INTERLUDE - Tharbad

It was long ago that I was taught to look no farther than our borders; that none beyond our ken could aid us - we have outlived them all.  Gondor now stands watchful and alone.

Yet when the sun rises in the East tomorrow I will turn my back on the South anew seeking aid.  Not even my Westward shadow will remain to say I have passed into the desolate North.  My time of waiting is at an end.  This quest has brought me to the edge of the known world and soon I must pass over - through water, into dust. 

Of water I have no fear.  The Gwathló that was in spring like a youth o'errunning his bounds is now, in late summer, like a man new married: shallow, settled, and spreading fat.  He will permit me passage with but a wave and a wetting I have no doubt.  But dust? ... for that is all will greet me on the other side.

If Northward my goal truly lies.  The maps in my father's halls could tell me little and even my brother the lore-master could not find me a compass among the books he knew.  I know not by what peregrinations I might make my way yet way must be found to go forward, from the past of Men into the everlasting world of Elves.

It was long ago men left this land; little here that was survives.  But once there thrived three kingdoms:  brothers who in their pride begot only betrayal, their greed only loss, their resistance - fratricide.  I have cared little for study but learned well the lessons they teach:  Arthedain, Cardolan, Rhudaur.  Once they stood for strength; now their names spell only a pethurin of ruin.

It is toward this patrimony I now must turn my way.

For a thousand years the North Kingdoms withstood Evil, reflecting our efforts in the South.  But once divided they fell one by one upon the Witch-King's sword, leaving only this legacy:

All our pride will come to nothing.

ADVANCE

At last the Enemy ceased his endless dallying with my brother and made advances toward me not even my father could blunt.

In the gentler light and warmer days of Nárië, a peace of growing things settled on Anórien like dust.  At the same time, the heavy toll my brother exacted on any daring the Harondor road seemed to return a stillness to Ithilien.  More for caution than for cause I reinforced the garrisons at Pelargir and Cair Andros, and sent warning word to Rohan but there, too, a troubling silence reigned.  Silence, also, was all that came to us on an unseasonable east wind, though I'd no doubt that in the Dark Land things also were growing - things never meant for peace. 

And so it proved.  In the full of the moon they came for us:  a flood of Orc from the Morgol pass to break upon Osgiliath.

Osgiliath:  she was built on dreams, and hope was in her mortar.  Oft she has been abandoned but never forsaken; it was my father reclaimed her and faithfully I have held her in the Enemy's face.  There, now, my brother gathered his men to dam the attack and await our arrival.

The Unnamed called and I was loosed upon him.

It was glorious.

With five hundred mounted knights and faithful Edros at my back we came, the sun making beacons of our armor and noble banners snapping at one another eagerly in the breeze.  Throughout the Pelennor we were cheered by farmers to whose raised hoes and spades we lifted our swords in salute, and by farmers' daughters running to offer flowers and, in one notable instance, the first sweet fruits of the growing season.  At the Causeway, too, I saluted those stalwarts charged with remaining, glad in my heart their duty was no longer mine.

Our way was paved in gold, as we descended the dike just as the sun was lowering herself over the White Tower.  But my eyes, my thoughts, were fixed all upon the East and the twisting serpent of the Enemy I could see making its way down the length of the Morgul vale - a writhing, black serpent harried by wasps, for already Faramir and his men were at work.  I confess I laughed to see it, both for joy of them and at my own irrepressible jealousy that it was not I first upon the field.  With their bows no doubt singing his men picked and poked at the column, but of the damage they no doubt inflicted I could see no sign:  unflinching, the Enemy came on, perhaps ten thousand strong.

My heart fell.

Here was but another overture:  a mere wink in the street, a nosegay sent anonymously.

Such a force of Orc, on foot and armed only with what each might carry, could have only a limited purpose.

Though once overflowing with riches brought in tribute from both land and sea, now the dowager Osgiliath retained but one treasure - the river crossing, and it was this the Enemy would seek to secure. 

But that I would never allow.  

Daylight fled as we reached the city.  In the imperfect dimness the ruined towers of Osgiliath seemed to stand alone against the night, but my eye quickly found those sentries Faramir had set to wait our coming.  Silently they returned Edros's signal, turned, and passed that signal on to where my brother would at that moment be cementing his defenses in the easternmost reaches of the city.

I moved my men to join him, passing swiftly and smartly through the broken and denuded avenues of Osgiliath as if still on parade.  At the river, we were met simultaneously by Faramir's men and the repellent sound of hollow drums and harsh horns, forced together from the parts of who-could-say-what living things, cracking like a whip on the back of the wind.  The Enemy was even then assembling his force upon the field.  I let my own horn bell in answer and put the Unnamed on notice:  we had left all but Strength and Right behind us.

Yes, all was unfolding as we had planned it, all those long nights poring over maps and wine - Faramir, Father and I; I felt there was no move the Enemy might make but we had already envisioned it.

I gave my captains orders the men be readied and sent the horses that had borne us so faithfully away, trusting we would need them only to take us home again victorious.  Then, at long last, I spoke the words that would lead me to Faramir and, with him, I imagined, Hirningail.

Only too well could I envision him there, amidst the steadfast brotherhoods of Osgiliath and Ithilien:  it was my place he'd been given.  But, then, had I not since taken his as it should have been?

Faramir greeted me, swearing: "Fain nast a nath!  You've come! and with what force?" 

