Hello! Apologies guys, I've sort of been on a semi-hiatus during exams, but now that I've finished with those, I'll have loads more time for writing. I've also got two really good story ideas lined up that I'm very excited about, which I'll probably be getting started on after Saving Boromir is finished. Oh, and heads up, I've changed my pen name to something a tad more "my-real-name-ish", anyway, here's chapter 7, enjoy!
Thundering beneath her, the rhythmic hammering of Fleetfoot's hooves on the rain softened ground beat in Amela's ears like a drum, while the salty sting of tears streamed horizontally, back from her eyes and into her hair, alongside cold, heavy raindrops. The speed of her mount - coupled with the howling winds all around her - flung her hair and Fleetfoot's mane in all directions. Despite her ears and face being red with cold and wet, still the deluge poured down on her and the loyal steed; still it soaked them to their bones and still the wind snapped at and whipped them.
All of a sudden, Fleetfoot let out a piercing neigh, for Amela had pulled him up in an abrupt panic; they had come to a great cliff. Jagged and dark it was, and covered in long brittle grass, that protruded and hung limply from the precipice.
"My boy," Amela soothed as she dismounted, "it seems we have come as far as we can by this path."
Upon scanning around them, Amela spotted a small patch of sparse woodland; she led Fleetfoot under the canopy and tied him loosely to a fallen trunk before searching for ferns with which to build a makeshift shelter. Fortunately, the thinness of the canopy under which they were standing had allowed for a thick layer of shrubs and ferns to grow close to the ground; Amela was able to find a sufficient number of large leaves to cover both herself and Fleetfoot, who was more than happy to let Amela lay against his side when the two of them eventually turned in for the night.
As the night drew in, Boromir too took shelter from the rain; without sunlight he was forced to halt his search until morning.
"It is folly; I cannot track by the moon's light. I am no ranger."
Resigned to his inability to continue his hunt through the night, Boromir searched for a suitable place to rest. As it happens, despite his arguable lack of skill, luck was on Boromir's side that evening, for he chanced upon a large boulder: indeed large enough to shelter both him and Beleger, if a little snugly. From under the overhanging reach of the rock, Boromir watched the rain batter the ground around him into mud. Building a sort of makeshift pillow with his hands, he laid down his head and looked out into the dark. As his breath began to form steamy clouds in front of his face, he let his eyes close and willed his body to rest, against the will of his whirring brain.
When the night drew back, so did the rain; sunlight was twinkling on dew drops that sat clumsily on the rohirric grass, when the son of Gondor roused from a fitful sleep. With great haste he gathered his pack and again mounted Beleger, who had wandered a few feet to graze on the newly moist greenery.
"Curse that unholy rain!" The captain hissed, for the preceding night's weather had washed away any trace of a trail left by the ever careful Amela.
"It is hopeless. Even Aragorn could not find a trail now; the ground is all but flooded." Still though, the noble captain searched in vain: first from upon Beleger's back, then on his own feet. After a short while, the poor man was crawling like a dog, on all fours in the mud, scrambling desperately to see a trail through tearful eyes.
But it was not the ground that would yield the answers that Boromir sought; it was in the sky that his salvation was to be found.
Far to the north, yet not so distant as the shadows now cast by Isengard, a thin wisp of white grey smoke could be seen rising from a bushel of sparse trees. Almost identical in colour to the pale clouds above it, the smoke would have been invisible, if not for the contrast between it and the branches from which it came.
"Designed to hide from far away foes, what a clever camper you are." Although tears were still brimming his eyes, the words Boromir spoke came through a smile. "Little more than a day's ride. We should find her only a little after nightfall," he turned to Beleger, "be swift, my friend." Then, mounting the steed in a leap and a swing, he dug his heels into the horse's sides and rode hard toward the thin column of smoke.
Even as he rode, he could see his target growing fainter; Beleger could feel the urgency in his rider's seat, so he ran with all the haste he could muster. But despite their flying speed, morning all too soon turned to day around the pair; the sun sunk, behind the clouds, and began to drop below the horizon before Boromir even noticed that midday had passed. The sun had dropped low by the time they reached the cluster of forest from which the smoke rose; by the waning apricot light they scrambled through bushes and shrubs: searching. The evening drew on. Almost all of the sun's light had left the sky when Boromir finally stumbled upon Amela's camp. In reality, it hardly deserved the name; he could easily have passed it half a dozen times - and he most likely did. As ever, Amela had made a point of leaving as little trace as possible of her having made a camp at all.
"She is gone then..." Boromir admitted to himself, with a distinct crack in his voice, then a sort of physical pain started to manifest in the Gondorian's limbs, as he sat on one of the crumbling logs nearby.
"We will never catch her, Beleger; her skills are so far superior to mine in the wild." His head fell to his hands. "Some part of me knew that she would not be here, for the emptiness I felt - somewhere near my heart - did not subside as we neared this place. As long as she runs, I will never find her."
But Amela was not running, and neither was Fleetfoot; he had run hard the day before, and they both were weary; thus they had been more than willing to opt for a slower pace on their second day of travel. It was quiet, and the muffled thud of Fleetfoot's hooves, as solemn as his rider's mood, on the spongy earth sounded for long hours before the pair halted.
And that is when they heard it: both mounts; both riders.
A disorganised pounding of thousands of iron clad feet marching over open lands. Amela quickly scaled a nearby large boulder, and Boromir rode Beleger to the peak of one of the many steep hills this close to the Misty Mountains. They could see small lights, as if from crude torches, amid a vast dark cloud travelling swiftly across the lands of Rohan. It was coming from the Northwest...
