Chapter 36

As Lori entered the caves, she had to resist the urge to stop and stare. There were more people coming through the entrance, so she kept her feet moving and took it all in as she walked.

The walls and stalactites glittered as though they were studded with crystal. Every surface reflected the torchlight in hues of gold and auburn She wasn't sure what kind of mineral would create such an effect. Gimli likely would have had several things to say about it, but he was aboveground with the other fighters. She would have been comforted by his rambling, and the realization made her throat tighten.

Most of the women were sitting on the ground in clusters, holding their children tight and speaking in low tones. She spotted her friends sitting near one of the cave walls and made her way towards them. Dernhild and Sárelle were sitting side by side while Éowyn paced in a tight circle beside them. She held her sheathed sword in one white-knuckled hand.

Sárelle looked her over as she approached, concern evident in her gaze. Lori shot her a weary smile, then a questioning glance in Éowyn's direction.

Before Sárelle could respond, Éowyn stopped her pacing and went to Lori's side.

"How is it out there?"

"The men are preparing, I suppose," Lori said. "Some of them are lining up on the wall already."

"My uncle has forbade me from joining the men in battle," Éowyn spat. "He seems to think I will be of no use to them. Meanwhile some of the men are farmers and have never wielded anything sharper than a pitchfork."

Lori nearly recoiled at the anger in her voice. "You volunteered to fight?"

"You have seen our numbers. I would be more use out there than relegated to finding food and bedding."

Behind Éowyn's back, Dernhild shot Lori a knowing look. It seemed the others had heard the same rant before Lori had arrived.

"I'm sorry. I…" She tried to choose her words carefully. In truth, she was glad Éowyn was in the caves. "I wish you had a choice."

Éowyn swallowed, and her gaze softened a fraction. "It is done. We can do nothing now but wait."

Lori reached out and gave her hand a comforting squeeze. It was a nightmare for anyone to sit in silence, awaiting grief or death or both.

"Madam healer?"

She turned to find a stout woman with dark blonde hair standing behind her, wearing the expression of worn resolve most of the others had adopted.

"I need a moment of your time, if you can spare it," the woman continued. "The captains are asking for our sons to take up swords now, but my Déor twisted his ankle on the road to Helm's Deep. Could you confirm with your own eyes if he is fit for battle?"

Lori nodded and tightened her grip on her bag. She was grateful for something to do, and prayed it wouldn't force her to deliver bad news.

The woman led her to a different part of the cave. A boy was sitting with one leg outstretched, his face pale. He was no older than fifteen or sixteen, and Lori swallowed back a wave of nausea. The situation was truly desperate out there, for the king to be asking for untrained men—for children—to join the battle.

"I've brought a healer," the woman said, kneeling next to her son. "Show her your ankle."

The boy pulled up the leg of his trousers. His shoe had been removed already, and Lori bent to examine the injury.

She clicked her tongue. His ankle was swollen nearly to the size of her fist, and she was surprised he'd been able to walk at all without a crutch.

It made her think of Faeron, how stubborn he'd been about his own injury. If he were here now, he would have insisted on joining the soldiers, injured or not. He would have been terrified like the rest of them and shouldered the burden anyway.

Lori cleared her throat. "He definitely shouldn't be fighting in his current condition. If the soldiers have a problem with that, I'll talk to them."

She jolted in surprise as the woman leaned over and pulled her into a tight embrace.

"Thank you." When she pulled back, tears glistened in her eyes. She wrapped an arm around her son. "Thank you for giving him a chance."

The boy said nothing, his jaw clenched and eyes downcast, as if he wasn't sure whether to look relieved or ashamed.

"I don't have many supplies left, but I can bind his ankle so the injury doesn't worsen." She retrieved a roll of bandages and set to work. "He should stay off this for at least a month. Once the swelling goes down, I can—"

She stopped. She'd made the assumption that they would survive the night, that small injuries like Déor's would still matter in the coming days. The woman had thanked her for giving him a mere chance at survival.

"Take care," was all she said, but before she could rise, someone else was clutching at her sleeve.

A thin woman with wispy hair helped her to her feet.

"My nephew," she said. "He's had spells ever since he was a young boy. He gasps for air and coughs until he's red in the face. Surely he won't be expected to fight?"

