Author's Note:
OK, OK, I know the scenes from the amazing Battle of Helm's Deep have been superbly written and re-written again by so many authors. I wondered if I should join the crowd and then realised that I couldn't resist. So here's my take on it, thrown in with our favourite pairing.
Hope you enjoyed this chapter as much as I had writing it.
Chapter 2: Onen i-Estel Edain
"In Isengard more treachery brews and behind us comes a storm of Mordor. Saruman has spied out this land." A quiet voice had said gravely. "Helm's deep is three days' ride away –"
"It is not to say –"
"We must ride unceasingly; even this is too slow for progress!"
"With due respect, Master Dwarf, we move as fast as the people can, without compromising their safety." Therein contained a minor reproach, which the dwarf did not take too well.
"I would have you know —"
"Gimli is right," Aragorn had timely intervened, whispering honest counsel. "We must make haste. With each passing hour spent in the open by night, Isengard's power and knowledge grow to overflowing. Their scouts populate the place, though we see nothing yet."
The calming tone of his voice had soothed the provoked. He carried the honourable mark of a king –the knowledge that freedom from strife could be also readily derived away from the point of the sword, and a warm gentleness at hand that he did not withhold. There was much to admire and love even as his presence was enough to bring contentment even if it were a temporal one; it seemed as if fearless constancy and precise wisdom were met in him.
Eowyn had overheard the grim proclamation, each word weighing deeply upon the burgeoning consciousness that bearing arms were necessary for those who could do so, even the women.
Progress was slow and the uneven tuffs they treaded upon hindered them further. The hope of redeeming a full day's journey had all but vanished, the prelude of the disastrous events to follow.
There had been much talk among the visitors with the King, but the stab of resentment knowing she had been relegated to the sidelines was a quiet suffering that she assumed no one could fully assimilate. The folly of men emerged clearly even as they called themselves wise. The ranger had only understood the manner of the cage in its most obvious form; he had rightly interpreted her racking fear of captivity for therein lay the same streak in him but he had not recognised – and would not know the mortifying and repulsive shame that came from the debilitating poverty of a quiet, untouched blade.
They were not oblivious to justice; it was in fact the damnable contrary, yet their apparent blindness had stripped her of a warrior's comfort. Could she exempt them from blame, and sing blithe songs of victory if they returned victorious against Saruman's forces while she ignored the stifling oppression before it threatened to burst?
No, it was not what she wanted, not a victory sniffed through a bard's recitation of wondrous turns of the tide and the devouring of foes at dinner feasts, not when she sat in the dusty hue of plagiarised glory.
As such she lay already in a pensive trance, numbed by inner petulant protests, locked in a cage of great loneliness.
Each day Eowyn had worked at exhausting herself either physically or mentally, until thought and grief receded into blurred lines and dark smudges. And now they journeyed as refugees towards the White Mountains, a golden snake of people in the fields as the sun and moon exchanged their positions, their scouts riding actively ahead in all directions, a fragilely constructed self-sufficient defence that soothed anxious hearts of men.
She found herself sighing, having expended a good portion of energy in melancholic thoughts.
A sudden shout scattered several complacently trotting horses.
Scouts of Saruman! The distance was closing rapidly, a winding, advancing snare that threw panic as a sheet of cold water upon faint-hearted.
The uneven rhythms of flying hooves faded with their shouts to regroup, leaving her with a quarter of the company to continue the journey.
Your place is not here, sister-daughter. Bring them to cover – you must do this, for me.
Infinite irony, infinite sorrow, quivering under duty.
**********
They would come tonight, an army bred with only the sole purpose of annihilation, as Aragorn had determined. And the women and children in the caves still wailed against the young lads of barely thirteen summers pulled into an impending battle without even the full strength to strike unerringly.
It was Theodred's full armour suit and the only sword left in the armoury of Helm's Deep that they had left hanging in the corner, a mark of respect for the slain prince of Rohan. It was the same suit that Eowyn considered donning; such an action seemed the most appropriate to honour what Theodred had been slain for – would it not have been unprofitable if it fell instead to disuse?
There was no epiphany of sorts, no tarrying, no indecision; the answer appeared to her an obvious one, a furtive action that she had to execute before such a sight became common knowledge. A quick glance about assured her that the armoury was empty and she seized the suit, hastening to unhook its clasps and buckles, yet not before the gentle pressure of five fingers stayed her trembling hands. Immediately, the slight weight eased just as she tensed, slowly turning to face an Elf's austere countenance.
