Chapter 398: Darkness Falls
You're really trying to make my life difficult, aren't you?
The thought flashed through Levi's mind before he could stop himself.
The Mouth of Sauron's offer was, in fact, highly credible. Levi did not doubt it. If he nodded right now, Mordor would surrender on the spot and bring all of its allies down with it.
Sauron himself might swear fealty to Levi.
But then again.
This was not the first time this had happened.
When the Númenóreans marched against Sauron long ago, he had done the same thing: surrendered outright. With his fair face and honeyed words, he had risen from prisoner to royal advisor, and then the corruption began.
Everyone knew how that story ended. The great kingdom of Númenor was destroyed. An entire nation and all its lands sank beneath the sea.
And now he wanted to try the same trick again?
The Mouth of Sauron's proposal caught everyone off guard. They had expected negotiation, or perhaps a defiant declaration of war.
No one had imagined that Sauron, the self-proclaimed Dark Lord, Emperor of Middle-earth, would choose to surrender and pledge loyalty to his own enemy.
Even with full confidence in Levi, Gandalf tensed as soon as he heard it. "Remember what happened before," he warned. "You must not accept."
Levi just smiled. He patted Gandalf lightly on the shoulder and stepped forward.
Watching that unchanged expression and his steady posture, Gandalf realised his warning had probably been unnecessary.
"I have no interest in the loyalty of oathbreakers," Levi said. "And if he truly wants to negotiate, he can come out here himself instead of hiding behind his walls."
The Mouth of Sauron did not answer. He only stared at Levi, trying to read him.
But no matter how he looked, the man remained unreadable.
He could not read Levi's thoughts. And he could not determine whether the One Ring was on his person.
He could confirm that Levi was not wearing the One Ring. The two gold rings set with amber were not it. They were something else, a different kind of enchanted ring.
Doubt churned inside the Mouth of Sauron.
Sauron's goals were never simple. He never staked everything on one outcome. This negotiation was meant to test many things at once, and gauging Levi's ambition was only one of them.
A successful negotiation would be the best result.
As for failure... behind that door lay every last soldier Mordor could muster.
Every force that could be called from every region had been pulled here. All of it, concentrated behind this single gate.
"Then perhaps..."
The Mouth of Sauron was reaching for another angle when Gimli lost his patience.
From behind Levi, Gimli growled, "He's definitely got more tricks up his sleeve. I say we put an arrow through his skull before he can..."
Boom!
Before Gimli finished his sentence, a violent blast erupted in front of the army. Everyone flinched. In the next instant, they saw a gaping hole punched clean through the Mouth of Sauron's chest. His black steel armour had done nothing to stop it.
The one responsible, of course, was the man at the very front.
Levi lowered the dragonbone bow and nodded. "You're right, Gimli. That's exactly what we should do."
Gimli stared at the scene ahead and swallowed hard.
The dragonbone arrow had torn through the Mouth of Sauron's chest and embedded itself in the hard metal of the Black Gate behind him. The impact rang out far and wide, like a signal to both sides.
Thud.
The Mouth of Sauron toppled from his horse and lay still.
High above Barad-dûr, the Eye, wreathed in flame, turned its gaze toward the gate at once.
This was clearly not how things were meant to unfold.
The negotiation had been severed with a sharp, brutal finality. Every tentative probe and every calculated test had been cut short in a single, breathless instant.
"So, you choose war."
Deep within the shadows of the dark tower, Sauron's voice was a low murmur to himself.
Boom!
War drums sounded.
The Black Gate slammed shut. Masses of Orcs scrambled onto the gate's ramparts and the spiked towers flanking it, facing down the army below.
The gate was all but indestructible, comparable to the Obsidian walls built inside Roadside Keep. Even seventy thousand elite soldiers would need time to break through.
And as noted before, the gate was extremely hard, resistant to mining, and blast-proof. It had a degree of protection against explosives.
It resisted certain methods rather well.
But none of that mattered.
Levi switched to the Blazewing Chestplate, launched into the air, and swept along the top of the gate, cutting down Orcs as he went. He found the gate's controls, endured the attacks of the swarming creatures around him, and forced the sealed gate open again by hand.
Efficient, as always.
This time it was not a crack. The gate stood wide open, and the allied army of Men could advance.
But the way forward was anything but easy. Behind the gate, Orcs and dark creatures covered every slope and ridge as far as the eye could see.
Like a black sea at night, with no end in sight.
Boom!
Dark clouds rolled in from the depths of Mordor, blotting out the sky above the gate. The remaining eight Nazgûl wheeled and shrieked, spreading terror.
But this time, neither the Nazgûl nor the screams of their fell beasts had any real effect. The leaders of Men stood firm, and their presence alone sent morale soaring through the ranks behind them.
And at the very front stood the legend himself. That figure alone outweighed everything else.
Mordor's host hesitated. Horns blared, and drums pounded, but they would not commit to an attack.
The two sides were locked in a contest of will.
The leaders paced before the ranks, leading by example, roaring encouragement until morale burned white-hot.
The Allied army's momentum continued to swell. Levi and the others walked forward step by step, carrying that rising tide with them.
Light punched through the clouds and stung the eyes of the dark creatures on the field.
Just as the Orc vanguard was about to buckle and break under the crushing pressure, a howling black wind erupted before the Black Gate, dragging Mordor's clouds back overhead and smothering the sky once more.
The gale was so violent it drowned out every drum, every horn. Nothing could be heard except a piercing whine.
Darkness fell upon the earth.
"One Ring to rule them all."
Looking at the dreadful scene before them, everyone who had attended the Council of Rivendell remembered those words. When Gandalf had spoken the inscription of the One Ring aloud in Imladris, a shadow had fallen over it, filling it with dread.
Now, something far worse had descended here.
"Hold formation! Do not move!"
"It is only the enemy's bluster! Do not fear!"
Aragorn, Théoden, and the other leaders shouted across their sections, striding to the very front to stand against the oppressive dark.
"Do not let the hope inside you die!"
Gandalf raised his staff high, and light blazed from it, pushing back against the sudden blackness.
The fire of hope burned from within.
Rohan's soldiers and Gondor's soldiers looked to their kings. They saw Théoden's royal banner streaming behind him. They saw Aragorn holding Andúril aloft. They saw the light the Wizard had made. One by one, they steadied themselves, and their resolve hardened.
The army of the Free City-States simply watched the figure standing before the Black Gate, unmoving as stone, and held their ground. Not one of them so much as moved. They stood like carved statues, without a single wasted motion.
Once the army was settled, Gandalf hurried forward to Levi's side. "Do not let your guard down," he warned. "Even without the One Ring, Sauron has recovered most of his power. Be careful."
"I know."
(End of Chapter)