As I was going to St. Ives I met a man with seven wives,
Each wife had seven sacks; each sack had seven cats,
Each cat had seven kits: kits, cats, sacks and wives,
How many were going to St. Ives?
That old nursery rhyme, the literary embodiment of the trick question, played over and over again in his head as Jason Merrick drove the blue panel station wagon down the small road that was probably considered a 'motorway' in this parts. The journey had so far been uneventful, except for the disturbing number of cars making their way north as well. Jason doubted this road would have seen much traffic under normal circumstances but with the carnage taking place further south, he wasn't surprised to see more people fleeing in search of safer ground.
He'd attempted to turn on the radio but the stations that were still broadcasting and there weren't many, weren't playing music but reporting stories of destruction and panic in bursts of static. There was something about mass evacuation, some kind of threat that was moving across east towards London. Planes had been brought down, the authorities were baffled and then silence when the broadcast was suddenly disrupted. At this point, Jason decided to give up on the radio, sufficiently alarmed and pretty certain that Sam and Pip were even more fearful for their parents than ever.
Through the windscreen, he could see the rain shift from teeming to downpour as the clouds seemed to cover every inch of blue sky there was. The landscape looked grey and bleak and Jason wondered if Saeran could also have the power to alter the weather to suit his dark machinations. Driving past the small houses and the empty paddocks, still unspoiled for the moment, he wondered how soon the danger reached this point.
Jason didn't want to know and yet when he thought of the danger, he couldn't help worry about his best friend.
Though it would take Saeran's entire army to force him to admit it to the man, Jason missed the crazy Australian with whom he'd spent most of his career. They'd seen some mad times together, globe trotting across the planet, Eric writing the stories while he immortalized them on film. They'd been through wars and revolutions, famine and natural disasters but nothing like what they faced now. Armageddon was a first.
Jason worried that left to his own devices; Eric Rowan would land in trouble he couldn't get himself out of. The stakes was too bloody high when the consequence for bad judgment was death. Jason was so accustomed to being Eric's voice of reason, he feared what would happen if he wasn't there to remind the man of his limitations. It wasn't like before where the worse that could happen was Eric getting a dose of the clap like that time in Bangkok when he'd almost shagged that she-male. Once the idiot caught sight of tits, he never made it south of the border to check if plumbing was right.
Now Eric was going off with Miranda, Frank and the others to face down the same horror turned Sennen Cove into a bloody massacre.
Of course Jason understood the need to get the children to safety. In the last few months, he'd felt an inexplicable bond with the children of Miranda and Frank Miller. Legolas had explained that in the past, he was part of the quartet of hobbits that made up the Fellowship. It seemed so surreal to him, thinking that a hundred thousand years ago, he'd lived another life in a place called the Shire and been embroiled in world shaping events. But what was not surreal or fake was how protective he felt towards Sam, Pip and Fred.
If something was trying to harm them, there was nothing Jason Merrick wouldn't do to keep them safe.
Unfortunately, he could only keep the physical threats away from them. The emotional ones were not so easily soothed. As he drove past the houses and fields on the way to Gloucester where friends of the family would be happy to have him visit, he could hear the sniffles and the soft whispers coming from his charges in the backseat. Risking a glance over his shoulder, he wanted to make sure that they were alright just for his own peace of mind.
Sam was holding Pip who was still crying from being parted from his mother and father again. Even after all this time on Valinor, Jason knew the child had difficulty being away from his parents for any length of time. After what both Sam and Pip had gone through when they'd been captured by the Nazgul, Jason couldn't blame the child for being skittish. It was worse now and Sam, who was the bravest little boy that Jason ever knew, could do little to quell his brother's anxieties.
Facing the road again, Jason couldn't really blame Pip for being inconsolable. Even though Miranda and Frank had tried to shield them from what had been done to Sennen Cove, the destruction had been utterly confronting and it only stood to the reason that the children were astute enough to know something terrible had happened there. To say nothing about what was going on with Fred, who didn't sound like a little girl at all.
Children were never as dumb as grown ups thought and these children were smarter than most. Being sent away to the north of England when they knew their parents were going to face something terrible was hardly going to allay fears, more so after what they'd heard on Radio One and seen on the roads. However, there was nothing for it. There was no way they could remain. Tory was already dead, Eve captured by that bastard and Valinor was in ruins.
Where the others were headed, was no place for children.
"Don't worry you two, if there's anyone who can get through this in one piece, it's your mum and dad" he assured them, trying to sound cheery even though he suspected they could see right through him.
"You hear that Pip," Sam hugged his little brother closer to him. "Mum and dad will be fine. So will Uncle Bryan and everyone else."
Sam was actually more convincing than he had been, Jason thought and once again the New Zealander felt a surge of admiration for the boy.
Pip sniffled and pulled his head out from Sam's shoulder. "You think so?"
"I know so," Jason smiled. "Your mum is the toughest woman I've ever seen. She makes Wonder
Woman look like rubbish."
Pip managed a little laugh at that.
Jason was grateful for that much. "That's what I want to hear," he looked over his shoulder again, "now how about we get something to eat yeah?"
Neither child seemed terribly enthused but they'd been driving for a while now but Jason could feel hunger pangs himself so he had to imagine the children might be getting hungry too, even if their appetites were rendered somewhat inert by their situation.
Entering the outskirts of St Ives, he drove until he came across what appeared to be a restaurant called the Sheaf of Wheat Inn. It looked like one of those places that could only exist in the North Country and had a quaint charm to it. Pulling up to the pavement, Jason decided that it would do.
Besides, the way things were going, who knew how long things would remain normal.
********
"Si!"
Releasing the string of her bow, Ariel watched as the barrage of arrows soared into the air towards the great dragon that hovered above the ship upon which she stood. The deadly projectiles flew swift, their number so many that it was impossible to count. They came not only from the deck of her vessel but other ships in the fleet. However, not all the arrows reached their destination. The beating of the dragon's wings created strong shifts in wind that sent some arrows harmlessly into the river while others struck the its near invulnerable hide.
Still, some stayed true to its course striking the dragon in the only place it could be harmed, its underbelly.
The dragon reacted to this assault with a thunderous bellow of outrage followed by an equally devastating burst of angry red flame. Blood ran down the shafts of the arrows had protruded from its flesh and dripped upon the deck. However, the creature was by no means defeated. It was merely injured. It did not take kindly to its wounding and soared out of reach to prepare its next attack. This time, it approached ensuring that its vulnerability was no longer as exposed.
Rearming her bow, Ariel chanced a glance upwards to see how close the enemy was to reaching them. It made a sharp look in mid air before plunging towards them again and this time, she could not see its body, just the monstrous head. The beast came at them with its massive jaws agape, baring teeth that were the length of her forearm before it unleashed yet another column of fire upon them.
"Get down!" Rhuinae, one of the Noldor who stood at her side warned sharply, pulling Ariel down as the fireball passed over her head so near she could feel the heat of it moving across her back. The flame stuck the mast of the ship and set it and one of their crew ablaze. She watched in horror as the elf whose name she did not know utter a scream of agony, arms flailing as he staggered to the portside, pain driving him to move much faster than those who tried to come to his aid. He disappeared over the side so quickly that Ariel was still in shock when she heard the splash.
For an instant, she thought of her prince, reconsidering her hasty decision to leave him. Perhaps Legolas was correct. Perhaps the world was too dangerous for her to left unprotected. Maybe he was right, she wasn't ready to guard against the meaner things in the world.
The reality of her current circumstances did not allow her to ponder such thoughts too deeply for the danger was far from passed. The dragon and others like it were still in the air and the call to arms was sung across the ship once more.
"ARCHERS!" She heard and discarded thoughts of Legolas for now.
Getting to her feet, she saw the dragon taking advantage of the diversion it had created with the fire as it flew towards them for yet another assault. Lifting her bow, already armed, she joined her comrades and prepared to fend off the beast again, ignoring the smell of smoke and anxious voices of those who had been appointed to deal with the fire.
Throughout the flotilla of Teleri ships, scattered through this great river whose size reminded the elves of the Anduin, the elven host battled the watchers and the dragons that had laid siege to this city of men. Sauron had used the power of these formidable servants to gain mastery over the sea and the air by launching a lightning strike that had taken the Edain completely by surprise. It was an advantage he'd most likely have all the way to Barad-dûr. Thus the threat of them had to be dealt with now or at least curtailed long enough for the armies of men to regroup.
Amidst the chaos, a sudden bang was heard. The sounds came upon them so swiftly and loudly that some of them jumped in fright. Then they saw something flying through the air, a trail of thin white smoke following the odd, cylindrical shaped object. It struck the dragon in the face and the exploded. The dragon reared its long neck in surprise, distracted by this new assailant and halted in mid air, its belly exposed once again.
Not about to waste the opportunity, a hasty order to fire was given and another deadly barrage of arrows was unleashed upon the creature. Blood ran more freely from its wounds and it screeched in anger before retreating, leaving its winged brethren to do battle with the other ships as it went away to nurse its injuries.
As it departed, Ariel saw Elrond hurry to the starboard side of the ship. Following his gaze, she realised that he was staring at a ship that had come along side of their own. This was not a vessel of the Teleri and clearly constructed by man. It was noisy, had no sails, stunk of noxious fumes and made entirely of metal. It lacked the refinement or grace of seafaring vessel. The men on board appeared to be wrestling with a length of thick, grey rope, aiming the end of it at the elven ship.
Suddenly, the odd rope stiffened as if the thing had come alive in their hands and released a powerful rush of water. The frothy jet bridged the gulf between the two vessels, dousing the burning mast with powerful streams to battle the fire that was raging out of control. The flames struggled to prevail against the torrents but soon the water claimed victory with the remains of the soggy, blackened sail that was ruined beyond all repair, left in its wake.
It was an odd day for Captain Thaddeus Snow who commanded the Duke Class frigate, HMS Northumberland. It had started well enough when he and his ship spending their leave at Portsmouth where the ship had docked to take on new personnel and supplies. He anticipated returning to their duties in a number of days when he was summoned immediately to London of all places. The summons had seemed like nonsense and the panicked operator had claim that London was under siege, which sounded like more nonsense.
However, it soon became apparent that something was a foot. Refugees were pouring down from the north, fleeing to safer ground relating stories about flying dragons, giant spiders and an army of monsters that were slaughtering everything in sight. Then came the radio blackouts and the intermittent transmissions that further alleged that whatever it was that attacking them, had managed to take out an entire squadron of RAF fighters and the army deployed to fight them on London Bridge was similarly wiped out.
At that point, Thaddeus decided that he'd work out later whether this was the result of mass hysteria or a genuine threat to his homeland and set sail from Portsmouth at best speed, bound for London. Upon reaching the mouth of the Thames, there was no denying something was wrong. Smoke was rising from London, the likes of which he'd never seen before. He'd seen footage of London during the Blitz and the stark similarities made his stomach churn in outrage. His mother used to tell him of how it had been in those days and the idea that London was enduring another such ordeal stabbed at his oath to defend Queen and country.
Wasting no time, he and his crew eagerly sailed down the Thames to source out the cause of all this destruction. It was true no one knew what to expect after listening to all the outlandish claims made by terrified civilians but he was a soldier and a soldier's duty was to protect his homeland.
However, what had staked a claim upon the Thames was beyond his understanding.
Every sailor heard the stories about sea monsters; such tales were as old as the sea herself. While Thaddeus knew of such stories, the discipline of the Royal Navy had precluded him for believing in them. He was a military man all his life and like any good soldier, made the appropriate sacrifices. He was accustomed to seeing all manner of things in his travels across the world and knew the ocean was indeed a lady who never gave up all secrets. He respected her as one respects any beloved mistress.
At least until he saw the tentacle thing that was snatching fleeing civilians from the embankments of the Thames and dragging them beneath the river screaming, until their blood created dark pools in the river before vanishing.
After that, what Thaddeus was inclined to believe was a little less demanding.
They'd prepared to fire on the things, harpoon the blighters, reduced them to cinders with the anti-aircraft missiles mounted on the deck of his ship when they'd seen the dragons in the air and the creatures looked like nothing St. George might have battled. These things were the bloody size of jet planes and moved almost as fast. When they roared, they created plumes of fires, crisscrossing each other in the sky. Fortunately, their attention seemed fixed on something further up river and Thaddeus decided that it was something that ought to be investigated. It could be civilians needing help, the army mounting a defence…anything.
At their fastest speed, they travelled up the Thames, attempting to reach the eye of the storm when they came upon a fleet. It was a fleet like none he'd ever seen before in his life. The memory of its first sighting would follow him into his dreams and probably into death. It was a fleet that made his breath catch in his throat, whose beauty transcended words and reached into of every true son of the sea, bringing tears of wonder and delight to their eyes.
It was beautiful, like something drawn in a painting had sailed right off the canvas into the real world.
It didn't take them long to realize that the crew of these ships were battling the dragons and the creatures in the water. Thaddeus came to the conclusion that if these men were fighting the creatures, then they might know where it was these monstrosities had originated and possibly, how to kill them. Certainly a good deal more effectively then their own lads had tried, if the disjointed reports he'd been hearing through the wireless had been any indication at how the British Army's confrontation with this enemy had ended.
If these people were fighting to stop these creatures than as Thaddeus saw it, they were allies, at least until he knew otherwise.
********
Elrond recognised the man immediately.
As he stood facing the commander of the vessel that had joined the battle and come to their aid, he was able to see clearly the mortal's features Eru continued to play his tricks upon them all, Elrond thought and a little smile tugged at the corner of his lips, filling him with a sense of comfort that even in these desperate circumstances Eru was guiding them, sending them allies in the most unlikeliest places.
Just as Imrahil, Prince of Dol Amroth had found them on Valinor, now another son from the Third Age had wandered into this tale. The End of Days, it seemed, was giving opportunity to warriors new and old for one last battle before the world was changed forever. This warrior, Elrond knew as he stood on the deck of his ship, holding the elf lord's gaze across the space between ships, wearing a uniform of dark colours and sporting a white trimmed beard.
In the Third Age, this had been Theoden, son of Thengel, who had fallen at the Pelennor Fields, the king of the Riddermark.
Elrond desired to thank Theoden's reincarnation for the assistance in dousing the flames that had all but consumed the masts of his ship but there was little time to trade such courtesies when the danger was far from over. The gaze of both man and elf darted to the sky in concert as they saw yet another dragon break away from the group to descend sharply towards them. Instead of thanks, it became more expedient to trade warnings. As formidable as the weapons of men were, there were no match for the dragons of Morgoth, who had no vulnerability save one.
"Aim for their belly!" Elrond shouted in perfect English, having learnt enough of the language from Eve during her time on Valinor. "They cannot be harmed anywhere else!"
The man stared back at him in disbelief at first, appearing as if he might protect but then reason prevailed, largely because, Elrond suspected, the unreality of the situation demanded belief in the previously unthinkable.
"We can distract them!" The captain shouted back, having caught on quickly that their previous tactic had worked to their advantage, unplanned as it was.
Elrond agreed. The weapon used earlier was a blunt instrument, all noise and thunder. The elves were capable of delivering the sharpened blow that would end the beast. Together, they might succeed. "Archers!" He called out to the elves on the deck. "Prepare your bows. Do not shoot until I give the word!"
There were choruses of affirmations and once again the elves rearmed their weapons, lifting the arrows to the air, in the direction of the beast sweeping down at them. This time however, the dragon had learned enough from earlier experience to not expose its underbelly. In the First Age, the dragons' fascination with precious stones was so that they could encrust their bellies with jewels to protect themselves from harm. These creatures had no opportunity to make any such modifications during their stay in the Forbidden Vault and yet even without the protection, they were still a force to be reckoned with.
On board the Northumberland, Thaddeus issued similar directives to his crew to discharge a volley of anti-aircraft missiles at the creature, having noted that the earlier shots had distracted it long enough to be wounded.
"FIRE!" He gave the order and the missiles escaped the launch platform with overlapping booms that soon became the rumble of its rocket propelled mechanism soaring through the air. The distance to its target was short and Thaddeus still held up hope that the captain of the other ship was wrong, that no living thing could stand up to the barrage of artillery he had sent its way. However, when they impacted, the explosion caused the creature's flight trajectory to shift drastically. It had been approaching in a dive but the missiles had made it pull up, its pale reptilian underbelly showing.
However, it was unhurt.
Four stinger missiles and the blasted thing did not have a scratch on it.
"SI!" The order came from the other boat and the phalanx of arrows shot through the air, taking a similar path as the missiles. The creature, still disorientated by the exploding artillery, did not see the new assault. The arrows struck home, so many that it was hard to keep count, but each one riddled that pale flesh, weeping blood from dozens of wounds all at once. The dragon bellowed in pain and fury, expelling bursts of smoke and fire as it screamed its outrage and indignation.
"It's working!" Barrows, his first mate declared. "I don't believe it! It's working! Those arrows are bloody hurting it! How the bleeding hell is that possible?"
"I don't know," Thaddeus said shaking his head, "but if those men know how to kill those damn things, then we take their advice until we know better."
********
On board the USS Connecticut, Captain Isaiah Hill was finding little patience in being unable to continue any further because ballistic missile submarines did not go cruising up major waterway of friendly nations without first alerting someone to that fact.
Wars started that way or at the least dishonourable discharges.
His boat in holding position at the mouth of the Thames because there was no way for the boat to continued. The maximum depth of the Thames was about 36 feet. The beam of the Connecticut was 40. Allowing the Teleri fleet to continue towards the city, Isaiah instead languished in his control room, attempting to contact Norfolk Naval Operations to let them know that London and Europe was about to be held siege by a dark lord from an age of elves, dragons and magic.
Yeah, he didn't hold out much hope for keeping his command either.
Miraculously, Norfolk and by extension, NATO was aware that something was happening, although they weren't totally prepare to commit to what that something was yet even though all evidence pointed to the obvious. Isaiah watched the news footage from the destruction in London and much of this corresponded with what he was being told by his superiors.
They'd received the reports that several Saab Gripens working with the RAF F3s had been downed at Cornwell before something disrupted their communications and kept any further information from reaching them. In an effort to gain intelligence, the Brits had dispatched their Devonshire light infantry into the area who had not been heard from since. By now, they were presumed dead.
Following that, civilians fled north and south in panic, revealing tales that frankly defied belief. Their assailants were claimed to be monsters, giant spiders and dragons. By the time this nameless terror reached London, the communications disruption that had kept the authorities and the country in the dark was lifted. The world saw what was happening to the city as graphic images of London burning because actual fire breathing dragons were razing the city to the ground, dragons that were impervious to all harm. The F3s that had sent against them were soon nothing but flaming wreckage scattered across the city.
London Bridge lay in ruins, parts of it now resting at the bottom of the Thames. Sea creatures had claimed the waters, snatching civilians and dragging them into the depths. A battle had been fought at Southwark with British forces the loser and now the communications blackout had resumed and no one knew what was happening in the city whose pyre could be seen throughout the country.
None of this surprised Isaiah or his crew who had been forced to live with the fantastic for longer than most. The army that Elrond and Cirdan warned of was unleashed upon the world of men and God only knew where it would stop. From inside the control room, he and his men viewed the destruction with muted horror, the new cameras showing the massacre in grisly detail. People were running, screaming in all directions. Shots of the dragons circling the sky made everyone shudder and what they'd seen in Valinor, was playing out here all over again.
"Jesus," Purcelli whispered as he stood in the control room with Hennessy and the others, watching the images playing out on the screen. "It's fucking unreal."
"Real enough," Isaiah frowned turning away from the screen unable to watch any more. "Turn it off," he barked a second later. Watching it was only demoralizing the crew and they had enough trouble without that.
Suddenly, the boat's sonar screamed alert with a loud ping that echoed throughout the ship, making everyone in the control centre jump.
"What it is?" Isaiah demanded.
Harris was already at work, staring at the digitized screen, his hands moving up and down the panel of his workstation, trying to calibrate the instruments to produce a more refined answer. "Working on it sir…" the young officer retorted, eyes shifting back and forth from screen to instruments before answering, "we've got multiple bogeys coming straight at us."
Both Isaiah and Purcelli crossed the deck in a matter of seconds and were leaning over Harris' shoulder to see what was going on. As stated, the sonar screen showed multiple signals on intercept for them. There were at least fifteen blips moving into sonar range. Were the things headed for open water or them?
