The eastern borders of Rohan had never seen such darkness fall upon them in living memory. What had begun as a peaceful dawn over the rolling grasslands now writhed under the shadow of war, as if Mordor itself had reached out to strangle the light from the world.
From the jagged peaks surrounding the Black Gate, an avalanche of malice had poured forth, tens of thousands of Mordor's finest warriors, their black banners snapping in the acrid wind that followed in their wake. They moved with the terrible efficiency of a plague, sweeping across the Dead Marshes where the faces of ancient warriors flickered beneath stagnant waters, their ghostly eyes reflecting the passage of this new host of the damned.
The vanguard struck the Anduin's eastern tributaries like a thunderbolt. Captain Elfhild of the Eastern March had barely time to sound his horn before the first wave of Uruk-hai crashed into his riverside watchtowers. The garrison at the Anduin crossing, barely three hundred men spread across a dozen outposts, found themselves facing an army that stretched to the horizon.
"Burn the bridges!" Elfhild's voice carried across the churning waters as his archers sent volleys into the advancing horde. "Every plank, every rope! Give them nothing!"
The ancient stone bridge that had stood for nearly five hundred years, built in the days when peace between Rohan and Gondor seemed eternal, groaned and cracked as the Rohirrim applied their axes and fire to its foundations.
Chunks of masonry tumbled into the swift-flowing river, but even as the bridge collapsed in a thunderous roar of falling stone, the enemy's response revealed the true scope of their preparation.
Hundreds of crude river barges emerged from concealed positions along the eastern bank, rough-hewn vessels that spoke of months of planning and preparation. The Dark Lord's strategists had not been idle.
Orc-crews bent to their oars with desperate strength, knowing that failure meant the lash or worse, while their passengers, rank upon rank of Uruk-hai warriors, crouched behind crude shields, weathering the storm of arrows from the western bank.
"They're too many!" shouted Sergeant Beregond, his bow singing as he sent shaft after shaft into the mass of approaching boats. "Every one we sink, two more take its place!"
And indeed, for every barge that capsized under the rain of arrows, spilling its screaming cargo into the rushing waters, more appeared from the mists rising off the eastern shore. The river ran red with orc-blood, but still they came, driven by the will of their dark master and the whips of their Uruk captains.
The first boats reached the western shore just as the sun reached its zenith, though its light was now choked by the smoke of burning watchtowers and the dark vapors that seemed to rise from the very breath of the invaders. Elfhild's men met them on the muddy banks with sword and spear, but they were fighting mathematics as much as monsters, for every orc that fell, three more scrambled over his corpse.
"Fall back!" Elfhild commanded, his voice hoarse from shouting orders and breathing smoke. "Fighting withdrawal to the Entwash! Send word to Edoras, the eastern border is lost!"
The retreat across the rolling plains of eastern Rohan became a nightmare of running battles and desperate rearguard actions. Small units of Rohirrim cavalry harassed the advancing horde, striking like lightning at their flanks before melting away into the tall grass, but the sheer weight of numbers made any sustained defense impossible.
King Thengel received the ill tidings at Edoras just as the evening bells were tolling, the messenger's horse collapsing from exhaustion in the very courtyard of Meduseld. The king's weathered face, already lined with the cares of rulership, seemed to age a decade in the space of a heartbeat.
"How many?" was all he asked, his voice steady despite the magnitude of the disaster.
"Forty thousand, at least, my lord," gasped the messenger, still covered in the mud and blood of his desperate ride. "Maybe more. The host stretches back beyond the marshes, I could see no end to their numbers."
Thengel closed his eyes, feeling the weight of his crown like a millstone. The Entwash, the river that had given its name to the great valley where his people had dwelt for centuries, would have to hold. There was nowhere left to run.
Within hours, every able-bodied warrior in Rohan was riding east. The muster-horns echoed across the Riddermark, calling men from their farms and villages, from their peaceful lives that now hung by the thinnest of threads. But even as they gathered, Thengel knew with the bitter clarity of long experience that they were too few.
