Disclaimer: I never did, do not, and never will own LotR.
Chapter 5Night had fallen. Legolas, Kestrel, and Gimli were standing on the battlements above the causeway, in the middle of the Elf archers. The sound of the approaching Uruk-hai army grew louder and louder, and the ground shuddered with every step they took.
"You could have picked a better spot." Gimli grumbled. He was all but hidden behind the wall, only the tip of his helmet showing.
Kestrel smirked. "Gimli, this IS the lowest point of the wall. It's not our fault that you're too short to see above it."
Legolas closed his eyes, shaking his head and smiling. "Never insult a dwarf's height, Kestrel."
"Why, what would they do to me? Midgets…" Kestrel smirked.
Choosing to ignore their comments, Gimli said, "Well, lad, whatever luck you live by, let's hope it lasts the night." Yeah, what am I?
Legolas assured, "Your friends are with you, Aragorn."
"Let's hope they last the night." Gimli said.
Aragorn clapped Legolas and Kestrel on the shoulder. "Good hunting, my friends. May the grace of the Valar be with you."
Suddenly, a flash of lightning illuminated the wall, and rain soon began pouring down. Fun. Fighting an army of ten thousand Uruk-hai in the pouring rain at night. How fun. We're going to have a blast. The rain quickly saturated her hair, which she had put up into a bun. Looking over at Gimli, she saw that little droplets of water were running down his beard and dripping onto his boots.
The leader of the Uruk-hai jumped up onto a rock, thrusting his sword forwards and emitting a sound that sounded not unlike a horn. Now that's just weird. The army of Uruk-hai came to a stop, pounding their spears on the ground rhythmically.
Gimli jumped up and down, trying to see over the wall. "What's happening out there?"
"Shall I describe it for you? Or would you like me to find you a box?" Legolas said, grinning. Kestrel laughed, as did Gimli.
"Well, nothing's really happening. They're just growling and setting up a din. Nothing much." Kestrel said. "It must suck to be you."She noticed then that all the human archers had fitted arrows to their bows, each aiming at a separate Uruk-hai. Somebody on the western wall suddenly loosed an arrow, hitting one of the Orcs in the throat. With a gurgle and a groan, it toppled forward.
"Dartho!" Aragorn commanded in Elvish. Kestrel was glad that she was standing right next to Legolas, who was able to translate for her. "Hold." he muttered.
The Uruk-hai raised their weapons and bared their teeth in anger, roaring and growling. The leader on top of the rock raised his sword once more, giving the command for the army to charge.
"Tangado a chadad!" Aragorn ordered.
Legolas translated, "Prepare to fire." He notched an arrow to his bow, as did Kestrel and all the Elves around them. He said something in Elvish, then added for Kestrel's benefit, "Their armor is weak at the neck and beneath the arm."
"Leithio i philinn!" Aragorn yelled. Kestrel didn't need Legolas to translate this. It was clear, from the twanging bows and the flying arrows, that Aragorn had told them to fire. She released her arrow a split second after everybody else did, noting with satisfaction that she hit an Uruk-hai. One.
"Did they hit anything?" Gimli asked excitedly.
Kestrel rolled her eyes at him. "NO, Gimli. An army of Elf archers shot at an army of ten thousand Uruk-hai, and everybody missed." Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Legolas smirk.
"You know what I meant." Gimli grumbled.
Kestrel sighed. "It was your awkward phrasing, not mine. And anyways, what DID you mean?"
Just then, Aragorn shouted, "Ribed bant!"
"Full volley." Legolas muttered as he shot an arrow. Kestrel nodded in thanks and began loosing arrows as speedily as she could, wiping out ten more Orcs.
"Send them to me! Come on!" Gimli muttered, waving his axe and nearly cutting Kestrel's bow in half.
