Silverhelm: A Tale of Two Enemies

I Didn't Know Gondor Exported to Mandos

The battle was over, the orcs defeated. The Army of the Dead had streamed inside the City, killing all orcs and foul beasts inside. Now, they were gathered behind their King in front of Aragorn.

"Release us," the Ghost King hissed.

"I hold your oath fulfilled," Aragorn answered. One by one, the spirits dissolved.

Many Rohirrim lay dead, but many more wandered the battlefield, searching the dead. With a cry of grief, Eomer sank to his knees beside the body of his near-dead sister and Aragorn approached.

Legolas lightly tread over the bodies of the dead, searching for me. I saw this with a disembodied vision as if I was floating along behind him. I had heard of spirits of the Men watching over their descendants, was I doing the same, because I had so much mortal blood in me?

"Lyrasael!" he called. "Lyrasael!" The last time he remembered seeing me was when I was tackling a mumakil. Sprinting towards the mumak, he saw no sign of me.

Scanning the fallen bodies, he saw the felled fellbeast (that's kind of funny) and knew it to be my handiwork. He ran towards it. As the clouds parted and the sun shone once more, his sharp eyesight caught a glimmer of green and silver: a sword-hilt. No other sword he knew bore an emerald in the pommel, none but Nahtar. Reaching the fallen creature of darkness, the first thing he saw was the Nazgul's tattered cloak and its armor crumpled like tinfoil. In the midst of it lay Nahtar.

"No..." he bent down and picked it up. The hilt was slick with my own blood, and the blade was stained with blood that was black and red- of orcs and men. I would not abandon my beloved sword unless it was the end. Legolas looked over to the fellbeast. From under a tented wing, a booted foot poked out.

"No!" Legolas shouted. Moving the wing aside, he knelt beside my body. A silver ring set with an emerald dangled from his neck on a chain of fine gold. Paying it no heed, he cradled my head against his chest. "Noo..." He looked down at me, eyes closed in death. Blood of my enemies covered my clothes and was streaked across my face.

"I said goodbye to you, melleth nin," he whispered, his voice cracking. "I did not mean this." But there was something about my face the lessened his grief. Despite my mortal wound and clothes drenched in rain and blood, my face was not twisted in agony. It was as if I had died in peace.

Legolas bent down to kiss me. And it was then that he felt something. The smallest gasp, the tiniest flutter. "Alive..." he murmured. Could it be? No, this was a dream, a pleasant hallucination. I was dead. I had seen it. He pressed a hand to my heart and, despite my wound, beating. Hollowly, but beating.

Taking Nahtar from beside me, he thrust it into his own scabbard. He had lost the sword long ago, and anyhow, a sword was not his weapon of choice.  Then lifting me, he carried me towards the city-gated through which the Rohirrim, bearing Theoden's body, had passed through not so long ago.

Legolas passed through the streets, trailing my blood over the pavement. The streets were busy, with people setting up healing stations here and there, and rushing to retrieve the bodies of the dead. The most severely wounded were being taken to the Houses of Healing, at the second-highest level of the city. It was here that Legolas was taking me.

The Houses of Healing were tall, whitewashed buildings with guards wearing the black and silver at the door. Seeing the unconscious - no, dead, I was dead - body in Legolas's arms, they allowed him to pass. Inside, past a flurry of healers and wounded men, Aragorn was sitting beside an unconscious Eowyn, pressing a damp cloth soaked with athelas water to her forehead. A distraught Eomer sat at her side. Aragorn finished giving Eomer instructions just as Legolas entered.