Chapter 119

The Land of Ash and Dust

They were the three who rode out in the end. Cathy declared that Elvaethor was out of his mind, that she had one brother already in the line of danger and it really was not necessary for him to follow the family tradition and throw all caution out of the wretched window, you know. Of course, she was not exactly arguing from a position of moral superiority herself. All of Thorin and Kate's offspring have form in recklessness. Cathy might have had less opportunities to be reckless, but when they happened along, she gladly availed herself of them.

Elvaethor fit in very well with this family indeed. He certainly had the requisite lack of self-preservation already. His wound was healing. Elves heal altogether quicker than ordinary mortals, but even they need some time to recover, especially if only days before they were on the brink of death. Elvaethor became a dwarf in this also, because they generally only heed their bodies' suggestions when it suits their purposes.

So three of them rode back south. Thranduil took over the command over the wounded caravan in Dáin's stead and he urged them to greater speed. The battle had been lost, the Free Folk Alliance was in rapid retreat and the orcs were coming. When they came, no one should remain outside. Everyone knew this. They had lived through one siege already. The orcs had taken great pleasure in turning the lands surrounding the Lonely Mountain into a wasteland. Dale and Esgaroth were no more. Many a tree and bush had also perished, not because it was necessary, but because orcs cannot abide living things. All must die and be mutilated.

Was it any wonder that they never got on with any of the other races?

It seemed to me that the orcs were indeed everywhere. In the lands of the North and in Gondor this was indeed the case. You could hardly move a step without stumbling over one of those vile abominations of life. Yet in the place where they should have been most numerous, there was not an orc in sight…

Thráin

The land was empty. Thráin had slept but little and so had spent most of his time looking at the desolate land beyond the tower. The enchantment on it apparently only worked in one direction, because the air did not seem to simmer so much from where he sat. He could see far and wide.

It did not fill him with optimism.

'Nothing?' Sam asked. He was the first up to make breakfast. Here a fire could not be seen so he had at last been given permission to cook them up something proper. They'd had a warm dinner for the first time in weeks last night. If Sam had any say in these matters, they'd have a cooked breakfast before they set out as well.

No one had protested that notion.

'Nothing,' Thráin confirmed. 'Nothing moved there all night.'

'Aren't there supposed to be orcs, Mr Thráin?'

'There are, if the book were right.' And it so very often was not. This was Thoren's doing. Whether he had known what his defiance would unleash, Thráin could not say. He had done it all the same, regardless of the consequences, because it was the right thing to do. Now here Thráin was, looking at the result.

'It's not?'

'It's not.' About so many things. Somewhat to his own surprise he now discovered that many of the changes that had been brought about had been somewhat of his own making. Like his mother before him, he had thrown out the rulebook and made his own path, when he found that suited him better. And Maker only knew what Beth got up to these days. She was an Andrews after all, the same as her predecessor.

Gandalf knew not what he unleashed when he first brought amad to this world.

'It is better that it is not,' he added to Sam. 'Our road is clear. We might make better progress.' According to the book Frodo and Sam had needed a little under two weeks to make it from Cirith Ungol to Mount Doom. One of the reasons why that journey took so long was because the way was littered with orcs. That part at least would no longer be a problem.

'The emptiness may yet work against us,' Legolas observed. Neither dwarf nor hobbit had heard him approach.

He gave no sign of his surprise. 'How so?'

'Look at the land,' Legolas invited, never one for a straight answer. 'Tell me what you see.'

Sam obliged. 'A lot of ash,' he reported. 'Almost no life at all.'

'Exactly.'

Thráin understood then. 'We will need to move with care if we are the only ones that move, lest we draw Sauron's attention to ourselves.'

Rumour had it that he saw everything that went on in his lands, or that he had the ability to, were he so inclined. Thráin was betting heavily on Sauron being so distracted by the war efforts elsewhere that he was unlikely to look for danger within his borders.

'Yet he will not look for us deliberately,' he pointed out. Legolas had a point, but that did not make it a very likely scenario. 'He believes us dead and gone.'

'Not if Faramir has fallen into his hands,' Legolas countered.

