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Drabbles  by Lindelea

43. There at Pelagir lay the main fleet of Umbar

First, smoke; battle joined?

...save we ride at anchor, oars secured, uneasy rest before unbearable effort. Then cries – nay, screams, thudding feet, splashes – the sailors! The sailors! Abandoning the ship, and us, chained to our oars, to terror and death! For surely the great ship burns, is aflame all around us... I am choked with smoke, or is it a mist made of fear?

Now silence, a drift of smoke, wisping, driven by breeze cold and clear. Now stillness. Fainting, we sprawl over our oars. Footsteps above, now descending. We raise our heads, listening.

The Dúnadan speaks words of freedom.

***

To every ship they came that was drawn up, and then they passed over the water to those that were anchored; and all the mariners were filled with a madness of terror and leaped overboard, save the slaves chained to the oars. Reckless we rode among our fleeing foes, driving them like leaves, until we came to the shore. And then to each of the great ships that remained Aragorn sent one of the Dúnedain, and they comforted the captives that were aboard, and bade them put aside fear and be free.

--Gimli’s account of the coming of the Heir of Isildur and the Shadow Host to Pelargir (Return of the King, “The Last Debate”, by J.R.R. Tolkien)





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