Chapter 117

A Last Farewell

The Fellowship had a lucky break. Here at last the results of Thoren's decisions began to be visible and they began to pay off. If he had not made sure that Sauron had sent everything and everyone he had against the Free Folk Alliance in the North, that tower would have been filled with orcs from top to bottom. The Fellowship would never have been able to sneak past without being noticed.

As it happened, the patrol that the Fellowship came across was the only one in the tower or indeed in the neighbourhood. Yet their bodies were shoved into a shallow cave at the side of the road – the remainder of the Fellowship had not been idle when Thráin went to scope out the tower on his own – and hastily covered up to avoid discovery until long after the Fellowship was gone.

They took the advantage of shelter for the night. Just to be sure they closed the door and barred it. They posted guards of their own as well, but nothing moved outside. The land itself was black and dead. From what I have heard, nothing grew in that desolate place. I have never been in Mordor, so all I have are stories, but they put me in mind of a place not unlike the Brown Lands, only more black and far hotter, with added ash to pollute the air. It's not a pretty picture. No wonder no one wanted to live there.

Meanwhile the battle in Minas Tirith raged on. The men of Gondor gave a good account of themselves. They sent forests' worth of arrows at their foes and many of those hit their aim. Bodies piled up before the wall, which created an additional obstacle for the invading army to overcome. The Enemy had utilised battle towers to unleash orcs on the walls. A great deal of those towers was set alight before they came within reach of the walls. The orcs that were offloaded were fairly easily dealt with. And all the while the catapults on the walls took out big chunks of the army before the walls.

A lot of the success of was down to two factors. The first was the absence of the two Nazgûl. They were present, hovering in the air on their winged beasts, but they took no part in the battle. No one knows why, but if I were asked to speculate I would say that they now knew that they were not invincible. They were far more careful than they might otherwise have been.

The second contributing factor was the preparation Boromir had taken. Thirty years ago Thráin had made an off-handed remark about the state of Gondor's defences. Denethor had ignored it, but Boromir had not. As soon as he was given command of the defences, he had ordered that the city walls be strengthened. He had catapults and defence works made. He'd had work done on the gates as well. Evidently he'd done something right, because they had not yet been smashed in.

Having said that, if no help came, eventually we would lose. We were heavily outnumbered. Our defenders would eventually tire and need rest. We had few reserves, so the people that we had must by necessity go on until they dropped. We were only staving off the inevitable.

But as gloomy as our prospects were, they were nowhere near as bad as those of the Free Folk Alliance…

Thoren

Rough hands pulled at him. They pushed and pulled and pressed down on his throat. His mind was sluggish, so he did not respond. If he did not, perhaps they would go away. He was in no mood for company. He was so tired and so very, very cold.

'Get up, dwarf scum!' The pulling stopped only to be replaced by hard prodding between his ribs with something hard.

The use of Black Speech brought him back to his senses and once they returned, his memory did too.

I failed.

That was the first thought in his head. For a brief moment Thoren believed he had succeeded, that he could at the very least make sure that he was not left at the mercy of orcs. He recalled the blade digging into his skin first, then his flesh and veins. The pain had come next, strong and overwhelming.

He hadn't felt it for long.

But he was not dead.

Maker be good.

He opened his eyes and blinked against the light of the torches. After a few times his vision cleared. There were many of them here, set up in a circle under the open sky. The clouds were still there, flashing almost continuously.

He was not allowed to ponder this; another hard prodding followed shortly after the first round. 'Get up, get up!'

Part of him wanted to disobey on principle. He was not prone to obeying the instructions of his foes. Yet it would serve him little now. His strength had left him. He had none with which to fight back. Besides, fighting was futile. There were seven orcs in his direct line of vision – all of them too close for comfort – and doubtless there were more that he could not yet see.

So he tried. And failed. There was no strength in his limbs. He was as weak as a new-born babe. He struggled to get himself into a sitting position, but his arms, which he tried to use to prop himself up, gave out before he got started.

How much blood did I lose? How close was I?

It was a small consolation only that if he was already this weak, his body would not withstand much more. He'd die before they could have much joy of him. Bearing this in mind he let them get on with the job of dragging him to his feet when they at last understood that he could not do it himself. It elicited a great deal of laughter and mocking from them.

