Chapter Sixty-Seven: The Fall of Isengard
There was a leak somewhere in the cell. It had been driving Bróin mad for hours now, an endless drip, drip, drip that he could not find or stop, a noise that just was, and did not even have the courtesy to be in a consistent rhythm. It would stop for a while, tease Bróin with a few moments of blissful silence, and then it would start again, faster than before, or more uneven, and Bróin would bang his head softly against the wall.
Nelly had not noticed. She was asleep, curled up beneath one of the raggedy blankets with her head in his lap. Even in sleep there were dark circles beneath her eyes, and her fists were tightly clenched. Sighing, Bróin wondered whether it would help to stroke her hair or rub her shoulder, or whether that would just wake her. He longed for a way to ease the tension from her shoulders, to give her the reprieve that sleep leant him, but he did not know how to do it. She slept so lightly, especially now. Especially here.
They had not been fed today. Bróin's stomach was snarling, curling over itself and clawing at his sides, though he was sure that Nelly felt worse. His Adad had told him time and time again about how hobbits needed more to eat than dwarves did, and if they did not get it they could become weak or sick in a matter of days.
In his mind, Bróin saw Nelly shrink, saw her grow skinnier and skinnier till she was nothing but skin and bone, and he saw her struggling to breathe on the ground. If the orcs never came back, if they were left to starve, Nelly would last a week, perhaps. If she was lucky. Bróin would last longer than that. There were tales of a dwarf in the Iron Hills who had fallen down a mine shaft and broken his leg, surviving for two months on nothing but water from a stream nearby. If anything happened to Nelly, Bróin would not last two months. He would not last two days.
Dimly, he heard footsteps, and he sighed again. With any luck, that would be the orc bringing them their evening grog, though it had to be closer to midnight than evening. The footsteps drew nearer, and Nelly began to stir. At first her frown deepened, and then she shifted, her fists rising up to massage her eyes, without unclenching.
"s' happening?" she mumbled.
"Dinner, I hope," replied Bróin, rubbing her shoulder and helping her sit up. "Don't know."
"What time is it?"
"No idea. Night-time, or maybe very early morning. It's been dark for a while."
Nelly nodded, studying Bróin's face. "Did you sleep?"
"Nah." Bróin smiled sheepishly, his stomach grumbling. "Too hungry."
Nelly snorted, massaging her own gut. "Me too."
Silence fell between them, and the footsteps grew louder, until their owner walked around the corner. To Bróin's surprise, it was not an orc, nor one of the larger uruk-hai. It was a man – a stooped, grimy looking man draped in black clothes and lank black hair. He had a pale, almost yellow complexion which would have made Bróin think he may be a prisoner himself, were it not for the tray in his hands, the ring of keys in his fingers, and the glint in his eyes. He looked almost hungry himself, his gaze boring into the hobbit and the dwarf. For a long moment, he said nothing, and then a slow smirk spread across his face.
"And you are?" Nelly drawled, raising an unimpressed eyebrow, and Bróin smirked himself.
"I am right," said the man, his voice soft as a spider. He stooped low and unlocked the trap in the door, sliding in the tray of stale bread and orc draught, and then he locked it again, standing up slowly. His eyes, bulging and pale, bored into them both, and his grin grew. "No one is coming for you."
A chill ran down Bróin's spine, but he injected his tone with the same boredom and derision that Nelly had used. "What are you talking about? And who are you?"
"I am Gríma, soon to be King of Rohan. I have seen your companions," he said, pronouncing the final word as a curse. "They sought two hobbits – no dwarf, or halfling wench. Nobody knows you are here. No one is coming to find you."
"Well, I think the ransom note that old Saruman's sent out will let people know where we are, " reasoned Nelly, and the man looked a little taken aback by her candour. Then he recovered, his smile growing darker.
"Perhaps. But in the meantime, your 'brave' companions march to a battle that will butcher them, having failed in their search for two hobbits whose bones now lie beneath the burnt corpses of a hundred orcs."
