Chapter 4

“Can we win the end of the passageway?” asked Legolas, his bow already in his hands. 

Boromir moved through the line, placing himself at the fore.  He positioned his great shield before him and unsheathed his sword.  “It is better to retreat to ground we know.  Behind us, there is cover and we have some familiarity with the chamber.  We do not know what lies ahead.”

“Wisely said, Boromir.”  Aragorn strode forward to stand beside the other two. Silently, Gimli joined them, his heavy axe over his shoulder, relaxed yet ready.  Looking at their upright backs, Merry wondered how much use he and his folk were going to be in this battle.  He loosened his small sword in its scabbard and saw the other three doing the same. 

Then he felt a great hand descend on his shoulder.  “Come,” said Gandalf softly.  “We will return to the chamber and choose our battleground.”  His other hand on Frodo’s shoulder, the wizard turned them and pushing Sam and Pippin ahead, guided them back to the place they had just quitted.  With another push, Gandalf indicated that the hobbits move behind pieces of the broken masonry.  They obeyed, with many glances of apprehension among themselves.  Merry crouched down behind an overturned bench, half of it smashed into dusty rubble.  Pippin crowded next to him, trembling.  Where was … ah.  Merry thought Frodo looked awful, as if he could barely keep his feet.  A cant of his eyes in his cousin’s direction brought Sam to kneel next to him, and slide a hand under his elbow.

Now the advancing sounds could be heard more clearly, shrill shrieks, cries and the clash of weapons struck against each other.  The undulating cries echoed through the caverns, further distorting them and adding to the hideousness of the noise.  The warriors of the Company entered the chamber and arrayed themselves behind cover, bows aimed and swords and axes at the ready.  Merry gripped the hilt of his sword tighter and drew it, trying to order his racing heart.

Shadows writhed in the brilliant light of Gandalf’s staff, magnified and distorted in the passageway.  Forms congregated at the opening of the passageway, snarling and slavering, but none entered the chamber.  “Cowards,” growled Gimli, his dark eyes filled with loathing.  “None wishes to be the first to accost us.”

“And the first to die,” responded Legolas, his bow swinging marginally from one target to another, waiting for the first to gather its courage and attack.

“They are very many,” Boromir said softly, “we are greatly outnumbered.”  Gimli growled again.  Then the Dwarf’s brow darkened and his gaze strayed to the cavern about them … and the sheer blank wall he and Gandalf had examined earlier.  Abruptly he whirled and ran to the wall, calling for the wizard.  Gandalf backed up to join him, Glamdring shining in one hand and the staff glowing in the other.

Merry had no more time to wonder what the two were up to, as the Orcs broke through in a great, seething mass.  They spilled out of the narrow corridor, trampling the bodies of the ones brought down by the Elf’s and the Ranger’s arrows.  Merry’s first sight of the horrible creatures brought his heart into his throat.  Some were only slightly smaller than the Men; all were much larger than the hobbits.  Their skin was scaled or warty, a greenish-gray color, as of something long dead.  Their hands and feet were clawed; some wore boots and some not, to make use of those long claws.  Lank hair or none lay across their misshapen skulls.  But it was their faces that horrified Merry; snarling fanged mouths, great bulbous eyes adapted to life in the perpetual dark.  Hatred for all that walked free in the warm sunlight was writ on their faces and in their intentions.

As one, the hobbits surged forward, relying on their size and speed to shelter them and allow them to attack and be gone before their larger foes were aware of them.  Merry ducked a swipe and sunk his sword to the hilt in the body of an Orc, felt the jar run up his arm as it struck bone.  The creature screamed and scalding-hot blood rushed over his hand.   Suddenly limp, it slid silently off his sword.  Unbidden tears flooded his eyes and threatened his vision.  He had never killed any thinking creature before.  He had killed…

“Well done, Merry!”  Boromir’s hand slapped his back, nearly knocking him over.  “One for the Shire!”  Then the Man was gone, back into the whirling maelstrom of violence and death.

His breath sobbing in his throat, the hobbit pulled himself up and leaned back against a broken carving.  Looking before him, he could see that only the narrowness of the opening and the growing pile of the dead constrained the numbers of the attackers.  As his moment of shock receded, he became aware of sound again; the screams of the wounded, battle-cries, the clash and screech of metal.  Suddenly the cavern seemed unbearably hot.  Where were the others?

He realized suddenly that he did not see Pip.  Frantic, he cast about.  Where was Pippin?  Where was he?

Looking about him desperately, Merry saw that Gandalf and Gimli were not in the battle.  For some incomprehensible reason, Gimli appeared to be trying to drive the handle of his axe into the wall, using a second smaller axe as the hammer.  Gandalf stood facing outward, defending the Dwarf while he worked.  An Orc that had made it past the Men tried to come in under the wizard’s guard and was decapitated.  A stinking rush of black blood spurted from the severed neck as the body fell.

As Merry watched, stunned, a small stream of water trickled from around the edge of the axe handle.  The Dwarf made an explosive sound and adjusted the angle of the handle at it by leaning on it and twisting.  “That’s done it, Gandalf,” the hobbit heard him rumble.  “Best warn the others.”