Thoren cared not. This was a weakness in which there was no shame. He had fought and he had lost. No warrior worth his beard would feel shame over wounds sustained in battle.

Even to remain on his feet he needed to be supported. It was probably just as well that the orcs clustered so close around him that there was no space to fall anyway. They were near enough that he could smell the stench that hung around all of their kind like a cloud, a smell of blood and death and decay. He brought up the little food that was left in his stomach, the urge too strong to control.

The orcs laughed again, then turned him around.

He had not detected the Nazgûl's presence before now. Were his senses too dulled or could the wraith turn this terrifying effect on and off at will? But he was here, standing tall, clad in rags and armour, sword in his ghostly hand. The naked steel reflected the light of the torches, spelling death and doom for anyone fool enough to find himself on the receiving end.

'You live, King under the Mountain,' he said.

Since this was not a question and an observation he unfortunately could not possibly deny, Thoren said nothing.

'You are not allowed to die yet.'

Because you seek to use me against my own people. Thoren knew where this was going. Before he was to be left as sport to the orcs, the Nazgûl meant to use him. He suspected it was the only reason why he was still more or less in one piece. It was what he had feared. It was a game he hoped he could avoid playing by making his own exit.

Luck had abandoned him at last.

'Move.'

The orcs behind him thought he did not comply with that order nearly quickly enough, so they pushed against him, making him stumble and fall. Rough hands dragged him up again and, when it turned out that he could not in fact set so much as one foot in front of the other, they dragged him by his arms behind the Nazgûl. He was too weak to protest the treatment. It was too much effort to even raise his head to see where they were going. Moving it hurt his throat all the worse too, so he refrained from trying.

He did however get a good view of the ground. The temperature was still freezing, but here the ground had been broken and turned over, thawed by the multitude of blood that had been spilled on it. It collected in puddles, black and red alike. His feet were dragged through it; he felt it spatter against his legs.

He saw no bodies; some orcs went before them to clear the way so that their ghostly general did not have to climb over the bodies of the fallen to reach his destination. Perhaps it was better that way; it was unlikely to be an encouraging sight.

We fought well, Thoren reminded himself. We held out for much longer than Sauron anticipated. We defeated two armies in battle. We bought Thráin much time.

He had fought and, though the Nazgûl and the orcs did not know it, he had won in all the ways that mattered. Sad as he was to leave his kith and kin behind, he did not shy away from death now. He had fought long and hard. Now it was rest that he craved. Let someone else pick up where he left off. There were enough people now who knew what was at stake and what should be done.

But it is over for me.

There could be no mistaking that.

Thoren only returned to the here and now when his guards stopped dragging him and they instead tried to prop him a little bit more upright. He had no strength to either resist or comply, so he let them get on with it.

He did not like what he saw when he could at last see something other than the ground beneath his feet. A space had been cleared between the two armies. Several leaders of the Free Folk Alliance had already assembled there when the Mordor delegation arrived. Galadriel had come with Celeborn. Stonehelm was here too, stone-faced, but fingers on the hilt of his sword. Dwalin stood beside him. Thranduil too had come, with Tegalad as his guard. And yes, here was Tauriel. Thranduil had a hand on her arm, presumably to stop her from throwing all caution to the wind and making a run for him.

'You see that we have your King,' the Nazgûl said. It certainly did not beat around the bush. 'Your options are simple. Surrender and you may have him back. Refuse to do so and he will die.' He stepped aside so that they could see him more clearly.

Pondering on what it was that they saw was unlikely to lead to a satisfactory conclusion. Thoren knew that he was covered in blood, most of it his own. He was bloody and unkempt. If anything, he looked more dead than alive.

He felt more dead than alive at any rate. He was strangely disconnected from himself. He felt his body with all its many aches and pains, but he no longer felt so attached to it. His life was hanging by a thread. Just one more push and he'd die. He'd no idea what they had done to his throat to stem the bleeding, but he reckoned that it was not going to do a lot in the long term. I am slipping away despite their efforts.

In the silence after the wraith's words, he heard Tauriel gasp in shock. 'Thoren…'

She'd had such hopes. She'd clung to them despite the odds they faced. Thoren had always known himself to be the more realistic one of them. But Maker be good, he had hoped and prayed that she would be long gone by now. At the moment he thought it, he knew it was a foolish hope. She had come for him before, when all others had lost hope of his survival. She had asked of him to not send her away. Of course she was here. Where else would she be?