"I don't believe you," said Nelly, too quickly. Bróin shifted, touching his knee to hers even as his heart sank down to his stomach. Two hobbits. Two dead hobbits.
"Oh, but you do," said the man, his smile growing. Bróin felt very, very sick. "You know it to be true. Names, I heard given. 'Merry' and 'Pippin,' foolish names for a foolish race. Little people should never meddle in matters bigger than them."
"They're not dead," Nelly spat, and Bróin grabbed her hand.
He was shaking almost as much as she was, and grief was surging through him, scouring painfully through his veins. He could feel tears behind his eyes, feel a sob rise in his throat, but he fought them away. They had to stay composed, to stay smart, to seem unrattled – at least until this snake of a man slid away.
"They are," chanted Gríma, his eyes glinting like carrion beetles. "The horseman of Rohan slayed them with their captors and burnt the corpses together – but you heard this from the orcs. I bring no news, only confirmation of what you already now." The man's smile grew stronger and darker, and he pressed his face against the bars to leer at Nelly. "They are dead, and no one is looking for you. Not Boromir of Gondor, not the Dúnadan ranger, nor the elf, nor even the filthy little dwarf. No one is coming to find you. Your quest is scattered. Your friends are dead, and dying. And you-"
Like a wraith from a dying world, Nelly let out a screech and flung herself at the bars of the cell. The man shrieked and leapt backwards, collapsing to the ground like a puppet with cut strings. A high, maniacal laugh tore from Nelly's throat, and she bared her teeth as she spat at the man.
"That may be true, but even if you kill us all, we will have each other. You could cut each and every one of us down, but we will always find each other, in this world or the next – and you – you have no one, and you never will! You're pathetic, a filthy little slug fighting for the wrong side because your own life is too sad to exist without the support of greater, darker men. You are nothing, you are no one, and no one is there to love you. No one will ever love you, and you will die alone, and when you are dead your soul will rot beside the villains you fought for, always and eternally alone-"
Gríma broke her tirade with a strangled cry, throwing himself at the bars and reaching for her neck, but Nelly darted back, far too quick for him.
"You know nothing!" he hissed, but Nelly just laughed.
"You've told me everything I need to know," she said.
The man opened his mouth, but as he did the room around them trembled and he stumbled back again, staring up in alarm. A loud horn blew, somewhere above them, and at once the man ran down the corridor, disappearing entirely from sight.
A few moments later, Nelly dove forward and flung her arm out through the bars of the door.
"Er, what are you doing, Nell?"
"Shh!" she hissed, retrieving her arm and instead sending her foot through the gap. At once, Bróin looked away – the rags they wore went only to the middle of their thighs. The further Nelly pushed her leg out of the cell, the higher her shirt rose, and Bróin did not want to see anything he should not.
But then he heard something, a clinking, ever so soft, and then the sound of metal scraping gently across stone. Then, Nelly gave a gasp, and scampered back to Bróin's side.
"I did it," she breathed, a huge smile spreading across her cheeks. "Bróin, I did it!" She held her hand out to him, and to his amazement, he saw a ring of dark keys on her palm. "He dropped them when I scared him – I'd been hoping to goad him, get him close enough to lift them, but this, this works too. I did it!"
"You…" Not knowing what to say Bróin threw his arms around her, and pressed a kiss to her cheek. "You beauty!"
She gave a breathless laugh, but then her smile faded, and she stared down at the keys. When she spoke, she sounded like a child. "Bróin… do you… do you think they're really dead?"
Bróin's throat immediately dammed with tears that he could not cry, and he tried to swallow. When that failed, he simply stared at the ground beneath him. He could not answer. He could not tell Nelly that their cousin and her baby brother were dead, but there was little doubt left in his mind. They had no proof that Merry and Pippin were alive, and they had evidence – however circumstantial – that they were dead. The word of the uruk-hai to each other, to Saruman. The word of Gríma – Gríma knowing their names, and having seen the others. The deep, dark pit of a feeling in Bróin's gut. He could not say it – not aloud, not to Nelly, but Bróin had no choice but to believe that Merry and Pippin were gone.
