The sky betrayed them. Roiling black clouds blotted out the sun. Rínior's eyes filled with a disgusting mix of dirt, rain, and blood as he swung his sword at the nearest orc. It wasn't hard; they skittered over the Downs like rats.

The orcs darted in and out of the dense fog. It had taken mere minutes to lose control of his men. They were better than this. He had trained them better than this! But they had scattered and he could not protect them all with one single blade, no matter how sharp.

Rínior screamed. Searing pain filled his face as he tumbled to the ground. He dropped his sword. With a slam, a blood-soaked scimitar narrowly missed his body. Rínior felt blood in his mouth as he grasped for his blade.

Evening was still hours off. How was the world so dark? He gave up his frantic search in the mud and grabbed his Fëanorian dagger. Rínior slammed it into the ribcage of the nearest orc and used it to leverage himself to his feet.

He heard screams. Orcs? Men? And if men, were they his?

Probably. He forced the thought away. He had trained them. They could hold the line. They had to hold the line.

He saw his sword. Rínior picked it up along with a fist of mud. The rain slickened everything, grass or otherwise. Fog limited the already low visibility. Everything was chaos. He hoped it would cause the enemy trouble as well.

Minutes passed. He pushed his way forward, slashing heads off of orcs and Hill-men alike. The cacophony around him faded to the background. Rínior focused on staying alive.

He kicked a rock. Rínior tumbled to the ground, barely avoiding stabbing himself. With a shout, he went to kick the stone that had sent him tumbling. But it wasn't a stone. He looked at Belegon-

No. He looked at the body that had once been Belegon. This unseeing body was not Belegon. It was just a body. And Rínior had seen many bodies.

He forced himself away. Gritting his teeth, he shook himself, trying to push away any thought of who the body had belonged to. It didn't matter. It couldn't.

A leather boot slammed down on his sword. Rínior tried to yank it free but he couldn't. He glanced up and saw a middle-aged man glaring down at him. He dodged a hard swing.

Rínior reached for a sword under Belegon's- under the body. As the man swung down at his face, he blocked and threw himself forward. The hill-man tumbled backwards.

They traded punches. Rínior felt cold fingers sliding over his drenched face. He turned into it. A hand slid into his mouth and grasped him. Nails scraped teeth. He bit down hard.

The man screamed. Spitting the finger from his mouth, Rínior tried to ignore the blood filling his mouth. Better the enemy's blood than his own. Thunder rolled as he tried to catch his breath.

He could hear fighting. Clashing steel and moans of the dying still sounded in his ears but muffled, from distance or from lack of the living, he didn't know. Through the pouring rain, Rínior sought some sign of where he had ended up.

Like a dark tower, a silent standing stone rose into the air in front of him. Rínior swayed on his knees. In the still mist, he felt every slash and punch he'd ignored in the heat of battle. Nausea rolled over him. A chill settled in his spine, like slow-spreading lightning across his bones.

So this was it. This would be the end. He closed his eyes, trying not to vomit. Bodies littered the Downs. The bodies would join the skeletons deep beneath the earth someday when nature reclaimed them. He felt tears pricking at his eyes. The grime across his face stung.

At first, Rínior thought he heard a growing wind. But the air stilled, and he realized what he thought had been wind was actually a spine-chilling release of stagnant breath. It stank of rotting flesh.

The clinking of chainmail and dragging of chains sounded behind him. Rínior couldn't breathe. He closed his eyes. Reaching deep into his mind, he tried to picture the shining Silmaril in the grasp of his daughter's hands. He remembered the softness of his wife's lips. Clenching his jaw, Rínior tightened his hand around the hilt of his sword and swallowed back bile. He found the fire that had filled his chest as he held the Palantír so many years before.

Rínior screamed. He spun around while rising to his feet and swung. Steel met steel and he came face to face with empty eye sockets. The wight stared into his very soul. For the first time in his life, Rínior froze.

