The Price of Victory

Sauron’s lieutenant, Drazakh, permitted himself a grunt of satisfaction.  The last of  Gondor’s cavalry had cleared the outer southern arms of the forest and were now all just inside the jaws of his trap.  It would soon be time for them to be drawn well inside its teeth. 

He daubed a few more greasy streaks of black battle paint between the rows of ceremonial scars that disfigured his face. The impatience was building inside him.  He glanced over his shoulder to the right.  Fully three dozen men in Gondor cavalry raiment stood forlornly, surrounded by orcs brandishing spears.  They would be the last of the bait for the real men of Gondor less than a league away on the plain.  He only awaited the word from the north.

Then he felt the tingling sensation that presaged His commands.  A light sweat broke out across his broad low forehead.  Sparks of light danced across his vision.  Suddenly He arrived, taking possession.  Drazakh’s body stood bolt upright at attention, eyes bulging wide open, mouth slackjawed.

“Good….they are close now.”  The voice rasped, seeing through Drazakh’s own eyes Mardil’s formations in the near distance.  “Send out the last of your wretches.  Kill them all.  The fool of a Steward will attack just like his son and meet his fate.  I will be watching!”

Then it ended abruptly.  Drazakh, momentarily disoriented, shaking his head to clear his thoughts, leaned on the pommel of his great broad scimitar to steady himself.  He turned to the orcs, barking orders.

“Take them out to the posts! Have the archers ready their bows.”

The orcs cackled to each other, prodding the hapless men with spear points, out of the forest towards the series of stakes on the dusty plain, a hundred yards from the trees edge.

Behind them a figure emerged from the forest, short, squat, with simian-like arms extending from a torso as wide as he was tall, set upon legs like gnarled tree stumps.  Carelessly braided stringy black hair swung loosely around his massive shoulders.  Other than a loin cloth, mailed gloves and bronze armbands he was naked.   

Drazakh smiled at his approach.  It was Bavuk, a tribesman of his, in command of the battalions of men that would attack from the center.  Drakakh himself was clad much in the same way, disdaining, as all of their tribe, the accoutrements of battle armor, helms and shields.  Their bodies paid the price, crisscrossed with countless scars, gouges, puckers, and seams from sword cuts and spear points.  But it commanded the respect of their men, who saw fearlessness in the tapestry of old wounds and death cheating invulnerability in their battle skills.

“On your command” Bavuk was terse, his black eyes cruel and impenetrable.

Drazakh grunted, looking out again to the plains.  The men were now chained to the poles, the orcs trotting back to the safety of the forest.  The first of the arrows shot out now, finding easy targets.  A half dozen screams of pain became a chorus as multiple shafts found their marks and streams of blood puddled in the dusty ground.  Further out he could spy the commander of the host, perhaps the Steward himself, conferring with his lieutenants, pointing towards the forest. 

They would charge now, he could feel it.  He stole a glance at the sky, getting darker under the clouds as early evening wore on towards dusk.  The bats should be just about upon them.  The hulking barbarian tightened his grip on his sword.

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A league away from Drakakh, Mardil sat on his mount, Perrian at his right, Lerion and the two wing commanders to his left.  He was staring intently at the forest, at the tiny figures they could see being dragged and tied to the posts.  His gaze rose slightly to the treetops behind the captives.

“Jared.  Come, I have need of your eyes.”

From behind the wing commanders the Scoutmaster maneuvered his horse up beside Mardil.

“Yes Steward.”

They could now here the screams starting, rising in tone and volume, billowing out over the plain between the confining walls of the arms of the forest.

“Above the treetops to our north…do you see anything.” 

Jared stared for a few moments.  Nothing.  Just the dark line of the trees and the gray featureless overcast.  He turned to Mardil and shook his head silently.

“Keep looking” there was a trace of impatience in Mardil’s voice.

Jared returned his gaze.  For a few seconds, nothing, but then something, just a wisp at first, perhaps a slip of cloud or evening mist rising from the forest.  Mardil caught the change in his posture.

“You see something?”  Impatience shared space with anxiety.  Mardil knew he would have to attack soon.  To remain here oblivious to the screams before them would raise suspicions in their adversaries lurking in the forest.  The ruse and the entire mission could be compromised.

Jared held up his hand for a moment.  The wisp was quickly becoming larger, darker, a moving, shifting shape hugging the treetops, not some inert mist or cloud, but something with intent and direction, closing fast.

“Something on wings, in large numbers…it cannot be otherwise”

“How soon”

Jared counted to himself, eyes locked on the scene to the north. 

“A count of sixty, perhaps seventy, Steward, and they will be upon us.”

“Let us hope for beaks in lieu of teeth then, Scoutmaster.  Perrian! Call the charge!  Lerion will take the center.  Let the wings ride wide.  Remember the ruse and the ways of the Northern horsemen!”

There were shouts and the sounds of horns blaring.  Lerion galloped off at high speed at the head of three hundred cheering horsemen who spurred their steeds into motion, thundering across the brown earth towards the dying ‘captives’.  On either side of his compact formation the two wing commanders fanned out, each leading a long diagonal wave of horsemen, their line roughly parallel to the wall of the forest.

Mardil remained behind with Jared and fifty horsemen comprising his select guard, letting the battle groups fully clear.  Then they too advanced, protected for now by Lerion’s center and the two flanking wings.  He spared a last look to the skies above the approaching forest.  Even he could see them now, the first dark shapes emerging over the plains, wings flapping furiously.   It was too soon to tell what they were and would be too late by the time they truly knew.

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“Look Bavuk! They advance at last!” Drazakh shouted, his blood up now.

They could feel ground trembling now with the rumble of a thousand horses.  Dust rose in clouds from the evening plains.  The shouts and cheers of the approaching horsemen began to drown out the last of the screams and wails of the polebound ‘prisoners’ a hundred yards away.

Then something caught his eye, up in the sky, a shape, silhouetted black against the leaden sky, darting, wings beating rapidly.

“The bats come Bavuk! Ready the men to attack!”  Drazakh pointed up.  Another quickly moving shape swept by, then several, then great flocks of them swarming, swooping down directly towards the cavalrymen.

Drazakh was laughing now, drunk with the expectation of battle, victory and slaughter.  Though their numbers were reduced from the taking of the Steward’s son, they were better prepared this time with more ropes and nets to snare the fallen and drag those still mobile from their mounts.  It was just seconds away.

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Five hundred yards, four hundred.  Lerion was closing fast on the stakes where slumping figures sagged in their chains draining out the last of their life blood to the dirt at their feet. 

