Part Six: Servant of Aulë
Elanna rode on the end near the front line of Rohirrim, a place she had chosen for her strength to protect their charge from the side and for her ability with a bow before they met their foe in close quarters. Her horse's ears twitched with anxiety though she was bred by the elves and held her place in the line. Elanna could hear it too, long before they breached the top of the final hill to see the Pelennor Fields that surrounded the white city of Minas Tirith, heard the sound of thousands, tens of thousands of feet, the chink of metal.
The city itself peeked over the top of the hill ahead like a huge white ship, its prow jutting out of the mountain. Now that she was this close, she knew the warmth blossoming in her chest could only be her nearness to Mithrandir at last. It finally confirmed what Aragorn's words could not: he was alive, and more powerful than ever. She had only to cross the plain to be at his side.
Suddenly, the hand of fear clutched her chest, and yet she was not afraid of the battle to come. She was of two minds, ready and determined, and awash with need, sure her doom was at hand. A vision fell and black swept past her gaze: one of the Nazgul. She realized it was not her own fear she felt but Mithrandir's. She gasped, knowing he was under attack, unwilling to lose him again. Could he feel her too?
"I'm coming!" she shouted, words lost among the stomp of hooves, the growl of battle already engaged on the other side of the hill. The riders near her paid her no heed, focused ahead, tightening the grip on their reins, sitting taller in the saddle. Her heart pounded. "I'm coming," she said again, preparing to bolt forward before the king sounded the charge.
Sounded the charge. She dug her heels in and broke with the line so that her horse cantered sidewise among squealing horses and men shouting at her. Rounding alongside one of the Rohirrim soldiers with a horn tucked under his arm, she grabbed hold of the horn and yanked it away. She put it to her lips and blew. The sound soared above the plain. The other trumpeters, confused by the premature call, quickly joined in, assuming the king must have given the signal. The sound heated the blood with the promise of death. Surely Mithrandir and all the hosts of the enemy had heard it.
The Rohirrim came over the crest. As far as Elanna could see, the land was black with orcs and men and the machines of war. She glanced down the line of Men and horses, and though she had seen the deaths of far more than these in her time, a tear ran down inside her helmet. She felt more than saw the riders pause a moment, and murmur in hushed shock. Now her focus was fixed on the towers of the white city.
Slowly, she drew her bow off her shoulder and an arrow from her quiver. Far afield , she picked out her first targets. In a haze, she heard the king of the Men she rode with gathering their courage and strengthening their resolve. He wheeled his horse galloping up and down the line of them and, as if at a distance, she heard them begin to chant, "Death! Death! Death!" While the Men worked themselves into a fever pitch, she wound down, her breathing and pulse slowed. She focused like a serpent preparing to strike.
King Theoden cried out for them to charge. Screaming the Rohirrim raced their mounts forward. Retreating into silence, she kept pace, the hiss of the arrows she let fly and the thunder of hooves beneath her the only sound. At every arrow an orc fell--three, four, five--clearing a path that she might charge right into their midst. Six, seven, eight. The other horses had reached the rear line of the enemy. Nine, ten, eleven. Her horse leapt over a pair of bodies. She abandoned her bow to draw her sword.
The battle fever gripped her, narrowing her focus even as it expanded her senses. She no longer thought of the Rohirrim, of Mithrandir, of herself. The black blood of the orcs stained her arms, making them slick to the elbows. She had acquired a second sword in her left hand from one of the fallen Uruk-hai.
Then came a sound that broke through the red haze of death that enveloped her. Elanna wheeled. Her horse reared back dangerously. Coming down upon the Rohirrim was a row of creatures she had only seen once before. "Mumakil" she knew they were called, dressed for battle, living war machines, and as they thundered forward they swept aside Men and horses, and even Orcs, like dandelions heads in a field. Catching her off guard, an orc swept a blade across her arm. It sheared downward along her vambrace, causing her to rock from the force of the blow but shearing off sidewise and not cutting in. She swung her sword backward and beheaded him. Immediately another closed in from the other side and she swung wide with the sword in her left hand, steering her horse away with her knees.
The mumakil had to be dealt with. She could feel the damage they did not just to bodies, but to the hearts of the Men who had now turned to face them. She charged her horse forward and they leapt high to clear the crumpled mass of a warg and rider. The horse came down and Elanna heard a sickening crunch. Her horse screamed and tumbled forward onto her knees, so that Elanna had to grab hold of her neck to keep from being thrown over the front of her. She rolled off, realizing in shock that her mount had not been felled by an arrow, blade, or spear, but by a hole in the ground. She had stepped into a rabbit hole, caving it inward, and broken her leg.
Orcs were closing in. In pity, and with a grunt at the force required, Elanna struck her horse's head from her body. Blood burst forth, washing her legs and feet. She ducked, dropping one of her swords, and caught hold of spear point jabbing the air where her own head had been. Jerking the spear free, she used the blunt end to rap the nose of the orc wielding it. He roared and stumbled, giving her time to spin the spear around and repeat the blow with the business end.
She yanked it free of his skull, still regretting the death of her horse, but it had given her an idea. She had to find a gap in the combat, somewhere she could concentrate. With the spear giving her a broader reach, she slowly cleared a space around her. Dropping down in the shelter of a dead troll, she squatted and spread her hands above the ground. Half-singing, half-shouting, she began waking the rocks below the soil.
The spell was ancient, the accent abandoned in Middle Earth ages ago. It also wasn't working. Frustrated, she glared at the black clouds overhead, the reek of Sauron blotting out the sun, blocking her magic. She called on Aulë's name, he who worked in the earth and steel, he who her race, the Noldor, had followed above all others before they left Valinor. Her spell grew. It was hot in her hands, and she bit her lip against the pain. When she could no longer withstand it, she planted her palms flat against the soil, releasing the power into it. The ground shook, as if it were a pond that had been disturbed by a dropped pebble, rings of trembling running outward from her.
A great crack opened in the earth in front of the nearest mumakil. The rocks subsided under its feet and it tumbled, much as her horse had, crunching forward, throwing its burden of archers to the ground. Elanna's bow was quicker than theirs as they tried to recover, picking them off in quick succession as the earth trembled with the deep screams of the injured oliphant.
She was about to try again--the earth should have opened wide enough to devour the mumaki--to bring down another of the beasts, even if Sauron's breath stripped her words of their strength, when a cold wind blew through her, sucking the breath from her lungs as it went. A green glow streamed past. She blinked. It took a second for her to realize that the skeletal forms of men she saw within it were real rather than a vision. The ghosts swept across the field of war, destroying all the Dark Lord's forces in their path, like ravening hounds falling upon a deer.
Elanna stood and watched, flicking a spot of gore from under her eye.