Correction: I initially thought that wardens were elite soldiers of Gondor, but later I learned that they are actually very significant and high-ranking administrative figures in Gondor and Minas Tirith. I will later correct the previous chapters accordingly.
Arthur had learned to tell the mood of a city by the way it sounded at night.
Chapter 11 – Horns in the Dark
In the weeks after his first independent patrol, the nights in Minas Tirith grew busier.
The barracks lamps seemed to burn longer, their light cutting thin lines across stone floors as men came and went between snatches of sleep. More than once, Arthur woke to the distant call of a horn along the Rammas Echor, low and mournful, then to the sharper answer from the city walls.
He dressed by habit when that happened, even when it wasn't his watch. It felt wrong to lie still while the sound hung in the air.
One such night, he stepped out into the chill of the barracks yard, cloak tugged close, and saw knots of soldiers already moving toward the upper mustering ground. Torches burned in iron brackets, painting the white stone in flickering gold. Above, the stars looked thin.
Eoric hurried up, fastening his vambrace as he walked. "Captain Torin wants you at the east gate, ser," he said, breath misting. "They're calling up one company and two chosen squads. You're with the second."
Arthur nodded. "You check the kits?"
"Yes, ser," Eoric said. "Bandages, water, spare straps. No one slipped extra wine this time."
"Good," Arthur said. "Let's go."
The mustering ground near the outer gate of the city was a restless pool of movement and noise. Men buckled on greaves and checked the fit of helms. Horses stamped and snorted, breath steaming. Over it all came the steady voices of officers, calling names and positions.
Torin stood near the center, cloak thrown back, helm under one arm. A tall man in older, well-kept armor stood beside him, bearing a silver badge in the shape of a wall and tower: one of the Rammas commanders, a man trusted with the fields that fed the city.
"Arthur," Torin called as he approached. "You'll take the left file tonight. Twelve men. The outer farms along the eastward road reported movement near their grain stores and irrigation ditches. Could be nothing. Could be a probe."
Arthur glanced at the commander with the badge, then back. "We riding to reinforce the wall, or the farms?" he asked.
"Both," Torin said. "We push out from the nearest gate in the Rammas, sweep the fields, and see what's brave enough to skulk on Gondor's ploughland after dark."
The Rammas Echor loomed in the distance as they rode down through the lower circles toward the great outer wall. In daylight, it was just another line of stone. At night, lit by scattered watch-fires and torches, it looked more like a ring of embers around the city, the seven circles of Minas Tirith rising behind it like a pale cliff.
Men had built that outer wall to protect more than stone. The Pelennor was Gondor's table—grain, vegetables, pastures, the small hamlets that kept the city from starvation. If the Rammas fell or the fields burned, the White Tower's height would matter little.
They passed through a gate in the Rammas after the signal horns exchanged their coded notes. Beyond, the land opened into a dark, rolling sea of fields and low banks. The wind carried the smell of damp soil and the faint scent of livestock.
Torin divided the force in the shadow of the wall, torchlight turning faces into planes of light and dark. "Right file with me," he said. "We take the lane toward the fishers' hamlet. Arthur, take the left—irrigation ditches and grain sheds. If you find nothing, you join us at the far crossroads. If you find something, you hold until you can't, then fall back toward the wall. No glory-chasing."
Arthur nodded. "Understood."
They rode out, hooves thudding on the hard-packed dirt of the farm track. Arthur's twelve men fanned slightly as they moved, spacing themselves enough to see but not so much they'd lose each other in the dark. Eoric rode close, eyes scanning the night.
On either side, the fields rose in low, furrowed waves. In places, irrigation ditches cut across them, dark lines that glimmered faintly where moonlight touched the water. Here and there, the silhouettes of small farmhouses and barns broke the smoothness of the land. Many had no more defense than a stout door and a good dog.
"Ser," Eoric said quietly, "my uncle keeps a tavern on the fourth circle. Says the horns have half the folk jumping at shadows. Some won't walk the streets after dusk unless a guard is in sight."
"That's not foolish," Arthur said. "Shadows hide knives."
"Still," Eoric added, "he says when word comes back that 'our lot' are riding, the regulars settle a bit. They say the captains know what they're doing."
"They do," Arthur said.
"I think he meant you, ser," Eoric said. "Though he doesn't know he's my uncle."
Arthur said nothing to that. The night seemed to press in a little closer.
They found the first sign near a cluster of grain sheds built around a wider track. The sheds themselves were simple—plank walls, thatched roofs, doors bolted with heavy bars. Usually, they held the Pelennor's grain before it was carted up to the city mills.