Suddenly the air about him was filled with the rush of air and the noise of a thousand beating wings.  Instinctively he raised a mailed fist to ward them off.  An instant later he drew back, recognizing with a fierce exultation that these wings bore soft feathers and pointed beaks, not leathery skin and needle teeth.  He shouted a command to his platoon commanders.

Their well ordered charge suddenly dissolved into chaos, with groups of twenty and thirty careering off at random, horses bucking and wheeling, seemingly out of control.  Great clouds of winged creatures were alighting on the men and their mounts, crowding them, swirling about in pursuit.  To the right and left the advancing cavalry wings parallel to the outreaching arms of the forest were disrupted, disintegrating into a welter of scattered horsemen, charging in all directions as if attempting to escape the onslaught from the skies.

From the forest walls that bound them came a great roar.  Bands of orcs charged from the wings of the wood on either side, while a host of men raced out from the center to their north, rushing past the dead men staked to the plain. 

Drazakh’s howled the harsh blood cry of his tribal ancestors, joining the ululation of Bavuk and the other Easteners as they advanced out of the trees towards the cavalrymen, now under siege from the skies.  He felt a familiar tingling again and cursed loudly as he ran across the dusty earth.  It was Him again.  Well let Him come then…He would like what he saw.

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They had lost all sense of direction.  All that was known for certain was that they were higher, but still inside the deep rock of the mountain.  Twice they had come to passages leading off to the left, rough hewn stairs disappearing upward into darkness.  Both times the cats were there before them, the golden brown one preening itself in front of the lateral passage, while the iron gray bobcat fixed them intently with its luminous green eyes, perched a few stairs up on the main passage.

They had followed its direction each time, though Eradan now wondered if it mattered much at all.  Up ahead he could see the light of Ardugan’s torch bobbing, casting increasingly muted glow as it guttered down to its last stumpy residual.  Soon they would be plunged back into darkness, with still no true sense as to whether this passage was a dead end or the gateway to some other horror inside His realm.

A moment later the torch stopped its motion as Ardugan paused the climb. 

“Why do we stop, Ardugan.  The torch is all but gone.  We should press on” Eradan demanded.

“Look…”  it was all the enigmatic Dunedain would say, gesturing to either side of the passage in front of where he stood.

Eradan, Drianna, and Hagar all made their way up to where Ardugan waited.  The dull ruddy glow of the torch bathed the wet rocky walls of the passage where they stood, but cast little light ahead, for here the passage suddenly widened and the ceiling, just over the height of a man, rose to more than twenty feet.  The relatively steep winding stairs they had been laboring up now leveled off and ceased, becoming a long smooth stone floor sloping gently upward into the darkness.

Just past the point where the passage abruptly expanded both in width and height there was a huge opening on the right, roughly circular in shape and more than thrice the height of a tall man.  Ardugan thrust the torch into it, but the weakening light gave little away, other than its smooth floored slope, which led downward into some dark heart of stone.

Though light revealed little to the eye, it was another sense that conveyed something to Eradan, a strong wave of the same scent that caught his throat and briefly roiled his memory in the cavern just before they released the beasts. 

“Eradan…what is it?” Drianna could see the look of concern on his face.

Before he could answer, Hagar interrupted from a few yards ahead in the main tunnel where something caught his eye. 

“Look!” he shouted excitedly, holding something hard and shiny, about the size of a plate.  It glistened in the red torchlight as he brought it back to the others.

“I know this!  And there are other pieces further up the passage”

Eradan also knew, but let the Northman continue.

“Scales…dragon scales!  We still have some from Scatha’s hide in the Hall!”

“And what would drakes be doing here, Hagar?” Ardugan posed with a trace of condescension.

“He speaks the truth.” Eradan spoke bluntly.  “Can you not smell it, Ardugan?  It is no damp nor mold that makes that foul issue.  They dwell under the mountain, in a great pit near the cell where I was last captive.  By their odor they have been here not long ago.”

“Is it wise to follow then…?” Drianna’s voice was apprehensive.

“We have long left wisdom behind us, sister, or we would be hunting boar in the forests of Lebennin, not stalking serpents in Sauron’s lair.  They will lead us to Him and to our companions, who may need us all the more.”

There was no rebuttal nor any turning back.  Ardugan exchanged a sobering look with Eradan, then turned and made his way forward into the passage that had become a hallway.  Hagar and Drianna followed, with Eradan taking up the rear.  The ophidian odor did not ease in this wider space, but grew gradually stronger, more acrid, more foul.  But there was the beginning of something else, an ever so slight movement in the air that had been stale and still for so long.  Eradan shuddered slightly, wondering if it was the swish of a serpent’s tail not far off or, if luck might have it, a sign that this long passage might have an end, an opening to the outside world.

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The lumpy rough surface of the mountaintop abruptly ceased at the edge of the arch the wizard had entered.  Captive artisans, long dead no doubt, perhaps immortalized in one of the ghastly faces on the trimming about the openings, had leveled Dol Guldor’s top and polished it to an immaculate gleam.  Others had erected the massive black ribs rooted in the basal mountain stone, then filled in the great spaces between them with the architecture of the dome that rose high over the smooth black and grey granite floor.

Aranarth was the first to follow Gandalf as the wizard strode off through the arch, his long gray robe swirling lightly in the evening breeze that had lifted from the south.  He stood cautiously at first, just inside, taking in the surroundings.  To his right and left the arched openings marched away around the great outer arc of the vault’s base, meeting once again well over a hundred yards directly ahead at the point of the circle opposite where he stood. 

He glanced up and caught his breath at the interior of the dome.  Even in the fading evening light it held him in momentary awe.  Black and gray, deep crimson, dark silver and gold, cunningly inlaid stone, metal and gems combined in the forms of great cyclopean figures.  Ebony horned giants with fiery whips, long darkly gleaming drakes spouting flame, unimaginable ramparts and fortresses scraping the sky.   Figures from another Age before Numenor rose from the sea.  That much he knew from the tales his father’s tutors had told him in his youth, now over a hundred years past.  

Haldir now entered and stood beside him, then Arthed and Arahael.  He watched as the vault above them stole their attention momentarily, jaws agape, eyes stunned.  Then Aranarth stepped forward, placing his booted foot on the polished stone floor.

But the instant his toe touched down, the dark surface before him came alive in a crimson tracery as if lit from below.  Aranarth reflexively jerked his foot back.  The dark red pattern pulsed gently, then faded, as if returning to slumber.  The others held back, uncertain as to what this might portent.  But ahead, Gandalf sojourned on, his tall pointy hat slightly askew, his staff rhythmically thumping the slick stone surface.