- and made me laugh for joy of him: "Enough, Brother, enough."

It had been some time since we had seen one another and he embraced me well, and I him.  But in his eyes I saw the shadows of those lost to his command and wished, not for the last time, Victory be swift.  I clasped him tighter, and for a moment longer, before letting him turn me to those men and advisors he had gathered about him.  Friends, veterans, and campaigners all I greeted each heartily and with what news I could of kinsfolk elsewhere - father, sons, brothers - all those who bulwarked their efforts here.

And there was Hirningail, numbered among those my brother had brought into his trust even as I had recommended him.  He too, I could see, wore those wearying days of war clearly upon his face.  I wondered, for a moment, if he had found in the field all he had so fervently wished for when safely behind the walls of Minas Tirith, and a pang of remorse sounded in my chest.  But it could not stir my tongue, so recently entangled as it had been with his intended.

He greeted me with all due love.  Clearly, he remained ignorant.  Had he but known it, I had left Othuiel only a few hours since, the smell of the sweat that had so sweetly slicked her skin only just beginning to fade from the room.

I had watched as the battalion containing Hirningail departed, as I had watched each one before.  Only this time did I allow my petulance to be somewhat mollified by the knowledge that every step he took from me, brought Othuiel only that much closer. 

Then could I let the days pass much as they had before, without rancor.  Then did the chains of my confinement seem to loosen and the White City again to smile, for over one thing at least I felt I had already gained mastery.  For no matter with what dreams she warmed her nights or occupations filled her days Othuiel, I knew, would wait, even as I did, for some other's hand to unbolt the door.

Her lock was not hard to breach.  Inside, all was stillness, and I savored it.  The thought flitted ruefully that, for the first time in years, I had entered a room without causing a stir.  Not even starlight seemed to have followed me in from the street; the door that had admitted me so easily had kept out all else.

Still, it had stripped me of something, taken some toll; in that house, with no eyes to see or tongues to tell, what had I become?

The place was as I remembered, the long nights of delirium had not grown it in my mind.  Still I saw it as in a fevered dream:  the dark passage close and pulsing; precipitous stairs, suddenly rising; rooms above - waiting, empty.  My distorted vision lacked only Othuiel, and I with her as I'd seen us a thousand times:  grappling, writhing, sated.

She came from the scullery - I could smell the steam off her.  And already she was undone:  dripping tendrils of hair had escaped their bindings; one shoulder had slipped the careless weave of her blouse; her throat was exposed.  Scorched, I stood watching as a drop of water stole away and snaked a path between her breasts.

Like wine to a drunkard:  curse and cure.

At the sight of me she halted, and for a long moment I confronted my reflection in her eyes.  How must I have appeared, looming in her entryway?  Thief?  Accomplice?  Savior?   But I was none.

She fell back.

The secret to any successful campaign is to convince your opponent it is in his best interest to surrender.  Else he will fight you unto death and that is no victory.  Now, with Orcs this is difficult, they have no will of their own, but women ...

I did not advance.

She was a flickering, shimmering thing in the dimness - lightning in an apron and washing rags.  Warring impulses - to flee, to fight, to feint - flashed across her face though her body made nary a move, and her gaze remained lodged in mine and quivering.

She crackled and I burned.

But what choice had she?  She, who had so thoroughly enslaved my will.  For her I had become inevitable, insuperable.  I alone had seen in her a hunger and dissatisfaction equal nearly to my own.  I alone had heard the echo from her heart of empty chambers and beds unshared.  There was nothing in that house could satisfy her yearning; nothing beyond in the all streets of Minas Tirith that would not leave her wanting.  Nights upon nights I had searched and come, at long last, to this place.

Still, it seemed an eternity till she stirred, opened her mouth, and then thought better of it, rightly:  there could be no parley between us.  Her hands wrung together once, twice, and then fluttered like flags to her side.

I had her there, in the hall.

Her surrender was unconditional.

INTERLUDE - Rath Lanc

All those weeks of denial erased in just two strides ...

I was with her in a moment, pressed up against her, crushing her to me against that wall.  Her body beneath mine seemed fey and rippling, all fingers, hips and frothy breath; ever entangling, loosening, entangling again.

Quickly I learned of her all her skin had to tell, sucked into my mouth any bared flesh within reach, consuming her voraciously and shamelessly.  I slathered her with a tongue I imagined she could not know: "Yl nin na lach pannech, chun nin ylf echannech, a echannech." 

Her taste was like pain remembered:  sharp and emboldening;  her touch as fire to steel - incendiary, destructive, ultimately hardening.

I seized handfuls of shift, pulled loose all her bindings.  There was a tear, a gasp; promise of things to come.  "It will mend," I murmured into her neck, thinking to console her.  But there were more things rent that day, rent beyond repair.

In but a moment I had her as I'd dreamed her endlessly:  bodice pushed down, skirt rucked up.  Nothing is more irresistible to a soldier, than a breach.  I raised her, reached through her legs to free myself, and seated her upon me.

Just a pull, a push, and she was mine.

Molten.  Flowing and heated, inside she was a burnishing crucible that seemed to hone me to a new purpose.

I felt the veil of her virginity tear and groaned.  I would have torn her again and again if I could.  Then for some time there was no sound, just the gasps from her compressed lungs, the rasp of my breath across the smoothness of her cheek, and the slap, slap, slapping of our thighs together, urging me on. 