I am sorry, he thought, though he knew she could not hear him. I wish we could have seen the days of peace together, but that is not to be. You have my love. I am sorry.

I shall convey your message to her.

Barely had he finished the thought before the voice of Galadriel was in his head. Thoren could have laughed with the relief. He had feared that he was to be cut off from communicating with his own, but he was not. He could still speak with them and tell them what they needed to know, because here was one who could speak mind to mind without the need for words that needed to be spoken.

He had a lingering suspicion his voice was not in good shape at the moment anyway.

You have my thanks, he thought back at her.

Her reply came almost immediately and, for an elf, it was unusually blunt. You are dying, Thoren. Much of your blood has been spilled. You are hanging on by the thinnest of threads.

He knew this. Good. I do not intend to be used by them.

Your life is not worthless. The tone of thought was decidedly disapproving.

But Thoren knew that he had a point. It should be made. Tell them, he requested. Tell them not to give in to these demands. Remind them of what we are fighting for. Remind them of what is at stake. And in all of that, my life can have no consideration. They cannot surrender and they cannot hesitate. Please remind them of this.

For a moment there was silence in his head. Maker only knew what Galadriel made of his last request. Elves were so hard to read. It was no different in conversation that took place directly between two minds.

When he had almost given up hope of a reply at all, she spoke: I have told them, she said. They mislike it as much as I do.

They could mislike it all they wanted, so long as they did the right thing. He meant what he said; his life was worth nothing in the face of this conflict. If that was what it took for his people to stand a little longer, then he would willingly lay down his life for it. The rest was up to Thráin. My death will hail in his kingship.

Thranduil raised himself up to his full height. 'He is as good as dead,' he pointed out in his usual haughty manner. 'It seems to me that we have much to lose and little to gain.'

The Nazgûl seemed taken aback by this. He said nothing.

'My lord!' Tauriel protested.

'You may think me callous,' Thranduil continued, as much to the Nazgûl as to the captain of his guard, 'but I was privy to many of Thoren's plans. He knew he could die and he would consider it a price well worth paying for the survival of his people. We will not bow to your demands.'

Stonehelm looked all set to say a few words of his own, but he caught Thoren's eyes. Thoren shook his head. No, don't, he thought.

Stonehelm froze, then frowned.

Just for good measure, Thoren shook his head again. This time the orcs realised what he did and rewarded him for it with a thump on the head. The pain was blinding. For a moment his vision blurred and he had to gasp for air. He breathed through the pain and shook his head again. No. No, do not bow to them.

The gist of what he meant to communicate must have seeped through. Stonehelm looked at him and nodded. Evidently he did not like it, but he had taken a vow not so long ago that he would honour Thoren's wishes. Dwarves were not the people to opt out when the road became hard.

'If you do not surrender, he will die,' the Nazgûl said. 'And we will show no mercy to those who refuse.'

There was a warning in there for Thoren as well.

He willed him to get on with it, if that was the case.

'Though I confess myself surprised at you,' the wraith continued when no other response was forthcoming. 'Do you not preach that every life should be saved? So many of you have already perished. Are you willing to lose more?'

Dwalin scoffed. 'I'll not take lessons in morality from one who walks across corpses to deliver velvety speeches about the sanctity of life.' He spat on the ground for good measure, just so there was no mistaking his meaning. He did not like this, Thoren knew that for a fact, but he obeyed the orders he was given.

The sound the Nazgûl made was hardly laughter, though it was clearly intended as such. 'Yet something tells me that the she-elf is of a different mind. Tell me, would you stand by and watch your dwarf die?'

Thoren raised his head and looked her in the eye. 'Let me go.' He was so tired, his body so damaged, that he could barely get the words across his lips. But elves were keen of hearing. Even if she could not hear him, she could read his lips. 'I love you, but you have to let me go.' I am lost.

He had been lost from the moment he defied the messenger at the gate. To think anything else was to fool himself. He had lived on borrowed time ever since. Part of him cursed his own foolishness into allowing himself to open his heart to Tauriel and to let her know that he had. Yet, as she had said, was it not harder to leave the words unspoken and regret what had never been? Brief though their time had been, at least they had allowed it to exist. He could not truly regret that. He only regretted its ending.