Disgusted with his apprehension, Aranarth resolved to plow forward, once again setting foot on the smooth pave and forging ahead.  The fiery red tracing re-emerged, radiating out from his footsteps in the form of runes, but not of any type he could recognize.  They lacked the poignant elegance of Elvish script, or the purity and directness of dwarvish carvings.  No, these were another sort, twisted, writhing, almost seeking to reach out of the stone to grab the unwary by the ankle.  A language of darkness, cruel and inhuman.

He gritted his teeth, increasing his pace, lifting his eyes from the floor in defiance of whatever message they strove to tempt him.  In a few seconds he was bestride Gandalf and the two of them were now less than one hundred yards from the far opening of the rotunda where the figure of a great wolf was silhouetted against an open arch.

“An ancient script, Aranarth” Gandalf anticipating his question, “wrought in the days when Elves were young and stars alone lit the skies.  Do not dwell on its curls and crags.  Our adversary lies before us.”

The wizard paused now, allowing the others to catch up. 

“Stay close to me now…pay no heed to His runes and mosaics.  It is the present that occupies us.”

Now they advanced again, Gandalf at the head, Haldir and Aranarth to his right and left, Arthed further right with Arahael next to his father.  The silhouette of a wolf paced slowly seventy yards ahead. 

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The clouds of dust from the initial cavalry charge were settling in the fading light of early evening.  Mardil looked ahead and to the flanks from his position in the rear center of the original formation.  The Easteners and orcs were howling, advancing rapidly on foot, soon to be within a hundred yards of the apparently disintegrating units of his cavalry wings. A satisfied smile curled the corners of his aristocratic face as he turned to his signalmen.

“Sound the horns!”

At once, long trumpets sounded out a great blaring noise that echoed off the dark walls of the forest to the left, right and front.

In the seeming chaos of the cavalry there was a great rush of wind and wing.  The swifts, having completed their deception as bats, left their perches on men and mount, led by Aerona, and launched themselves into the sky in a great cloud, initially hovering just ten feet off the ground.  With increasing speed the cloud swirled and rose, its upper reaches arcing off to the west in a long stream that became extended as the body of fliers in the avian cloud began to leave the field of battle in flock formation.

Now another signal of horns rang out.  The disorganized chaos of bucking horses and random galloping quickly resolved itself into individual units, their mounts wheeling around.  The original flanking formations now suddenly charged directly towards the forest, aiming square at the screeching orcs advancing on their positions.  The center units reformed and hurled themselves at the charging Easteners and the wolves that were now quickly loping out of the forest eaves to the north.

A hundred yards away, Drazahk’s own headlong dash withered to a trot, and then an outright halt as he stood slackjawed watching the inexplicable departure of the swifts who had mimicked his expected, but now dead, bat-winged allies He had sent to savage the men and horses.  Even more, the cursed Gondorans now seemed to rise up in formation, unaffected by the onslaught from the skies, their thundering hooves tearing the ground as they made directly for the spot on which he and his men stood.

Drazakh had made no provision for such an event.  His was only to charge for the kill after the bats had wrought their blooding.  But no bats had come to disrupt the enemy.  Instead, harmless swifts had alighted on Gondor’s cavalry, feigning with their quick winged movements those of the bats His master was to have sent and were nowhere to be seen.

Now he had no means of command, little ability to turn and reform to counter the sudden turn of fate.  He and his thousand men would be on their own to survive this first charge.  The orcs be damned, they would fend for themselves.  After the first clash he would take whosoever survived and make for the forest.  They would not follow in such close quarters on horseback.  He might still escape with his life.  He had done so before.

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They had crossed the remaining distance under the malignant vault in silence.  Off to their left, the smooth pediment with its writhing red runes seemed to end abruptly at the edge of a large pit, its depths concealed in a pool of blackness.  To their right, near the southwest perimeter, the polished granite floor was interrupted by a set of stairs cut in bare stone, dimly leading down to some unknown depth in the mountain’s heart.

But these were distractions deserving little more than a glance.  Their eyes were locked directly ahead on the figure of a great black wolf standing less than thirty feet away.

It was panting lightly, mouth open, huge tongue lolling out to one side, draped over a row of gleaming white incisors.  Six feet high at the shoulder, the shaggy black furred beast was nearly the size of a horse, but it was the eyes that captured Arahael’s attention.  Dark red, penetrating with ancient knowledge, remorselessly cunning.

They were arrayed five to one against Him.  Enough to prevail, Arahael hoped, with the strength of their swords and axes and what power the wizard might bring to bear.  Yet the beast seemed unmoved, mocking them with its lupine grin, slowly shifting its gaze from left to right and back again, daring them to make the first move.

Seconds ticked away.  Sweat trickled down Arahael’s back, beneath the leather and light chain mail.  A light gust of wind blew in the smell of rain and rumble of distant thunder through the south facing arches behind the wolf.    Through the openings he could see glimpses of Mirkwood’s impenetrable carpet far below, black beneath the dimming light, rolling away to the Brown Lands where other fates would soon be decided.  

Mixed with the scent of rain on the wind was a whiff of a duskier odor emanating from the gaping pit off to the left.  But any musings as to its nature were cut short by a voice emerging as if both from the throat of the wolf and from within his own head.  Deep, resonant, assured to the point of contemptuous.

“Magnificent isn’t he” it spoke to them all, though intended directly for Gandalf.

“A beast fit for a beast” the wizard replied evenly.  The wolf’s red eyes flashed briefly. Its lips wrinkled slightly as if preparation for a snarl, then settled back.

“A compliment then.   Well might you favor me.  It has taken five hundred years breeding to reach this point.  A little of Draughlin remains in all wolves, Olorin, and I have culled much of it in this one.  His seed will bring many more like him.”

“His seed will travel no further than this mountaintop, Sauron.”

“I tire of your idle threats, little one.  You distract me from events to the south.  Gondor’s fool of a Steward and his cavalry are within the jaws of my trap. That I have seen  through the eyes of my own commander in the field moments ago.  Even as we speak the bats are tearing the eyes out of Gondor’s horses.  Cavalrymen are falling to the ground.  Wolves are rending their throats.  Swords and spears hack their limbs”

Gandalf took a step forward, a hard smile emerging on his bearded face.  His eyes twinkled an icy gray.  His voice was low, almost a whisper.

“Perhaps you should look again, Sauron”

The great wolf’s eyes narrowed slightly.  Its flopping tongue retreated inside its jaws. 

Far away to the south, the figure of a hulking barbarian jolted upright, possessed by a familiar spirit.  Then there was the familiar roaring sound in his brain.  His limbs shook violently with the force of a great rage that shrieked for a moment like a wild gale on open seas before abruptly departing.

