It's true! I'm finally working on this story again. My apologies for keeping you all waiting so long. I plan to barrel on through it to the end this time. Cheer me on!
Now, cue our Hero!Sam....
VI
The trees flew by in a blur of shadow and whispering pine in a darkness that was nearly complete. The moon was no more then a forgotten coal burning under a blanket of shifting black cloud. Sam rode before Gandalf upon Shadowfax, his fingers gripping the soft mane of the white stallion. Arod galloped at their side, Legolas at the reins and Gimli jostled about behind, grunting and murmuring complaints into the chill night air.
Sam had never ridden a full-sized steed and would have been scared out of his wits for the speed of these animals were it not for the calm wizened regard the mighty horse gave him before allowing Sam to mount and be born upon his wide back. Saddleless, Sam could feel the heart and muscle of the beast pulse and drive beneath him as they rode hard on a long-forgotten road, the break in the brush only a suggestion for clever hooves to find and follow.
They road for an hour or more before Gandalf bid Shadowfax to slow to a walk, puffs of steam issuing from the horse's mighty snout. They were nearing the edge of the wood and between the dwindling trunks Sam could see the distant red flicker of bonfires and hear the rumbling of many thousand footfalls and primal cries of the Southron army blanketing the war fields just beyond.
Gandalf checked his steed and Legolas rode along side. "Here we will wait," the wizard said quietly. "Until the dead are assembled."
The Dead. Sam shook at the very mention of them. He'd not seen any of the dwimmerlaiks since his one chance encounter near the stream before he and Frodo were found in Ithilien. Only Arod and Shadowfax had left Henneth Annûn together. The Rangers and Aragorn had ridden to the southern rim of the forest to protect the road from invasion should Sam's secret errand prove revealed and the Enemy rise to seek their secret haven in the caves. Sam could not see the dead, but he could feel them about him, shifting under the pines, stirring chills in their inky wake. I wouldn't go walking alone in these woods for any money, thought Sam. There's something unnatural wandering about this place, and it ain't no flock of sheep.
"How I hate these late meetings," grumbled Gimli, voicing his own displeasure. "Why did you have to volunteer to captain the Dead in the first place?" he asked his companion.
"Hush," chastened Legolas. "Do not startle them; they are beginning to form. Look to the south, see how they raise their banners now to the night sky."
Sam looked despite his shivering. Wisps of pale colour were forming out of the very air. Long thin banners boasting standards long lost to time were adorning the lower branches of the trees. Their bearers also began to form--tall ephemeral men and horses, gathering like dew. Their faces were grim and frightening, yet Sam did pity them, for in their grey eyes rested a weariness beyond measure. Several hundred there looked to be circling their position. None could say how many of the Oathbreakers had followed Aragorn from their battle in the South, but to Sam they stretched from one end of his sight to the other.
"It is impossible to number the Dead," Legolas had said at their council. "They shift and scatter like twilight rain. But there are many and they are loyal to us."
A portion of them had formed fully now, and to Sam's dread, a rank broke away from the others and approached step by soundless step. Every instinct in his bones told Sam to flee, but he gripped the hilt of Sting and held his ground as Legolas addressed them as his own kind.
"Servants of the King, I command you! Stand with your sight upon the battle plains. Onto them we shall send one of our own in secret. Let him pass, for he will be as a shadow himself. His errand is secret, and we must hold to the forests. Yet we will burst forth with swords drawn should our friend be in need."
"What is this shadow you would call hither?" hissed the commander of the Dead. His helm was cracked and his nose eaten away by rot or wind, but his voice spoke clearly and Sam cringed to hear it.
"There is one among us who holds a weapon of the enemy of us all. He will use it this once to pass your ranks and move out upon the plain. Make way for him!"
The rank of the Dead flickered in and out of Sam's vision. But when they reformed, a way was made between them under the pines. Legolas dismounted and came to Sam's side and placed his hand upon his knee.
"Follow my eyes, Samwise. Far off beyond the edge of the trees, can you see the bonfire that rises to half the height of the far mountains?"
Sam squinted into the dark, and yes, indeed, one of the bonfires roared higher then the rest in the mass encampment. "I see it."
"Good. Keep it in your sight as you go. Beyond it you will find a gathering of beasts, Oliphants many stories high. There is one among them adorned with a grand Battle Harness both taller and heavier than the rest. At its peak there is pitched a red and black tent. This is the private dwelling of Zut-ak, the one who bears our prize. His army will be retiring from their feasting and celebrations as the evening wanes. He will retire as dawn approaches and they will call the beast to its knees to let down the ladder for the Chieftain and his guard to climb up. That is when you must make your move. Understand?"
