Aragorn led his company of the Royal Guard through the cold plains, crossing into the wilds of Ettenmoors. Once, this desolate land had been home to the hardy men of the North, but in the long years since the wars of ruin, the Trolls and Orcs had swept through, leaving naught but snow-buried ruins and the whisper of ghosts in the wind.
It was autumn in name, yet winter ruled here already. The ruins were veiled in deep snow, their broken stones like bones of a long-dead kingdom. Each step the soldiers took sank deep, for they were clad in heavy armor that gleamed dully beneath the gray sky. Still, their strong frames bore the weight and the cold alike, and as they trudged through the silence, their eyes searched ceaselessly over the white expanse.
Suddenly—
Clang!
An arrow shot from the shadowed depths of a ruined archway, striking against the armor of one soldier. The shaft splintered and fell harmlessly into the snow.
"On guard!" cried Aragorn, his voice clear and commanding. In one swift motion, he drew the sword upon his back—the shards of Narsil. Though reforged by mortal hands, its blade still bore a lattice of cracks like frozen lightning. It was clear the sword had not yet been made whole again. Yet even broken, it gleamed with deadly majesty, and the wind seemed to shiver around its cold light.
Fifteen of the King's Guardsmen stepped into formation, shields and long golden spears raised, forming a wedge as the snow howled around them. All fell silent. They listened.
Then one among them moved,he had sensed something. With a low grunt, he hurled his spear into a snowbank.
Thud.
The sound of steel meeting flesh followed, muffled and wet. Something had been struck.
"Advance!" Aragorn commanded.
The formation surged forward. They reached the snowbank, where the spear stood quivering. As Aragorn drew closer, he saw dark blood dripping slowly down its haft—black as tar against the white snow. His eyes widened.
"Defensive stance!" he shouted.
Even as he returned the spear to its bearer, the men moved instinctively, forming a tight ring of shields. The air itself seemed to tense.
Then….
The snow exploded around them.
From the drifts burst a horde of Orcs—hulking, thick-armed, clad in rough iron. Hundreds of them rose as though from the earth itself, their yellow eyes glinting with savage hunger. They roared as they charged, weapons raised.
But they had gravely misjudged their foe.
The King's Guard met them with iron discipline. Spears thrust like the strike of lightning; shields locked like a wall of stone. Each Orc that neared the formation fell swiftly, their crude blades glancing harmlessly off the armor of the elite soldiers. The air filled with the harsh ring of steel and the guttural cries of dying Orcs.
Aragorn, standing in the heart of the circle, surveyed them grimly. These creatures were not like the ones he had fought before. They were taller—some nearly the height of Men—and stronger too. Their movements bore more purpose than the usual mindless ferocity.
By Kaen Eowenríel's military standard, these Orcs would have been classified as elite soldiers. It was not that they were weak, but that the King's Guard was simply too strong.
When at last the ground was littered with black corpses and only a handful of snarls echoed through the snow, Aragorn raised his voice again.
"Take one alive! We'll bring it to Kaen for judgment."
One soldier obeyed immediately, felling an Orc with the flat of his blade and dragging the limp creature into their midst. The rest of the ambushers were swiftly slain.
Aragorn looked down at the captive, its breath fogging weakly in the cold. The mission, it seemed, had gone more smoothly than he expected. Now all that remained was to press deeper into the wilds, to learn what force stirred in the Ettenmoors.
He ordered five of his men to return with the prisoner, while he and the remaining ten continued forward into the storm.
They moved with great caution. Many bands of Orcs were encountered along their path, but all were cut down before they could sound alarm. The soldiers of the King were warriors beyond compare; even mounted Warg-riders fell before them as snow before the flame. Aragorn had no other word for them but this, perfect soldiers.
On the third day of their march into the Ettenmoors, they had seen nothing of true significance. A few Orc patrols, an ambush here and there, but no greater signs of the enemy's hand. Their supplies were running low, barely enough to see them home again. Aragorn pondered whether to turn back, replenish their stores, and resume the mission later.
But before he could decide,
A thunderous roar tore through the air.
It came from the north, shaking the mountains themselves. Snow slid down the cliffs in plumes, and the earth seemed to tremble underfoot. The sound was not of beast nor storm, it was something older, colder, and filled with malice.
Aragorn and his men followed the echo through veils of mist and snow, until they came to the foot of Mount Gram, a volcanic peak long thought dead, its slopes shrouded in frost. Steam hissed faintly from its cracks, where molten fire slept beneath the ice.
Hidden among the snow, the men peered down from a ridge, and what they saw froze their hearts.
At the foot of the mountain stood a fortress, vast and black as night, its towers rising like fangs from the earth. The banners of Mordor, or something akin, fluttered in the storm.
And before the gates, chained by iron thicker than a man's arm, was a creature of nightmare.
A dragon,blue-scaled and colossal. A Cold-drake.
Aragorn's breath caught. He had seen records of such beasts in the libraries of Rivendell.
Long ago, in the First Age, the Cold-drakes had been wrought by Morgoth himself. They were dragons once capable of fire and ruin, scourges of Elves and Men alike. But after the War of Wrath, those that survived fled into the icy North. There they changed—no longer spewing flame, but cold. Their scales hardened like iron, their blood turned to frost. They grew smaller than their fire-breathing kin, yet deadlier in endurance, able to freeze rivers solid and vanish within the glaciers.
They fed upon the great beasts of the tundra….mammoths, aurochs, and worse.
Legends told of many such terrors: how the Dwarves of Durin's line, after fleeing Moria, were assailed in the Grey Mountains by these very drakes; how one nameless Cold-drake slew King Dáin I and his son Frór, forcing the Dwarves to abandon those halls and migrate south.
It was said that Dáin Ironfoot himself, who now ruled the Iron Hills, was the second of his name.
And there was Skatha, the Cold-drake of old, who was slain by Fram, lord of the Éothéod—forefather of the Rohirrim. Fram had refused to return the Dwarves' treasure plundered from Skatha's hoard, and for his pride, the Dwarves had murdered him, sowing the first seeds of strife between their peoples.
Thus were the fates of Men and Dwarves forever entwined in sorrow.
Cold-drakes did not breathe flame,but they were many, and none could say how far their brood extended in the northern wastes. They were the true tyrants of the frozen world.
To see one here, bound in chains beneath Mount Gram, was a thing beyond belief. Aragorn's heart grew heavy. He knew this must be brought swiftly to Kaen's ear, for if the Enemy sought to tame the Cold-drakes, then darkness greater than any since the War of the Ring might soon awaken.
"Retreat," he ordered quietly.
But before they could move, a patrol of Warg-riders came howling through the pass below.
One of the beasts halted mid-stride. Its nostrils flared, catching the scent of men upon the wind. The Warg's head turned, slowly, toward the snow where Aragorn's company hid...
And the cold, dead air seemed to hold its breath.