It turned out to be a good idea, approaching the mountain ascent that King Thranduil had pointed out for them, not by choosing the same route that the King had taken before. While the narrow path through a gap at the southeast side was marginally longer, they were actually proceeding faster because they had more cover and didn't have to suspect an attack behind every turn.

Behind the last one, they met the soldier that Thranduil had left here who showed them five Dunlendings stationed nearby, distributed at different serpentines according to the four winds. Their only job was obviously guarding a cave entrance on the hilltop. Even if they'd taken out four people at once … The man standing right at the entrance wouldn't have died silently and invisibly. If the rest of these bastards were possibly being inside and within sight of the entrance, they once more risked the prisoners' lives.

"Well, it's what we expected." Legolas hastily tied Avil's reins together in front of her chest and signaled the white mare that was fortunately very smart in spite of all anxiety, to wait by a flat ledge together with the other mounts. Now that hope was alive again that they could free the missing persons in time, after all, thanks to these accommodations being so keenly guarded, time was of the essence.

"Tauriel? Is the rock stable enough? If the roof collapses on us in a minute, that would have been the shortest rescue mission ever."

"The mountain has suffered a lot under the storms of Mordor in the last few millennia, but it will outlast these bastards by a few more. The density hasn't been reduced enough for a wisp of wind to shatter it. Ready when you are." The she-elf gave him the bag with the numerous arrowheads she had crafted in the last few hours, customized perfectly for the shafts of Legolas' missiles made of the almost indestructible wood from Eryn Lasgalen.

With that, she had actually done her job for today. But with her hand on her sword's handle, the tall Silvan she-elf left no doubt that there was nothing that could keep her from coming with them.

"We're taking the shortcut. You try to deal with the men out here without anyone noticing," Legolas instructed two of the three soldiers from his former home.

Then he raised his bow, nocked … and paused, still torn by the conflict of wanting to get to the prisoners as quickly as possible without endangering them though. "They'll hear it."

"They don't know that we have this stuff. They'll think it's coming from back there."

By now, the blast of more than one booby trap sounding from the Black Gate could no longer be ignored. After everything that Arwen had had to see in Rohan, every single explosion was like a sword blade driven into her heart because any of them might be ending the life of her husband, her brothers, or her best friends right now.

"Let them think we're orcs," Tauriel agreed as well, more impatient by the second.

Her very fine senses had caught something still hidden from the others. The wrath turning her grass-green eyes into a storm raging over an algae-filled sea made Arwen even more afraid of what they would be seeing soon. "If they spot us … Then it doesn't make a difference. Then it's only about who will be faster. Something terrible has happened in there not too long ago, Legolas."

It didn't take anything more. Legolas shot his first arrow this night.

"Elessar."

"Your Majesty … I was no longer sure you'd come. Was your search successful?"

Impatiently, Aragorn wiped a combination of sweat and orc blood from his face to be able to see the approaching rider better, to try and read in his face.

The negative gesture answering him couldn't shock him as much as it would have not too long ago. Thranduil wouldn't be headed straight for him, amidst the battlefield, if nothing about the situation had changed.

"Please, speak." He was happy for the chance to recollect himself for a moment. The worst mistake an army leader could make was feeling too safe at the wrong moment.

The enemies' reinforcements from Moria that they'd feared so much had only arrived a few minutes ago. Their opponents were just gathering new at the gate after Gondor's archers and the ones from Imladris and Eryn Lasgalen in particular had caused the Dunlendings heavy losses, in spite of their hyped, dangerous weapons that they'd relied on so much. The sun would be rising soon which would weaken the enemies' forces further. Then the movements of the orcs and goblins would be very limited, and the number of Uruk-hai and men wasn't high enough in to be a real problem for the army.

Hardly any people had died so far, and there was not the smallest hint that the workers at the Marshes over there would get any problems. Everything was almost a little too easy.

