Note: Book of Black has now been posted on for any who are interested. Penname: Jackalope Huntress.
Chapter 16 – Battle of the Wall
Men and Elves alike stared at Black as she strode down the outer wall and picked out a position dead center. Gimli had made some crude remark about women and battle, but quickly shut up when Black had rounded on him, hauled him up to eye level and demanded if he had something to say to her.
King Theoden demanded to know what was going on and who this new comer was, so Aragorn hastily explained the fire-throwing woman before she lost her temper and flung fire at the king.
Black ignored Legolas completely; it was just easier that way. She watched the approaching torches in mounting excitement. It had been so long since she had been in a proper battle. Violence, bloodshed; a shiver ran down her spine.
Thunder rolled over the plains and lightening split the sky. The Uruk host came closer and it began to rain.
"Come hither, my roaches," the dark woman whispered.
And thus it begun.
Black stepped up onto the wall after the archers had fired their volleys and the Orcs started setting up ladders. She turned her head up to the dark thunderheads in the sky and closed her eyes. She spread her arms wide as the wind whipped about her, cloak gone to reveal similarly black leather garments tailored for her type of war. The darkness was kind though, in that it spared the soldiers from the sight of her maimed flesh.
The ladders started to land against the wall when a blinding blue light began to wind itself around Black's hands. The fire grew. The woman's face glowed eerily and her silver armband glinted in the blue-white demon light. The men around her stepped back.
A ladder landed to Black's left. At first it seemed that the thick-skinned Bezerker would jump up and cut the woman down, but then her eyes flashed open. The dark irises were replaced by flickering blue light, and her pupils were overrun with furious flames. She turned her face toward the creature and lifted a finger.
The orc never even shrieked.
Aragorn saw as well, and wondered. He decided that it was good to have the fire-woman on his side.
Black cackled inwardly and let the fire fly. She incinerated orc after orc as it futilely climbed the ladder before her. She even set a few flames down into the greater host, causing miniature rifts in their plague-like numbers. She soon tired of this removed form of fighting, however, and took up her double-ended spear.
Black swirled and hacked and cut down the Uruks in a terrible frenzy. She was high on blood-lust. She was grounded abruptly though when some overlooked Uruk came up behind her and managed a brutal swipe at her left arm before she decapitated it.
Black cursed and surveyed the damage done to her bare arm. Legolas watched from the corner of his eye, hoping the evil woman may be experiencing even a fraction of the pain she had caused him. While she did appear to be in pain, the Elf watched in horror and amazement as the piece of severed flesh began to re-knit itself. In only a moment the woman's arm showed no sign of injury.
Legolas was brought out of his revere as he heard Aragorn yell for him.
Black sensed something was amiss when she saw the little contingent of orcs gathered around a section of the wall. Two of them came out of the mass carrying a giant spiked metal ball between them. Then she saw the one with the torch.
Without thinking, the Queen of Thieves hurled herself over the wall and landed on top of the giant Bezerker. There were several arrows sticking out of his shoulders, and the woman flinched as she felt one pierce her own skin. She looked up and cursed the little blonde fairy. She knew it was him, so she reached back and yanked the arrow out, then used it to stab the beast under her a few times.
Once she was sure it was dead, she rose to her feet. The torch had rolled away somewhere, and now she surrounded by iron-armored Uruks. She exchanged a few glares, but stood firmly between them and the destruction devices behind her.
"Move and you're dead," she growled. One twitched. Dead before he hit the ground.
The Uruks rushed at her together, and Black did her best to defend against all of them without using fire. If she used fire too close to the contraptions they might explode, and that would not be good.
As Black hacked the orcs assaulting her, one slipped by wielding a torch. "Hell, no," she thought, cutting off the orc's head and lunging at the other. She wrestled it for a while and was thrown a few feet away from the metal devices. She lifted her head from the dirt to see the torch rolling slowly toward the contraptions.
"Aw, shi -"
Aragorn watched in horror as the orcs threw the woman and the torch into the culvert. There was a split second of silence before the wall exploded. The Man was thrown and landed roughly onto a pile of rubble. The Elf saw the explosion as well, and was immediately bombarded with conflicting emotions regarding the woman in black. He was not allotted time to think on them, however, for the Uruks now had the wall breached.
The battle raged on, and the Fellowship companions had no time for grieving or thinking of the cloaked woman.
Haldir of Lorien was fending off Uruks on the wall when Aragorn called to him and told him to pull back to the keep. The Marchwarden nodded and repeated the order to his fellows.
He turned around and was caught by one of the Uruks. He stumbled, and another Uruk came up behind him, ax raised. The Uruk froze in mid-stride, for a dark figure had suddenly appeared from among the bodies and thrust a knife into the creature's neck as it tripped.
The figure turned, spotted the wounded Elf, and hauled him up. The figure retreated to the Keep, dragging Haldir along with him. Being an Elf, and a high-classed one at that, Haldir soon regained his composure, though he still bled. When he tried to see who had dragged him to the Keep, there was no one there.