"Don't fire until we know they're coming after us," Isaiah declared.
"Captain?" Purcelli stared at him in question.
"I'm not setting off a tomahawk missile in the Thames River unless I know that the boat is in imminent danger. Right now, I don't think that's the case. I think they're leaving, they're making for the sea and we're in the way."
"Captain…" Purcelli opened his mouth to protest but closed it before he could voice what was on his mind.
Not that Isaiah needed hear the words to know what Purcelli was thinking. It was a big assumption. However, Isaiah was convinced he was right. The creatures were clearly under direction of this Sauron character the elves were so afraid of and if this was about strategy, then there was nothing served by leaving the Thames and attacking one ship in such great numbers. No, the damn things were leaving, which meant it probably made sense to know where they were going….
"Wait," he said suddenly, a new idea coming to his head. "Belay that torpedo order. Full reverse." He hurried to the central display of the command centre and studied the map of the area. They were presently at the coast of Canvey Island holding position. "Take us around the point of Canvey and then go silent." He ordered after a minute. "Let the biologics pass us." Meeting Purcelli's gaze, he added, "I want to know where they're going."
"Aye Sir," Purcelli nodded, understanding better and knowing how to proceed. "All hands," he spoke into speaker. "We are going silent running. Repeat, we are going silent running." Shutting off the speaker he regarded his captain, "looks like we're hunting the big game."
Considering what they could see approaching them, Isaiah tended to agree. "They don't get much bigger than this."
********
London was burning and all was well.
Saeran stood at the courtyard of the Bell Tower once again, breathing in the intoxicating aroma of smoke and blood, thrilling to the cries he could still hear riding on the wind. In the distance, he could see the battle with his dragons and the elves, knowing that the while the great beasts may be wounded, their pains served a greater purpose. The dragons were keeping both elf and man busy while he had directed his army away from the city.
Astride Gnash, the winged creature's wings flapped like the beats of a dark heart as it brought Morgul to his master. His Nazgul could have swooped into the battle and ended the conflict with the elves with far more efficiency than the dragons but at the present, Saeran had need of their attentions elsewhere and it was an expenditure of time worth the price of a few wounds that would heal soon enough.
Morgul dismounted his mount and approached Saeran, head bowed. "All is prepared," he spoke. "The army is bound for Dover."
"Good," Saeran nodded. "Let them cross into Calais. The Uruks have emerged from their byre?"
"Yes," Morgul nodded, "I have sent Khamul and Dwaw to command them. They will ensure everything is ready for your arrival."
Saeran allowed himself a smile. "All our agents have awakened," he said as a matter of factly. With his new found power, he could feel them all. Not just the ones he had freed from the Forbidden Vaults but the ones who had been hiding for so many years. His rally of war had reached across the world, to the places where ancient beasts had hidden themselves in waiting, asleep in the bowels of the earth for the right master to draw them into the light again.
"Yes," Morgoth nodded, feeling the same connection in the shadow realm. Morgoth's creatures who had dug deep to avoid obliteration by the Valar at the end of the First Age, who had never answered to Sauron in the Third, now recognized their creator's power in his most trusted lieutenant. They would come because now Sauron had earned their loyalty. "The drakes are awakening in the north and even now they are breaking through the ice."
"Stay close to orcs and the trolls until we can update their weaponry," Saeran instructed. "Men still cannot withstand the power of your Black Breath and we must use to that cripple them. We will push them to the edge of desperation Morgul, until they have no recourse but to use their weapons of mass destruction. Let them burn this planet to a cinder and exterminate their race and the elves for all time. We will be there to pick up the pieces."
********
When it was all said and done, the irony of the situation would not be lost on those left behind. In the effort to send the children north to safety, they had only brought them closer to the enemy in London. Of course, by then such hindsight was too late and only the tragedy remained.
Jason had stopped at the small pub in St Ives, where he'd ensured they had a nice meal in the restaurant area even though on first glance, the place did not immediately recommend itself as an establishment for fine dining. Nevertheless, children had an indiscriminate palette and so long as fish and chips were on the menu, Jason was able to feed them something. Unfortunately, what appetite they were able to manage was soon swept away when the locals began gathering around the television, watching the broadcasts of what was transpiring in London.
Jason learnt that there had been 'trouble with the telly' all morning and even the wireless seemed to spitting out information in stops and starts. However, the resumption of programming gave no comfort to those watching. Scenes of death, carnage and violence was played out for the whole of England, perhaps even the world to see as what happened to Tirion in Valinor was now being repeated in the street of London.
The reaction ran the gamut from disbelief to terror and finally the only sensible thing for Jason to do, is to urge the kids to try and finish their meals before ushering them out of the place. The two children were terrified enough about losing their parents without being exposed to the rising fear of the residents as well. It wasn't as if Sam and Pip hadn't seen what had happened in Tirion; they had. To know that the destruction had chased them back to England could not be helping.
Besides, Jason wanted to get them to the safety of his family friends in Gloucester so that he could head back to find his best friend, to fight alongside Eric if possible and if necessary, die with him. Jason was blind to that outcome becoming a reality. He had never been a soldier but he knew there were causes worth dying for; that people were worth saving specially now that there were elves in this world and there was magic in the future.
Leaving St Ives, they travelled along the coast on roads that were considered little more that trails really. The cell phone they'd picked up when they landed in England again was barely picking up a signal though Jason didn't know if this was due to the same disturbance that was affecting radio and television broadcasts or because they were in an area with poor service. He considered calling Miranda and Frank to let them talk to Sam and Pip to cheer the little ones but abandoned the idea. He didn't want to disappoint the children if they were confronted with poor reception and couldn't get through.
They'd been on the road for almost two hours after leaving St Ives, their progress slower because they were avoiding the motorways, although the frequency of cars had not abated. What was going on in the south was certainly affecting people even here. Nearing Crow, the North Atlantic and Warren Bay flanked them, revealing a stretch of uninspiring beach that disappeared into a rocky shore followed by jagged cliffs that seemed bleak as they were grim. Looking at this vista, Jason could well believe that this was the country where Bronte had written her gothic novels.
With the ocean on one side, the hilly forested terrain of Kings Head Coppice on the other, the sun had reached its zenith in the sky and was setting, dragging shadows of late afternoon behind him. Jason wasn't even sure what he was seeing until seconds before the attack came. What emerged through the trees had done so with such speed there wasn't even time to swerve, just shout at Sam and Pip to hold on a split second before impact.
The last thing that Jason remembered thinking before everything became chaos was; it's a wolf.
The beast that easily dwarfed the modest hatchback they were driving, slammed against the side of the car with such force that vehicle skidded sideways across the road before flipping over the shoulder and tumbling down the small incline to the beach. It came to a shuddering halt when its bulk reached sand and sunk into the grainy surface.
It took a few seconds for Jason to recover and when he did, he couldn't shake the disorientation completely. He had trouble breathing and when he coughed, pain lanced through his chest like a hot knife and blood passed his lips, running rivulets down the corner of his mouth. The pain was radiating outward from beneath the muscle and when he tried to move his arm, there was difficulty flexing his fingers without more pain. He was badly hurt and he knew it but he couldn't even think about that when he remembered Sam and Pippin.
Brushing broken fragments of windscreen of his shirt, he turned over and uttered a small groan as the pain stabbed at him. Sam and Pip were strapped in and looked as dazed as he had a moment ago. However, he saw no serious injuries on them other than a nasty gash on Sam's cheek from the shattered side window and Pippin was whimpering in fear. Jason let out a silent prayer of thanks that neither child was more affected than that though the trauma of the collision couldn't be easy to cope with either.
The collision…
Jason shot a glance up the hill to see the wolf standing there, surveying the scene. He sucked in a breath, feeling a surge of fear running through him. The thing was as big as bloody house, he thought and even though he knew it was a wolf, he knew that this was one of Saeran's monsters. Not the one that Ariel had shot dead on Anemone but something worse and instinctively, he knew that it was here for Sam and Pip. As he saw those yellow eyes narrowing its gaze as it fixed on them, something in Jason snapped and he started out of the car, ignoring the pain, ignoring the gush of blood that surged up his lungs and threatened to choke him, rushing out to act before the creature came down and slaughtered them all.
Kicking the door open, he stumbled out of the driver's side as it started to climb down the hill. Another grunt of pain escaped him when he tried to stand but ignoring it, he hobbled over to the trunk which gratefully opened without any trouble because the wolf almost upon him. Bryan had insisted that he carry a decent cache of weapons when they'd left and at the time Jason thought he might have been overreacting, however in retrospect, he guessed the former MI6 knew what he was talking about. Just because they were heading away from danger didn't meant danger wouldn't stay away.
Now you get it Jace, a voice that sounded not unlike Eric, snorted inside his head.
Grabbing the first weapon he saw, a Sterling submachine gun they'd taken from the destroyed police station in Sennen Cove, Jason cocked the weapon and turned the barrel on the wolf.
At the sight of the weapon, it halted its purposeful advance and instead seemed to stroll leisurely towards Jason, as if it was unconcerned by the threat of the human in front of it. Jaw agape, dripping with saliva, Jason never thought it possible that any animal could look evil. Animals acted in accordance with their nature; there was any malice in it but this thing…this thing looked like it could be the devil himself. Worse than that, it looked as if it was considering how to attack.
The wolf paused a few feet away from Jason who though puzzled by the action, was not about to waste the opportunity and tightened his finger around the trigger, preparing to fire when suddenly, the wolf lifted its head and spoke.
"Give me the children of the Shield Bitch and you may live…"
The barrel dropped slightly in Jason's hand out of sheer shock.
It was talking. The wolf was talking! He could hear words coming out from it, clear as day. Its voice was unearthly, half way between a growl and the tremor of the heaving earth, unnatural, but nevertheless a voice.
"You are sack of flesh full of broken bones. I can smell your blood leaking into your ruined organs." The wolf sneered. "How long do you think you can protect them? Shall we wait here until you bleed the death and I take them anyway."
"SHUT UP!" Jason shouted. "Come one step closer and I'll blow your fucking head off. I don't give a fuck if you can talk or not!" What the creature said had struck home far more deeply than Jason would have liked. He knew he was in bad shape and the fucking beast was right. It only had to wait him out.
Jason saw something move in the corner of his eyes and a sidelong glance told him that on the top of the hill, Jason knew that the wolf wasn't alone. There were smaller versions of it waiting, watching the outcome of this brief détente between him and their leader.
"Do not be foolish," Draugluin hissed. "I am the greatest of the werewolves. I went to my first death by a hero of the First Age, now returned to serve my master's most power lieutenant. He desires the children of his enemy, brought to him unharmed. What chance do you think you have against me? If you leave them, you may go. My master gave no instructions for you. Step aside and survive in what time is left to you and your world."
"I said shut up!" Jason shouted and pulled the trigger intending to provide a warning for the animal to scatter. He reasoned that these creatures from the past had no idea about guns and bullets. Hopefully the noise would frighten them away, keep this from becoming a fight.
The explosion of sound felt like reality had been ripped violently in half and it echoed throughout the beach, causing the wolves on the top of the hill to retreat out of sight. However, their pack master remained where it was, unimpressed and even more sinister if such a thing was possible. It seemed that this wolf was not so easily frightened and stared at Jason with yellow eyes, daring him to do his worst.
********
Inside the dented car, the sound of gunfire shook Sam out of his disorientation. He looked through the broken glass of the back windscreen, to peer at the sight of Uncle Jason facing off the biggest wolf the boy had ever seen. It was like a giant, Sam thought before he turned to Pip, remembering that it was his job to take care of his little brother. Pip was crying and the sound made Sam's heart clench in his chest. It was too much like when those terrible Ringwraiths had stolen them from mum and dad. Sam had sworn then that he never wanted to hear his brother cry like that again but now here they were, in similarly dire circumstances.
"Pip," he whispered urgently, trying not to draw the attention of the monsters outside of the car. "Pip you have to stop crying. We need to get out of here." He explained.
Pippin Miller was still trapped to his child seat and was terribly frightened. He wanted mum because mum knew how to keep him safe but she wasn't here and neither was dad. In their absence, Sam was the next best thing and his brother's insistent voice made him bring his tears to a stuttering end. "What…what…happened?" He asked.
"We were in an accident," Sam said sighing with relief, reaching over to undo the straps of the seat. He had often helped Pippin out of his seat in it in the past to help mum when she was busy taking the shopping into the house. "Come on, we've got to go. Can you move?"
Pippin tried experimentally to flex his foot one after the other and nodded. "Uh huh."
"Good," Sam smiled at his brother, hiding his own fears as he took Pippin's and tried to climb out of the vehicle without notice. "I want you to just look at me Pip," he instructed his brother. "Don't look at anything else, just me, just keep your eyes on my back, okay?"
"Why?" Pippin asked, starting to become agitated, his eyes wanting to look away from his brother.
"Because I said," Sam repeated himself. Pippin was very small and afraid. If he saw what Uncle Jason was facing, it would be too much for him. "Please?"
Pipping nodded, swallowing and obeyed his brother as they started to move out of the car.
********
"One more step and it won't be a warning shot, do you hear me?" Jason warned, raising the gun barrel once more, this time ready to kill the thing if it didn't move off. As it was, he didn't know why he didn't already start shooting. Because you don't know if you can hold out if it comes down to a fight. His head was starting to pound and he felt weaker. The sound of the others growling on the hill became muted and he wondered if they were reacting to the scent of the kids. He needed time, time for them to get away from this creature that was undoubtedly here on that fucking ring wraith's orders.
Figures the bastard would come for Miranda's children.
"I can smell your fear human," Draugluin continued to goad. "It makes the flesh so much saltier, tasty. I will enjoy tearing the skin from your bones after you are dead…"
This time, there was no warning shot. Jason fired, cutting off anything else it had to The bullets tore through the creature's flank as it raised its massive head and uttered a roar of pain, a sound so terrible it almost felt like the thunder eclipsing the roar of the ocean as it crashed on the rocks not far away. It growled outraged at Jason before retreating up the embankment, disappearing behind the hill. Its departure should have made Jason grateful but he wasn't. He didn't know why the creature had run away but he knew he hadn't hurt it enough to chase it off. It would be back and soon.
With little time to waste, he limped back to the car to see Sam and Pip emerging from the vehicle. While bloody and bruised, they were walking and Jason was grateful for that. They were in better shape than he was.
"Jason!" Sam cried out. "Where are the monsters?"
"Nevermind that," he said reaching into the driver's seat and searching for the cell phone that had been on the dashboard when the car had been run off the road, stopping to glance over his shoulder to see if the thing had come back. He found it lodged under his car seat and grabbed it. Turning back to Sam, he pressed the device in the little boy's hand. "I need you to take this and run, head for those rocks over there." He gestured to the rocks around which the tide was swirling around. "You'll get a bit wet but the water will confuse their scent okay?"
"But…but...what about you?" Pip started to stutter.
"I'll be right behind you," he said dismissively and saw Sam staring at him hard. The boy knew he was lying.
"You have to go now," Jason ordered as he heard the growls return and this time, there wasn't just one, it was all of them. The bastard was coming back in force. "Go!" He barked, "before they come back!"
"Uncle Jason," Pip hugged him around the waist and just that embrace nearly made Jason spew more blood. "Don't leave us alone. "The child begged and hearing it was a knife in his heart but he knew the score. He'd sworn to Miranda they'd be safe and if it was the last thing he did, he'd keep that promise.
"Sam..." Jason started to pull away, agonised by that plea but ignoring it because this was the only way. "You need to take Pip and go now."
Sam nodded, saying little but understanding all too well what was being asked of him. He took Pip by the hand, slipping the cell phone in his jacket before they started running towards the rocks at the shore. Jason watched them go, praying he had made the right decision. There was no help that could get here in time and he knew, he was no longer in any shape to protect them. Besides, it was more than just his promise to Miranda and Frank, there was something deep inside of him that couldn't let them be hurt, even though he was shit scared and was starting to understand that he might not survive the next hour.
Legolas would say it had to do with being a part of the Fellowship and maybe it was but one thing Jason did know for certain; he couldn't keep up with Sam and Pippin, not in the shape he was in. He'd slow them down and get them killed.
For them to survive, he needed to even the odds a little.
Hurrying back to the trunk of the car, he grabbed another magazine of bullets before spotting something else amongst the weapons that Bryan had left him. He stared at it for a second, a plan solidifying in his head. Considering the outcome, Jason found that it was oddly liberating. He glanced again at the children running for dear life towards the rocky shore and knew that he had to give them their escape. Taking a deep breath, he strengthened his resolve and chased away the terror that was lurking in the back of his mind, threatening to take charge of him.
The beast reappeared and ended any further debate. Jason grabbed what he needed and climbed back into the vehicle, using it as armour for as long as he could. This time there was no waiting. He unleashed deadly barrage of gunfire on the wolves as they came down the hill.
Only when they charged at him, did Jason realise why the big bastard had retreated. It sent its smaller companions ahead, allowing them to take the brunt of the barrage. Jason watched them tumble down the incline as the bullets ripped into them. They let out yelps of pain as their legs buckled beneath them and they rolled down the hill in balls of sand and fur. Their bodies landing with an ugly squelch of bone when they reached the bottom.
The leader, the one who claimed to be father of all werewolves had smartly sacrificed the others like pawns in a chess game, barrelling over the bodies of its fallen comrades, seemingly oblivious to their passing. Its jaws widened in anticipation of the kill and the wolves that did make it to the beach started to veer away from Jason and the car. He didn't let them get any further than that, cutting them down just as savagely as the others, refusing to leave any of them alive so they could go after Sam and Pip.
Jason was wasting his bullets and he knew it but Jason was no marksman, he was a blunt instrument at best and right now, he was hoping to take out as many of the damn things as he could to give Sam and Pipping the best chance of survival.
The rest of the pack had fallen to the wall of bullets but Draugluin was known for his craftiness and he allowed the others to lead the charge because they were most useful as fodder. By the time, Draugluin came upon the metal shell in which the human had chosen to hide, his brothers were dead but it did not matter. The great wolf leapt atop the vehicle, his meaty paws leaving dents in the already crushed car. He ripped the top of the car away like it was nothing, flinging the cover to the side, like a child discarding a toy he no longer wished to play with.
Jason looked up and saw the wolf peel the top of the car away it was paper and knew that there was no escape. He was dead anyway. He could feel it inside. It was becoming harder to breathe and the pain in his chest had become this heaviness he knew to be his lungs filling with blood. He'd lasted as long as he could and at least the other wolves had gone. All he had left to do was deal with was this monster.
The Sterling had a few shells left but not nearly enough to take out a behemoth like the creature poised to lunge above him. The massive creature was staring at him with menacing glee apparent in its yellow eyes. Spittle from its open jaws fell against his skin and the heat of its breath made the hair on his head sway a little. He could smell the wolf's fetid breath and was certain he smelled rancid human flesh on its enormous teeth.
"You could have walked free human," Draugluin sneered, unable to resist a last opportunity to gloat, "it mattered little to me whether you lived or not but you dared to slay my brothers. For that I will make you beg me for your death when I peel your skin off your flesh like a ripe fruit. You would have died anyway but now I shall make sure you die inagony."
Jason swallowed thickly, ignoring the taunts meant to frighten him because his fingers were moving furtively out of sight as he pulled the pin on the hand grenade attached to belt that carried a half dozen more like it. Bryan knew he wasn't a soldier that giving him sophisticated weapons that required expertise was pointless. No, the former spy had given him weapons that were easy to use, with maximum efficiency. Jason wished he could have thanked the man for that.
Looking up at the beast, he thought he might see his life flash by his eyes in some dramatic fashion but there was nothing of the sort, just this feeling of sadness knowing that there would be no tomorrows, no way to say goodbye to those who mattered.
See you in the next life, you dumb Aussie, Jason thought to himself as he saw the wolf lunge and spat out words he knew would have made Eric Rowan proud.
"I hope you fucking choke on me."
********
The explosion that erupted a second after Jason uttered his final words was so large that it tore the car and everything in it apart. A large fireball followed, engulfing what remained in a conflagration so fierce that it rose up in the sky like a phoenix taking flight, for all to see. It was a fitting pyre for Jason Merrick, once known to all as the hobbit Merry in the company of the Fellowship, who now went into legend with the great hero Beren as a slayer of Draugluin, the sire of all werewolves.
