Horses gone, the dogs also. Starved rat, a feast carefully shared. Harbouring strength enough to lift blade and none spared to quench fires raging unchecked through Osgiliath.

“Eldacar! We cannot hold.”

The rightful king must flee a once-fair city.

“Pure-blooded filthy barbarian! He burns his own.”

Escape barely possible, and much abandoned.

“You cannot go in, my lord. ‘Twould be death.”

Hands held him back from the door, heat from the flames searing through mail. The palantiír could not be left for that haughty rebel. Ballistas set and loosed. Eldacar watched until the tower fell into the waters of Anduin.

At last he was besieged in Osgiliath, and held it long, until hunger and the greater forces of the rebels drove him out, leaving the city in flames. In that siege and burning the Tower of the Stone of Osgiliath was destroyed, and the palantír was lost in the waters. - Appendix A