They would soon run short of arrows.  The deep thrum of bowstrings launching steel tipped shafts smacking into the waiting flesh of the Easterners would cease.  Archers would drop their bows and draw swords as the Balchoth made their way across the Limlight uncontested.  Then it would be the butchery of war.

Cirion had formed the line with his eight thousand troops still able to wield a weapon.  From what he could see the Balchoth had twice his numbers.  The river would slow their crossing and allow his men some reprieve to cut them down at the water’s edge.  But eventually their sheer numbers would push his men back.  Perhaps two hours time they could buy before his standard and his head would be the prize of some Balchoth chieftain. 

Already now he could see a few archers casting their bows aside, useless in what time they had left.  Across the river it did not pass unnoticed. A great roar swept across the water as the wild men knew they would no longer fear the deadly darts and plunged into the current in great numbers with the surety of meeting their foes head on. Then on his right he heard an answering call.  One not of allies arriving at the last exigency or his own men shouting defiance.  This was a very different assault on the ears, a uluating shriek that had only one source, orcs.

Cirion turned in the saddle in astonishment.  A half mile away, a swarm of black dots swept down a long shallow slope like ants overrunning a picnic.  A ripple of fear coursed through him which he quickly suppressed.  He had to make a quick adjustment.  He shouted orders to a runner to bring to the commander of the right wing of his line against the impending Balchoth.

The line would have to pull back from the river to his south and reform two battalions to the west to meet the orc attack.  Now they would be dangerously thin and trapped in a corner between the Limlight to their south and the Anduin to their east.  But for some miracle there was no way out. 

Louder and louder the roar of the Balchoth wild men broke upon his ears as they made their way across the river.  The unhuman wails of the orcs grew in strength as they ran unimpeded towards his makeshift line.  The cries of the wounded tore at his heart, the men he had led to their doom. 

Slowly the lines gave ground, grudgingly retreating from the river’s edge to the south and backing to the east from the orcs who had crashed into his wavering battalions to the west.      

He was running out of space, out of men and out of time.