It was at such moments exactly that you a leader very mistrustful by nature could really use a good dose of reality which the King of Eryn Lasgalen was always so happy to give.

"My son is taking care of the matter; between us, he is the better hunter as you know." Thranduil nodded at Aragorn, respectfully but reserved just like at the few meetings they'd had so far, and jumped from his stallion as soon as he came up next to him.

"You've raised a remarkably tough boy there, Elessar. He's still standing on his feet."

"Thank you." Aragorn leaned his forehead against Brego's saddle for a short, forbidden moment of relief. That Eldarion had made it through all of this so far and that he was still holding on, granted him the necessary strength to face the next wave of attack, too. "For that message alone, I will never forget that you've come right into a war zone that is not even yours."

"And that is where you are wrong." Thranduil sent his horse away with an impatient pat to its croup so that it would join the ones of the soldiers in the distance. "I'm here because we never finished ours back then. Besides I have sworn fealty to the King of Gondor and Arnor 20 years ago and I never got around to making good on that promise. I like to pay my dues before I say goodbye."

"A very elegant way of saying that you still love big entrances," Faramir remarked, a little out of breath after the fast, hard ride between his people to make sure that none of the men needed immediate medical help and that the soldiers were ready for the next confrontation. His thoughts were doubtlessly at his little glorious decision to throw both Legolas and, unknowingly, the only remaining Elvenking of Middle-earth in his dungeon back then. Because of their own mistakes, of course, but also due to Faramir's complete blindness at the time.

They all had left these times behind, and their realms had to work together more than ever today if they wanted to make it out of this battle with as little bloodshed as in the last big fight in the Stewardaides Crisis back then.

Therefore, Thranduil just laughed quietly instead of feeling offended, a sound that Aragorn had never heard from Legolas' father. "Where do you think my son gets it?"

Drawing his sword, he turned to the black place of dread that he'd already faced once before and defeated, before any of them had even been born, with a grim, almost anticipating smile. The morning sun had his blazing hair fall down to his hips like a flame. The narrow warrior circlet of Eryn Lasgalen that he insisted on wearing even in a battle was a blinding stripe of memory of a better time, of one full of riches and wonders. Of a time before the elves had realized that there was no place for them left on this world.

For a moment, the King was breathtakingly beautiful.

"New archers with traps on the gate. Elessar, get your sword fighters to the back." Without waiting for an answer, Thranduil charged, heading straight for the rows of orcs.

"And you're still wondering about Legolas sometimes," Faramir said dryly.

In the beginning, Arwen hadn't put much trust in the booby traps that had been built so hurriedly in passing. But now she had to admit that they were indeed finding their way inside the Dunlendings' refuge a lot faster than expected, thanks to the tunnel newly dug into the rock within just a few minutes. It took them only a handful of arrows and the skill of ducking away under clouds of rock and dust in a flash a few times, their sensitive ears protected by thick stripes of cloth before they reached a deserted side arm of the cave system. From there, there were only a few more forks between them and the actual facility inside the mountain.

Given how fell it was smelling of animal carcasses in here, this place had surely not been used in a while before this day, and the almost complete lack of lighting numbed the senses additionally. But cowering under a big rock outcrop, they quickly spotted an inlet right under the cave ceiling that was their destination, protected from predators by thick metal bars.

Arwen almost expected her heart to burst with relief in her chest. Even in the bad torchlight, she could see one of the three shapes only half visible and standing with their backs to them, wearing the silver blue tunics of her son's uniform, dirtied, worn but unmistakable thanks to the usual White Tree on the back.

And Eldarion was alive … In the chains wrapped around his wrists, he was definitely stirring up there …

Now she only needed to get to him.

Legolas' hand was a vice around her wrist before she could take even one step out from under the cover. Oh. Right.

Since the almost complete silence in the caves enhanced their fine hearing even more, it was very safe to say that the other elves had taken out the Dunlendings out there, as the occasional dirty laughter and the shouts there had been silenced.

