The Ephel Dúath, the Mountains of Shadow, had stood for millennia as a brooding barrier between the realm of Gondor and the accursed lands of Mordor. These jagged peaks, wreathed in perpetual gloom and carved by the malice of Morgoth himself, served as both prison wall and watchtower for the darkness beyond. Yet between these mountains and the great river Anduin lay a land that had once been called the fairest jewel in Gondor's crown: Ithilien, the Garden of Gondor.
In ages past, when the kings of Númenor's heir ruled from Osgiliath and the realm stretched from the Grey Havens to the Sea of Rhûn, Ithilien had been a paradise of rolling meadows and ancient forests. Golden elanor bloomed beneath the shade of mighty mallorn trees that had been gifts from Lothlórien, while crystal streams sang their way down from the mountains to join the Anduin. The air had been sweet with the perfume of athelas and the music of larks, and the fertile soil had yielded harvests that could feed armies.
But those days were as distant as the light of the Two Trees. Now Ithilien lay largely desolate, a haunted borderland where broken statues gazed with empty eyes across overgrown gardens, and ancient roads cracked beneath the weight of creeping vines. Here and there, hardy Rangers of Ithilien, the last guardians of this forsaken realm, maintained hidden camps and watched the passes for signs of the Enemy's movement.
Minas Ithil, once the Tower of the Moon and twin to Minas Anor, had been the crown jewel of this eastern province. Built upon a high shoulder of the Mountains of Shadow, its white walls had gleamed like captured starlight, and its palantír had watched ceaselessly over the borders of Gondor. But that glory had died in fire and darkness when the Nazgûl claimed it for their lord. Now it was Minas Morgul, the Tower of Sorcery, and its corpse-light was a wound in the night sky.
For nearly a century, an uneasy peace had settled over this blighted landscape. The armies of Mordor remained largely within their borders, content to let fear and despair do their work for them. Occasional bands of orcs would sally forth from Minas Morgul to hunt for slaves or simply to spread terror, but these were mere pinpricks compared to the great wars of elder days.
But on this fateful morning, as the first pale light of dawn struggled through the perpetual haze that shrouded the Mountains of Shadow, that century of quiet was shattered forever.
From every gate and sally-port of Minas Morgul, the hosts of Mordor poured forth like a black tide. Ten thousand orcs, Uruk-hai from the furnaces of Isengard mixed with the smaller but more cunning goblins of the Misty Mountains, formed the vanguard. Their crude armor clanked like chains as they marched, and their banners bore the Red Eye and the symbols of various orc-chieftains who had sworn themselves to the Dark Lord's service.
Behind them came trolls from the hills beyond the Morannon, massive creatures barely constrained by the bronze collars that marked them as slaves to Sauron's will. Some were cave-trolls with skin like granite and eyes that glowed red in the darkness; others were the larger hill-trolls whose clubs could shatter stone and whose hides could turn aside all but the sharpest blades. Each one was worth a dozen orcs in battle, and their presence turned what might have been a mere raid into something far more ominous.
But most disturbing of all were the contributions from Mordor's human allies. Companies of Easterlings marched in disciplined formations, their scale armor catching the sickly light of Minas Morgul's walls. These were not the savage tribes of the distant East, but professional soldiers from the great cities beyond the Sea of Rhûn, warriors who had learned the arts of war from studying Gondor itself during the long years of uneasy peace.
Southrons brought mûmakil, the great oliphaunts whose trumpet calls echoed like thunder across the desolate landscape. Upon their backs rode towers filled with archers, while their tusks had been capped with iron and their hides draped with armor that could turn aside even the great bows of the Rangers.
Through the Pass of Cirith Ungol this host advanced, following the ancient road that wound through the spider-haunted tunnels and out into the fair lands beyond. The very stones seemed to groan under the weight of so many marching feet, and the few hardy plants that still grew in the shadow of the mountains withered and died as the army passed.
