View from the Wall

Grey rain fell on grey cloaks that moved swiftly and almost silently through the shadows. When they reached the edge of the trees, they halted. Their cloaks made them almost invisible, the colour hard to define. Grey in twilight and almost black in the dark of the night beneath the trees, but green when moved or brown as fields or dusk-silver under the stars. The elves looked out at Deeping Coomb and the tall, imposing wall of the Dike, stretching outwards in either direction.

Hushed voices at the head of the column slipped into the swoosh of the whispering trees, then Haldir gave the command and they moved forwards once more.

The night air was eerily still and crackling with electricity. It was going to rain, and maybe there would be lightning. But it seemed that, like the elves and the men waiting with steamy breath and pounding hearts inside the Hornburg, the sky was bristling for a fight.

The causeway made little noise beneath the elves' light feet and the huge, wooden doors swung open hastily as men rushed out to greet them, the relief apparent in their wide eyes. On the battlements, hundreds of eyes craned to get a view of the imposing company. For many, it was their first sighting of an elf, for these had been stricken times, with travel between realms not so free as it once might have been.

"They're so tall," Josur whispered. "They make you look almost normal, Dan."

"Yeah, that and the pointy ears." Grimme added.

Dan was silent. Josur and Grimme, broad-shouldered, experienced, confident, could make idle jokes at Lord Haldir's forces, but the sword at Dan's belt hadn't left its sheath in the three years he'd owned it, and sound of brazen Orc horns distant on the horizon left no room for humour.

"Are those two girls?!" Josur said in hushed surprise.

"Which ones?!" Grimme, shorter and stouter than the other two boys, pushed Dan aside to get a closer look.

"Those ones, the blondes. Actually those other ones, too. Do you see? They have ponytails. But they're very long. And that one has braids, I think. I can't see because of the helmets." Josur balanced on his toes eagerly as he watched the elves sweep over the causeway. There was a grin on his face but his skin was pale and his lower lip trembling slightly.

The atmosphere on the wall was electric with nervous excitement. The hosts of Isengard were not yet visible, and the arrival of the elves had lifted the spirits of the men momentarily from helpless doom to jubilation and, perhaps, a little real hope.

"They're all male," Grimme snorted contemptuously, rolling back onto his heels and moving out of the way again. He was tense and snappy. A motionless rock beside Josur's jumpy, wiry figure. "They're soldiers. You don't get girl soldiers, even with elves. They just have silky hair. Owing to the fact that they're elves, you shit shoveller."

"I don't know why you insist on using that as an insult," Dan said mildly. "That's literally what we do. All day. We work in a stables." Dan, in turn, was doing his utmost to remain still and blank. The panic would come, as sure as the incoming tide of darkness that sped towards Helm's deep, but for now he was hoping that by presenting a face of calm his body would follow suit.

Grimme let out a huff of hot air and turned back to the battlements as the last of the elves filed through the doors. "Let's face it though, Dan, next time I use a shovel it will be to dig your grave. You shouldn't be here."

Dan shivered. The excitement of the elves wore off as quickly as it came and the mood was suddenly sombre. The Galadhrim Company was a most welcome addition to the few hundred fighters defending the Deep, but if word of the oncoming orc host was to be believed then there weren't nearly enough of them.

"Did you hear the latest?" Josur said, his fingers dancing nervously over his sword hilt. "The last scouting party are back. It's not just the scary massive Uruks that Saruman's been cooking up special, there are wild men too. From Dunland. They make the total to maybe ten thousand."

"And how many of us again?" Grimme asked grimly.

"Well, let's just settle on 'less than ten thousand' and maybe we can die with our pants unsoiled." Josur said.

Many men chose silence upon the wall as they waited for what the night would bring, and if it weren't for his two friends Dan would have joined them. He didn't have much to say. All he had was the intense, swelling dread in his stomach. He was going to die tonight. He could see no other outcome. He had never learnt to bear sword or bow, but even if he had, what hope was there? An army of ten thousand were approaching, strong, powerful monsters bred for the very purpose of war with more skill with a sword in their little fingers than Dan had in whole body. He was going to die fast and without grace.

There was a commotion towards the stairs and the three boys fought to stay together as men moved quickly, making space for the elf archers at the battlements.

