Chronology

25th March was also the Battle of the Morannon. Barad-dûr falls, the Ring is destroyed.

28th March- Celeborn crosses Anduin, destruction of Dol Guldur begun.[8

April 6 - Meeting of Celeborn and Thranduil.

(Note: Although Tolkien only notes that the Battle Under the Trees started on 15th March, he gives no more detail, and I cannot believe such a battle would be one day only. So, I have not stuck exactly to what is in Tolkien but hope this improves rather than detracts.)

Gystalya: Thranduil's sword. Made by the Dwarves of Erebor as recompense for Orcrist, which he returned to Thorin after the Battle of the Five Armies.

Chapter 7: Towards Dol Guldûr

25th March.

Deep in slaughter, Thranduil hacked gracelessly at the faces before him, ugly with hatred, mouths agape with battle cries. The wicked serrated edge of the Orcs' cutlasses sheared the edge of his own armour and he knew without stopping, without looking, the leather was deeply scored and in places, weakened. Beneath his feet the ground was slippery. Rain, mud and blood churned up together in the dreadful killing, and it was not only Orcish bodies that slid away in the mud as he fought on. He tried not to look at Elfaron's still and lifeless body as it rolled away beneath his feet.

The rain had not ceased all day and it weighed down the Orcs more than it did the Elves for the Orcs were heavy footed and heavily armoured. They moved even more clumsily, slowly pushed back by the Elves as the day wore on.

Thranduil dodged the axe of a huge Uruk but he only avoided the heavy steel edge because the Uruk slipped in the wet mud, and Thranduil got away with a slight nick to his arm as he leapt away. Gystela clanged against the second swipe of the axe, and for a moment, the reverberation threatened to shake loose the sword from Thranduil's grip but the Uruk's snarling triumph suddenly changed to shock and it slowly toppled over. A dagger stuck out of the back of its neck and Gilvaren reached down to pull it out.

'Growing careless, Oropherion,' Gilvaren said wryly. 'That Power in your veins cannot sustain us forever.'

'And yet I will call upon it again and again, until I am depleted and spent and still I will fight on until I have no breath left in my body and no fire in my veins and even then, my Houseless spirit will fight on,' Thranduil said defiantly. 'As will you.' He clasped his old friend's arm briefly and looked him in the eye. 'Promise me, Gil, if I fall, you will lead them on. Lead us to victory.'

'Do not speak of it,' Gilvaren said grimly even as a huge troll crashed through the trees to the forest floor, an elven arrow through its small, mean eye.

'Gil, you must keep them going if I do.' Thranduil insisted. 'None of us is invincible. None of us immune.'

Gilvaren looked away but Thranduil shook him gently. At last, Gilvaren nodded grudgingly. 'Very well. But you will not fall.' He glanced around at the slaughter and snarling, shifting battle. 'You cannot.'

'I have no intention of doing so.' Thranduil grinned. He turned and leapt upon the twitching body of the troll and he cried out over the heads of the struggling, fighting warriors of the Wood, over the heads of their cringing enemies, 'Fight on, fight on my friends! We will fight on until the bitter end! Until the Ending of the World if we must!' He whirled his silvan knives in his hands.

A half-hearted crossbow bolt shot towards him and he flashed his blades, batting away the bolt as if it were a fly. He grinned scarily at the Orc that had shot it for a dozen Woodelves were already upon the miserable creature, a scythe of flashing steel and its head was lobbed up to Thranduil's feet. He kicked it cheerfully away and his men roared with approval for their blood thundered through their veins, rushed through their ears, pounding even as they charged the oncoming hordes of Orcs.

'Get down off there, you fucking idiot!' shouted Galion, leaping up and shoving Thranduil down off the troll's corpse. 'Do you want them to get you this time?'

Thranduil grinned. 'We are winning,' he said arrogantly.

'Well let's hope you live long enough to see victory,' Galion snapped nastily. 'No more showing off. Keep your head down and think of Legolas.'

It was like a bucket of cold water to Thranduil. He took a breath.

'There is only one thing we can do to help him now,' Galion continued grumpily. 'Beat these ugly sons of a Valar, and make Sauron send more for us to kill. Might give Legolas a chance of creeping in under their noses.'

Thranduil caught at Galion's sleeve. 'Do you think….'

Galion snorted. 'As you have so often said, my lord,' he said sarcastically. 'I do not think.' But then he looked Thranduil in the eye firmly. 'But I always know,' he said emphatically. 'And Legolas lives. He fights alongside us even if he is in another country, another man's kingdom.'