Among this host marched the remnants of the orc-band that Luke had encountered during his quest for Shelob's silk, though none who saw them now would have recognized the cowed and disorganized rabble they had once been. Their captain, who had assumed command after Luke's infiltration disguised as an orc, strutted at their head with newfound confidence. He bore a crude banner marked with a spider-sigil, believing himself to be on the verge of great glory.
He would be dead within the day, his body feeding the fishes of the Anduin, but for now he dreamed of the honors that awaited him in Barad-dûr when Gondor fell.
Osgiliath the Golden, the ancient capital of Gondor, straddled the Anduin like a bridge between two worlds. In the days of its glory, when Isildur and Anárion ruled jointly from its twin citadels, it had been the greatest city between the Grey Havens and the inland sea of Rhûn. Its domes and spires had rivaled Minas Tirith itself, and its great bridge, a marvel of Númenórean engineering that spanned the wide Anduin in a single magnificent arch, had been counted among the wonders of Middle-earth.
But centuries of war had reduced the City of Kings to a shadow of its former self. The eastern half, closest to the threat from Mordor, had been abandoned entirely, its empty buildings serving as a hunting ground for orcs and worse things. Only the western districts remained inhabited, garrisoned by a few hundred Rangers and men-at-arms whose job it was to watch the river and delay any invasion long enough for reinforcements to arrive from Minas Tirith.
Captain Anduril of the Rangers had been expecting this day for months. Reports from his scouts had spoken of increased activity around Minas Morgul, of orc-camps spreading through Ithilien like a plague, of strange lights in the sky above the Mountains of Shadow. He had sent warning after warning to his father, Ecthelion the Ruling Steward, but the responses had been dismissive: "Hold your position. Mordor has been quiet for a hundred years. A few orc-raids do not presage war."
Now, as Anduril stood upon the battlements of West Osgiliath and watched the black tide flowing across the bridge from the abandoned eastern city, he permitted himself a grim smile. His father would receive no more warnings from him, only a demand for immediate reinforcement, if any messenger could break through the encircling armies.
"Steady, men!" Anduril called to his Rangers as the first orc-arrows began to whistle overhead. "Remember, we are the sons of Elendil and the heirs of Isildur! Every orc that dies here is one less to threaten Minas Tirith!"
The battle began with the classic fury of orc warfare. Crude ladders slammed against the western walls while the largest uruks formed shield-walls and advanced toward the gates. Anduril's men, veterans of countless border skirmishes, met them with disciplined volleys from their longbows and showers of stones hurled from the battlements.
For a time, it seemed the day might go to Gondor. Orc after orc toppled from the ladders or fell pierced by Ranger arrows to tumble into the rushing waters of the Anduin below. The narrow confines of the bridge forced the attackers into a compressed mass that made perfect targets for the defenders' archery, and the ancient gates of Osgiliath, wrought of iron and mithril in the days of the Kings, seemed likely to hold indefinitely.
But then came the sound that changed everything: the heavy tread of cave-trolls, and behind it something that no defender of Gondor had ever heard before, the hiss and crackle of burning fuses.
Saruman's gift to Mordor was not merely the knowledge of how to make gunpowder, any alchemist with sufficient patience could have discovered that. No, what the White Wizard had provided was something far more insidious: the tactical understanding of how to use these new weapons of war most effectively.
The iron spheres that the trolls carried looked crude, almost primitive, but they were the product of months of careful calculation. Each one contained not merely the black powder that had been perfected in the forges of Isengard, but also fragments of iron and stone designed to turn every explosion into a storm of deadly shrapnel.
Captain Anduril watched with growing horror as the massive cave-trolls advanced through the hail of arrows, each one carrying two of the iron spheres as easily as a man might carry apples. The Rangers' arrows bounced harmlessly from their stone-like hides, and even when a shot found a gap in their crude armor, the wounds seemed to do little more than anger the beasts.
