Chapter 382: Dawn
"Yes, the sun has not yet risen."
Inside the Hornburg, Théoden set his helm upon his head. "But the splendor of dawn has arrived first."
Bwoooom!
High atop the tower, Gimli blew the Horn of Helm's Deep. In that moment, the Dwarf's bull-strong breath showed its worth. The sound rolled through the entire mountain range, distant and long, yet powerful enough to set hearts pounding.
From the other end, the horns of the Free City-States answered in kind, their notes rising to meet Gimli's. The calls intertwined and echoed back and forth through the valley.
The Uruk-hai and the Dunlendings fell at once into panic, fear clawing up from the gut.
Everything had changed too quickly. Their leading Nazgûl had died without warning, and then an elite army of unknown size had appeared.
Yet even that was secondary.
What truly broke them was the man who had killed the Nazgûl. The Uruk-hai newly bred in Isengard over the past few years might not understand what it meant, but the Dunlendings did.
They shrank back immediately, collapsing even before the Uruk-hai did. They had nearly smashed through the inner gate of the Hornburg, yet now they abandoned the assault entirely and ran.
They made one fatal mistake. They should never have exposed their backs to the enemy.
When the Horn of Helm's Deep sounded, the Rohirrim within the fortress surged with renewed spirit. Shouting in fierce joy, they looked as if they were seeing Helm Hammerhand himself return to the world, that king who would never fall.
"Sons of Eorl, follow me!"
Théoden was the first to mount, charging out at the head.
The gates swung wide. The Rohirrim poured out in a flowing line, their armor catching a dim yellow gleam as they rode. They cut forward in a clean, unstoppable sweep, breaking through without the slightest hesitation.
Aragorn rode side by side with Théoden, opening a path at the very front.
At that same moment, another army took the mouth of the Deep.
Levi stood upon the mountaintop and raised his Dragonflame Steel Sword high. "People of the Free City-States, forward! Charge!!"
"Charge!!!"
A white light that seemed to pierce the very night flared into being. Gandalf, riding Shadowfax, took the lead and in that instant assumed the burden of command, driving the host down the slope.
In front rode the Rohirrim, gleaming with that dim yellow shine. Behind thundered the elite host, silver-bright and magnificent.
The Uruk-hai commander looked close to despair.
But the will to live forced him to react. He barked orders at the rear ranks, trying to set a formation to meet the impact.
It was pointless.
Even setting aside the White Wizard at the head, and the disruptive brilliance of that light spell that nearly lit the entire valley, the silver host's equipment alone was terrifying. Even their horses wore solid full-body armor, as if spear-thrusts meant nothing to them.
Boom!
Two armies struck like twin hammers, one bursting from the fortress, the other plunging down from the slope of the Deep. Wherever they passed, the enemy crumbled, scattering in every direction, unable to regroup.
The outcome was settled.
When the enemy was crushed between the forces surging from the Hornburg and the force blocking the exit of the Deep, Levi slid down the hillside and slammed straight into the packed ranks, beginning his own sweep.
The moment the Dunlendings saw him descend, they threw down their weapons at once, shrinking into corners and shouting their surrender. The Uruk-hai, not understanding why, burned with fury that these cowards would betray them in the midst of battle.
But there was no choice left.
The Uruk-hai host, battered until it could barely strike back, fled outward. Hounded beyond the Deep, they ran and died as they ran. Before long, half of them had fallen.
Levi put away his greatsword and stood behind the army, watching his people chase down the fleeing remnants with fearless ferocity.
They had grown up at last. Now there was no need to worry…
And as that thought passed through him, the enemy met the doom he had brought with his own hands.
…
Elsewhere.
When the great battle began and the thunderstorm broke, Pippin and Merry could not settle their hearts. They woke one after the other through the night, only to see Treebeard holding council with a vast gathering of Ents.
The two exchanged a glance, remembered all they had lived through in these days, and decided they had to do something.
So they explained what had become of Isengard. They said it was no longer led by the White Wizard, but had been seized by the servants of the Dark Lord and turned into an Orc-nest. If left to grow, it would threaten Fangorn Forest.
The Ents, however, showed little interest in that argument.
"To accept what comes, that is the fate of Ents. From ancient days to the present, it has always been so."
As Treebeard spoke, he gently patted the two young hobbits on the head. Even though he tried to be as careful as possible, he still managed to ruffle their hair.
Pippin and Merry could only swallow their irritation.
"But your suggestion is worth taking seriously."
Just as they were thinking of trying to persuade Treebeard again, that single sentence stopped them short.
"I will raise this matter in the council. For now, wait quietly, you two little ones."
Seeing that their proposal would at least be heard, Pippin and Merry looked at each other, and a smile tugged at their mouths.
Yet even after the stars had shifted by several degrees, the Ents' discussion still had no conclusion.
The two hobbits could not hold out any longer.
"Well? How is it going?" they asked.
Treebeard replied, "The council has made progress. We discussed a matter of great importance."
"What? You have decided to attack?"
"No."
