The Ring will come to Gondor by Varda

The Ring will come to Gondor

by Varda

Chapter Forty-nine: Will No-One Fight Me?

Faramir helped Frodo to his feet and guided him across the broken glass to the door of the tiny turret room. As they went out through the heavy oaken door, torn and splintered by the glass storm, Faramir looked back, scanning the broken window for any sign of the winged creature that had tried to take the Ring; but no dark shape appeared against the clear sky beyond…..

‘What is it, Faramir?’ asked Frodo, seeing the man’s face pale and anxious.
‘Nothing, Frodo’ murmured Faramir. ‘Nothing…it is gone now. Let us go down to the Hall of the Stewards. It is a long descent and you are shaken and tired, let me carry you…’

But as Faramir bent down to pick Frodo up he staggered and put a hand on the rough-hewn stone wall of the tower. Before him the stairs, grey granite glistening with flecks of mica in the dim light, wound away endlessly into the gloom. Frodo put a steadying hand on Faramir’s arm.
‘Carry me?’ the hobbit asked gently. ‘I think it is rather I who must carry you, Lord Faramir…’

Faramir nodded with a rueful smile, but his face was grey, the cut on his cheek livid in the dim light. He held a hand to his side, wondering had he broken a rib in the fight with Meriadoc’s tormentor in the dungeon. The hobbit was right, he was in no state to carry anything.

‘Here’ said Frodo briskly. ‘Lean on me, Faramir. We cannot stay here all day. Let me help you down the stairs…’

Faramir would have refused, but he was too weak. Something of the evil creature sent from Mordor seemed to have quelled his strength and made his hurts worse. Gratefully he took the arm the hobbit offered and leaned on Frodo as they painfully descended the long, winding stairs….

Now that his senses had cleared, Frodo himself felt quite strong. He could remember only dimly the vision he had seen in the Palantír, and from it he took nothing but the sad memory of a being so fair it hurt Frodo to think he had turned to darkness and evil. Of his conversation with Sauron he could remember little, nor did he strive to recall it. He felt that in some strange way the Ring had taken over the encounter, and in striving to reach its master it had brushed the Seeing-stone and some charge of energy released by both the Ring and the Stone had caused the shattering of the Palantír.

Now the Ring swing glowing on its chain, humming as if in triumph. And yet it had not succeeded in returning to its master, nor had it extended its power over Frodo. On the contrary, the hobbit felt a sense of relief, of reprieve, as if the Ring and Sauron were momentarily too caught up in their private inferno to notice him.
For the time being….

At long last they reached the bottom of the stairs and Faramir with shaking hands inserted the key in the door and swung it open. He was by now barely able to stand, and Frodo, taking almost the full weight of the tall man, supported and guided him to the only chair in sight, the great hard black chair of the Steward placed at the foot of the Throne of the Kings of Gondor.

Faramir slumped into the chair and closed his eyes. Blood still trickled from the cut on his cheek and Frodo folded the hem of his Elven cloak and pressed it against the wound. The grey material woven in Lothlórien seemed to have some healing quality for it staunched the flow of blood. Faramir sighed with relief and seemed to slip into a doze. Frodo pulled his cloak round him tenderly, wondering if he were seriously hurt, and if he had taken some spiritual wound from the shattering of the orb. He stood thinking it over, then shrugged.
‘It is more likely the wounds he had already, and the thought of his brother riding away to his doom….’
Frodo arranged the cloak and stepped back.
‘Sleep for a bit, then….I will keep watch till you wake.’ he said to Faramir under his breath.

Frodo turned then, for the hall seemed to be growing brighter even though evening was drawing on. The hobbit walked up the short flight of marble steps beside the high throne and looked up at the great gilded crown suspended over the seat of the Kings.
‘So much suffering, just to gain a crown…’ he thought. And he thought of Aragorn, as he had first appeared to the hobbits in the inn at Bree, a ragged wanderer of the forests and moors. Frodo smiled.
‘A man is king by virtue of what is inside, not what is outside….’

The light was growing even stronger, and Frodo walked round to the back of the throne of Gondor and into a high round gallery with windows on all sides, their shutters open and fine, lacelike grilles of wrought iron letting the late afternoon sunlight stream into the Hall.

Frodo put his face right up to the window and peered out….

Far below him the city of Minas Tirith basked in the golden sunshine of spring. Smoke rose from cooking fires and a bell rang for the changing of the guard. On the outer wall the helms and spear-tips of the sentinels glinted in the sun, and far beyond stretched the dusty plain of the Pelennor. Frodo narrowed his eyes to see, and could make out, at the very edge of his vision, the great squadrons and columns of the armies of Mordor, drawn up waiting to attack the city.

Frodo frowned, squinting as he tried harder to see, for what appeared at first had to be a mirage, a vision not of what was there but of what he wished was there….

Frodo gasped; it was no vision. The enemy armies, great black formations under vile banners, were breaking up. Even as the hobbit watched, great columns of men, orcs and fell beasts began to break ranks and stream back towards the distant river. Stragglers were scattered all over the plain, like ants when a nest is destroyed, running this way and that, doomed.
‘It can’t be!’ breathed Frodo to himself, rubbing his eyes and looking again.