But there was still one of these despicable people up there, wearing one of their typical grey and black fur cloaks. This man never looked back either, therefore, they could approach him unseen if they were fast enough … But as long as there was someone standing in immediate reach of Arwen's helplessly restrained son, with their sword drawn, they still had to consider the next move very well.

"Stay here, in case more of them will show up."

Legolas didn't even wait for an answer before he ran off, completely soundlessly, remaining in the shadows of the serpentines constantly, on these gracile, fast deer's legs that had already brought him through the war almost unharmed so that it was only logical to rely on them now as well. His dark cloak from Lórien which Tarisilya had mended so arduously after the Stewardaides Crisis once, provided additional cover like it had saved the lives of more than one Ring Companion back then already. It hid his slender shape almost completely.

No matter how hard it was for Arwen, being damned to do nothing but wait, her dagger ready at hand, while the soldier next to her aimed his bow at the dangerous scene, she forced herself to do so.

In case of emergency, Thranduil's warrior would hopefully be able to kill the enemy. But if the Dunlending would still manage to wield his weapon as he fell, making just one wrong move with this blade that was far too close to Eldarion's chest, then …

And Tauriel had been right: There was no more second to waste. It was noticeable even in spite of the ever-present, sweet stench of the perished animals that it smelled of fresh blood and violence. Arwen's son needed her …

And then everything happened at once. Some tiny sound, not more than maybe a pebble of the porous stones giving way under Legolas' boots when he was only just halfway to the top. Or the shadow of a bat that had felt their presence …

Whatever it was, it made the King of Rohan startle who was standing slightly closer to the bars than Eldarion, had him look back over his shoulder that had been twisted and turned upwards, from fever-dazed eyes in a puffy, snow-white face. An almost inaudible sound of fright came through a thick gag, basically at the same moment when the Dunlending jerkily raised his sword …

Arwen's own frightened scream wasn't more than a whisper from her bone-dry throat as the elf behind her already nocked his arrow.

But another, warning shout of terror echoed through the high mountain hall. "No!"

It was only when Legolas threw himself into the deep abyss between the serpentines, even before the arrow had left the archer's weapon, and when her old friend hurled his – Thranduil's – dagger up towards this group of men like a missile, causing it to sever the chains of the alleged Dunlending with a single clean cut, that Arwen understood what had almost just happened here. Legolas' body crashed to the ground almost unprotected, the arrow of his own people buried deeply in his side. More blood stained the rocks when he hit his head hard on the ground and stopped moving.

"Help him!" Arwen snarled at the dumbfounded elf behind her, busy running off already, both her weapons at hand. But she already knew, she wouldn't be able to do anything, nothing at all. By the time she would arrive up there, everything would already be over.

And all of that only because their hurry had made them blind, because they had not paid attention to the cloth covering the face of the alleged enemy, or given his shape a second thought. Arwen should have known, that other body was far too bulky to be her son's, after many long days of captivity …

And if Eldarion couldn't manage to put up a fight once more now, in spite of everything that these bastards had done to him in these terrible days without a doubt, if he didn't stop the last of their enemies who was rushing him with an angry yell … Then her son would die right before her eyes.

Too late, too slow.

After the Dunlending had brutally forced his sword into Eldarion's badly injured hand earlier and had tied his arm back up again, threading the chain through the ceiling beam before the enemy's own hand had firmly grabbed the end of it to pretend being bound himself, it had seemed for a moment as if all hope had now left Aragorn's son as well. Instead, the boy had apparently fought his way out of his apathy once more in the last few minutes, with the rest of his admirable stubbornness. He was at least trying to seize what was probably the last chance, offered unexpectedly by their rescuers' appearance.

But the moment that bastard realized that his plan had failed, hurling away the chain that had burst out of nowhere, upset, and yanking a long dagger from his belt, the foreign weapon dropped from the hand of Aragorn's son that had become almost unusable, before he'd even really raised it. His body was just far too weakened by fever and infections for him to be ready for a duel.