Eowyn had not heard him approach. The blessedly soft footfalls of the Eldar were indeed an unfair advantage. Her hand moved away furiously from his, shifting to unbuckle the armour as though the previous move on his part had no significance. This time he took hold of her wrists and bent them downwards, restricting her movement.
"Unhand me. Please, Master Elf." The measured tones of her reply did not faze him; he knew her control over repressed rage had worn thin.
Legolas frowned, undeterred by her mule-headed persistence, unfailingly moved by the sheer chastity found in such single-minded aspiration.
"Not this way, Eowyn," He spoke slowly as he would to any child, when in truth he pondered over the words he wished to say to her. He drew back an inch and briefly bent his head, placing a hand over his heart in belated greeting, keeping his other hand firmly clasped around her wrist.
Her next words surprised him.
"You have no part here, Legolas." She did not – could not bother with preambles or implicit hints, no, not when defiance and desperation shone ever more radiant as the hours that determined Rohan's final fate ticked by.
"King Theoden does not say, but he is grateful for you, for the help you have given to the helpless and the aid you so readily give to the injured."
"Do you think so?" She would have clamped her ready mouth if words could have been retracted, for upon them bitterness leaned dangerously. There was much she had already let on, yet resolutely found no reason to welcome an Elf's intrusion, a lingering waft of the Rohirrim's distrust of other races found in her defensiveness.
"You wish to ride, not to victory, but to ruin," he murmured, troubled. "Such impetuousness can only devastate."
She stalled, cursing the sharpness of his gaze, picking up Theodred's shield that had toppled to the ground when his hand had stayed hers, and fought a tempest of wretched comprehension thrashing the urge to bear arms, an action that had appeared altogether too compelling a while ago.
"The Rohirrim put their lives down from birth as their guarantee of their victory, Legolas. I am no different just because I am a woman." Her answer was stern and forbidding.
"Nay, I would not think otherwise," he said as he turned his bright eyes on her, and then he was impossibly still, as though he now weighed deeply what was to follow. "There is little fear in you, Eowyn, and so much courage that you would ride to war fiercer than so many other men who recoil at the possibility of painful, violent death because you already consider your life given."
She felt the intensity of his Elvish sight so strongly present, unmasking much.
In a flash she understood that he saw her transparently; somehow the urge to find herself equal among men and the love of the blade's rigorous vascular demands had already set her on the narrow path that led to…nothingness. Physical victory on the battlefields would mean nothing if she merely sought death as the end to her imagined ride of glory.
Suddenly Eowyn feared deeply, more than she feared the enemy that would stand before the Hornburg when night curved across the fields, that she could easily succumb to the Elf's persuasiveness because at the core lay the frightening thought that the resolve of the Shieldmaiden of Rohan had never been as unwavering as she had believed.
What was left to say, but a silent, concession that he was right, that she too, beneath it all, wished to be bereft of pretence as he did?
It dawned upon her then, that he had not intended to stop her to fight; he merely pointed out so eloquently that fearlessness for the wrong reasons was also a deficiency.
The Elf saw the flash of hurt yearning, a flit of emotions so brief mortal men so often dismissed inaccurately as imagination, and recognised it well, the same yearning and an aberration on his part that occasionally assailed and enchained the Prince of Mirkwood as part of a diminishing race that withdrew into its own clusters mourning the changing landscape of Arda.
Now, up close, the idyllic zeal of this shieldmaiden was scorching, a conspicuous twinkling of a blaze that he had not fully come into when they spoke on the mound facing Theodred's grave. He saw how much Aragorn affected her, despite the short length of days that had passed since Edoras, only to remember the same flame drove Estel's wanderlust and self-imposed path of exile.
There was much Legolas Greenleaf needed to think about.
Her wrist was suddenly free. It had been free for a while, yet she did not see the gentle release of his grasp when it happened. And now with a fluid, practiced upward swing of a warrior's arm he unhooked Theodred's sword himself, extending it to her with both hands, an audacious offering raised unto victories to come as though he could exchange this impermanent bondage for independence to come.
"From time to time Eru Iluvatar raises a conqueror among men, a sure defeater of the dark powers who begins on the small, and apparently insignificant scales," he smiled gravely. "Fight, Eowyn! Wrestle, with your strength! I do not know of anyone more greatly deserving of Theodred's weapon. You are your uncle's niece; the women and children have found a champion among them, the shieldmaiden of Rohan! They will live, because of you. And one day perhaps you will defend and champion men as well."
She was overwhelmed with the hope he placed in the unseen and things yet to come. Yet these words were to her in many ways, intimate.
