Tolkien Fan Fiction
| 14 |
| The City Is Breached |
| Denethor's gentlemen in waiting paid no more attention to Pippin's return than they had to his leaving. He lit one of the candles he was carrying from a stand near the door to the bedroom before going in. It was pitch dark and dead silent save for Faramir's labored breathing. Grimly Pippin groped his way to the nearest candlestand, stuck in the new candles and lit them, then moved on to the next. Only after he'd made a complete circuit of the room did he turn to look at his master. Faramir's face was red with the heat of his fever and glistened in the candlelight. But his father's, hanging over him, was cold and grey like the congealed candle wax dripping from the stands. There was nothing Pippin could say, nothing he could do but take up his station by the door and wait. After what seemed a very long time the door was opened to admit a breathless messenger. "My Lord," he said bowing to Denethor's back, "the first circle is on fire and Men are flying from the walls. What are your commands?" Slowly the Steward straightened up, then turned to the messenger a face so bleak and terrible that the Man blanched and recoiled a step. "Why? Why do the fools fly?" he asked. "Better to burn sooner than late, for burn we must. Go back to your bonfire!" he came to his feet, voice rising to a shout. "The West has failed. Go back and burn!" The Man turned and fled. Denethor looked after him, then back at his son with a glitter in his eye Pippin didn't like at all. "Send for my servants!" Pippin went out the still open door to the anteroom. "The Lord Steward calls for you." he said to the gentlemen in waiting. Then went on through the presence chamber and down the stair to see for himself what was happening outside. The first circle of the city was indeed afire, and the enemy was hurling great balls of flaming pitch over the wall to start more. Looking down from the embrasure at the tip of the great buttress Pippin saw a great battering ram tipped with an iron wolf's head, red fire in its jaws, at the Great Gate far below. Straining trolls pulled it back then released it to swing forward, crashing against the wood and metal of the gates. "Oh no." he whispered. **** The Great Gate quivered under a thunderous blow, the wounded in the square and the Women tending them stared at it apprehensively. "Idril!" She looked up to see Mithrandir on the wall above. "Clear the square, get the wounded and your Women out of there." She waved to show she had heard and turned to obey. "Luinil, get the walking wounded up and moving, at least as far as the second circle. Annalind, Pharinzil, try to find me some Men to carry the litters of those who cannot walk." "The gate won't break." Luinil said fiercely, denying her fear. "It *can't*!" At that moment the ancient timbers shuddered again under a second even greater blow. "Get up to the second circle or higher if you can." was all Idril answered. After seeing her field hospital in the square packed up and on its way she went down the lower avenue to collect the Women at the aid stations and start them and their charges upward as well. Then climbed onto the wall to find Hirluin of Pinnath Gelin, who commanded the defenses north of the Gate. "Get your Men out of here." she said flatly. He stared at her in disbelief, as well he might. She explained. "The Gate is under attack, it will not hold, nor will our Men will be able to keep the enemy out when it breaks. If you don't go now you'll be cut off, trapped." He looked at the Orc littered ramparts, nodded reluctantly. "You're right, we can do no more good here." **** Pippin turned away from the embrasure. If the city was about to be breached its Steward should be told, not that he was likely to care. The Hobbit had just reached the fountain and the Tree when he saw Denethor descending the steps of the Tower. Followed by six guardsmen bearing Faramir, now dressed in mail and silver edged surcoat, upon a bier. Followed in turn by the somber waiting gentlemen. Pippin stopped in his tracks, eyes filling with tears. "Oh no." he whispered again. Faramir was dead. He ran to join the little procession, trailing the gentlemen servants, as they walked slowly down the stair and through the tunnel to the sixth circle. Turning westward they went past the grand old mansions, some visibly decaying, watched by the wide eyed Women and children sheltering in them, until they came to a door in the rearward wall, guarded by a porter in the uniform of the Citadel. At Denethor's command he unlocked the door and they passed through. Pippin, at the tail end of the procession, heard the door close and relock behind them. Followed the others down a winding, descending road hemmed in on either side by high walls. Eventually it opened up into a narrow street with many side lanes snaking their way between massive buildings of black and white stone, grand with domes and spires and many statues looking down with empty eyes upon the intruders. Pippin looked around him uneasily. He didn't like this place. Then suddenly he realized what it was; a graveyard. These were the splendid tombs of the Lords of Gondor and they had brought Faramir here to bury him. Pippin stopped where he was in the middle of the street and let the funeral cortege go on without him. He didn't want to go into any of these grim grand buildings or watch them lay Faramir away in cold