Hey, everybody. Back with another chapter.

Let's get to it.

Chapter 33- The Onslaught Begins

(June 30, 2021)

On the plains of Anfauglith, the landscape is littered with corpses, many of them in pieces or badly burned. Smoke hangs in the air, almost completely obscuring the ground from the sky.

On the western Allied lines, Lieutenant Phil Stewart is looking through his commanders sight of his tank, keeping watch on Morgoth's forces. He sees several trolls trying to charge his tank company's position. "We got trolls, direct front. One round HEAT," he calls out. The crew quickly loads a HEAT round into the gun before pulling the trigger, discharging a HEAT round and tearing one of the trolls apart. Two more tanks kill the other two trolls a second later.

The 4th Infantry is leading the 4th Army's advance towards Thangorodrim. Morgoth's forces in the area are severely depleted, and the 4th Division is advancing rather quickly.

Stewart calls out, "What are we looking at for fuel?"

"Running a little low. When are the fueling trucks coming?" his driver asks.

"They're coming. Just a few minutes out," Stewart responds.

Keeping a careful watch on Morgoth's forces through his sight, Stewart sees a desperate company of Orcs trying to charge at the American lines. Deciding not to use up rounds for the main gun, he switches to the coaxial m240 machine gun and fires the gun. Streams of bullets streak out and tear into the Orcs, another tank quickly joining in with its coax machine gun. It doesn't take more than a few seconds before all of the orcs are dead.

As they finish off the Orcs, a radio transmission comes in from the division commander, "All tanks and armored vehicles, stop forward movements and await vehicles bringing fuel and ammunition."

"Alright. Let's stop here," Stewart calls out. His driver quickly stops the tank, along with the rest of the tanks of the division and the other armored vehicles of the division.

The division tightens up its lines and infantry move forward to assist the tanks as they wait for fuel and ammo. However, through his commander's sight, Stewart keeps a careful eye on Morgoth's forces, not wanting them to catch the division by surprise, even at this late stage.

(USARCOM HQ)

In the situation room in his headquarters in Valimar, General Abrams is carefully monitoring his forces' newest offensive and its progress towards Angband.

It's been just over a year since the US and its allies began the Battle of Anfauglith. For the vast majority of the battle, the armies had simply been dug in. Not advancing, but simply holding their positions and letting Morgoth expend his armies in assaults on the Allied lines. This had worked, resulting in multiple millions of Morgoth's armies being destroyed with minimal casualties. In all, since the start of the battle, the US and their Allies had sustained about 104,000 casualties since the battle began. On the other hand, Morgoth had lost about 30 million of his armies.

Two weeks ago, General Abrams had cleared the Allies to break their defensive positions and resume advancing on Angband. With Morgoth's armies seriously depleted, the Allies could not be stopped. The Allies now held about 28 percent of Anfauglith's land, and were continuing to advance towards Angband.

Abrams had struggled with the question of whether or not to launch an all out armored charge towards Angband, but had decided not to. He didn't want to take the chance Morgoth might have any more surprises that could wreak havoc on the Allied armies, so he ordered a slower, tighter advance that would minimize casualties.

However, over the last two days, something has been nagging at Abrams. He can't explain it, but he's been getting a bad feeling. He just feels that something is about to go wrong. There's nothing to back his suspicion up at all, but he can't shake it.

(Southern Anfauglith)

Not far from the Haudh en Nirnaeth, amidst his battalion, Sergeant Stan Freeman is running over the landscape towards the enemy lines. A series of Humvees and a pair of M1s are leading the way at a slow pace, with the Marines on foot keeping up as well as possible.

Freeman is feeling an increasing sense of triumph over the last two weeks as the massive peaks of Thangorodrim have grown in size before them as the Allies have slowly closed in. Now they are well within view of the massive volcanic peaks.

By now, Morgoth's forces have been hit hard. Only two Balrogs are left, and one has already fled the battlefield, the last presumably having taken shelter in Angband. Hundreds, if not thousands, of dragons have been killed, and Morgoth's legions of orcs, trolls, wolves, and Men have been laid to waste. The Allies are in control on the Anfauglith battlefield, and closing in on Angband.

As Freeman slows down a bit, firing at an Orc within range, he thinks back to last night, when he talked with some of his buddies during their break time about their plans for after the war. Most of the Marines thought they would be home within a month or two, and were discussing their plans for after the war. Freeman remembered one of his buddies talking excitedly about hopefully being there for his son's first day of kindergarten in late August.

Freeman moves in behind an M1 advancing slowly on Morgoth's armies positions, taking shelter from a handful of catapults stones being hurled at them. A second later, the M1 fires its gun, destroying one of the catapults. A Marine attack helicopter destroys the other two ahead of the Marines.