The Entwash curved through the heart of Rohan like a silver serpent, its waters swift and deep from the spring melts in the Misty Mountains. Here, where the great river bent eastward toward its eventual meeting with the Anduin, the land itself offered the last defensible position between the invaders and Edoras.
King Thengel rode along the western bank in the grey light of dawn, surveying his hastily assembled forces with the eye of a veteran commander. Fifteen thousand riders had answered the call, a great host by any measure, but pitifully small compared to the dark tide approaching from the east.
"The river is deep here, but not deep enough to stop them indefinitely," observed Erkenbrand, the king's most trusted general, as he guided his horse alongside the royal mount. "And the current, while swift, won't prevent a determined crossing."
Thengel nodded grimly. Across the water, the first banners of Mordor were already visible, a line of black that seemed to stretch from north to south as far as the eye could see. "Then we make them pay for every foot of ground. Every orc that reaches this side must wade through the blood of ten of his fellows."
The battle preparations were frantic but methodical. Archer companies took position behind hastily constructed earthworks, their quivers full and their faces grim. The great war-horses of Rohan were held in reserve, waiting for the moment when cavalry might turn the tide. And at the river's edge, engineers worked to destroy every bridge and ford, though they all knew it would buy them precious little time.
As the sun climbed higher, the eastern bank began to writhe with activity. The enemy host was deploying for battle, and the sight of their numbers sent a chill through even the bravest Rohirrim hearts. Orcs and Uruk-hai formed the bulk of the force, but among them moved shapes that spoke of the Dark Lord's alliances, Easterlings in scale armor, Southrons with their curved swords, and most ominous of all, the towering forms of cave trolls that stood head and shoulders above the rest.
"Look there," breathed Erkenbrand, pointing to a cluster of larger figures near what appeared to be the enemy's command post. "Olog-hai. The great trolls of Mordor."
Even from across the river, the creatures were terrifying to behold. Each stood nearly twice the height of a man, their hide thick as leather armor, their strength sufficient to tear apart stone fortifications with their bare hands. As the Rohirrim watched, several of these monsters waded directly into the Entwash, the water barely reaching their massive chests, and began setting up what could only be bridge supports.
"They mean to build a crossing," Thengel said, his voice tight with controlled fear. "Those trolls will hold timber spans while their army pours across."
The attack began with a sound like thunder, not the crash of storm clouds, but the rhythmic beating of thousands of orc drums, echoing across the water and into the hearts of the defenders. Then came the horns, deep and brazen, speaking of conquest and slaughter.
"Archers!" Thengel's voice carried across the Rohirrim line. "Target the trolls! Stop them from completing their bridges!"
The air filled with the whistle of arrows as every bowman in the army sent their shafts across the water. Most struck harmlessly against the trolls' thick hides, but a few found their mark, eyes, mouths, the softer flesh beneath the arms. One great beast toppled backward with a roar that shook the very ground, crushing a dozen orcs beneath its falling bulk.
But for every troll that fell, two more took its place. And worse, the enemy's own archers were returning fire now, sending clouds of black-fletched arrows across the river to fall among the Rohirrim positions. Men cried out and fell, their blood seeping into the earth they had sworn to defend.
"Your Majesty!" A herald rode up in obvious distress, his horse foam-flecked from hard riding. "The northern ford, they've broken through! A full regiment of Easterlings has crossed and is moving to flank our position!"
Thengel felt his heart sink. The line was breaking before the battle had truly begun. Around him, he could see the same realization dawning on the faces of his captains. They were outnumbered, outflanked, and running out of time.
"We cannot hold this position," Erkenbrand said quietly, for the king's ears alone. "My lord, we must consider withdrawal to Edoras."
"No." Thengel's voice was flat, final. "Behind us lies the Golden Hall, and in it my people, women, children, elders who have no other protection. If we retreat, they die. Rohan dies." He drew Herugrim, his ancient sword, and the blade gleamed in the morning light like captured starfire. "We make our stand here. We hold until we can hold no more."