Black night-shadows crept out over the mist. How long he stood there, braced against the wight, unable to move, he didn't know. But at last he found his fire. Rínior swung again, and the barrow wight shrieked.

The sound tore his mind. Rínior stumbled back, grasping at his own ears. The voice filled his mind with images of death, with an undead light so opposite that of the Silmaril from his dreams that he could not imagine they were born of the same song.

A blade slashed his thigh. Pain drove out the fear. Rínior gritted his teeth as dark spots filled his vision. He swung at the wight again.

It dodged, but he managed to catch its lower leg. The creature didn't flinch. Rínior gasped for breath. He swung again, and again, and again. With each attempt, he hewed at the wight more and more. At last, he severed the sword arm.

Rínior watched as it continued to crawl along the grey grass. Biting back bile, he swung for the wight's chest.

It caught the blade. Rínior stared into the empty eye sockets of the skull. He could've sworn it smiled. So Rínior did too.

He let go of the sword. Diving under the wight's remaining arm, he drew out his Fëanorian dagger. Enchanted with spells to guard against the sorcery of the Witch-king, he knew this was his only hope.

The blade sliced the spell-woven tendons between the neck and skull. Wind whipped up around him. Freezing pain shot up his arm into his shoulder and back. Rínior screamed, falling to his knees. But the cold music of clattering bones told the fate of the barrow wight. Rínior knelt alone on the dark hill.

He threw up.

When Rínior opened his eyes, he saw stars. No, not stars. Torches. True night had fallen, though the rain had stopped, and in the glow of the fires he saw only enemies.

His whole body ached with a pain he had never experienced. Blood soaked his gambeson in multiple places. From his toes to his scalp, any movement made him want to cry. But he couldn't. Not now. Not ever.

He had failed. He knelt alone, bleeding into rain-soaked grass beneath a towering barrow stone surrounded by bones. Orcs and hill-men laughed at him from the edges of the battlefield.

It took all his strength to stand. The thigh slash from the barrow blade froze his muscles. But he would not die on his knees.

"Well fought, Hero of the North."

Rínior looked for the source of the voice. It was mannish, as distant from the tongue of the hill-men as his own. After a moment, he realized the man spoke Sindarin.

"Show yourself, if you are not a coward," Rínior spat.

Torches parted and a tall man, face youthful except for years worth of scars, stepped forward. He had brown hair and grey eyes. For a moment, Rínior's heart leapt. Surely this man was Dúnedan! But he bore the heraldry of Angmar.

"I'm no coward."

"Then fight me!" Rínior picked his sword up off the ground, kicking the wriggling barrow-arm down the hill.

The man wasted no time. He unsheathed his sword without flourish. Rínior took a few breaths to steady himself. At least when the end came, it would be in a battle, not an execution.

The man came to stand level with him. He pointed his sword. "Any last words, half-elf?"

Rínior looked at him. The man stared back with familiar eyes. He had never seen a day without war.

He lowered his voice. "If you have any honor left, man, do not leave me to suffer."

The man's eyebrows raised in surprise. But he nodded. He wasted no time in slamming his sword down at Rínior, and the air filled with the singing of steel blades.

This would be the end. The end of Rínior, Hero of the North. Mírien would never see their bloodline brought to glory. Tiniel would never share his bed again. He would never be able to hug his sister close, begging for aid from Valar who never answered.

A swift kick from the enemy forced the wind from his lungs. He stumbled back, unable to hold himself up. His sword dropped. He looked up at the grey eyes of the man of Angmar. He sheathed his sword, picking up a dagger from the ground.

Rínior couldn't move. He could barely keep himself on his knees. But as the man inspected his Fëanorian dagger, fire filled his chest. "You have no right to that blade!"

The man looked up at him. He smirked. "No?"

"No."

Rínior forced himself to watch as the man raised the dagger. He would look death in the face until the end. But he couldn't breathe. He didn't want to die. He didn't.

The man swung. Rínior flinched as his fist collided with his skull. He dropped, the world disappearing. Everything turned to black.