Lori stammered for a moment. "It…It wouldn't be reasonable, no."

She didn't bother to ask for the nephew's age. The realization was coming to her, over and over again, that none of this was reasonable. It was absurd to ask children to fight. It was absurd for all of them to resign themselves to death in a matter of hours.

It was getting harder to keep that absurdity at bay, to fight against the madness that was becoming their reality.

She followed the thin woman to her nephew, who was even younger than Déor. As she listened to his breathing, another woman approached her with a frail, elderly man. More came after that—a boy with an old burn scar, an old man with eyesight so poor his daughter led him by the hand, a young man missing half his ear.

"Do you think he will be made to fight?"

Each time the question was spoken with desperate, fragile hope that spoke of an unimaginable terror.

"I don't know," Lori said, because it was easier than answering truthfully.

Bile rose in her throat. All around her were women, hollow-eyed, desperate, terrified of losing the handful of loved ones they had left. She'd vowed when she became a healer that she would never pass judgement on who deserved to live or die. And now the choice was being forced upon her anyway—a deadly, wretched, zero-sum game.

It was with equal parts relief and dread that Lori spotted a soldier pushing his way through the crowd that had formed.

"What is this?"

One of the woman looked up at him with a shaky measure of defiance.

"You cannot ask my son to fight. His leg was twisted a year ago, and he walks with a limp now."

She turned to Lori for confirmation. Lori found herself too nauseated to answer.

The soldier remained stone-faced. "All who can hold a sword must fight. That is the king's command." He turned his gaze to Lori. "Your duty is with the wounded alone." He dismissed her with a sharp movement of his chin.

"I…" Lori bit her lip. She wanted to keep trying. It was the right thing to do, to try and save as many lives as she could.

"To defy the king's orders would be treason," the soldier said, but there was no malice in his voice.

His expressionless mask was impeccable, but Lori still understood. They needed people to die tonight. It was a soldier's job to kill, a healer's job to mend, and neither of them would be able to protect their people in the coming hours. The invading army had forced their hand.

They'd lost before the battle had even begun.

Numbly, Lori made her way back to her friends. Sárelle reached for her as she approached, and Lori allowed herself to be pulled against the other woman's shoulder.

They were already dead. The thought was almost euphoric, a promise that the nightmare she'd been living in had an end, but she felt guilty for wanting it. If she died tonight, it would mean Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli had lost their lives as well. It would mean Éowyn, Sárelle, and Dernhild's blood on the cave floor along with her own.

She sat with the others as the remainder of the soldiers filed out of the cave with the conscripts. The echoing space fell horribly silent after that. She supposed there was nothing more for any of them to say.

A few minutes later, thunder growled outside.

Lori picked at the dry skin around her nails until her skin was raw. She wanted her knife and a private place to sit with her fear. Sárelle and Dernhild were side by side, their hands clasped together in a white-knuckled grasp. Éowyn had finally ceased her pacing, but she sat as if on hot coals. One hand rested on her sword.

It took a moment for Lori to realize that the dull pounding in her ears wasn't coming from her heart. The noise rumbled beneath her feet. It was the movement of footsteps, numerous enough to shake the earth, approaching Helm's Deep.

Ten thousand.

Lori put a hand over her mouth and shrank into herself.

When the fighting started, the noise was worse than the anticipation. She could hear men scream and the clash of steel. It grew louder as the minutes dragged on, and Lori waited with clenched teeth for the moment when it would reach the other side of the door.

An hour passed. Éowyn resumed her pacing again. When anyone spoke, it was only in whispers or the piercing cry of an infant. Lori wiped a tiny bead of blood from her thumb.

She glanced up at the others. This would be their last chance to speak. Perhaps they had enough time to share whatever they didn't want to go unspoken. Only yesterday Sárelle had pressed her about the melancholy she'd tried to hard to hide.

Lori swallowed. Did any of that really matter now?

A sharp bang sounded from outside. Streams of dust showered from the ceiling of the cave. A collective scream echoed off the walls, and the refugees clung to each other, swaying like passengers trapped on a drowning ship. A noise like thunder drowned out their cries, piercing the walls as if the very foundations of the fortress were being torn apart.

