Chapter Text
One
It had been a stronghold once. Nestled there in the bend of the river. A fortress of the old lords. Now it is a stone carcass clutched with ivy, its keep a rookery for the crows. But the curtain wall still stands. They reinforce the parapets with hewn timbers. They ratchet open the rusty sluice and fill the ancient reservoir. They send hunters into the wood, though it is all but picked clean. A crippled stag and a brace of marmots, and then their enemies begin to close in, and they will hunt no more til it is over.
Two hundred seventy-seven men. They bar themselves in behind that ancient gate. Nine days. Nine days they must hold the ford at Baranduin. Nine days for the dispatch to make the ride to Weathertop, for the General’s forces to march to reinforce them.
Nine days. They must not lose the river.
He stands on the wall staring out across the swarded hills as the first fell standards rise up over the skyline. By dusk the river-valley is a floodplain for orcs. The drums begin to rattle. He can hear the yap and clamor of the wolves.
He says mildly, not turning his head toward the man standing at his shoulder, “Well, bud, we’ve got ‘em right where we want ‘em.”
Two
In the dawn they come, a company of cavalry, their sickle-spears red iron and their armor black as scarab, iridescent in the sun. They pause beyond the gate. Their horses pale and gaunt and gimlet-eyed and bleeding from the mouths. A dual standard. The white hand of Isengard and the nine crowns of Angmar.
He stands once more on the wall beside the same man. He leans against the balustrade like he has nowhere in particular to be, and no opinions about it anyway. His companion says, “Looks like the fuckers want to surrender.”
Their fell captain calls up, “Subject yourself to the dominion of the Lord of the North, rebel slag, and your followers will be bestowed with a swift and merciful ending.”
He takes a leisurely bite out of a crisp crabapple and says, still chewing, “I think you’re right. Poor fellas. Maybe we oughta go easy on ‘em.”
Three
The first attempt. They had not taken kindly the volley from the day before. Their pretty flag on fire as they had beaten a swift retreat.
He divides his time between the bowmen and the triage in the bailey. Not too many casualties; these Ranger boys know how to shoot and keep their cover.
No canonfire. The guns still at the rear of the procession, those heavy wains foundering over the rocks at the rearguard. A day or two, yet.
They hold, of course. The bastards have no real stomach for it; that will come when they bring up the Hai. Throw a few companies of snaga in first to test their mettle. They have time.
In the fading light he labors for a while beneath the field hospital awning. A handful of broadheads and a shattered scapula and Dramlin’s kid dead from an arrow through the eye. It had been quick. They bury him in the bailey near the south wall. In the heat the body will not keep.
He makes sure they eat. Makes sure they sleep a while. The lull means nothing good, but no sense wasting it.
Tomorrow will be harder.
Four
Much harder. They trebuchet a hole into the wall and twelve men die getting up the barricade. Another three on his surgeon’s table in the aftermath.
“You going to let me dig that thing out of your neck, pal?”
Takes him a while; it’s in deep, and Halbarad leaps up twice to run the parapet stair and help beat back a new intrusion. They are nearly being lazy about it. It would all feel better if they weren’t taking such sweet time. Like they know something.
The third try he finally gets a good hold and tugs the granite shrapnel out from behind a clavicle cracked from the impact and says while he packs the hole with gauze, “Tonight?”
“Mm. You coming?”
“You know how I like a party.”
Five
The trebuchets burn in the dawn. A temporary hurt; the canons are still coming. Still it buys them some time to rebuild the breach. And the boys are grinning again. They slap one another and laugh at their sneakery. Right in under their noses, the bastards. Slop on the kerosene and throw down the match. Safe back behind the wall as the wails go up with the smoke behind them.
“Can’t beat a bunch of grey-cloaks for a stealth job, Captain!”
He smiles back and claps their shoulders and lets them jostle him in their small jubilations.