Éomer didn't think about it for even a second or he'd probably frozen, trapped in a body that had reached the limits of its capacities, unable to make even one more movement. Now he just made it.

Not now. Now that Eldarion's family had finally come, he wouldn't just watch, damnit. A hateful scream on his lips, he pushed himself up from his knees and threw himself aside with all strength he could muster up, against the pull of his restraints. He threatened to black out when his shoulder that was already completely ruined anyway was wrenched from its socket immediately. But that way, he came close enough to the Dunlending to throw him to the ground by kicking the back of his knees hard.

Eldarion's warrior instincts set in even before his wits caught up. Using just as much strength, he yanked the dagger towards him that someone had hurled into the cave and that had got stuck in the rocky wall like in a moldy wooden target. He cut the Dunlending's head from his shoulders before the man had started to straighten up again.

Éomer heavily dropped to the ground again, the last energy leaving his body, unbelieving about what he'd just seen, what he'd done there. In split seconds, the impact brought back all the pain in each and every spot that had been damaged in the last few days. This time, he gave in to unconsciousness.

"Ion? Do you want me to …?" After the first moment of bottomless relief, Arwen looked back and forth between the situation up there at the hideout entrance that had been defused at the last moment and her best friend's lifeless silhouette.

Her stomach clenched painfully. Tauriel was a great healer, but that had been a damn hard impact; she could surely use a hand. But Arwen wanted to go see her son and Éomer just as much who didn't need support any less …

"I'll be alright, don't worry. Help him. I just need someone here who brings His Majesty outside."

With the help of the key from his enemy's belt, Eldarion had already freed himself from the last restraints. Now he was kneeling over the King's body with a gloomy frown. He was forcing himself upright again already, while Arwen called for the soldiers outside, and rummaged in the few boxes standing around in their enemies' hideout, coming back with cloths and bottles that hopefully contained at least the essentials like water and alcohol. From her now better position, Arwen could also see him tug a thin thread from this foreign top on his body with his healthy hand, which had almost cost him his life.

These were all gestures that Arwen knew only too well both from her husband and also from her father back then, and also from her brothers. From Tarisilya, too, when things had gone crazy in the Houses of Healing once more and the she-elf had sometimes hardly had any time for her family for weeks.

It was this thought that made Arwen turn away from the path upwards with a heavy heart.

Tarisilya wasn't here now; she was risking her life at the Dead Marshes right now, just like Legolas had just put his own in the balance for Arwen's son without any hesitation.

That alone made it Arwen's duty to take care of her friend's husband for her now. Especially since Eldarion was letting his healer instincts take over just half a minute after his release, in spite of his own wounds, putting all of his own needs in the background.

Arwen dashed back down the slope just as quickly as she'd run off. On the way, she lit a handful of arrows from her quiver on fire to give the healer better light to work. Given she knew so little about this art, that was at least something she could do.

"Tauriel?"

"It's going to be alright, I think. Missed the lung by half an inch. Nothing seems to be injured that won't grow back together again quickly. No fractures either."

Tauriel deliberately ignored Arwen's shudder when she got the arrowhead out of Legolas' half-naked upper body with a single, fast cut of her dagger, impatiently wiping the squirting blood off her cheeks before she wrapped a clean bandage from her belt around Legolas' chest in several tight layers. "He's only being so dazed right now because he didn't roll right into the fall. Apparently, you forget how to do that when you want to show off your dagger-throwing skills so badly."

Apparently, she felt that the worry for what was now three patience had a harsh grip on Arwen and rolled her eyes, a little dramatically, pointing up towards where Eldarion was working with that thread, with Éomer's arms that were still bound by another chain and with that thing that Legolas' father had given him so solemnly earlier. "I resent him for that personally. Has this seriously been lying around in Thranduil's vaults for millennia?"