And when at last I felt her stiffen in a rictus of ecstasy, I roared my release into the stone at her back, and could well imagine the White Tower high above, shaken with the force of it.

Afterwards, after all the straightening and the fastening, she fed me.

It was poor enough reward, merely bread, smoked meat and beer but I received it with greater relish than anything had been offered to me recently and from more elevated tables.  Indeed, so satisfied was I, it was some time before I missed Othuiel from the room, but moments only before I found her again.

She was bathing, rinsing away the blood that had stained her thighs.  In that cool, dark room she bent to the basin, squeezed her sponge until bubbles rose from its surface, then released it to drag across her skin.  Above, her shift clung to her damp breasts as I had only minutes before; below, it waved over her rear, side to side, like a conjurer's curtain.

From the doorway I drank her in, my appetite rising again ... that hair shot red with flame like the fires of Amon Amarth; that skin, gold as the sands of Harondor - all that had tempted me to covetousness ... as unlike to the ladies that wafted about the court as good leather is to silk.  A drop of water slipped slowly down inside her knee and I felt a hackle of envy rise at its trespass. 

I shifted, she startled, and I caught at her gaze.

Then I crossed the distance between us, toeing off my boots and loosening my trousers.  Immediately her eyes dropped, she gasped.

"You see.  Othuiel."

I took her chin in my hand and raised her eyes to mine, then took the sponge from her shy fingers and put it to my own legs.  The tainted water between us deepened.

"You see.  This deed has marked us both."

Then I returned my attention to her, bathed her, and caressed her, until her blood turned to frothy slip between my fingers.  Then I had her again 'midst the detritus of my meal.

That night I dreamed again of the ocean, but it managed barely a ripple and lay down before me.

ENGAGE

Your faith was strong but you needed proof
You saw her bathing on the roof
Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you
She tied you to a kitchen chair
She broke your throne, and she cut your hair
And from your lips she drew the 'Hallelujah'
Leonard Cohen, "Hallelujah"

Did my Father know?  Long ago I learned to assume my father knows everything.  Regardless, he said nothing, and as the fitful days of spring stretched languorously into summer I visited Rath Lanc often, and at will.

Nothing could sway my mood or slake my appetite for Othuiel, and an appetite she had become.  After a day's training, the evening's review, nights of council and all other duties were dispatched - and eventually, before - I would go to her and roam freely over her contours and her curves.  In short order I learned each childhood scar, each wayward hair, every imperfection as no part of her body was withheld from me.

Always I found her there, though I came and went solely at my own pleasure.

A willing pupil she grew to satisfy every need of my flesh and I visited upon her every act my dulled and ill-exercised imagination could envision.  I spared her little kindness.  I arrived alone, left alone; took little, gave less.  It is only here, in this emptiness with but the stones to hear and wind to answer I can freely own what dishonor I did to her, and the joy we both took from it.

Even her monthly bleeding did not deter us.  By blood she was mine; I had taken from her something no other man would ever have and with her blood she had marked me.

Did the thought ever occur that I had ruined her for him?  No.  I thought only that I had taken to myself something that he did not deserve and could not use.  I alone had seen the hunger in her, the desire - seen it, fostered it, satisfied it.  She deserved only such a one as I - strong, proud, experienced, not forever to be left wanting by the short dick and fumbling hands of that boy.

That is what I thought, when I thought at all.

My men knew ... something - they are not fools - but cared only that I was riding some back other than theirs for a change.  Oh, there were whispers of the barroom sort, but they were always gulped down if ever I drew near.  Even the veteran commanders, those I had known in my youth, that had trained me and I had surpassed smothered their smiles.  Their indulgence mattered not at all.

And Faramir?  Like our father he has ever been a voracious reader of other's hearts, and mine more open to him than most.  Had the days and nights I'd spent with Othuiel burned themselves upon my soul for him to see?  Within the idle walls of Minas Tirith often I had wondered but as we sat together in the growing dark of Osgiliath we spoke only of the fight to come.

They came for us at dusk.  To war against Mordor is to fight always in darkness.  

But with my brother, the men of Gondor and Osgiliath as our ally, I knew I could rob from them their darkness and turn their greater numbers to our advantage.  It is not for my noble birth alone I have achieved this charge I hold so dear. 

The men I set to barricades we'd long ago constructed where once Osgiliath had credulously opened her gates.  To Faramir and his Rangers I gave the South quadrant; Captain Ârhil, Commander of the Osgiliath Garrison, would stand the North; the most Easternly I would hold against all that Mordor could weigh against us.  There we waited, in the dark.

Strange, to not face one's adversary, to rely on guesswork and experience to grasp his full configuration.  We could hear them, and we could smell them, but we could not see them.  Beyond the barricade was but a churning darkness, a roiling mass of black only here and there lit by torches - stars in a seething sea, a perverted reflection.

And mine not a patient nature.  I nodded to Edros and one flaming arrow split the sky, followed by some thousand cloaked others whistling in the dark.  No matter my archers could not see their targets:  the Enemy was so thick upon the field no arrow fell but did some good work.

Mordor howled and we cheered.  Then the Enemy closed upon us.

It was all small fighting, but long work and patient, full of those wounds that incapacitate and fester, that maim but do not kill.  They came at us with pikes, we answered with spears; they came at us with axes, we answered with swords.  We had but to hold them, we had but to hold them until the sun should rise again on our side.

