe weed and generally everything under the sun. The guards might laugh and huff and ask questions in return. There was none of that.
The reason for all of this was simple. When Beth and Eradan walked around the corner all three of them were lying unconscious in the cell they had been supposed to guard. The chest containing the palantír was nowhere to be seen.
Eradan rushed forward to open the door to the cell itself, which had been left unlocked. Once inside, he crouched down next to his fallen comrades and Pippin to feel for a pulse. Evidently he found what he was looking for, because when he rose again, the relief was all over his face. 'They live,' he reported. 'There is no bleeding that I can discern. They might only have a headache when they wake.'
Beth nodded in acknowledgement.
So much for the good news. 'The chest is gone.'
Yes, the chest was gone. Come on, Beth, think. What could he have done with it? He didn't have the keys. Even if he took one off Pippin, he still missed two. And there was no way in hell he'd ever get close enough to Faramir to take the key from him, which left him with just a chest.
'He can't open it,' Eradan said, whose thoughts ran along similar lines.
'Could he smash the chest if he dropped it from a great height?' she wondered.
Her companion shook his head. 'Unlikely. It is strong wood, banded with iron. For all his flaws Master Denethor is no fool. He knows this.'
Wood. 'But wood can burn.' Her voice sounded as if it came from very far away. In her mind all the pieces of the puzzle were falling neatly into place. Denethor, fire and the palantír. The only missing ingredient was Faramir. A minor change and still somehow close to the book. The same outcome even if the road to that outcome was different.
Can it be a major plot point after all? If they were all still alive in a week or so she should ask Gandalf.
'Where could he have gone?' Eradan asked. He might know nothing about the book, but seemed like he was only this far removed from attributing magical powers to her.
'Rath Dínen,' she said. What the hell was Denethor playing at? Was he just going to burn the chest to get out the palantír? Would he accidentally set fire to himself? Did he plan on burning with the palantír in his hands? Beth only suspected the outcome she was going to find. Either way, it could not end well.
Eradan never questioned her. 'Follow me.'
So she did. Their way led down. The place could only be accessed on the sixth level and even then they descended further. Their destination was on the fourth level, Beth knew. Would that she knew where exactly the Enemy forces were, but although she heard the sounds of battle ever clearer the further down the hill they progressed, she never saw an orc. In fact, she saw no one at all. The streets were deserted. This was a place for the dead. The living had no business here.
'Where to now, my lady?' Eradan clearly mistook her for a navigation system. It was probably best not to tell him that most of this day's work was based on conjecture. Even now that they were so close, there was no sign of Denethor, no clue that he had even been here. What if I am wrong and he's gone for Faramir?
'House of Stewards, I think.'
Part of her hoped that she was very wrong about all of this. A greater part feared that she was not. And, as per usual, she had no idea what to do if she actually found Denethor. She could of course try to reason with him, but all the available evidence indicated that Denethor had passed that station a while ago.
Eradan prised the doors open.
'Well, shit.'
Beth didn't like being proven right. Just when it would be mightily convenient if the book got it wrong it decided to follow the text for once. There was Denethor, already standing on a pyre, attended by two servants – so much for rooting out those loyal to Denethor – and the chest at his feet.
This is not good.
The doors opening had drawn the former Steward's attention. He swivelled around, registered the presence of two unwanted people and frowned. 'Why are you here?' he demanded. Even robbed of his office his voice still rang with authority.
'To prevent a tragedy,' Beth replied. She did a few steps forwards.
'Do not come closer!' Denethor ordered.
He was the one with the burning torches at his disposal, effectively holding himself hostage. It seemed wiser not to antagonise him for the time being.
'All right, I won't,' she said.
Only when she stood still did Denethor ask his next question: 'What is this tragedy you speak of?'