Horror was writ large across her face. 'No,' she said, the sound too soft to hear, but easy enough to interpret. 'No.'

'Let me go,' he repeated. He didn't manage any sound at all this time. Galadriel was right; he was dying regardless of what decisions were made here today.

Stonehelm took the decision out of Tauriel's hands. 'All due respect to the lady, but she is not the one who is in charge of the Alliance. We are its leaders and we say to you that you will not have what you came for here. We did not come here to surrender. I spit on your terms.' He did indeed do so.

The response was swift; some orc knocked Thoren on the head with enough force to fell a Mûmak.

Darkness descended.

Beth

By the time Beth made it back to the highest level, it must have been well past nightfall, though of course it was hard to tell. It might even be nearer to morning than to midnight for all she knew. Not for the first time she wished that she had put on her watch before she left Boromir's room. Far below the battle still raged. For inexplicable reasons the main gate still held, because even from this distance she could see the frantic activity on the walls. She squinted, but that didn't make it look any clearer. For a brief period of time she had contributed something, but that time was over now.

And even when I could act, I was about as effective as a politician after election day. She had promised much and delivered precious little.

'I shall take this back where it came from,' Eradan announced once they were within sight of Faramir. He held up the palantír, now wrapped in his cloak and the cloak of one of Denethor's attendants. 'And then I shall arrange help for our friends in the dungeon.'

Beth nodded. It was the sensible thing to do, but she was not looking forward to explaining to Faramir what had happened to his father on her own. The mistake was partly yours, Andrews, so you can deal with the consequences. That's how this goes.

So she nodded again, took a deep breath and walked straight at Faramir.

'I am sorry,' she said, just to get it all over with, before Faramir could get a word in edgewise. 'We were too late. He burned himself in Rath Dínen.'

He went very still. For just a moment she was not sure if he even breathed at all.

Did he mean for her to explain? Not knowing what else to do, that was how she took it. 'It was what the book said, but not in the same way. In the book, he would have lost all hope and he would have tried to burn you as well as himself. Now he only stole the palantír and set fire to himself. I think he tried to destroy the palantír,' she added.

She remembered the words: At least the instrument of my ruin shall perish with me. It hadn't. By the time Eradan had threatened the two servants into helping him put out the flames, the box that contained the palantír was no more, as were the cloths it was wrapped in. But the palantír sat there, almost innocently, on the ashes, cool to the touch and not a scratch on it. Yet the one who had tried to destroy it was so badly charred that he could not be moved from the place where he lay without falling apart entirely.

How is any of this fair?

Faramir considered all of this for some time. Presumably he was just trying to make sense of all her rambling. Truth be told, she could have tried to get her point across a little clearer, but she was in so much of a hurry to get it all out that she had sacrificed quality for time. You should know that if that never works with writing a book, it shouldn't work in personal relations either.

Miracle of miracles, he did actually get most of that. 'Was that why he did it?' he asked. 'To destroy that wretched tool?'

Would that she could tell him that it was. 'Partly.' It was more of an afterthought than the main motivation, but that was perhaps a little too much truth. 'I'm sorry.' She truly was. 'The book… It can be so very unpredictable.' Somehow she could not help but feel that this disaster was only the result of her own shortcomings.

Faramir said nothing.

So much for friendly relations with the in-laws. Good job, girl.

A screech tore her abruptly out of her self-pity. Oh, so it wasn't her he was ignoring. He had his eye on the more immediate danger. The Nazgûl had at last joined the fight. Even as she thought it she realised that this was not entirely true. It was not the battle they were interested in. It was the one who carried the Ring who was to be their prize tonight.

This is it.

She reached for Excalibur and grasped it, trying hard to kill all her doubts before they could make her vulnerable. How she wished that she had even half of Faramir's faith in this venture! How did he do it? How could he maintain such faith when all around them the world was coming down around their ears? The longer this went on, the harder she found it to see the end she wanted come into being. Nothing went as it should lately. Just when she thought she had one thing covered, two others went to hell in a handcart.