Atop Dol Guldur the rage continued.  Now a voice like the scraping of cyclopean stones howled in astonishment and anger.  They all felt buffeted as if by a great wind.  But Gandalf stood fast and now raised his own voice, seeming to fill the dome with his power.

“Your bats lie twitching on the forest floor, Sauron, food for your spiders.  Orcs and Easterners will fall to Gondor’s swords and lances.  Eagles will feast on the eyes of your wolves.  And our swords will see that this abomination you have bred does not leave this mountain alive.  Get thee hence from this place, Sauron.  Your day is done!”

The tip of his staff began to glow with a pale white.  The great wolf snarled, then took a step backwards as if cringing from the light. 

“Not done yet! You think me unprepared after these Ages! More than wolf I have bred these centuries.  Test your swords on these!”

From the darkness of the shadowed pit to the left there was a scraping, rasping sound, then a wave of foul stench pouring out of the black abyss.  An instant later blurs of sinuous motion, then a rush of air.   

Arahael caught a glimpse of a golden green glint in the fading light of early dusk.  A shape emerged of a serpentine head, amber eyed, jaws extending wide, white fangs dripping, filling his vision as it rapidly closed distance with him, taking direct aim on his own head.  

A hundred years later, gray and stiff, taking leave on Master Elrond’s balcony overlooking the Bruinen, the memory would still be crisp and horrifically clear.  But he would have no recall of his initial reaction, the duck and whirl that allowed the reptilian maw to scrape by, gouging hair from the side of his head, while he simultaneously cut down with his drawn sword on the serpent’s back.  That was training, long hours with Elladan and Elrohir, playing games of dodge and parry that the elves had long mastered in over a thousand year’s practice.

But now this moment the downward cut of his steel merely creased the hide of the beast, its scales a formidably stout armor.  Its hiss of rage intruded.  Arahael wheeled around, instinctively anticipating its return charge and was not disappointed.  Long as ten men, girth more than the width of a full grown bear, it sported nascent wings both midrift and in flares behind its pointed ears.  He could see it coiling up for another strike, angry at its near miss. 

Off to his right there were shouts, warnings and cries of pain.  His father, Aranarth, had met his foe directly on, blunting its charge with a mighty blow from his broadsword, sending it reeling, sliding across the smooth stone floor.  Dripping black ichor from a shallow cut to the neck it rose, massing its length into a ball for another lunge.

Next to Aranarth, Haldir’s catlike elven reflexes let him easily veer away from his own serpent’s first attempt.  He did not await its regrouping, but charged after it, possessed by some ancient grudge, attacking its face and in particular its eyes with lightning fast thrusts of his sword.  But the drake was an even match, bobbing and weaving like a cobra, allowing the Marchwarden to drain his strength in the effort.

Next to Haldir, Arthed was in more dire straights.  His split second astonishment at the instant of attack had cost him.  Though he had kept his head, the teeth of the reptile had securely lodged on his left shoulder, locked tight and pressing down with awful force.  Though he had use of his axe arm and rained blows on the back of the beast, pain and lack of full movement took weight from his strikes. Scales flew off with each hewing, black blood oozed sluggishly where his desperate hacks cut through its hard exterior, but it was a battle of attrition he would surely lose absent aid.

Amidst the chaos there was laughter in the air, mocking, reveling, cold, a voice filling their heads as it had moments before.

“Drakes…cold drakes my presumptuous intruders.  They are half grown, but their hides will take most of your blows and their strength will outlast your own.”

“Desist Sauron! The power of the light is before you!” Gandalf cried, raising his staff high, the light at its tip increasing in intensity the glow filling the air and swelling towards the wolf that stood before him.

Further the wolf backed away, cringing, but still it mocked.

“Contest with me as you will, Olorin, but each moment you squander your strength your companions draw closer to death!”

Gandalf took quick glance behind him and took his words true.  As skilled as they were, the drakes’ size, speed, and scaly armament would outlast their adversaries in single combat.  There was little time.  He would have to take the risk.

“I have strength to spare, Sauron.”  The wizard shook back the long cloak sleeve from his right hand.  A fierce ruby light scintillated on his right index finger, one of the three elven Rings of power.  A bolt of raw fire leapt from its crown, swirling in the white aura of his staff and smote the wolf broadside, heaving it off its feet, skidding in a heap towards the southern arches.

Gandalf turned towards his besieged companions, preparing an incantation to drive the drakes off when the mocking, rasping voice returned, accompanied by a foul reek and a shuddering of the very floor upon which he stood.

“We are not done, little one! See now the mother of these children who I have bred from a thousand generations of snakes half this past Age ! Test what power you have left against her mettle knowing you will spend the night in her belly!”

From the black pit a great head emerged and rose on a long glistening golden scaled neck that seemed to go on forever as it climbed higher into the air.  It widened, filling out into the swell of a body twenty feet thick, arrayed with great wings that spread, tips grazing the lower reaches of the dome.  Clawed feet grasped the edge of the pit and heaved forward.  Its head scraped the upper reaches of the vault.  Its tail, a hundred feet back, still in the abyss, twitched up into the fading light.  Teeth the length of swords glistened wetly white in a leering smile of satisfaction.  Eyes the color of dark gold bored into Gandalf’s own.

“Now, let us see how quick you are on your feet, old man.” 

The great reptilian head swooped down, jaws opening, preparing to gobble him up, a helpless morsel.  Gandalf whispered silently to himself, quickly muttering the phrases he knew must be said.  The tip of his staff illuminated anew, a pulse of crimson swelled from the ring on his finger.  He could feel the first scent of its hot breath on his forehead.

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The torch had given up its last sputtering flickers.  For the past several moments they’d been creeping along in almost total darkness, right hands maintaining contact with the wall of the passage.  The reek was intensifying, tightening their throats, stinging their eyes.  Every now and then a foot would scuff into a scale, sending it clattering off into the gloom. 

For the others there was no light.  For Ardugan there was just a trace of gray drawn into his oversized light blue eyes.  But enough to suggest an opening up ahead somewhere. 

Another minute of groping went by.  Then he saw four dots of light ahead, two pale green, two golden.  The gray was lightening perceptively as he approached them.

“The cats…” he whispered to Eradan, just behind him

“Yes…I can just see the glow of their eyes…”

The current of air he’d thought he detected earlier was now clearly present, softening the harsh stench of the serpent’s recent passage.  Ardugan’s hand gently came back, pressed on Eradan’s shoulder, signaling a halt.  The others soon gathered round. 

“Why do we stop?”