stone. He'd just stay here and wait until Denethor and his attendants came out again. After some minutes a pair of the gentlemen in waiting reappeared, walking quickly up the street towards the long twisty passage and the door. Pippin looked after them in some bewilderment. Had they forgotten something? **** Idril was chiving her various charges through fire and ruin up the great avenue to the second gate when they were overtaken by a surge of shaken and battered Men, and Mithrandir on his white horse. "The city is breached!" he shouted. "Fall back to the second level." then he saw her. "Get the Women and children out, get them out!" and galloped on. She glared after him. What did he think she was doing? But she feared the second level would prove no refuge. The inner walls had been hopelessly compromised over the centuries by windows, balconies and postern doors. Unfortunately she was right. Even before the second gate had closed behind them the circle had been breached in a dozen places. Orcs, Trolls and even Wargs roamed the narrow alleys hunting for prey. The retreat soon disintigrated into a score of desperate rearguard actions as soldiers tried to cover the flight of the Women, unarmed Men and wounded to the higher levels. Idril stood in the lea of a half shattered tower, Pharinzil and Annalind huddled behind her, as Women ran past them up a flight of steps winding steeply between the buildings. Some, looking back over their shoulders, screamed at the sight of massive black Orcs all to close behind. Idril looked frantically around for something, anything to stop them and her eye was caught by the jagged wall looming over her. She grabbed at a couple of the Women running by, "Help me!" the five of them got behind the shattered wall and pushed with all their strength, it gave a little. A few of the Women bringing up the rear saw what they were trying to do and stopped to help. Their combined weight finally overbalanced the ruin and it gave way, stones cascading down the stair to crush and sweep away the Uruks. "Well done!" Idril told them. "Now go on, keep moving." obediently the Women scampered up the steps. Before following she looked one last time down at the wreckage and saw that one Orc was still barely alive, half buried, mewling in pain. Idril hesitated, torn between hatred and disgust and an unexpected pity. Finally she drew the dagger her father had given her and picking her way down through the the tumbled stones drove it into the creature's eye, ending its agony. She wiped the black blood from the blade and turned to follow the other Women telling herself there was no justification for needless cruelty, even against such as Orcs. **** Pippin was sitting disconsolately on the steps of a splendid tomb adorned with gilded statues of black stone when Denethor's gentlemen finally returned, followed by liveried servants carrying bundles of wood and vessels of oil like the one he'd spilled over the beacon pyre. He watched them pass in bewilderment. Then after a few moments saw the serving Men returning, looking pale and shaken. Pippin came to his feet. "What is it? what are they doing?" "Something I have no stomach for." one of the Men answered him bleakly. And another said; "If you are wise Little Master you'll come back with us. Leave the Dead to the Dead." They hurried on up the road. Pippin, really frightened now, went the other way - after Denethor. Peering cautiously through the open door of the great tomb house of the Stewards he saw guards and gentlemen in waiting piling wood onto a wide stone dais. They lifted Faramir from his litter to lay him atop the pile and he moaned a weak protest. Pippin gasped. Faramir wasn't dead at all! Why then had Denethor brought him here? The Steward climbed up on the heaped wood to cradle his son's head in his lap. "The house of his spirit crumbles." he mourned. "He is burning. Already burning." Suddenly Pippin realized with horror what Denethor meant to do. Abandoning his hiding place he ran to the pyre, tried to pull away the bundled wood. "No! He's not dead! He's not dead!" Then Denethor seized him in an iron grip and dragged him, struggling and pleading, to the door. "Hear now, Peregrin, son of Paladin," he said in an iron voice. "I release you from my service." threw him to the ground outside the great metal doors and finished. "Go now and die in what way seems best to you." then slammed the doors shut in his face. Pippin heard him cry "Pour oil on the wood!" then picked himself up and ran all the way back to the locked door and pounded on it. Nearly bowled over the porter when he finally opened it, and raced through the sixth circle and up the tunnel to the Citadel. Help, he had to get help for Faramir. But who? and where? Then he remembered one of the four guards standing round the Tree was Beregond and ran to him. "Beregond, Beregond, you must help. Faramir isn't dead but his father is going to burn him alive and himself too I think! Please do something." He saw the Man's eyes glint above the black silk mask as they looked down on him and then away. Remembered suddenly what he'd been told the very first day they met: Fountain Guards couldn't speak or take notice of anything while on duty. A sob of frustration broke from him. "Curse this mad city and its mad laws!" Abandoning Beregond he ran back to the stair. Gandalf, Gandalf could help. If only he could find him in time. |