"They want us to move downstairs," Josur shouted above the bustle as he was shoved to one side by a burly giant of a man wearing what seemed to be potato sacks. Josur was thin and wiry, and had a fleeting look in his wide, brown eyes that were constantly darting from side to side like a hare caught in a trap. "No room for non-archers up here anymore, not now with the elves."

"I just want to see them," Grimme said, frustrated, as he jumped awkwardly trying to see above the tall heads now making their way silently to the stone wall. "I don't want to be stuck down in some hole, listening to the sounds of people dying and screaming and walls breaking and a battle raging not to see any of it till it bursts through the door I'm protecting and tries to kill me. I don't think I can bear it. Just waiting and getting more and more scared while we all panic."

"Well, your wish is my command." Dan said quietly, pulling Grimme by the arm to a mismatched stone in the wall they were now pressed against and helping him climb up and balance.

The orange glow at the top of the Dike had grown significantly since they'd been at the wall, and now there was a line of black silhouetted against the torches cresting the hill.

Grimme was very still. "They look like ants." He whispered.

"Yeah, scary, killer, rip-your-limbs-from-your-body-and-feast-on-your-raw-flesh ants. I know the ones." Josur muttered, standing next to Dan.

Dan pulled anxiously at the sleeves of his chainmail where it chafed a little way up his wrists. It was too short for his long limbs and tall frame, but a little too broad for his narrow chest and shoulders. It had been his father's, and it was probably a better fit than any of the other rusty contraptions in the armoury. Dan was tall but had not yet grown into a stature that matched his height.

"You know," Josur said suddenly, tucking his straggly blond hair back under his helmet where it had fallen in front of his eyes. "We could probably stay here, help with the catapults and shifting rock like we were supposed to. No one has seen us. It's madness, I think the party we were with has already left. Let's face it, the closer we are to these elf guys the better the chance we have of making it out alive."

Grimme grunted in agreement and Dan was happy to oblige. Both he and Josur were carrying slingshots and Grimme's strength would certainly be useful when it came to heaving the heavier rocks over the battlements. Dan knew he'd have no chance in close combat, but he had shot a few arrows growing up and here he would be far from the action and unable to really see the results of his feeble attacks.

Each man dealt with the chilling call of war in a different manner. Some cracked high pitched jokes while their friends clouted them around the ear for speaking, others paced impatiently, champing at the bit. In a battle there was no time for thinking and no spare second for fear, but it was the waiting for a battle that would come with all the certainty of the waxing moon and rising sun that truly tested a man. To the left of the three boys, an archer with silver hair and wrinkled, weather worn skin was mumbling to himself under his breath in a stream of words too swift to decipher.

The orc horns could be heard loud and ringing now as they crawled down the Dike like a cascade of spiders, and suddenly it began to rain.

"Well," Josur said as a strike of lightning lit up the full force of Saruman's army in a moment of intense and violent terror. "How about a joke to lighten the mood?"

Grimme turned to Josur with raised eyebrows and flared nostrils, as if daring him to continue.

"Which side of a horse has the most hair?" Josur asked. "The outside."

*

The Dike was boiling and crawling with black shapes, some squat and broad, some tall and firm, with high helms and sable shields. In the darkness, Josur's hand gripped Dan's shoulder, and Grimme hopped from one foot to the other trying to see. It was like a horrible game. The night was too dark to make out anything so far away, but when lightning smote down upon the Eastern hills they were there - a little closer with each crack of light. Dan swallowed, and began to count slowly upwards in an effort to control his racing heart.

Tale of the unfolding scene was seeping its way back through the waiting watchers in whispers.

"They're over the Dike and through the breach."

"Ladders and catapults and towers on wheels."

"They're so big-"

"How can they be so fast?"

"Ten-thousand at least."

"We're all going to die."

The dark tide flowed up the walls from cliff to cliff. Thunder rolled in the valley. Rain came lashing down.

Arrows thick as rain came whistling over the battlements, and fell clinking and glancing on the stones. Some found a mark. A man, tall and proud, fell down dead at Dan's feet, his blue eyes frozen wide open. Dan jumped backwards, shaking, and the three boys slunk back to the wall, scaling to stone to watch from a safer vantage point.

"The armour is weak at the neck, and beneath the arm!" An officer was shouting as he jogged, his voice straining to carry over the pounding of the rain. He repeated his cry in Elvish and then in Rohirric. "Show them no mercy!"

The elves were silent statues of calm as they waited, bow strings taught. Already, a low voice was crying.