Suddenly four Elves fell backwards off the battlements, and Kestrel realized with horror that they had black-fletched arrows sticking in them. They brought her back to Amon Hen, to Boromir's death, to the feeling of strength and yet utter helplessness. In her mind's eye, she saw the black-fletched arrow thudding into Boromir's shoulder, his stomach, his chest. She screamed noiselessly, watching helplessly as Boromir fell to his knees. She then found him lying by a tree, breathing his last breath as Aragorn kneeled over him. And then she was suddenly standing by the river, watching as his body disappeared over the edge of the Falls of Rauros. These scenes played over and over in her head like some twisted DVD. No! What's happening to me? I'm losing my sanity!
"Swords, Kestrel! Swords!" Legolas' voice broke into the movie reel. She came to her senses and realized that he was shaking her by the shoulders. She shrugged his hands off.
"I'm all right." She drew Lemrocalir and her dagger, ready to slice at the first Uruk-hai that came up over the ladders that had latched themselves onto the battlements while she was totally out of it. "Come on, come to me! Come to the Hunting Hawk!"
As if in response to her challenge, an Uruk leaped over the battlement, drawing its sword and snarling in Kestrel's face. With a grimace, she ended its life by thrusting Lemrocalir through his chest. It fell onto the bristling pikes of the Uruk-hai army. "Twelve!" Another soon replaced it, and Kestrel felled it by cutting its throat with both her sword and her dagger. "Thirteen!"
"Legolas! Kestrel!" Gimli yelled. They both turned to look at him. "Two already!"
Legolas laughed. "I'm on seventeen! What about you, Kestrel?"
"Thirteen." she said, slightly discouraged.
Gimli shook his head with a growl. "I'll have no pointy-ear outscoring me! Or a girl, for that matter!" He turned and felled another Uruk-hai by hitting it in the groin. Legolas turned, fired two arrows, and turned back.
"Nineteen!"
Kestrel sighed. "Showoff." She ran along the battlements to where the battle was more intense, joining Aragorn as they fended off the flood of Uruks. They were swarming the Deeping Wall like ants swarming a cookie. She thrust her sword up into the brain of one Uruk, then turned around and kicked another one with such force that the one behind it staggered back, holding its stomach. But they kept coming.
She spun in a circle, dispatching any Uruk-hai which came near. Lemrocalir's normally shining blade was dull with Orc blood, and her dagger was dripping from when she had cut an Uruk's throat. "Sixteen! Seventeen! Eighteen! Nineteen! Twenty!" Suddenly, a sharp pain cut through her thigh, and she winced, risking a look. An Uruk had come up behind her and was trying to stab her through her back, when she whipped around at the sound it was making. This caused the gash in her thigh.
With a macabre smile, the Uruk-hai raised its sword high above Kestrel's head. Just as its sword was at its zenith, she threw her dagger into its stomach without thinking. It grunted and looked down in bewilderment, before toppling with a sigh. "Twenty-one." She ripped a length of fabric from her tunic and wrapped that tightly around the gash. Crap. And on my thigh, too. How am I supposed to run?
She heard the pounding of many Uruks marching up the causeway. Running as fast as her injury would allow, she came within arrow range of the causeway. She stopped to catch her breath and noticed that they were marching in a testudo, or tortoise formation, which left their sides open. Good. I'm on the side. Fitting an arrow to her bow, she soon began loosing a volley, ducking after each one just in case they had crossbows. Luckily, they didn't, and she soon regained her courage, shooting arrow after arrow into the mass of Uruk-hai. They fell off the sides off the causeway, the formation breaking up as the Uruks tried to figure up where the arrows were coming from. "Twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four, twenty-five, twenty-six, twenty-seven…HOLY CRAP!" She ducked as the first arrow came at her from the seething mass of Orcs ouside the Deeping Wall.
Kestrel limped/ran over to the place where Gimli, Aragorn, and Legolas were fighting. "Gimli! I've got twenty-seven!" she shouted, whirling around to gut another Uruk-hai. "Make that twenty-eight."
Gimli sighed, disgusted. "Twenty-nine."
"Is that all you've got? I've got thirty-six!" Legolas shouted back. "Slackers, both of you!" he added before he turned around to parry an Uruk's blade with his knife.