"If you manage to patch me up again, I'll gladly forward your complaint to ada."

Legolas coughed hollowly; his lids fluttered. He wasn't entirely awake yet, but at least enough to search Arwen's gaze, to look up at the hideout as well as he managed to, given he could hardly raise his head, to make sure the prisoners were doing better than he was.

"Sedho, Thranduilion." Arwen rested her hand on his forehead soothingly.

"The others are safe. We're going home. Sleep. Rest." She did not only have unselfish reasons for wishing for his strength to leave her friend again right away.

It had been only a small dark spot that Arwen had thought to see there in the bad light a moment ago when Legolas had blinked so arduously. Nothing but a reflection probably, caused by the flickering of the flames … Only a part of her knew better already.

Arwen had had to be there when Legolas had become blind from a similarly hard impact for the first time back then, after that attack of some Haradrim in the immediate surroundings of Imladris …

And she had worriedly sat by the healers' side often enough when they'd tried to find out what exactly was wrong with him and how to remedy it, still quite clumsily back then. As far as Arwen knew, no one had ever managed to clear that up completely. But she still knew exactly what it looked like when blackness clouded Legolas' eyes which were usually so intriguingly clear, when his iris was being darkened so much that it looked like blood stains swimming on it.

And that was what she was seeing now, too. This time in all clarity, when her friend turned his head her way again, the half grin from earlier gone, replaced by a fear that had never had completely vanished, by anger. By the deep resignation that was the worst of all when he tried in vain to blink his eyes free and finally closed his lids with a hardly audible sob.

In tears, too, Arwen bent down to him and kissed his forehead, brushed his hair back from his face, and carefully treated a small cut there with a cloth soaked in herb ointment that Tauriel gave to her.

"Thank you." She just whispered it, too shocked about the price someone else had had to pay for her to be able to take her somewhat healthy son in her arms again soon. Even if she hadn't already decided to give up immortality for her husband decades ago, she wouldn't have lived long enough to thank Legolas for this sacrifice properly. But she would try, with all of her heart, every single day she would be granted to walk the width of this world.

When the first troops from Mordor started to focus on the area north of the Black Gate, when the realization apparently started to hit more and more of the enemies that in truth, it had been them who had fallen for a distraction, Aragorn left his place at the front once again, and Thranduil didn't need an invitation to follow him.

More important than the egoistic wish to play a part at the very front was now to join the ring of elves and soldiers that had become much thicker, that was protecting the workers from the growing threat. Even if by staying, they'd been able to save a soldier or two more. By now, several of them had fallen to the blades of the black creatures after all. Now it was about preventing the same fate from befalling the healer elves.

At least they wouldn't have to keep watch for long anymore. With the help of Tarisilya and the twins, Thondrar had done his work in more and more areas of the Marshes; by now, the pipework was almost completely finished. But even from a distance, it could no longer be ignored that the success exacted its toll more with every pond they were leaving behind.

The four elves were completely exhausted. Temperatures that should actually not even be able to bother Thondrar, thanks to the enhanced defenses of his elvish body, had him tremble like a Secondborn. His skin was cracked, bloody in parts, and blackened by dirt and poison. His face looked as hollow as the ones of some of the illusions in the water. His usually so soft, kind eyes were glowing with a light harsh and cold as the Silmarils themselves.

But he didn't stop when Tarisilya led him to the next shore where Elrohir had prepared the next pipes already, with her arm firmly wrapped around his waist. Not one second.

By now, Tarisilya and the twins were taking regular turns at holding him when he was diving; Legolas' wife could no longer have done that alone. The two healers not currently working lay on their sides on the muddy ground, holding onto each other, shaking and almost as pale as Thondrar.

And there were more and more troops leaving the ruins of Mordor on foot, on the backs of wolves and even on chariots now, approaching the Marshes. More and more threatening, deafening screeching came from the direction of the enemy crowd. More and more arrows tried to stop the workers' efforts, fended off at the last moment by one of the soldiers' shields more than once.

