Beneath a Gibbous Moon – Waxing Crescent

The night lowered over him like a great bear, the constant smokes and fumes that loomed from the broken earth stealing sight of Elbereth’s stars.  ‘It could be raining,’ he muttered to himself encouragingly.  ‘At least we will face our enemy with dry clothes.’  A faint smile twisted his lips.  It was not a lot to offer them hope, here, where their lives were probably best measured in minutes rather than counting them out in longer periods of time.

How had it come to this?

Over the long years, there had been times when an end seemed certain – when the rock broke under his feet and tipped his reckless young self in the river, for one.  When he had been lost in that labyrinth of passages, his water bottle empty and with orcs scenting his trail.  When that warg … He reined in his recollection of potential disasters long past.  But he had always known that there was a way – if only he could find it.  Here?  The sullen red of Orodruin pulsed, the only light before them, deep in the darkness of Mordor, warning them of the dangers of this – their last stand.

How many of them would still be here tomorrow night?

Precious few.

And those who survived the day … 

He closed his eyes, summoning the image of graceful trees, cool air scented with spring and the sound of rippling water.  There was no point in indulging in despair.  They had made their choice – and it was the right one.  They could have done nothing else.  Their task was to give Frodo the chance to reach the fire – nothing else mattered.

He drew his cloak close round him as if to shelter him from the cold – but, in truth, it was not a sharp-edged wind that chilled him.  It took a special kind of courage to look death in the face calmly – even greater fortitude, perhaps, to confront the possibilities inherent in whatever survived the destruction – and there was so much, yet, that he had not done.  That he would never do.  He wished, briefly, that he had made more effort to leave word of what was in his heart before he entered on this – mad quest.

He would miss the trees.

The stars, he felt, would be with him wherever he went, but the trees …

‘The night before battle,’ a soft voice murmured behind him, ‘is the longest of all nights.’

He inclined his head.  ‘Filled with regrets,’ he agreed without turning, ‘and might-have-beens.’

‘We missed it on the Pelennor.’  The man’s eyes watched the darkness.  They would be foolish to think themselves alone out here – but whatever prowled the darkness prowled unseen.  ‘Battle was well under way when we arrived …’ He stepped to the elf’s side.  ‘But I have endured this before – frequently enough to know that dawn comes as a relief.  You?’

‘The enemy in the forest tends to come out of the dark,’ the elf told him.  ‘But I have fought in unavoidable battles often enough to know what it is to spend a nervous night polishing the edge of my blades and counting my arrows.’

‘I wish I could see the stars.’

The elf glanced upwards.  ‘They are still there, whether we can see them or not.’ He smiled faintly.  ‘And spring still stirs in the land, despite what we endure.  There will be celandines blooming beneath the trees in the Wood – and frogs will be mating in every pond.’

‘Life persists, you think?’

‘The trees will leaf and the grasses sprout – and the snows on the hilltops will melt and flow to the sea.’  He looked towards the north.  ‘Even amid this ruined land,’ he said, ‘there is life that pays no heed to the actions of those who will face each other with tomorrow’s sun.’

‘Long may it be so.’  The man folded his arms before him defensively.  ‘But – if Frodo fails …’

The elf did not reply. 

Aragorn sighed.  ‘Not that it makes any difference to us,’ he said.  ‘Not now.’

‘You should not be disheartened,’ his friend told him.  ‘There is more to what happens here than appears on the surface.  This could be a last stand – one of which there will be none left to sing – but, had we thought that inevitable, there would have been no point in our coming here.’  He glanced at the tall man.  ‘Or do you think that Mithrandir would have consented to a venture with no chance of success?’

‘Mithrandir is a gambler.’  Aragorn smiled suddenly.  ‘He hides it well, but he is willing to risk all on a final throw of the bones.’

‘Better to chance all in the hope of grabbing victory than die by inches?’  The elf raised a fair eyebrow.  ‘I prefer to think that he knows more than mere men and elves can suspect.  He has long been fighting this war– even as elves measure time.  He knows this Enemy better than anyone else who stands here.  Better even than do the Elrondionnath.’

In the darkness beyond the small fires that bordered their camp, wolves howled, their cries echoing from group to group.  Aragorn stiffened, narrowing his eyes at the night.

‘Peace,’ Legolas stretched out a hand to place a brief touch on his arm.  ‘They are not close enough to be a threat – they are watching for signs of weakness, but keeping their distance for now.  The Enemy strives to weaken our resolution.’