Within the SUV driving towards London, Fred uttered a choked sob.
She was lodged in the space between Legolas and Lori on the back seat now that Miranda, Frank and Eric vacated at her earlier warning to go in search of Sam, Pip and Jason, when her eyes widened in surprise and that small gasp escaped her. Although she was not alone in her body, this reaction was entirely hers and though the presence within tried to soften the blow, Fred was still a little girl. With that sudden start, she buried her face in Legolas’ side, since Bryan was in the front seat, crying harder.
“Fred?” Legolas exclaimed at the outburst, his words drawing the attention of all to the child as she started to cry harder, forcing him to coil his arms around her tighter, offering him the comforting adult presence she needed.
“What’s wrong with her?” Lori asked, unfamiliar with the child’s situation at present.
“What’s happened Fred?” Bryan spoke up and the girl was too conditioned to his voice to be able to ignore him, even if she was in state of distress.
Even now, Bryan had no power against the sounds of those tears. Despite being in the driver’s seat, he was adept enough to let his attention waver from the road to regard the child who had somehow become the most important thing in the world to him since her arrival in his life almost a year ago. Hearing her cry like that was a knife in his heart and the last time he had heard her weep in such a way was when they’d lost Tory. The similarities of those tears to this occasion filled Bryan with dread.
Like the others in the car, Aaron too snapped out of the dark place he’d been seen hearing of Lori’s report about Eve. So lost in his own fears for his wife, he hadn’t noticed anything out of the ordinary until Bryan spoken and then felt a little guilty at being so oblivious. Leaning over the front seat, he regarded the little girl whose small body shook as she wept into the elf’s side. Exchanging a glance with Legolas and Bryan, Aaron could see that they too, were expecting the worse.
“Can someone please tell me what’s wrong with her?” Lori demanded again, feeling like she was the only one being left in the dark. As it was, she was having a great deal of difficulty believing what any of them had said. Elves, monsters from ages past, dragons and the end of the world, it was too much for her very rational mind to deal with. The story these people had told her was frankly too fantastic to be believed even i she knew what had downed her plane wasn’t another enemy bogey.
It was a dragon and now there was this.
Legolas stilled them all with a gesture, deciding that bombarding the poor child with questions would aid no one. He too was filled with a sense of ominous foreboding because this reaction could only have source in some calamity that they were as of yet unaware. However, Fred was still a child and though she was occupied by some other force, she reacted to tragedy in the manner of a child and a little patience would draw the ill news from Fred when she was ready to speak.
Bryan wanted to stop the car, wanted to take Fred in his arms and console her himself but through the windscreen he could see the smoke rising out of London and knew that they didn’t have time for that. So he played the role he’d always played, the good soldier who did his duty, even when he didn’t like it, for queen and country. He pushed on when the others were ready to falter, even though he had lost and knew that the price for defeating Saeran this time was going to despairingly high.
After a moment, Fred finally lifted her face away from Legolas, drying her tears as she regarded the others. She had been allowed to express her grief in a child’s way and now the other occupant of her tiny body was exerting control and regaining its composure to deliver news that none in this vehicle wished to hear. Her blue eyes touched the faces staring at her in anticipation and saw that Aaron, Bryan and Legolas were expecting the worst while the woman Lori, didn’t know what to expect at all.
“Jason is gone."
It was Aaron who reacted first. “Gone, what do you mean gone?” He demanded indignantly though it was rather obvious to all what exactly Fred meant.
“She means dead Aaron,” Bryan answered softly and kept his eyes fixed on the road again, his eyes not moving from it.
He thought of Jason and how only a few days ago, he, Eric, Elladan and Jason were mucking about in his kitchen, trying to make beer before Tory got home, laughing and believing the worst the world had to offer was elven spirits. How wrong he had been. They’d not lost both Tory and Jason now. He wondered how many others they’d lose before this was all over.
“Jason?” Lori looked at the men in the car, “the guy who had mom and pop’s kids?”
Legolas answered with a sombre nod.
“Jesus,” Aaron whispered. First Tory and now Jason, how high was this death toll going to go? He kept that thought silent though because the group was demoralized enough by this latest tragedy and in a more composed tone, he asked after Sam and Pippin. “What about the kids?” He hated to think that Miranda and Frank’s children had ended the same way as the Kiwi camera man who’d been a friend since his arrival in Valinor.
“They still live and remain unharmed for now,” Fred answered, her voice a cheerless drone. “Jason sacrificed his life to save them. He succeeded. Frank and Miranda will reach them soon.”
Fred knew in what manner Jason had died but there was no need to trouble this group with such details. That he was dead was painful enough for them to accept, let alone be told that he had met his death at the hands of one of Melkor’s servants.
Legolas considered Jason’s sacrifice and remembered how Boromir had fallen at Parth Galen when he fought the Uruk Hai trying to save Merry and Pippin. More and more, he was starting to believe the End of Days would bring with it the end of everything they knew. With each turn, they seemed to be coming full circle, the threads of past and present interweaving into the tapestry Eru had been crafting since the begining of all things.
Lori kept quiet. She was caught in events larger than herself and though her natural inclination was to balk at the strangeness of her situation, she recognised grief when she saw it. These people had suffered losses even before this latest tragedy that was much clear. For now, she was merely an observer to the proceedings.
Bryan said nothing as they continued their pursuit of Saeran. Behind him, he continued to hear the lamentations of sorrow expressed by his friends at the loss of yet another one of their number. He kept his own grief contained, locked up in the same place he had kept his anguish at Tory’s death. There would be a time when he would unleash all his pent up rage and let the tidal wave of fury do its worst but that time was not now. His friends needed him to keep a level head and he would do that. He had to fight the impulse to turn he car around and go seek out Sam and Pip who were now without their guardian. He fought it because Saeran was the greater evil and they needed to reach him first, while there was still time to save Eve and the world as well. Bryan trusted that Frank, Miranda and Eric could get to the children first.
They had to.
The others were still reeling with shock and grief and he would allow them that in the comfort of the car because soon they’d be called on to fight a monster that may be beyond all of them to stop. He however, would do what was necessary because while there was a nobler purpose to his actions, there was also a darker, underlying reason to press on no matter what.
Revenge.
********
Frank’s fingers dug into the arm rest of the little hatchback they’d found shortly after they’d parted company with Bryan and Aaron, prompted by Fred’s ominious warning that Sam and Pippin were in trouble. In front of him, the narrow, meandering road that cut through the countryside of North England rushed past him in a blur, struggling to keep up with the speed of the vehicle tearing up its aging path. Miranda was driving and her hands were clenched around the steering wheel, displaying the seldom seen driving skills she’d acquired during her years in the service of MI6.
Fred had been unable to tell them exactly where Sam and Pippin were, only that they were heading along the coast road of Wales. It made sense to Frank. With what was happening thanks to Saeran’s rampage, people were fleeing the affected areas, clogging up the motorways that brought traffic to a standstill. They were trapped in their cars, feeding the frenzy of panic Saeran had ignited when he allowed the footage of London’s destruction to be briefly televised across the world. Miranda had taken the most direct route to the northern coast, taking small roads that were really nothing more than stock trails, passing paddocks and cottages, single minded in her determination to reach her children.
Eric had come with them because the creature stalking the children was rather formidable by Fred’s description and they might need the help. Secretly however, Frank suspected, Eric’s motives lay a little closer to home. Until coming to Valinor, he had been alone in the world. Excepting his relationship with Jason Merrick, Eric had no other family and in finding Miranda, discovered not only a sister from that other life, but a family. Frank had no objection to the relationship, recognising it for what it was and liking the fact that Miranda had someone else to whom she could turn for comfort.
Anything that made his wife less inclined to turn inward in times of trouble suited him.
Eric had tried to convince Miranda that Jason would take care of them, trying to assuage his reincarnated sister’s fears regarding the safety of her children. However, as Frank would have told him if he’d asked, it was a vain effort. Perhaps it was something that men would never understand, the deceptively gossamer thin thread that bound a mother to her children, that was stronger than steel. As a father of two, he had learned to recognise that there were just some fears that could not be allayed, no matter how well-meaning the words.
They’d bypassed St Ives, calculating that in the hours since the two groups had parted company, how far Jason would have driven. He would have taken the smaller coastal roads, avoiding the motorway, not only to avoid the traffic of fleeing travellers but also to keep a low profile. The Nine had been resurrected by Saeran which meant Morgul, the chief of the Nazgul, had re-entered the world. No doubt, the former Witch King would have returned with vengeful memories how he’d been sent to the shadow realm and who had sent him there. Yes, there was a good chance he’d send someone after them again, if he didn’t show up himself.
Frank knew who Draugluin was. He’d spend enough time in the grand libraries of Tirion to make good use of their texts and while Elladan had acted as translater in the begining, eventually he grasped enough of Quenya and Sindarin to be able to read some of the historical volumes on his own. He knew of the beast that was called the ‘Father of Werewolves’ and was Sauron’s servant in the First Age. The creature had been killed by the hero Beren and had been languishing in the Forbidden Vaults until David Saeran unleashed it into the world again.
He didn’t tell Miranda any of this.
She sat ramrod straight behind the driver’s seat, her fists clenched around the wheel, like she was ready to jump out of her skin at the slightest sound. Her single-mindedness made him anxious and only when they’d last encountered Morgul that Frank understood her former occupation had marked her. She radiated that same sense of menace that Bryan wore like a second skin. It was the training, Frank reasoned, training coupled with the primeval maternal instinct that would make a mother fight with everything they had, beyond reason, beyond anything that could be understood, to save her children.
“We should never have let them go,” she finally broke the silence as the sea came into sight and they turned onto the coast road.
“You were trying to keep them safe,” Eric reminded though he knew it would be no comfort to her. How could it be when his own thoughts were centred on the best friend who had saved his life more than once by being the voice of common sense?
“We thought sending them away would keep them safe,” Miranda declared, her eyes searching the shore and the road ahead for any sign of her children but there was none. “We should have known Frank,” she tossed Frank a look, her eyes moist with emotion. “Nowhere is safe, not now.”
“Miranda,” Frank finally spoke, reaching for her and clutching her arm. “Enough.” He said firmly, his voice with an edge that broke no argument. “I need you focussed. I need you to keep emotion out of it...”
“What the hell...” Eric started to say when Frank silenced him with a raised hand.
“I need you at your best luv,” Frank continued, “I need you sharp. Whatever’s after our kids is still out of there and I need the MI6 agent to fight it. Yeah?” He met her gaze and hated his hard tone but he knew his wife, he knew what she needed and sometimes, it wasn’t comfort.
Miranda’s expression hardened and wiped away her tears with one hand before nodding at him. “Yeah.” She answered. “I’m ready for it.”
“I know you are,” Frank said tenderly, filled with love and adoration for this woman, so damaged and yet capable of some much love that she swallowed his world with it.
Bloody hell, Eric thought silently, himself caught up in the moment, watching his sister’s mate (yeah fuck it, Third Age or not, she was his sister) give her exactly what she needed to regain her courage. Frank seemed on the face of him a mild personality but he was the soothing calm that Miranda needed so desperately.
Suddenly, Eric’s eyes widened by a column of smoke in the distance. “Hey look at that.”
Both Miranda and Frank’s eyes were fixed on the same in a split second. Craning his neck, Frank tried to determine where the pillar of dark smoke originated. It was definitely up ahead but it didn’t appear to be on the road. However, it was difficult to be sure as the smoke and the flames that undoubtedly caused it was still some distance away.
“It’s them.” Miranda said simply.
“Oh I don’t know...” Frank replied, still trying to see ahead even though squinting didn’t add anything to what he’d already viewed.
“It’s them.” She returned shortly, refusing to believe anything else.
Frank and Eric exchanged glances and knew well enough to leave alone as Miranda floored the accelerator and the car surged ahead beneath the increased revs of the engine. The small car sped along the road, overtaking a lorry that honked loudly at their audacity to usurp its place on the lane. The speed at which Miranda drove caused his worry to jump up a notch or two. He had tried to remain calm for her sake but now her paranoia was infectious and thoughts of his two children at the mercy of Draugluin began to cloud his reason.
Sam and Pippin had been pushed into the background because of Frank’s concerns for Miranda but seeing that column of smoke sent a shot of stark fear through him. Was Miranda right? Were his boys in the middle of that? His hands dropped to the dashboard and his knuckles turned white as he leaned forward and tried to get a better of view of what had originated it. A few turns of the road later and they were moving past a rather bleak beach when suddenly they came across the remnants of a collision on the weathered bitumen road.
Their gazes followed the spray of shattered glass across the narrow road, a ruined side mirror ripped from a yet undiscovered vehicle and a radio antenna trailing dangling wires. The dark burn of tyre skid marks led them off the road, over the crushed grass and vegetation and down the embankment. Miranda brought the car to a abrupt halt when she saw the smoke was coming from whatever had landed at the bottom of the hill that ran down to the beach.
She exchanged a look of pure panic at Frank before she bolted out of the car and Frank followed soon after, heart pounding as loud as hers, forgetting Eric behind them as he joined his wife. Like her, the calm that he had been clinging to so he could be strong for her had been ripped away by the primal fear that the fire they were rushing to find was a funeral pyre for their children. Reaching the edge of the hill that led down to the beach, Miranda choked out a strangled gasp as she took in the scene before her.
Wolves.
She counted at least a dozen of them. The first of which lay across a few feet off her, its large, furry body, draped over the edge causing its mouth to drop open, its tongue lolling out the side of its mouth. The cause of death was obvious. The creature’s furry pelt was riddled in bullet holes and the ground ran red with its blood. It wasn’t alone in its dying.
The rest of its pack led the way down the hill, similarly killed, blood marking the spot where they had fallen. They had gone down the hill, hunting like a pack, Miranda thought through the fugue of anguish in her mind Someone had picked them off as they descended and instinctively, she knew it was Jason. Jason had cut them down as they closed in for the kill.
Catching up to her, Frank stopped short at the scene and saw the carcasses scattered all the way down the hill, leading them to the burning wreckage of a car that greatly resembled tone vehicle that Jason was driving north with Sam and Pippin.
“Oh God….” She started to sob.
“We don’t know they were in there,” he said taking her hand as they made their way past the dead wolves, ignoring the sight of blood.
Eric felt lt his stomach hollow when he reached Frank and Miranda, both at the sight of the dead animals and the the burning vehicle whose framework had held together long enough to make it recognisable. He saw the look of horror on Miranda’s face and could not even begin to imagine what she was feeling now. He never had family and it because of that, it muted the need for children. However, he had gotten to know Sam and Pippin, hell even Fred and understood how precious they were.
Christ, he hoped Jason had got them out of the car safely.
The salty air of the sea carried the rancid smell of burning flesh across the beach, making his nose curl in disgust at the stench. For a moment, he was reminded of Vukovar. He’d been there during the siege and recalled the valiant thought ultimately doomed defence of the city as the superior Serbian army devastated the city with a brutality not seen since Stalingrad. With every new assault, another building was burned and sometimes, the occupants escaped, most of the time, they did not.
Eric felt like he was back there again.
The heat of the fire prickled their faces as they approached the vehicle, navigating to the flaming wreckage scattered across the beach, the result of a tremendous explosion that virtually torn it apart. There were doors lying against the sand in all directions, glass was melting from the tremendous heat and the noxious fumes of burning rubber forced them to remain a suitable distance. However, not all the debris was metal, glass and plastic, some of it was flesh. Large chunks of meat, some covered with matted fur, lay across the sand.
Across what would have been the windscreen of the car, if one had been left intact that is, was the carcasses of something exceedingly large, like a rhino maybe. Its haunches remained attached to its torso but its front legs and the massive head that must have been held by its bulk was gone. Only the jagged start of a vetebral column indicating where the skull must have been. Eric tried not to flinch as the sight of the creature’s spine exposed by burnt away flesh.
“What the hell is it?” He asked, rounding the car to get a better look at it. “Some kind of bear?”
“No,” Frank shook his head, “its a wolf.”
“A wolf?” Eric exclaimed incredulously, “how can you tell. This thing is too damn big.”
“The tarsals and metatarsals,” Frank answered grimly. “Its canine.”
“There’s someone in there,” Miranda said as she looked past the carcass and saw the remains of a body, badly charred with limbs missing. The skull was attached but if there was a face, it was surely gone by now. “I think...” she started to say and the words failed her although it was obvious who it was.
“What?” Eric demanded, suddenly feeling the blood drain from his face. No, Jason wasn’t dead. The dumb Kiwi wasn’t dumb enough to stick around and fight off the hound of Baskervilles. He would have taken the kids and run to safety. No way was that him in there.
“This is the car they were driving,” Frank replied, no trace of doubt in his mind now. “The body in there is in an adult.” His experience with fossils and bones allowed him to make that determination, much to his regret.
“Sam and Pip might still be alive,” Miranda declared. “SAMMIE! PIP!” She ran off into the beach, calling out for them.
“Miranda!” Frank hollered after her, not wanting to simply leave Eric but he was just as anxious to find his children as she.
Eric didn’t leave, he stood rooted to the spot, staring at the thing that was his friend. There was probably a dozen reasons that should have kept him from reaching that conclusion, the fact that there was no positive identification, that the body could belong to anyone, that it was more likely that Jason took the kids and bolted for safety but he knew it wasn’t the truth. His friend was in that burning wreck. Standing there, watching the flames, he wanted to cry, wanted to shout at the unfairness of it but he couldn’t.
He couldn’t do anything but mourn.
********
“SAMMIE! PIP!” Miranda ran across the beach, leaving the scene of the wreck, searching the beach for any sign of tracks that might lead away from the wreck. The tracks that weren’t washed away by the tide were too many to count. She had no doubt that this beach was often the favourite place for a walk. If there tracks leading away from the car, there was no way for Miranda to distinguish them from that of her children.
“Miranda wait!” Frank called out to her, struggling to maintain his speed on the uneven ground.
However, Miranda would have none of that and she called out again, her cries becoming more and more desperate when she reached the rocks that shouldered the surf. Climbing over them, she searched the area until the rocks ran into the cliffs. Desperation had snapped her reason and she called out again, her voice disintegrating until the anguish was heard through the cracks.
Frank struggled to keep pace with her until suddenly over the sound of the sea rushing against the rock, he heard another sound.
“MUM!”
Frank halted dead in his step for about a second, a sense of relief not felt since that moment in the delivery room before that first cry. Shuddering with gratitude with whatever deities that might be listening, he saw Miranda freeze similarly.
“MUM!” The cry again and it propelled him forward. It was Sam’s voice, Frank realised.
“SAMMIE!” Miranda called out again.
From a small grotto at the base of the cliff, Miranda saw Sam emerge first. He came out past the rocks, undoubtedly to check that it was really her out there and made eye contact. His face lit up with all the light in the world and Miranda let out another gasp of gratitude before she hurried towards him. A few seconds later, she saw Pip emerged from the darkness, looking pale and afraid.
“Oh my babies!” She embraced Sam so hard when she reached him that she nearly lifted him off the ground. Crying in relief, she held him closed as his smaller arms wrapped around her and looked at Frank with tears in her eyes. Frank arrived at the same time as Pip and picked up his little dreamer, before the boy could utter a word.
“Are you both alright?” Miranda asked frantically as she looked at Sam and reached for Pip with one hand, pulling his head close enough to her to plant a kiss on his forehead whilst still in his father’s arms.
“We’re okay,” Sam spoke as Pip nodded but his younger brother hadn’t like the cave very much. “Uncle Jason told us to run. He said run and hide.”
Miranda’s eyes touched Frank and between them, they realised that it was indeed Jason’s body in the car. It made her think of Eric who wasn’t with them.
“There were wolves daddy,” Pip stared to speak, his small voice still trembling. “Lots of wolves and there was a big one. The biggest one we ever saw and it talked! It talked to Uncle Jason!”
“Uncle Jason told us to run,” Sam said grimly perhaps sensing why Jason wasn’t with mum and dad. He’d heard the explosion, just before he and Pip found the cave to hide. He knew that Uncle Jason was gone then, dead like Aunt Tory. He was sad. He liked Uncle Jason a lot and knew that it hadn’t dawned on Pip yet. Mum and dad would explain it to him.