Of course, with Nelly, he did not need to speak.
"Oh," she said, in a voice both soft and broken.
Grief twisting his heart, Bróin went to hug her again, to try and make it hurt a little less, but she put a hand on his chest and shook her head. There were tears on her cheeks and anguish in her eyes, but her jaw was set.
"Later," she whispered. "We grieve later. Drink." She shoved his orc draught at him, in almost the same motion as she downed her own herself. Bróin obeyed, his mind stumbling towards the logic that she had already reached. It would not take long for the man to realise that he had lost the keys. They needed energy to escape, but they had little time. The bread they saved, though Bróin was not sure how they would carry it. If they needed the use of their hands, their teeth would be all that was left.
The moment she finished the drink, Nelly began testing keys, inserting one after the other into the lock that bound her legs together. On the third try she found it, and then quickly freed Bróin's ankles from his own shackles, though it was with a different key.
A tremendous boom rang through the air, shaking the walls around them and pounding against Bróin's ears, and he and Nelly shared a glance. Without a word, Nelly doubled her speed, shuffling through the keys on the ring to find those that would unbind their hands. There was another bang, another crash, and then Bróin's hands were free, and he released Nelly mere seconds later.
"I don't like the chances that the keys to our chains and the door are on the same ring," muttered Bróin, even as he began to try them. To his amazement, the fourth key fit, and turned, and the door swung open at his push.
Nelly grabbed the two bits of bread and Bróin clenched the keys in his fist, and they took a silent step outside of the cell. Feeling like his spine had stiffened into solid steel, Bróin looked down into the dark of the endless corridor to the left, and then again to the right. The right was where the man had gone, and it was the direction they had come from themselves, if Bróin was not mistaken. It was most likely the way out, but they also ran risk of running into the man once more.
As if reading his mind, Nelly murmured, "Let's go right. I'm sure we could take him."
Rather unfond of the idea of blindly travelling deeper into Orthanc Bróin nodded, moving in front of Nelly to take the lead, since he had the keys – the only semblance to a weapon that they had. There was no real light in the corridor either, but Bróin had the eyes of a dwarf, and seeing in the dark was easier for him. He could feel Nelly's hand hovering over the back of his elbow, a sign that she could see little – or nothing at all. Step after quiet step, they snuck down the hall, and with every inch they travelled Bróin's nerves grew tighter, and he found himself holding his breath as he waited for the man to hurry back down the hall, to return for the keys and see them –
But he did not. They reached a door, and after a nod from Nelly Bróin pushed it. It did not budge. He swallowed, and began inserting key after key into the lock, but they were all too small. Not one key fit, and in a panic he threw his weight against it. Nothing.
"It won't budge!" he hissed.
"Let me," Nelly whispered, and Bróin moved out of the way.
"I don't know what else we can-"
The door opened.
"It's a pull door."
"I can see that," grumbled Bróin, leading the way through the door. "Which way now?"
"I don't know…" Nelly paused. "We need to go up. I think."
The walls shook around them with an almighty crash, and Nelly gave a little whimper, seizing Bróin's arm.
"Pick a way," she said, her voice trembling. "Either way, I don't care, let's just go."
Bróin nodded, turning to his right. The corridor seemed to slope down, whereas to his left it arched up. Biting down on his lip, he chose left, and began to hurry up the path. Without any idea of where he was going, or whether or not he was heading in the right direction Bróin hurried on, until he came to a room that was very familiar. It was the circular room, the one with eight identical doors, and sixteen burning torches.
"Which door now?" asked Bróin, chewing the dead skin from his lips as Nelly blinked against the light.
"Well, uh-" She stopped, her eyes fixing on the door to their left. Her ears twitched, and she went pale. "Orcs!"
Bróin swallowed, turning to the door beside theirs. It was locked, as was the next door, and the next, and they were neither push nor pull. Nelly grabbed at one of the torches, but it would not budge from its bracket, and Bróin stared at the useless keys in his hand. They would not protect them long. In desperation, he wrenched open the fourth door, and found himself staring at the man from the cell. The man's mouth dropped open, and Bróin yelped, slamming the door on his face.