My sword I took wherever the fighting and hearts were heaviest, as through the night the great beast of Mordor flung itself first this way then that against our defenses.

There is nothing more vile than an army of Orc.  Nearly tireless, seemingly mindless, and indescribably foul what they cannot destroy through strength of arms they will despoil by strength of appetite; woe to both land and landowner that fall within their path.  Many an Orc I have killed with the flesh of my comrades still caught in its teeth.

Yes, Orcs are fearsome foes, but familiar, and something different in their fight that night I did discern:  intent, intent beyond destruction.  From one quarter and then another they attacked us, engaged, and then withdrew before ever we could quite repel them, and in their strategy I recognized my opponent - no mere Orc chieftain, but some greater mind at last sent to test us.  But it would take more than some minion of Mordor, I believed, to school me; every teacher in turn I had eclipsed.  This one might knock, but he could not enter.

Oh, occasionally I did invite him in, as any good host would a guest come begging at his gates, but only to divide and slaughter his force in blind alleys and between reinforced walls where their massive battalions could not maneuver.  Our stewardship of Osgiliath had not been idle.

And so it went, so it went until my heart was shivered by a dread horn call from the North.

Alarm - 

Ârhil!  

My adversary must have at last made his dint, and like a flood undammed would quickly sweep all away before if we could not in short order turn the tide.  For in Osgiliath all roads lead to the river, and should one be opened long enough it would act as a sluice and drown us all. 

It was a call, though I had ordered it, I could not bring myself to answer.  I passed the nod to Edros.

Fall Back.

The notes as he winded them sounded weak and mournful upon the wind.  Then another call came rising from the South - 

Faramir:  he was well;

and from the North another:  Ârhil, answering.

It was on, then.

Hurriedly, barking orders and spitting curses, I yanked all those men from the line that could be spared and dispatched them to the coveted bridge; those stalwart reserves I had positioned there would have need of them.  True to their training they went directly, and my heart filled with their swiftness and their silence.  A few more precious minutes in which to effect their withdrawal was the greatest reward that I could give them.

Kept to me then were those others who, like myself, enjoyed a particular relish for fighting and disrespect for safety: the strongest and most brutal of my defenders.  Amongst them now I took my place upon the barricade leaving behind, for a time at least, all restraint of leadership. 

The pleasure of doing something at which one excels ... my laughter rang as I swung my sword into the wind and it belled a clarion tone in answer, a tone at once multiplied fiftyfold about me in a dreadful chorus.  It was fell music, but in it I heard only the glory of Gondor and the cheering of her people.  

We carved into that enemy like a surgeon into putrescence.

They came at us like something starved and rabid, scrambling and clawing over one another in their hunger for carnage.  The first I slew before even he could raise his axe; the second was a little faster.  I disarmed him as he sought to cleave my knee, and left him screaming at the sight of his limbs upon the ground.  The next gave me more trouble, though he was but a craven, twisted thing.  When at last my sword found clear path through his gut his black and sticky blood had formed in puddles about my boots fouling my footwork - even dead they make things difficult.

Though the growls, whines and shrieks of the enemy crowded upon my ears, I kept myself attuned to the sounds of success or failure about me.  I heard Edros's own grunts and yells as he forged his way alongside, and the beat of spear and ring of sword increase as more and more of the foe engaged us.  Oronar, Ringaer, and Taurnil fell, before a ripple seemed to pass through the enemy as if to some unseen signal.  Then their grins widened and gibbous cheers grew to deafening.  At last they seemed to have discovered what I wished I could ignore:  they had gained the first advantage.

It was time to go.

I seized my horn and blew upon it a blast set the enemy back more completely than any sword stroke, dispatched one last Orc to his fellows, and jumped back down into the street. 

Then we ran, ran though it galled me through the beleaguered ways of Osgiliath, through lanes and walls alike.  We paused only when necessary to ensure our safe passage, expecting at every moment to encounter fresh foe though, inside, the city was strangely quiet, as if afraid herself to jeopardize her rescue.  I could almost believe no rout was in progress until shouts from behind told me the chase, indeed, was on.

Who was he, their unseen captain?  The question pursued me as we went.  He had driven his forces against our walls row after rank and putrid row, more as weapons themselves than as warriors.  Who was he, after all so self-assured of victory?  Or confident victory was not his goal?  And yet our line had been broken ...

For the first time since arriving, I began to worry after Faramir, and Ârhil.

When at last we gained the square the sight that assaulted my eyes was as unwanted as it was unlooked for, though it answered my riddle:

Livery glaring as the southern sun, banners scarlet and jagged as a wound, curving swords stained bright with blood, the blood of Gondor -

Haradrim.

No doubt it was these had tipped the balance of the fight, overcome our barricade and rushed through the breach to be first upon this scene.  Their arrows, black-fletched and red-, protruded offensively from Gondorian arms, armor, and the fallen, pointing to the suddenness of the attack, while good Gondorian spears jutted sadly from the breasts of some few score horses, exposing its cruelty: even their mounts they had brought to bear as weapons.  Many yet screamed and struggled with life, while their callous masters fought about them, and atop them.

Yet the reserves I had left to keep the bridge still firmly held their ground, aided by those valiants I had sent in aid.  Swiftly, I moved to join them, gladdened to number so many of my company still amongst the standing.

