Sword and Arrow

Chapter 53

Morning in Minas Tirith was grey, the wind biting. Gandalf led Pippin up, up, up a flight of stairs to a tower high on the mountain. They had been walking long enough that Pippin was worried as to the reason Gandalf had brought him here.

"Peregrin Took, my lad," Gandalf said, leaning on his staff, as they stopped for a moment to let the old wizard catch his breath. "There is a task now to be done. Another opportunity for one of the Shire-folk to prove their great worth." Pippin looked up, worried. When Gandalf talked like that, it only meant danger. "You must not fail me."

Gandalf placed a hand on the young hobbit's shoulder and steered him up the stairs to the watchtower that was slowly getting closer.

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"It's been very quiet across the river," Madril noted to Faramir. "The orcs are lying low, the garrison might have moved out. We've sent scouts to Cair Andros. If the orcs attack from the north, we'll have some warning."

Unless they killed the scouts, Faramir thought, but he didn't say it. These were troubling enough times and circumstances without him scaring his men.

Faramir thought he heard a disturbance and looked up to the wall, where guards patrolled without torches to see into the dark and across the river. Moments later, a guard fell down to the stone ground, an arrow in his back. He did not move.

Faramir drew in a breath, his heart racing. "They're not coming from the north." He looked around him, at the small group of soldiers and Rangers that was remnant of a large company. "To the river! Quick, quick, come on!"

Men in silver armor and men in brown leather gathered behind the pillars at the riverbank, standing perfectly still with bated breath. Faramir held his hand up, out of the view from the river but visible to all his men.

And then it dropped.

The soldiers caught the orcs just as they were disembarking from their river-boats, but their numbers were too great. Too many soldiers fell into the icy water with a sword in their back.

And no matter what Faramir did, no matter how hard they fought, orcs swarmed into the city.

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The guards on the watchtower were distracted. It wasn't surprising: their job was just to wait there on that high, cold tower, waiting for distant beacons to light. Boring, Pippin thought.

But now, the ancient beacons had a purpose once more. Pippin, through some sudden gift of climbing, scaled the edge of the stone tower. He had no idea how he was doing it: he hated to climb, as did most hobbits. But climb he did, until Gandalf was a spot of white below him.

At the top of the tower, logs were stacked high and an oil lantern hung from a ring on the ceiling. Pippin reached for the lamp, using a frayed rope to keep his balance. Just as his fingers were brushing the lamp, the rope snapped.

Pippin gained his balance on the uncertain logs, but the snapped rope had sent oil cascading over the logs. He took a deep breath, then reached up again, this time snagging the lamp between his fingers. He tossed the lit lamp onto the thinner stick on the top of the pile.

Pippin quickly clambered down, slipping and sliding as the beacon quickly caught fire and became a blazing inferno. He reached the base of the tower just as he heard guards from inside the small building exclaiming that the beacons were lit.

"Amon Din," Gandalf said with a smile, as another light was lit in the faraway white mountains. "Hope is rekindled." And another beacon was lit in the distance, and another, until there was a line of fiery spots across the high peaks of the Ere Nimrais, growing farther and further away.