Author: Arinya
Rating:R
Summary: Sam is forced to retell all the things that happened after the Fellowship had succeeded in destroying the Ring. All the members of the Fellowship have their own problems. Darkness returns, and Love struggles to conquer all. But as the problems mount up to a peak, can they survive? And can Sam bear telling his audience the true story?
Chapter Seven: One Last Stand
Elrond had locked himself in his room for three days, allowing a female elf to come and go to drop a glass of water, or some food. He changed, taking off his velvet outer robe, and stood at his window with the exquisitely hand-sewn white garments on. He closed the glass shutters to the window he had been staring out of very carefully, and turned around to leave the room.
"Enough sulking" he said to himself and smoothed out his soft brown hair with one hand.
"My Lord!" came a shout.
He turned around and let his hand drop to his side. A male elf came running up to him, out of breath, excited, fearful. Elrond sensed all these things and his face became serious and worrisome.
"What is it?"
"Orcs at the main gate!" shouted the elf before crumpling.
Elrond saw that an arrow had impaled itself into the elf's back.
"Orcs? How is this possible?" he asked himself, and muttered a quick farwell to the fallen elf.
He deeply regretted leaving the body there without much ceremony to bid his spirit off. But Elrond knew that the elf had warned him because he was loyal to him, and did not want to him to fall.
He ran to his private chambers, grabbing his sword from the hook on the wall and hastily looked for a belt to hang his sword on. Finding one, he quickly strapped it around his waist and shoved his sword into the sheath. Running outside, he saw that the orcs had not yet broken down the main gate, but were very near doing so. He went to the armory on the lower level and armed himself with a bow and quiver of arrows. Slipping the quiver strap over his head, he held the bow and tried to formulate a plan.
What he needed was a way out. The main gate lead to all the major roads, he knew he would have to travel into the forest to avoid the roads, and this would hinder his escape. But how could he exit Rivendell without the orcs realizing? The Council was surrounded by trees, but through them, the guard house to the main gate stood there. With a sense of growing dread, he realized that he had been a fool. The main gate was connected to all the escape routes and other exits he knew, he had not forseen that Rivendell would be attacked at such a time like this when he was nearly the only able-bodied elf there.
He would not give up Rivendell then. It was created from his love, joy, sadness, sweat, toil, blood. He would not so easily let the orcs conquer his realm. No, by the Valar he would protect Rivendell from them, or die trying. Climbing quickly up stairs, he made way to his balcony. He watched as the black mass of orcs broke down his beautiful gates, and came thundering in. He took careful aim, and fit the arrow into the bow, pulled back, then released. The arrow flew true and hit the head of one of the lead orcs. It fell over dead and all the others looked up to see who was shooting at them. Elrond now rapidly shot off his arrows, killed as many orcs as he could from his point of advantage. When he had finished his quiver, he threw it off and left his bow at the balcony, then jumped from the balcony to the lower level platform. The jolt shook him a bit, he was too old for this, and several orc arrows tried to find their mark on him, but he ran into the armory and pulled a lance from the rack. The orcs spilled into the room and Elrond stabbed at them, making a growing heap of dead orcs at the door.
But he was getting tired, he too had recieved wounds. His arms ached, and blood was splattered everywhere, finally, the tip of the lance broke off as he killed another orc and he leapt to another side of the wall to grab a weapon. His hand landed on various small knives. He wasn't very good at throwing knives, but this was an all out war. Taking two, one in each hand, he threw them at the orcs. One missed their mark, but the other wounded an orc, and Elrond picked up a flail, whirling it around his head. He smacked five orcs who were trying to surround him. But one had succeeded in stabbing his leg and he cried out in rage and pain. That one had fallen with a broken face, and he dropped the flail. He was at his last resort, things looked bleak. He had killed many of the orcs, but they never seemed to give up. They kept coming, wave after wave. Drawing his sword, he said a brief prayer. "Help me Manwe, all I ask is to have Rivendell back to its former peace"
He slashed the closet orc, its head fell off the body and then moved around the room, taking body parts off the orcs, or thrusting the sword into their chests. He had never before fought with so much conviction, not since the First War. Suddenly he felt dizzy, he had been hit. The orc behind him had bludgeoned the side of his head with the hilt of a crudely made sword. "Ahhh..." he reached up to touch his throbbing head, and that was a mistake. He felt another flash of pain in his side as he saw a blade protruding from there. He lifted his sword with difficulty and cut down the orc who had wounded him.
Black blood spurted out and burned his hands. He breathed heavily, not finding any hope in his situation. The orcs were grinning now, seeing that their prey was now theirs. A small group jumped onto Elrond's arms, weighing them down and with one last burst of strength, he roared out and shook them off. He jerked his sword left and right, killing more of the orcs. But the wound in his side was slowly killing him, he felt blood pour out and futilely tried to stop it by applying pressure. He gasped as an orc bit his left arm, and fell onto his knees. His sword fell from his grasp and clattered on the floor. The orcs stood there, grinning, and his head swam. Suddenly, his body began to feel very warm. And as he slipped, he saw a great flash of light. Trying to keep his eyes open, he saw someone he had never hoped to, his heart filld with joy.
"Lady Galadriel..." he murmured and reached out.
The Lady radiating with a strong light bent over and touched Elrond's face.
"Do not worry my son, I will save you" she said, and he smiled faintly, wondering how she had gotten through all the orcs, and why her eyes looked so strange.
They were clouded, and dark. But Elrond forgot everything as he closed his own eyes and everything became black.