The battle raged through the morning hours, growing more desperate with each passing moment. The trolls had succeeded in establishing three separate bridge-heads, and streams of enemy warriors were pouring across the Entwash despite the Rohirrim's best efforts. The toll was becoming unsustainable, for every orc or Easterling that fell, Rohan lost men it could ill afford to spare.
King Thengel found himself fighting in the front rank, Herugrim rising and falling as he cut down enemy after enemy. Blood splattered his golden cloak and ran down his arms, though whether it was his own or that of his foes, he could no longer tell. Around him, the flower of Rohan's nobility fought with the desperate courage of the doomed.
"My king!" The voice belonged to Captain Elfhild, who had somehow survived his retreat from the eastern borders. "We cannot hold much longer! The line is breaking in three places!"
Thengel spun to survey the battlefield, and what he saw confirmed his worst fears. Orc warriors were establishing footholds on the western bank, their black banners planted in Rohirrim soil like poisonous weeds. Soon they would have enough men across to overwhelm the defenders entirely.
It was then, at the darkest moment of Rohan's need, that salvation came from an impossible source, the sky itself.
The first sign was a sound unlike anything heard on Middle-earth's battlefields, a wild, piercing cry that seemed to combine the hunting scream of an eagle with the challenging neigh of a war-horse. Every head on the battlefield turned skyward, friend and foe alike seeking the source of that alien call.
From the western horizon they came, flying in formation like the Wild Hunt of ancient legend. Hippogriffs, creatures of myth made manifest, their eagle heads crowned with fierce intelligence, their horse bodies powerful enough to bear armored riders through the air itself. At their head flew Buckbeak, his golden-brown plumage catching the sunlight as he led his wing-brothers toward battle.
"What sorcery is this?" gasped an orc captain, his crude blade wavering as he stared at the approaching aerial cavalry.
The answer came in the form of arrows, not the simple shafts of human make, but enchanted missiles that blazed with silver fire as they fell among the Mordor host. Each arrow found its mark with supernatural accuracy, piercing armor that should have turned aside ordinary weapons, dropping orc-chieftains and Uruk-hai champions with deadly precision.
Astride the lead hippogriff rode Brog, chieftain of the Dunlendings, his weathered face set in lines of grim determination. The enchanted spider-silk armor Luke had provided gleamed like captured moonlight, and in his hands was a bow of power, one of Saruman's forgotten treasures, now turned against the Dark Lord's servants.
"Strike at their leaders!" Brog shouted to his air-riders, his voice carrying clearly despite the chaos below. "Cut off the head, and the serpent dies!"
The hippogriffs dove like hunting hawks, their riders loosing arrow after arrow into the packed ranks of the enemy. The effect was devastating, not just from the physical damage they inflicted, but from the sheer psychological impact of their presence. Orcs who had faced cavalry and siege engines without flinching now cowered beneath the shadow of creatures from their darkest nightmares.
One of the great trolls holding up a makeshift bridge looked up in confusion as Buckbeak stooped like a striking eagle. The hippogriff's talons, each as long as a sword blade, closed around the troll's massive head and wrenched it skyward. The creature's dying scream was cut short as Buckbeak released his grip a hundred feet above the battlefield, sending the body plummeting down to crush a dozen orcs beneath its bulk.
But the true surprise was yet to come. As King Thengel and his men watched in amazement, some of the hippogriff riders began dropping strange objects from their mounts, wooden boxes that seemed far too small to contain anything of significance. The containers tumbled earthward and struck the ground among the Mordor forces...
Then the magic activated.
Each box expanded in an instant, growing from the size of a jewelry casket to that of a siege wagon. Their sides fell open like flower petals, revealing their contents in a burst of golden light that sent nearby orcs scrambling backward in terror.
From within the expanded containers poured warriors, not just any warriors, but the finest fighting men the Dunlendings had ever produced. They emerged fully armed and armored in Luke's spider-silk mail, their weapons gleaming with protective enchantments, their faces painted with the ancient war-marks of their people.