“We should go,” Frank said to Miranda.
“Yes,” Miranda nodded, her cheeks still damp from tears. “Come on.”
********
The Three awoke in their places of power.
For more than a year, they lay sleeping, rendered inert by the removal of their master by enemies it did not know. Left in mundane and forgotten places, they waited, waiting to whisper its siren call to new bearers.The purpose unto which they had been created had been left unfulfilled, the promise of a new order left to languish and wither. They had no will of their own, their magic given breath by the power of their creator and when he vanished, so was their strength.
Until now.
********
UNIVERSITY BEHAVIORAL HEALTH OF DENTON
MILITARY WING
“How are you Walter?” General Dennis Etherton asked his old friend.
Lt. Colonel Walter Green, formerly of the United States Army was seated in a deck chair facing a well maintained garden that was flowering with primroses, daisies and sundrops. The chair was located under a magnolia tree, providing shade from the afternoon sun which was just as well since he was dressed in pajamas and a robe, despite it being the middle of the day.
Dennis frowned seeing his friend in this shape. They’d come up through the ranks together. They’d served in Korea, Vietnam, then in Kuwait and until his breakdown, Afghanistan. Green had been a good soldier and a better friend. While they had not been in each other’s orbit the last two years, they had kept in touch and while Dennis was aware that Green had become entangled in a woman named Elizabeth who’s death really did a number on him, at no time did he suspect his friend had gone off the deep end.
And gone off the deep end he had.
The man had attempted to launch nuclear missiles for Christ sake. He should have been shot for treason but it became clear after he’d been arrested that Green, a decorated soldier, had suffered a nervous breakdown of some kind. Dennis had pushed for the evaluation and eventually it was determined that Green had suffered a psychiotic break and could not be held accountable for his crimes. He was cashiered out of the army of course, there was no stopping that and chances were he’d spend the rest of his life inside padded walls but it was better than being stood in front of a firing squad.
“Still crazy Denny,” Walter said staring at the garden, watching a bee bounce from flower to flower, following its daily ritual.
“Who isn’t?” Dennis smiled, “here, I brought you something.”
“Bottle of single malt?” Walter threw him a look.
“No,” Dennis produced a small, velvet box. “I thought you might like to have it.”
Walter stared at the box and then at him as Dennis handed it over.
“NO!!!” He swatted the box away once he realised what it was, watching it tumble across the grass. “GET IT AWAY FROM ME!” Walter started screaming.
“What the hell Wally?” Dennis stared at him shocked as he saw the man go completely to pieces, staggering away from him, arms flaying like he was trying to fight off invisible bats, screaming words that made no sense to him. Behind them, orderlies were running across the lawn as the commotion brought all eyes to them.
“Wally, its your engagement ring, the one that Elizabeth gave to you!” Dennis went to pick it up. The doctors had told him that the man had come to grips with his fiancee’s death, that he was starting to get better. Had he made things worse.
“YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND!” He screamed, eyes wide with terror. ‘IT TALKS!”
********
A short time later, after Wally had been dragged away, leaving Dennis stunned as he stood there in the garden where his friend had been, trying to understand how the man could have relapsed that fast. He planned on kicking the ass of the doctor who told him it was a good idea to give him the keepsake from his fiancee. What the hell had Doctor Wormer been thinking?
Searching the grass, he saw the velvet box had been splayed open and the gold ring that sat within beckoned him, sunlight bouncing off its gleaming surface. With a sigh, Dennis went over and bend down to pick it up, his fingers making contact with the gold.
For a moment it felt like he’d been by a charge of electricity. His fingers tingled. He pulled back and stared at it. Pretty thing. Chances were good Wally would never want it again, not after that display. Picking it up, he held the ring in his palm and thought it felt warm to the touch. Examining it, it was a simple gold band with some ornate designs on the inside. He stared at it for a long time, there in the sun, thinking that it was very beautiful and it was going to waste.
Ring like this should be worn, he thought.
For reasons he could not explain, Dennis Etherton slipped the ring on his finger, telling himself he was trying it on for size just for the hell of it. However, once it slipped onto his finger, he did not want to take it off again. It fit well, as if it had been on his finger always and taking it off would make his hand feel odd. Besides, its not like Wally would miss it.
Why shouldn’t he keep it?
********
WINSFORD VILLAGE
They’d stopped at Winsford, a small village located in the crossroads of several motor routes and fords, tucked far enough away from civilisation to maintain some of its charm. It boasted several buildings that dated back to the tenth century and had been a favoured getaway since the 1600s. It was probably why the picturesque town looked as if it could have been lifted from the pages of dusty old book. Often assailed by tourists who insisted on the ‘authentic’ English experience, only to realise upon arriving there was very little to do, the residents were undoubtedly grateful when they left and preferred its provincial existence.
It was perfect for what Bryan and his companions needed right now.
It’s off the beaten track location meant that it escaped the flood of refugees living the areas that had been ravaged by Saeran’s destructive rampage through the English countryside. The people of the community were confident that they had enough geographic anonymity to escape the unpleasantness that had gripped London and most of South England, starting from Cornwall. Nonetheless, there were few people about when Bryan drove into the town limits and he suspected that the sporadic television broadcasts that Saeran had allowed had sufficiently warned them that the indoors was the safest places to be.
Although Aaron was unhappy about abandoning their pursuit of Eve, Bryan felt it was important that they regroup with the others before proceeding and also because he was done chasing after David Saeran. So far, their cross country pursuit had achieved nothing and brought them no closer to the dark lord then when they had first set out from Valinor. Furthermore, Bryan was convinced if they continued teir dogged pursuit, they be too late to save Eve or anyone else for that matter.
They’d been one step behind Saeran since this had all began and it was a gap that was more distance. Saeran had used his time trapped in his prison of flesh to good measure. The bastard had emerged with a plan and he had put into effect with devastating finality. Even down to Tory’s cruel end, Saeran had left nothing to chance. He’d kept the Valar out of the picture, he’d set the balrogs loose on Valinor to keep the elves busy and he’d killed Tory to Bryan off balance, while taking Eve for the same reason though Bryan suspected that wasn’t the worst of it. He had a plan for Eve that Bryan suspected would send Aaron right off the planet if he knew what it was.
That was where Saeran had the advantage. He had a plan. They did not. They were just reacting to the destruction the dark lord threw their way, barely stepping out of the way before the next trial came. There was no time to breathe, no time to think about what was to be done. Bryan was determined for that to change. They’d spent too much time reacting and not acting. It was time for them to have a plan of their own.
After Frank and Miranda had checked in, informing them that the children were safe and confirming Fred’s vision, that Jason was dead, Bryan had instructed them to head to Winsford so they could regroup, Jason’s death had hit Eric badly, Miranda explained and Bryan could appreciate that. Eric and Jason had been in the thick of it together long before Valinor. Like soldiers who shared the battle field together Eric and Jason had moved from story to another, forging links stronger than steel or blood along the way. Only upon arriving at Valinor did they realise there was any purpose to it. Now Jason was gone and Bryan could only imagine how profound such a loss could be.
Perhaps that was Saeran’s plan to break their spirit but harming the people who mattered to all of them, first Tory, then and now Jason.
Aaron was barely holding it together after news of what Saearan was doing to Eve had reached him. Of course Bryan knew that Saeran had a darker plan for the accelerated growth of the child in her belly but he was not about to bring that up with Aaron. Not in the man’s current state of mind. Bryan considered voicing his suspicions to Legolas but the elf seemed preoccupied himself. He wasn’t sure what had gone on between Legolas and his lady but it did not miss his notice that Ariel had chosen to go with Elrond instead of staying with him.
The yank pilot they’d picked up hadn’t said much either. She had been animated in the beginning but with every ravaged town they encountered and the sporadic bursts of radio broadcasts revealing the extent of the dark lord’s villainy in the world, she had grown quiet. He suspected that she was trying to process, trying to fit the pieces of this puzzle into what she knew of the world. He understood her difficulty, hadn’t they all gone through it?
And then there was Fred.
The less Bryan thought about Fred and what was sharing her body, the better it would be. He suspected the answer was too big for all of them and he had a sense that the consciousness occupying her body would reveal itself when the time was right.
********
The Royal Oak Inn had begun its life as a farmhouse in the 12th century and had now evolved into a charming hotel that maintained its traditions by the décor of its rooms and common areas. Bryan had once spent a week here with red head whose name was Brandy or Sandy. He couldn’t quite remember he was unashamed to admit. In any case, he remembered the place because of its appealing distance from civilisation and the fact that Winsford was on route to Bristol and an airport.
“I don’t understand why we’re waiting here,” Aaron grumbled after they secured themselves a suit of rooms at top floor of the two storey hotel. “We should be going after Eve.”
“Because,” Bryan said sitting at the window, watching the road for the arrival of Frank and the family. “We need to regroup and we’ve been hard at it for the last week, we need to rest and plan our next move.”
“Aaron,” Legolas remarked, emerging from the next room, admiring some of the furnishings that were more to his liking than any he’d encountered in Arda since his first arrival. In a small way, it possessed the charm of the Shire folk. “We know your fears for Eve and we share it but Bryan is right. The lord of Mordor has schemed well in advance of us. With each step closer we take to him, he throws more trials in our path that are costing the lives of those we love. We must take steps to curtails further losses.”
Aaron opened his mouth to argue but Legolas’ words were hard to dispute especially since he was right; they’d lost Tory and Jason already. If they didn’t do something different, they might lose Eve too.
“Alright,” Aaron frowned, conceding defeat as he made his way to large comfy sofa in the middle of the room and placed himself in it heavily, running his fingers through his hair when he was seated. “I see your point.”
“We know his plan is to launch a nuclear war,” Bryan spoke. “He’s scared everyone shitless with what he’s doing in London but that’s not enough. He’s still a long way from the rest of the world. The Yanks aren’t going to send missiles if the problem is still confined in Europe. Saeran might have let all the monsters out of the vaults but he doesn’t have enough to think he could conquer a population of 7 billion people with what he’s got.
“He does not need a vast army when he has awakened the three.” Fred declared stepping out of one of the adjoining rooms where Bryan thought he’d left her to take a nap.
“The three?” Legolas asked.
“Yes,” she nodded and recited softly, her words sounding out of this world and sent a shudder of disquiet through those present.
“Three Rings forged in gold
One rests in the land of the far east
Another where the red star rules
The last to the lords of the new world
Three Rings bound to their master’s call
Three Rings will bring doom to us all.”
“When did he have time to make three rings?” Aaron demanded indignantly, quite forgetting it was Fred he was speaking to, wanting his answers of the being who occupied her body.
Bryan didn’t have to wait for Fred to speak to know the answer.
“You’re talking about the rings that belonged to Walter Green and those generals in the Russian and Chinese army, aren’t you? We never did get them back.”
There hadn’t been any reason to. With Saeran imprisoned in Valinor, there had been no reason to take such precautions, especially in the wake of what had happened. Green had been locked up and the other two were almost certainly executed by their respective government.
“Jesus,” Aaron hissed in dismay at the realisation.
“Sauron’s rings sleep,” Legolas sighed. “When he awoke, so did they. Like the One Ring.”
“So his plan to have the superpowers launch nuclear weapons against each other is still on the table?” Aaron asked, even though he knew the answer to the question.
“Plans that are now in motion.” Fred nodded.
“We have to stop them,” Aaron replied. “We have to get to them and stop it.”
“No,” Bryan shook his head. “It’s beyond that. Going after them will take up time we don’t have. This begins and ends with him. We need to kill him.”
“Bryan is correct,” Fred replied, “our goal must to reach Sauron. None of his plans can come to fruition without him. The Nine are powerless without their master and removing him from this plane will restore Valinor and lower the wall he has erected between the Valar and the Undying Lands.”
Lori stepped out of one of the bedrooms, clad in a bathrobe after taking a well deserved showeer. Drying her hair, she had listened in the other room, the discussion taking place between these people she had only met in a the last day. “I know I’m speaking as an outsider here,” she announced herself. “So far your plan has been to chase after this guy. From what we’ve seen and what you’ve told me, its clear he’ll never let you get that close.”
“The daughter of Isaiah speaks the truth,” Legolas agreed with Lothiriel’s counterpart in this time.
Lori stiffened, still reeling from the fact that they’d met her father. In fact, her father was at this moment, sailing with an ancient fleet to fight the dark lord. The submarine commander and the elves. Now there was a sight.
“With the Nine, the armies of the Forbidden Vaults, the forces he has cultvated in Arda since his return, that have lain dormant until now, he will ensure these obstacles are placed in our path before we can ever reach him.” Legolas continued. “It will be easy enough for him to kill us off one by one before he reaches his final destination.”
“My what a cheery thought,” Lori quipped. “I think you can drop me off at the next airport, if the shit is going to hit the fan, I prefer to be with my squadron.”
“You will do more for this cause if you remain with us daughter of Isaiah,” Fred turned to her.
“Okay, okay, just call me Lori,” she declared to the little girl. It was really unsettling to hear the kid talk like she waa Yoda and worse yet, addressing her that way.
“But Fred’s right,” Aaron threw in. “You’re better off helping us fight him then going off with your squadron. Judging by the news, the Nine and the dragons have been having a field day with them. I mean you know that for yourself.”
She did. She’d barely survived her own encounter with a dragon and she didn’t think many of her squadron had either. “Alright, point take but we need a plan better than what we’ve presently got because right now, the little girl is right on the money. You’re chasing after this guy and he keeps one step ahead of you and by the sounds of it, working hard to drive you all nuts at the same time.”
“So we won’t try to catch up with him,” Bryan said finally. “I didn’t bring us here for no reason. This town is on the route to Bristol where there’s an airport. I was going to get us to Saeran by flying us there but I’m thinking that perhaps the best thing to do is get ahead of him.”
“You know where he is going?” Lori asked, thinking that she could contribute if they needed a pilot.
“We all do,” Bryan replied, glancing at the others and though Fred was already there, it took only the others a second to join them as he saw the realisation dawn on them.
It was Legolas who said it first. “Mordor.”
“Where?” Lori the uninitated asked.
“It was the seat of his power in the Third Age,” the elf explained though he was convinced it would make no sense to the woman.
“Naturally,” she overcame the obstacle quickly enough. “Where is now?”
“Romania,” Aaron answered, “if you can believe it. In Translyvania.”
“You’re joking,” she looked at them incredulously. “Translyvania as in Dracula’s Translyvania?”
“Yeah,” he nodded. “Explains a little about why the region had produced some of the most blood thirsty rulers of all time. Elizabeth Bathory, Vlad the Impaler...”
Seeing the aghast expression on Lori’s face, Bryan gave Aaron a silencing look. The woman was having a tough enough time coping with what they’d seen. Bryan didn’t want her overwhelmed particularly when they might need the woman and her military connections somewhere down the line. Besides, she was Isaiah Hill’s daughter and the submarine commander had proven to be an ally to the elves during this time. How she had come to be in their company was serendipidious to say the least, if not reeking of a bit of pre-destiny, so he was reluctant to have her leave their side for now.
“The fact is, we know where he’s going and if we fly to Romania, we might just get to his fortress, or rather what’s left of it before he get there.”
“Are you sure he’s going to be there?” She asked skeptically.
“He is a creature of habit,” Legolas pointed out. “In this time, he chose that land to rebuild his kingdom. I do not doubt that in the moment of his greatest triumph, he would not reclaim it again.”
“Alright,” Lori conceded defeat. “If you can find us a plane in Bristol, I can get us there.” She offered. If stopping this guy means saving the planet from nuclear armageddon, then I’m in.”
“I am still concerned that with his power beyond what it was in the Third Age, he will still sense our approach. The last time we confronted him, Gandalf was with us. He was able to shield us from Sauron.”
“He will not see us,” Fred spoke with some finality. “Where we are, he cannot look. Not with palantir or his own vast powers. We will be free to approach his seat of power. I will ensure it.”
Lori wanted to ask the little girl how she could be so sure but the uneasy look on the faces of the men with her, kept her from asking. There was something going on in that little body, something that none of them were ready to face yet.
Of all the strange things she had seen so far, it was quite possible that Fred was the strangest.
COAST OF SIBERIA, KARA SEA
The Siberian coast in winter was as good as its reputation.
Powerful winds moved relentlessly across the glacial plains, whipping the snowfall into a blinding frenzy that only the staunchest would dare brave. The whistling wind had grown into a mournful wail of the Siberian High and though there was sun above the clouds, it could not penetrate the ferocity of the winter months. The landscape seemed painted with broad strokes of grey, devoid of colour, desolate and unyielding. In the last century, the Soviets had used this region to immortalise their infamous gulags because in such a world, drained of all that might be considered life, prisoners broke far more easily.
Not all life found this realm inhospitable. Certainly, the female that lumbered across the tundra knew nothing of this. To her, this place was familiar and its harshness by human reckoning, had been home to generations of her kind and to many more, who survived in this seeming desolate region. The children of Ursus who roamed the ice of this so called wasteland rarely saw each other, though they congregated on occasion, frolicking like cubs because contrary to popular belief, Ursus Maritimus were social creatures. They would play, trade stories in a language beyond human comprehension, mate and return to their solitary lives once more. The female that journeyed inland on this day, had return from such a gathering.
The female sniffed the air with concern and came to the conclusion that she needed to move faster to keep ahead of the approaching blizzard. Her destination lay some distance ahead and she lumbered forward on her large paws, leaving tracks in the snow the wind soon obliterated. She could see the graceful swirls of snow swept off the ground in a chaotic dance that accelerated with the forceful gale. It made her feel the cold most acutely, penetrating the thick pile of her fur and prickling the thick layer of insulating under hair and fat she had been cultivating these last few months despite feeding sporadically.
Once again, food continued to be scarce. With the ice receding far more than the seasons past, she had spent too much time laying wait for the seal to come through the ice for air. She had caught one three days ago, a plump male, fat on fish who did not move fast enough and found a grisly end in her jaws. His blood was still smeared across her long muzzle and across her snowy white pelt.
If she was young and more enthused, she might have tried for bigger game like the walrus or the leviathans but the strength for such a battle was no longer possible because food was too scarce to waste on such expenditure of energy. She fed for three days on the seal after she had dragged him out of the sea, crushing his skull in the way her mother had taught her, ending its pain quickly and mercifully.
Nourishing herself and the cubs inside her on his fatty blubber, she devoured all she could of it, until her belly was warm with satisfaction and she had enough stored in her for the long months ahead. When she left his carcass on the ice, only his bones remained and those were feasts for the carrion eaters. In this wilderness, nothing was left to waste.
She moved faster, spurred on by thoughts of the growing life inside of her and the dreams of motherhood given to all creatures. She thought of teaching them to hunt, to move across the great tundra of their world, to someday give new life to cubs of their own. As her mother had done when she was a cub and as was done to her by her mother, the passing of ancient knowledge taught to all her kind by Ursus before the Great Bear went to walk in the stars.
Crossing the glacier, her journey had taken her from the coast to the place of denning. There she would built her den, create the chambers in which her children would be born and would sleep with her during the winter months. When the summer came, they would emerged into a place of rolling hills of green, covered with small yellow flowers that would lead the way to the river where the fish began their journey upstream. Here she would feed her children, make them strong and hardy so they could begin the return journey to the coast, where the real lessons of survival would begin.
Suddenly, something made her pause.
It was a smell unfamiliar to her. Her large head moved from side to side, trying to determine its source but to no avail. She thought it might have been a man smell for they seemed to produce odours both noxious and strange wherever they festered. However, she saw no sign of man and man smell had a sharpness that made her wince upon the sniffing of it. No, this was something old, musty and seemingly hidden for too long. The memory of falling into a crevasse, a chasm that nearly killed her, surface in her mind. Determination alone had allowed her to crawl out but she never forgot the smell of that dark, forgotten place.
Dirt, snow, death and malice.
The ground shook beneath her and it followed the low rumble beneath the earth that sounded. like the roar of angry gods, shaking the ice. The ground beneath her paws shuddered and rumbled and once again, she wondered if this was man’s mischief until the Old Memories came upon her. The ones all her kind carried, the memories passed to all children of Ursus and the memories told her that this was a sound older than man, perhaps even older than even Ursus. The Old Memories told her to run and she obeyed, her large body moving across the ice until it fissured and opened up beneath her. A wail of despair escaped her as she began to fall into the darkness, into another crevasse, that this time, she knew she would not escape.