If the wizard’s staff was brilliant before, that was nothing to the radiant light that blazed from it now.  All action paused as the cavern was flooded with blinding light, the combatants unable to see except for drifting blue spots.  Gandalf’s great voice rang out over all, “The Fellowship!  The Fellowship!  To me!”

Merry did not question.  Like the rest of the Nine Walkers, he surged to the wizard’s side, relieved beyond bearing to find Pippin there, and Sam and Frodo.   With a final shout of “Gondor!” Boromir ran his opponent through and followed, flanked by Aragorn, blood dripping from his long sword.  Legolas came last, still firing, taking down every one of the hated creatures that he could.

With a great effort, Gimli pulled his axe handle free.  Merry had not the Dwarf’s understanding of hydraulics and the force of water under pressure, but he knew what happens when you pull out the cork of a bottle of sparkling wine that you just shaken.  The water sprayed out of the small hole with the power of the entire river behind it.  Merry watched disbelieving as the Orc leading the charge was lifted from his feet and smashed back against its fellows, the force of the water pinning them against the wall.  A ridiculous grin split his face as he realized that the foul horde could not advance against the thrust of the water.  Beside him, Legolas had begged arrows from the Men and was still sending death into the Orcs’ midst, determined that none should survive.

Gimli paid them no heed, his eyes only on the erupting river.  With a breathing space about him, Merry now saw how carefully the Dwarf had chosen his spot, where the rock wall was thinner and the thicker stone around it directed the colossal flow.  Gimli crouched low by the opening, his hands stretched out on either side of the trembling stone around the opening.  His dark eyes never left it as the icy water roared through. 

The Orcs were pushed back … back.  The water lifted the corpses and tumbled them bonelessly into the corridor, carrying them away as the rushing waters sought a lower level.  Funneled by the cavern walls, the waters picked up more speed and force as they rushed through.   To his dumfounded amazement, Merry saw the last of their attackers disappearing in the flow, only a drowned arm or black form visible in the white-tipped waters for the briefest of moments.

A laugh of pure relief rose to his lips.  Behind him, he heard Pippin’s clear ringing peal of joy.  Then he felt spray upon his back, icy cold, chilling him instantly.  “It is beginning to give!” Gimli shouted, as the water tore out a great hunk of rock and sent it tumbling with such force that it struck the opposite wall and gouged out a huge chunk of stone.  More freezing water poured from the enlarged opening, more uncontrollable force.  “Run!” Gimli shouted, “Run!”

They did.  Back up the way they had so laboriously come, terror lending them both strength and speed.  The water followed after, having torn itself free of the confining wall.  But it slowed as it followed, as the greater part of it was channeled down the narrow descending passageway.  Gasping and stumbling, the Company entered the smaller cave where Merry had eavesdropped on Gandalf and Aragorn.  There, they could go no farther and fell to the stone floor like dead things.

After a while, Merry dragged himself up and checked on the others.  His limbs felt stiff and unwieldy.  His kin and Sam were unhurt by battle; they had been incredibly lucky.  And small enough to be overlooked and underestimated, Merry admitted to himself.   Sam, too, had marked an orc but he did not think it was killed.  Pip had several more scratches.  Frodo had reopened the deepest bites and they bled.  Begging more of the slimy salve from Gandalf, Merry and Sam made him sit while they applied it.   Though the young hobbit was unaware of it, the other members of the Company smiled to see the four pressed close together; Frodo and Pippin sitting on the cold floor, the younger cousin leaning against the elder’s back, while Sam sprawled on his belly on a rock beside them, and Merry kneeled beside them, checking for injuries. 

Panting, Gandalf leaned on his staff and summoned the Dwarf to him.  “Gimli,” the wizard asked, “will the waters follow us here?  Are we safe?”

“For a while, Gandalf,” Gimli replied, his own thick chest still heaving like a bellows.  “The rushing waters will eventually fill the lower caverns then work their way upwards.  The flooding will continue for as long as there is more pressure inside the wall than outside.  It is my belief that the entire wall will eventually give way and the water will only stop rising when the cavern is completely filled and a great lake is formed.”  The Dwarf paused and blew out a great puff of air, the gust lifting his braided mustaches.  “If word has not already spread of our journey here, all who dwell in this damp darkness know now.  There are many entrances and exits to the lower caverns, Gandalf.  Like rats, the Orcs will desert the nether regions and flee ahead of the rising waters.  We will likely meet more of them as we choose an alternate route to the Gates.”

The wizard nodded wordlessly, leaning on his staff.  Its glow was again muted, reflecting Gandalf’s wearied state.  He watched as Aragorn checked on each member of the Company, moving among them and taking stock of their hurts and needs.  Soft words passed between the Ranger and the Company, and the recovering wizard smiled to see the gentleness which Aragorn treated the hobbits.

That smile faded when Aragorn rose and drifted back to him, booted feet silent in the dust.  Beneath the runnels of sweat, the Ranger’s face was tense and strained.  “Gandalf,” Aragorn said softly, “Frodo and Pippin both have a fever and a headache.  Sam is having trouble standing.  Merry, too, seems ill.”  The Ranger paused and put his head closer to the wizard’s.  “Is it the foaming sickness?”

* TBC *