“You cannot see them, Hagar, but the cats sit before us and my eyes detect a smaller opening to our right, steps leading up and away from this main passage.  The air flows

fresh down its reach.  The cats stand on the third step.”

“They have been right before.  We should take the steps”

Before any could reply to Drianna’s suggestion there a sound of distant shouts and cries filtering down the staircase.  The cats immediately darted up the steps.

“That was Arthed! Aranarth’s voice as well!” Ardugan exclaimed, then charged up the stairs after the cats, heedless of the gloom.

Eradan was close on his heels, then Drianna and Hagar.  Now they could all sense the gray light brightening, the fresh air from the top of the mountain coursing past them.  The cries continued, growing louder as they vaulted up the steps.    

Now Ardugan could see a small square of brightness up ahead, the opening to the surface!  A bellow of pain echoed down the opening…Arthed!  Ardugan pumped harder, driving his legs like pistons.  Then the walls of the passage shook mightily as some large mass, just nearby, heaved itself about the top of the mountain.  The four of them caromed from side to side against the last of the coarse stone walls of the staircase, struggling to maintain their feet.   A flash of light from above filled the passage momentarily.  They could see clearly now, just twenty steps, ten, five.

They emerged into the dome atop Dol Guldur as if catapulted from below.  A nightmarish scene was set before them and they stood dumbstruck for a moment, despite the urgency of their arrival.

Arrayed before them stood Arahael and his father Aranarth, battling long serpents each of which braced itself on its coils, seeking a momentary weakness to strike a deadly blow.  Haldir the elf was similarly occupied, though his movements more closely matched his adversary and a smile still creased his fair face.  Nearest them Arthed was in dire straights, his left shoulder in the maw of the drake which held on inexorably.  His axe blows, though formidable, were weakening as the pain of the serpent’s jaws sapped his strength.  But above all was the form of the mother drake, scales sienna gold, risen from the pit, wings wide, great reptilian head poised on a downward strike to a small gray figure in a pointy hat holding a staff with a glowing tip above his head as if to ward it off.

There was a shout and Ardugan realized almost with a start that it was his voice, not out of fear, but of raw concern for his brother, Arthed. 

Involuntarily it seemed he dashed off, closing the gap across the polished stone floor, sword held high to strike a fatal blow on the serpent’s neck.  Then there was a loud hissing and shrieking.  The serpent’s emerald green head cocked back, releasing its grip on Arthed’s bloody shoulder.  It unexpectedly writhed in pain, coiling and swirling.  Ardugan could see two fur clad forms grimly attached to its face by long razor sharp claws, one on each side with teeth digging deep into its eyes.  The cats!

He ran to his brother’s side.  Arthed’s face was pale, his shoulder crushed and torn, blood, seeping fully through his leather and light armor.

“Ardugan…you…” Arthed struggled to speak.

“Lay back brother, you are wounded grievously.  Say no more.  We have returned from the base of the mountain.  Let us finish what you have started!”

But before he could rise to help the others there was a rush of wind from behind and a warning shout from Gandalf.

Even as the mother drake had descended in its intended death blow upon the wizard, Ardugan’s shout of alarm at Arthed’s distress had distracted the great beast.  The massive head poised, then swiveled, turning its saturnine gaze upon the four who had just emerged from within the bowels of his fastness. 

“Time enough for you later, Olorin! First a lesson for those who would seek to cheat death twice in my realm!”

A slimy black forked tongue licked out of the mother dragon’s mouth in anticipation as it quickly repositioned its body, shifting weight left, right, left, then right again in a heave that whipped out a great long rope of tail that had lain in the depths of the pit.  Like a bullwhip the thickness of a tree trunk it snapped forward towards the four who had just emerged.

They had all followed Ardugan’s lead as he ran to Arthed’s side.  But they never reached him.  The scaly might of the drake’s long tail whipped in a blur, first catching Hagar who was struck square in the back, hurling him through the air, then crashing to the stone floor and sliding halfway, limply, to the northern edge of the dome.  His black sword, Anquiriel, separated from him by the impact, pinwheeled in the air for a moment then fell point first, embedded deep in the granite pediment.

Drianna was next, the rapidly moving scaly tail catching her in the back of her legs, snapping them like twigs as it sent her flying into Eradan, just a few yards ahead.  It proved his salvation, for her hurtling body knocked him off his feet, sending him spawling face first on the cold stone surface, escaping the impact of the drakes tail as it sailed over head less than the width of a finger away.

Ardugan heard the swoosh in the air as the sweep of the serpent’s body approached.  He began his defensive roll to the floor, but too late as its speed overtook and flattened him with a crushing blow to the upper back and head.  Like a rag doll he was tossed, sliding across the smooth cold floor towards the far wall.  In his wake Arthed groaned in pain, struggling to get up.

All this in the count of a few seconds.  The dragon repositioned itself, swinging its body back, its mass pulling its tail with inexorable force, whipping it around the rear, over the expanse of the black pit.  Another quick series of body movements and the heavy appendage was on the move to the other side, sweeping ‘round to the spot where Gandalf stood.

Sauron’s voice snarled in his head..

“Whatever your power in this land, Olorin, you are prisoner to a mortal body.  Now taste the lash of my tail and despair!”

Though he appeared old and gray, he was strong and spry beyond a normal man’s body.  Gandalf watched the approach of the rippling length of doom, calculating the moment of impact, planning on a leap over it.  But his thoughts betrayed him. At the moment he jumped, the dragon’s tail flipped up, bearing hard upon his right arm and shoulder.  His grip loosened upon his staff, which was sent clattering across the floor towards the west side of the rotunda.  The wizard followed part way, rolling with the impact, momentarily stunned.

But in the seconds it took the dragon to shift its strike from Ardugan and his companions to Gandalf, a change had taken place in the deadly combat.  Aranarth, parrying each attack of the serpent before him, had found a pattern in its attack.  His blows had done little more than crease the surface of the emerald scales, drawing a few lines of dark blood.  But his eyes had noticed a clouded region in the adolescent drake’s own right eye.  And its movements suggested to him that it bode a narrow blind spot in its right side vision. 

Ardugan’s shout of dismay provided the opportunity.  The small drake before Aranarth glanced briefly left, leaving its right eye on its intended prey.  At that moment he shifted his broadsword to his left hand, hoping the movement was obscured by the serpent’s blind spot.  An instant later the young drake returned to its quarry. 

It was risky.  He had not the dexterity in his left hand to assure a mortal blow.  Further he would have to tempt the serpent in.  And so he stood as if confused, tired, his right hand bereft of the weapon he had blocked the drake’s thrusts, his left hand behind his back tightly gripping the sword.  A gleam in the reptile’s eyes signaled its confidence in a final attack.  The vile snake’s head lunged forward, mouth gaping wide, lethal incisors hungry for the crunch of hard enamel on flesh and bone.