Lori dug her nails into her palms, breathing hard. That had felt like an explosion, like a bomb had gone off outside. But she'd never even heard of a weapon like that in Middle-earth. What the hell had the orcs brought with them?

An eerie silence followed the blast, in which Lori held her breath and waited for some sign of what had happened outside. When the sounds of battle finally roared back to life, they were louder, and dread spidered through her limbs.

The wall must have been breached. If they were able to take down solid stone, nothing would hold the orcs back from breaking through a pair of wooden doors. By the time that happened, all the men would be dead, and the cave would become a slaughterhouse.

She wondered if, after the end, she would wake up on that damned train again. If she would ever have the chance to make it to the void.

Just let this be it. She closed her eyes. Don't make me jump again.

Éowyn's skirts rustled as she turned to face them.

"We must be ready when the doors are broken down."

"What do you mean by ready?" Dernhild asked quietly.

Éowyn's grip was white-knuckled around the handle of her sword. "I will meet the orcs when they come."

Dernhild straightened at her words, and Sárelle pressed her mouth into a thin line.

Lori surprised herself by speaking, the words barely more than a whisper: "Please don't."

"What else would you have me do?"

"Just…" She could feel her breaths coming faster. She'd seen Éowyn's bravery and determination firsthand. There was no doubt she would fight until her last breath, until the orcs tore her to shreds, and the thought made her want to scream. "You don't have to do that. There's nothing we can do."

Éowyn's eyes flashed. "You mean there is nothing we can do except die here, cowering. I will not be so weak as to accept death with empty hands."

"Éowyn," Sárelle said, but her reprimand was barely audible over the sounds of the battle outside.

"You cannot ask me to stand by and do nothing," Éowyn continued as if she hadn't heard her. "I have done so all my life, and still I have watched my people die." Her eyes were full of tears, but her expression was hard, as rigid as stone.

"I-I don't want you to get hurt. Not like this." Lori couldn't conjure any anger of her own. Her voice came out as a weak fragment of a plea.

"Perhaps I wish it," Éowyn said coldly. "And you of all people have no right to dissuade me."

Lori flinched at that, and Éowyn stalked away, her sword clutched in one hand.

Sárelle murmured a comforting word to her, but the sound of her voice passed over Lori's ears like water. She lowered her face into trembling hands.

Éowyn's desire was understandable, in a way. To die first would be a mercy. Self-preservation, almost.

I will not be so weak as to accept death with empty hands.

With empty hands. She lifted her head and looked down at her fingers, at the blue veins and shadowed tendons visible on her wrists.

Dernhild grabbed her left hand and held it tightly despite Lori's own loose grip.

They stayed like that, a fragile chain of three, and waited.

When a fist pounded on the door, a collective shudder went through the crowd. It was only then that Lori realized how quiet the fortress had become as the hours had dragged on. She squeezed Dernhild's hand despite the sweat that had gathered between their palms and waited with shallow breaths.

A voice rang out from the other side:

"The siege is over! The battle is won!"

No one moved. All but the youngest in the caves had turned to stare at the door. Lori tensed, half-expecting the wood to splinter open and orcs to pour through the gap. Whoever had called out to them was surely moments from death.

Another knock came.

"Women and children of Rohan! Helm's Deep has been defended! The siege is over!"

Éowyn, who had been standing near the door, strode forward and lifted the heavy wooden slat that barred the doors. One of them swung open, spilling light into the caves. Two soldiers stood on the other side, stained with blood and grime but standing tall.

One of the women shot to her feet and let out a breathless, "Ceorl!"

She rushed forward to meet one of the soldiers, and it was this that finally prompted the rest to move. They gathered their belongings and children and trickled towards the doorway, spurred by the hope of seeing their loved ones.

Sárelle let out a stuttering breath, and Dernhild let go of Lori's hand so she could wrap both arms around Sárelle's neck. They clung to each other and began to cry.

Lori let her hands fall to her lap and found that, for once, her own eyes were dry.

We're still alive.

She tested the words in her mind, tried to find a loophole in the concept. Perhaps the orcs had been defeated for now, but who was to say they wouldn't return and finish them off? How safe were they if the wall really had been breached?