Gilvaren was suddenly beside them and they broke off for none but they knew the secret quest, and Laersul. Gilvaren wrestled his knife against an Orc's sabre and Galion zipped a knife across its small, mean eyes and it screamed and clutched its face, collapsing to the ground. Thranduil finished it off.

'We are winning,' Gilvaren echoed Thranduil's earlier thought. 'Sauron has forgotten what a wily old fox you are.' He grinned at Thranduil, blood smeared over one cheek and mud on the other. 'He has overreached himself.' He paused to throw off a goblin that was slashing wildly. Galion stabbed it in the ears and Thranduil cut its throat. Gilvaren nodded and Galion had plunged eagerly into a knot of orcs that were fighting Galadhon.

'Sauron has overstepped himself with his assault on so many fronts,' Gilvaren continued, fighting back-to-back with Thranduil now. They continued conversationally, over their shoulders. 'Erebor, Dale, Gondor. Lothlorien. He has overestimated his strength.'

'He expends too much in Gondor perhaps. Khamûl would have come by now if he were here,' Thranduil agreed. He paused to kick and stab a goblin that had run towards him. 'And he is no great strategist. Always fights on too many fronts, relies of dividing his enemies to prevent another Dagorlad.' He plunged his sword into the back of a nearby Uruk that had not noticed he was so close to the King.

Gilvaren grunted, clashing swords with an ugly goblin that grinned with its pointed teeth until Thranduil sliced its head off with Gystela. 'We do not know how Gondor fares,' he said, breathing hard. 'Or Erebor for that matter.' He fended off two vicious looking Orcs and had to stop talking for a while whilst they both fought. A moment later, he continued, 'If we alone are victorious, it will not be long before he comes after us again.'

'Then let us make sure we have depleted his forces enough to make him think twice,' Thranduil insisted, but he knew Gilvaren was right: they had been fighting for many days and his men were on the edge of exhaustion, and they did not yet know if Dol Guldûr had spewed out all its forces or it retained some yet that would be deployed soon.

Then something happened. A low rumble shuddered through the Earth.

Like a hammer had struck a huge bronze bell, a sound pulsed through the World. And everything slowed as if Arda held her breath. The Elves as one, turned their faces eastwards. Orcs and trolls turned too, but where the Elves were wonderous and awed, their faces were afraid.

The One Ring lay upon a bed of molten lava, melting. And was gone.

The dark note that was Sauron was unravelling over the ash fields of the Morannon, streaming away in the wind like ink in water. Another deep shudder came through the Earth, a seismic shift as if Arda herself were awakening and sighing, as if she were free of something at last

From the East, Thranduil heard a ripple of sound spiralling outwards across the World, wider and wider. The Song of the World was changing: huge and infinite, it lifted and curled, swelling with soaring chords that surged and wheeled upwards into a crescendo.

Thranduil thought of it breaking like huge silver waves over and through the diseased forest, washing it clean and whole again. He realised that Galion was beside him again, clutching his arm in astonished wonder and was gazing upwards.

'They've done it,' Galion whispered. 'They've done it! Sauron is gone. I can feel it.'

Every Elf stood astonished, breathless, elated, whilst around them, the Orcs and goblins faltered and stumbled to a halt, staring around them as if they had just awoken from some dream. Slowly realizing that they had lost their purpose, their leader, the war, the goblins were the first to run, hurrying through the diseased and rotten trees, stumbling over the roots that twisted and coiled. For once, the Elves did not pursue them for they were too lost in wonder.

'What does this mean?' Galadhon asked and Thranduil saw that he voiced the question that was in most of their minds for they could not know what this meant.

'Sauron is gone!' he cried in response. 'He is vanquished. Barad-dûr has fallen. I have seen it! The Nazgûl have been snatched into the Dark! The Wood is free!'

A triumphant ululation burst from a group of Elves, laughing and hugging each other in glee. Others joined, and then more and more voices. When the thunder cracked loudly overhead, Thranduil shouted aloud in joy and relief, his voice joining that of his Elves. Thranduil saw that Gilvaren was clinging to Galion, their faces wet with rain and tears for the overwhelming relief was more than any of them could truly bear. Around him, his warriors found their own way to celebrate; some simply collapsed, kneeling in the mud and praying, thanking Eru, a few youngsters ran about, leaping and sliding through the puddles and from sheer delight.

That is what Legolas would do, Thranduil thought. And Anglach.

The rain became a torrential downpour that drenched the Woodelves, so their hair slicked against their skulls and their armour was washed clean, their faces shone with triumph.