As she plunged into the forgotten places of the world, she saw fleetingly, the long, dark bodies of tarnished silver scales that moved past her. They climbed up the walls of the fissure, emerging through the ice with claws as big as her arms, hoisting themselves over the edge to the diminishing light above her. Next to them, she was small, almost inconsequential and they let her fall past them as if she were debris from the world they were about to plunder. Too small for their notice, she almost grateful when she landed on the jagged rocks below and her life came to an end, that at least she would not leave her cubs to face the monstrosity that had just risen from the ancient earth.
********
Watching patiently as he hovered above the cracking pan of ice, Akhorahil sat astride his winged beast, awaiting as Morgul had instructed, for their newest allies to emerge from their long hibernation. The cold drakes that had once terrorised the children of Durin and ruled the Grey Mountains were finally emerging from their long slumber at his Lord’s request. These fell beasts, created by Melkor in the First Age had barely tolerated Sauron’s rule but they were creatures of habit, who desired riches above all else and in the mortal world, mankind had riches to satiate even the most ambitious dreams of avarice.
The leader among them, a beast who traced its lineage back to that of Scatha the Worm, was the first to emerge into the morning sky. His invulnerable scales glimmered dully under the sunlight and he reared back his head to let out a mighty bellow, heralding his return to the world. In the distance, a scattering of birds altered course abruptly in fright, flying away from the terrible noise that seem to shake the sky itself. Akhorahil’s own mount Claw, snorted its own welcome to the creature, flapping its wings in greeting as the drake raised his massive head and regarded the Nazgul in the sky aloft.
“What presumption possesses Melkor’s servant to summon us forth, little shadow?” The drake asked, his mouth parting to reveal monstrously sharp teeth and its voice sounded like the escaping gases of a marshland bog.
“The same presumption that allowed him to open the Forbidden Vaults and release your brethren imprisoned in the shadow realm, Scarga,” Akhorahil answered with as much contempt.
“Because of my Master, the Urloki now commands the skies of the world once more. He has allowed them to breathe fire and ash across the cities of man.”
“The wars of Melkor and Sauron interest us little,” Scarga declared with disinterest. “Too many times have we aided in the wars of our masters and it has yielded little value to us. We have little need of lands or power. We sleep in the forgotten places of the world, with riches you cannot comprehend.”
“Yes, yes,” Akhorahil remarked dismissively, “I am familiar with your preoccupation with all things glittery. You are like bowerbirds lining their nests.”
Scarga growled with menace, not at all appreciative of the comparison, rearing his head to utter a sharp roar or rebuke made Claw flinch uneasily, until Akhorahil leaned over and soothed its flank with a gentle caress of his gauntleted hand.
“You dare insult us....” Scarga hissed.
“No insult was intended,” Akhorahil lied blatantly, uninterested with playing the game of one upmanship with the drake. “However, if it is riches you desire, the world of men is full of it. They worship it like religion. The more valuable, the more they desire it. Gold, diamonds, jewels that were unknown to us in our time are there for the taking. My master would have you take the riches of man for your own, by any means necessary if you assist us in our campaign.”
Behind Scarga, the other drakes had emerge. They covered the snow covered plain with their dark, silvery bodies, causing the ground to shake with the rumble of their dark speech. Remaining a suitable distance from Scarga as he parlayed with the Nazul, their impatience at being awakened rippled through their number with snorts and short, indignant growls punctuating the banshee wail of the wind.
“By that you mean that we should slaughter his enemies while we carry out our plunder,” Scarga stated sarcastically.
“We would insist upon it,” Akhorahil replied honestly. “My master knows how to reward his allies accordingly. Kill as many of them as you wish, ravage their cities until they are graveyards of bleached bone and rotting flesh if that serves you. The spoils following the sacking of their cities is yours to claim. That is your compact with my Lord.”
“We will hold him to that promise,” Scarga declared, already basking in the idea of an entire world in which to sack and plunder. It had been too long since he and his brethren were given such sport. In a triumph of anticipation, he released another loud screech that further fractured the calm of the morning and even unsettled Akhorahil’s impenetrable facade.
Akhorahil tugged Claw's reins and its wings began to beat faster, lifting them higher a loft so they had enough space to turn in mid air and return the way they came, to rejoin tithe fight. As he did so, both wraith and beast made a sweeping pass above the serpentine army making its exodus from the cracked earth. Their enormous size when combined, hid the snow beneath them. Instead they were a sea of dragon scales, rippling with power and hungry anticipation.
“We will await your arrival in Mordor,” Akhorahil announced making a final pass by Scarga, “Do not be late.”
“We will honour our compact, little shadow,” Scarga hissed back. “After, we have fed.”
********
David Saeran wondered what the press would have made of his latest return to the continent if they were able to see how he was making the journey.
In the past, as CEO of Malcolm Industries, Saeran had sold himself to the world as the next ‘Richard Branson’, jet setting across the globe, bedding beautiful movie stars, scaling Everest and K2 or diving the Black Hole of Andros to the delight of newspapers everywhere. He had fed the paparazzo’s interest, stoking their invasion of his privacy to near frenzy in order to meet his own ends. The more the world saw him as a playboy billionaire, the less likely they were to pay attention to his dark pursuits as the Lord of Mordor.
He never referred to Mordor as a thing of the past. In his mind, it always existed. From the peak of Mount Doom to the Sea of Nurnen, Saeran cherished every part of that dark land within his memory. At the end days of the Third Age, he was unable to walk the paths of his kingdom as he had done before the loss of the One Ring. He’d missed that. He’s missed the sensation of the Spurr’s sharp gravel under his feet or feel the ashy wind against his face as he travelled the Doom Road to Bara-dur. He was not nostalgic by any means but Mordor was as much a part of him as the Nazgul and he would see it restored with the bleached bones of men and elf.
Saeran crossed the English channel by night, leading the demonic hordes he had unleashed from the Forbidden Vaults, escorted by dragons and fell beasts ridden by his Nazgul. He sat astride the greatest of the Urloki to ever emerge from Angband, Ancalagon. Magnificent wings flapped on either side of him, causing currents that would have rivalled the turbines of any 747.
Ancalagon’s saurian head led the way like the figurehead of a great ship, his nostrils breathing fire as he sailed across the ocean, leading his brethren in their great migration to Mordor.
Eru’s punishment on Melkor’s dark creations was to trap them within the Forbidden Vaults and Saeron could think of no crueller end to the dragons who were really creatures of the sky. When he had freed them, he had heard their thunderous roars of freedom as they took to the skies above Valinor, basking in the freedom of flight like unfettered children at play. For such creatures, imprisonment in the Vault was as close to hell as the Urloki could imagine. Saeran suspected that their loyalty came not his freeing them from the Forbidden Vaults but because he had given them back the sky.
********
Much to her disgust, Eve found the tightening arm of David Saeran around her rounded belly somewhat comforting in the face of her terror at their current mode of transport. Lodged between the impressive spinal ridges of the great dragon he'd told her was called Ancalagon the Black, Eve was being spirited across the sky with Saeran’s arms around her while astride the dragon. She could feel his chest against her back and wondered how someone who felt so warm to the touch could have a heart as cold as ice.
Still this was a better way to travel than with the Nazgul who barely tolerated her presence on their winged mounts. As it was, the sheer size of Ancalagon made this a more comfortable trip, as much as could be had by a woman as heavily pregnant as she.
Every time she looked down at her swollen belly, her anguish rose up like bile, threatening to choke her with its finality. She should have been able to savour her pregnancy, to enjoy the little moments that led up to her son's birth. Eve had imagined decorating his nursery with Aaron, being soothed by Celebrian when her fears became too much or sharing the experiences of impending motherhood with Miranda, Ariel and Tory....God Tory. She blinked away the tears, thinking about her friend Tory who was killed by the same bastard who had dashed all her dreams by his twisted designs on her son.
"I had hoped for a little more conversation," Saeran broke the silence amidst the rushing of winds and the sound of great beating wings around them.
By now, Eve had learned better than to antagonize him because Saeran had no limits to his cruelty when he felt he had a point to make or a lesson to teach.
“What do you want to talk about?” She asked with a resigned sigh, “How the Yankees are doing? The state of the Middle East or will Jennifer Aniston find a guy she can keep longer than ten minutes?"
"If she were remotely interesting between the sheets, she might,” Saeran snorted, bored by the subject but amused by her efforts.
That actually made Eve pause and glance over her shoulder at him, trying to decide if he was playing one of his games or telling him the truth. “You and Jennifer Aniston?" She asked with clear disbelief.
“Briefly,” he replied, bemused at her scepticism. "Is that so hard to believe? Women tend to gravitate towards men of power and money. As David Saeran I had both.”
Great, now he was bragging, Eve thought. It appeared even dark lords weren’t above masculine posturing. However, she couldn’t deny the truth of his statement. Even she and Tory had noted the same thing when they’d first learned that David Saeran, playboy billionaire and CEO of Malcolm Industries was in fact, Sauron, Lord of Mordor. They’d wondered how someone so evil could exist in such a pleasing facade.
"Then why me?” Eve asked, deciding that if she wanted to get out of this alive, she’d need to start playing more than the victim. It was clear that Saeran wanted her to engage him and if that was the price of staying alive and keeping her son safe, then so be it. “You could have any woman you want Why waste your time with me just because I look like Arwen or even this Luthien you talk about."
This spirited display was far more interesting the mewling cow she had been the last few days so Saeran found himself indulging her questions, obvious as they were in their attempts to discern his intentions.
"Because it will keep your precious Aaron distracted," Saeran said smoothly, unafraid to give her an honest answer. She was no threat to him at present. “While you’re here with me, he’ll be tearing the countryside apart trying to reach you. I want his every thought burning with the purpose of rescuing you. Emotions are the greatest way to weaken your enemy."
"You underestimate him," Eve returned promptly but secretly, she knew he was right. Aaron wasn’t like Bryan. He wasn’t a soldier. He felt things deeply, he reacted emotionally and unpredictably and wherever he was right now; he was going mad with fear and worry about her and their child. In fact, she knew he would do anything to retrieve them. Just as Saeran claimed.
“And you overestimate him,” Saeran countered just as quickly.
Eve’s shoulder sagged forward, trying not to become overwhelmed by his ruthless hatred.
“What happened to you?” She asked, the question was a whisper she did not expect an answer to. “You were one of them, weren’t you? One of the Maiar?”
She felt him stiffen behind her as if the question had taken him by surprise. “I was the greatest of the Maiar,” he replied. “I saw a vision of the world those elitists fools could not understand, a world of grand design and symmetry. I wanted to bring order out of chaos.”
That he deign to respond to the question did not surprise Eve as much as his answer.
She swung back and stared at him again, this time with clear incredulity. Everything she had heard about Sauron marked him as an agent of chaos. From the First Age to the his destruction in the Third, he had been an engine of destruction and corruption. Everything he had wrought could not have placed him further from that purpose if he tried.
"You're joking..." she finally found her voice, unable to disguise her astonishment.
His eyes narrowed and he grabbed her chin roughly, all traces of humour vanishing from his face as she glared at her, the conversationalist dismissed in place of the monster. "Don't presume to try and judge me human. What has your race ever done but to slaughter each other in acts of barbarism that make the orcs tame by comparison? You and your kind have rampaged over Arda and corrupted the earth Eru gave you far more efficiently than anything I could ever imagine! I saw this when none of the others could, I alone imagined what the chords of Eru’s precious symphony would do and all I wanted to impose some sanity to the music they were orchestrating!"
Eve wrenched her face out of his grips, grasping at the serrated ridge of Ancalagon's spine to keep herself from slipping off the back of the great beast. "By destroying it?" She bit back, emboldened by the lowering of his guard. She suspected that he had never had to justify his twisted vision like this before.
"By imposing order. If they had courage enough for it, I would have never had to go elsewhere or endured one master after another. Do you know what its like to be slave to a god? First the Valar, then Auel and then Melkor... none of them had the vision I did, none of them had the wit. Auel the provincial blacksmith and Melkor with his fetish for jewels. He had power enough to destroy them all but not the intelligence. Everything I am, everything I achieved, I did because I alone had the will. Will is more powerful than the Great Music, it can make Ea out of nothingness and it can make a lesser spirit a god."
And for the first time Eve actually had felt pity for the dark lord of Mordor. A grand design of some purity that had become more and more twisted with the compromises he’s made to achieve that end. He sacrificed everything to create this 'order' he so craved, unaware with each step he took, he was borne further and further away from that original intent, until finally what he became was unrecognisable and corrupted.
Searan saw her pity and it burned him hotter than the furnace blast from the dragon's nostrils. Fury rose like bile and he swung his fist in a backhanded blow, striking her so hard that it dislodged Eve from the back of the dragon's back and sending her plummeting towards the ocean below. Her screams trailed her departure, rising above the wind as she plunged from the great height. For a moment he remained still, struggling to regain the composure she had so unexpectedly shaken until a fragile sort of calm returned to him amidst her distant screaming.
Cursing under his breath, Saeran barked at Ancalagon in exasperation. “Retrieve her!”
As you wish, the dragon answered and swooped down to capture the screaming woman in his giant claws.
Whilst he did so, Saeran was almost certain he could hear Ancalagon laugh.
********
The silence as they drove to Bristol Airport was the silence of mourning.
There had been plenty of it when Frank, Miranda and Eric rejoined them at the Royal Oaks in Winsford. From the parents, there had been guilt and the children felt the loss of a favourite uncle but for Eric; it was far worse. Bryan couldn't speak to what the man was feeling per say but he understood the anguish well enough. Eric and Jason had been a team for years, had seen each other through the best and worst of things and now that Jason was gone, the usually unflappable Australian had lost a vital part of his being.
There were no words of comfort that could be offered of course, Bryan knew that. Such platitudes had been meaningless when Tory was taken away from him, so it would be to Eric. It was not to say that Aaron didn't try. The former psychiatrist was bound by his vocation to offer help even when he himself was in an emotional turmoil. It was Legolas that seemed to knew best what to do. Bryan understood then the price of immortality which was to watch helplessly as friends and lovers die, whether through violence or the ravages of age.
Perhaps that was why Legolas could never see Ariel as little more than a replacement for the woman he lost so long ago. Her mortality had set her apart from the elf's lovely wife and no matter how much Legolas might deny it, it was that humanity that had drawn him to her in the first place. Bryan couldn't speak to it himself but if he had a chance to have Tory back, there wasn't anything he wouldn't do to make her happy. Human or elf.
Saeran's revenge it seemed had taken its toll on them. Even if they defeated the bastard, he'd still win.
Nevertheless, their silent journey to Bristol didn't feel any less urgent. As they approached Bristol, the sporadic news reports that came crackling out of Radio 1 painted a grim picture indeed. Saeran's army of orcs and monsters had crossed the channel and were now in France. Preceding them were the dragons that laid waste to everything before them. The dreaded monsters had no match in the sky. Planes that were despatched easily as the fire drakes melted fuselage with their terrible breath if they weren't taken apart by mighty claws. Modern warfare knew nothing of mithriel or that the underbelly was the only vulnerable part of the creatures.
In Germany and Romania, monstrous beast men were appearing from the cracks of the Earth, from the former enclaves of Moria and Mordor, decimating the population, armed with modern weapons but possessing animal brutality that swept across the landscape like a scourge. From the north, the great wyrms, asleep for centuries were making their way to join Saeran's growing army. The cold drakes were laying waste to everything in front of them, turning whole towns into sculptures of ice.
When the military was dispatched, the Nine would sweep in and with their black breath, unleashed a plague on the men that dropped them in their tracks, allowing the wargs, orcs and spiders to move in. Broadcasters that dared to remain in the area revealed fantastical tales of carnage in the streets that would have been considered ludicrous on any day, if not the fact that thousands were dying with each second that passed.
However, not all the stories were terrible ones.
One reporters had said that salvation had come out of the mists in a flotilla of great ships that looked like seabirds gliding across the ocean. The strangers had helped the London police take back the city and now had the continent in their sights. As suddenly as they had appeared to help fight the 'orcs' as they'd told the stunned humans whom they'd encountered, they were gone again. Retreating in their magnificent ships, in pursuit of Saeran's army.
The rest of the globe had yet to be affected but they did not know what Bryan and his company knew; that the Three was at this moment, inching it closer and closer to nuclear Armageddon.
One way or another, they had to reach Saeran and put an end to this before it was too late.
********
While not as large or as busy as Heathrow, Bristol's air traffic was bustling with enough activity to earn itself a fairly modern airport with all the facilities that was required of the demanding air traveller. As they approached it, they saw the sprawl that radiated from the original terminal building, now relegated for use of private air charters. Smaller jets, Lears and Cessnas, peered at them through half open hangar doors, inviting them in as Bryan parked the car.
Air travel had been suspended the instant the first footage of the dragons hit the airwaves. With the RAF scrambling jets to deal with the impossible enemy, civilian air traffic had come to a standstill. An incredulous and then horrified nation had watched as the phalanx of Euro fighter Typhoons were quickly overcome by the great dragons who showed no fear at modern weaponry. After the first of the Typhoons had been torn apart by the dragons and sent to earth in a fiery balls of twisted iron, no one in authority wanted to risk the same happening to a 747.
That didn't mean anything to the terrified masses who were seeking to leave the isle for safer ground. As they passed the main airport, Bryan could see the increasing number of vehicles attempting to reach the main terminal, with passengers hoping to be first in line when flights embargo was lifted.
Bryan did not waste his time going there. Commercial carriers wouldn't be flying but he knew that those who were willing to pay for a private air charter would always find someone who was willing to throw caution to the wind for the right price. Even as they drove up, he could see several smaller air craft approaching the tarmac, waiting to pick up their passengers, the heat from their engines, warping the air as they idled .
Telling the others to remain in the vehicles for now, It was he, Miranda and Lori who emerged to make their 'travel arrangements'.
********
"Stay here," Bryan told Lori before they got to the door, handing her the Glock at the same time.
"Stay here?" Lori's eyes widened as she saw Bryan reach into his jacket and produce an Uzi. Miranda who had gone ahead and was approaching the doors, was pulling back the safety on the Micro-Uzi she was carrying.
"You wait here. When I give you the signal, get the others." He ordered and started after the his one time partner in the field. " In the meantime, you're our lookout."
"Look out? We're not robbing a bank here!" Lori pointed out, suddenly gaining and inkling about just how nasty things were about to get in the terminal, "Wait,' she hissed after him before he got too far away, “What’s the signal?”
“Oh you’ll know ,” Bryan retorted, not looking back as he hastened his pace to catch up with Miranda.
Americans, he thought, preferring Lori to remain outside because she was to him, still an untested ally. He had no idea what she was like in a fight. In fact, they knew very little about her at all other than the fact that she was Isaiah Hill's daughter and once was Lothiriel of Dol Amroth. Their paths had crossed because of circumstance and Bryan didn't possess the patience to examine Aaron’s theory of a cosmic turntable where their present selves would keep running into the people they’d known back in the Third Age.
At this moment, he knew Lori was a military pilot. That was a tangible fact he could rely upon, just as surely as he knew that being a military pilot didn’t guarantee she was any good in close quarters combat which was what this was likely to become. Airport Security had changed considerably after the Towers had come down. Bryan wasn't kidding himself that this could get bloody. He hope that he and Miranda could surprise security well enough to minimize the violence.
Reaching Miranda, he glanced sideways at her. "Ready to do this luv?"
Miranda nodded, the last few years had sharpened the edge she had erroneously believed dulled by motherhood and marriage. "Yeah don’t faff about on my account Tyke, let's get it done." She retorted and strode through the automatic doors imperiously through Bryan caught the little smirk on her lips.
"Right Gaffer," he said following her in. "I hope being a mum hasn’t made you a soft."
"No softer than your brain," she made a face at him.
When Miranda and Bryan stepped into the private terminal, the difference between it and the rest of Bristol Airport was immediately apparent. Plush rugs covered the parquet floor surrounded by glass walls that gave a sweeping view of the tarmac and the planes taxiing away from the terminals towards the runaway. However, even in this opulent surroundings, desperation wore the same face. It was easy to see who had secured flights and who hadn’t.