'Then these lands would be swarming with orcs right now.' Thráin was not one to let an elf have the last word in any encounter. Besides, he had a very good point as well. 'Look at these lands. They are empty. If Sauron suspected that we yet lived and continued on our quest, he would guard against that. He hasn't.' Trust an elf not to think of that.

'You are arguing.' When Frodo spoke, he didn't raise his voice. Instead he quietly observed. Perhaps because of that, they all fell silent, so that Frodo could elaborate: 'The Ring,' he said. 'It is doing something to you.'

Thráin froze, as did Legolas. Immediately he reached into his own mind, to search for thoughts that were not his. It was not a long search. Yet these thoughts were his, had been his. Not so long ago he'd not had a great deal of patience for elves and their ways. The only thing the Ring had done was drag them up from the depths of his mind.

'Maker be good.'

'There were thoughts in my mind that were not my own,' Legolas admitted. He met none of their eyes in favour of staring at the floor.

'They used to be my own,' Thráin confessed. 'The Ring pulled them to the fore and yet I did not notice.'

'It seems to me that it is stronger in this land,' Gimli said.

'This is where it was made. The closer we come to Mount Doom, the stronger it will become.' It had caused him no end of worry these past days. 'I think that it would be wise to agree amongst ourselves to limit the time that each of us bears it. Let it be six hours at the most.' Frodo had carried it throughout the night and he looked particularly bad. His skin was pale and clammy, his eyes hollow.

It took some effort on Frodo's part, but at last he nodded. 'Pass me the sticks, Sam.' Since the time in the Dead Marshes, when he had come so close to falling, something had changed within him. There was more strength in him, a new resolve that had yet to waver. If he were asked, Thráin would say that it was seeing what the Ring had done to Gollum over the course of five centuries that shocked him back to his senses. He had however never asked.

They performed their familiar ritual and the Ring passed on to Gimli, who grumbled a good deal about his lack of appetite and that when there was a tasty breakfast to look forward to at that, but he took it without hesitation. After this Sam made breakfast while the others packed up their meagre belongings.

'Leave all that can be spared behind,' Thráin counselled. 'Our greatest foe in these lands is the heat. We will need all the water we can carry.'

Sam spared a woeful glance for most of his cooking utensils, but he uttered not a word of protest. The frying pan, however, stayed. Thráin himself led by example, leaving behind all the odds and ends that he didn't need. His armour and weapons however he kept. The main reason that he had come on this journey was to protect the Ring-bearer. He had not forgotten that.

They ate quickly and left the dirty dishes where they put them down. Let the orcs have the joys of the washing up if they ever returned. The Fellowship had more pressing demands on its time. They took up as much water as they could carry – Gimli hoisted an entire barrel on his back without complaint – and then they set off for the east.

As soon as they left the relative protection of the tower, the wind was in their faces, dry and hot. As before they tied strips of cloth over the lower halves of their faces to keep the dust and ash out of their noses and mouths. It offered little in the way of protection, but it was better than nothing at all. None complained.

Legolas led the way. As the tallest, he could see the farthest ahead, so it made sense to let him lead the Fellowship. A nasty voice whispered that an elf had no business leading dwarves, but now he knew it for what it was. It had grown more subtle in recent days.

They established a rhythm to moving. They'd walk for an hour, then rest for fifteen minutes. Thráin misliked it, but especially the hobbits needed it. So Legolas would locate a hollow in the land or a larger rock that kept out the wind and they would sit, drink a few sips, catch their breaths and move on again. The alternative was shorter marches and less miles in a day.

We must not be here for as long as the book foretold.

'It is exceedingly heavy,' Gimli said on the third break.

'I shall take over the barrel for you,' Thráin offered. It worried him deeply that Gimli even spoke of this at all. Dwarves could bear many a burden other races would find too heavy. Yet here he was, offering comment on the weight of the Ring.

Maker save us all.

It was one of the things that the book had not foreseen. Aye, in its text the Ring was strong, but it was not this strong. It isolated Frodo and overwhelmed him only at the last moment. The reality was nothing like that. If this Fellowship had not taken it in turns to bear the Ring from the Anduin onwards, Frodo would not now be himself. He would have been dragged under weeks ago.