Then at last a cry of rage and command went up all along the wall and a storm of arrows met the enemy, and a hail of stones. They wavered, broke, and fled back; and then charged again; and each time, like the incoming sea, they halted at a higher point.

The three stable boys were working now, their breath hot and hitched and their hearts racing as they shifted stones from the great piles gathered along the wall. A gap appeared at the battlements and Dan ran forwards with a cry, flinging a small stone hard and fast from his slingshot. He could not see if it had hit its mark, for already he was running back to fill up his pouch.

The wall was narrow. Hot, jostling bodies pressed together, threatening to push each other off the edge. The air was thick with the stench of sweat and fear.

"The front line is heavily armoured. Aim further back!"

"Volley!!"

"Aim for the ladder bearers!"

"Aim for the officers!"

"Left-"

"Grappling hook!"

Josur had retrieved the bow and quiver from a fallen soldier and now stood in the second row, trembling from head to toe but firing straight with focused, steely eyes. His lower lip was wobbling, but his hands were not.

"Ormod, your left!" A man screamed as the first Orc came flying over the battlements.

"Cut the ropes!"

"Push!"

Dan cast his eyes around. He was not strong, and already he was starting to tire from shifting the heavy rock. Perhaps he would be a waste of arrows, but he was about to become a waste of space.

An elf had fallen near where Grimme was working and Dan approached hesitantly. Would it be considered a great insult to strip the corpse of the bow and some arrows? A elf shoved past to the stair carrying a man. Dan knew nothing of elven culture, and even in death the creature looked mighty and proud.

Another elf ran in front of him, this one with hair as black as the screaming night, and stooped down to the fallen archer. He closed the elf's eyes, said something Dan couldn't catch, and slipped the sleek bow gently out of his long fingers. The dark-haired elf turned to Dan.

"You need this?" He said in the common tongue, and Dan could only nod meekly in response, finding himself suddenly tongue tied. There was something incredibly imposing and intimidating about the elves, not least this one's piercing blue eyes.

"Thank you," Dan finally whispered. "And- I'm sorry."

The elf nodded as he straightened up. He began to turn away, before turning back. "Do you know how to use it?" He asked uncertainly. "I don't mean to offend. I've never used a man's bow, they might be different."

Dan blinked. "Um. I don't know. I've never used an elf bow. It's very light." He sounded slow and stupid, his voice rough and heavy while the elf's voice seemed to slip like a sing-song stream over smooth stones, lilting up and down as if in joyous melody.

They were Galadhrim elves, and of course Dan had heard the tales of the beautiful and powerful Lady Galadriel. Did all the elves from Lothlorien possess the same qualities? Dan felt as if he were trapped in a bubble, frozen in the elf's glacial blue stare, when all around him a wild and perilous battle raged.

"Quickly, come this way." The elf lead Dan out of the way of the archers, his hand little lighter than a feather on Dan's shoulder.

The bows of men and elves were indeed made in the same fashion, but the craftsmanship was vastly different. The bowstring sung in the elf's long, slender fingers, his hands gliding over the supple wood where Dan fumbled with rough, clumsy fingers. He would swap the long elf-bow for a Rohan made bow and quiver the first chance he got, Dan decided. This weapon was too noble and beautiful for a stable boy. The very wood seemed to be shimmering.

"Are you an archer?" The elf asked uncertainly, and Dan shook his head.

"No," he admitted. "I don't really have any training, actually. We're just short on numbers. They need all the help they can get, even if I'm just throwing stones at the Orcs."

"A well-aimed stone can prove just as effective as an arrow if it hits its mark."

Dan's cheeks blushed crimson. "I'll put it back. I'm sorry. I just wanted to do something useful."

The elf pulled Dan out of the way of two stumbling bodies. A man and an Orc locked in combat, steel flashing. "You misunderstood me," he said, breathing fast as he maneuvered them through the press of bodies. "Sometimes the subtleties of language are lost in translation, I meant only to assure you that your place up here was of great value to your people and mine alike." They had found their way back to the edge now, and Dan shivered as he looked out upon the battle. "Come," the elf said quietly, gesturing to their left. "The best way to improve is with practice. Join your friend. An elven bow is a powerful weapon, but to fight alongside a brother gives you far greater strength."

It seemed the hypnotic quality of the elf could come in useful in times like these, for Dan, still reeling from the encounter, was too overcome with awe to feel any fear as he charged forwards to draw his arrow at Josur's side.


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