Those who did not were bartering at the various counters, offering the operators everything they could to charter a flight. By the anxious looks on the counter operators’ faces, it was clear that availability did not measure up to the current demand. Those who had flights were seated on comfortable leather sofas, flipping through magazines with a look of boredom that indicative of the idle rich, waiting for their eminent departures, oblivious to the haggling taking place around them.
In response to the growing tension at the counters, security guards kept their attention on the unsuccessful travellers, trying to determine if desperation would escalate into violence.
Good, Bryan thought. As long as they were paying attention to the counter, they weren’t focussed on what was happening elsewhere.
The distracted security guards allowed the two former MI6 agents to survey the rest of the passengers, in particular those who had already secured flights out and were sitting in the lounge, adorned with mink coats and accompanied by their matching luggage, awaiting to board their flights.
Bryan’s gaze came to rest on a sexy blond with nice tits, carrying a furry rodent disguised as a dog, listening with boredom to a short bald man, wearing an expensive but ill fitting suit, a gold Rolex and carrying out a conversation that reeked of obnoxiousness.
Taking a step towards Miranda, he whispered in her ear. “Them.”
Miranda followed his gaze and wasn’t surprised that he’d opted for the statuesque blond and her so obviously paid for boobs. How does one wear Chanel and still manage to look so tarty?
“Nice,” she said sarcastically.
Bryan went to wait in line, taking up position behind a customer who was having a heated discussion with a female member of the ground crew behind the counter. It was a discussion that was fast becoming a full blown argument due to his impatience at being unable to secure a plane for charter. One of the security guards were eyeing like a person of interest which allowed Bryan to stand surreptitiously nearby. The man who was bellowing in a thick Mediterranean accent commanded everyone’s attention which served Bryans purpose perfectly.
Meanwhile Miranda had taken a seat near the couple they had spied earlier. The woman continued to look bored and earned Miranda’s distaste by chewing gum like she was a caricature of a dizzy Brooklyn broad from a Scorsese film. By now, Miranda had come to the conclusion that the blond was a mistress since all her fingers except the one for a wedding ring was adorned with jewellery. The same could not be said for the man who was talking to someone about falling real estate prices.
How could anyone think about real estate at a time like this?
Miranda continued her observation though she was becoming more impatient by the second by the fact that people like this could exist when others, like Jason had died for her children. Her guilt at not being there for Eric’s best friend gnawed at her and gave her new resolve to put an end to Saeran and his bloody war. It made what came next so much easier, when she had a definite goal in mind especially when she saw the couple’s pilot appear.
He had stepped through a rear door leading to the tarmac where a Lear 25 had just rolled into position near the terminal for its passengers to embark. When he approached the couple, Miranda met Bryan’s gaze and he agreed with her that the moment had come. His nod had gone unnoticed by the guard whose attention was still very much fixated on the man arguing at the counter. Acknowledging his signal with a imperceptible nod of her own, Miranda moved into action.
So fast that no one noticed until she pulled the trigger, the hail of bullets escaping from the snub nose barrel tore through the air with a thunderous roar of noise. Immediately, people drop to the floor screaming. The security guard swung in her direction and was immediately brought down by the butt of Bryan’s gun on the back of his neck. Another guard raised his gun and Miranda aimed at his lower half. A bullet tore through his knee and brought him down with a cry of pain, blood quickly flowing from the shattered bone and ruined flesh beneath his pant’s leg.
He’ll live, she thought.
“Alright!” Miranda shouted, noticing that Bryan was covering her as she addressed her audience. “Now that I’ve got your attention, please stay calm. We don’t want to kill anybody but we’re not above wounding a few of you if you give us any bloody trouble. You!” She barked at another security guard who was trying to decide whether or not to shoot, “drop the gun and kicked towards me!”
The man’s face glowered in anger as he debated the choice before him and for a moment, Miranda thought he might do something stupid. Fortunately, common sense prevailed and he obeyed, kicking the Beretta, causing it to slide across the floor towards her.
“Got my back Tyke?” She called out to Bryan who was making his own attempts to secure the perimeter.
“Always luv,” Bryan thought, finding it ironic that it was Miranda who was the harder of the two of them.
Bending over, she picked up the gun and tucked it into her pants. “Over there,” she waved him to safe corner where she could keep an eye on him while keeping him at a safe distance. The guard obeyed once more, while the passengers remained cowered, watching her with frightened eyes.
Turning her attention to the couple and their pilot once more, Miranda said sweetly, “I’m afraid we’re going to need to have a lend of your plane.”
********
Less than ten minutes later, Bryan was securing the door to the Lear while the rest of their company settled themselves into the comfortable seats of the jet.
As expected, Lori had hailed the others as soon as she heard the eruption of gunfire and led them to the terminal. Once their craft was identified, she and Eric headed for it, unceremoniously ejecting the pilot who had been awaiting his passengers to board. As Eric escorted the outrage man off his plane, Lori slid behind the controls and continued with the take off procedures.
"We're good to go!" Bryan hollered up the length the plane as he saw everyone was secured and took a seat next to Fred.
She didn't answer but the gentle jerk forward of the plane told Bryan she had heard him well enough and he eased back into the seat to see terminal being left behind as the craft started to move. The low drone of the engines had increased in pitch as the Lear left the tarmac and headed towards the runaway. From the cockpit, he could hear Lori's indifferent exchange with air traffic control demanding she surrender the plane and return to the terminal.
Bryan had no concerns that she'd be swayed by threats. The pilot knew what was at stake. The fate of the world hung in the balance and its survival depended on them reaching David Saeran before it was all too late. The impending threat of nuclear Armageddon far outweighed any punishment that air traffic control could come up with.
********
Sitting in silent contemplation, Aaron felt exhausted as the plane left the ground and headed for its destination in Romania. The deaths of Tory and Jason, the absence of Gandalf and Eve, Legolas' estrangement with Ariel, all of it had taken its toll on them. For his part, he tried not to think of what was happening to Eve, what agonies she was suffering as Saeran used his powers to accelerate the growth of their child. What was she going through right now? What terrible things was the bastard subjecting her to in his insane quest for vengeance?
Aaron had never felt so damn helpless in his whole life.
"Your wife is strong," Fred's small voice spoke suddenly as if she could read the thoughts in his head. He honestly wouldn’t be surprised if she could. At this point, anything was possible. In any case, Aaron had given up trying to figure out what was using Fred's body to speak, aware that only that it was a being whose was not only powerful but wise.
"Her faith in you is unshakeable,” Fred continued. “She clings to it and it is a hope not even Melkor's servant can break."
"I hope so," he admitted quietly. "He's using the baby to break her, I know it."
Bryan did not protest because he agreed with the psychiatrist. Saeran’s hatred for all of them showed the man had no limits to the amount of damage he was willing to inflict upon them. There had been no reason to kill Tory, he thought bitterly to himself. He’d done it out of sheer spite and it wouldn’t surprise Bryan that he was torturing Eve and her child for that same reason.
"You are right," Fred didn't bother to shield him from that fact. "But her love for you and your child will help her prevail against him."
“We should have killed him the last time,” Bryan retorted. “We should have finished him once and for all.”
“We couldn’t and you know why,” Aaron returned. “His spirit would have just found somewhere else to hide.”
It was a pointless argument that changed nothing so Bryan let it go. Besides, he had his own way of dealing with Saeran and his way, would be decisive. As he thought that, he saw Fred staring at him and even though she said nothing, Bryan knew what she was thinking.
I know your plan.
********
The land was in turmoil.
The children of the Aerie could sense it like a scream in the night and feel its writhing anguish in the winds that borne them. In the distance beyond the jagged spine of the Pelori, they could see fires burning throughout the many cities of the Eldar. From the air, they spied Valimar, Formenos and Aquallonde ablaze, the amber dance of fire across the land seemed like erupting boils on flesh. Their number was torn between their allegiance to the Eldar who dwelt in this cities, now battling the foulest creatures of Melkor’s pit and their search to discover what had become of Mount Taniquetil.
They circled the Pelori Mountains, seeking out Ilmarin, where the Lord of the Air Manwë, ruled Arda with his Queen, Varda who held mastery over the heavens. However, the great mansion of the Wind Lord remained as elusive the vanished peak of Taniquetil. Still, despite its absence, they could feel his presence. Like the blind man who knew there was something lurking in the dark, they sensed that their master was just beyond the veil.
They were spread across the length and breadth of the Endless Lands. Some of them continued to seek a way to reach Manwë and the Valar while others took up the mantle of message bearers. They carried the news of the assault upon Valinor by the unleashed creatures of the Forbidden Vaults to the Eldar scattered across the land, too far away from the cities to know that Melkor’s servants had been awakened and was now bringing Arda to the edge of disaster. The greatest of them, Grinmir, whose lineage could be led all the way to Throndor, joined the battle against the balrogs decimating the cities.
It did not matter where they were; when the voice spoke to them, children of the Aerie heard.
Your fight is not here in Aman, children of the Aerie. Your fight is in Arda.
The armies of the dark lord lay siege to Arda and the Edain cannot fight them alone.
The armies of light must come forward to be counted in the battle ahead.
Fly the winds of the Straight Road, the way is open to you.
This is the time for all to stand united, the End of Days has come.
The voice did not belong to Manwë but their fealty to it could not be denied.
The children of the Aerie had not seen the lands of Arda since the First Age and though there was apprehension at leaving the Blessed Lands for the unknown world beyond, there was also excitement. It was in their nature to be the messengers of Manwë and when need be, the thunderbolts he hurled against his foes and those who would blight the beauty of Arda. Like their brethren who dwelt high in the peaks of Crissaegrim during the First Age of the Sun, the children of the Aerie would answer the call of Arda in its time of need.
It was time for the Eagles to return to the world of men.
When the lift doors opened, depositing them on the surface once again, Miranda was certain that they would have to fight their way out of the mansion in the same manner they had departed the underground realm of Moria. However, instead of being confrAlthough piloting a Lear jet for the purpose of pre-empting the arrival a dark lord to his ancient lair was beyond the scope of what she considered normal; Captain Lori Hill still derived some comfort at being in the air again.
Piloting the jet across the English Channel and into the European continent was something she could do. The simple act of sitting behind the controls and flying the craft from one place to another did much to restore the equilibrium so put out off balance since bailing out of her fighter above Exeter. For someone as practical as she, who lived in a world with strictly defined boundaries, the events of the last few days had shaken the foundations of her dependable existence.
As she flew eastward, Lori knew she hadn’t quite escaped the strange events that were spanning the globe thanks to David Saeran or depending on whom you asked, the dark lord Sauron. It was evident in the silence over the airwaves as she flew towards Romania. Lori had expected being inundated with the outraged cries of air traffic controllers demanding their immediate landing for stealing an aircraft or at the very least; for not lodging a flight plan. However, the further into Europe they traversed, the less likely it seemed that anyone was concerned at their violation of airspace. In a post 9/11 world, it was simply abnormal.
There came a point when she began searching herself, the various radio channels for any kind of chatter from air traffic control but all she received other than the random bursts of static and broken news reports spoken first in French and then later German, was the same disturbing quiet. She was no stranger to radio silence but after England and seeing the broadcasts there, she’d hoped the insanity hadn’t reached this far. She was wrong.
As a pilot, she was always accustomed to facing the vastness of the sky with voices of others chattering in her ear. If it wasn’t ground control, it was the comrades in her squadron and even the chatter of civilian air traffic authorities was welcomed. The silence not only felt eerie but also lonely. She wondered if people knew that pilots and birds had more in common than they knew. Even if the difference was defined by flocks instead of squadrons, each had their own sense of unity in flight. Lori had come to rely on that solidarity and now as she embarked on a mission to destroy a dark lord who was bent on destroying the world (how did that not sound stupid??), that unity was greatly missed.
A professional soldier, she had thought that there was little that could unsettle her. When you dropped bombs over targets that had to produce civilian casualties, you developed a thick skin or be unable to function at all. Yet was happening now, terrified her.
Lori had seen a dragon, an honest to god fucking dragon and it was nothing like television or the movies had envisioned. The creature had been huge, possessing the wing span of a 747. When it hovered over her fighter, it had cast a shadow that blocked the sun. It had peered at her through the canopy of her fighter, with its glowing red eyes almost seemed like it was sneering at her. As it was intelligent enough to know that she was insignificant.
The horror hadn’t ended there either. When she landed in Exeter and saw that ruined town, with its massacred dead, she knew she’d never sleep well again. Her dreams would forever be plagued by the images of swollen black bodies attached to spindly legs and mandibles that could tear flesh. The spiders of course were only the scavengers left behind to feast on the poor souls that hadn’t been killed when Saeran’s army moved through the town like a scourge from hell.
She’d been saved by the very strangers she was now flying to Romania. Even if she did not know them well, she could see that they were shell shocked, every one of them. Lori knew what battle fatigue looked like and recognized it in varying degrees in at least three of them. The Brit with the James Bond cool, giving all the orders, was holding them together but there was ripcord waiting to be pulled on the world of pain hidden behind his eyes. The doctor was in almost as bad shape. He was driving them hard to get to his wife, the terrified pregnant woman Lori had seen swollen with child even though she supposed to be a few weeks along.
Then there was Erik, whom she'd thought was cute because of his pretty eyes and chewable lips that was now just as broken as the others. His best friend hadn't made it back and it seemed like it was yet another tragedy these people been forced to endure since this all began. She felt for him but did not know him enough to offer comfort. She left that to the mom and pop who assured him that his friend’s sacrifice had saved their children’s lives and it was not in vain. It was still cold comfort in Lori’s opinion.
And then of course, there was little Fred.
Fred who looked like a seven year old girl but sounded like Yoda and seemed to know about what was happening than any of the adults around her. More than anything, hearing her speak with portents of doom exuding from every word she said, made Lori want to demand a timeout so she could get off this ride. Without the chatter, Lori decided, these were the thoughts that occupied her mind and she wished it would stop...
“Hello”.
Lori did a double take and turned her head away from the cockpit. She found herself staring at the little moppet who was the youngest of the Miller children. Lori remembered his name was Pip. Cute.
"Hi there," Lori greeted back with an encouraging smile. She didn’t have much experience with children and never knew what to say to them. “What can I do for you?”
In a whisper, Pip replied. “My brother says that you fly army airplanes. Is that true?” His eyes stared at her with the wonder and anticipation that could only come with childhood.
Army airplanes, Lori smiled at the description and answered, “It sure is."'
"Wow," he exclaimed, Pip’s face lighting up with excitement. "Have you been on many missions? Did you shoot down enemy planes, you know...like in...Top Gun?”
“Top Gun?” Lori stared at him incredulously, laughing. “How do you even know that movie? It was around when I was a kid!”
“I saw it on cable telly. It had the Mission Impossible man on it,” he explained as matter of factly, like this was information everyone should have had.
“So have you been on many missions?” He asked again before remembering to keep his voice low. Pip was certain that if mum and dad heard him, they’d call him away thinking he was bothering her.
“A few,” she smiled, wondering what it was about little boys that loved hearing about battles and such. Then again, she was her father’s daughter and she’d been no different herself.
“Did you shoot at the Russians?” Pip asked as he moved furtively into the co-pilot’s seat, awaiting her answer with rapt anticipation.
It astonished Lori that with all the terrible things this child had undoubtedly seen in the last two days, Pip still maintained possessed childhood wonder. Even more so when one remembered that he and his older brother had barely escaped being killed by the same monster that’d killed Eric’s best friend. Children had more resilience than adults, Lori decided and realised that if child could keep it together than so could she.
“No Russians,” she answered, “but I have had a few skirmishes with Iraqis...”
********
An hour after they’d taken off from Bristow airport and were well across the Channel, Bryan noted that everyone had started to relax as much as they could, considering were they going. The trip across Europe would take them five hours due to the speed of smaller aircraft and the fact that their starting point had been Bristol. By the second hour, the day had caught up with some of them and the MI6 agent could hear light snores throughout the cabin.
He noted Aaron had fallen asleep which was a good thing because the doctor had been tense and fearful for most of their trip back to England worrying about Eve. A few hours rest would probably do little to abate his anxieties but it wouldn’t hurt either. Frank had also nodded off, with Sammy draped across his lap. Miranda was sitting next to Eric and though Bryan couldn’t hear what they were saying since they spoke in quiet tones, he imagined Miranda was doing what she could to comfort the man over the loss of Jason.
Fred continued to stare out the window, with thoughts so beyond any of them that Bryan was hesitant to interrupt her. Truth be told, she unnerved him a little.
Standing up from his seat next to her, Fred didn’t notice his departure as Bryan made his way to the galley. Thankfully, the expensive tastes of the original passengers ensured that it was fully stocked for their journey. This included a good supply of alcohol and Bryan was pleasantly surprised by the cans of John Smith’s Extra Smooth properly chilled by now. Twisting the bottle top open, he took a swig and savoured the taste before returning to his seat.
Passing Legolas, he saw the elf looking troubled in his seat. Not because of what they were facing or the fact that the elf was never really comfortable with air travel, Bryan wagered but with the state he had left things with his wife, Ariel. He’d been aware that the elf and his lady had parted company before they’d left Valinor and he’d heard something of the discussion between Legolas and Aaron but had not broached the subject with Legolas himself.
“You alright?” He asked lowering himself into the seat across the elf.
Legolas faced Bryan and answered somewhat sedately, “Do I not seem well?"
“Not really,” Bryan said frankly, in no mood to lie and he suspected neither Legolas was in the same frame of mind.
“I supposed I do not,” Legolas sighed unable to argue with this truth. “I have much on my mind.”
Bryan nodded. "You thinking about your missus?"
Legolas frowned, finding it unseemly to address Ariel as such but then it appeared to be a habit of the Edain in these times to label people and objects with such informality. “Yes, I am considering what she has said about our marriage. I cannot fault her for being angry. As I told Aaron earlier, perhaps it would be the most merciful thing to let her find another.”
Bryan raised a brow, “I thought you elves couldn’t do that.” Bryan hadn’t made it a point to study everything about elven culture the way Frank and Aaron had but that much he knew about their relationships.
"We can't but then it has never been quite that simple with Ariel,” Legolas confessed and then felt immediately guilty because he was the one who had complicated their relationship. “When I first met her, I knew her. I knew her soul. I could not have joined with her otherwise. She had Melia’s spirit in her. Eru always said that the souls of men do not go to the same place as the Eldar so I believe that she was returned to me except....” his voice trailed off.
“Except?” Bryan prompted. “Except what?”
“Except she wasn’t Melia.”
Saying it out loud felt almost profane, like it had been this secret he had been holding onto for so very long. Yet at the same time, Legolas felt liberated as well. The admission had sat upon the tip of his tongue for so long that and now that he had spoken it out loud, wondered how he could have kept silent for so long.
"What was she like?" Bryan asked gently, seeing real anguish on Legolas’ face at reaching that conclusion.
Bryan never thought about the soul because men like him couldn’t afford to. A soldier couldn’t think about the other bloke and the life being taken away. However, if he had formed any thoughts about it, his conclusion would have been that the soul was merely essence. Each new iteration or reincarnation as was the case here was an opportunity to be better than what came before. Bryan knew that he shared some of Boromir’s traits from what Legolas and Gandalf had told him. However, the difference between Bryan and Boromir was that he never felt weighted down by his duty to Queen and Country the way Boromir felt weighted by Gondor.
“Human,” Legolas answered softly, his eyes glistening with emotion. Even now, so long after she had died, it hurt him to think of her. “Wonderfully human. We fought all the time and yet it was the conflict that made me adore her so. Melia possessed a temper, was often unreasonable but she was also wise. Every day I spent with her was a surprise to me and I have never understood how to live without her.” His voice cracked a little as he said those last words.
“But you’re not without her Legolas,” Bryan pointed out, wondering how someone so long lived could miss the point entirely. “You married an elf, expecting a human and now you’re disappointed that she’s not exactly the same as Melia?”
“I am not disappointed,” Legolas started to protest but Bryan cut him off.