'Your death.' It was obvious, wasn't it? 'Will you please climb down?' And get those torches away from the wood while you're at it? Beth was by no means an expert, but that wood looked very, very dry to her. It'd go up in moments and Denethor with it. 'Please, not all is lost. There is no reason to kill yourself.'
'There is no hope!' Denethor snarled. 'We have failed. Better then to burn sooner rather than later, for burn we must.' The lower city already did. Beth had an uncomfortable suspicion that Denethor knew this.
Reasoning is not going to work. 'So you're basically handing the orcs their victory on a silver plate. Good job. Well done.' The sarcasm came uncalled for. 'Sauron must be so pleased.' She waited a moment. 'And so proud. At long last he's got you exactly where he wants you.'
Denethor's mouth opened, then closed again.
Beth took that as her cue to elaborate. 'The last thing we want is for Sauron to win,' she insisted. 'That must include that we cheat him out of his victory at every front imaginable. It's no good winning the battle if we lose our minds in the process. Then it will all have been in vain and he'll still win. You can't give in to it.'
For a moment she fancied that there was some sort of understanding in Denethor's eyes. Something she said had pierced through the fog of madness and despair and struck a chord. She had no idea what it was, if perhaps it was only the novelty of being spoken to in that manner that took him by surprise. He looked at her, opened and closed his mouth some more.
'Please step down,' she pleaded, softening her tone. 'This is not the end yet, I promise you. There is hope still.'
There had to be, otherwise she might just run mad herself. She had to keep believing that Aragorn was on his way, that Théodred was coming with an army at his back, that the Fellowship was still marching into Mordor without Sauron being any the wiser. If she did not believe, then what was the point of coming here at all?
So I must believe it, else I would not have bothered. Unlike most of her thoughts this day, this one did actually encourage her.
The understanding disappeared, its place once again taken by a feverish glint in the eye. 'There is no hope,' he said. There was a jug in his hands. Beth had not seen it before and she had absolutely no idea where it had come from. 'Fool yourself if you must, but do not trouble me with your ramblings. The old alliances are dead, our own men outnumbered. There is no hope. Leave me. Fight if you must, but leave me to my pyre.' He poured out the contents of the jug over his head. Oil, judging by the way the light fell on it. Bloody hell, he'd go up like a torch. 'I shall choose my own end. Let me burn like the heathen kings of old.' He looked down to the chest at his feet. 'But at least the instrument of my ruin shall perish with me.'
Bloody, bleeding hell!
'Run!' she told Eradan.
He did as she told him, but it was already too late. Denethor gave a sign to his servants, who held their burning torches against the wood. True to expectations it went up with a whooshing sound. The wood was very dry and the oil had made it even more flammable. The pyre itself, the chest and the erstwhile Steward were engulfed in flames in moments. Even if they could haul him off that pyre now without endangering themselves, it would be too late for Denethor. He could not survive this.
So Beth stopped running. She stood and stared at last.
I have failed.
Thráin
Thráin's sword was already in his hand before Legolas could ever shout at them to draw their weapons. 'Stand aside, Frodo,' he ordered. 'You too, Sam.' The foe was before them, not behind. In cases such as these it made sense to have the fighters at the front and the more vulnerable hobbits behind.
And truth be told, Thráin wanted to keep that Ring as far away as possible from the orcs.
The hobbits stood aside, pressing themselves close against the rocks that formed the side of the road in order to allow Thráin passage. He ran forwards and joined in the fight.
'Three, four, five, six!' Gimli kept an enthusiastic count of his kills as he went about his work. He had first stepped onto a rock at the side of the road, from which vantage point he had hurled himself into the middle of the orc patrol. They never knew what hit them before Gimli was already well on his way to killing them.
Legolas and Thráin were not too far behind. The fighting was in too close quarters for Legolas to use his bow, so he used his knives instead and was just as deadly with them. Orcs fell under the blades by droves.
This was a relatively small patrol, Thráin realised when the orcs fell and were no longer replenished. Only about twenty bodies littered the ground when all was said and done, most of them Gimli's kills, thanks to his early start. He was already becoming unbearably smug about it.
