My horse's foot steps into another puddle, making the sit uncomfortable. I shift positions on my white steed again and let it step over another root on the forest floor. I follow behind Legolas and Gimli, Éomer right behind me.
I think about what happened after the battle of Helm's Deep and smile:
.
Bodies of Uruk-hai flood the lands in, and out, of the walls. I walk past them and over to Legolas who is speaking to Gimli.
"Final count... forty-two," he says to the dwarf rather proudly.
"Forty-two? Why that's not bad for a pointy-eared elvish prince-ling," he says as he smokes a pipe, sitting on the body of an orc that has his ax sticking from its head. "I myself am sitting pretty on forty-three."
Legolas loads quickly and fires an arrow between the dwarf's legs, it sticking into the orc beneath him. "Forty-three," he says.
"He was already dead."
"He was twitching."
"He was twitching because he's got my ax embedded in his nervous system!"
"You kids are cute. Let me know when you've hit sixty," I say merely walking past them. They don't say anything but I can sense their gaze behind me.
That's when I look ahead and see Éomer helping the others gather the bodies for burning. He sighs and takes off his helmet.
I smile and run forward. He doesn't see me until I collide with him, my arms hugging his large shoulders covered in leather armor. "My lady," he chuckles, staggering back.
"Thank you," I say.
"For what miss?" his hand touches the back of my head.
I back off him but look in his brown eyes. "If you hadn't of come we would have lost this battle. You saved us."
"Then thank Gandalf. I would not have come if he hadn't found me."
I smile.
He sends a smirk and a playful wink.
I roll my eyes but the blood rushes to my cheeks.
.
As the memories fade in my head I remember the last thing Gandalf had said to us that day: "Sauron's wrath will be terrible, his retribution swift... The battle for Helm's Deep is over. The battle for Middle Earth is about to begin."
Finally the sky breaks the trees and we see the clouds, glowing from the sun behind it. Before us my eyes gaze upon the tower of Orthanc in the center of Isengard, the flooded lands and home of Saruman the White. I had pictured it more sinister but alas it has been overrun by Ents and completely torn up. No orc in sight but only ruins of structure and remains of creatures all around the foot of the great black tower.
The Ents stormed Isengard? Did they kill Saruman?
A childish cackling gets my attention and I turn to where Gandalf, at the head of the line, looks towards. There on the rubble of what was once a stone wall, sitting with food all around them and smoking pipes, Merry and Pippin the little hobbits. I haven't seen them since we were all in Bree together. I remember Legolas saying they were staying with the Ents. Seems they hitched a ride to Orthanc.
"Welcome, my lords and lady," Merry says joyfully as he stands, unbalanced on the wall, "to Isengard!" he gestures behind him clumsily, his eyelids looking heavy.
"You young rascals!" Gimli scolds from the back of Legolas's horse. "A merry hunt you've led us on and now we find you feasting and... and smoking!"
YOU ARE READING
Between Two Worlds
Fanfiction"Where is the horse and the rider? Where is the horn that was blowing? They have passed like rain on the mountains. Like wind in the meadow. The days have gone down in the west, behind the hills, into shadow. How did it come to this?" _____________...
