Chapter 396: The Wizarding Army
Elrond stepped closer to Smaug and examined the wound carefully, then cast his gaze over the black spear lying discarded on the ground. The dark aura seeping from it made him frown.
He turned to Kael. "Could you bring me some leaves from the White Tree?"
Without a word, Kael raised his hand toward the tall White Tree growing in the garden. A gentle breeze swept through its branches, lifting a dozen or so leaves — vivid green on one side, silver-white on the other — and carried them to Elrond.
Elrond took the leaves and began to crush them between his palms, murmuring Elvish incantations in a low, steady voice. The Ring of Air on his finger shimmered with quiet light. He pressed the crushed leaves against Smaug's wound, and a pure, sacred radiance bloomed from the contact. Thread after thread of dark, ominous vapour seeped out of the injury and dissipated.
Smaug's pained expression eased, and the corrosive darkness gnawing through his body was gradually purified away.
After a long while, Elrond exhaled slowly and lifted his hands from the wound. "It is done," he said to Kael. "The darkness within him has been driven out. Apply your potions to the wound now, and it will close. But his vitality has been considerably drained, and he has lost a great deal of blood. He needs rest and cannot fight again for some time."
Kael finally let out the breath he had been holding. The matter of Smaug not being able to fight was the least of his concerns.
"Thank you, Lord Elrond. This is more than enough," he said, his voice full of genuine gratitude.
The most dangerous part of Sauron's corruption was never the damage to the body. It was the twisting of the mind and spirit. Kael's potions could heal even the most devastating physical wounds, but against that kind of spiritual erosion, they were nearly useless. Only Elrond, the greatest healer in all of Middle-earth, could treat an affliction this difficult to undo, and Kael was deeply glad that the man happened to be his father-in-law. Smaug had been spared from further corruption, from being turned into a puppet of darkness.
Kael produced a small crystal vial containing phoenix tears, his own phoenix's tears, and poured every last drop over the wound without hesitation.
The flesh knitted together almost instantly under their touch, healing at a speed that seemed to defy nature. In moments, the wound was gone entirely. The only thing that could not be restored was the scale the spear had shattered on impact. That was no real problem. He would forge a replacement in mithril later, shaped like a dragon scale and set into the gap. If anything, it would offer better protection than the original scale had.
"Master, I... I'm healed!" Smaug blinked, turning his great head to inspect the now-seamless chest. He had prepared himself for a long, gruelling recovery, possibly permanent damage, and the speed of it left him genuinely stunned.
Kael patted him gently, smiling. "Good. Your wound is healed, but your body is still weak. Stay in the castle and guard it. Don't let the enemy in, and don't let them harm the students. Understood?"
"Understood, master!" Smaug nodded firmly. "I'll guard the castle. If any enemy dares to come close, I'll burn them to ash."
With Smaug settled, Kael wasted no more time there. Sauron and his army were coming fast, and every second counted.
He raised his wand and sent a golden spell blazing upward into the sky. It erupted above the clouds in a burst of brilliant light, forming the vast, shimmering silhouette of a phoenix that circled endlessly in the air above.
The response was almost immediate. One after another, sharp cracks of Apparition rang out, and figures began appearing outside the castle walls. More and more of them arrived with each passing moment — Aurors from the Ministry of Magic, followed by wizards of every kind who lived across the territory, all of them answering the summons.
When the last of those who could come had arrived, the ground outside the castle was packed with them. Nearly ten thousand wizards stood assembled, every person who was able to fight, the elderly, the young, and those with other circumstances already set aside.
Every one of them looked toward Kael, standing at the castle gate, with eyes burning with reverence and devotion.
"Witches and wizards!" Kael's voice was not loud, yet it reached every single ear without effort. "Hogwarts faces its greatest crisis. The Dark Lord of Mordor marches on us with his armies. He means to destroy our home."
He paused, and when he continued, each word struck with the weight of iron. "I need you to raise your wands and pour everything you have into protecting your families, your friends, your home. Use every spell you know. Leave nothing back. Drive the enemy out and keep them from harming what we love."
The words landed like fire. Every wizard present felt something ignite in their chest, a ferocious, unshakeable will to fight.
Kael held a place in these people's hearts that was closer to a god than a lord. They believed in him utterly. And so, even now, even knowing that Sauron himself was marching toward them, even knowing that the one man they thought could do anything was worried, not one of them took a step back. They would stand and fight until the end.
"Go, my people. For our home, for those we love. Raise your wands and destroy every enemy who dares to come."
At his word, the ten thousand vanished, Apparating away one after another in a ripple of cracks until the courtyard was empty in the span of a heartbeat. Only Kael remained, alongside Gandalf, Elrond, Galadriel, Glorfindel, the Ringbearer party, and the professors.
The speech had not only set the wizards ablaze. It had stirred the blood of everyone still standing there.
Elrond watched Kael with open admiration, turning to the others beside him. "Kael is a remarkable leader," he said quietly. "His people follow him as though he were divine. If he had any desire to rule, he could have built a kingdom as glorious as Elendil's in ages past."
Gandalf, Galadriel, and Glorfindel all nodded in quiet agreement.
Kael turned to face them. "Time to go. We've kept Sauron waiting long enough. Since he's come all the way to Eriador, let's make sure he never leaves."
Gandalf, Elrond, Galadriel, and Glorfindel agreed without hesitation. Their one task was to hold Sauron on the field, to deny him any path back to Mordor, to buy Frodo and the others every precious moment they needed. Whatever the cost, they intended to end this permanently.
Bilbo, Merry, Pippin, and Boromir, all stirred by Kael's words, stepped forward and asked to join the battle.
Kael and the others refused Bilbo, Merry, and Pippin, though they agreed to let Boromir fight with them. Every person going to that battlefield, even the least among them, was a wand-carrying wizard. Hobbits of ordinary ability like Bilbo, Merry, and Pippin would be in danger rather than useful. More importantly, Bilbo still needed to maintain his disguise as Frodo, staying within the castle to hold Sauron's gaze away from the true Ringbearer.
The group took their Portkeys and arrived on the open plains northeast of Weathertop.
Nearly ten thousand wizards were already there, with the Aurors from the Ministry leading the line. They had taken up positions along a small river that ran west to east, all eyes fixed on the black clouds pressing down from the north.
Those clouds were the colour of ink, churning and roiling endlessly, a dark curtain rolling southward and blotting out everything above. The air beneath them was thick and difficult to breathe, as though something terrible was coiled within them, hungry and waiting.
Moving as one, the Aurors cast first, raising a Protego barrier along the line of the river.
Every other wizard followed. Wands came up, incantations rang out, and spell after spell poured into the growing shield.
With the combined force of nearly ten thousand witches and wizards behind it, the barrier swelled rapidly, growing taller and broader and more solid by the second. In moments, it had become a colossal wall of radiant light stretching tens of kilometres from end to end, soaring up through the clouds and blazing like a second horizon.
It was a sight of immense, almost breathtaking scale, a curtain of light standing between heaven and earth, visible from miles away in every direction.