Tonight, one of the doors hung open, its bar splintered and flung aside. Spilled grain gleamed like pale sand across the ground, stirred into messy patterns by many feet.
Arthur raised a hand, bringing the riders to a halt. "Dismount," he said. "Torches low. Listen."
They slid from their saddles, leading the horses into the shadow of the nearest shed. Eoric handed his reins to the man beside him and moved forward with sword and shield ready.
For a few heartbeats, there was only the sound of wind in the thatch and the soft trickle of grain settling.
Then, faint on that wind, came another sound: guttural laughter, harsh and ugly, from further down the track.
Arthur gestured, and they moved in that direction on foot, staying in the darker edges of the lane where the sheds and low piles of stones cast shadows. The track dipped and curved, flanked by stacked crates and barrels that smelled of old hay and dried beans.
As they neared the bend, the voices grew clearer. Orc-speech, rough and mocking.
Arthur signaled again—two fingers forward, three to the side. His men spread into a loose arc, shields forward, bodies angled to catch whatever came around that curve.
On his nod, they stepped out.
A knot of orcs milled in the open space beside another broken-into shed. Some tore at sacks with knives, spilling grain for the sheer spite of it. One held a struggling sheep by the neck. Another had a farmer pinned to his knees, hands bound, a crude blade laid almost lazily against his throat.
For a heartbeat, both sides froze.
Then the orcs shrieked, and the moment broke.
"Shields!" Arthur shouted, and his line came together in the open space, wooden faces catching the first mad rush. The farmer dropped flat of his own accord, prodded by survival instinct.
An orc's axe smashed into Arthur's shield with enough force to jar his arm. He stepped into the blow, let it slide off, and drove his sword into the gap under its ribs. Another came at him from the right, jagged spear thrusting; he knocked it aside and cut across its wrist in one fluid motion.
The fight here was close and messy, lit by two dropped torches that lay spinning in the dirt. Shadows leaped and twisted. Arthur moved with the same steady rhythm as ever, not trying to do everything, just making sure nothing broke near him.
To his left, one of the younger soldiers panicked and stepped back too far, opening a sliver of space. An orc lunged for that gap, snarling.
Eoric saw it first. He shoved his own shoulder into the hole, shield raised, catching the blow that would have slipped through. His boots slid a handspan in the spilled grain, but he held, teeth gritted.
"Close!" Arthur snapped. The man on the other side stepped in, their shields locking again. Eoric sucked in a breath, face pale, but stayed on his feet.
It didn't take long. These weren't organized war-bands, just raiders drunk on the idea of ruined food and frightened farmers. Once three fell in quick succession and the rest saw the line advancing, their nerve broke. They fled between the sheds and vanished into the dark.
"Don't chase," Arthur said. "We're not here to get lost in the fields."
They checked the farmer first. He sat up slowly, rope still biting his wrists. His eyes darted from Arthur's armor to the men around him.
"You from the city?" he managed.
"Yes," Arthur said. "We'll see you back to the gate before dawn. Any family here?"
"They ran toward the Rammas when the horns sounded," the farmer said. "If they were wise, they're under the wall by now."
"We'll make sure of it," Arthur said.
They re-bolted what doors they could, left warnings chalked on those that were too damaged, and pushed on. The night felt less empty now, the stars dimmer against the weight of what might still be hiding in the furrows.
Near the low rise where Torin had said they'd meet, more noise greeted them—shouts, steel on steel, the deeper bellow of something larger than a man.
Arthur broke into a trot, his men falling in behind him. They crested the rise and saw the other half of the detachment locked in a fight near a line of irrigation ditches and low stone walls.
Torin's men held a curve in the ditch, shields raised against a press of orcs trying to force them down into the muddy water. Beyond them, one of the farm outbuildings smoldered, orange glow licking from a broken window.
"Left flank!" Torin roared when he saw Arthur. "They're trying to roll us."
A knot of orcs was indeed moving along the ditch's edge, intending to hit Torin's line from the side. The terrain was bad—uneven ground, slick with water and churned soil.
Arthur didn't hesitate. "We hit them before they hit the line," he said. "Shields up. Watch your footing."
They came in at an angle, using what little high ground the ditch's bank gave them. The orcs turned at the last moment, surprised, and their attempt at a flanking maneuver turned into an ugly, sideways clash.
An orc with a rusted sword swung wild at Arthur; he stepped inside it, felt the wind of the blade on his cheek, and drove his own weapon upward along the creature's arm. Another tried to hook his shield aside; Arthur pushed straight through the attempt, the impact knocking the orc back into the ditch with a splash.