Sam nodded grimly. As much as he had wished to see one of the magnificent creatures up close, clambering up one with invisible hands amidst an army of spear-throwing warriors was not what he had dreamt of. But then his thoughts returned to his master, waiting behind the falls in the protection of stone, dreaming of their home and he reached within his collar to bring forth the three rings.
"I understand, Captain. Now, if you could give me a hand down, I'll be on my way."
Legolas assisted him, and once his feet sank into the damp fern, Sam slid the silver bands upon the fingers of his left hand and faded like smoke into the shadows.
It is said a hobbit can make his footfalls silent at need and Sam was no exception to this. Once he cleared the trees, he made his way steadily across the plain towards the fires. The ground was trampled and broken in places, stuck with arrows and stinking with forgotten corpses. Sam could see in the dimness where the enemy had gathered up the dead and burned them in high mounds--both elf, man, horse and orc together. But their work had been careless and the open ground still stank with the black decay of death.
Ahead, a group of Haradrim paced the perimeter of their camp, keeping watch on the nearby forests and speaking to one another in a strange guttural tongue. Sam took care to avoid them by sneaking along their eastern flank where the fires were fewer and less voices could be heard murmuring into the darkness. Still, he kept his eye upon the brightest of the bonfires and the low grunting of the large beasts tethered just beyond. There were nearly a dozen of the massive beasts, standing like great houses upon thick swaying legs.
Something brushed by Sam's leg and he leapt aside, startled. Something long and light floated away from him in the night breeze. It was a feather, as long as a man and as wide as Sam's chest. It floated back to the earth and there stuck into the weeds. Sam couldn't help but wonder at it. He kept his head about him as he went over to have a closer look. The shaft was light in his vanished hands as he lifted it and turned it over. The colour was brown and gold, glinting dully in the sparse moonlight.
It's the wing of a hawk or perhaps an eagle, Sam reasoned. But such an eagle! Bilbo used to tell stories about such creatures, long ago, flying high over the mountains. Maybe the windlords had come to fight their own battle in this war.
Sam did not tarry long and put his find aside; he needed to make a decision about where he was going to enter the inner circle of men. The Haradrim were scattered out from the centre in large groups, some walking about, but many more lying upon the ground, resting from a long day of feasting. The smoke from their fires carried the scent of roasted meat. If Sam didn't know better he'd say it smelled much like partridge.
He went slower the closer he came to the men and when he could skirt them no longer, crouched behind a boulder to draw Sting. In his ring-charmed fist the blade was utterly invisible. These were men, not the orcs the elves had charmed the steel to respond to. He was grateful for this, for now he could go among his foes with weapon drawn.
His sword in hand, Sam passed into the first ring of firelight. There in the glow of flame he could make out the prints of his feet, pressing into the loose earth, but nothing more. Let's hope these villains mistake my trail for one of their own, he thought and moved past their sleeping forms, stepping around spears and painted shields left out carelessly upon the ground. The Haradrim did not carry shelter and slept out in the open with only a animal skin or two among them to lie upon. Some slept while seated, their spear still in hand as their heads nodded and dropped to their chests.
These men were a strange sight to Sam who had only seen the occasional Breelander cross his homeland before he left the Shire. Gondorians were one thing, tall and noble, but these men where like their very opposite. Dark-skinned they were with many rings piercing the flesh of their brows, noses and ears. They wore little clothing and instead adored themselves with strings of bones and mummified feet and heads of small animals and birds. Some who still walked about had collected shiny helms and shields of Gondor to wear upon their heads and breasts as trophies. The war-gear of the elves it would seem was not a part of their grim collection.
As Sam passed by the sleepers and came closer to the centre-most bonfire, he found more of the giant bird feathers scattered across the ground. These were of many sizes--from wing, tail and belly. Bloodied down stuck to his toes as he crouched and darted through the increasing number of men. Some had brought drums and sticks and were beating out a hard rhythm while others shrieked and pounded the earth with their feet. They danced about the bonfire rising bright and yellow before Sam's eyes. A large black shape lay half in the flames and the men were upon it, stabbing it and tearing away its flesh. The fire danced and Sam could see now the wing and belly of a great bird, plucked and blackened in the smoking heat. Its head was gone, but Sam felt sick in his heart that here had fallen one of the eagles that had been so kind to Bilbo in his wandering days, now reduced to a scorched carcass torn to pieces to feed an army.