Soon, the warriors protecting the elves by standing closer and closer around them, had to give up their cover in the west to deal with the enemies' growing inrush from the other side.

Having nothing but a plain between the river and them now that might not be completely poisoned but was almost dead, too, the healers now had to hope that there would at least not be anything threatening them from there, while they did their highly dangerous job. They were guided by warning words and also by vigorous touches from their friends from Cair Andros more than once before their growing disorientation could make them stumble into one of the ponds after all.

When the last pipe was finally in place, the four of them were not capable of anything but laying on their backs for a moment, firmly holding hands, with their eyes wide open and breathing so shallowly, so arduously that Aragorn had to worry, they would soon stop doing it altogether.

It was Thondrar at last who somehow managed to get back to his feet and stumble towards the bags with the precious vials from their cart that the elves had dragged across the plain of the Marshes. Basically blind, he got out the first of the bottles of the solution that the four of them had suffered all of this for. But with his fingers badly trembling, he didn't even manage to open the cork.

"Oh, by the stars … Eru will make it a holiday if the family of Elrond thinks a plan through a single time."

Ranting away, not half as composed as earlier and especially no longer as neatly dressed, with his armor stained black over and over, Thranduil hurried towards Glorfindel's son and yanked the bottle from his hand, harshly throwing it at Aragorn who could only just catch it in time, then bent down to grab the next one.

An arrow from one of the archers at the orcs' very front line buzzed past the King's unprotected throat so quickly that Aragorn didn't even get a chance to warn him.

Admittedly, he'd just been too busy decapitating an Uruk-hai standing right behind him before he could lose his own head.

For a moment, he was a hundred percent sure that the missile had found its target, that in a second, he would have to watch a Firstborn lose their life from up close which he'd already had to bear far too often in the war. That later this day, it would be up to him to deliver to Legolas his father's body, given the others and he would somehow make it out of this whole thing.

But Thranduil only staggered on his feet for a second and wrapped his hand around his own throat in a brutal grip, a gesture filled with more impatience than pain or fear. Even while there was thick red gushing out between his fingers in rivulets, he opened the bottle under his other arm with his teeth and spit the cork into the grass with highest disdain before thrusting the vial into Thondrar's hand, pointing at the pipes.

Aragorn hadn't expected himself to develop even more respect for a single elf in his short mortal life than he already felt for the Firstborn anyway.

By the time, Elladan had somehow pushed himself back to his feet, following Aragorn's worried request, and had staggered towards the injured, the King had opened the rest of the bottles with Aragorn's help as well and given them to Thondrar who was the only one between them knowing exactly where they had to be emptied.

More blood, the last of it, soaked the muddy earth before Elladan managed to cover the terrible wound with a bandage that gave his patient just enough room to still draw breath.

Then the last bit of fluid was poured into the connection pipe at the outer edge of the swamps.

Only now, Thranduil fell to his knees, with his hand still firmly pressed against his throat, looking straight down. Doing exactly what they warned people visiting this area about. But the Marshes didn't give the King of Eryn Lasgalen a fright that he hadn't already known for millennia. He'd probably been cowering in a place similar to this when this nightmare had been created. Now he apparently wanted to see it get destroyed with his own two eyes, even if it was in a half-unconscious state.

Even the orcs and Uruk-hai froze in astonishment and growing hate, in unease, when the ground beneath their feet started to shake. One by one, the reflective surfaces, behind which the faces of the dead had been imprisoned for so long, turned into firm, thick soil. Bit by bit, the constant fog of decay stench and spoilt ground dissolved.

The moment there was no longer a need to watch your every step, the ground was trembling again, but this time from the thunder of hundreds of horse hooves.

A new wave of fighters approached from the shore of Anduin that no one had expected to join this battle, not even Aragorn though the men and women at the very front, leading the countless soldiers who were clad in unadorned dark armor, were wearing the brown and green clothes of his own folk.