Aranarth summoned all his strength and whipped the sword up with his left hand, putting the weight of his body and the power of his arm and shoulder in one thrust directly into the drake’s open jaws.  The blade struck deep, plunging through its forked tongue into the soft tissue of its mouth and beyond, through the flexible cartilage of its lower skull into its brain.  The beast spasmd violently, ripping the blade from his grasp. 

Little time for triumph.  Just as the drake writhed in its final moments, Aranarth beheld the mother serpent’s great tail striking Gandalf, sending him tumbling across the floor. 

Aranarth ran to his side, preparing to remove him from any further reach of the dragon’s tail.  Scooping the wizard up as if he were a child, the old warrior began his run towards the northern wall of the dome.  But there was not enough time.  The coils and whorls of the mother dragon’s tails straightened themselves as its body shifted to the left pulling the weight of its prehensile length back once more.  Like a great hook, the tip end curled in as it swept over the floor, catching Aranarth and his dazed companion just short of freedom. 

The powerful turns of scaly flesh then quickly wrapped themselves about the two of them.  Higher and higher the coils of its tail rose above the floor, captives in thrall, tightly bound, inexorably approaching the dragon’s head, where crimson eyes gleamed and jaws opened in malevolent anticipation.

                                                            ***********

Thirty feet below Gandalf and Aranarth, Arahael and Haldir still battled for their lives against their own drakes, helpless to aid.  Hagar lay unconscious against a far wall.  Arthed could barely crawl, so dire were his wounds.  Drianna was pale and shuddering with the agony of her broken legs. 

Eradan was at her side, torn between his sister and coming to the aid of the others.  This decision was now taken from him by a rising black form at the southern edge of the vault.

The great wolf, eyes no longer glowing red with His power, now vested in the mother drake.  Just a beast, a hungry vengeful predator recognizing a familiar face from a battle days before.  Shrugging off the impact of Gandalf’s initial spells it focused pale gold hunter’s eyes on Eradan and the form of his helpless sister behind him. 

It started a walk, becoming a lope.  Its jaws opened to gather air.  The gap began to close.  This would be easy prey.  The feet were in a lupine gallop now, knowing the impact its huge size would have on this mere man at full speed.  Adrenaline rushed to cover the strain.  Saliva poured into its mouth.  Long canine teeth glistened in the half light of dusk.

Thirty feet away Eradan saw its eyes and hope surged.  It was not Him inside anymore, just beast against man.  He was tired, still bruised and battered from days inside His lair, not fully recovered from the poisons they had forced upon him.  The wolf was more than twice his weight.  But it could die, and that gave Eradan new life and a surge of strength.

His right fist closed about the haft of his mace, Crusher.  The spiked head lay on the floor.  The first blow had to be decisive, but to do that he had to wait, wait until the last instant when the animal leapt at him, opening its jaws for the massive fatal strike.  Drianna moaned in pain behind him.  The head of the mace rose slightly from the floor.

Ahead of him the clack of claws on raw stone ceased as a great black furred bulk left the surface in a triumphant leap for his throat.

                                                            *********

Off to Eradan’s right a figure was righting himself.  His left shoulder was numb, bones fractured in his upper back and arm.  The rear of his head was scraped raw and bleeding from the impact of rough edged scales at great speed.  Pain brought him down to his knees, clouding his vision, muddling his thoughts.  Instincts took over.  Fingers probed in small vest pockets under light chain mail, clasped on a parcel of powder wrapped in light parchment.  Thrust into his mouth he chewed it aggressively without thinking.  The pain receded and energy flowed into those limbs still capable of function.  He stood again, knowing this power of potion taken from a Druedain chieftain long ago was as much poison as power. 

It would not last and he would be all but dead when its strength left him.  But his eyes were bright blue again, his good limbs strong, his mind clear and cold.  He swept the scene before him, Arahael and Haldir still holding their own, Eradan about to meet the great wolf in mortal combat, Drianna down, Hagar insensate at some far corner.  A cry of pain drew his eyes up to middle distance.  The dragon, jaws wide in some evil mix of mirth and blood lust, eyeing something in its coils slowing being drawn towards its maw. 

Another cry, a bellow of rage and frustration. Aranarth!!

He could see him now, bound in the serpent’s coils with Gandalf, helpless, about to meet  his doom.

Something opened up in Ardugan’s spirit.  The repressed years of long isolation, resentment, and hunger for acceptance broke through in a blinding light.  He felt his feet moving, running, making towards an object stuck deep in the basal floor of Dol Guldur’s summit.  His own sword had skittered off with the blow of the dragon, but now his good arm reached for this other, dark as night, seeming to call to him.  Without breaking stride, he grasped its ancient hilt.  It left the stone floor effortlessly, cleaving to him as a fatal partner.  A death smile opened on his face. His eyes were wide and the palest icy blue as he reached full speed, closing on the vast bulk of the mother drake before him.  Was it his imagination or did the black sword whisper something to him?

-----------------------------------------------------*----------------------------------------------------

Across the floor from Ardugan, a quickly moving figure distracted Arahael momentarily, nearly costing him his life as cold drake before him lunged, gouging a furrow in the side of his head.

He parried, retreating, but opening his eyes wide at the form of his uncle, Ardugan, making straight for the dragon, sword held high. 

The beast was distracted with its prize, the Maia Olorin, bereft of his staff, and the son of the king of Arthedain, both within His grasp.  The racing figure of Ardugan was beneath its notice. 

But Ardugan was now a man possessed.  The rage of a wasted life, the energy of an old Druedain potion was combining with the ancient deadly heritage of the sword Anquiriel, crafted by the Eorl, Dark Elf of Beleriand.  Like Turin before him, he felt the draw of death.  A huge leap and he was upon the dragon’s flanks.  Legs still churning, he vaulted up its back, climbing along its serrated spine past the scabrous wings towards its neck.

At last aware, the great serpentine head turned, saucer sized crimson eyes glaring at what was to it an insectile intruder.

“Fool!!!”  A great harsh mocking laugher thundered in Ardugan’s head.  “Do all such faded sons of Numenor seek death so readily?”

Yards away in the iron grip of the dragon’s tail, Gandalf and Aranarth writhed, struggling to free themselves ‘ere they were crushed or eaten.  The wizard, strong as he was, was losing consciousness, desperately trying to voice a last spell to compel the return of his staff.  Then he saw Ardugan, eyes gleaming, standing athwart the dragon’s neck, the sword of Eorl in his hands.