'Where is the rest?' Frodo asked. 'Shouldn't there be more?'
By rights these lands should be crawling with orcs. The Fellowship was now in full view of the tower. It ought to be manned. Right now every single orc in that tower ought to be reaching for their swords to answer the threat on their very doorstep. And yet there was no movement. Thráin squinted at the tower, but saw nothing that he had not already seen before.
And that was precious little.
The air still simmered around the tower, but other than that nothing happened. By now enough time had passed that the orcs should be pouring out of that building to kill the threat. Still nothing moved.
'The enchantment around the tower,' he began, addressing Legolas, 'could it be to conceal that there is nobody in there at all?'
Legolas considered this. He too looked long and hard at the structure and squinted a bit. 'It is possible,' he said at last, sounding unconvinced. 'But where else would they be?'
'In Gondor,' Sam piped up. 'The force we saw…'
'Is not big enough to encompass all of Sauron's forces.'
Thráin reckoned that he had the answers this time. 'But there is also the force that went north,' he said. 'As I think Thoren intended.'
Maker keep you, brother. May he guard and shield you from harm.
'Intended?' Legolas asked.
'Intended,' Thráin confirmed. 'Thoren defied Sauron's messenger at the gates. If the book would have had its way, that would not have happened. Dáin would be King under the Mountain and he would have played for time.' The whole thing had read like a far too mannish practice for Thráin's taste. Thoren would never have done it. The idea would not have occurred to him in the first place.
'But that is not what happened,' Gimli said. 'I was there. That is not what happened.'
Yes, Thráin knew that. 'Sauron could not let the defiance go unanswered, so he sent an army north to supplement his Easterlings. Yet we know that after a short siege, they were all defeated. This happened while we were in Lothlórien. By then, I believe, Thoren would have received my note containing the little information the book gives concerning the war in my homeland. Glóin will have told him what I was about.'
'You believe that your brother deliberately made sure to make Sauron send as many troops north as he could to clear our way?' Frodo asked, shock and incredulity warring for dominance.
'I am almost sure of it.' He cast another look at the tower, where still nothing happened. He wiped his sword on the cloak of one of his dead foes. 'From what I can tell it seems that he succeeded in this.'
But at what cost? That did hardly bear thinking about. How many of his kin would he find dead when he came back home? How many faces he knew would simply not be there when he walked through the gates? Would Jack still be there? Would Thoren? The longing for home crashed over him, stronger even than the longing for Khazad-dûm. If not for Gandalf, he would have faced this war at their side, where he ought to be.
Yet what would have become of this Fellowship then?
Put it aside, he counselled himself. The choice is made. It cannot be unmade. This was his course now.
Sam, who had sat on an obliging stone until now, rose to his feet. 'Your brother must be a great King, Mr Thráin, such as the world has seldom seen.'
'A brave King,' Frodo agreed quietly. 'I should like to thank him in person once this mission is done.'
'He'd tell you that it was you who did us the service,' Thráin said. He knew his brother. He understood the way his mind worked. All things told, his own functioned similarly. Had their places been reversed, matters might not have turned out so very different. 'Come, we must be on our way.'
They all rose again. Legolas beheld the tower with no small amount of concentration. 'Your notion has merits, Thráin,' he said. 'If any were still in that tower, they should have moved on us by now.' He looked him in the eye. 'We owe your brother a debt of gratitude that we cannot ever repay.'
'Please do not hesitate to apprise him of this at war's end,' Thráin said. 'You may see for yourself how receptive to this he'll be.' If he yet lives, a treacherous little voice whispered at the back of his mind. If you would only put on the Ring…
He could be home. He could end this war. He could ensure the survival of whomever he pleased. He could remove those who threatened all that he held dear. All the suffering could end at his say-so, if only he would put the Ring on his finger.
