Chapter 402: Driven Back
"Don't think hobbits are easy prey, Orc. You'll pay for what you've done!"
In a hidden side room, Sam stood tense, shielding Frodo behind him, his eyes locked on the lame captain.
"Ha, ha, ha..."
The lame captain laughed twice, then slowly walked toward them.
Sam was about to throw himself forward in a last desperate attack when the towering Uruk-hai—towering, relative to a hobbit at least—dropped to one knee, cupped Spider's Nemesis in both hands, and held it out to Sam.
Sam and Frodo were stunned.
"What do you mean by this?"
They could scarcely believe it.
"I saw it," the lame captain said, lifting his head. "I saw that lord's name on this blade. I once swore loyalty to him."
Sam blinked. "You mean Lord Levi?"
"Yes. That lord."
A light kindled inside both hobbits. They looked at each other, disbelief clear on their faces.
Only when Sam and Frodo had each taken back their own weapons did they accept that this was neither illusion nor a dream.
Even in this dark place, there was still hope.
And it had come from an Orc, of all things.
"All right," Sam said, sheathing his sword. "This really was forged by Levi himself, a gift for my journey. When I get back, I'll make sure to tell him what you did."
"I have to say, you've done something remarkable. And what should I call you?"
"Call me Freak. Or Gimp. Gimpy Freak works too."
"That's… fitting," Sam admitted.
"Can you get us out of here?"
With the immediate danger over, Frodo pressed the question.
"I'm afraid not," Freak said, shaking his head. "I'm not the only captain in this tower. There's another one called Shagrat. He's Uruk-hai too, no weaker than I am, and he's nothing like me. I serve the Lord of the Nazgûl at Minas Morgul, the Witch-king, the one who makes your skin crawl. But Shagrat answers directly to the Dark Lord."
"He and I have never gotten along. And he is extremely... loyal."
"Get out here, Freak!"
While Freak was sharing intelligence, a roar erupted from outside, accompanied by violent pounding on the door.
"What's all the noise? Got a death wish?" Freak snarled back, jerking his chin for the hobbits to hide.
Speak of Shagrat, and he appears.
Clang.
Freak kicked the door open and glared. "You'd better have a good reason for bothering me, or I'm putting two blades in you."
"I've had reports of spies on the Stairs of Cirith Ungol. Have you seen them?"
"No. I haven't heard a thing."
"Is that so?"
Shagrat looked around the small room, suspicious, scanning every corner. There did not appear to be anyone else.
But he was not satisfied. He pressed further. "Sounds to me like someone's trying to hog the credit and keep secrets."
"Are you looking for a fight?"
Freak's expression darkened.
The two Uruk-hai captains stood frozen, locked in a silent standoff.
"Hmph. Don't let me catch you out," Shagrat spat and left.
A handful of Orc scouts took up positions nearby, watching the room on his orders.
...
The Orcs' internal power struggle continued, but on the other side of Mordor, their masters were locked in a fight of an entirely different kind.
"Formation!"
Shing.
The Free City-States' army held the front rank. In one smooth motion, every shield locked into place, polished and perfectly aligned. Under other circumstances, the display would have drawn admiration.
But no one was watching the formation right now.
Because the dark host was charging again.
"Hold the line!"
Company commanders bellowed orders down the ranks.
"Loose!"
At Levi's signal, with barely any delay, a blinding storm of arrows erupted from behind him. The volley scythed through the Orc ranks, dropping so many that the entire charge stalled on the spot.
A single salvo had cost the enemy nearly a full regiment.
But there was no end to them.
The front rank fell, and the next wave of Orcs clambered over the corpses and kept coming.
Swept up in battle and the momentum of war, the men forgot their fear. They forgot everything, even their own names. Thought drained away, leaving only blankness. Bodies moved only at command: forward or back.
Or to their deaths.
In a spectacle this vast, individual will counts for almost nothing.
Even Levi and Sauron were swallowed by it.
Men had their faith and their will. They no longer feared Sauron. One after another, they charged.
Mordor's army was driven by dark will. They too forgot fear, flooding forward, crashing against the gleaming host with the force of a tidal wave.
The uneven, dark-soiled ground was covered with enemies from the depths of Mordor. Below the slopes, atop the cliffs, every space that could hold a body was filled. Every fell beast took to the air, shrieking, and no one could tell which ones carried Nazgûl and which were simply beasts.
Roar!
Dragonfire rained from above. Each pass killed hundreds of Orcs.
Yes, Mordor's army seemed just as endless. But they still could not halt the Allied advance.
Because this army held firm.
Impossibly firm.
The front line kept pushing forward. The fighting only grew fiercer.
At the tip of the spear, as the two hosts clashed yet again, Levi met Sauron once more. He swung without keeping count, long past knowing how many exchanges they had traded.
Dust caked his face. Over the course of the duel, he had gone through several stacks of food.
His staff's stored experience had been completely spent. He could only recharge it by passing ground where Orcs had recently died, but that made the runic shield's regeneration erratic. Sauron found an opening once and actually managed to land a hit on Levi's body.
But Sauron had not escaped unscathed either.
His armour was dented in several places. At one weak point, it had been smashed open, exposing something dark and formless inside.
The intensity of this duel was extreme. Neither could afford a single lapse.
To his credit, Sauron's willpower and composure were formidable. It might have looked like Levi was beating him backward, but Sauron was only retreating. He had not been brought down.
Still, even his spirit was not infinite. His strength was being ground away, little by little.
Under normal circumstances, his natural recovery would have kept him sharp all day. He could monitor every corner of Middle-earth, manage Mordor's internal affairs, and conduct his research, all without a flicker of fatigue.
But now he faced an enemy of the highest order, and the drain on his mind had accelerated beyond anything he could replenish.
Perhaps this battle had simply gone on too long. For the first time, even Sauron felt something like weariness.
Or perhaps it was closer to tedium.
In a single, unguarded moment, he lifted his gaze and looked out across the vast battlefield. His eyes swept from sky to earth, from the wreckage before him to the carnage behind, and for just an instant, his focus drifted.
Levi seized it immediately.
He unleashed a sword technique he had barely used in this entire fight, closed the gap in a flash, and slammed into Sauron with full force, staggering him.
Boom!
The greatsword came down. Sauron was driven back again, his body tilting.
Boom!
A second strike. Sauron stumbled. Cracks split open across his armour.
Clang!
The third strike sent the mace spinning from Sauron's grip. It clattered to the ground.
Sauron had no more stomach for this fight. He called for his troops, intending to use the army as cover for a retreat.
But he was not the only one who could call for backup.
"Rally to me!"
At Levi's shout, elite soldiers bearing distinguished commendations, soldiers who had been quietly gathering nearby, along with two company champions, burst from the flanks and swarmed Sauron. Before his reinforcements could arrive, they threw everything they had into pinning him down alongside Levi.
"Die!"
A voice, strong and unyielding, rang from above.
The greatsword, gripped in reverse, plunged downward.
This was the final blow.
Time seemed to slow in Sauron's eyes.
The human legend, face set and grim, staring him down. The dark-crimson greatsword, falling. Ash-grey armour, tangled hair...
That face, smudged with the inevitable dust of a brutal fight...
In this moment, everything was startlingly clear.
Death?
The end?
This is where I fall...?
No.
"AAAAAAAAGH!"
A hideous scream tore through the air, and with it erupted a violent storm of force.
Boom!
In that instant, every mind on the battlefield rang like a struck bell. A piercing whine filled the air.
(End of Chapter)