Treebeard looked at them with those clear, bright eyes. "We discussed the new trees that have grown in the North Vale. Though these new companions are square, they are rich with life. They are indeed our kin, and we all agreed it would be wrong to discriminate against them."
"And then?" they pressed.
"And then?" Treebeard blinked, thinking. "Oh, yes. There was one more thing."
"What?"
"I also mentioned you two. We all agreed you are not Orcs."
"And then?"
"That is it? You talked all that time for this?"
Treebeard nodded slowly.
The two hobbits nearly fainted with frustration.
The time the Ents spent discussing those two tiny matters would have been enough for a hobbit to recite every relative in Hobbiton from east to west, and add three generations of ancestors besides.
The Ents' own language made their communication painfully slow.
Still, even with that low efficiency, after some time, they finally reached a decision.
A decision that disappointed the hobbits.
It was the same as before. Endure what comes, hide in the deep woods, and do not interfere with the outside world.
Hobbits, however, always had their own methods.
They begged Treebeard to take them to Isengard, and then Treebeard saw a scene that could only be called a disaster.
"When did the Brown Lands creep this far?"
In earlier times, Men had also cut down trees in great numbers, but at least grass would remain where the forest had fallen.
Mordor was different.
They left no turf at all. After felling the trees and stripping the resources, they set fire to what remained, opening the land wide for war.
In that moment, Treebeard understood that he could not keep shrinking back.
"I thought that if we kept to ourselves, we could preserve our people. I did not expect the claws of the Dark Lord to reach even here. They mean to destroy the last Ents in this world."
Treebeard fell suddenly into memory.
"Long ago, the armies of the Dark Lord once attacked the Ents. We resisted with great difficulty. If the host of the Valar had not destroyed them, perhaps even I would not exist today."
"Now the armies of the Dark Lord have come again. Those powerful enemies stand before us. This time, I fear there will be no one left to help."
"But we do not fear. If the Dark Lord wills that all Ents be destroyed, then let it be as he wishes. But he must learn this. Ents will not sit here and wait for ruin, nor will we watch our kin die without any answer…"
"Awaken, my people! Attack the enemy, even if it leads to our destruction!"
Treebeard and the Ents began to work their ancient arts, waking the old trees of Fangorn and turning them into a lesser kind that could move of its own will: the Huorns.
"Come. This is the Ents' final war, and the war of destruction… the Balrog's flaming battle-axe, the breath of fire-breathing dragons, and endless savage hosts. I am ready to face them."
"We must inflict as much loss upon the Dark Lord's armies as we can, so that the free peoples of Middle-earth may gain even a single breath of respite."
In that instant, Treebeard's fury had reached the point where he was ready for his whole people to perish.
Yet as they listened, Pippin and Merry were completely lost.
"Is there a Balrog in that tower?"
"I do not know. When we met Gandalf in the forest, did he not say the last Balrog fell into the abyss, slain by his own hand?"
"Then what is Treebeard talking about? And dragons that breathe fire. Is he talking about… Beherdan?"
"What is going on?"
Here, the understanding of the Ents, who had existed since long before the First Age, diverged from that of hobbits living in the present day.
Because Pippin and Merry had used vague terms like "the Dark Lord" when they described the enemy, Treebeard's mind slid into a different meaning. Almost by instinct, he thought first of the "Dark Lord" most familiar to his memory.
Morgoth.
And so the Ents marched, smashing open the narrows of Isengard and pressing inside.
A great battle erupted. Orcs and the remaining Uruk-hai resisted with difficulty, but it accomplished almost nothing.
Ents could be counted among the strongest beings in Middle-earth. Their bark was unbelievably hard, their fists heavy enough to smash stone. With a casual reach, they could tear a boulder from the ground.
The Uruk-hai's proud, thick armor and broad shields were crushed into useless lumps of scrap with a single squeeze of an Ent's great hand, providing not the slightest defense.
At this moment, it was not only the Uruk-hai and Orcs who would suffer. Even Levi, facing so many Ents at once, would have a hard time. He would simply fight more slowly.
After all, his gear burned with fire from head to toe, and that was still a bad match for Ents.
The Orcs of Isengard did not hold for long. When the Ents had cleared out the garrison, Treebeard lifted his head and watched the open air and the distant crossing with guarded caution.
"Their main force has not yet come?"
"No. This should be all of them," Pippin said, not knowing what else to say.
Why was this old tree so cautious?
As he was thinking it, a clamor rose in the distance.
A band of Uruk-hai came running hard in this direction, as if something terrifying behind them was driving them on.
"Ha. I knew there were more."
So the fleeing remnants met their end.
They ran into the moving forest, Huorns disguised as trees, and they never walked back out.
"What are those?" Théoden asked, having chased this far beneath the gray light of early dawn, speaking to Levi at his side.
"Ents of Fangorn," Levi said, naming them, then added, "Saruman's bred Orcs probably cut down their companions. Now they have come out for revenge."
"What a mighty power," Théoden said, staring at the restless forest.
"When I return, I will have to amend the laws, so our people do not cut down that ancient forest. Better still, they should not go too near it."
"A wise decision. The Ents will be glad to hear it."
"Let the last ancient forest in this world have peace."