“The throat, Ardugan!” he gasped, “Strike for the throat!”

More laughter from Sauron.  “Why do you deceive him, Olorin.  Surely you know that no sword of this earth can pierce this dragon’s scales.

The captives were drawn closer to the gaping maw of the beast.  With his good right arm Ardugan raised the black blade high then came down with all the strength he could muster in a sweeping blow arcing towards the softer front of the dragon’s neck.

“It is you who are deceived, Sauron,” Gandalf managed to reply, “His sword is not of this earth, nor was its sister blade that slew Glaurung two Ages past”

The dragon’s eyes opened wide, suddenly aware of the truth he spoke.  But too late, for at that instant the sword cut deep into its neck, it meteoric iron cleaving into scale, muscle and bone.  A great gout of black blood geysered out, washing down the drake’s side and spattering heavily to the stone floor.  A deafening screech and hiss rent the air as mortal pain pronounced its doom upon the beast.  Its head swayed right and left, spewing blood.  Then its tail loosened its grip on Aranarth and Gandalf, sending them plummeting twenty feet to the floor.

Ardugan was flung from the serpent’s neck, his fall partially broken as he landed first on its lower back before tumbling to the granite pediment.  A dull iron clang rang out as the blade Anquiriel dislodged from its fatal wound and landed heavily beside Ardugan.

Aranarth had met the stone floor poorly, badly spraining his ankle and fielding much of the impact with his right shoulder, which was nearly wrenched from its socket.  Gandalf was spared the worst, landing on top of Aranarth, cushioning the blow, but still knocking the wind from his lungs.  He struggled to a sitting position.  Above him the great beast’s cries were weakening, the crimson light in its eyes flickering as the massive body began to sag to the right, staggering on its short clawed feet.  A last gurgling, hissing gasp emerged from its jaws, then it fell over, crashing into the black pit behind it in a tangle of scales, coils, and twitching wings.

                                                            *******

Sixty feet away death was making another appearance.  The spiked head of Eradan’s mace was a blur of desperate speed as it crashed into the side of the great wolf’s head, pulverizing flesh and cracking its massive skull.  But it was near the size of a horse and no blow could send its bulk far from its destined path.  Its shaggy black body slammed into Eradan with the force of boulder.  The two of them hit the unforgiving stone floor just inches from Drianna, and slid several feet.

Drianna twisted her head around.  Even the slightest movement of her body caused some shift in her legs, which sent jolts of pain that nearly made her faint.  She saw Eradan, sprawled face down, semiconscious, moving feebly in a weak attempt to get to his feet.

A few yards away the black wolf lay on its side whining and panting, head bleeding profusely.  Its claws scrabbled on the stone pavement, trying to get some purchase.  It managed to lurch to its feet, swaying and staggering, eyes glazed over, but focused enough on Eradan’s prone body.  He could see it coming, but had not yet the strength to drag himself to his feet for another swing of the mace. 

The wolf nearly fell, slipping in its own blood, but drunkenly plodded on, jaws open and slack, its intelligence narrowed to a single vengeful purpose.  Eradan managed to prop himself up on one elbow, but fell back, breathing heavily.

It was up to Drianna now.  And the answer was poking in her back, the tip of her bow, still strapped across her shoulder.  She looked about for her quiver of arrows.  The long, slender leather pouch lay just beyond reach and dispiritingly she saw arrows scattered far away across the floor.  But the quiver lay bottom end towards her.  There might be hope.

Gritting her teeth against the pain in her legs, Drianna wrestled the bow from her shoulder.  Stars danced before her eyes and blackness of faint nearly overtook her.  A few heartbeats passed.  She extended the bow outward, snaring the strap of the quiver, gently drawing it back to where she lay on the floor.  The wolf slipped again, hind quarters  splayed on the floor.  It struggled to right itself.  Eradan managed to a sitting position, bracing himself with both hands, but not yet fit to defend himself.

Drianna now had the quiver within reach.  She turned it around, feeling inside the open end.  Feathers brushed her fingers.  There was one, one arrow still inside!  The wolf was back on its feet, just six feet from her brother.  Its great head faced her and would take her once it had finished with Eradan.

She would have but one shot, and it must be true, direct into an eye, the sharp tip penetrating straight through to its brain.  Drianna lay on her side, cradled the arrow in the bow.  A wave of pain swept over her again, her vision swam, limbs trembling.  With all her will she pulled the string back, lifting the bow slightly off the floor, drawing it tighter and tighter, pulling the string back to her eye, just a finger’s breadth off the floor. 

The wolf staggered again.  Her vision blurred momentarily.  She almost lost the grip on the arrow.  Then the beast steadied itself, legs bracing for a final lunge at its victim.  Drianna’s vision cleared.  She let out a sharp cry.  The wolf looked over to her, distracted by the noise, head frozen in instinctive observance.  Now! While it was still! 

She let fly the arrow which stuck with a sloppy smack, driving deep into its eye and beyond into its brain case.  The beast shuddered, then fell, twisting and rolling in violent convulsions.  A long low release of snarling breath, a final clawing at the sky, and then it was dead.

                                                            *********

Not far away two others still battled for their lives, Arahael and Haldir, slowing backing away, managing to fend off the serpents but doing little to harm them save superficial cuts which oozed black and enraged the serpents all the more.  The fall of the mother dragon had heartened them, but what scant glance they could spare gave no immediate hope that help was on the way.

And it needed to come soon.  No matter his training, Arahael could feel his arm tiring. The serpent in front of him seemed not to flag and in fact pressed him further, sensing his growing fatigue.  There was no thought of hasty retreat at full run.  The young drake was fast, too fast, and could catch him from behind, jaws clamped upon a leg or shoulder.

A blur of motion caught his eye, not the rapid shift of the reptile’s head, but another independent shape.  It was blue-grey, vaulting up from the floor, dancing along the spine of the beast, taking a last jump, landing square on its spade shaped head, emerging claws of its front paws thrusting down and deep into the snake’s right eye.

The drake arched upward suddenly in astonished pain, its head twisting to and fro on is long sinuous neck.  The form of a bobcat remained grimly adhered to its head, remorselessly gouging the right eye with its claws and now gnawing savagely with its fangs.  Hope surged through Arahael.  Though his sword could not fatally wound the beast through its body, he too recognized what his father saw, that the soft flesh in its mouth and throat was vulnerable. 

