Chapter 10 - Challenges
On the Road North to Gorgoroth…
It was midday as the army rested briefly from their march to eat, yet one would not know it. The sky above them grew darker, it seemed, with every step they took north towards the Plateau of Gorgoroth. The closer they came, the blacker the cloud cover became, and arcs of unnaturally hued lightning jumped across them at intervals, followed by thunder that always seemed too close. It was a perpetual thunderstorm without the cooling rain one would expect.
It had taken the Narnians longer than they had anticipated to treat and evacuate the slaves from the island fortress to their kin on the mainland. The slaves did not trust their liberators at first, even after freeing them from the orcs' enslavement. The many hours it took to convince them of their benevolent intentions had cost them another day's worth of time which the two kings increasingly felt they had precious little of. Neither of them could explain that feeling to themselves much less than to each other, but they knew their time for calling Sauron out was growing shorter. Nevertheless, they both agreed they would not leave other sons of Adam and daughters of Eve in such dire and ruined conditions if they could help it. The fires from the fortress and outbuildings were yet burning even as the army packed up and moved northward two days after the campaign against it.
They lost fifty three wolves out of the two hundred which were sent, and eleven mice out of the original company of fifty led by Klippiwick. Twelve of the wolves which had been sent had survived, but been badly injured by either fire or orc blade. Six of their talking rodent commandos had also been injured to where they wouldn't be able to continue the fight. They had been fortunate none of their griffins or eagles had been injured. Their diminutive assassins had done their work on the orc archers well.
As the high king and his brother tallied up the number of combat ready troops at this juncture of their march, after the severely injured had been taken into account and sent to the rear to be escorted home, and including those necessary escorts, the kings discovered they still maintained a fighting force of just shy of twenty thousand among all their companies and regiments.
Those twenty thousand now marched northwards on broken roads towards lands bleaker and more desolate than any they had ever encountered before. Before them, and always in their sights, lay the far off burning peak of the mountain the elf woman called in her language, Orodruin, and the Gondorian knight referred to as "Mt. Doom." This hellish vista glowed continuously with orange and red fire visible in either day or night like some kind of beacon of the damned, and dominated the plateau to which they were traveling. Where the region around the Sea of Nurnen had been temperate, the further north they went, the hotter and more unpleasant it became even as it grew darker. The very air around them became gradually thicker with the stench of gasses that made it uncomfortable for many in the army to just take a breath.
High King Peter and King Edmond rode as always at the front of the company. They were joined by the elf woman, Eltariel, who knew the layout of the land far better than they, where the orcs would have their outposts and garrisons, and which roads to take. Their goal that day was the southern gate of Gorgoroth known as Ennyn Ur.
Unlike its larger sibling, called in her language Morannon, and in the common speech, "The Black Gate," the gate of Ennyn Ur was only lightly guarded, and rarely closed, as Sauron never contemplated an attack from within lands he already controlled. As Eltariel explained the night before the march in their command tent to the kings and captains present, there were other reasons for the dark lord's seeming complacency as well.
"Beyond the southern gate are vast fields of magma and volcanic rock that are treacherous for any to cross." She had explained to them.
"But there are ways through?" King Edmond had asked.
"There are, but the roads through and around them are difficult to traverse." She had replied.
"It won't matter either way." The high king then spoke up, considered the map of Mordor which lay in front of him on the table and which had been updated by Eltariel's centuries of knowledge regarding the terrain.
"It won't?" Edmond had asked, confused.
"Not to us at least." Peter had clarified. "Because we're not going in there."
"Forgive me, your majesty, I don't understand." Sir Eric had then asked. "I thought the purpose of our march was to enter Gorgoroth and distract them from the ringbearer."
"And it still is, good knight." The high king had responded. "But we've no need to pass beyond the gate ourselves to do that. We only need to give Sauron a reason to send his forces at us through the gate and draw them away from Mt. Doom. And we may have the advantage in so doing."
"How so?" Sir Eric asked, looking at the map.