But he does not join them in their triumph when they dole out the sour ale and toast their little victory. He scrubs down his table. He sits the sixth bell. He makes his rounds through the wounded. And when dusk comes he finds a quiet corner and he puts a razor-edge on the sword he has not used yet.
Six
The Hai come. A hard press, into the afternoon. They beat them back and back again and still more rise up off the plain. The ladders up. They throw them down. They heat the ancient molten-kettles with the last stores of their fuel and they pour the red slag down upon the heads of their enemies. That cures them for a while, and they retreat back into the hills.
The dead are heaped up now. No time to put them in the ground, all able hands up on the parapets. The flies have found his little butcher-shop. They riot under the awning and light on his face and his neck and his mouth while he is wrists-deep in amputations and blunt traumas and the blown-open wounds from the barbed bolts of the Uruk-hai. He runs out of anesthetic and must operate while they are still awake. There are severed limbs there in a basket, for the canons have arrived at last and their slattering shot and all the stone they send up in the blasting.
Ligation is quicker than careful reduction. Lord help him.
Sometimes it is not a limb. Sometimes they are still alive in the wreckage. The morphine is gone. They bring him a boy. Blown in half at the bowels. When the ruined child begs him, he does what he is asked.
Seven
“Two more days. Ídhror would have made it on Wednesday. It’s Friday today. Two more days, and the Imladhrim will be here. We can do anything for two days.”
“Hell, I could endure my wife’s complaining for two days.”
“I could eat my wife’s cooking for two days.”
“Cap?” Someone jostles his shoulder. Their observation of military formality has always been on the loose side. It is fading into nothing day by day.
He is staring off into the West and scarcely notices. But he turns and grins and slaps his hand over a grey-garbed chest and says, “It’ll be a chore, but I suppose I can put up with you lot for two more days.”
Eight
“It’s Ídhror. Elbereth…”
The Hai display him on the field before the gates just out of range. Their doughty rider, the weighty hope he carried. In their camps behind, they are feasting on his horse.
They take tongue and eyes and all the rest and stake him naked on the rocks and draw him like a swine and loose the wolves.
“Let me go. Fuck. I’m not going to… fuck.”
“Easy, bud.”
“Fuck.”
“I know. I know. I’m going to see if I can get ahold of anyone.”
It’s his turn to have the front of his fatigues caught and held in a fist. “Stand down, Captain. We can’t afford to spend you that way, not tonight.”
He grins a little, blinking in feigned disbelief. “Are you pulling rank on me, Hal?”
“I’m telling you I need you to not kill yourself trying to talk to someone who isn’t trying to hear you.”
“Elladan—”
“What the fuck is Elladan going to do, get on the witching-stone and make a call? They’re fifty leagues away, no matter how we square it. So you call him, or the big guy. Too late now.”
He draws a breath, and lets it out in a bare exhale of laughter, and pats Halbarad's hand twisted into his uniform until the grip eases a little, and says, “You want to tell them, or should I?”
Nine
They could have gone. The line there in the dust. Cross it and go. Over the river and into the Wild. Make your way back to the River Camp. Go home to your babies. No shame in it. There’ll be another day to stay and die.
Someone spits and scratches their neck and says, “You know, you glutton bastard, you always did like to keep all the fun to yourself.”
He is near to the last left. Halbarad’s body in the corner behind him when the door finally comes down. His nocked arrow already at the corner of his mouth. Thirty-seven shots a minute, back when he was polished up. Elladan could only ever manage thirty-five. Too careful of his surgeon’s hands.
Could always whip him with a sword, though. That is next. The blade gleams like a cold and distant star. They fill the little room now, pressing in. He smiles as they bring themselves to him. He has kept up the wall in his spirit for weeks, to keep her from being frightened. Careful to reach for her only in times of peace and solitude. Now he throws it down completely, one last time. I will see you there, beloved. Not too long a wait, I promise. I know a guy who knows a guy.
Elrohir!
I love you, kiddo. You’re going to be okay. Don’t be afraid.