"Concentrate fire on the trolls!" Anduril commanded. "Whatever those things are carrying, we cannot let them reach the gates!"
But it was too late. Even as the Rangers adjusted their aim, the first troll reached the base of the great gate. With surprising delicacy for such a massive creature, it placed its iron spheres at the foot of the ancient portal, then struck flint to steel to light the trailing fuses.
The explosion, when it came, was like the wrath of the Valar themselves. The sound shattered windows throughout west Osgiliath and was heard as far away as Minas Tirith, forty miles to the west. The ancient gates, which had withstood the siege engines of Sauron himself during the War of the Last Alliance, were torn from their hinges and hurled backward in smoking fragments.
But worse than the destruction was the weapon's psychological impact. The men of Gondor had never seen such a thing, had no frame of reference for understanding it. To their eyes, it seemed as though the orcs had summoned the fires of Mount Doom itself, had bent the very forces of creation to their will.
In that moment of shock and confusion, the second wave of trolls reached the breach. More explosions followed, widening the gap and collapsing entire sections of the ancient wall. Through the smoke and rubble, the orc-host poured like water through a broken dam.
What followed was not a battle but a slaughter. The Rangers of Osgiliath, men who had spent their lives fighting individual orcs or small raiding parties, found themselves overwhelmed by sheer numbers. For every orc they killed, three more took its place. For every position they held, the enemy found two ways around it.
Captain Anduril fought like a man possessed, his sword Anduril singing as it carved through orc after orc. Around him, his men began to rally, forming a desperate defense around the ruins of the gatehouse. For a moment, it seemed they might hold, might buy precious time for the messenger he had dispatched to reach Minas Tirith.
Then the captain of that same orc-band that Luke had infiltrated, drunk on visions of glory and eager to prove himself to his Dark Lord, crept around the flank of the battle with a small group of his most trusted warriors. As Anduril stood outlined against the flames, directing his men's defense, the orc-captain drew back his bow and loosed a black arrow.
The shot was true. Anduril stumbled, looked down in surprise at the feathered shaft protruding from his chest, then toppled backward from the wall into the churning waters of the Anduin below. His body, weighted down by armor, vanished beneath the surface and was seen no more.
With their captain's death, the spirit went out of the Rangers. They fought on, for they were men of Gondor and would not yield while they drew breath, but their resistance became scattered and desperate. One by one, the defensive positions fell. One by one, the Rangers died at their posts or were driven into the river to drown.
By sunset, the white banners of Gondor no longer flew above Osgiliath. In their place, the Red Eye of Mordor gazed westward toward Minas Tirith, and the ancient City of Kings had become a staging ground for the conquest of all Gondor.
The great beacon of Amon Dîn was the first to blaze to life, its flame visible from the walls of Minas Tirith as a bright star against the eastern horizon. Built upon one of the great spurs of the White Mountains, it commanded a view of both the Pelennor Fields and the river-lands beyond, and its lighting was a signal that could not be mistaken.
Ecthelion, the twenty-fifth Ruling Steward of Gondor, received the news of Osgiliath's fall with the stoicism that had carried him through twenty years of rule. He had expected this day, had known in his heart that the long peace could not endure forever, but the speed of the collapse still shocked him.
"Anduril is dead?" he asked the blood-stained messenger who had brought word from the ruins of the ancient capital.
"Aye, my lord. I saw him fall myself. The orcs have brought some new devilry, engines that burst like thunder and shatter stone. Our walls could not hold against them."
Ecthelion closed his eyes and felt the weight of kingship, for he was king in all but name, settle upon his shoulders like a cloak of lead. Anduril had been his youngest son, the child of his heart, the one who reminded him most of his beloved wife Finduilas. Now that bright light was extinguished, and he was alone with only Boromir, brave Boromir, but always so eager for glory, so quick to seek solutions through force of arms.