"Because the gate of Ennyn Ur is relatively narrow compared to its northern sibling. When Morannon opens, hundreds of orcs can be fielded at once. Not so, with Ennyn Ur." Eltariel then spoke up. "Sauron's troops will bottleneck as they attempt to come through, and it will take time which we can use to our benefit. They'll mass on the other side, only able to send tens of soldiers through at a time to reach us."
"At which point, we can use what's left of our bombs to decimate their forces from the sky on the other side of the gate, while our archers do what they can with those coming through." King Edmond continued, following her train of thought. "But the flying scouts may take heavy losses from their arrows."
"They may." Peter conceded. "But this is our endgame. This is why we have come. After we have drawn as many of their forces to us as we can, we're in Aslan's hands, so to speak."
"They'll have to make every bomb count, your majesties." One of the dwarven captains spoke up. "After the run on Sharkhburz, we've precious few of them left. Once they're gone, they're gone."
"So noted." The high king told him with all seriousness. "After this next battle, we won't need them either way."
"Your majesty?" The dwarf questioned the finality of his king's tone.
"This battle is for more than Narnia, Captain, it's for our entire world. If we don't succeed in drawing all of Mordor's forces, if this ringbearer we were told of is caught by them, then all of this has been for nothing." The high king spoke with passion, his voice strengthened by the memories of all those lost on their march. "Sauron and his armies will march across the whole world, Narnia included, and turn it into the desiccated, poisoned wasteland his own realm is. All that we know, all that we love, will be lost. There will be no retreat. There will be no surrender. We fight for this world, for Narnia, and for Aslan. We fight until the last soldier falls, either theirs or ours."
Peter had slept fitfully that night before they broke camp at dawn. He kept seeing the images of good Narnians being split open and run through by orc swords. He kept hearing the screech of the nazgul as it taunted him by openly murdering his troops in front of him with impunity. The images of the half-orc children kept coming back to haunt him throughout the night both waking and sleeping. Their dead eyes were always pointed directly at him in accusation.
When dawn broke, he and Edmond had sent their last letters by way of eagle back to Cair Paravel. In addition to reports and matters of war business, after having discussed it, they had both included personal good-byes to their sisters should they fall in battle. Both knew what could happen by the end of that day.
The march for the better part of the day had been strangely quiet. They had expected to encounter some resistance, or to take some party of orcs unawares as they had between Lithlad and the Sea of Nurnen, but there was no one on that bleak road up into the blackened lands, neither wagons of cargo nor company of soldiers. What outposts and fortifications the scouts reported seeing on the route before them appeared abandoned as well. While this was good news as far as their immediate concerns about dealing with opposition up the long dirt and stone paved road, it was also worrying.
"The fires of Tamon Angren have gone cold?" Eltariel had questioned upon hearing the eagle deliver her report to the kings.
"We saw no one there, and no fires of any kind." The talking eagle had confirmed for her as the army had been given leave to rest briefly along the pass. "The mining settlement looked to have been abandoned for weeks at least."
"What could that mean?" King Edmond had asked.
"I don't know. I've never seen it happen before." The elf woman replied. "Mordor doesn't lightly abandon its strategic outposts, especially not those that produce its machines of war and guard its points of entry."
"Perhaps they took bigger losses in their recent battles in the west than we were led to believe?" The junior king proposed.
"Perhaps." The high king reasoned. "Is it accessible enough that we could use its walls to make camp in for the night? We'll need to be fresh for what fight there is to come on the morrow."
"Yes. There's a road that leads straight up into it." Eltariel answered.
"Then we make for Tamon Angren to make camp, and turn our faces to Ennyn Ur and what is to come tomorrow. It'll be a poor showing if we challenge Sauron with all our troops exhausted from the march." Peter told them.
Over the Plateau of Gorgoroth…
Sir Eric flew high over the Plateau of Gorgoroth, well out of arrow range but beneath the terrifying lightning which arced across the clouds, as he and Fleetfeather scouted the black lands. What he and the griffin saw was not encouraging. It looked to him as if there was nothing but a sea of unwashed orc armies between the mountain ranges of the Ephel Duath to the west and the Ered Lithui to the north. Most of them appeared to be massed in Udun before the Black Gate as if the dark lord expected Gondor's armies to mount an assault any day, though large hosts had been posted around Mt. Doom and Barad-dur itself. He had no way of counting the numbers of these hosts, but if he were to guess, Sauron had congregated every orc in Middle Earth he could spare to fortify the volcanic hellscape.