‘It is so still,’ Aragorn said.  ‘As if the world waits to see what will happen.’  He drew a deep breath.  ‘I hope Eärendil shows himself with the dawn – little as it seems likely.  The sight of Gil-Estel would offer …’  He sighed.  ‘Ithil’s crescent has abandoned the struggle to bring us light and sunk to an early rest blanketed in Mordor’s mists.  It is too dark.’

‘Darkness can be defeated by the smallest spark.’  Legolas sounded as calm as if he were walking the glades of his woodland home.  He suppressed a reluctant grin.  It seemed as if what he had needed was … to be needed.  By a king-in-waiting, no less, who had to be strong and certain for everyone else.  ‘You have the light of Eärendil within you, Estel – you do not need to see it to know that it is there.’

Isildur’s heir – the heir of Elros – stood beside him, cloaked in grey that absorbed what little light the night offered, black hair dishevelled over his shoulders, and closed his eyes.  His expression – well, few would be able to see it in the dark and those few would never speak of it.  ‘Tomorrow will be the test of that,’ he said.

‘You dislike depending on another,’ Legolas remarked.  ‘You are too accustomed to working alone and assuming all the burden yourself.’  He stared again at the smoke-obscured throb of the distant mountain. ‘We can do no more than trust in the one chosen to bring this to an end – and do our part.’ He lowered his head to watch the area between the huddled army and the Black Gate.  Half-seen mists swirled, blurring the borders between reality and nightmare, and in them prowled creatures more dreadful than the yellow-eyed wolves.  Elrond’s sons, he knew, would be watching with equal detachment as Sauron’s creatures slavered just beyond their fires.

‘Do not let them draw you in,’ the man recommended.

‘You know they are there?’

‘I have been here before.’  Aragorn sounded grim.  ‘I have seen the night-walkers when Ithil gave them an illusion of life.  I know their feel.’

‘Dawn will come soon.’

‘Too soon.  But none will get any rest tonight.’  The man turned his chin to inspect the last camp, where some among the host would be scribbling notes of farewell to loved ones, while others meticulously prepared the clothes in which they expected to die, and yet others talked of distant homes to those who would listen, or sang softly of love or war, or gazed blankly at a world that seemed suddenly far more precious for the fragility of their hold on it.  ‘I will walk among them shortly – talk to them.’

‘Éomer is passing among his Rohirrim, telling stirring tales of the Mark – and Imrahil and his sons are offering their support to those who marched from Minas Tirith.  They are good captains, all of them – and noble men.’

‘Gimli?’

‘Has been set by Mithrandir to answer Peregrin’s questions.’  The elf smiled.  ‘Which should keep them both occupied until Anor rises.’

‘If he is to answer all Pippin’s questions, it should guarantee us victory,’ Aragorn said with a wry twist of his lips.  ‘A single night will never suffice to satisfy the young Took’s curiosity.’

‘I believe he would think it worth the cost.’  Legolas tipped back his head towards the stars.  ‘Look, Aragorn.’

The stillness of the cold air had stopped stirring the fumes, leaving them hanging over the dark plain.  From among the mists a patch of sky darkened to the west, clear as black ice, studded with stars. 

‘Menelvagor,’ Aragorn murmured.

‘An omen?’ Legolas raised an eyebrow.

‘We can hope, I suppose.’  The man watched the sky as the clear patch widened to reveal more of the Swordsman.  He smiled.  ‘It is encouraging, at any event.’

‘And we need what encouragement we can get.’

‘I am sorry, my friend.’

‘For what?’ Legolas sounded genuinely surprised.

‘For leading you from your forest to …’ Aragorn spread his hands to indicate the broken rock and blasted earth.  ‘You are a Wood-elf, Legolas.  This is no place for you.’

The elf shrugged.  ‘My adar and his spent seven years before Mordor – it is only right that his son should be here at this time.  I am just sorry that it is merely I who carry the torch for my people.  One elf for the Greenwood and the Elrondionnath for Imladris and the Golden Wood.  It is not a lot to offer by way of a final alliance.’

‘Your adar’s only son?  And my brothers?  No army could cost more.’

‘But an army might have been of greater help,’ Legolas said dryly.  ‘Only I am afraid that the forces of the Greenwood are struggling for survival under the trees – while Lord Elrond and Lady Galadriel are fighting their own battles.’

‘And, for them, victory will cost as much as defeat.’  Aragorn sounded bitter.