Then, at last, I was able to loose my men and the Southrons were swept away before us.  But there was no time to savor even this little win, for Haradrim upon the field we know are as wind:  fierce, easily exhausted, and heralding the storm surge yet to come.

Already the stones of Osgiliath vibrated with its approach and the piteous cries of dying horses were giving way before fiendish yowls and hideous gibbering.  I hastened to reorder my men.

Still Faramir had not arrived;  nor Ârhil.

Yet ever my brother has kept true faith with me, and I him, and that night was no exception.

A brilliant chorus of horns heralded his arrival; I might have thought us at some frivolity were his visage not so grim.  Still I hailed him with joy above the clamor to witness it, and the efficiency with which his rangers deployed themselves for him, every bow armed and at the ready behind the dam of arms I had already cemented in place.

To them I gave the next play, and many an Orc breathed its last before ever reaching the square thanks to their proficiency.  The Enemy began to pile up in the breaks, though the dead flesh  would form more of a distraction, than an obstacle, I knew. 

Then they were upon us, the battle begun anew.  Now in the torchlight Orcs, more Haradrim, and even mulish Easterlings could I see surging toward us, but again we turned what seemed their advantage into ours.

I prefer to fight in the open - this the Enemy knows - but long ago formed plans for a defense even so confined.  True, I had not thought to need them. 

They brought the chisel to us hard, the river behind and Mordor before.  Yet my men stood the stronger for it, an impenetrable wall, and I the cornerstone. 

So we persevered, row by row.  We persevered as the dark deepened and the stars faded above us.  We persevered until that hour of dark when all souls feel hollow, men shudder and women wake listening; that desolate hour which neither Dawn nor Night seems ever to own, but hangs between unclaimed.  It changed hands that night in Osgiliath.  We heard the deal struck, though to neither the departing Night nor the coming Dawn, but to Death.  It came in a sudden absence of wind, a deepening of dark, a deafness of sound ...

The Mordor forces felt it, too.  The crush of them seemed to spread, to soften, the pace of their onslaught to slow.  I slew more than a few as incomprehensible grins replaced their fervor.

Then they began, inexplicably, to retreat.

A cheer of victory rose from my men and then died in the airless dark, and many froze with his horn but a breath away from his lips.  There was a disturbance beyond the foe.

Something was coming.

Then Ârhil broke upon the scene taking all of us by surprise.

Many voices that had been held in caution now joyfully burst forth and my men of their own wills advanced, but I watched voiceless as the remains of the Osgiliath garrison charged into the Enemy.

They did not come hearts honed, jaws set, throats outcrying for battle, but flung themselves, wild-eyed, headlong into the Mordor force, slaying what they found there as if only to clear an obstacle, more being slain before they could even raise their weapons.

This was no attack.

My eyes flew, skrying up the streets that ran toward us but found there nothing ... nothing ... a dizzying darkness, an abyss of shadow. 

Cold doubt suddenly seized my heart, and squeezed.  My teeth sprang together like a trap, and the twin tastes of bile and fear coated my tongue but my throat would not work to clear them.   My nostrils were assaulted by the smells of terror blooming about me - vomit, piss, and the sound of curses and weeping.  How much of it emanated from myself I could not know.

My lungs flattened and my joints unstrung themselves forcing me to the pavement.  I fought to screw my sight to my companions, my brother, but could not retrieve my eyes, cold and dry as ice, frozen to the dark.

From the night emerged the shapes of horses and mounted upon them, darkness within darkness, forms shrouded and limned only in black, but upon the foremost  a crown of cold and twisted silver.

So it was my opponent revealed himself to me at last, and revealed still more.  For his mind's eye seemed to flay my heart, and as I lay in stupor or in madness vision after fateful vision paraded before me, while he himself went unmolested. 

Minutes, days, months seemed to fly past in the eddies of his cloak:  all blood, all fire, all bones, all dust.

So it was I knew him, as I knew myself:  Sauron's first servant, he who seduced the North Kingdoms to destruction and ended the reign of kings in the South:  Witch King, Lord of the Nazgûl, come to wreak our ruin.

But me he spared not even a glance.

Then they were gone, passed over the bridge and into defenseless Anórien leaving, in their wake, pandemonium.  Enfrenzied, Orcs pranced into our ranks, taking upon themselves what their masters had not deigned to do - our utter destruction.  And I, to my eternal mortification, could not command myself to aid, but crept shamefully into the shelter of some ancient monument, unmarked.  I would have wept, but could only watch as my men cowered and cringed upon the pavement, defenseless, senseless to death approaching with gleeful leers. 

Sharp screams, bright blood, vivid death now pierced the shadow swathed about me.  And the foe did not limit themselves to use of weapons; many men were simply riven before me while my mind could but skitter wildly across the brittle stone, our fragile weapons, the frail and corrupted bodies of my hopeless comrades, until I found Faramir, not far away, cradling stone.

He spat at me -

"Fall back."

Fall ... the word tasted of ash in my mouth.  Fall?  Then he had seen it, too, the visions ...  I shook my head, violently, but my thoughts did seem to clear somewhat.

He clenched his eyelids and worked a swallow down his throat.  He seemed to shrink, and draw in upon himself, but when he opened his eyes again they were not so wild as before.

"Cross the river," he rasped. "We must ... fall back."

