Chapter 391: The Army of the Dead
As a weapon that had once defeated Sauron, Narsil was something the Nazgûl remembered all too well and feared like a beast fears fire.
That sword held unmatched power—a light forged to sunder all darkness.
Even when broken, its shards had severed Sauron's strength and brought him low; for in the War of the Last Alliance, he could not have been undone merely by the loss of a hand and the sundering of the Ring.
Thus, the sword was not only death to Sauron but doom to the Nazgûl as well. A single strike could scatter their spirits beyond all recall, leaving nothing even for Sauron to restore.
The Nazgûl recoiled from the terror of Narsil, and Aragorn did not pursue. Instead, he lifted the sword high and drove it down into the drake's skull beneath his feet.
The creature's skull, hard enough to turn steel, split like parchment. The sword pierced through and sank deep into its brain.
The drake never even had time to scream. Its body went rigid, and the light in its eyes flickered once—then died.
The evil spirit lodged inside it burst out in a thick plume of black fog that shot up into the sky and exploded into darkness.
Then the drake's flesh began to rot at a terrifying speed. Black blood poured out, reeking so foul it made the throat burn. Wherever it splashed, the grass withered and turned yellow, poisoned in seconds, until only a gigantic skeleton remained.
Sauron had fed these drakes on rotting corpses and filth and tainted them with dark power until every inch of their flesh was venom. They were nothing like the drakes once bred in Isengard. These were fully corrupted demon-drakes.
After such a creature died, the land it spoiled would become a dead zone, unable to grow so much as a blade of grass for centuries.
Before the drake could rot completely, Aragorn pulled the sword free and levelled it at the Nazgûl.
"Who are you?" the Nazgûl demanded, its voice tight with wariness. "Why is Narsil in your hand?"
"I am Aragorn, son of Arathorn, direct heir of Isildur, and the rightful bearer of Narsil!" Aragorn declared.
The Nazgûl feared Narsil, yet it rasped a cold laugh. "Isildur's heir. Even with that blade, you cannot stop Gondor's fall!"
Aragorn's gaze did not waver, as if the Nazgûl's aura of dread meant nothing to him. "Gondor will not fall. The only thing that will fall today is you."
As he spoke, a wind swept in from the west.
It was not a normal wind. It was a deathly gale, cold down to the soul, and it made men shiver hard without knowing why.
The fighting across the battlefield stalled. Mordor and Gondor alike turned toward the west, and eyes widened in stunned disbelief.
Mist and a rolling black wind poured over the field, and tens of thousands upon tens of thousands of spirits came streaming in at the speed of a storm. Their deathly aura surged up into the clouds, staining the sky and shifting its colour.
They looked like reapers from the abyss, sweeping in to harvest souls.
Even Mordor's soldiers, hardened as they were, went pale with terror at the sheer scale of the dead host.
At their head, the King of the Dead raised a blade of the dead and led the Army of the Dead straight into the battle.
Both sides were shaken white by the sight of them, but Gondor's soldiers quickly realised something and felt a tight, desperate relief.
The spirits attacked only Mordor. They ignored Gondor's men entirely, passing through their lines without so much as a glance.
Gondor's soldiers understood at once. These dead had come to help them.
At Aragorn's shout, he led the charge, fighting alongside the dead as they slammed into Mordor's ranks.
Gondor's men roared, raised their weapons again, and followed the Army of the Dead into the enemy host.
Mordor's soldiers tried to fight back.
It was useless.
Steel and arrows meant nothing. Blades passed through the spirits as if through smoke. No weapon could harm them.
But the spirits' strikes were death itself to Mordor.
When the dead weapons fell, Mordor's soldiers showed no wounds, yet they dropped where they stood, life extinguished in an instant.
Even the towering mûmakil and demon-drakes fell under the spirits' onslaught, swarmed by a crawling tide of the dead. No matter how they thrashed and bellowed, they crumpled lifeless to the earth.
The foul spirits bound within the drakes fared no better—yanked free by vengeful hands, they were torn asunder until nothing remained.
Gondor's living steel and the Army of the Dead pressed the assault without mercy. Mordor's host reeled back, then broke entirely, their lines dissolving into panicked rout against foes who answered to no law of the living.
Seeing the battle turn, the Nazgûl flared with shock and fury and tried to strike at the King of the Dead.
But Aragorn, Legolas, Faramir, and the other Dúnedain wizards closed in together and surrounded the Ringwraith.
Aragorn took the lead, pressing the attack with the holy sword that could restrain the Nazgûl.
With the tide reversed, the Nazgûl began to consider retreat.
Aragorn and the others clearly had no intention of letting it escape.
"Expecto Patronum!" they cried together.
Aragorn summoned a lion Patronus. Legolas conjured a massive elk. Faramir called forth a wild bull. Others produced Patronuses of dogs, cats, horses, and more besides.
Dozens of Patronuses gathered in one place, and the force of light and hope they radiated became a brutal counter to a creature of darkness like a Nazgûl.
One or two Patronuses would not have frightened it. But dozens at once forced the Ringwraith to erupt with dark power, meeting the Patronuses head-on.
The Patronuses wove a barrier of silver light, enclosing the Nazgûl in radiance from which no shadow could flee.
With the Patronus barrier pressing down, Aragorn stepped into it, Narsil in hand, and engaged the Nazgûl in a fierce duel.
Aragorn had lived in Rivendell, trained and tempered under Elrond's careful guidance. His skill was strong even before he learned magic, and after mastering spellcraft, his strength multiplied many times over.
With decades of hard travelling behind him, even facing a Nazgûl at the height of its terror, he did not yield ground.
At last, with his companions' coordination and support, Aragorn drove his sword into the Nazgûl's chest.
The moment Narsil pierced it, the Nazgûl released a shriek of agony sharp enough to split the heart. The black sorcery binding it was broken apart, and its armour twisted inward, collapsing as if crushed by an invisible hand.
Then a massive blast-wave detonated from within the Ringwraith.
Aragorn, Legolas, and the others were thrown back. All around them, soldiers on the battlefield were knocked off their feet as the shock spread outward in a circle.
The Nazgûl vanished completely, dispersed into nothing, leaving only a single ring that fell to the ground.
With Mordor's commander destroyed, the enemy's morale shattered. Mordor's troops scattered and fled in every direction.
But that only made the slaughter worse, as Gondor and the Army of the Dead pursued them.
The spirits moved in an instant. How could Mordor's soldiers outrun death itself? One after another, their souls were harvested.
Aragorn did not chase the fleeing enemy. He bent down and picked up the ring the Nazgûl had left behind.
The moment his fingers touched it, a powerful force of temptation surged into him.
Aragorn resisted through sheer will, then quickly wrapped the ring in a piece of black cloth and placed it into his spatial pouch, intending to hand it over to Elrond for judgement once everything here was settled.
When the last Mordor soldier fell, a thunderous cheer rose from the battlefield and from within Minas Tirith itself.
Everyone celebrated the victory.
Gondor's soldiers and people had believed their realm was about to perish. They had already surrendered to despair, and yet the world had pivoted on its edge.
Not only had Minas Tirith endured, but the invading host had also been utterly annihilated.
And the credit for that reversal belonged to the Army of the Dead.
Whether they were soldiers standing amid corpses or civilians looking down from the city, all eyes turned toward the spirits, fear still present, but gratitude shining through it.
Under everyone's gaze, the dead gathered together and drifted toward Aragorn.
Aragorn, his expression full of sincere thanks, addressed the King of the Dead and the spirits behind him. "Thank you for helping us defeat Mordor's host and saving Gondor from destruction. You are free."