It was powerful, he had to grant it that. He did not have it, yet it spoke so very clearly. But Thráin had put the Ring on his finger before. He had seen where that led. No matter what that cursed piece of jewellery whispered, it had not given him all that he wanted.
He did not fall for it.
Yet it was a warning, one that he could not ignore. The longer we remain here, the stronger it will become. We cannot afford delays.
'We should go in to have a look around,' Gimli suggested. 'If no one is there…'
'We must not delay,' Thráin reminded him.
'Didn't mean to stay long,' Gimli pointed out. 'Just long enough to take their supplies and their water.'
Thráin cursed himself for a fool. He should have thought about that. Faramir had given them a good supply of food that should see them through another week. They also had more lembas than Thráin wanted to think about, though even that tasted of ash and sulphur in this wretched land. But water was hard to come by. Even orcs could not entirely do without, so it stood to reason that some could be found in the tower.
'I shall go in and scout ahead,' he said before anyone else could volunteer. 'Stay here.'
He walked off before the protests could begin.
As he walked he drew his cloak around himself. It had little to offer in the way of protection so long as he moved, but it was better than nothing at all. At the very least it offered some protection from the relentless dry wind. It did as the elves had promised: it kept him warm in cold weather and cool in the heat. Just a pity that he could not draw the hood over his face entirely; it might have kept out the dust.
Before long he stood before the wall of enchantment. The air simmered, but did not seem necessarily more harmful than the land itself. Thráin held out his left hand – better to lose the use of his left than his right – and touched it.
Nothing happened.
He pushed further and found that his hand went right through it without doing any harm. True enough, when he stepped through it nothing happened either, not that he could discern. Now that he had stepped through, he could at last see the tower clearly. Up close it looked even more deserted than from a distance. Sauron may wish to lure any passer-by into a false sense of security by making it appear empty when it was not, but in this case it showed the truth. The grounds were deserted.
He proceeded with some caution to the entrance of the tower itself, but that too was left unguarded. The door was closed, but unlocked. The hallway beyond was devoid of life as well. They have gone north and west. Barely any remain to guard the Black Land itself. What a gamble that was! If anyone were to find out, they'd try to bypass Mordor's armies to march on their home instead. Sauron would have the protection of his infamous Black Gates and little else.
Maker be good. Thoren, what have you done? It must be quite something for the Enemy to leave his own lands so undefended.
He stood in the doorway and pondered his course. It didn't take long. 'Is anyone home!' he bellowed into the hallway and up the staircase. His voice echoed up and then down the stairs again. No orc, unless he be dead, could fail to hear it.
Nothing happened. Just to be on the safe side, he shouted his query again, with just the same lack of any result. Confident that the tower was unoccupied at present, he turned back and collected the others.
'Nothing?' Legolas asked.
'Only the echo of my own voice,' Thráin reported. 'Had there been anyone there, they would have rushed out to kill me. None did.' Say what you like about orcs, but they never turned down a challenge of any kind, especially not if it offered them the chance to go out and kill. 'We should be safe enough for a while.'
'But we should not linger long,' Legolas said.
'We shouldn't,' Thráin agreed. 'But I would rather spend the night with walls around me than out in the open. We should be gone again by first light.'
'There's no first light here,' Gimli muttered, not quite under his breath.
'The day is ending,' Legolas answered the question Thráin had not asked. His sense of time was more acute than any of the others'. In this land, made to confuse and dull the senses, that was a quality that could not be overvalued. 'And we need rest.'
Thráin could have gone on for hours yet, though even he was glad of the chance to sit and rest. The hobbits had it worse. Frodo was having trouble remaining upright. Even Sam was in trouble, dragged down by the Ring around his neck. Yet his spirit was unbroken. He was tired and grim-faced, but he turned down the help Gimli offered and continued to set one foot in front of the other, treating every step forward as though it was a victory in and of itself.
He is the strongest of us all in many ways.