"From Isengard." Both riders uttered the name of that place with an unfamiliar, sinister weight.
While they themselves were still divided, from that moment their purpose was united: from the direction in which the orcs were headed, it was clear that Edoras was not their target.
"They are marching on Helm's Deep. Come, Beleger, we must arrive ahead of them!" He set the horse off at a slow canter; they needed to move quickly, but they had also not to stop until they reached the keep. As a Rohirric war horse, Beleger was more than up to the task.
Amela, too, had read the signs and knew where her next destination was, but as she was significantly farther from the fortress (and her horse much more rested than Boromir's) the urged Fleetfoot on at a stronger canter, in order to reach Helm's Deep in time.
It took little more than a day's ride for Boromir to reach the rocky walls of Helm's Deep (Amela arrived soon after, not that he knew). Both Fleetfoot and Beleger were held with the other horses, and their riders stationed at where they were deemed the most useful: Boromir with the warriors; Amela with the Rohirric archers.
Within hours, tens of thousands of Isengard uruk-hai were upon the keep, a shrill, evil horn pierced the air, and hence the battle of Helm's Deep began, and it was chaotic, and it was bloody. From the walls, archers released hundreds of arrows, which rained like a deathly downpour on the orc legions, piercing their crude armour and vile flesh. Alongside those of the men of Rohan and the elves of Lothlórien, Amela's arrows flew amongst the fray, slaying many an uruk. One even pierced the eye of a particularly sizeable orc, sending him stumbling backwards and off the edge of the ramp he was ascending, taking ten of his comrades with him.
"Pendraith!" Aragorn shouted to the elves around him. Above the noise of clashing steel and flying arrows, Amela heard the cry.
"Ladders!" She yelled to the men of Rohan with whom she fought. Although shocked to see a woman in battle, they took her warning gratefully. As farmers and tradesmen, their skill was not in war, but the orcs had come for a fight, and a fight they gave them. The men of Rohan slew their enemies as bravely and with as much fervour as the legendary warriors of old.
Soon after, there came a deafening boom from another area of the fortress: giant chucks of blood stained rock were flung down onto both sides of the fight. Being closer to the blast than most, Boromir was almost thrown back by it (and he would have been, if not for his strong stance). Raising his sword, the great gondorian charged into the wave of rampaging orcs with fire in his eyes and in his heart.
"For Gondor! For Rohan!" He yelled. Hearing his cry, the other warriors felt their hearts lifted. Alongside Boromir and Gimli, they fought back the uruk-hai with some success. Some... but little. Boromir was proving to be a hazard to the uruk hai forces, and so had been identified as a key target. From the top of a fallen piece of rock, an orc captain released a dark arrow. The wicked thing pierced Boromir's chest, then another shot threw his shoulder. He staggered.
Meanwhile, up on the walls, the fight was raging even harder. Perched on a battlement, Legolas sent out arrow after lethal arrow, each killing an uruk and sending at least three more falling to the hard ground below. Focussed solely on his targets, the elf left his immediate surroundings unchecked, at his own risk. As he loosed yet another winning shot, he heard a rough cackle behind him; he turned to see an uruk scimitar bearing down on his stunned face. Dodging would have been futile, if it weren't for the good nature of another fighter, who leapt between the blade and Legolas, disarming its wielder with a dramatic clash. With a second swing of their sword, the offending orc lost its head by the hand of Legolas' saviour.
"Thank you, frie-" But the face he addressed is not one he would normally choose to name as such. "Amela..." he paused, confused, "but you... thank you."
"Lle creoso." Was all the woman said before turning back to the fight. Just as well, for a huge orc was charging down the wall, killing as he went. Swift as a spring swallow, Amela slid along the floor - between the orc's legs - and slashed both his knees as she passed through. After finishing him off with an arrow to the brain, Legolas, begrudgingly, admitted that he was impressed with her performance.
As Amela got back onto her feet, Théoden's voice could be heard above the battle's noise.
"Aragorn! Fall back to the keep! Get your men out of there!"
And then Aragorn's.
"Nan barad"! Yelled Aragorn to the elvish troops.
Both orders held meaning to Amela, so after running a few more orcs threw with her sword, she started to head back to the stronghold of Helm's Deep. All running for the same place, the remaining fighters made quite the powerful wave. Large chunks of the walls had been lost, leaving the men running along the towering structures without barriers at times. To avoid falling to her death, Amela chose to leap over the gaps in her path when she could. But, the stone was wet with rain and thick orc blood; rushing past, a soldier knocked her as she jumped. Her hand took a hard hit on the way down, breaking her left wrist. Clinging to the keep's walls by the tips of her fingers, she could hear the roars of Isengard's army below her. It seemed impossible to cling to such a slippery surface, and it proved so, for she fell.
But she did not fall far; a familiar, strong hand had saved her, and now began to pull her up as she tried to scale the wet rock. With a strong flick of her hair, she looked up at him: Boromir. But his injuries and the effort of running to the keep with arrows embedded in his torso had sapped his strength; he held a tight grip on Amela's wrist, but he was struggling to keep himself from slipping further toward the edge of the wall. His struggle was clear to Amela.
"Let me go! You'll fall!" She cried to him.
"No! I let you go before; the pain of the fall would be nothing compared to what I would feel if I let that happen again."
The captain could not hold his place for long, and he soon lost it altogether: he began to slide quickly toward the edge... toward death.