But it was. Overhead the dark cloud sent by Sauron to protect the orc squadrons from the sun had shredded in the strong West wind and was streaming away in tatters towards the East, whence it had come. All the forces of Mordor were in disarray and retreat. Frodo turned and ran down the steps and across to the Steward’s chair. He shook Faramir awake.

’Come and look, Faramir!’ he cried in excitement ‘Sauron’s armies are falling back. Your plan is working!’

Scenting the enemy, An Seabhac lengthened his stride as if eager to close with the orcs and trample them into the hard dry earth that shook under his great hooves. The line of the enemy came closer and resolved itself into spearmen clad in armour of gilded brass with fantastic designs of snake and dragon, and flying overhead banners of black with the Red Eye bold upon them.
‘Not much further now, my brave steed…’ muttered Boromir, and his great black charger snorted as if it understood him.

Boromir drew his sword, wondering when the arrows would find him. He prayed that the foe would be so surprised by the attack of a single horseman that they might not have time to loose more than a few darts before he was among them, hewing and hacking. But he knew it would probably be otherwise, and he and Seabhac might be struck down long before they reached the enemy spears.

But as they galloped on and on the air remained clear and not a single missile was cast against them. Boromir frowned, suspecting a trap. A circle of pike-wielding orcs, perhaps, to surround him and Seabhac and make his killing into sport. Boromir shrugged off the thought; a warrior had to take whatever chance the battlefield threw up, however cruel…

The enemy line drew ever closer, the mass of glittering helms and bright axe-blades and ragged banners resolving itself into individual orcs, clad in their outlandish armour and bearing fearsome weapons, far beyond the strength of mortal men to wield.

Boromir held out his sword over his horse’s straining neck and dug his heels into the beast’s flanks to urge it on. But even while he was at some distance from the foe and the enemy ranks were still partly shrouded by mist, Boromir could see there was something wrong….

The line of orcs and Easterlings and warg-mounted commanders was retreating.

Boromir lowered his sword and laid it across his saddle-bow and strained his eyes to see clearly; there was no doubt. The enemy were falling back.

Not in orderly ranks and columns, but just lowering their shields and sheathing their crooked swords and looking in bewilderment at each other they were drawing back, at first slowly then as some unseen panic took hold, at a run, colliding with each other and trampling any who fell….

Boromir reined Seabhac to a halt and gazed in bafflement at the scene before him. Thousands of orcs and their allies were flying back across the Pelennor towards the river. Overhead the long black cloud sent from Mordor to shield the passage of the orc army had blown completely away and the sun shone in a blue sky. The air was strangely empty of any cries or shouts; the orcs fled in deathly silence, only the drumming of their shod feet on the hard winter grass and the clash of their sword and pike blades making any sound.

‘What is happening?’ asked Boromir in dismay. All he could think was that death in battle had been denied him, and so set was he on wiping away his shame in a glorious but doomed battle with the enemy that he felt not relief but anger and despair.
‘Where are you going, you cowardly cur?’ he bellowed, reaching down from the saddle to seize the harness of a fleeing orc. But the creature looked up at Boromir and in his red-rimmed eyes the prince of Gondor saw not even fear, but a terrible void. Like scattered sheep the orcs fled, their ruling intelligence, their mastering force, Sauron, no longer in control….

His dream of redemption in ruins, Boromir shouted at the orcs;
‘Blast you, you fiends! Will you deny me your swords this one time I need them? Will no-one fight me?’

And spurring Seabhac forward Boromir swung and slashed at the retreating orcs. Some staggered with pitiful cries and fell, not to rise again. Others ran on, as Boromir hacked at their backs and trailing pikes and swords, not seeming to care if they were slain from behind. Not seeming to know what was even happening.

Boromir stopped, disgusted. There was no honour or even sense in killing here. He felt like a wolf harrying sheep. Sweat ran down his face and under him Seabhac sidled and snorted, uneasy and alarmed. Boromir laid a calming hand on the beast’s neck.

‘Easy, Hawk. We must just wait and see what is happening…’

But even as he spoke the words Boromir saw a thick white mist rise from the distant river Anduin and begin to roll across the plain of the Pelennor. It was no supernatural event; the hot sun suddenly beaming down on the river swollen by the cold waters of early spring had caused a dense white mist to form. But it gathered with supernatural speed, and now the Western wind was blowing it across the plain.

‘Oh no…’ thought Boromir, afraid of being caught in a blinding pall of white. But before he could urge Seabhac out of the way, the mist enveloped him and his mount, and nothing could be seen for more than a few feet in all directions….
‘We must get clear of this, old friend…’ Boromir whispered to Seabhac and turned the horse’s head to ride out in the direction of the city.

But then, looming up out of the wall of white, came a giant form, a monster with curving tusks as thick as ash saplings. A great trunk, sinuous and grey, curled up into the air over his head and a deafening trumpet was emitted, causing Seabhac to scream and rear up on his hind legs….

A Mumak! Boromir had seen them in the distance when he had fought off the attacks of the Southerlings during Gondor’s long wars. But he had never seen one as close as this; the mist made it look even bigger and Boromir caught a glimpse of the red- and white-painted face of its leering rider. As the monster raised its trunk to seize him Boromir ducked and tried to turn his horse’s head and escape….

But the Hawk was too quick for him. Horses fear Mumakil and Seabhac, seeing and smelling the beast, swerved away from the upraised trunk and bounded off into the white emptiness of the mist with Boromir clinging to the saddle, powerless to stop him….