On a hunch, he encouraged Fleetfeather to fly farther west and north to the black gate to observe the country beyond it. It had been months since he had seen his homeland of Gondor, and even from the air to be so close and not look upon it was difficult for him. He knew that somewhere to the west of them, his family still waited for news and his safe return.
What stories he would have to share with them!
As they briefly crossed the mountains of the Ephel Duath to the northwest, and his eyes once more beheld the green and growing lands of Gondor, they beheld something more in the distance west, across the region of Ithilian towards the white city of Minas Tirith.
"Fleetfeather, turn your eyes west for me, would you and tell me what you see?!" He asked the griffin.
His flying companion complied, taking in everything he could with his sharpened eyesight.
"I see a host of soldiers on foot and on horseback traveling through the site of a great battle where the dead are still being gathered for burial or burning. They travel in the direction of the Black Gate. They're about a day's march away from it. They are led by a kingly man on horseback, and look to be coming from the white tower in the distance." Fleetfeather replied. "They do not look to be a large enough force to take the Black Gate if that is their objective. They are only a few thousand where the host of Mordor behind the gate is easily ten times their number."
The knight had seen the army in the distance as well, though could not see all the details the griffin could. He wondered at who the kingly man who led them could be, and why he would lead such a small portion of Gondor's armies against such an impenetrable obstacle. It was a suicide errand at the very least.
"Turn back, my friend. We need to inform the kings of Gondor's march to Morannon." Sir Eric told him, and the griffin complied, banking gracefully in the sky and turning back to the east and south. Internally he continued to wonder, What in the blazes could Lord Denethor be thinking?
Flying back over the western mountains of Mordor from their long circuit, they passed high above and over another tower not unlike Minas Tirith in the distance, and yet the two could not be more dissimilar in feel. Sir Eric turned his eyes towards the parapets and towers of that city now called Minas Morgul almost unwillingly to see them manned heavily still with the foul races. There was a disturbing, evil presence about the fallen city which could be felt even from that great height. He wondered if its great towers and architecture would ever be free from the stain of black sorcery which radiated from it.
Continuing on, their flight path took them over Cirith Ungol, "the Spider's Cleft," a dangerous pass through the western mountains, and the orc fortress which guarded it. As they flew over, the knight noticed something unusual. There was no movement in or around the fortress.
"Fly over that fortress again, Fleetfeather, and drop lower!" Sir Eric called to him. "Something's not right about this!"
The griffin obeyed, dropping down to where they could get a better view of the situation on the ground. When they did, both rider and mount were in total amazement. Instead of orc warriors watching the grounds and walls, there was no one but rotting corpses, all of them appearing to have been slain in combat, but by what or who neither could say.
"Could Gondor already have a force in Mordor the dark lord doesn't know about?!" Fleetfeather asked.
"They'd have been desperate, and foolishly reckless, to come through the pass of Cirith Ungol if they did!" Sir Eric replied. "But there had been no plans for one that I was made aware of before my expedition left Minas Tirith."
Leaving the dead fortress and the pass behind they continued to fly onwards towards Mt. Doom before turning south to rendezvous with the ground troops still marching north. They flew over a desolate and nightmarish landscape shaped by the volcano which served as Mordor's beating heart. Across that landscape were marshalled battalion after battalion of Sauron's forces. Flying across the landscape, Fleetfeather's sharper eyes spotted something that looked so out of place as to be unbelievable.
"Look, down there beneath us, among those rocks!" The griffin called out to his rider. "Am I mistaken, or are those two children down there?"