Beyond the roasting eagle a tight group of men sat gathered, close in talk. Sam gave the dancers a wide berth as he came around, keeping low and quiet as he observed them. Four of the largest men Sam had ever seen sat before the fire, a ring of black bird bones at their feet. They were passing a strange cup between them, drinking from it and chanting between draughts. The light caught upon the vessel and Sam could see it was the lower beak of the bird. The upper beak was worn upon the head of the largest of the four men. And upon his neck, almost buried in strings of bones and claws, Sam saw the glint of a large silver ring.
Is this the one I'm to get? Sam wondered, realising no one had described to him what the Witch-king's ring might look like. I must have it right. If it ain't the right ring, it's got to be the right man. He's bigger than ol' Tom and his eyes are like two dark pits. Not for the first time was Sam grateful for the rings that hid him. He stepped back from the light of the fire and kneeled to watch and wait.
Sam kneeled for an hour or more. The Chieftain and his men kept to their own council as they drank and chanted and drew strange symbols upon the ground with their long spears. Sam shifted his legs, growing stiff and cold in the long night, hoping that Legolas and Gandalf were still lying in wait under the trees and listening and watching the circle of the bonfire. He knew both were gifted with long-sight and perhaps they could sense his presence within this foreign host. Gandalf, certainly, could read his thoughts as he had done before; and now that bond was made stronger by the connecting power of the rings. Narya should know, Sam felt, if the Three were ever to leave his hands.
In the periphery of his mind's wanderings, Sam could still catch glimpses of ghostly ring visions: treetops, stone towers, and a blackness he dared not let come fully into his mind. Once or twice he thought he saw the face of Pippin, but cast that notion aside as nonsense. Sam rubbed his eyes. He was growing tired and the evening would be surrendering to dawn soon--if it came at all.
At last, when the horizon began to lighten into a hint of grey, the Chieftain gestured to a guardsman who held a long horn. The man took up the horn and blew a succession of notes, echoing across the plains. The Oliphants who were tethered by their ankles to one another, groaned and bellowed in response. The animals began to shift their weight about and their long heavy chains dragged along the ground, stirring up clouds of dust.
Sam stood and held the tail of his cloak over his nose and mouth, blinking into the dust. The largest of the beasts was moving forward from the rest toward the fire. It stood nearly twice as high as the longest flame and yet did not seem to fear the fire. The horn blew again and several men rushed under the beast to strike its thick-skinned ankles with long poles. Shouts added to the sound of the horn and the Oliphant bellowed, throwing out its truck, casting a long shadow that reached clear over to Sam. They're going to coax it down to its knees now, Samwise. So stop your gaping and get alongside it!
This was easier thought than done, for there was no way of telling just how a creature of this size would go about kneeling. Sam ran around the handlers and dodged their poles, getting as close as he dared to the underside of the beast, keeping one eye on the Chieftain and the other on the Oliphant's massive legs as the animal began to bend at the leg joints.
Quicker than Sam thought possible, the animal's belly was on the ground in a rush of dust that made his eyes blur and sting. The Oliphant tossed its massive head and tusks about in agitation. There were a dozen men or more occupying the Harness upon its back. A pair of them threw over a bamboo ladder that unrolled to drop at the Chieftain's feet. Zut-ak and his four men began to climb one after another and Sam wondered if he shouldn't follow post-haste. But there was a number of men in his path now who had come forward to hold the ladder down taut and steady. He'd never get past them. Sam's heart began to pound. What to do? There's no getting up there without a bit of rope and there's not a bit of rope to spare for a hobbit to climb through all those hands. I might be invisible, but I'm not made of air.
In his uncertainty, Sam hesitated far too long and the rope ladder was being hauled up even before the last man had climbed more than a few rungs. Sam ran for it, just missing the leg of a guard. He stabbed Sting back into its scabbard and made a leap for the end of the ladder and missed, landing hard and taking a bite of dirt in his teeth.
He sat up and cursed himself, wondering what on earth he was to do when something hit him in the back. Instinctively, he grasped Sting and swung around, lopping off a good foot of nothing other than rope. Rope! One long continuous wrap of it had fallen seemingly from the sky. Sam looked up just in time to dodge the man who came repelling down its length, two more behind him. With the Chieftain settling in atop the Oliphant with his own crew, some now had to come off, and the straight rope was the quickest trip down.
Sam grabbed it when the men had jumped off, and wrapping his legs about it, began to climb.