It was a chilling thought.

Gimli said no more. He only nodded. The barrel passed to Thráin. It was heavy, but he could shoulder the weight. The others saw, but fortunately offered no comment either. They simply drank a little, took a few bites of lembas and rose to their feet to resume the march.

Before long it became clear that the Ring was not going to let them be about their business without a fight. They had covered barely half a mile before Gimli stumbled. He caught himself at the last moment and he walked on without a word, but two minutes later it happened again and again until at the fourth time he did indeed go down and could not get up again of his own accord.

Thráin met Frodo's eyes over the back of their fallen friend, his own horror reflected back at him.

Maker be good.

He had not given in to despair before. He'd always had faith in the book and that it would all come right in the end. He had never relinquished that belief. Now at last he faltered. If even Gimli, undoubtedly the strongest in their Fellowship, found the load too heavy to bear for not even half a day, then what hope had the rest of them? What a fool's errand have we accepted? We cannot continue as we are.

He saw it in Frodo's eyes as well.

In this case it was Sam who stepped in and saved them from themselves. He walked over to Gimli with every appearance of a soldier marching into battle and helped him to his feet again. Then he stood next to him and offered his shoulder for Gimli to lean on. 'We can't do it alone,' he announced.

'Yet only one can bear it at a time,' Legolas said. His features were carefully neutral, but Thráin had glimpsed the dismay in his face when Gimli first fell.

'Yes,' Sam agreed. 'We cannot all bear the Ring at the same time, but we can carry each other.'

Thank the Maker, the Valar and Ilúvatar for Samwise Gamgee. Small and unassuming he may look, but Thráin was starting to suspect that his Maker might have had a hand in the creation of this particular hobbit. Nothing could dampen his spirits. He endured where others did not and he possessed a strength of will many a dwarf would be hard-pressed to match. His spine must be crafted of the finest steel.

Frodo understood. He nodded once and stood on Gimli's other side. Gimli himself said nothing – his eyes were unfocussed and slightly feverish – but he laid his hands on the proffered shoulders and carried on.

They moved slower after that, but Gimli did not fall again. Sweat trickled down his face and into his beard and his eyes remained unclear, but he kept moving forward. It felt as though an age had passed before Legolas at last announced that it was time to break their journey again.

Gimli dropped to the ground without further ado, flat on his back. Even from where Thráin was standing he could hear how laboured his breathing was.

'We must switch it again,' he said, because it was the only way. 'Six hours is too long a time in this place. We must pass it over at every single break.'

After the past hour, no one protested.

Sam handed the sticks to Gimli, who seemed to have barely enough strength left to hold them out to the rest of the Fellowship. The Fellowship in turn wasted no time in taking the sticks. Sam drew the shortest one and so the Ring passed to him.

'Oh,' he said when he hung it around his neck. 'It is very heavy.'

'Ride on my back,' Thráin invited. 'Legolas can carry the barrel for an hour.' He would not hear of Gimli's assurances that he could carry it if only he could have a few minutes to catch his breath and to that end he pretended that he had not heard his kinsman at all.

Gimli did look better. After a few minutes he could sit up again unaided.

'Don't fuss,' he protested when Thráin ignored him yet again in order to have a look at the state of his neck. 'You are growing worse than your uncle.'

Thráin didn't need to ask which uncle.

'Hold still,' he said. 'Let me look. If these wounds become infected, we shall have greater trouble than we can afford.' For wounds there were. The Ring, in its quest to make itself as heavy as it could, had chafed at the skin until it broke. Blood still dripped from the wounds and onto his clothes. He dressed them as best he could, even if it was only to keep out the dust and ash. 'Keep those on,' he ordered. 'We would all be wise to do the same.'

So they did. They tore some of their old garments into bandages that they wrapped around shoulders and neck to have what protection they may. Thráin himself helped Sam with his. Though he did not touch the Ring, he was near enough to feel how malicious and angry it was. It was being thwarted and it knew.

'I think I can walk on my own for a little while,' Sam said when Thráin tied off the last bit.