But my mind was still clouded by Morgul sight.  Had I heard an order?  My little brother would seek to order me?  I ground my teeth and my mouth filled with an acrid, cloying warmth, both bitter and bright - 

The taste of my own blood.  I'd almost forgotten it.

Fall Back.  

Fall.

Indeed.  At last I heard the right of it, and found my feet.  Then I extended a hand to him.

"You must go."

"I?"

"Aye."

He stopped.  Could he not see the carnage, the weapons loose all about us?  But, of course he did, and no doubt felt it more keenly than I.  I took him by the shoulder and propelled him toward the bridge.

"Go! and take with you the ordering of the Western Shore; the Enemy must not be allowed further into Anórien."  His face immediately clouded with questions, plans, imaginings, but we'd time for none of that.  "Your archers must provide cover if any of my men are to stand with you come the Dawn.  But two send away to the Causeway:  they will need what warning we can give them, and we will need what men they can spare.  Lastly, my brother," I fixed the bridge with a baleful stare, that thin spit of stone which connected us now to Mordor, "order the barricade."

To his credit, his step faltered almost imperceptibly, and he gave me only the barest nod in full understanding of what I myself would not say aloud.  "It will all be done, just as you say."

Then I wanted to embrace him, repay the faith in his simple words with action, but gave him only a final shove.

"Go."

It was he pulled us together, whispering:  "I will see you on the other shore." 

"Aye."  What could I do but promise him?  "That you will."

Then he was gone, vanished into the slaughter.

I returned my attention to the field, and bellowed:  "Edros!"

"Captain!  Here."

And, indeed, here he was, seeming impervious to the bloodshed all about him, as if invulnerable to all but my command.  I indulged myself a moment to savor his continued survival, before I raised my horn.

Regroup!  Regroup!

Clear and sharp as crystal the notes hung above all, then fell, piercing into the triumph of our foe and shattering the despair that enshrouded my force.  It was but a moment the Enemy paused, but in that moment I rejoiced anew.

"To me, Men of Gondor!  To me!"

Together with Edros I carved a path in Orc flesh to the edge of the bridge, where last I'd stood it seemed a lifetime ago.  We exacted a cost as dear as possible upon the Enemy, though no recompense was sufficient for the safe passage of their masters.

"To me!"

My call echoed and was magnified as the men rallied, though many recovered their wits only to have them robbed again by a merciless Orc blade or Easterling's hammer.  We assembled our damaged defense only at great pains to choke the flow of Orcs and evil Men across the river.  But without our shield my brother would not gain the Western shore, and vouchsafe our crossing in return.

It seemed an eternity I waited for his signal.  How had I come to be in this place, the night gone so unexpectedly?  And would it never be day ...

A timely hail of arrows brought word of Faramir's readiness.  Now was the time for our final move, but one.

Retreat.

And this time I, myself, raised the signal, though the very taste of it was foul in my mouth, and methought the city herself did shudder at the sound.

But there was nothing else for it; in one night Mordor had taken from me what my father had held for fifty years.  What else might he lose in the coming day if I could not hold Mordor behind the Anduin?  My own company formed the cordon behind which our defense slipped away across the bridge or into the waiting ferries.  I offered a silent prayer "Eglerio Tulkas"  that some might survive to fight again upon the other side.

No more thought than that could I spare to what occurred behind me, for before me raged all the Enemy's force.  It was not long before Edros and I, with a few stout others, were all that stood between Gondor and her ruin.  We fought, hand to hand, not only with the foe that faced us but with his cohorts pushing in behind, so eager were they for a taste of our blood. 

I remember the smell, and the sound - snarling, jeering, shrieks of pain - as I lifted sword and shield again and again, becoming less swordsman, and more butcher with every slice.

But then we, too, were able, like those last few grains in the throat of the hourglass, to slip backwards through the barricade even as it was assembled about us. 

There, at last, behind a wall of good Firien oak, treble-thick, spanning the bridge and draping down the sides, could I allow myself a moment's rest. 

But relief turned quickly to fury.  For there amongst those I found about me was one I'd not thought to see till day:  Faramir.

And with him, Hirningail.

To the latter I gave not a thought.  My brother I grabbed bodily by the shoulders, and shook in my anger.  "What are you doing?  You should be there," I pulled him about to face the West, "away from here.  Have you learned nothing I have taught you?"  Nothing would have relieved me more than to fling him unceremoniously into the river.

But for me he had only a rueful smile.  "On the contrary.  I have learned everything you ever taught me."

And so I laughed, there in that fragile corner of quiet with but oak and flesh between us and death; I laughed.  Only my brother could craft such an accusatory compliment, and against it I was defenseless.  I clasped him to me tightly.

"Then do not make me regret setting you such a strong example!"

And, faith, I was relieved to have him.  I do not need to be told this is disastrous strategy:  the future of the Stewardship - indeed, all Gondor - stood as one, vulnerable, upon that bridge, but there are few I can depend upon more, and need to instruct less.

Upon that bridge perhaps he alone could fully apprehend our situation, the future it necessitated, and the sacrifice, the burden, I would ask these men to share.

But was it not meet?  I looked about at the worn faces of my comrades:  so many noble scions of Sadron, Celonnen and Hurin.  For it was of these the garrisons of Ithilien and Osgiliath had always been made, those who had dwelt there in years of peace, who had loved them.  Who but we should ring her death knell?  Who but I?