Freeman smirks a bit as several more tanks move up to the front lines. Hopefully, according to the plan, General Abram is going to order a full charge towards Angband. Once that happens, it will be fully over for Morgoth.

Suddenly, Freeman feels something. A very slight, almost discernable shaking in the ground. Freeman looks up towards the peaks of Thangorodrim. Earlier in the battle, American aircraft had bombed the peaks in order to collapse them to try and interfere with more eruptions caused by Morgoth. However, although there is some smoke coming from Thangorodrim, it doesn't look as if the mountains are about to erupt.

Then, Freeman sees that the sky behind Thangorodrim, over Angband itself, has darkened. Lightning is flashing with great intensity, and there is a look as if fires have erupted around Angband. Then, a fierce noise begins to whip through Anfauglith, along with an increased wind.

Suddenly, Freeman sees something. What looks like shapes appearing in the sky over Angband. Some are coming up from the ground, while others seem to be coming from further within the Iron Mountains.

Suddenly, as the shapes begin to emerge from the smoke over Thangorodrim, Freeman feels a sense of utter horror flood through his body. The shapes are a sight more terrifying than he has ever seen.

Appearing above Thangorodrim and across the Iron Mountains are a small fleet of winged dragons, roaring with anger, their coming accompanied by tempests of fire and fierce lightning.

Then, as the dragons begin to shoot flames from their mouths as part of their arrival, a massive shape appears over Thangorodrim, and the horror flooding through Freeman and many more on the battlefield increases tenfold.

This massive shape is a massive, jet black scaled dragon, larger than any dragon they've ever seen. As the soldiers on the ground see the massive dragon, they realize he must be at least as long as an aircraft carrier, with a wingspan to match. Perhaps even bigger. When he opens his massive jaws, he shoots out a jet of flame almost a mile long.

"DRAGONS!" Freeman bellows at the top of his lungs. This cry is echoed across the entire division, and further along all the Allied lines across Anfauglith.

A handful of fighters over Anfauglith are caught completely off guard by the appearance of the winged dragons. A pair of F-16s fairly close to Thangorodrim are quickly caught beneath the dragons. One of the F-16 pilots doesn't react fast enough. One of the dragons dives towards the F-16s, lashing its wing at the F-16 and knocking it out of the sky. The pilot never ejects.

The second F-16 turns hard to get away, the pilot punching the afterburner. However, before it can pick up enough speed, another dragon breathes fire right at the F-16, half-melting the F-16. What remains of it falls out of the sky.

The roars of the winged dragons ring throughout the north, sounding like massive claps of thunder. The first wave of the dragons begin to dive down on the Allied troops below them, breathing down fire as several of them begin attacking with their massive claws. Hundreds of soldiers are killed in seconds, and several tanks and armored vehicles are crushed.

Freeman turns around to the men of his battalion. Completely ignoring the fact there are many officers around who could give the order, Freeman screams at the top of his lungs, "FALL BACK! FALL BACK!"

This cry echoes across Allied lines. Within a matter of minutes, over 2 million Allied troops are beginning to pull back.

In the south-west, Eonwe, at the head of the Host of Valinor, is horrified by the sight of the winged dragons and the damage they are causing. Immediately, Eonwe issues orders to all of the Maiar under his command to stand their ground and try to stop the dragons, especially to give the 6th Army and Host of Valinor the chance to pull back.

The Maiar prepare to stand against the dragons. Alongside them is Orome himself. Despite his great power and the weapons he carries, orome fears this may not be enough.

The Maiar clash with part of the dragon force as it moves to the south-west. Orome rides forward on Nahar, shooting his mighty bow at the dragons. However, despite the strength of the Maiar and Orome, the dragons are coming as a tempest of fire, their thick hides protecting them.

It is clear to Eonwe very quickly that this threat is far worse than he could have imagined. The rest of the Allied armies are now almost in open retreat, with casualties mounting by the minute. However, he knows his Maiar are their best chance at survival. Even if some Maiar are slain today, it is their duty to do so. He has to hold the line for at least a little bit longer.

And, I'll end the chapter there. I know this was a bit shorter, but i hope it was okay.

So, the dragons have arrived, and it's a serious problem for the Allies. Just look in the Silmarillion, the dragons are going to cause serious casualties and drive the Allies back pretty far from Anfauglith.

Next chapter will show the Allies trying to react to the dragon attack, and also Morgoth trying to take advantage of it. It should be up in a few days. Until it's up, please leave a review, and stay tuned!