'I am sure you can,' Thráin replied. 'But then all your strength shall be spent at the next rest and you'll have none left to offer the next bearer.' He put his hand on Sam's shoulder. 'We must all support each other. Is that not what you said? The Ring ever seeks to make us believe that we can bear it alone, so we must not listen to it.'

Sam pondered that for a short while. 'You are right,' he said. 'Thank you.'

'It is we who must thank you, Sam,' Thráin disagreed. 'If it were not for your wisdom, this Fellowship might have gone astray many weeks ago. It is you we owe a debt of gratitude. You shall be renowned for your wisdom for many generations to come, I shouldn't wonder.' He used Sam's temporary speechlessness to hoist the hobbit onto his back. 'Come, it is time to leave.'

And though the weight on his back was heavier than one hobbit ought to be, he set one foot in front of the other and kept moving forward.

It was the only way.

Beth

The death of the Witch King sent a wave of shock throughout the ranks of the Enemy army. Beth stood at her camera and zoomed in on the face of an orc who had been close to that encounter. It did not look afraid – by now she wondered if orcs were familiar with that emotion at all – but it did not look like it was having a good time either.

'The Witch King is dead,' she reported to her little audience. 'And the orcs don't like it.'

'Beth, look,' Faramir said, who already had his eye on the next big threat. While she had got distracted – understandably so – by the death of the Witch King, the opposing army had moved in the Mûmakil.

They had a lot more of them than their side did.

In her short time in Minas Tirith Beth had not actually seen any of the beasts Thráin captured with her own eyes. The story of his exploits however was on everyone's tongue. The only reason that she could tell their beasts apart was because a clever soldier had decided to paint the names of the beasts on their flanks in red paint.

It had yet to be determined if this would wash off after the battle.

Boromir had told her about this little venture and Beth had laughed. Why on earth would anyone do something so pointless? Then he had explained. Apparently Haradrim did not name their beasts. They took great care with them, to such an extent that they were valued almost above human lives, but they gave the beasts no names. So when Gondor had named them that was as much of a way as claiming ownership as it was a way of rubbing the Haradrim's noses in it that these four no longer belonged to them.

By the looks of things, this really pissed them off.

Horses did not like Mûmakil. The truth of this became apparent when the Haradrim charged into the fray. The horses neighed, reared up and then ran for the hills whether their riders liked this or not. Many of said riders were thrown, which was a bit of an optional extra as far as the horses were concerned.

The appearance of the Haradrim and their Mûmakil effectively stopped the progress the Rohirrim had been making thus far. In the first charge alone they did one hell of a lot of damage. Worse, in all the chaos Beth almost immediately lost sight of Théodred and Éowyn. There was far too much movement going on.

It could have meant a turn in the battle in the Enemy's favour were it not for Boromir. He had read the book, so he had guessed that this was coming and when it was coming. This allowed him to anticipate. So while the Haradrim were wreaking havoc in the forces of Rohan, he turned Teddy around and charged right at them.

He has about as much self-preservation as a cliff-top lemming, Beth thought, feeling not a little frustrated at this. On one hand she was definitely proud of him and in this case also a bit jealous. He had read the text and had the ability and the authority to bring about change because of those things. He was an insider, not an outsider with incomplete knowledge, as Beth was. Another part of her was really afraid that he was going to get himself killed.

He had the element of surprise going for him at least. It was not often that the Haradrim found themselves on the receiving end of a charging Mûmak and from what Beth could see of their responses, they were not relishing the experience one bit. Neither was the Mûmak who now had Teddy bearing down on it at speed. It skidded to a halt immediately and decided that it was better off trying its luck elsewhere. Several of the riders were dislodged from their precarious place in the hut atop the back.

They were probably the lucky ones.

The ones that remained in the hut were most likely tossed from one side to the other as their mount bolted, cutting a path of destruction and death through their own kin and allies as it went, Teddy in pursuit.

The battle split into two main stages. One was on the ground, mostly between the Rohirrim and the orcs. The men of Gondor now stood before their own shattered gates, holding the lines. The other main stage was somewhat higher above the ground. The Haradrim had more beasts, but they were not now using them to pester the Rohirrim. They were too busy looking to their own defences.

