"The sky has cleared."
In the northern lands, atop the fortifications, Gandalf looked up at the distant sky over Angmar and muttered softly.
"No... not quite."
After muttering, he glanced to the left, then to the right, and shook his head at himself.
Only part of the sky had cleared.
That part was where the expeditionary army had already passed. The remnants of dark magic had gradually faded away as the evil creatures were wiped out. And this dissipation was spreading outward from the center as the cleansing continued.
At this rate, within a year or two, this vast, tainted land would be completely purified.
That speed could hardly be called slow.
"Looks like they don't need my help here."
Shaking his head, he descended from the wall and leisurely set off westward, toward the Shire.
He brought along a wagon full of fireworks.
A new year had arrived.
At the lively New Year's celebration in the Shire, the wizard set off brilliant fireworks and shared the news from the North with his friends everywhere.
A year was enough for word of this great event to spread throughout Middle-earth.
Later generations would call this campaign against Angmar "The Northern Expedition."
At the beginning of the year 2999 of the Third Age, the Northern Expedition entered its final stage.
Most of Angmar's lands had been completely cleansed. Everywhere the army marched, the ground was soaked in the black blood of foul creatures, and the air reeked of iron and decay.
"Form up!"
In the icy mountains at the far western edge of Angmar, covered in snow and frost, Garrett's shout echoed. Behind him, his legions immediately began to gather and form ranks, neat and disciplined as always.
Their enemies were nothing but scattered rabble, incapable of organized resistance, so their own losses were negligible.
Such results were nothing short of astonishing.
"Carn Dûm."
From atop a ridge, Garrett gazed at the ruined fortress in the distance, where masses of monsters had gathered, and spoke its name aloud.
It was once the capital of the Witch-king's realm of Angmar. A thousand years ago, it had fallen to a coalition of forces; the Witch-king was defeated and fled, and the fortress was abandoned.
Yet after a millennium, this ruin had again become a nest of evil things. Sickly green light flickered faintly from the fortress walls.
"It seems there's still some magic lingering on that fortress."
Clip-clop... clip-clop...
Just as Garrett was pondering whether to try breaking the magical barrier with a pickaxe, the sound of hooves came from behind.
The soldiers promptly stepped aside, opening a path for the galloping horse to reach the front.
"Gandalf."
Seeing who it was, Garrett raised a hand in greeting.
"Garrett!"
The horse came to a halt, and Gandalf quickly dismounted.
He nodded to Aragorn in greeting, took a brief breath, and said:
"I heard you're planning to attack that fortress."
"That's right. The entire land of Angmar has been cleared, except for that one place. All remaining enemies have gathered there. If we can take it and wipe them out, this expedition will finally be over."
Garrett looked at the filthy brown clouds over Carn Dûm, at the frozen snow beneath them, then turned to glance back at the clear skies and bright lands behind.
"From this day on," he said, "Angmar will no longer be a refuge for evil."
Gandalf smiled.
"That is a great deed indeed. History will remember it."
"And you, Gandalf, are you here to bear witness?"
"No," Gandalf shook his head. "Not just to witness."
"Let me lend a hand."
Leaning on his staff, he stepped to the front of the army and faced the accursed fortress across the frozen plain.
"Leave the fortress's magic to me," he said.
"Well... all right then," Garrett said after a moment's thought. "We'll leave it to you, our reliable wizard."
In truth, there were plenty of ways to deal with that fortress, even without magic. But since there was already a more convenient means at hand, why not make use of it?
Thus, a wizard was added to the ranks of Men as support, and that, after all, was precisely what wizards were meant to do.
Compared to the other Istari, Gandalf could truly be called the hardest-working one in all of Middle-earth.
Thud!
As his staff shone with radiant light, the faint green glow over the fortress faded away, revealing beneath it the pitch-black walls coated with a layer of solid frost.
And so, the final siege began.
Boom!
An explosion thundered from the front lines. As soon as the green protective glow vanished from the fortress walls, just a few sticks of TNT were enough to blast open a massive breach in the gate. Immediately after, more sections of the fortress were struck, and nearly an entire wall collapsed.
The dark creatures within had nowhere left to hide. They could only come out and fight.
Once the final preparations were complete, the army advanced in perfect formation. Their might was such that even the dark clouds above seemed to be pushed aside.
Records tell that the Lord of the North, the Wizard, and the Three Commanders charged at the forefront with swords drawn, leading by example.
In less than a day, the fortress, lacking proper defenses, fell. The last of the enemy were wiped out.
By hiding within the fortress, they had sealed their own fate; not a single foe escaped.
The final clouds over Angmar dispersed. It greeted a clear sky and radiant sunlight once more.
The polluted brown land would, sooner or later, turn green again, just like the rest of the world. One day, grass would blanket the high plains like a vast carpet.
Now, even the last faint hope of Angmar's restoration was extinguished.
The orcs and wargs that had fled deep into the mountains and forests were rooted out as well.
The western side of the Misty Mountains was completely secure.
Looking across the whole range now, there remained only one place where large numbers of enemies still gathered, Mount Gundabad, at the far northern end of the Misty Mountains.
This magnificent mountain had once been the awakening place of the first Dwarves. But later, it was seized by orcs and turned into their capital.
When Angmar was purged, the orcs of Mount Gundabad trembled in fear, for to the east, west, south, and north, enemies surrounded them. It seemed they had nowhere left to go.
And indeed, things were exactly as they feared.
Soon, the great army turned its gaze toward Mount Gundabad, determined to carry the momentum forward and cleanse the last of the orcs once and for all.
Facing Garrett and the vast army he commanded, the orcs were utterly despondent, too broken even for a final struggle.
But not everyone was content to sit out this battle.
"At least take us with you for this one!" someone cried.
The Dwarves assembled a force overnight to join in the assault on Gundabad.
After all, this was the very place where the first of their kind had awakened, the ancestor of all Dwarves, Durin the Deathless, the first King of Khazad-dûm. To the Dwarves, it held profound significance. It was their origin in this world.
In the late autumn of the year 2999, Mount Gundabad was declared cleansed. No orcs remained.
The sacred homeland of the Dwarves had been reclaimed.
Gundabad became a new stronghold under the control of the Free Peoples, inhabited by a few Dwarves and Men, though not many.
At year's end, a watchtower was built high in the Gundabad Mountains, to observe the surrounding lands and the far northern frontier.
Perhaps because the Gundabad range was so desolate and devoid of beauty, it received little attention. Aside from the garrison stationed at the outpost, human activity there was rare.
Only Dwarves were seen more often, but most of them were pilgrims. They came from afar, struggling up the mountain to honor their ancestors and remember the past.
A new page of history had turned.