Sárelle and Dernhild rose, and Lori stood with them, her legs stiff after being locked in one position for so long. She swayed on her feet a little, the stone beneath her feeling distinctly unreal. She'd grown so intimately familiar with the idea of her own death, and the promise of it was gone now. She had so much more time now she could feel it spilling from her grasp.

"Come." Dernhild wiped her eyes and beckoned to her. "I'd rather not spend another minute in these caves."

Still holding onto each other, Sárelle and Dernhild made their way towards the entrance, and Lori trailed after them. There was still a chance she could see Aragorn. The hope in her heart made her nauseous because she knew there was an even greater chance it would be crushed. Against all odds, she'd survived a siege by orcs, but she didn't know how she would survive losing him again.

Daylight stung her eyes as she emerged from the cave. Lori was forced to keep moving as the crowd surged forward, but it took a moment to gather her bearings. The air smelled bitter, thick with the stench of death that even the rain hadn't been able to wash away.

It wasn't far from the entrance to the cave that the bodies became visible. Men were scattered across the stone, blood congealing beneath their still forms. Lying among them were squat figures in rough iron plate, sharp teeth bared even in death. Orcs. It was the first time Lori had seen them up close, and even their corpses brought chills to her arms.

Several women stopped along the way, searching the dead for their loved ones. When the first bereaved cry pierced the air, Lori flinched. Her eyes landed on the prone body of a dark-haired man, and she tore her gaze away.

She maneuvered her way to the lower levels of the fortress, where mounted riders were gathering from outside the walls. She recognized a man from Éomer's company clutching a spear stained with black blood. His éored must have arrived sometime during the night. Perhaps that had saved them in the end.

It took a force of will for Lori to focus on the wounded first. She needed every ounce of concentration she could muster after a sleepless night to identify the injured men among the soldiers streaming into the fortress and treat them properly. She used up her last roll of bandages on her second patient, but before she could find another Déorhild appeared at her side and pressed a bundle of fresh supplies into her hands.

Sweat stung her eyes, and she couldn't keep the tremor from her hands as she worked. She tried her best to offer reassurances, to promise her patients that they would be able to hold a sword again, that their broken bones would heal, and did everything she could not to look at the men who would never rise again.

Aragorn found her first. He touched her shoulder as she looked around for her next patient, and once she realized it was him, he swept her into his arms. He was covered in even more mud and gore than when he'd first arrived in Helm's Deep, but she clung to him.

He was alive. He was holding her and they were both alive, and relief finally swept over with enough force that her knees almost gave out.

Once her euphoria had mellowed out, healer's instinct kicked back in and she pulled away to look him over.

"Are you hurt anywhere?"

"I have some new bruises, but nothing more that you have not already seen."

She frowned and glanced at his bandages, which were barely visible beneath a layer of grime. She would have to check those later to make sure the wounds hadn't reopened. Her more immediate concern was the slight tremor in his hands, the way he'd leaned against her when they had embraced.

"Are we safe now from the orcs?" she asked.

"The army has been routed," Aragorn said with a reassuring nod. "They will not attack this fortress again."

"Then please get some sleep," Lori said, trying to keep her voice steady. "After everything that's happened the past couple of days, you need to give your body time to recover."

For a moment, Aragorn looked like he wanted to argue, but he only dipped his head. "All right. And you must promise me that you will rest as well."

"I will."

Once she'd made sure there was no one in need of immediate care, the next item on her list was a long nap. She wanted a bath and icepacks for her legs and an entire bottle of wine.

For now, it was enough to be assured that Aragorn was alive, and that for the first time since Théodred had been brought back to Edoras, she would have the chance for a moment of real peace.

I love writing their dynamic. Aragorn accepts Lori despite her reticence and anxiety, and Lori accepts Aragorn despite his constant desperate need for a bath.

On a more serious note, this is probably one of my favorite chapters so far. It was really interesting to write the dilemma of Lori being asked to "save" people from being drafted and what it would mean to carry a burden like that. I also liked writing the battle from the point of view of the people in the caves. Anyway, there's one more sort of recovery chapter after this, and then we'll get into a big scene that I'm pretty excited to share.