Part Eight: The Black Gate

Elanna marched alongside the Men, again choosing a position on the outer edge near the front where her arrows could best find their mark. Aragorn had tried to give her a horse, but she refused. The horses that were left should go to the Men who would easily tire along the long march to Mordor. She could walk that far and farther without pause. Mithrandir often rode beside her, with the hobbit, Pippin, in front of him on Shadowfax, but he said little to either one of them, and for herself, she had few words to offer either. All words were spent.

At last they came to the scorched pan of earth before the Black Gate. The sky was grey and a foul stench rode the air. No bird rode the air, no insect buzzed. The metal doors rose upward like a wall of jagged teeth grinning in the line of stony cliffs. The companies, few though they were, lined up silently before them.

"For the last time then," Mithrandir muttered and rode forward to meet alongside Aragorn, the Rohirrim captain, and the others. They slowly paced their horses forward and Aragorn called to whomever or whatever lay within.

After a pause, there was the sound of rust giving way and the Black Gate creaked, ponderous on its hinges, to open a crack for a lone horse and rider. The rider appeared to bear no weapon and wore an iron cap draped in black silk, a caricature of that black crown that had born the Silmarils in the Ages before. Elanna's lips hardened into a thin line. She pulled an arrow from her quiver and knocked it. It was a good distance, but one she could make. Let no one think Aragorn's party rode defenseless to meet the enemy.

The tainted wind blew their words the wrong direction, yet her ears were keen. When the Mouth threw something silver and light as spiderweb at Gandalf, she knew what none of the Men around her could know: it was Bilbo's mithral shirt.

Frodo was dead. Elanna felt the pang of Mithrandir's devastation. She brought the bow up, pulled the string back to her ear--and Aragorn rode into her line of sight and with a single stroke of Anduril beheaded the enemy's foul servant. Her eyes narrowed with grim pleasure as the body slipped sidewise and fell. The Black Gate groaned, the grin opening wider to vomit forth hordes upon hordes of orcs. The earth shook with the rattle of their armor as they strode forward. The five riders fell back before them. Elanna watched the lines of Men backing up, if there had been anywhere to run she had no doubt some of them would have fled.

The open Gate revealed the black tower of Barad-dur in the distance. The Eye on its peak rolled and fixed on the small host come to stand against it.

"Hold your ground!" Aragorn shouted.

"Hold!" Elanna echoed, raising her bow again and stepping forward to encourage the Men back into position. If they panicked, they surely would all die.

Mithrandir slid the hobbit before him off of Shadowfax onto the ground, then dismounted. He whispered into the horse's ear, an offer that Shadowfax might return now to the wild fields of Rohan, but the stallion scraped the ground with his hoof and refused to leave. Aragorn rode before the Men, bringing them back to their courage. Elanna only half heard him, her eyes were on Mithrandir. And his, blue as the summer sky over Imladris, met hers.

"Where you go, I will go," she said. She was calm, ready to fall if that was her Fate.

He drew Glamdring and held it before him. "Tomorrow," he told her, "I shall make you sing."

They were surrounded by the army of Mordor. Black clouds blotted out the sun overhead and the glowing eye turned the sky bloody in the distance. Aragorn, now on foot as well, called the charge. Glamdring held to his shoulder, Mithrandir ran forward. Elanna let fly her first arrow and it found its mark in an orc's neck. By the time her quiver was half emptied, the hosts of Men had entirely overtaken her and she abandoned her bow to draw sword as well.

There was no knowing how many orcs she killed. No marking who survived and who had fallen. Mithrandir should have been easy to spot in his white robes but she dared not even give her attention to look for him. The taste of blood as in her mouth, poisoned and bitter and her ears were filled with screaming. She hacked and thrust, plunging herself into the forest of Sauron's army so deeply, she could not harm one of her own allies by mischance. If it moved, she killed it.

And yet, the orcs were unending, and in among them, far worse were trolls fevered by the smell of blood who tromped and smashed on all in their path whether friend or foe. On high, the fell riders swooped in and only the great eagles kept them at bay. She knew they were all lost: even if every Man still standing could fell an orc at every stroke, they would be overcome.

"Aule!" she shouted, commanding the ground to open up as it finally had on the Pelennor to swallow Sauron's forces. "It is I, Elanna, who charge thee to open! I who have beat and shaped the rock of this earth for all these Ages! I who sailed with Maedros out of Araman and left the host of my kin to the Helcaraxe, I who fought in the War of Wrath and laughed at the breaking of the world. I am more ruthless and I have cried more tears than thee! In the name of Aule, you must heed me!" she cried again in a voice that might compel the Valar himself to appear before her. But her words could find no purchase in the poisoned earth.

The spell had failed, and she had wasted too much energy and focus on it. A troll leaned in and swung its fist, catching Elanna off guard. She was swept off her feet and flew ten feet to crash on top of a trio of orcs. One had lost an arm and the weight of her staggered it, it fell over to bleed out its life. The remaining two took her to the ground and one punched her in the chest. Her sword was twisted under her. She brought up her feet and wrapped it around the orc to fling it over her head. The last one gored the earth a second after she moved her shoulder. Its second thrust was more lucky, as she rolled to recover her sword. The blade skidded between the scales of her armor and sliced along her side. Elanna thrust upward and gutted the orc who slumped forward onto her blade and onto her.

Under the body, she blinked at the sky. A scream of rage pierced the air. The clouds began swirling overhead, a bloody froth that chilled her heart. And then she felt it, a rumble deep in the earth, far away and growing larger. She shoved the orc off of her and struggled to her feet. A stillness had come over the field of battle. Looking away to the east, she saw the tower of Barad-dur shudder and crack. Her eyes widened. It was impossible. Frodo was dead. And yet with a squeal the Eye consumed itself in its own flames and--as she stared, mouth agape and panting--the tower crumbled.

The top burst, like glass shattering, and with it the silence burst as well. Cries of "Frodo!" spread across the field. A shuddering wave, like an earthquake in the fabric of the air itself, spread out from the powdered remains of the tower. It blasted against Elanna's face, scorching her cheeks, and striking terror in the orcs. They panicked and fled around her. At their heels, a gap appeared in the earth, ripping from the tower, through the Black Gate, consuming all in its path.

Standing tall among the dead, Elanna unbuckled her helmet with one hand and tossed it away. She would never need it again. The ground split sidewise, inhaling the gate, trolls, and seeming to run after the retreating orcs on either side of the men. Rock and stone tumbled away before her, the gorge running right up to her feet and stopping at her toes. She looked down into the endless pit and then over at the host of Aragorn who were left standing on a flat promontory of surviving rock. A figure in white stood among them.

Elanna laughed.