She did not however have the luxury of time. The time was here and so were the Nazgûl. Both of them were here, hovering in the air just beyond the reach of Faramir's archers. It seemed that they had learned that lesson the hard way. Even so, the beasts and the riders were heavily armoured. The beasts were covered from top to toe in black armour, even their eyes were shielded. It made them a little more skittish than they probably should be. Only the wings remained uncovered, for the more obvious reasons.

'Give it to us!' one of the two demanded.

Beth drew Excalibur, for all the good that would do her here. We will win. This battle is only one of Sauron's dying spasms before he is eliminated for good. Help will come. Thráin and the others will destroy the Ring. It is written, it is meant to be, it cannot go wrong.

She forced herself to make a mantra of all these things, as if through sheer endless repetition she could make herself believe in it. Belief was what shielded Faramir from the despair. No, not belief. It was certainty, rock solid sureness that the Ring would be destroyed and that this would all end. I must believe like he does or they will end me.

Strangely enough, that didn't actually help the believing process along.

Faramir drew himself up to his full height. 'It is mine. I told you this. Your master has chosen to ignore my wise advice.'

'Fool!' the other wraith hissed.

'No, it is you who is the fool,' Faramir replied. He remained surprisingly calm and unaffected, as he had been before. 'I compelled the white wizard into fighting for me. What resistance do you think you can put up that he could not?'

Holy shit. Every time when she thought that there was no way that he could push this whole thing even further, he went ahead and did it anyway. Not only did he try it, but he also pulled it off. The Nazgûl actually hesitated for a moment. Beth had to work hard to keep her mouth from dropping open so that she wouldn't give the game away.

Eventually they resorted to the standard answer: 'You will die.'

Faramir shrugged in a very off-handed manner. 'Try if you must, but know that to do so will be the death of you.'

They hesitated again, but not for long. One of the two swooped down from the sky. A hail of arrows greeted his arrival. Most of the arrows bounced right off the armour, but it made the beast even more skittish than it already was. Yes, shielding the eyes was not a very bad idea, but they couldn't see where they were going. They were completely reliant on their riders' instructions.

If only we could bring them down.

The archers must have the same idea, because they were firing at the nearest beast with a will. Realising that the eyes were not going to work as a target, they aimed instead at the wings. Due to the constant flapping, many arrows missed, but an equally large number did hit their aim. The beast screamed in pain and flapped its wings some more.

The Nazgûl finally decided to do something useful about the situation himself; he screamed in rage. The despair washed over everyone. Beth braced herself. We will win. This battle is only one of Sauron's dying spasms before he is eliminated for good. Help will come. Thráin and the others will destroy the Ring. It is written, it is meant to be, it cannot go wrong. She repeated it constantly, over and over again, willing herself to believe it.

It didn't do her the slightest bit of good.

The despair gripped her hard and suddenly. She didn't really believe in all the things she tried so desperately to believe in. She just tried to make herself think that she did. Clearly that was getting her nowhere fast.

Because you cannot win, her mind told her. Nothing is as it should be. You just thought so yourself. What good is resisting going to do you? You have no idea if the Rohirrim are going to make it. Aragorn might not have succeeded. You are facing this alone. No help is coming. You will die. You are nothing.

She was almost ready to believe that.

At last common sense reasserted itself. Don't be a bloody idiot if you can help it, Andrews. In the moment itself she could not tell where the thoughts were coming from – certainly not the Nazgûl – but they were a potent antidote to the poison they spewed. She was something. She had saved Boromir's life. She had saved Théodred's life. It was thanks to her that Boromir, not Denethor, was in charge today. Even when everything seemed against it, she had brought about change. Last, but certainly not least, she had killed a Nazgûl. I am Death's Bane. Now start acting like it.

This at last seemed to do for her what Faramir's unquestionable faith did for him. She shook off the effects of the Nazgûl bit by bit as she changed this into her new mantra, because these were the things she truly could get behind. Once she did, she found that her legs were able to carry her weight again. Beth Andrews could still stand.

So she did.

'Yeah, nice try, but honestly, just bloody piss off, will you?'

Nobody heard her over the screaming of the wraiths, but Beth felt better for having said it. These were fighting words, even if they were mostly a lot of bravado without any actual bravery. I am Death's Bane and I didn't know what I was doing then either.