Around him, his men grunted and cursed, but they held. Eoric, again, found himself where the line threatened to fray. He shouted a warning as one soldier slipped in the mud, then grabbed the man's cloak and hauled him back up into place, taking a blow on his own shield in the process.
"Good," Arthur heard himself say between strikes. "Hold there. Don't give them the bank."
The fight stretched on longer than the skirmish at the sheds, the orcs here more determined, more driven. Torches flickered, casting everything in chaotic light. Somewhere behind, a barn roof collapsed with a shower of sparks as flames ate through weakened timbers.
But slowly, the pressure eased. When one of the orc leaders went down with an arrow in the throat—Torin's doing, by the look of the shot—the rest faltered. Another few moments, and they broke away, scattering into the night toward the further fields.
Panting, one of the soldiers sagged against his shield. "By the Tower," he breathed, "if they keep coming like this, we'll all be grey before spring."
Arthur lowered his sword. His own breath was only a little faster than before. His arms ached in a distant way, more from effort than exhaustion.
"Check the wounded," Torin called. "Any man who can walk, help put out that fire before it takes the next building."
Arthur moved among his section. One had a cut on the thigh that would need stitches later; another nursed a cracked finger. Nothing that would kill them before morning.
He glanced toward the burning barn. Men were already forming a line, passing buckets from the irrigation ditch. The flames hissed and spat as water hit them. The building might yet stand.
The farmer from before, now freed and clutching his torn cloak around him, stared at Arthur as he passed. "You came," he said, almost in disbelief.
"That's what we're for," Arthur replied.
It was nearly dawn by the time they regrouped under the Rammas and rode back toward the city. The eastern sky was just beginning to pale, a faint line of grey above the blackness of the fields.
In the lower circles, the streets were quieter than they had been on other nights. People had started sleeping in their clothes, boots at the bedside, ready to run if the horns sounded too close. Even so, a tavern door in the fourth circle opened as they clattered past, a man stepping out with a bucket to rinse the cobbles.
Eoric glanced that way, and the man—broad-shouldered, apron tied over his wool tunic—raised a hand briefly. Eoric gave the smallest of nods back, eyes softening for a moment.
Later, after reports had been given and armor set aside, Arthur found Lirael and Torin in a small room near the armory, bent over a rough map of the Pelennor. Candles burned low, wax running in slow rivers down their sides.
"They're not just striking at random," Lirael said. "Storehouses, ditches, outbuildings. They're testing where it hurts."
"They haven't thrown numbers yet," Torin replied. "But they will."
He looked up as Arthur entered. "Your left file arrived when it needed to," he said. "If that flank had gone, we'd have had orcs in the ditch behind us and panic in the ranks."
Arthur shrugged. "We were closer," he said. "We did what was in front of us."
Lirael tapped the map near one of the smaller marks. "You saw the sheds," she said. "That's food for half the lower circles for a month if it's full. They weren't just playing."
"We stopped them," Arthur said.
"For now," she replied. "Word from the river says there are more bands moving down from the north and east. One of the river barges came in with arrow holes in it instead of grain."
Torin rubbed a hand over his face. "Command is planning something bigger," he said. "Not just patrols. A full deployment along the Rammas on some night soon. When that happens, they'll want their steadier captains where the wall is weakest."
He looked at Arthur. "That includes you."
Arthur considered that in silence for a moment. He thought of the farmer on his knees, the spilled grain, the barn catching fire, the men in the ditch. Each fight they ended left new marks on the map and on the people who lived behind it.
"If they put me there," he said at last, "I'll stand."
"We know," Lirael said. "That's why they will."
Later, standing alone on a short section of the city wall, Arthur watched the last of the night slide away. The eastern horizon was lightening, the fields beyond the Rammas turning slowly from black to grey to the first hints of green.
Behind him, the city stretched in its tiers—markets and taverns and houses where people were already waking to another day of work, unaware of each blade that had kept the night from reaching them.
He laid his hand on the cold stone of the parapet. For now, his world was this: horns in the dark, maps with new marks, men who breathed because others had stepped forward first.
Somewhere out there, he knew, worse was gathering. The raids were growing bolder, the lines thinner. Patch after patch after patch. A part of him, the part that remembered long hours in white rooms, wanted to count every wound and plan the repairs.
Another part, quieter but insistent, had started to whisper that if he wanted to keep more men alive, he would have to think beyond the next bandage.
The next time the horns sounded for something larger, he suspected that whisper would not be so easy to ignore.