Teddy was having a relatively easy time of it. Even among all the gigantic beasts, he was by far the biggest. The other Mûmakil realised this and hastened to get out of his way. Whoever was in charge of Nori had realised this, so she was running in Teddy's tracks, sweeping the ground for any foe still left there. Old Stomper had broken away and did what his name suggested he did best. Even orcs scrambled for safety. From a distance it looked like Old Stomper was performing some sort of bizarre dance that mainly involved lifting his legs as high as they could go before putting them back down to earth with as much force as he could muster. He was not quick, but he was thorough.

Out of the four it was Lucky Lady who was in trouble. Goodness knew who had named the beast. They had made a very big mistake in any case, because this one could walk into trouble at the drop of a hat and in this case had indeed done exactly that. Perhaps the orcs sensed that this was the least dangerous out of all four, so they converged on her. Several were climbing up her legs. There were more who dropped off before they made it to the top, but eventually some did make it.

Keep your head, Andrews, she reminded herself. You're a war correspondent.

'Aravir?' she asked.

'Yes, my lady?' So far he was the one who seemed to take it all in his stride. Some of his fellows had blinked in uncomprehending manners at all her equipment, but not him. He had kept the secret of the Fellowship and the Ring. Faramir trusted him and now so did Beth.

'I need you to keep this pointed at the situation around Lucky Lady while I cover the rest of the battle.' She could not man two cameras all by herself, as much as she wanted to. 'Look at this screen. What you see there is what you record.'

'Record?'

'Like you do with words on parchment,' she tried to explain. It was very hard to explain something so otherworldly in terms that were not just as otherworldly in and of themselves. 'Only not with words.'

She took it as a good sign that he didn't run away in terror. He did look at the camera as though it was a warg about to bite, but he picked it up and followed her instructions to the letter. This left her free to cover the rest of the battle.

She was just in time to see the ships come in. At last, she thought. In the privacy of her own mind she could confess that she had begun to worry about whether Aragorn would come or not. The book might have claimed so – she was fairly sure that it was a major plot point at any rate – but that did not always mean what she wanted it to mean.

'Can you see?' Faramir asked. As per usual he had already cottoned on long before she did.

Beth pointed her camera in the right direction and once again experienced pure frustration when the zoom in option would not zoom in nearly far enough. She could see the shapes of the ships and once she had zoomed in she could see that there were banners attached to them, but that was about as far as it went.

'I can't see a single bloody thing!'

This battle was rapidly becoming an exercise in futility and frustration. She felt useless and out of the way. At least at Helm's Deep she'd really had the idea that she was doing something. She may not have been in the thick of the fight, but she was carrying out the task appointed to her. Here she was too far away from all the action to see what was actually going on.

And then there were ghosts.

There were honest-to-God ghosts.

Oh.

'What is that?' Faramir asked.

Part of Beth wanted to give a really sarcastic sort of answer. Bloody, bleeding hell. Yes, she'd told Aragorn that they needed the dead to get the ships. She also told him to pick up some more help on the way to Minas Tirith, but now that she thought about it she may have neglected to mention that he didn't need to bring the dead people all the way here.

Oops.

'Dead people,' she answered. Dead people that should not have been anywhere near here. Oh, for heaven's sake! 'From the Paths of the Dead. Oath-breakers. Those dead people.'

Aravir's eyes widened. 'But only Isildur's heir could…'

Beth nodded. 'Yep. He's in there somewhere.'

Faramir already knew. Boromir and she had agreed that full disclosure was the best way to go with Faramir and so they had told him all that they knew. He had taken that rather well. He seemed to have the same sense of priorities that his brother had; if Aragorn was what Gondor needed, he was most welcome.

'I'll cover the ghosts,' she told Aravir. 'You stay on the Mûmakil. How's Lucky Lady?'

'Not lucky.'

Someone somewhere had a lot to answer for. That name was just asking for trouble.