What? Sir Eric asked himself as he scanned the region the griffin flew over, circling back and lower to see it again. He saw large numbers of orcs in iron armor marching northwards towards the black gate, and even more waiting and drilling. He saw no-
"Wait! I do see them! Two young boys trying to keep out of sight from the orc patrols around them. It looks like they're trying to go further into Mordor." The knight told the griffin incredulously. "What are two mannish children doing here?!"
"Are you sure they're of your race?!" The griffin asked, pointing his better eyes at the unusual site. "They look to have somewhat sharper ears and larger, bare feet than your own. The one also appears to have gray hair like an elder."
Large bare feet? Sir Eric tried to think as he observed them while Fleetfeather circled. Then he realized what they were. The two unusual invaders weren't children at all. They were hobbits, a diminutive race he'd only heard of from the northwestern country called The Shire. He'd never met one personally as they didn't like to travel outside their own homeland as a rule, and he'd never been to their region of Eriador before. They enjoyed homely comforts, farming, and family, and despised anything which disrupted their quiet, rural living.
What in all the world are two hobbits doing in the middle of Mordor of all places? Sir Eric asked himself, trying to process what he was seeing. And then it dawned on him what they were doing there and why they were traveling further into that hellish place instead of trying to escape it.
What strange madness is this?! He thought as the realization came upon him.
"Fly Fleetfeather! Make haste! We must return to the kings at once!" The knight told the griffin.
The knight and the griffin had found the bearers of Sauron's ring. They were a day's walk from Mt. Doom, and there was a sea of armed orcs in between them and their goal.
At Tamon Angren…
"Both the griffin and I saw them with our own eyes. There was no mistake, your majesties. Some madman sent two little hobbits, shorter in stature than even dwarves and much less prepared for a fight, into that nightmare, though how they made it so far on their own can only be attributed to divine providence. I am certain these were the ringbearers we were sent to aid." Sir Eric made his report.
Upon locating the army's camp among what looked like an abandoned mine and fortress, they had landed and the knight went to find the kings immediately while leaving Fleetfeather to rest and eat after the long day of hard flight with the man on his back. He couldn't be sure for the perpetual darkness that seemed to strangle the land in a continual night, but he thought it was dusk or thereafter when they arrived. He found the army's leadership, not in the command tent, but within the otherwise abandoned keep of the orc stronghold which had been taken over by them.
"Hobbits?" Eltariel who continued to remain with them as an advisor asked in disbelief. "Who would send hobbits on a mission so dire? You can't have seen rightly."
"I'm telling you, both Fleetfeather and I saw them with our own eyes. There was no mistake, unless they were barefooted children of my own race who decided it would be a pleasant adventure to go traipsing through Sauron's front yard!" The knight returned.
The high king stood nearby, his map of Mordor spread out, looking at the regions which the knight had pointed out, and where they lay in relationship to where he understood their own present camp to be. "We are only a few hours march from Ennyn Ur which is here, is that correct?" He asked, pointing to another place on the map.
"Yes, just about." The elf woman replied.
"And how long until these 'hobbits' you saw will reach the troops blocking their way?" He addressed his question to the knight.
"When Fleetfeather and I saw them, it would have been no more than half a day's journey, and possibly less. They could be to Mt. Doom by tomorrow afternoon if they did not stop to rest tonight." The Gondorian told him.
"Assuming that the dark lord takes our bait, how long would it take for Sauron to move his forces to the southern gate? How far away are they?" He asked.
"He has a sea of troops all throughout the Plateau of Gorgoroth, though the bulk of them are north of Mt. Doom, nearer to the Black Gate." Sir Eric replied. "For the enemy to muster his entire force to Ennyn Ur, I'd say no more than twelve hours, but we'd see smaller companies crossing through before that."
"So we have to get his attention twelve hours before we expect to fight the bulk of his forces." Peter then said, the gears of his mind whirring behind his eyes as he continued to stare at the map. "That potentially gives us control over when we fight, and time to arrange our forces around the gate so that we control the terrain around it. But we need to get his attention focused on us soon, or our little friends will find their path completely barred."
"What are you thinking, Peter?" King Edmond asked.