"Wrong door, wrong door!"
"Here!" Nelly cried from across the room, and Bróin darted over, making it through the door as the man stumbled through into the chamber. Heart in his throat, Bróin raced after Nelly as she darted up a flight of steep, spiralling stairs. He could not hear whether or not the man was following, but either way they could not slow. If they were caught, they would be killed, or worse. Of that, Bróin was sure.
Dimly, he became aware of noises drifting in from outside, shouts of battle from uruks, and odd, moaning sounds, like the groans of trees in the wind. Had someone dared to attack Isengard? Who?
As they fled up the stairs, Nelly shot past a small window, but the air from outside seemed to snatch at Bróin and he hesitated, peering outside for a look at what was going on.
Trees. There were trees attacking the tower, or at least large, tree like creatures, large and strong as trolls. They were hurling huge rocks and chunks of rubble at the walls of Orthanc, and they were ripping the buildings of the orcs up like weeds. Bróin's jaw dropped open and he stared as the orcs took their swords to these creatures, leaving no mark at all.
"Bróin!"
He jolted, looking up at Nelly. She was pale faced and panting, staring down at him incredulously. He nodded, and stepped up, but out of the corner of his eye he saw something hurtling towards them, and his heart seized.
"Nelly!" he yelped, but it was too late.
A boulder the size of a troll's head crashed into the side of the tower, and the moment it made impact Bróin was thrown backwards down the stairs. His feet flew over his face and his back smashed into the wall, sending a burst of stars before his eyes. He gasped to try and regain his breath, blinking the stars away to see an enormous, gaping hole in the wall above him. The great boulder was wedged into the stairs.
The stairs where Nelly had been.
Now, Nelly was not there.
Too afraid to scream, too shocked to notice his pain, Bróin crawled back up the stairs, desperately, breathlessly, and fell against the boulder.
"Nelly," he whispered, and his bare foot touched something soft. He looked down, too afraid to breathe, and saw a single roll of stale bread rocking softly on the floor.
Terror coursed through him, terror and anguish so intense that he could not breathe. Nelly could not – she could not – if she –
The gut-wrenching, soul scarring grief that had accompanied the thought of Merry and Pippin's deaths was nothing to this, nothing to the thought that he was alone, and that Nelly, his Nelly, was gone.
"Bróin?"
He froze, his eyes burning with tears, and strained his ears. Had he imagined it, or had he heard it? Had her heard her?
"Bróin!"
It came again, her voice, Nelly's voice, from far away. So far away, but so desperate and frightened. Almost as desperate and frightened as he was.
"Bróin!"
"Nelly?" he called, his voice cracking. He cleared his throat and stumbled to the edge of the stairs, to where the wall had fallen away entirely, and he looked down. "Nelly!"
She was twenty feet below him, but it was not the ground beneath her – by some miracle, Nelly had landed in a cart full of what looked like straw or hay, or something of that ilk. She was not crushed, or crumpled and broken on the ground – she was alive, she was standing, and she looked up, her shoulders sagging in relief when she saw Bróin. She scrambled out of the cart and waved her hand at him, before looking over her shoulders at the carnage going on behind her.
It was a true battlefield, there was no doubt about it, and it looked like the uruk-hai were losing, but while Nelly gaped, Bróin had already spied the chaos through the window, and he had other priorities.
Later, Bróin would admit that he had done a rather stupid thing, but in that moment, his relief and his fear and his desperation were so strong that he did not stop to think. Bróin backed up to the wall, and then ran, flinging himself out into the air. He heard Nelly scream as he plummeted down, but hasty as he was his aim was true, and he landed on his back in the cart of hay.
Even with the breath knocked out of him, Bróin scrambled up, tumbling out of the cart and seizing Nelly into his arms.
"Why did you, did you do that?" she stuttered angrily, trying to push him away. "Bróin, you, you could have killed yourself, we can't afford to panic now, we have to go-"
"I thought you were dead!" he whimpered, holding her closer. "Nelly, I thought, I thought-"
For a moment, Nelly did not speak, but she softened slightly, and squeezed his arm. "Breathe, Bro," she murmured sadly, pulling away and putting her hands on his cheeks. "I'm here. I'm not hurt, but we have to move, we can't fall apart now."