He installed the hobbits in a guard room on the ground floor. It was smelly and messy – all orc dwellings were - but it was empty and there were a few empty barrels that could serve as chairs. He left Legolas with them for security, while he himself took Gimli along to see what they might find.
'Our priority is water,' he told his kinsman as they made their way up the stairs when the ground floor itself proved mostly empty. 'Food would be good, but we should have a sufficient supply to see us through to the end of our journey.'
Gimli stopped. 'What about the way back?'
Ah.
'That should not worry us now.'
Gimli put his axe against the wall so that he could cross his arms over his chest all the better. If it hadn't been for the fact that his hair that was caked with mud, he could have been his father at his most disapproving. Thráin almost did a step back as though he were a young dwarfling caught red-handed in the act of making mischief.
'What does the book say on this?' he demanded.
'We have gone off the path,' Thráin said. 'The book is no longer reliable.'
That was not the answer that Gimli wanted to hear. 'Miss Beth promised us that the ending would be happy. Tell me.'
For someone who was supposedly going to follow his orders, Gimli was being very demanding. 'I thought you said that I was your King?'
'You said you were not,' Gimli retorted. 'Yet even if you are not yet my King, you are still a prince. I should know how to protect you.' He gave Thráin a pointed look. 'Durin.'
'Not yet,' Thráin protested.
'No, you're not doing anything about it yet,' Gimli insisted. He really was being far more obstinate than he usually was of late. It was not a development Thráin applauded. 'That's not the same. So tell me what Beth's book says.'
Thráin would have rolled his eyes if he thought it'd make a difference. Since it would not, he refrained and complied. 'When the Ring is destroyed,' he began, glossing over the details of said destruction and Gollum's involvement in it, 'Frodo and Sam will be rescued by eagles, friends of Gandalf's, I believe.'
Gimli remained unconvinced. 'How do they know to come?'
'They show up to join the battle before the Black Gates, a last attempt of the men of Gondor and Rohan to draw Sauron's eye away from the Ring-bearer and clear his path of all orcs.'
'But no orcs remain in Mordor,' Gimli observed. 'There aren't enough of them to guard one tower, never mind the entirety of the Black Land.'
'You see my point then.'
That battle might not happen, so the eagles might not show up, stranding them on an erupting Mount Doom with nowhere to go. If Beth had survived – he prayed that she had – she'd have the good sense to give all this information to Gandalf. Still, he had no idea how matters stood beyond the borders of this land. She might be fighting for her own life even now. There was no guarantee that the eagles would show even if she could share her knowledge with the wizard. The eagles might simply elect never to leave their eyries in the first place.
These are the consequences of the choices I made. Yet if he could choose again, he would still do the same. This was bigger than any of them.
'I see,' said Gimli.
'We cannot turn back,' Thráin warned. And Gimli had better not make that suggestion where anyone else could hear it.
'I was not about to suggest it!' Gimli protested indignantly. 'But I would know.' He swung a finger under Thráin's nose that reminded him uncomfortably of his Uncle Dori. 'I'll not let you die, nor the young hobbits, nor even that vexing elf. You're the hope for our people, Durin, so if you think I'll sit idly by while you endanger your life, you'd be very much mistaken indeed. I've got my eye on you.'
Somehow he made it sound as though having Sauron's eye on him might be the more pleasing alternative. Thráin did a step back until his back was against the wall. 'If it puts your mind at ease, I shall try not to get myself killed on purpose.'
Gimli uncrossed his arms. 'Very well,' he said. 'I shall hold you to that. Come, there might be water in that room across the landing.'
There was water in the room across the landing, barrels upon barrels, stacked on top of each other.
Just a pity it tasted as foul as everything else did in these parts.
Next time: Here be Nazgûl. No one is in for a good time. Not even the Nazgûl themselves.
Thank you so much for reading. Reviews would be very welcome.
Until Sunday!