Aerglin, who had found Thranduil when he fell, was running around in circles, slowly, leaping and splashing through the puddles and shouting his triumph. Silarôs, who had been captured when Smeagol was released but rescued by Laersul and returned when they could not save Naurion or Anglach, thought Thranduil, ran and leapt at Aerglin, bringing him down into the mud where they wrestled or embraced or, who knew. Thranduil did not care.

'We did it! We did it!' shouted Galadhon. He was laughing and tears were running down his face and then he sobered, and kneeling down in the mud, he stroked the hair away from Elfaron's dead face, closed his eyes gently.

Suddenly Galion was beside Thranduil. 'Bastard Manwë's fault for letting Sauron to wriggle out of his grasp after the War of Wrath,' he shouted and shook his fist up to the sky. 'If you had behaved better,' he addressed the markedly absent Power, 'we would not have spent all those lives, all those miserably years and years fighting …'

He seemed to have acquired a flask of something dangerously alcoholic and swigged at it liberally. He met Thranduil's eye. 'We will pull down Dol Guldûr,' he said simply, 'For Anglach.'

Thranduil nodded. 'For Anglach.'

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Thranduil divided his elven host; some he left with Gilvaren in the East Bight to repair the hillfort, for he was too canny to abandon a defence just because one enemy was defeated. Others he left under Silarôs' command, to gather their dead to take them home, a sorrowful duty but honouring their fallen comrades. Galadhon, with the bulk of the host, he sent to pursue Orcs and goblins and to kill as many as they could so that they could not live another day to attack the Elves or return to the Mountains to attack unwary travelers. Thranduil himself rode to Dol Guldûr, to see what state the Nazgûl's fortress was in and, as Galion said, to winkle out that old rust bucket, Khamûl. But Thranduil did not believe the Nazgul had remained in Dol Guldûr whilst Mordor itself was besieged. Galion's old brown mare ambled alongside Thranduil's grey stallion, nipping bad-temperedly at any horses who got too close. Much like Galion himself.

They rode from the East Bight along the wide track that Sauron's army had ploughed straight through the forest. They were in the deep southern reaches of the Wood, travelling towards the hill upon which was the enemy's fortress, Dol Guldûr. Thranduil's old home. He felt no nostalgia though, for those ancient days when the Elves had dwelled upon Amon Lanc, and sunlight dappled the forest floor gold-green. These trees on either side of the track had rotted, and the air was stale and silent. Deep shadows and darkness extended on either side of the track, seemingly forever and it felt like they had entered a different world from their own. This is Mirkwood, he thought, looking up at the thick, dark vines that twisted through the trees like they were strangling them. This was not a living forest; this was like some graveyard; some parody of the Wood and he was aware of the silence of his own men and knew they were thinking the same. The closer we draw to our old home, he realised, the sadder it is. We do not want to live here again, he thought suddenly.

They were half a day's march from Dol Guldûr when Thranduil felt a tremendous swell of Power surge through the forest like a detonation. There was no sound, not at first, just an implosion, as if all sound had been sucked inwards towards Dol Guldur. And then there was a mighty crack, and the forest floor trembled. The horses tossed their heads and shied and the Elves looked at the ground in horror, but no great chasms opened beneath their feet, no shudder in the Earth followed.

'Is this some last treachery of the Nazgul?' Galion turned to Thranduil with wide eyes.

Thranduil shook his head slowly. 'I do not think so. Do you feel the Power in the air? It is…' He tried to find words. 'It is what I felt before, when we summoned the Wood.'

Galion looked at him astonished. 'Do you think it is the Wood itself?'

'No, this is something less natural,' Thranduil said a little caustically and now he knew for sure. 'This is Galadriel, I think. It feels… Noldo.' He could not quite help the note of disgust and contempt in his voice; they would never forget Doriath. They would never forgive. Nor Sirion. It did not matter that she was there or not, deeds done by her people. Noldor.

It seemed Galion thought the same for he opened his mouth to speak but Thranduil hushed him quickly. 'We are rather close to be expressing any strong views,' he muttered cautiously. 'You never know if she might be…listening.' And that shut Galion up. For a little while at least.

Suddenly Aerglin pointed upwards and cried out, 'Look! Stars! A meteor shower!'

It was not a meteor shower, Thranduil saw. But great chunks of molten rock exploding into the sky.

Ferendir turned and called out to Thranduil, 'My lord! Shall I go ahead and see if it is safe?'

'Certainly not,' Thranduil said sharply. 'I will do that.' Then he added, a little less irritably, You may follow if you wish.'

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