Yes, we would abandon Osgiliath.  Though it be aiding the Enemy in his work, the mortal blow would be dealt the city herself.

I braced my back up against the barricade and turned a final time, to Edros.  "Now, for you, my friend.  Go across the river and give the order:  pull it down.  The bridge must come down."

About me fell a grim silence, but I kept my eyes only to Edros.  The fullness of this duty was immediately apparent to him; he always was the clever one.  It was the river would decide our fate, a grief-stricken Steward his, should he fail.  This time I could offer him no protection; there was no more protecting any of us.

He stepped forward, nodding with uncharacteristic seriousness, and took my outstretched hand.  "I will go.  I will leave your side because you order it, but understand," then he stepped close that his words reached my ears alone, "Next time, it is my turn to choose our game!"  And he left me with that rakish grin I love so well.

He was no sooner gone than spears and arrows followed, but he seemed as impervious as ever, and was quickly lost to my sight.  And my attention was commanded elsewhere; the fierce doggedness of the Enemy began again to assault our ears, and our backs.  Rhythmically the wood pushed at us lined against it, complaining with whines and groans, but held.

Yet every barrier I had put before them this night the Enemy had breached, be it of stone or men.  Could now wood survive?  Surely, no.  I was again but buying time, waiting for another's move, and I a lord so unused to penury!  Would I now be reduced to begging?

I stood away from the barricade.  The Enemy would not get through it, but they were already trying to get over it, and around it, and I will admit I looked upon their efforts with gratitude.  I lifted my sword to join them, and in no time had arms, feet, claws, and snouts falling about me like triumphal flowers as I gladly removed all from their owners if but a shadow showed about the barricade.

There proved to be work enough for all; my companions, with grisly satisfaction and warlike efficiency, took to tossing the refuse back from whence it came, to the outraged howls of our adversaries.

Still, when Edros's warning signal came I was ready for it.  Time was running out.

Lieutenant Mahtan, Sergeants Haldamir, Culsir and three others then I ordered across.  That left but four of us upon the bridge:  Faramir, Hirningail, Sergeant Dínendâl and myself, the last champions of Osgiliath, if traitorous ones. 

To each man departing I gave my hand, and my oath - lalaith a ruth - that we would be together again ere long, knowing all the while, one way or another, that I would be foresworn.

I did not watch them go, but amidst the yowls and shrieks of my dismembering markedly tracked their progress by whistle of arrows, answering thunk of shields, and splash of the river receiving at least one body.  Then the dying groans of the bridge rose above all.

Do you know the voice of stone?  Though conquerors of water and of land, it is stone forms the heart of our home and nightly it has sung me to sleep ever since I can remember.  The stone-shaping skill of Numenor made the first great bridge of Osgiliath to last two thousand years.  Of stone my father's men made its replacement, in part to be destroyed.

Now Edros again blew his horn, and the refrain was accompanied by the creak and groan of rope, the clank of iron rings.  Beneath us, the bridge began to scratch and to whine as if waking from a long and silent slumber.  The ropes sang, taut and straining, and the stone answered, grumbling, but shifting, slowly shifting.  Well I could imagine it, long had I studied it, but could not be spared to watch.

The Orcs had at last thought to bring their axes.

Let us praise the pride of Sauron that he did not make his minions to think for themselves - and Edros's skill at turning the shortcomings of others to his advantage.

A great shudder from the bridge knocked us all to our knees.  Then, with a last, long scraping roar, the stones of the center section fell as one into the Anduin, sending a fountain of spume up into its place. 

A cheer rose also from the Western shore, but was drowned out by howls from behind the barricade.  That we had adopted the Enemy's own proclivities to our gain seemed to come as a surprise.

But now they no longer wasted time.  The heavy thud of axes quickened, and the wood began to crack and split.

I grabbed at Faramir.

"Now!  Follow the stones into the river."

There was an argument on his lips, I could see, but he only nodded, and began disarming himself.

I signaled to Dínendâl and Hirningail that they do the same.  The sergeant obeyed immediately.

Down to his leathers Faramir again took up his sword, and cast it a rueful glance.  Then he reared back his arm and threw it as far down stream and to the shore as he could.

Together we watched it go, and together marked the place it landed.  Then I placed a hand upon his shoulder.

"Now, you."

Again, he nodded, but paused.  

"If you do not make the shore, Father will never forgive me."

There was no denying the truth in what he spoke, and what he did not.  I seized the back of his neck and pulled him close, pressing his forehead to mine.

"We will hunt our swords together."

Then we separated.  Quickly he turned away and to the others, saying "Come!  Let us see which of us swims the swiftest," and together they ran, fleet as deer, until they could run no more and launched themselves into the river.  There was a flash of green, then white, then nothing but the song of arrows following.

Silently, I turned back to the barricade.  The pale scars of axe blades were beginning to show through.  And Hirningail stood before them.   I hefted my sword.

Of all the Army of Gondor ... How often had I wished for a time he might again swing a sword beside me?  But upon that bridge I wished with all my heart we had never met, now nothing could be changed.

He was still fully armed, and held his own blade at the ready.  

"Hirningail."  How long had it been since I'd spoken his name?

"Captain, I will not leave you."

"But I have ordered it and would see you safely gone." I turned again to the barricade, forcing some levity into my voice; "Do not worry:  I will not be staying long."