He shuddered, but he knew that she was right and he let her go. She gave a weak smile and took his hand, weaving her fingers through his.
"Let's just get out of here, alright?"
He nodded, blinking against the tears and trying to clear his brain. Nelly was right – they had no time panic. If they wanted to get out alive, they had to keep their wits about them, but Nelly was ahead of him.
"We must be near the stables," she reasoned, walking slowly toward the right. "We need to get to the gates, it's the only way out and this is the best distraction we're going to get – down!" Nelly dropped to the ground and Bróin dropped with her, narrowly avoiding another large boulder that crashed into the base of the tower.
Nelly swore beneath her breath and they scrambled to their feet, sprinting along the side of the tower. "What are those things?"
Bróin shook his head, tightening his grip on her hand. "I don't know. Watch out!" He tugged them both backwards, pressing his back against the tower as a pack of uruk-hai spilled out from a nearby door. Breathless, they waited, and then they ran on, hand in hand, hoping beyond hope that they might reach escape.
It was like no battlefield Bróin had ever imagined, with the trees advancing mercilessly, crushing and kicking and ripping apart the orcs. They were outnumbered, but clearly outmatched the orcs – at least until the flaming arrows began to fly.
Bróin watched as one found its mark in the back of one of the trees, and a great screech like splitting wood tore apart the air. Though he feared the great trees, and believed them just as pressing a danger as the orcs, Bróin could not help but feel sorry for the creature as it writhed in obvious pain, but then they ran around the tower and out of sight. There, another glow of orange light caught his eye – a light from a building with an open door, and a glimpse of familiar stalls inside.
"Nell, stables!" he cried. "There may be a horse!"
She nodded, and they sprinted for the small building. The second they burst through the door, and saw the only occupied stall, Bróin's jaw dropped.
"Uh, Bróin," said Nelly slowly, "that's not a horse…"
"No," he said, his voice higher than usual. "No, it is not."
The warg before them growled and snarled, but when it lunged for them it was pulled back, its reins bound by chain to the wall. There was a saddle on its back, and it looked as though someone had been interrupted while readying to ride. A mad idea took form in Bróin's head, and he glanced at Nelly.
"We could…"
"No better plan," she agreed, slowly opening the stall and gesturing to the right. "You go that way, if we divide his attention it'll be easier to mount."
Bróin nodded, but releasing her hand felt like thrusting his head bellow water and holding it there. Holding his breath, he crept around to the side of the warg, which growled and snarled, looking left and right and raising its hackles.
With a nod, Nelly ran forward, and Bróin ran from the other side, and they leapt astride the beast, which let out a furious howl and thrashed madly. Nelly, who had ended up in front of Bróin and the saddle, nearly slid off, but Bróin reached around her and seized the reins. The moment that he pulled them tight, the warg stilled, and Nelly untied the reins from the chain attaching them to the wall.
Taking a deep breath, Bróin dug his heels in and flicked the reins, and at once the warg burst out of the barn with a speed that almost de-seated Nelly again. Bróin wrapped an arm around her and tugged her up onto the saddle. She held his arm tightly for a moment, and then put her arms behind her, wrapping them around Bróin's waist for better grip.
"Left!" she yelped suddenly, and Bróin tugged the reins. The warg changed direction so fast that Bróin felt almost dizzy, and the giant hunk of rubble passed harmlessly by them. "Now right, right! The gates are that way!"
"Alright!" Bróin yelled back, steering a little more gently in the other direction. The warg obeyed, speeding in a straight line towards the gates, but the fighting was more intense there, and Bróin scoured the wall for another way out.
"Oh, Mahal," Nelly choked, and Bróin followed her gaze to the left. There were more of the great trees were up the valley, by a great, stone dam, breaking it apart with branches and rocks, and Bróin could see exactly where the water was going to go.