‘Victory is always preferable,’ Legolas declared. ‘Even if the cost is high.  It is better than the alternative.’  The swift glance towards the man was filled with sympathy.  Whatever happened, it would cost Isildur’s heir dearly.  Failure would cost him more than his life – yet success would rob the one he thought of as his father of his daughter – and worse, tear from the Dúnadan the life he had lived over more than half a century to replace it with one of stuffy propriety.  But the man could do it.  If anyone could.  ‘We are here of our own will, Aragorn,’ he said gently.  ‘You released those who could not endure the morrow.  All here know their danger – and follow you because it is their last hope.’

‘Our last hope …’ Aragorn raised his eyes to the distant forge glow in the drifting smokes of Mordor.  ‘Our last hope does not stand here.’

‘They do not know that.’  The elf smiled wryly.  ‘They look to their king – returned from myth to lead them.’

‘And I will lead them to their deaths.’

‘Probably.’  The elf sounded remarkably calm about the prospect.  ‘But is it not worth it?  I would not choose to skulk away in the hidden places of the world while Sauron’s minions seek to destroy all that is good and fair and free.’

The man drew a deep breath and lowered his eyes to study the ground.  ‘I would have gone with Frodo to the end,’ he said, ‘but, perhaps, this is how I am meant to defend him at the last.  Better that Isildur’s heir should not have Isildur’s Bane within his reach.’ 

‘You underestimate yourself, Aragorn,’ the elf informed him.  ‘You are not your many-times ancestor, as he was not his.  Isildur sprang from the final arrogance of imperial Númenor – he was accustomed to the weight of a crown … to taking what he saw as his due.  You are – almost too modest, my friend.  Raised to a life of service – of patience – of endurance.  And you will do what you can – which is all that any of us can do.’

A gust of wind flicked back the edge of Aragorn’s cloak.  He looked up.  ‘It comes from the north,’ he said.

The elf pulled a face.  ‘And brings with it scents I could happily do without.’  He glanced towards the foul pits and heaps of slag that marred the northern slopes.  ‘The sky is beginning to lighten and the phantoms that haunt the night are gone.  If I did not know better, I would say we were alone here.’

‘This is one dawn I cannot welcome.’

‘Yet without it, we would face perpetual night.’  The faint light that clung to the Firstborn glimmered about the elf in a fluid silver flicker, reminding the man that, for all Legolas’s apparent youthful modesty, he was a warrior of long centuries’ experience.

Aragorn grinned reluctantly.  ‘You hide it well, my friend, but you puncture bubbles of pretension as effectively as my brothers.’  He squared his shoulders.  ‘Enough introspection,’ he said.  ‘There is little point brooding over what cannot be changed.  We are here now.  One way or another, we make an end.’

The elf clasped his friend’s arm in salute.  ‘The plans are set?’ he asked.

‘We ring the hills of rubble the Enemy has provided for us,’ Aragorn said briefly.  ‘With our backs to the stone, we take advantage of what little cover exists – and will stand as long as we may. We have no better plan.  We will hold the left, leaving Éomer and Imrahil the right flank.’

Legolas considered.  ‘It will do as well as any scheme.’  His eyes gleamed with sudden ferocity.  ‘And may each of my arrows do its work well.’

‘Come, my friend.’  Aragorn stretched and turned his back resolutely on the looming rampart of Cirith Gorgor.  ‘Let us spend what is left of the night with those who followed us here – and let them feel that we, at least, have no doubts.’

‘Well, we have none, have we?’  The elf smiled faintly.  ‘We are where we must be – and will do what we must do.  Our faith is in Frodo.’

‘We will play our part to the end,’ Isildur’s heir vowed.  ‘Let no weakness of ours expose him to any greater risk than he faces already.’

‘The banners of the Captains of the West will defy the hordes of Mordor and hope will lead us to the beginning of a new age.’

‘I hope that was a prophecy, my friend.’  Aragorn grinned tightly.  ‘It promises better than what is in my heart, so I might just take it as one – if you have no objection.’

Legolas waved an airy hand.  ‘Be my guest,’ he said. ‘I will foretell a dry day, too, if that makes you feel any better.’

‘And a long one.’  The man’s voice became grim.

‘Only for the fortunate among us.’

‘May it end well for you … for all who survive it.  And lead to a better tomorrow.’

‘One founded in faith,’ Legolas said with conviction, following the tall man towards those huddled round the embers of the campfires, ‘and built on hope.’