Such blessed fairness and simple splendour in the Elf, such inspired, all-consuming sweetness exercised perfectly in his assertions! That he held her liberty of mind and body as almost… sacred rendered her speechless, and stirred hope of the redirection of her energies to living rather than destruction; she was filled spontaneously with a gratitude that he did not see her in the same patronising manner the way so many others did.
The sword fell from his hands into hers.
"I cannot –," she began, before bowing her head. There seemed nothing more to say, not when he spoke with such finality. "Thank you."
"Do not thank me, my lady," he answered softly and inclined his head, stepping away from her. "I have been taught much as you have."
**********
"A Eruchîn, ú-dano i faelas a hyn an uben tanatha le faelas!"
Both the eyes of Men and Elves followed the same course, sparing no thought to the rumbling heavens. An advancing black army bred to destroy coming within dreaded sight, the ground trembling beneath their feet, injuring manifold the sensibilities of those who already feared.
Onen i-estel Edain, Aragorn! Even the Eldar are given to despair. You have given us hope, where there was previously none.
Where was Gondor when the Westfold fell? Where was Gondor when our enemies closed in around us? Where was Gond— No, my Lord Aragorn, we are alone.
Theoden's words had left a bitter taste in their mouths.
"Your friends are with you, Aragorn."
And then he heard a grunt and a heave, from a point below the wall of the parapet.
"Let's hope they last the night."
Its curtness made the corners of his mouth turn slightly up.
Time was lost, painted forcefully away by the roar of the Uruks and their ceaseless attack. The edifice of memory tottered and swung away from his consciousness as arrows flew through the Deep, some missing their mark, some finding them. On the ground, fifty paces before him, orcs climbed upwards undeterred, each rung up the parallel ladders forcing upon Legolas a pressurised return of Estel's words.
It was his fight –no, their fight, the clang of numerous swords and the whistle of arrows a breathless exhalation of madness moving among the uneasy alliance of the races. He heard Aragorn cleave down another and then another, the heady plunges of the sword twisting against repugnant corruption.
Next to him, Gimli ducked a falling orc and volleying his axe hard into another, continuing his count, an energetic sport born of merriment amidst slaughter. Gradually, there was no distinguishing Man from Elf, or Elf from Dwarf, or Man from Dwarf, not when they laboured over the same cause.
A face extraordinary to his own struggle materialised; a brief image of the white lady of Rohan that intercepted battle scene emancipated his frozen limbs. Strangely stirred, he drew arrow after arrow aligned to a linear, tapered aim, pouring into them a savage rage as they departed from his bow. Still he did not see a narrow pathway on the ground spilt halfway and rapidly emerge.
The Uruks howled lowly, a rapid babble of their black speech as they shuffled away – then he saw it and the sight sickened him; an unnaturally bright torch carried in the upraised arm of a running Uruk its sparks billowing a white fume outwards meant to disintegrate the Hornburg's fortification.
"Togo hon dad, Legolas! Dago hon!"
But he was already tilting the bow and taking swift aim, the arrows embedding themselves in the Uruk's neck. Unaltered however by the several shafts that protruded out, the Uruk passed only swifter into the small gap – horror, shame, incredulity slid down the incline into him, for it seemed he heard the loud wail of Nienna and felt the dimming of Elbereth's stars before a part of Hornburg shattered under the massive blast.
It left the Prince of Mirkwood shaken, stumbling in his step but for a moment; an act so foul that he had not managed to stop turned him to despair where there was previously little.
The mastery of the battlefield had indeed been lost to the enemy; its previously unpredictable tide now churned against them. Yet it also renewed a vigour in him, parrying, whirling and thrusting, lost in the outpouring of vehement denial and the short-lived optimism of compensation.
Am Marad!
Who had shouted that? Unmistakably Aragorn – echoed by Haldir of Lorien…
The arrows in his quiver were spent.
A hesitant, unbelieving step backward turned into a full-bodied run for cover; both Elves and Men retreated, finding themselves at the Keep, not knowing the muddled steps they took back, passing into the season where hopelessness arose from reckless hate.
And then they rode with swords raised and hearts numbed behind Theoden and Aragorn, fully expecting their last ride constructed of a ludicrously minute parade of horses from the keep, screaming outward, for as long as the Horn of Helm Hammerhand sounded.
A ray of sunlight appeared, weakly casting an illuminating beam that heralded the arrival of dawn. It brought the finite and infinite into perspective, inverting once again the tide of the battle as the White Rider crested the hill steeply.
And then, it was over.
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A Eruchîn, ú-dano i faelas a hyn an uben tanatha le faelas.
- Show them no mercy, for you shall receive none