The Nazgûl were spread too thin. They could not both attack her and Faramir whilst also having a proper go at the archers stationed everywhere. Most of them were out of sight. They were so very disciplined. They kept on firing. Sometimes the fear and despair may take hold of a few of them, but then their comrades stepped into the breach until the Nazgûl were forced to redirect their attention.

In all of this Faramir was the still, calm heart of the storm. Once all of this was over, someone should give him a medal just for his acting skills. The expression on his face would have terrified Beth if she had known that it was genuine. He stood straight and tall, no emotions on his face except the kind of stern disapproval that would have made anyone foolish enough to cross him cower in fear. The fake Ring dangled on the chain around his neck, out in the open for all to see.

He was keeping it together better than Beth had so far.

So take that example and learn from it.

One of the Nazgûl was still hanging back. If she were asked to put money on which one it was, she'd say that it was the Witch King. The helmet he wore was just a little bit fancier than the one the other wraith wore. He was keeping well out of it, so he was mostly undamaged, and so was his armoured lizard with wings. The other one wasn't faring so well. The wings had been pierced in multiple places, enough to make holes big enough to see through. At this moment it was visibly struggling to remain airborne. The Nazgûl on top was still screaming despair to everyone who did not want it, but he was also tugging at the reins to keep control of his beast.

The beast was having none of it. It was blind and hurt and quite possibly in something of a fearful panic. It had been shot at for minutes at a time. Now this rider was pulling at the reins and he was not gentle. It was the straw that broke the camel's back. And this particular camel bucked and threw in the towel.

The Nazgûl was thrown off. A mortal man might have cursed its beast to the deepest circle of hell for that stunt, but one, the lizard didn't stick around for that part and two, Beth was not entirely sure that Nazgûl went in for that sort of thing. Truth be told, she was not even sure that it could feel pain in the way ordinary people could.

He landed on the other side of the tree, but scrambled to his feet quickly enough, screaming as he did so. It was despair for anyone on the wrong side of it and protection for him. Like as not he knew that on the ground he was far more vulnerable than he was up in the air and he was going up against a group of men who were quite willing to put that whole no-living-man-can-kill-me thing to the test.

Still, no one could ever accuse a Nazgûl of being anything less than tenacious and persistent. Even without his beast and without his back-up – the Witch King was absolutely not stirring – he was still a horrible danger. And she could not touch him. Beth remembered the Black Breath – all things told she remembered more of it than she wanted – and she had no ambition to go that road again. Once was enough.

But if I have to, I will. I must. This was bigger than she was, bigger than any of her petty concerns. It always had been, even when she had not wanted to see that. If she wanted to be a part of this world, she should start acting like it. So she took up Excalibur and prepared to make a fight out of it.

She didn't have to.

'You!' someone shouted. 'Look at me!'

The Nazgûl did. So did Beth. There was Aravir, closer than she thought he should have been, arrow already on his bow. Even as she watched he let it fly. If this were a film, the moment would be stretched out in slow motion, following the arrow's path to the end of its flight. Only then would time resume its normal passage again.

This was not a film.

Beth barely saw the arrow go at all. It was half-dark and it moved so very fast. She only swivelled her head around in time to see it sticking out of the small slit in the visor of the helmet. If this had been a living man, it would have gone right through his left eye.

The Nazgûl was not a living man, but neither was he going to be a half-dead, undead wraith again for much longer, because this was a killing shot. The wind she remembered from the death of "her" Nazgûl returned, almost pulling her in the wraith's direction and off her feet. It sucked the air out of everything.

Then it burst outwards and this time she did lose her footing. She hit her head too, but not enough to knock her out. It certainly did not do sufficient damage for her to miss the rags and armour all clattering onto the stones when there was nothing there to hold them up anymore.

Well, that's that myth busted.

And Aravir was welcome to all the praise that would come his way for this feat. In fact, Beth was about to turn around and congratulate him, when a horn was blown in the distance. It echoed through the air and even over the din of the battle raging far below. Then it was blown again. Another horn joined, then another and another until the noise could have woken even the dead. Beth scrambled to her feet and looked to the east, only to clap eyes on the most welcome sight she had seen in days: men and horses, thousands upon thousands of them.

And behind them they brought the dawn.


Just… don't kill me please? Or at least wait until chapter 124.

Next time: the Witch King isn't having a good day. Neither is Elvaethor.

Thank you for reading. Reviews would be welcome.

Until Thursday!