"Arnor," Elrohir next to him whispered, maybe speechless enough for the first time in his life to not even be able to come up with a stupid one-liner. "The Dúnedain have mobilized Arnor. Your people are coming to their King's rescue."

"People must have heard about Langhour's death," Aragorn realized, spotting a single adornment somewhere on a piece of clothing on each of these people, be it Dúnadan or soldier: a stylized eagle. The Eagle of Arnor. "I guess that was the last reason they needed to want to level Mordor as well. Quickly, we'll be safe in thei…"

Aragorn found his way out of his amazement just in time. He let himself drop to the ground and took his foster brother with him before one of the hopefully very last Uruk-hai could possibly decapitate them with a two-handed sword.

They rolled on their backs almost at the same time and raised their weapons with the same movement of their wrists that Glorfindel had once taught them, cutting their enemy's body in half with a single blow. Blood and guts rained down on their armor; a few sour, acid drops landed in Aragorn's mouth so that he had to spit in disgust.

But when he turned his head towards Elrohir again and saw his brother's usually bright skin be just as black-smeared, he suddenly had to laugh, a hysterical sound completely improper for a battlefield that he surely hadn't expected to hear from himself today.

Elrohir joined immediately, shaking his head in amusement, the terrors that he had managed to bear in the last few hours banned from his mind for the moment, just like the possible consequences of this action of his that would probably torture him all the more after the fight. As far as Aragorn knew, this was the first creature that one of the twins had ever killed. All their lives, they both had done everything to keep their healer abilities intact that always suffered if you were an elf and ended a life, even if it had been one as misguided as this creature's. That he had failed to do that for the first time today was something Elrohir would have to learn how to deal with first.

But for the moment, he didn't waste any thought on that. Straightening up, he pulled Aragorn up with him. "Now we got the bastards with their backs to the wall. Let's make the best of it."

Aragorn just nodded and whistled for Brego, getting into his stallion's saddle before the horse had even fully stopped to approach the newcomers, with Andúril held high.

When the men and women that he'd not seen a lot of in the last few decades bowed respectfully, he returned the gesture with a nod just a deep. For a moment, he had to blink away the veil of emotion in front of his eyes.

Sure, his folk had told him about their journeys through Arnor in regular intervals, both in many letters and with the help of some well-trained messengers. About how they'd the stabilized the situation, about the reconstruction … About the men that had lived in solitary for so long and were now watching Aragorn's reign with respect and goodwill, even though they were not yet ready to allow said rule to effects their lives directly too, though the realms were officially being one again since the end of the war.

For that reason alone, Aragorn had never expected this folk of all people to get involved in this conflict far from their home. After all, they'd stayed out of everything 20 years ago as well, too busy with the political events and attacks in their own lands.

So far, Aragorn had hardly been able to do more than scratch the surface of that wall that needed to be torn down there. But people stood by him in what was maybe the most important and hopefully the last big fight against Mordor, to finally ban evil from this world. He would never forget that.

"We're deeply in your debt."

The woman riding ahead of the group, who had apparently been functioning as Aragorn's substitute since Langhour's death before he'd even had a chance to officially appoint someone, put him off impatiently. "It was about high time, Your Majesty. Give the call."

There was, fortunately, no need to give Dúnedain a lot of orders who had already served on more than one battlefield before the war, just like Aragorn.

He just watched fleetingly from the corner of his eyes how the first warriors took the healer elves and the King up with them on their horses who were still being so weak, and brought them back to the cart in a flash.

Relief that was still filled with grief took hold of him when the new leader personally made sure that the two women that Langhour had left behind who were already completely exhausted but still standing in the middle of the battlefield, were also brought to safety, in spite of their quiet protest.

That the injured would be taken care of was all Aragorn needed to know for the moment before he threw himself into the battle again.