"We have to move them out of the way for the ringbearers as soon as possible. Eltariel and myself will gather two thousand of our best warriors and leave for Ennyn Ur immediately. Edmond, you remain behind. See to it that the army is marching in six hours. They'll need all the rest we can give them. Our force will draw the dark lord's attention to us and deal with the smaller companies as they come. If all goes well, you will have the rest of our army in place nine hours or so from now for when the bulk of them arrive at the gate." Peter explained his plan.
The high king then asked Eltariel, "Carnan said she would provide her own reinforcements before dawn tomorrow? Did she say of what kind?"
"No. Only that it would take some time to call them, and we would see them before dawn at Ennyn Ur." Eltariel replied.
"What was your impression? Do you trust her word?" King Edmond asked.
"I do. There is no deception among the spirits of nature that I have ever known." The elf woman replied. "She hates the orcs and their master more than we do."
"It will have to be good enough." Peter said, then instructed the military captains who had been standing by, "I want two thousand of your best ready to move out in one half of an hour. Don't choose those you know are of weak constitution, or who do not have the strength to hold out for hours. Tonight, they will get no more sleep than they've already had, will need to march for several hours, and will likely be in combat until midday tomorrow. Go." Then, as Klippiwick moved to carry out his orders, Peter addressed him specially, "We will need your people positioned on the heights of the gate itself, noble mouse."
The mouse gave a salute to his high king, "By your command, your majesty." then moved to gather his stealthy assassins for their part to play.
Sir Eric stood there waiting for further instructions himself as the high king had not mentioned his name in any of the orders he had issued. When Peter said nothing more, he inquired, "And I, your majesty, what role would you have me play?"
The high king then looked at the Gondorian soldier wearily before he spoke. There was a friendly manner in his eyes, and one of concern for the man who had so readily risked himself and his own homecoming for their people.
"I cannot ask any more of you than you have already freely given, Sir Eric of Belfalas." High King Peter told him. "I release you from any more perceived obligation. I would see Fleetfeather fly you home safely to your family and your country, and know that I could at least procure this for you that I could not procure for others. You have already rendered service to us beyond what was necessary."
Stunned at the king's answer, the knight did not know how to respond for several moments as he processed the words. "How can I face my son, my daughter, or my wife knowing that I abandoned you and yours when you need every sword you can get? Where would my honor be then? What kind of knight, what kind of man would I be? Your majesty, I appreciate your offer more than you can know. I could only hope that should Gondor's true king return to his throne he be at least half the man I have come to know you to be. I would serve that man willingly and unreservedly, just as I offer my service and my sword to you here and now in this fight."
The knight's speech was sincere and impassioned as the words flowed. He meant every part of it. Gondor and all of Middle Earth should only be so lucky as to have such kings and queens as Narnia had been blessed with that cared so much and were willing to sacrifice so much for the people they loved and who loved them.
The high king's countenance took on a pained expression at the knight's words. Grateful, appreciative, but pained as though he did not want to be responsible for even one more soul that might fall under his watch. After another moment passed between them, he replied, "Then I ask you to remain here and rest with the griffins and eagles until the whole army marches. When they do, you and Fleetfeather will lead the bombing campaign against Sauron's forces once they reach the gates. When the bombs are exhausted, I want you to break off and keep watch on the ringbearers' progress as best you can. You and Fleetfeather alone know what they look like and how to spot them. Find them and render whatever aid you can if you have to."
Sir Eric nodded, "Very good, your majesty." He responded. "It will be done."
Before the Gates of Ennyn Ur…
The gates of Ennyn Ur loomed before them in the darkness like a silent monster as they came within the sight of the smaller force of Narnians around the midnight watch. Watch fires burning from its parapets and towers provided the only light in the otherwise utter darkness of the Mordor night. These fires played upon the spikes and threatening architecture of the gate so much that it seemed to take on a shadowy life of its own, watching the two thousand troops approach its maw in anticipation.