“She’s here, this woman you loved. Stop living with the idea of who she was and think of her now. She is here as an elf who can share the rest of your life with you.” Bryan declared and then paused a moment, collecting his thoughts and solidifying his composure. “There is nothing I wouldn’t do to have that. Tory is gone and I know I’ll never see her again but your missus is here and she loves you. Don’t turn your back on that because of a memory.”
Legolas swallowed because Bryan was right. He had never been able to get past the loss of Melia, he knew somewhere inside Ariel, his former love was there and he had hoped to draw her out, to experience life with her as he had in the Third Age. However, she was not there in the way he believed she was and the expectation had forced him to ignore everything else about his wife.
He felt ashamed and wondered with the End of Days here, was it at all possible to rectify his error. Whether he had any reason to expect a chance to make amends. Then he recalled what Bryan said about Tory and his oath that he would have done anything to be with his love again.
He had once made a similar statement about Melia and now it appeared, he had utterly failed to keep that promise.
********
Marie Dumas knew she shouldn't be out on the street this morning.
She'd seen the news and knew that there were strange things happening in France. Last night, she watched horrifying images of carnage on the Chaîne 2 with her room mates Francois and Michel with disbelief. At Sangatte, Calais, terrible creatures that defied modern belief, poured out of the Chunnel from England and began a bloody rampage in the small community that serviced busy travellers coming or going the British Isles from Europe.
The broadcast had been erratic, as if it were fighting to penetrate the fog of static to reach them on the screen. Fuzzy images revealed mutant looking men that was the only way she could think to describe them, attacking innocents with crude and cruel looking weapons. Misshapen, diseased, with dark, greenish skin that seemed slimy, they wore sinister leers that added to their already malevolent features. Some snapped their teeth at the camera, almost amused they were being recorded, happy to show their barbarism and they hacked some poor innocent to pieces in front of a horrified audience.
The military had gone into interfere because France and the world had been somewhat aware of the situation in England. Their appearance provided no comfort, even when the scene became punctuated with burst of artillery fire. While she, Michael and Francois were uncertain what they were seeing on the screen, there was no mistaking the shape that had swooped down on the soldier, astride some kind of flying dinosaur. A dragon, she thought at the time until of course, she saw Paris burning and knew what a dragon really looked like.
The shape, all dressed in black, made her immediately think of the Dementors from Harry Potter. But unlike those floating, fictional spectres, this thing was real. Astride his mount, it dived towards the soldiers and uttered a scream. It was muted by the television broadcast but Marie felt chilled to the core when she saw the soldiers react to the sound violently. They collapsed on the ground, holding their ears and screaming as if their ear drums had been bursts, every one of them, with blood oozing out down their necks.
They lay there senseless until set upon by the enemy, the mutant men, and the wolves the size of bears, so large that they could be ridden and the spiders. The spiders, all sized like large dogs, skittered across the street on the ground or alongside buildings, moving in unison like a black swarm that gave her nightmares for the rest of the night. The spectre thing seemed to be leading the nightmarish invaders and every time they were challenged, it dealt with the enemy in much the same manner.
They seemed unstoppable.
Marie, Michel and Francois debated what to do that night. Francois had packed up immediately and gone to fetch his parents to escape away from the approaching horde. Michel had opted to stay put and advised Marie to do the same. For that evening, she complied.
Today was a different matter.
The enemy had arrived in Paris. She hadn't remained to watch all the details on the television but she'd seen enough. Paris was burning and the city was mobilized in a way it had not been since the Second World War, when its citizens had battled the Nazis at the gate. Marie hoped, this time Paris would fare better. The radio had started the morning off with reports that the army was evacuating people across the city. Michel had asked her to go with him until Marie received a call from her papa who worked at the Louvre.
Papa had said to come to the Louvre. Many people were gathering there and it was one of the most secure places in France, if not Europe. Post World War II and more recently with the rise of terrorism in the modern world, the Louvre had been properly fortified against the worst threats. Marie had ventured out into the streets and confronted by scenes that seemed straight out of the newsreel of the two great wars. In the distance, she could see the Eiffel Tower and her jaw dropped in horror.
Perched on top of it, the way a pigeon might roost, she saw something decidedly reptilian clinging to the metal latticework, its saurian neck reared up as it breathed a wall of flame into the sky. Its wings flapped behind its back and Marie thought she was still in her bed dreaming. A dragon. It was dragon. The creature was not alone. They soared above the cities, bellowing their absolute mastery of the skies in ear piercing roars breathed in flame. Their cries drowned out the jet engines of fighter jets attempting to fight them off; no matter how unmatched the combat might appear.
Smoke was rising into the Parisian sky as she was buildings engulfed in flames Cloud of the stuff billowed into the air, like signal fires across the city. Maries had dressed warmly, wearing boots and a parka, a backpack slung over her shoulders filled with the essentials for someone who expected to live rough for an indefinite time. Hurrying along the walkway that took her past the Tulleries with the Seine on her right flank, she ignored the sounds of gunfire, the screaming and the debris littered streets. The streets that were devoid of people.
So intent was she to avoid the danger on route to the Louvre, Marie forgot about the River.
When it came and snatched her off the ground, she was taken completely by surprise. One minute she was running, the next she was in the air, with something thick and wet clamped around her foot. She uttered a short cry at first, mostly because she'd been startled until whatever had her foot lifted her over the railing and she was dangling by the ankle over the waters of the Seine. When the Watcher made its presence known, emerging from the depths as the waters rushed over its slick body to reveal its full monstrous, that's when Marie understood the real nature of her predicament.
She'd never screamed in her life but as she saw the widening jaws of the beast beneath her, the one about to make a meal of her with its foot long teeth, she screamed with pure terror and did not stop. Her mind overloading at the horror of the death she was about to experiencing, there was no time for rational thought to debate how this beast could exist any more than the thing perched atop the Eiffel Tower. Arms flailing helplessly, Marie struggled to escape frantically, her cries of hysterical screams of desperation.
All of a sudden, something flew through the air. It caught the sunlight as it streaked past her. Thick and silverish in colour, it struck the beast in what passed for its skull. Black ooze that didn't look quite like blood, sputtered from the raw wound as the harpoon dug deep into the slick, dark flesh. The creature bellowed with agony, releasing her ankle in response. Marie's screams were abruptly silenced by the sudden impact against the water. As the dark waters swallowed her, she felt herself sinking towards the depth, dragged down by the weight of her backpack.
She saw the creature in its entirety then, a thing with too many tentacles, swirling about her in reaction to the pain while above the water, it was thrashing. It wasn't alone either.
Mon dieu, there was more than one!
The creatures seemed engaged by what was happening on the surface and Marie had bigger problems as she struggled to unfasten the clasp of her backpack. Her lung were burning as she struggled to make her fingers work despite the cool of the water and her intense fear. Her fingers refused to cooperate and had she been able to cry out with frustration she would have done so. It was becoming harder and harder to concentrate and her disorientation from the lack of oxygen was further hindering her attempts to get free.
And then from nowhere, a hand clasped around her waist, she tried to scream again thinking that it was one of the creatures coming back for her. She struggled but briefly when she saw it was not a tentacle around her but an arm. The weight on her back suddenly vanished and she saw her backpack tumbling into the depth. No chance to turn around, she was suddenly pulled towards the surface. The sun beckoned her in the sky above and Marie never thought she'd seen anything look so beautiful.
When she broke surface she did so gasping, taking greedy gulps of air like the starving man at a feast. Panting so hard, she started coughing, she felt herself being taken to the edge of the water. Marie hadn't regained her composure enough to note what was happening around her, only that seconds later, she was being hoisted onto the steps leading from the walkway to the water's edge.
"Breathe easy my lady," her rescuer said to her.
Marie stopped coughing long enough to look up and then she saw the most beautiful face she had ever seen in her whole life. Even though she was just as drenched as he, Marie found herself staring in astonishment at this man who was dressed like a warrior from the medieval age with breeches and tunic like those she had seen in museum. His dark hair was tied back and his eyes were a smoky grey and his chiselled features look at her with concern.
"Am I dead?" She asked softly.
When he smiled, her heart near melted in her chest. "You are very much alive my lady, although badly shaken I suspect."
"ELLADAN!" Someone shouted. "Prepare to move into the city, the Orcs are making towards the capital!"
The handsome stranger turned away from her to the river. Marie's gaze followed his and then her jaw dropped once. This time not from the horrible creatures that were swimming in the Seine nor the man that had saved her. No, her breath was taken away by the ships.
The ships that looked like great, gliding birds across the water at dawn. She saw the warriors on the deck doing battle with the monsters, firing harpoons and arrows
The one who had shouted at him was approaching the shore in a smaller version of those boats, accompanied by more of these stranger warriors.
He turned back to Marie, "I would ask that you find a place of safety my lady, there is much evil afoot in your city this day and my brothers and I must attend to it."
Marie could only nod dumbfounded and as he hurried away, cursed herself at not thanking him for saving her life from that terrible creature and from drowning.
And for not giving him her number.
********
Captain Henri Jardin had no idea what to expect.
Like the rest of his comrades who made the 1/7 fighter squadron Provence, he had watched in disbelief and horror as the strange invaders who had devastated the English countryside before turning London into a warzone had crossed the channel tunnel to emerge on French soil. At Calais, the army of fantastic and deadly creatures had decimated Sangatte and when the Armée de Terre moved to intercept, they were rendered defenceless by means no one was able to explain Soldiers carrying heavily artillery were somehow incapacitated and then hacked to pieces by enemy forces.
The invaders made no attempt to identify themselves as they continued eastward, pillaging and sacking, like the relic of an ancient past, where such things were done as a proof of brutal superiority as well as power.
Henri knew that his squadron was not the first to engage the enemy in the air. Others had gone to provide air support to the Armée de Terre but these had not returned. There was talk of great monsters in the air that were capable of tearing fighter jets apart like paper planes but Henri was above listening to such rumours and not about to jeopardize the mission he and his comrades were embarking by listening to talk that would cause undue fear. The silence of those other squadrons spoke volumes already.
The situation was not aided by the lack of accurate intelligence about what they were facing. They'd seen the broadcasts from England, seen the brutish, malformed faces of humanoid creatures that Henri would hesitated to call men as they murdered civilian in the streets, aided with large dogs that tore people apart and huge spiders that set upon victims like a pack of lions on a gazelle in the savannah. However, these were disjointed and only appeared to show the worst excesses of the enemy as they terrorized London.
The pattern continued when they came to France. Radio communication became severely affected, like a solar flare was frying every frequency that was used to broadcast. Nothing worked as it should and as result, the forces in authority had difficulty attempting to coordinate a plan of attack which Henri suspected was the intent all along. When broadcasts were allowed to reach their audience, the mages piercing the shroud of static depicted the slaughter to the terrified masses.
Proof of power, Henri thought to himself.
In an effort to minimize the loss of life, the military divided their resources between evacuating the areas in the path of the enemy and preparing defensive lines to keep from moving any further into France. Throughout the night, the evacuations continued, barely ahead of the enemy but those had been smaller communities, townships and villages. Paris was another matter entirely.
Paris or La Ville-Lumière was a city of millions and evacuation was not possible, not in the amount of time they had. Authorities refused to surrender their city to the invaders. Though decades in the past, the memory of the Nazis matching beneath the Arch de Triomphe was one none were willing to relive. Marshalling all their forces, the Armée de Terre and the Armée de l'Air decided that they would halt the enemy at Paris or die trying.
Thus was the reason that Henri and the pilots under his command flew their twin-engined, canard delta-wing, multirole Dassault Rafale fighters towards the city, crossing over the edge of Paris and heading towards the city centre. Beneath them, the Armée de Terre were spreading across the nineteen arrondissements of Paris, setting up blockades to hold back the invader.
"*Remember," Henri spoke into his headset to the pilots under his command. "Hold position. We do not know what took down the others and I don't want us getting twitchy until we know what that is."
Answers to the affirmative return and Henri frowned because usually there was a sense of confidence in the voices he was hearing. Not today, the images on the screen had done its work, it had scared them.
"My God!" Someone gasped and Henri identified it as belonging to Philippe.
It didn't take him but a split second to see what had caused the man's exclamation. Beneath them, the city was in flames. From Montparnasse to Parc de Belleville, it seemed as if God had smitten the city in punishment for its excesses. The air was thick with smoke, making visibility with the ground poor. Henri thought he could see the Sapeurs-pompiers in their red fire trucks speeding along roads choked with the traffic of people still trying to escape, the ones who had left it too late to evacuate.
“Hold it together!” Henri snapped, not wanting the scenes of chaos below to distract them. While terrible, his mind was occupied by what had caused the flames. He could recognize the burn pattern on the roof tops and had been in enough combat missions to recognize that the point of origin had not been from the ground but rather the air. Something was up here, the same something that had defeated the English and set London burning.
It did not take long for that something to make its appearance.
It was morning and yet a shadow fell over the fighter group heading towards the centre of Paris. At first Henri thought the sun had merely disappeared behind the clouds but when he looked up, what he saw told him it was nothing that benign.
“Mère de Dieu!” He gasped as he saw them breaking through the clouds, dispersing the crystal white particles of cold air in all directions.
There were at least five of them and with their wings expanded, the creatures were large enough to block out the sun without the assistance of the clouds. Varying in size from DC-10s to 747s. Henri recalled thinking absurdly that even now, he could only think of dimensions in terms of how closely they matched planes. Their reptilian hides were made up of a mixture of dark emerald or deep, amber scales. Prominent ridges ran from the top of their elongated skulls along their bridge of their saurian necks before disappearing into the spokes of their spinal ridge.
Dragons, Henri thought. These were dragons.
If it wasn't for the fact that the creatures had moved into a formation of their own, one which looked distinctly like a pattern of attack, Henri would have basked in the sight of them, indulging the little boy in him who believed in such things. However, he was an adult and a soldier who remembered the burning city beneath him and the pilots who had not returned from Calais.
"Break formation!! He barked as the largest of the dragons swooped towards him. He had only a second to see it overshadow his canopy when he fired his rear thrusters and the fighter pulled back sharply. The airspace in front of him was immediately filled with the bulk of the dragon that would have undoubtedly landed on his plane and sent it plummeting to the ground by its weight alone. Ignoring his incredulity at what was transpiring, Henri wasted no time opening fire, sending a barrage of bullets at beast. The creature reared its head back, momentarily surprised by the noise but other than that, remained unaffected.
Henri thought it might have leered at him, a crocodile smile full of teeth. Its nostrils snorted and in a split second of insight, Henri pulled hard on the throttle, causing the fighter to go into a barrel roll, just as the dragon expelled a blast of at him. Hot jets of flame, almost napalm induced in its intensity came rushing at him. Its a fire breathing dragon, he thought to himself. By now, he had abandoned any attempt to comprehend how any of this could be.
Struggling to regain control of his aircraft, he heard the scream of one of his men and caught a brief glimpse of a fighter caught in a deadly tail spin before it smashed against a skyscraper, the Concorde La Fayette, before exploding in a fireball of heat, flame and fused glass.
Gaston! Henri's jaw clenched in righteous fury and he drove his craft into a neat arc and surge forward again, fifty calibre shells exploding from his gun turrets as he went after the nearest dragon. When it reached his crosshairs, he disengaged from normal artillery and fired one of his missile instead The Storm Shadow aircraft missile exploded from the underside of Rafale’s wing and moved soared through the air, a trail of white smoke chasing it burner until it struck the beast on the belly.
The fireball that resulted made him turn away from the brilliance of the eruption. The shockwave, the air turbulence and the glare made him momentarily disoriented but through the brief fog, he thought he heard the outrage screeching of not just one dragon but all of them. Their bellows ignited the sky with orange tongues of flame and eclipsed the powerful roar of his plane’s engines. Only when he regained his equilibrium somewhat, did Henri realise what had caused their rage.
The dragon he had fired the missile at was hurtling towards the ground, its belly smoking. While the rest of it seemed intact, Henri glimpsed its underbelly and it to be a ruin of charred flesh.
Suddenly, Henri understood.
Without missing a beat, he shouted into his headset at anyone left in his comrades to hear. “GO FOR THE UNDERSIDE!!!!" He knew his squadron was fighting for their lives and the evidence of two thick columns of smoke rising from the ground was indication that at least two of them had lost that battle.
There was no time to feel remorse or anger at their deaths, not when the dragon whom he had first eluded was determined to end him. It lowered itself into his flight path, head bowed in readiness to attack. There was no mistaking the hatred in its yellowed eyes filled with rage or the malice in the bared foot long teeth. Henri braced himself for the worst, determined to fight but bearing no illusions that his plane was no match for the dragon’s mastery of the air.
Drawing in a deep breath, Captain Henri Renard decided he would not give it the pleasure of taking him easily. He would fight to the last. Pressing his thumb against the fire button, he took and was about to shoot...
....when suddenly something down from above and slammed the dragon hard in midair.
The force of the impact send the beast tumbling sideways through the air, its wing flapping about it in an unruly mess. Its long neck whipped from side to side, lashing about like live cable. Attached to its side, with talons so long and sharp that he could hardly process it, was an eagle. An eagle that matched the dragon in size and was attacking it with a powerful beak.
Henri blinked.
For a moment, he thought he was experiencing a dying induced illusion of rescue but then he saw the sky grow dark again and this time, instead of dragons, it was a flock of majestic eagles coming towards him. The birds were, larger than houses, easily matching the dragons in size. They engage the flying reptiles in a savage struggle of beak and claw.
Henri would have continued to stare if not for the frantic scream of one of his men. He looked about frantically and caught sight one of his men or in this case, woman, being flung from the cockpit of her plane. Karine! He thought as his heart clenched in his chest. The dragon had ripped her from her seat as easily as it had torn off the canopy of her plane and tossed her aside like rubbish. Karine continued to plummet in free fall, her screams following her down as the ground waited to claim her.
She had fallen a few more meters when an eagle dove down, its mighty expanded to its full span. It swooped down and placed itself beneath the terrified pilot. Karine landed in the soft space between its wings, behind the bird’s neck.
She is safe, Edain.
He was going mad, he had to be, Henri thought. He saw the biggest of the birds fly alongside his jet, easily keeping pace with him. Henri stared at it in awe and swore the bird was looking directly at him.
I am Grinmir, Lord of the Eagles. We have come to help.
This time, Henri was convinced that the eagle was speaking to him and tentatively responded.
From where?
From the Undying Land across the sea, Edain. The dragons cannot be harmed save their bellies. We will distract the for you, do not waste the opportunity.
His breath caught and he had his answer. If there were dragons in the air, then there were eagles that could speak. It was astonishing how quickly he reconciled with this fact and the certainty that the eagles were allies.
With that thought in mind, he issued new orders to his men. He didn’t know how many of his squadron was still in the air to listen but he would make them hear. “All fighters, do not fire at the eagles!. Do you copy, do NOT FIRE at the eagles. They are not hostiles!”
Very good Edain, Grimnir’s strange voice spoke in his mind. Now let us show you how it was done in the War of the Wrath.
*******
Saeran stood at the edge of the cliff overlooking the ruin of what had been his fortress only a short two years before.
He’d expended a century building a domain worthy of him, a monument to his former stronghold of Bara-dur. Eru’s final reconfiguration of Arda had crushed Ephel Duath and Mount Doom upon each other, whilst folding the Plateau of Gorgoroth and the ruins of Bara-dur between them. The land of Mordor was heaved and torn apart, shaped into what was now the Carpathian Mountains and the regions of Transylvania. Yet neither difference of name or time could alter what this place had been, what power he had over it. His evil had lingered and he tyrants who came after him was a testament to his legacy upon the world.
For a hundred years, it had required workmen and artisans to resurrect his fortress again. For the first half of those hundred years, much of the work had been done by hand and in the latter half, machinery had been used to finalise the construction. Now that he stood here, with the world quaking at his touch, his Nazgul fully restored, leading his armies and agents to the end of all things, he knew he would need no assistance in rebuilding Bara-dur.
This time, Melkor’s power serve well enough.
Eve had never wanted to come back to this place again. Two years ago, they had fought David Saeran here and believed him defeated. However, victory like all things, was fleeting and now she stood by him on the ragged edge of the cliff, looking down into the crevasse where his fortress had crumbled after she and Bryan Miller had blown the place apart. Behind her, the dragon Anacalgon and Morgul, waited patiently for their master to act.
