CHAPTER 8 - THE LONG AND SHORT OF IT
What follows is an extremely condensed account of the Fellowship, meant to convey the observer from the important events in the beginning to the important events in the end while briefly touching on less vital details in between to avoid confusion.
When the bridge of the Uncontested Valor had crashed, it was in the middle of a large field in front of a fortress of Rohan called Helms Deep. The people of Rohan had retreated to this point for security against Tartarus' oncoming army of Brutes, Jackals, and Drones. The leader of Rohan, Sergeant Johnson, had rounded up all of the troops he could, but there was an armored division still wandering about on the plains, maintaining radio silence in order to prevent their discovery by Tartarus. The Arbiter left to search for them, while the others prepared for battle.
It was in the late evening when they received reinforcements from the Elites, who had decided to rekindle an old alliance. With newly bolstered defenses, the fortress was prepared for war when a massive army of Brutes marched upon it. Their weapons proved to be powerful against the walls of the fortress, and within no time the defenses had been breached.
The battle raged well into the next morning. All hope had been lost when the Arbiter returned with the armored division, and decimated the Brute forces.
Master Chief, Half Jaw, Gimli, and the Arbiter then made their way to Isengard to deal with the source of the problem, only to find Merry and Pippin sitting among flooded ruins eating food as usual.
It turned out that Merry and Pippin's compartment had landed in the woods of Fangorn forest, where old mysterious devices of the Forerunners lived. They had run into a Subjugator Sentinel, which had been talked of in lore but never actually seen. Unlike normal sentinels, this one was a machine that walked like a man, but was taller than a hunter.
When trying to take them back to their home, the Subjugator had run across a section of the forest that had been completely cut down by the garrison of Isengard for fuel. According to Halo's Ecosystem protocols, anything that disrupts the environmental cycle of the ring is to be considered a threat, and must be eliminated. At that moment, other subjugators appeared and began an assault on Isengard.
The river had been dammed, and so the subjugators simply ruptured the structure, allowing the entire area to flood. This wiped out nearly all of the hostile forces stationed there. Tartarus, however, was still in his tower. The Arbiter decided not to bother because he did not consider Tartarus to be a very great threat. Pippin, sniffing about the ruins found some strange round object the size of a tennis ball. He did not have much time to observe it, however, before the Arbiter took it and concealed it.
Meanwhile, Frodo, Sam, and Gollum had made their way along the mountains of Mordor and were approaching Minas Morgul: A place that none had ever beheld and lived.