When Peter and Eltariel came to stand before it in the darkness, the regiment of Narnia's finest warriors at their backs, that maw, a narrow gate only wide enough to allow a wagon with a horse and rider on either side of it at most to pass through, was closed tightly. Some, but not many shadows of manlike beings scurried back and forth along the parapets and towers of the gate, making their presence known, but uncertain as to what to do or how to respond to the host which now faced them in the dead of night.
From the back of his war horse, the high king of Narnia turned to the elf woman riding a gelding next to him and asked, "There aren't many orcs up there to send a message. How do you expect for Sauron to know you're here from so far away and so remote a corner of his realm?"
The elf woman smiled at the king a sad, knowing kind of smile, as though she had carried the burden of the answer to that question for centuries and it was a heavy load indeed.
"He will know." She responded.
Not understanding and not knowing what to expect, he nodded at her and gestured for her to make her challenge in that deserted and empty location.
She dismounted from the horse she rode and with purpose and courage strode towards the evil gate. As she did, she flexed the fingers of her right hand, making a fist and then releasing it over and over again. Finally she stopped, one lonely elf woman facing the entrance to hell it seemed. She raised her left hand and made a fist. She then began to chant in a language which neither Peter nor the Narnians knew.
As she spoke the words, the ring on her finger glowed brightly and brilliantly, "Er Corma ilyar turien, Er Corma tuvien te, Er Corma tucien ar ancalimasse nutien te."
The words grew stronger and more powerful as she chanted. Her voice changed with them, taking on a strength and a majesty which could almost be described as godlike, terrifying and beautiful at the same time. Her whole being, her whole body began to glow with the innate light of her people, the light of the Eldar, until she appeared as a star come down to the earth, shining its light brilliantly and banishing the near tangible darkness around them.
Peter wept for the sight, for it was glorious in its power and display of radiance and beauty. It promised justice and righteousness, and the destruction of the darkness if only one would use it to such ends. The very ground around them reverberated with that power and he felt the compulsion to heed it, to bow down to it, to follow it to the ends of the world and beyond in obedience to it.
From the top of the gate, the high king could hear the screams of those orcs and fiends which had been caught exposed to the radiant light. They fought over each other to try and escape it, even attempting to jump from the heights of the gate to the ground behind it to try and flee from the brightness of its glory.
And then when it seemed like the rapture of the power unleashed in the display of pure, holy light could get no brighter, no more glorious, she cried out in common with a voice like thunder so that the high king was convinced all of Mordor, no, all the world could hear it clearly, "I, ELTARIEL, BLADE OF GALADRIEL, CHALLENGE YOU, SAURON, AGENT OF DARKNESS AND FALSE LORD OF THE RING! HERE I STAND AT YOUR GATES WAITING FOR YOU TO COME AND CLAIM IT IF YOU DARE."
The light around her continued to blaze in glory as she fell silent, waiting as if for an answer. Several moments went by until a voice spoke out from the darkness across the landscpe, fell and ominous, and tinged with mocking laughter, "YOU KNOW NOTHING OF POWER ELF GIRL. YES, WE WILL FINISH WHAT BEGAN WITH CELEBRIMBOR, AND YOU WILL KNOW THE TRUE MEANING OF DARKNESS."
"WE WILL SEE." She returned once more as the light continued to flare.
Sauron's only response was laughter. An evil, mocking, tainted laughter that rang from one side of the Plateau of Gorgoroth to the other.
And only then did the flare of light begin to die down until there was only the strange glowing blue lettering that there had been before on the silver ring she held. She withdrew her left hand and lowered it. Then slowly, deliberately turned and walked back to where the high king of Narnia still sat mounted on his warhorse, stunned and unable to verbalize what he was feeling or thinking. As she drew nearer, he then saw the tears which had been running down her cheeks.
It only then hit him what kind of a toll having to hold that much power in check over the centuries must have taken on the elf woman. How much strength of character, how much pure goodness must it take to wield that power, and not use it?
"Stand ready." She said, wiping her tears with her right hand before drawing her own swords from her back. "They will be coming. All of them. The only thing Sauron wants more in all the world than this ring is his own, and he still doesn't know where that one is."
"Then let's keep it that way, my lady." Peter responded as he drew his sword and prepared for battle.