Kestrel muttered, "Screw you all." She turned to a ladder and jumped on the battlements right between the two planks of wood. An Uruk-hai's snarling face soon appeared, and she jumped down, sending the Uruk-hai flying, and herself landing precariously on a rung. She struggled to stay balanced, grabbing the rungs behind her for support. "Twenty-nine." Once she finally regained her balance, she turned around and scrambled back up, ready to jump on the next Uruk.
It never happened. While she was still a few rungs from the top, an Uruk-hai clobbered her on the back with a heavily gauntleted fist, and she crashed and banged her head on a rung, toppling over into space. She groped wildly for a rung, but she crashed into the sheer rock face of the Deeping Wall. She slid gently down, landing in a heap at the bottom.
Half-dazed, she struggled to her feet, grabbing her sword which had landed beside here and trying to get ready to fight the Uruk-hai who were about to swarm her. "Come on, come to me! I'm not some scared woman hiding in the caves! I am the Hunting Hawk!" The Uruks came at her with vigor. She was only able to defend herself because she was in a dip of the wall, and only one Uruk-hai could come at her at a time. "Thirty, thirty-one, thirty-two, thirty-three, come on! I've got a contest to win!"
Her grip was loosening and she dripped with sweat, having to constantly push stray strands of hair behind her ear. Bodies were strewn all around her. I can't do this much longer. But they just won't run out! I'm totally screwed. I can't believe I'm thinking this, but what I wouldn't give for Angel right now. Glitter magic might actually be useful. She exchanged a furious flurry of blows with yet another Uruk-hai before finally decapitating it. "Thirty…four…"
Suddenly, a rope dropped right behind her, the knotted end almost hitting her back. It threw her forward, stumbling on the stomach of one of the first Uruks she killed, and she almost got a sword thrust to the belly. She stepped back just in time, grabbing the rope behind her and bouncing off the wall with it, slicing the Uruk in half. "Even…forty!"
"You got it, Kestrel?" Legolas called down. Kestrel tugged twice on the rope, and she felt herself being lifted up, to the immense dismay and annoyance of the Uruk-hai gathered below. So long, suckers!
She was hauled over the wall by Legolas and Aragorn, both of them immensely ticked at her foolhardiness. "What do you think you're DOING, Kestrel? You against about nine thousand Uruk-hai?"
"ARAGORN! If you were actually watching what I was doing, you would've realized that I couldn't have helped falling down there." Kestrel protested.
Legolas shook his head. "I'm siding with Aragorn on this one. You didn't have to jump onto that Uruk."
"But…watch out!" She screamed this last statement when she noticed three Uruk-hai creeping stealthily up behind them. As Legolas and Aragorn whirled around, she whipped her dagger out of its sheath, throwing it in the same fluid motion. The lead Uruk-hai clutched its throat, falling with a gurgle off the battlements. I need a special stock of throwing daggers. In the moment that the two remaining Uruks were staring off the wall, Legolas and Aragorn were able to dispatch the rest. But yet another Uruk-hai came at her, and she was engaged in a furious battle that lasted quite longer than the other ones.
Her world's only inhabitants were her and the Uruk-hai. The extent, only the area where they battled. There was no sound except for the clang of metal, no smell except for the stench of unwashed Orc, no taste except for the metallic tang of blood where she bit her tongue, nothing to see beside the sneering face of the Uruk, nothing to touch except for the cold stone battlement and the leather-bound hilt of her sword. Her life was wrapped up in those few moments. Everything she had thought she was, everything she had discovered in Middle-earth, everything she had been born into, everything that was yet to come, all that was irrevelant. The only thing that existed was this battle between them now.
Back and forth, back and forth. She lost her footing for a second and almost went down, but luckily, her hand happened on the wall of the battlement. She pulled herself up, gasping and panting with exertion. How much longer? She wearily resumed the fight, and through the blood, sweat, and rain, she saw that the Uruk was still perfectly healthy. Despairingly, she thought, I can't do this. I can't do this! Oh God, help me! Please, Lord!
Suddenly, a massive explosion knocked her off her feet, and she tumbled down into the void.
Yes, I know it was short, and I'm sorry, but it was needed.