Soon enough she was thoroughly distracted. The dead did not need to disembark in the usual fashion. They simply floated overboard, over the water and onto the shore, though perhaps floating was not truly the word she wanted. Floating suggested elegance and a slow pace. There was nothing at all elegant about the speed and deadly intent with which these once oath-breakers fell upon the orcs. Though not being able to die of a sword wound or blood poisoning might have done wonders for their courage. She was not in any danger of mistaking this helpful attitude for a noble gesture. This was self-interest, pure and simple. These had not been nice people in life and millennia of being dead were unlikely to have improved their disposition any.

They were however thorough. And they were fast. Beth tried to get visuals of them, but they moved too quickly for her to pin them down. Later, after the battle, she could sit down and study what they looked like. Events moved too fast to rewind and pause whenever she wanted to.

To her they looked like an almost see-through green-tinged mass of shapes that washed over the armies of Mordor like waves on the shore. They covered everything they encountered and once they had passed, nothing moved where they had been. It was a slaughter on unprecedented scale.

Beth tried to point her camera everywhere at the same time and found that she really was fighting a losing battle on that front. So she tried to catch glimpses of everything. She definitely caught the bit where the dead swarmed all over one of the Haradrim Mûmakil and killed all on board, leaving the beast itself standing forlornly in the middle of a field of corpses, unsure what to do now. She also witnessed the dead falling on the orcs with the Rohirrim – who may have no clue what was going on, but who knew how to roll with the punches – leaving only dead bodies in their wake. By chance she pointed her camera back towards the ships where the actual intended reinforcements that the book had mentioned were still disembarking.

'Well, looks like we won't actually need the reinforcements.'

The book never so much as mentioned this. The dead were not meant to be here. And it may have been her fault. If she had told Aragorn just a little bit more about what was supposed to happen, he would have dismissed the ghosts when he had acquired the ships and dealt with the Corsairs. Except she hadn't.

I bring change about when I forget to mention stuff.

It was a somewhat staggering realisation. By now she had very little faith in the book left at all. It was so often wrong on the details. The major plot points usually happened, but differently or in different places and at different times, sometimes for different reasons. She couldn't get them to change unless she dragged them off course kicking and screaming every inch of the way. It was Thráin, not Beth, who could change the world as they knew it just by speaking a right word in the right ear.

Yet here she was and something she hadn't said had changed the world.

The battle was decided here before her eyes. This was their side's secret weapon. Nothing could stand against the dead. Perhaps the Witch King could have done something, but he was very conveniently dead. Many of the Haradrim saw where this was heading. They ran for it. Most of them did not get very far. The orcs put up more of a fight. It did not help them much either. The entire army was annihilated before the gates.

'Does your book speak of this, Beth?' Faramir asked. He must know that it didn't; Boromir and Beth had talked him through the book's version of the battle quite thoroughly. And we wouldn't forget something as monumental as this, she thought before realising that this was not entirely true; she had forgotten to mention it to Aragorn after all.

'Ah, well. This may have been my fault.'

Mouths dropped open.

'Excuse me?' said Faramir.

Beth elaborated. 'Aragorn was supposed to go through the Paths of the Dead and use the dead to defeat the Corsairs and take the ships. Then he was supposed to dismiss them, pick up the reinforcements and sail here with them. I told him that, only I think I forgot to mention when he was meant to dismiss the dead, so…' She trailed off, feeling and probably sounding slightly sheepish.

The next moment common sense reasserted itself. Hold on, Andrews, this is not a bad thing. You did something great. She had. This was a good thing. There would be men down there who wouldn't die because of something she had forgotten to say. Of course Aragorn had seen the advantage of this army. To be honest, the first time Beth read the book she had not quite understood why he hadn't brought them to Minas Tirith to help out there. And now reality had happened and he had brought them here anyway.

So much for avoiding the dead people, girl.

But Beth Andrews looked out over the battlefield and felt genuinely pleased with her own efforts for the first time in weeks. You know what? I am really rather good.


Next time: the aftermath of the battle.

This week there won't be a Thursday update. I've got a busy week ahead and I simply won't have the time – and possibly not the Internet connection either – to update. Rest assured, the Sunday update will still be there.

Thank you so much for reading. Reviews would make my day.

Until next week!