Protect & Serve LotR-Lord of the Rings Fanfiction - Fan Fiction -WattyAwards2012

Chapter 4: The Woman I Am

If I had worried that the riders from Dol Amroth might notice a woman joining their charge, it was certainly a misplaced fear. Prince Imrahil's cavalry was focused with deadly intent on their appointed task. Though trumpets announced our charge, none of Imrahil's men took up a battle cry. With that same single-minded focus, they pushed on to the south as hard as their mounts would carry them, eagerly leaning forward in their saddles.

Lightfoot had obviously well recovered from our long ride to Gondor and now leaned hard into his bit, straining at my arms and yearning to fully stretch his legs to outdistance the Gondorian mounts, but with a firm hand, I held the gelding back, maintaining my place in the charge.

Only as we crossed the dried brown grasses of the Pelennor and were almost upon the melee of Faramir's soldiers and Sauron's did the soldiers around me begin to let loose their battle cries. The Southrons turned at our call and split their forces to combat both Faramir's men and ours. Faramir's men took up the same battle cries, soldiers once again heartened and finding renewed strength to fight.

But even with our now combined forces, it wouldn't be enough. More Southrons advanced from the overrun Osgiliath, and worse yet, one of the Black Riders, the very Witch-king of Angmar, led the Southrons who had been sent against Faramir.

Lightfoot had faithfully charged into the melee at my urging, turning and wheeling under my hand to face each oncoming Southron.

With the first Southron I had cut down, I knew this kill and this battle would linger in my heart. I'd killed many men in my own world, but always from a distance. Never while looking into their eyes. Seeing into their souls it seemed.

Even in the battles I'd thus far seen in Middle-earth, I'd fought Orcs and Uruk-hai, and though I knew some of my arrows had found Dunderlings when I fought at Helm's Deep, I had not battled them hand to hand and looked into their eyes as they dulled of life.

Ironically, as my body fought almost on autopilot, I remembered Legolas's words to me in Lórien and how he had urged me not to join Haldir's men in battle there. He had warned me that battle in this world would not be what I was used to. He'd been right then. And his words proved to be right still.

But my resolve was as strong now as it had been under the winter-bare trees of Lothlórien. Perhaps even stronger. For now, I truly did consider this world my own. And I knew I would sacrifice more for the fate of it than I'd even been called to give even in my previous world.

The chilling act of slaying men and not merely beasts I knew would stalk my nightmares later, but I pushed the horror down, tamping it deep within myself only to arise again when I had helped to finish our task.

A jolting hit suddenly glanced off my exposed left side as I plunged my sword through a Southron into the vulnerable armor at the base of his neck with my right arm. I turned my attention to the Southron on my left; he had only caught me with a glancing blow at the tip of his extended swing, but was stepping closer to rectify his near miss.

In a split-second decision, I dropped the reins in my left hand, thankful they were one continuous rein and not split reins, and tossed my sword up through the air over Lightfoot's arched neck. With my left hand turning to grasp the sword in an overhand grip, I spun the blade back towards my flank to catch the advancing Southron in the same downward thrust that pierced through the base of his neck.

"Pull back! Pull back to Minas Tirith!"

As the call rang out, I looked up and around. The riders of Dol Amroth were helping wounded soldiers of Gondor to their horses and even pulling some onto their own mounts with them.

Prince Imrahil himself was only a dozen yards from me, pulling a wounded man from the hands of another onto his horse in front of him. The injured man's head fell limply back against the prince's shoulder and the sandy hair fell away to reveal Faramir's slack face. He'd been struck by an arrow and was coated in both bright red and older dark red blood, his skin so pale his veins and arteries stood out in stark contrast, only instead of blue tinged, they were darkened to nearly black, the ghastly result of the Witch-king's black breath.