Disclaimer : I own none of the following. Short and sweet. It's how I like to keep my disclaimers!

A/N: Bear with me. Lord of the Rings is not my usual fanfic section, but hey, I liked the movie (Two Towers, as you may have guessed!) so much, even if it wasn't quite true to the book! Anyway, the Battle at Helm's Deep really got my imagination running. So I thought I'd write this icle ficlet.

How the rain began the Battle of Helm's Deep

First, there came the horn and, for a moment, as an old alliance was reborn, despair faded. And all across the silent ramparts, Man and Elf stood side by side, with even a dwarf in their midst. The oldest alliance held true, and each man, each elf, was proud to be a part of that number.

Next, came the thunder. The thunder of tens of thousands of pairs of Uruk-Hai and Orc feet, marching towards their destiny. The thunder of shields and spears clanging together. And still the Men and the Elves, though they were afraid, stood bound by their heroic silence. Nothing would break them. Perhaps Helm's Deep would hold, because they were men and they were elves, and they were stood together against the might of Saruman's army.

The army of the enemy drew near, halting so tantalisingly close, and waited. Waited for the nerve of men to break. In that moment, there was pure, blissful silence. And then came the rain, a few drops at first, then pouring down upon the forces of good and evil. Like the sound of thousands of tiny hammers, it fell upon the armour of those individuals that stood on either side of that great wall. It came to cleanse the land of blood, blood that was yet to be spilled. And in that cleansing process, the torrent of rain drowned the men, the elves, and their spirits along with them.

It was the rain that signified the beginning of the Battle of Helm's Deep. It was the rain that caused the fingers of a single hand to slip from a single taught bow string, letting loose a lone arrow that marked the first death of that great encounter between good and evil. An Uruk-Hai, roaring more in indignance at the shame of being the first to fall, than in pain.

Even as Aragorn called to them in Elvish to hold their fire, the one who had let fly his arrow stared in horror at his kill. The body, fallen in the mire of mud, his first kill on this night that, if they survived, would become the stuff that legends tell of. At least the arrow had not been wasted. But their first falling had stirred up the enemy. It was then that they came forward. Tens of thousands of the enemy, coming to avenge the life of their comrade, whom the rain had killed.

A/N: I feel I owe this piece to Taith Ant. She is my fantastic beta-reader, although I'm not sure she's read this. She was the one that got me mad on LOTR, and I went to see Two Towers with her… so it's all her fault! Just kidding, cheers buddy!