Arahael waited, the serpent’s head swept about seeking to shake the cat from its agony.  Its jaws snapped spasmodically.  Then there was a moment when it came down, close to where he stood, sword ready.  The cat dug its paws in further, black blood now pouring from the chaos that had once been an eye.  The jaws opened wide in pain, hissing, forked tongue flapping loosely.  It was the moment.  Arahael lunged forward, burying his long blade deep into its upper palate, through the flesh into the base of its spine, the hilt just outside the reach of the beast’s outer fangs.

Arahel stepped back quickly.  The cat leapt off.  The drake was a mass of whirling, writhing coils and scales, unable to affect the mortal blow of the sword impaled in its head, hissing in angry pain at the ravaged ruin of its eye. 

Thirty feet away a similar tableau was playing itself out with Haldir and his adversary as the form of a golden feline preyed upon the orb of another serpent.  Soon another blade was buried deep in the soft tissue of a drake’s inner throat, thrusting back into its interior spine. 

                                                            ******

But these were frays fully involved as Gandalf sat, shaking the cobwebs from his mind.

Beside him Aranarth laboriously made it to his feet, gingerly testing the floor with his right foot, reeling from the pain to his hard impacted right shoulder.  His sword stuck awry from the mouth of a young drake twenty feet away,

The coils and golden reds scales of the mother dragon were still now, a chaotic mound of serpentine flesh heaped part over the edge of the pit, the rest settling in darkness beyond view.  A figure rose beside a portion of its dead bulk on the polished floor before them. 

“Ardugan!” Aranarth shouted, swelling with emotion at the sight that his brother had survived the fall from the dragon’s neck.

The figure of a man straightened, then seemed to look mechanically about for something.

It stooped to pick up a sword, then walked awkwardly towards Aranarth, holding the weapon before him, defensively.

The evening light was fading now.  Somewhere behind the lowering and thickening overcast the sun was near the horizon.  

Aranarth shook Gandalf and pointed at his brother, just twenty feet apace, approaching slowly.  The wizard came to his feet, weaving slightly.

“Ardugan…it is dead…your sword is done, let us see to your wounds”

It was if he were deaf.  He stalked on, oblivious to Gandalf’s words.  And now it was clear to the answer, for both the wizard and Aranarth could see it in his eyes, bright red eyes filled with hate.

“You are out of tricks now, Olorin! Birds and strange swords! I have the sword and the body of this pathetic runt of Numenor’s litter! But it will be enough to cleave your mortal heads from your bodies!”

Gandalf began whispering quick words, casting about for his staff, struck hard in the dragon’s attack and sent skittering over the floor, and out a gaping arch in the dome’s perimeter.  Aranarth’s sword was buried in the jaws of the young drake.  He pulled a dirk from a sheath in his belt, knowing it was little match for a sword, but was all he had.

The figure of Ardugan closed to ten feet.  His face bore no trace of his wry grin, instead a sneer of contempt distorted his visage.  Gandalf’s whisperings were having effect, though, as the sound of wood clattering on stone evidenced the draw of his spell, rapidly pulling his staff back, but not yet in hand.

Then Ardugan’s form stopped, shuddering as if in some internal conflict.  The sword rose and fell, legs started forward then halted.  His face writhed in indecision.  But the eyes told more, flashing from red like hot coals, back to pale blue, then red again. 

“Gandalf! It is Ardugan, seeking to gain control of his body from His possession!”

The wizard paused from his incantations.  “The spirit of Sauron is weakening, stretched thin and beyond with the battle to the south and the death of the dragon.  I must have my staff! The time is right for his banishment!”

But the staff was not quite yet at hand and Ardugan’s form pressed on, nine feet, eight feet, six.  He was raising the black sword for a killing blow.  Aranarth, wincing in pain from any pressure on his ankle, began to drag Gandalf back, trying to buy time til the staff joined its master.  But he stumbled and fell.  Ardugan paused now, a gleam of evil triumph from his crimson eyes, the sword beginning its downstroke.

Suddenly another convulsion wracked his body, the sword was stayed, the eyes flashed back to bright blue.  Ardugan smiled enigmatically, wistfully almost, at Aranarth, just as Gandalf’s staff reached his outstretched hand.  But before the wizard could act, Ardugan  turned and thrust the heavy black blade point first square in his chest, then fell forward, insuring its full passage through his body.

There was a great howling, thunder rumbled, lightning flashed violently.  Swirling winds blasted through the open spaces under the dome.  A fiery glow enveloped Ardugan’s fallen form, red mixed with black, boiling, fuming. 

The tip of Gandalf’s staff quickly began to glow, the white light pressing in on the ball of flame emerging from Ardugan’s body.

“You have no where else to go Sauron! Your beasts are defeated and your power spent! Begone this place! Return no more!”

The wind rose to a mighty gale.  The swirl of crimson and black rose high into the dome, retreating against the light towards an opening in the peak of the vault.  A final angry voice rasped over the mountaintop.

“It is only the beginning Olorin! Enjoy your peace for the while.  There will be little left to chance when I return!!”

Gandalf raised his staff high.  The white glow filled the space under the great rotunda.  There was a flash of red light, a deafening clap of thunder.  Violent gusts of wind tore through the dome, reaching a crescendo, then suddenly fell away, whirling towards the east under a tracery of lightning. 

A few yards from where he stood, leaning heavily on his staff, he saw Aranarth kneeling at Ardugan’s side.  The wizard made his way over.

The sword in Ardugan’s chest was broken, shattered into bits by the passage of Sauron’s spirit out of his body.  It would slay no more.  Nor would Ardugan, whose chest heaved spasmodically, blood swelling from a gaping hole where the blade plunged close to his heart.

“Only way…had to drive him out…” Ardugan struggled to speak.

“Quiet, brother…we must tend to your wounds” Aranarth replied softly, concern etched upon his face.

“No…no…too late.  You know it true” he coughed, blood trickling out of the corner of his mouth.

“Your spirit was strong, Ardugan” Gandalf spoke quietly, gently brushing his hair back from the man’s forehead. 

“Arthed…tell Arthed…” Ardugan coughed, then gasped, his right hand gripping Aranarth’s arm.  The moment passed as he struggled to speak again.  Aranarth placed his finger over his brother’s lips, bidding him to be silent, to conserve his remaining strength.

“I will tell Arthed that only the true son of the king could have such courage as yours.”

A smile crossed Ardugan’s face as tears ran from the corners of his eyes, blue, large, and wide open.  He made to reply, lips opening to speak.  Then it was as if he saw something far, far away, beckoning, calling him.  His head rose slightly, the smile broadening as if he beheld a long awaited welcome to a home that he had always imagined but never lived.  Then the eyes closed, his head gently returned to the floor and a last long breath sighed out of his broken body.