The effect on the battlefield was immediate and catastrophic for Mordor's forces. What had been a disciplined advance across the river bridges became a chaotic melee as thousands of Dunlending warriors materialized in the very heart of the enemy formation.
These were no green recruits or hastily armed peasants, they were veteran fighters, men who had spent their lives in warfare and who now found themselves equipped with armor and weapons beyond their wildest dreams.
"By the Valar," breathed Erkenbrand, his eyes wide with wonder as he watched the Dunlendings carve through the orc ranks like a hot knife through butter. "It's like watching the heroes of old returned to life."
The spider-silk armor proved its worth immediately. Orc blades that should have cleaved through mail and leather instead skittered harmlessly off the enchanted fabric, leaving the Dunlending warriors free to press their attack without fear. They moved through the enemy ranks like reapers through grain, their enchanted weapons cutting down foes that ordinary steel could never have harmed.
Above the melee, the hippogriff riders continued their deadly work. They had divided into two groups, half harassing the main enemy force, while the others, led by Brog himself, struck at the crossing points with devastating effect.
Talons that could rend stone made short work of the crude rope and timber bridges the trolls had constructed. One by one, the spans collapsed into the rushing waters, stranding thousands of orcs on the eastern bank while their comrades on the west faced annihilation.
King Thengel , seeing opportunity in the chaos, raised Herugrim high above his head and gave voice to the ancient war-cry of his house: "Forth Eorlingas! For Rohan and the Mark!"
The remaining Rohirrim, their spirits lifted by the miraculous intervention, charged into the fray with renewed vigor. What had moments before been a desperate last stand became a rout as the combined forces of Rohan and the Dunlendings pressed their advantage.
The battle that followed was less a military engagement than a slaughter. Caught between the disciplined charge of the Rohirrim and the unstoppable advance of the Dunlending warriors, while harried from above by creatures of legend, the Mordor forces simply collapsed.
Orc after orc fell beneath the hooves of Rohirrim cavalry or the enchanted blades of their unexpected allies. The Easterlings, for all their skill and discipline, found themselves facing opponents whose armor turned aside their finest weapons while their own defenses proved useless against enchanted steel.
The great trolls, deprived of their river-crossing duties, tried to rally their smaller brethren, but the hippogriffs gave them no peace. Again and again, the aerial cavalry would swoop down, their talons finding purchase in troll-flesh, lifting the massive creatures high into the air before releasing them to fall like stones among their own forces.
Brog himself led the final charge against the enemy command post, his hippogriff touching down just long enough for him to leap into combat with the orc-chieftain who had led this invasion. The duel was brief, the chieftain's crude blade shattered against spider-silk armor, and Brog's enchanted sword took the creature's head in a single clean stroke.
With their leader dead and their forces shattered, the remaining orcs broke entirely. Those who could swim threw themselves into the Entwash, preferring to take their chances with the swift current rather than face the wrath of the aroused defenders. Most never reached the eastern bank.
Others fled eastward across the plains, abandoning weapons and armor in their haste to escape. The hippogriff riders harried them for miles, ensuring that this host would never threaten Rohan again.
When the last enemy warrior had been slain or driven off, an strange quiet fell over the battlefield. The Entwash ran red with orc-blood, its waters carrying the detritus of defeat downstream toward the Anduin. Across the western bank, Rohirrim and Dunlending warriors stood among the carnage, scarcely believing their victory.
King Thengel, his golden cloak now stained with battle, walked slowly through the aftermath. Around him, his people were beginning the grim task of tending to their wounded and honoring their dead, but their faces showed something that had been absent for too long, hope.
Brog's hippogriff landed nearby with a sound like controlled thunder, and the Dunlending chieftain dismounted with obvious weariness. The battle-fury was leaving him now, replaced by the bone-deep exhaustion that came after such violence.