"Light the beacons," Ecthelion commanded. "All of them, from here to Rohan's borders. If Gondor is to fall, let it not be said that we fell without calling upon our allies for aid."
One by one, the beacon-fires blazed to life across the White Mountains. Eilenach answered Amon Dîn, then Nardol answered Eilenach, then Erelas, Minrimmon, Calenhad, and finally Halifirien upon the very borders of Rohan. The smoke of their burning rose like pillars into the sky, visible for leagues in every direction, and all who saw them knew that the hour of darkness had come at last.
In Edoras, the golden hall of Meduseld seemed to tremble as King Thengel looked eastward and saw the smoke rising from Halifirien. He was an old man now, worn down by years of rule and the subtle poisoning of Saruman's whispers, but his mind was still keen enough to understand what those signals meant.
"The beacons of Gondor are lit," he said to his counselors, who had gathered in the hall as word spread through the city. "Ecthelion calls for aid."
Éomer, his nephew and Marshal of the Mark, stepped forward with his hand on his sword-hilt. "Then we must answer! The oaths of Eorl bind us, when Gondor calls for aid, Rohan must come!"
But before Thengel could reply, another messenger burst into the hall, his horse lathered with sweat and his cloak torn by hard riding. "My lord king! The Black Gate has opened! An army of ten thousand orcs marches toward our eastern borders, and with them ride the Easterlings in their thousands!"
The hall fell silent as the implications of this news sank in. Rohan was to be attacked at the same moment as Gondor, a coordinated assault that would prevent either kingdom from aiding the other.
"It is as we feared," murmured Háma, captain of the king's guard. "The Enemy moves against both realms at once. We cannot send aid to Gondor without leaving our own lands defenseless."
Thengel felt the years weighing upon him like chains. In his youth, he would have ridden east with the full strength of the Mark, trusting in the righteousness of his cause and the courage of his riders. But those days were long past, and he had learned the bitter lesson that courage alone was not always enough.
"Send a thousand riders to Gondor," he decided finally. "It is all we can spare, but it will show that Rohan remembers its oaths. The rest of our strength must be gathered to defend our own borders."
As the orders went out and the horns of Rohan began to sound the call to war, Thengel's thoughts turned westward to Isengard. The strange lights that had shone above the black tower for months had finally faded, but rumors spoke of a new power dwelling there, a wizard in black robes who commanded both magic and monsters.
If even half the stories were true, this Dragon Lord might be Rohan's only hope of survival.
The messenger who rode west from Edoras was one of the finest riders in all the Mark, a young man named Dernhelm whose horse was descended from the legendary Felaróf himself. He carried with him a letter written in Thengel's own hand, sealed with the royal seal of Rohan, and bore instructions to spare neither himself nor his mount in reaching Isengard before the sun set.
The letter itself was a masterwork of diplomatic necessity, balancing pride with desperation, authority with supplication:
"To the Lord of Isengard, greetings from King Thengel Lord of the Mark and Marshal of the Riddermark.
Word has reached us of your great deeds and growing power, of the lights that crowned your tower and the wisdom that guided your counsel. We have heard too that you are no friend to the enemies of the free peoples, having thwarted the plots of Saruman and taken his stronghold for your own.
Now darkness gathers over all the lands of the West. Gondor burns, and her beacons call for aid that we can barely provide. From the East come the hosts of Mordor, ten thousand strong, with Easterlings in their van and trolls in their ranks. Rohan stands alone against this tide, and our strength may not be sufficient to turn it back.
We ask not for charity, but for alliance. Fight with us, Lord of Isengard, and the Mark will remember you as a friend when victory is won. Fail to answer, and both our realms may fall before the darkness, and with them all hope for the West.
The bearer of this letter has authority to speak with my voice and hear your answer. Time presses, for battle may be joined before another dawn.