If they did not get out of Isengard, they were going to drown.
"Hang on!" he said, gritting his teeth and steering away from the gate, to the left. There was a hole in the wall, a hole that was unguarded, that they could slip through, but it took them closer to the dam.
"What are you doing?" Nelly shrieked, as water began to burst from the stone, and a great wave swelled towards them.
"Faster, come on, come on, just a bit faster," Bróin begged the warg, flicking the reins again, and it sped up until Bróin felt like he was flying. The great wall of water crashed down, corpses and stones and debris already caught up in its wave, and Nelly closed her eyes, turning her head away. Bróin wrapped one arm tightly around her, wrapping the rein around his other wrist, but as the first spray hit his face the warg leapt up, vaulting through the hole that the trees had wrought in the wall. A tree reached for them, but missed, and they landed on the dirt outside Isengard with a skid.
A wild laugh tearing from his throat, Bróin flicked the rein again, rubbing the neck of the warg appreciatively. "Good boy, good boy! Keep going, that's it!"
"By Mahal," Nelly whispered breathlessly, looking over her shoulder. "That was – was – we're out, Bróin, we're out!"
He laughed again, holding her tighter, but then the reality sunk in around him. They had escaped, but they were not out of danger. They had no food, no water, no weapons. They were not out of reach of the Saruman or the orcs, nor were they out of range of the trees. They had no idea where they were going.
And Merry and Pippin were dead.
"What… what do we do now?" he asked hollowly, feeling like the wave had crashed into him after all. "Nell, if – where do we go? If…"
"If Merry and Pi… Pip…" Nelly broke off, bowing her head and sniffing. She did not finish her brother's name. "There's nothing we can do for them. We, we have to help Frodo."
"Right," Bróin sniffed, wiping his nose on his shoulder. "To Frodo. Somehow."
"Saruman s-said these wargs can ride f-faster," Nelly said, the wobble in her voice growing stronger even as she reasoned. She cleared her throat. "Faster than others, all others. If we, if we head south, head towards Mordor – if he wasn't lying we might, might catch them."
"But how do we find them?"
"Ith-Ithilien, remember?" she said. Her whole body was trembling now. "If we couldn't get through the Black Gate, we were going to look for another way, no? W-well, we always said Ithilien would be the safest place to head for, so we go there. Worst comes worst, and we cannot find them, we can go to Gondor. Help the war there."
"Alright," Bróin breathed. "Ithilien it is." He did not say aloud that Ithilien was a big place, or that their chances of finding two sneaking hobbits was as slim as their chances of not starving on the way. He did not say aloud that his heart was breaking, and his hope bleeding out of him in buckets. Instead, he said, "Nell? If you want, I'll take first shift."
"Shift?"
"You – you can break down now, if you want. You… if you need to cry… It's your turn to give in, Nell."
She looked over her shoulder at him, and then shifted around in the saddle so that she was facing him. Tears were flooding her cheeks, but she reached up and wiped Bróin's tears, instead. Then she leant against him, wrapping her arms around him. "I love you, Bróin."
"I love you too," he whispered, resting his cheek on her head. He felt her shudder, and then begin to sob, her cheek pressed against his shoulder. He heard her wail softly, felt her chest rise and fall against his with bitter sobs, felt his shirt become hot and wet with her tears.
And as she rested her chin on Bróin's shoulder and let herself cry for Merry, and for her little Pippin, Nelly looked back at Isengard. Silhouetted against the sun, she could see one of the great trees standing on the wall, two small figures she assumed to be orcs still clinging from its branches.
If grief had not clouded her eyes, she might have recognised the curly head of her brother, as Peregrin Took punched the air in victory.
I feel really quite mean now, but hey, they're all alive for now, even if Nelly and Pippin missed each other by inches :D I hope you enjoyed that chapter, it was a lot of fun (if devastating at times) to write. As I said, I hope to get your next one up on Monday the 17th, so with luck I will see you then. Please do let me know what you think – it would be good to know that I haven't lost people's interest after such a break.
Thank you so much for reading, and have a lovely day!