"Chief Brog," Thengel said formally, approaching the man who had saved his kingdom. "The debt Rohan owes you and your people cannot be measured in gold or horses or any treasure of this earth."
The two leaders faced each other across the space of a few feet, and across the gulf of centuries of mistrust and warfare. Brog's dark eyes studied the Rohirrim king, looking perhaps for some sign of the old prejudices, the old hatred that had driven their peoples to war generation after generation.
Instead, he saw only honest gratitude and the dawning of genuine respect.
"King Thengel ," Brog replied, inclining his head in a gesture that conveyed equality rather than subservience. "Today we fought not as Dunlendings or Rohirrim, but as free peoples against the darkness. Perhaps... perhaps it is time the old grievances were buried with the orc dead."
Thengel extended his hand, not as king to subject, but as warrior to warrior, as one who had faced death and found a brother standing beside him. "Let it be so. From this day forth, let the Dunlendings and the Rohirrim remember not what divided them, but what they achieved when they stood united."
The handclasp that followed would be remembered in song and story for generations to come, the moment when ancient enemies became eternal allies, sealed in blood and battle on the banks of the Entwash.
But even as the victorious armies began to celebrate their triumph, the very air around them began to change. The sun, which had shone brightly during the morning's battle, seemed suddenly to dim as if veiled by invisible clouds. The hippogriffs, still circling overhead in lazy victory spirals, began to cry out in alarm, their keen senses detecting something that human perception had not yet grasped.
Buckbeak landed heavily beside Brog, his usually proud head now low and agitated. The great beast pawed at the ground with his talons, leaving deep gouges in the blood-soaked earth, while his eagle eyes darted constantly skyward.
"Something comes," Brog said quietly, his battle-honed instincts screaming warnings that his rational mind could not yet understand. "Something that makes the hippogriffs afraid."
Thengel followed the chieftain's gaze upward, and what he saw there made his blood run cold. The sky itself seemed to be darkening, not with the natural approach of evening, but with something far more ominous. Clouds were gathering with unnatural speed, swirling in patterns that hurt the eye to follow.
And from within those roiling masses of darkness came a sound that no living thing in Middle-earth had heard for over an age, the hunting cry of one of the great Drakes of the North.
The temperature plummeted as if winter had arrived in a single instant. Breath began to mist in the suddenly frigid air, and ice crystals formed on weapons and armor. Even the swift-flowing Entwash began to slow, its surface glazing over with a skin of frost that thickened with each passing moment.
Then, through the heart of the storm-clouds, it emerged.
A thousand feet of living nightmare given form, scales black as midnight, eyes like captured stars, wings that blotted out what remained of the sun. The Cold Drake of Forodwaith had awakened from its centuries-long slumber, and its presence turned the very air to winter.
Where its shadow fell, the grass withered and died. Where its breath touched the earth, ice formed in patterns that would endure long after the creature had passed. And in its wake came the promise of death, not the quick death of battle, but the slow, creeping death of eternal cold.
The dragon's roar shook the earth itself, sending men stumbling to their knees and horses screaming in terror. Even the battle-hardened Dunlending warriors, who had faced orcs and trolls without flinching, felt their courage waver before this avatar of primordial destruction.
"Great Béma preserve us," whispered Erkenbrand, his weathered face pale with terror. "It is one of the Great Worms, the Drakes that Glaurung sired in the depths of Angband."
King Thengel gripped Herugrim's hilt until his knuckles showed white, but even his ancient blade seemed pitiful before such majesty of evil. Around him, his warriors looked to their king for guidance, for some word of hope or plan of action.
But what plan could mortal men make against a creature from the world's darkest legends? What hope could there be against a being that had witnessed the rise and fall of kingdoms, that had slept through the changing of ages, that now stirred to terrible wakefulness at the bidding of the Dark Lord himself?
As the great Drake descended through the storm-wracked sky, its presence turning triumph into terror and victory into the prelude to catastrophe, one thought echoed in every mind on that blood-soaked field:
The real battle was only just beginning.