Written in haste but with great hope, King Thengel"
In the high chamber of Orthanc, Luke received word of Gondor's peril before even the King of Rohan learned of his own kingdom's danger. The palantír that had once served Saruman now provided Luke and Gandalf with intelligence that would have been impossible to gather otherwise, and through it they could speak directly with Ecthelion in his tower in Minas Tirith.
The Ruling Steward's image in the seeing-stone was haggard with grief and exhaustion, but his voice remained steady as he described the fall of Osgiliath and the approach of Mordor's armies.
"They will be here within two days," Ecthelion said. "I have perhaps eight thousand men to hold the walls of Minas Tirith, and half of those are militia with more courage than training. The enemy numbers in the tens of thousands, and they have weapons we cannot match."
Gandalf leaned forward, his face grave with concern. "What manner of weapons?"
"Iron balls that burst like thunder and can shatter stone. My scouts say Saruman taught the enemy their making before his fall. Our gates, which have stood for a thousand years, will not hold against such devices."
Luke felt a chill run down his spine that had nothing to do with the wind howling around Orthanc's peak. In his original world, gunpowder had changed the nature of warfare forever, making obsolete the great castles and fortified cities that had dominated medieval battlefields. If Saruman had indeed shared this knowledge with Mordor, then the traditional advantages of Gondor's fortifications were meaningless.
"I must go to Minas Tirith immediately," Gandalf declared. "The men of Gondor will need hope and leadership if they are to stand against such odds."
But Luke shook his head. "You go alone, and you'll arrive to find the city already fallen. We need a different strategy."
"What do you propose?" Gandalf asked.
Luke was quiet for a long moment, his mind racing through possibilities. In the original timeline, Gondor had held out long enough for Rohan's cavalry to arrive and break the siege. But that had been against conventional weapons and tactics. With gunpowder in play, the siege of Minas Tirith could end in hours rather than days.
"You're right that the people of Gondor need hope," Luke said finally. "But they need more than speeches and inspiring words. They need a demonstration that Mordor's new weapons are not invincible, that the darkness can be fought and defeated."
"And how would you provide such a demonstration?" Gandalf asked.
Luke smiled grimly. "By giving them a weapon of their own that's even more devastating than gunpowder. Magic, Gandalf. Real magic, wielded by someone who understands both the old ways and the new."
As the sun set behind the Misty Mountains, Luke found himself standing on the highest balcony of Orthanc, looking out over the darkening landscape of Rohan. In the distance, he could see the glow of signal fires as the Riders of the Mark prepared for war, and somewhere beyond the horizon, the armies of darkness were advancing like a black tide across the fair lands of the West.
The conversation with Gandalf played over and over in his mind. The Grey Wizard had been reluctant to accept Luke's offer of magical assistance, concerned that the young man was not yet ready for the kind of battle they faced. But Luke knew, with a certainty that went bone-deep, that if he remained safely in Isengard while Gondor fell, he would never forgive himself.
More than that, he was beginning to suspect that his presence in this world was not accidental. Too many things had changed from the original timeline, too many variables had shifted in ways that seemed to center around him. If he was here for a purpose, if some cosmic force had brought him to Middle-earth at this crucial moment, then hiding in his tower while darkness consumed the West would be a betrayal of that purpose.
The sound of hoofbeats on the road below drew his attention. A single rider was approaching Isengard at breakneck speed, and even in the gathering darkness, Luke could see the white horse-tail banner of Rohan streaming from his lance.
Thengel's messenger had arrived.
As Luke made his way down the winding stairs of Orthanc to meet this new crisis, he felt the weight of destiny settling upon his shoulders like armor. The choices he made in the next few hours would determine not just his own fate, but the fate of all the free peoples of Middle-earth.
The shadow was spreading, but perhaps, just perhaps, it was not yet too late to kindle a light that would drive it back.
In the gathering darkness, three kingdoms prepared for war, while in a black tower that had once served evil, a young wizard from another world contemplated the price of heroism. The stage was set for battles that would echo through the halls of song for ages to come, if any survived to sing of them.