Then sharply I felt his grip upon my arm, pulling me from the Enemy.  "My lord, you must not stay at all!"

Did he think himself capable of my deliverance?  Angrily, I shook him off.

"Captain!"

Again he clutched at me, and for a moment his face did seem to leer at me with vainglorious pride, a deathshead grinning just behind.  I jerked myself away.

"Boromir!"

Such arrogance!  Had I taught him that?  I wonder now if this was the example I had set for him all along ...

Such arrogance makes a man feel equal to all things, and fit for none; makes rulers into despots, soldiers into revolutionaries, men into saviors.

It was such arrogance had pulled him up from the ranks, had urged him to the line, and made me seek for conquest in his bed.  Such arrogance ...

Suddenly, splinters of wood went flying past his head.  I winced as he ducked.

And seized my chance.

With a roar as great as the river's own I stretched back my arm and flung my sword toward him with all the strength I yet possessed.  It spun, point over pommel, to bury itself in the sand upstream of Faramir's, taking Hirningail's shiny helm right along with it.

Then I turned my knife on him, swiftly sliced away his most burdensome armor, and threw him bodily before me into the water.

Together, we plunged into darkness.

EPILOGUE

I hurled us grasping air and sucking mud onto Anduin's gentle banks.

It was oddly quiet.  Breeze blew, reeds waved, flies hummed, birds sang, but nothing, nothing, bespoke the unnatural catastrophe had taken place upriver.  And over all, with dreadful equanimity, the Sun was rising.

Wisps of mist bestirred themselves from the water in her light.  I shut my eyes against them.  Anduin, at least, would soon know the full weight of our loss, and bear it tenderly homeward.  What the Great River might take days, or even years, to accomplish Mordor had done in one night, for that morning the very shape of the map had changed.

I turned my head and spat, the acrid taste of fear rising again with a sob to my throat.  The Bane of Arnor, Razer of Kingships ... not even my father's vision had seen beyond the walls of Minas Morgul. 

His coming had unmanned us, unmanned us all to pass through the battle unopposed, the Enemy's will thus accomplished. 

Now my heart ached for fair Anórien, and all peaceful lands between the Black Captain and his mission.  But let my father concern himself with the broader view for a time: my men - both the living and the dead - had more pressing need of me, and I of them.

I turned back to Hirningail, and found him where I'd left him, simply staring, one eye meeting mine and the other seeing nothing but the black-fletched arrow had skewered it through.

And fell at his side. 

When? 

When? 

When had it come?  As we swam? Or before we ever hit the water?  Though, surely, I had felt him kicking ...

So many things I had tried to save ... the world had indeed changed shape, all my measurements gone afoul.  

After a time, I shifted myself to sit beside him, and gently took his head upon my knee.

There was no blood; the merciful river had seen to that.  I picked a few weeds from his sodden hair and smoothed the mud from his brow, searching his face for any sign of his life - scorn, blame, forgiveness ... Death had robbed us even of these.

Then I took out my knife, and began to notch the offending arrow just above that unflinching eye.  The work was slow, painstaking, and the sun's full face was bent upon it before that arrow would come free.  I pulled it out the back.

Then there was some rush of gore, but his appearance was less marred, now.  I settled his head upon the grass, and took a moment to compose his limbs more naturally, before drawing his eyelids over all.  Then I went to rinse my hands.

Ten months ... only ten short months ... how we'd laughed together! standing boot-deep in Orc blood, thinking we'd cheated death a sweet prize.  Ten months in which I'd lavished gifts upon him - advancement, honor ... betrayal.  Though only one was truly mine to give.

Then again I tasted the ash of Mordor on my tongue and knew the veracity of the Nazgûl's vision; my proud ignorance the final arrogance:  we were all far beyond saving.

I had forfeited even the honor of burying him.  With rushes and with vines I wrapped him, together with what tokens of his end I could find, and gave him to the river.  I would send word they should look for him from the Harlond and bury him in cool and comforting stone, where I would never again find rest.  At least he would not be traveling alone.

Then, as I watched her take him gently upon her breast, I sat down upon the blood-soaked mud of Anduin and wept. 

It was there that Edros found me.

POSTLUDE

Let this thing not displease thee, for the sword devoureth one as well as another.
II Samuel 11, vs 25

 

Now I have passed out of knowledge, and will remain so if I fail to reach the Elven land where memory dies not.

It is back through the past of Men's failures the trail of hope has led - from Osgiliath in her watery grave, to the wind-whittled bones of Tharbad and now, at last, to Arnor:  divided by greed, razed by Shadow.

This is the fate I have dreamed of for Minas Tirith, the fate I saw in my heart as the black fear o'ershadowed us in Osgiliath.

Now I, too, have left the map; gone beyond the bounds of knowledge into lands of fable and hearsay.  It may be all my deeds will come only to this - that my name be punishment for errant schoolboys sentenced to study lost and obscure scions of Gondor!  Yet may I still be multiplied on the lips of my people and, perhaps, in their prayers.

If ever I return to them, time would only too soon reclaim me; if lost in this wilderness, I will stay with them forever.

All this, for the hope in a twisting riddle I cannot understand.

I would beseech the stars for some direction but they are silent now; there is nothing they can tell me I do not already know:

The sword may devour one as well as another, and now it is my turn before the blade.