She had listened to Morgul explain that Dwaw and Khamul, the other Nazgul had crossed the Pacific and were now in the United States. The possibilities for destruction they could cause there, terrified Eve.
For now, she had to remain silent. She had to play the part of the broken victim because she knew Aaron and the others were coming. She had to stall Saeran and not give him an excuse to harm her or the baby any more than he had. As she thought of the child whose presence she could feel even more acutely now, her arm itself wrapped around her swollen body. The effect of the baby’s accelerated growth now meant that Eve was in constant discomfort and she did her best to endure it silently. She could feel cramps in her lower abdomen and feel the muscles of her belly tightened involuntarily but none of these, she showed Saeran.
Eve had no intention of showing the bastard any weakness.
At present, Saeran was more interested in what lay in the bottom of the crevasse. He looked thoughtful as if he could seen the ruins of his fortress in the darkness below. However, it was not the most recent incarnation of his domain that he envisaged. No, he had a grander design in mind. Closing his eyes, he spread out his arms, like a dark god gesturing his minions to come forward. As he did so, the ground beneath them began to rumble, though no one except Eve appeared to be surprised by this.
A cloud of dust rose from the fissure as if the earth had held a breath and was now expelling into the air. Eve dropped to her hands and knees, unable to maintain her balance as the tremors grew more and more violent. Heart pounding, she felt the tightening in her muscles and knew the baby must be feeling her fear. Forcing herself to regain her composure, Eve could only gape when she a jagged tip of obsidian appeared over the edge of the cliff and then continued its ascent towards the sky.
As it emerged, smaller pieces began to fall away from the larger formation, creating more clouds of dust that her coughing harder and causing the pain in her body to become even sharper. The intensity of her pain increased proportionately with the forces Saeran was manipulating as he continued to sculpt his latest creation. The obsidian rock began to take shape and Eve’s breath caught when she realised what it was he was building. She had seen the pictures of this forming structure once before. In the libraries of Tirion, where those who remembered it, had put to paper the images of Mordor.
Terraced around the base of the structure in several ascending tiers, the structured tapered into a tower that stood so high, Eve was certain it would have dwarfed anything in the modern world. The top of the spire split into two prongs, not unlike the forked tongue of a serpent. When it was done and capturing the sunlight against its dull surface, the black against the blue sky looked like a tear in the fabric of the world.
Once again, the dark tower of Bara-dur was in the world of men.
“Home,” Eve heard Morgul hiss with the closest the wraith come to emotion.
Once Sauron had torn this former king who had been blinded by greed, away form his kingdom, Eve supposed that Bara-dur was indeed home to him and the rest of Nine. However, she made no comment because she was overcome with shaper and sharper pains in her lower abdomen. She could not even stand now that the spectacle was done, forced to remain on her hands and needs, like a dog at her master’s feet.
“Can you smell it?” Saeran turned around and faced them gleefully, oblivious at this point to her pain. “Obsidian made from the solidified lava of Mount Doom,” he announced to them. “Now we are truly home!”
“The female has soiled herself,” Morgul retorted dryly, his words dripping with contempt and disgust.
Had she? Eve thought to herself, aware of moisture running down her legs, humiliated by her weakness not only in front of Saeran but also the Witch King who had made no attempts to hide his confusion at why Saeran was keeping her alive. Eve looked down and saw the fluid puddling on the rocky ground beneath her feet, her thighs slick with damp. It didn’t feel like she had lost control of her bodily functions and yet when she tried to stand upright, a gasp of pain escaped her.
“Really Morgul,” Saeran stared at Eve with a curious expression on his face, “you conquered Angmar, laid waste to Arnor and reigned in darkness at my side for thousands of years. In all that time, did you never encountered a woman about to give birth?”
Eve’s eyes widened in horror at the realisation that he was right. Oh God, her water had just broke.
Her baby was coming now.
THE PENTAGON
WASHINGTON, USA
They were not prepared for this.
Since the end of Second World War, America had emerged on the global stage as a superpower and defended her borders against all enemies, foreign and domestic. With an annual expenditure of 600 billion dollars that was used to maintain the superiority of its army, navy and air force, America prided itself in its readiness to deal with any threat. In the wars that had come and gone, some hot, some cold, American had defended herself with varying degrees of success but never with half measures.
Thus it was with a sense of irony that General Dennis Etherton, Army Chief of Staff, watched the screen in front of him with the rest of the Joint Chiefs and the Secretary of Defence, without the faintest idea of what to do.
For almost four days, an unexplained phenomenon had disrupted the transmissions from their satellites in orbit. While the images had been poor, there was enough clarity in them to tell them that something was going on. Coupled with the reports from Europe, the images created fierce debate as to their validity as it appeared old world monsters were rampaging across the continents, acting as the vanguard for a mysterious non-human army.
Scientists had attributed the disruption to unpredicted solar flare but could not explain the creatures appearing in the broadcasts. Surely if this was a hoax, European broadcasters would be facilitating panic by showing them to the public? Logical reasons were applied to illogical occurrences even though the erratic images continued to flood the airwaves, challenging belief and sanity.
Then, less than an hour ago, the disruption cleared like a veil had been lifted from their eyes and now the transmissions, whatever their authenticity poured in with complete clarity and left no one any doubt as to what they were faced with.
In the war room of the Pentagon, Dennis joined the other military officials, collating what data they had received prior to the most recent transmissions, attempting to determine what was to be done about the situation.
One of their own submarine commanders, a respected and capable naval officer who had never shown an iota of aberrant behaviour in almost 30 years at sea, had reported sightings of undersea creatures that were terrorizing the Thames and were now moving rapidly up the Seine, snatching civilians off the shore as they progressed. British and French authorities were reporting a strange army of creatures moving through their cities, burning, pillaging and leaving so many dead that evacuation had become necessary.
Further evidence came in the camera footage from a squadron of US Gripen fighters that had been in England on exercises, revealing both theirs and British planes attacked in mid-flight. Large, reptilian creatures had intercepted them in the air and then ripped their fuselage apart while others were hit with what seemed like napalm. In flames and shredded, pilot were then discarded from their ruined cockpits like rubbish, sent screaming to their deaths from a thousand feet up. In Norway, more of the things were moving south and while these were not breathing fire, the towns that they had passed through had experienced an extreme case of flash freezing that no one survived. Whole towns were left encased in ice and those who had not died frozen were slaughtered in a pattern that could only be attributed to feeding.
By dragons. That was the word that no one dared to say but all silently agreed was what they were seeing. Like the others, Dennis' jaw was agape viewing the huge, serpentine creatures hovering above the skies of London and Paris, having razed those cities to the ground with their fire-breathing abilities. Apart of them watched in awe and another part watched in horror. No one could bring themselves to admit that they now lived in a world of not just dragons but dragons that could breathe fire or ice.
And then of course, there was the island.
The island that until a few days ago had managed to remain invisible for the duration of recorded history. It was almost the size of Great Britain and yet had never been seen or charted by sailors, cartographers or satellites for that matter. There had never even the slightest murmur of its existence in old sea shanties alleged in the same breathe as mermaids, sea monsters and the Bermuda Triangle.
Its arrival was so without warning, that only a supernatural device that none in the room was capable of rationalising, could be attributed to its sudden appearance. In an instant, where nothing had been, the island had appeared to scream its arrival to every global positioning device on the planet. Not only revealing a new geographical formation to the world but also the emergence of a possibly new nation among them.
A nation of non-homo sapiens.
“I still can’t believe it,” General Frank Grass shook his head, trying to wrap his brain around the fantastic images he was witnessing. He looked at the others at the table, needing to say something to refute the obvious. Unfortunately, no such reassurance was coming. They looked as bamboozled as he was.
The Secretary of Defence, Chuck Hagel, shifted in his seat before retorting, “Gentlemen, if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck. That usually means it’s a duck. It looks unbelievable but we’ve receive too much data to indicate it’s not. So at this point, we can either keep denying what we’re seeing or we can start deciding what we’re going to do. The Europeans are evacuating people all across the continent. We have to face the facts that something is going on and it’s not the Chinese, the North Koreans or even the fucking Arabs. This is something and it’s spreading.”
"I’ve known Captain Isaiah Hill for thirty years. He’s a good man and so is his crew,” Admiral Jonathan Greenert of Naval Operations declared. “He would never had put any of this in a report unless he was absolutely certain of what he was seeing. The fleets of ships he accompanied to England contain friendlies who have been assisting the English and French fight these things.”
"So we're expected to believe, that these friendlies who happen to be...” Marine Commander James Amos trailed off unable to complete the sentence before adding, “I can’t even say it.”
“Elves?” Hagel retorted with a hint of a smirk on his lips.
“Elves,” Amos resumed, “living on an island in the middle of the North Sea that no one has ever seen, is the origin of these creatures that are now being led by John Malcolm’s successor? David Saeran?" The absurdity of the statement showed in Amos' face.
"Well if the reports are to be believed, these things aren't just coming from the island,” Chairman Martin Dempsey pointed out, “they're emerging from Germany, Belarus and Romania. Look we can bury our heads in the sand and argue that all of this is crazy but the fact of the matter is, that the threat exists and it’s getting worse. We need to determine if we should act because Captain Hill believes this will be hitting us soon."
“Then I recommend we move to DEFCON 2.” Dennis declared immediately and for a flash of an instant, wondered where the words had come from. The thought had appeared so suddenly, he didn’t recall pondering his before. “I say we make a pre-emptive strike before it reaches us. It’s like excising the infected tissue, stop it before it spreads any further. We take out Europe and stop the threat there before it moves to Asia and the rest of the world."
Greenert simply stared. “Defcon 2? Are you serious?” His question was half disbelief and half astonishment at the mere suggestion of such extremes.
“Absolutely,” Dennis stated without reservation, “we nuke them.”
An audible gasp rippled through the group of men who were accustomed to debating this very situation on numerous occasion but often as a last resort. There were protocols and steps to take before even considering the option and even then, no one was terribly eager to use it.
"Dennis have you lost your fucking mind?" Hagel exclaimed. "Are you telling me to go to the President of United States and recommend that we nuke Europe to save our asses? In effect, annihilating our NATO allies?"
"We are saving the rest of the world," Dennis insisted, oblivious to the shocked expressions on the faces around him. "Their own reports indicate that their soldiers are falling down comatose whenever these armies approach. Those dragons are decimating our aerial fleet and God only knows what those sea monsters are going to do if we sent boats after them. In the meantime, people are dying by the thousands. If they get here, we may not be able to mount a defence any more effectively than the Europeans and we would have lost our best chance to end this decisively. A nuclear strike will settle this before it comes to American soil."
"We are not talking about this," Hagel declared, wondering what the hell had gotten into Dennis. The man was a moderate for Christ sake. Since when did he become Dick Cheney?
When Dennis surveyed the room, the wreckage of the recommendation raining down on him, he noted the lack of support from his colleagues. No one could meet him in the eye and everyone seemed to be taking inordinate interest in their papers, their ties and in some cases, each other. But not him. He let the matter rest at that, suspecting that pressing his views would have him tossed out of the room and taken out of the decision making process entirely.
They're all weak, a voice that didn't sound like his own whispered in his ear. They don't want to face the truth, don’t want to realise how dire the situation really is.
It was true, they didn't. Dennis agreed wholeheartedly with the devil on his shoulder. They were all afraid that they might be facing an enemy they could not cope with. This threat was so far away from the conventional enemies they'd fought all their lives, that taking decisive action was beyond them. They are terrified to face that they’re completely out of their death. Didn’t they realise that decisive action was needed in extreme circumstances.
Clinton was right. They should have reacted to 9/11 with a nuclear deterrent. That would have put paid to all the fuckers in the Middle East bitching about Allah and Christ knows what else. Let them go to their heaven with their forty virgins and an afterlife of song and drink. At least the sons of bitches wouldn't be bombing innocent civilians.
They were weak then and they're weak now. The voice insisted. You need to do something Dennis. You need to do it now. Roll the dice Dennis and this time you won't be doing it alone, we'll be with you. This is your destiny.
Yes. Dennis thought to himself, unaware that he was stroking the ring that had belonged to Walter Green. It was his destiny to save America.
******
BRASOV, ROMANIA
There was only one thing running through Aaron’s mind when the Lear jet landed in Brasov Romania; the Lord of Mordor was reclaiming his kingdom.
Even before they’d landed, while the plane was still flying over the city, there was no doubt that the restoration of Mordor was underway. With columns of black smoke rising into the skyline like funeral pyres being lit in mourning the end of their way of life, the annihilation of men was moving ahead with brutal efficient. Whole sections of Brasov appeared to be under siege, with local authorities doing their best to combat the monstrous army had finally been unleashed from its hatchery beneath Saeran’s ruined fortress.
Descending into the airfield, the destruction appeared near complete with demolished buildings radiating from the centre of the city, chasing fires that were raging through city blocks and consuming the neighbourhoods beyond. Roads were covered with debris, with cars overturned or reduced to burning wreckage. Among the debris and flaming wrecks were the bodies of the slaughtered, left to bloat and rot where they’d fallen. It was like watching a news broadcast of a warzone in Mogadishu or Baghdad.
After Valinor, the last few days had been a stark return to reality of the modern world.
Of course, he should have expected this. Since Saeran had murdered Tory, abducted Eve and unleashed the entire host of the Forbidden Vaults on the world, it was just a matter of time before he reclaimed his former kingdom. After all, modern day Romania was where Mordor had been. Two years ago, he’d even built his fortress on the approximate site of where Barad-ur had been. Aaron had no doubt that when they finally reached Saeran, Barad-ur would be restored in some fashion.
It was ironic that as much as Sauron believed he was no longer making the mistakes that had led to his downfall in the Third Age, he was still driven to recreate his future in the image of his past.
And it was past that for some reason involved Eve. Aaron had originally thought that Saeran had taken Eve as vengeance against him, the way he’d murdered Tory to get back at Bryan. However, the acceleration of the baby’s growth told Aaron that Saeran had a darker purpose in mind although at the moment, he couldn’t imagine what that could be. He suspected Fred had an inkling but the little girl was giving away nothing at present. Aaron wanted to ask her, wanted to shake the truth out of her and demand to know what it was Saeran was planning for Eve but he held back, suspecting her silence may be for his sake more than anything else.
They all knew Fred was being inhabited by something, something very old and powerful, older even than the Galadriel. Legolas believed it could be Manwe or Gandalf, reaching beyond the veil that Saeran had created to trap them in that other realm that had protected the elves for so long. Perhaps working through Fred was the only way that they knew how to penetrate the barrier.
And yet, Aaron knew instinctively that Legolas was wrong. Someone else was in there with Fred, but he was convinced it was someone they’d never met before.
********
With the low drone of the jet’s engines beneath them, Bryan leaned forward over Lori’s shoulder as the plane taxied down the empty airfield. “Get us as close as you can to the terminal,” he ordered gesturing to the grey building next to the aluminium maintenance hangar.
“You got it,” Lori nodded guessing he wanted to limit how much time they spent out in the open before they were on the road again. Judging from the silence she had encountered upon entering Romanian airspace, the same chaos that had pursued them from England to France had also reached the furthermost Balkan state. As before, she heard bursts of civilian chatter on the airwaves but no one asked her to identify herself, her plane or even demand a flight plane. Like the rest of Europe, Brasov was also silent.
“What’s the plan Tyke?” Miranda asked as she paused at the doorway leading into the cockpit.
Giving her a look at the Yorkie nickname she’d bestowed on him, Bryan replied, “we need to get across the airfield without every bastard seeing us. The other lot is still in France, they couldn’t have gotten here that quickly. So it’s got to be those bloody Uruk-hai he had breeding under his fortress. Aaron thinks he woke them for this.”
Bryan wondered what kind of defences Brasov would have against the Uruks and suspected it wouldn't be much. Romania wasn't the US, where every supermarket sold guns with non-existent waiting periods. The people of Romania would not be as armed as the Uruks undoubtedly would be. It would be a slaughter.
Miranda sucked in her breath, hating to admit that he was probably right. She remembered Irina Sadko’s twisted plan, how she’d continued the work in Germany. She had ensured that there would be an army waiting for him when Saeran returned to the world.
Thank Christ the psychotic bitch was dead.
“How many of them does he have?” Lori inquired as she veered the nose of the plane away from the flags that indicated landing zones and continued her approach towards the terminal building.
Miranda exchanged a glance with Bryan before answering quietly, “If it’s the same as Germany, thousands.”
That made the pilot pause long enough to glance over her shoulder at Miranda, her face revealing her shock. “Thousands?”
“Yeah, thousands,” Bryan admitted begrudgingly. “The fucker’s been playing this Armageddon for Christ knows how long. Maybe even when John Malcom was running the show.” Bryan said bitterly. It was ironic that Bryan never had any concept of the man he was tracking for all those years. David Saeran and Black Serpent had been his obsession and only until Fred entered his life did he realise just how dangerous the man really was. “We just never knew it.”
********
The plane finally came to a stop outside the terminal, an aging, near-dilapidated building that was constructed during communist days when aesthetics had been sacrificed for functionality. Despite protests from the others, in particular Aaron, Bryan, Miranda and Legolas disembarked first. Bryan wanted everyone else to remain on the place in case they were ambushed by Uruks and needed to make a hasty departure. Although it was not possible to land the Lear in the Carpathian Mountains where Saeran's fortress was located, they could still leave the immediate area if the situation demanded it.
The terminal was located on the outskirts of Brasov, which itself was not really a large city and the surrounding area was an industrial zone of similarly dour buildings that hadn't looked occupied in some time. Only the terminal appeared to have been trafficked lately which concerned Bryan because they needed a vehicle to get to Saeran.
Legolas had gone ahead to scout the area because he had the ability to sense danger that Bryan and Miranda, with all their training did not possess. Waiting to him against the sheltered wall of the terminal and the maintenance, they kept the plane with sight while Legolas circled the building for a preliminary sweep. Even though the heart of Brasov was some distance away, the air was filled with sound of the violence taking place there. The staccato rhythm of gunfire disrupted the rustle of breeze in short abrupt bursts, followed by screaming and explosions.
“I saw no one," Legolas reported when he returned to them. "However, I can smell their foul stench," his nose wrinkling in contempt as he spoke. "They are less than a league away from here and are moving quickly. We should not linger here long.”
Bryan had no idea what a ‘league’ was but had expected as much. "Saeran's knows we'll be coming after him and we're not stupid enough to try and get through his beastie army." He said grimly.
"I don't much like our chances of finding a car," Miranda added, sweeping her gaze across the near empty landscape. "I doubt that there's that many about now. Even if there had been, I'd wager they got nicked by people trying to do a runner from those Uruks."
“Perhaps if we instruct Lori to take the children somewhere safe, we could proceed on foot, until we find a faster way to reach him,” Legolas suggested meeting Miranda’s gaze as he spoke. “At least they won’t be in danger from the Uruk-hai.”
"Absolutely not," Miranda declared, refusing to entertain the notion in any shape or form. She'd already seen what had happened to Jason when they'd left the children. She was not risking them or anyone who was trying to protect them. “We’ve already lost Jason and Eric’s…” her voice faltered. “He’s not in good shape.”
Since they’d found each other, Miranda couldn’t help but be drawn to Eric Rowan the way she’d never connected with her sister or any of her family. Among them, she’d always felt out of place and even though she still had difficulty believing this whole business of reincarnation, she couldn’t deny that Eric did feel like her brother. In Valinor, they had become friends and then family. It broke her heart to see his pain and know that there was nothing she could do to help. It made her want to smash something.
Bryan reached for her arm and squeezed, offering his sympathy as much as he was capable at the moment but they had more important things to deal with. “We don’t have the time to make it there on foot,” he answered Legolas. “Those Uruks will be running us down every step of the way. Besides, I think we all know that it doesn't matter if we leave the kids behind or not. Sam, Pip and Fred are not children to Saeran, they're hobbits and worse yet, they’re the hobbits who beat him the last time. Even if he gets us, he’ll still come after them for revenge.”
To that, Legolas could not disagree. Sauron's hatred of the hobbits was deep. The dark lord could not forget that his humiliating defeat in the Third Age was bound to the actions of a race in Middle Earth he had deemed insignificant.
"You are right Bryan," he nodded. "Then what course shall we take?"
"Tell the others to get ready to move," Bryan said after a moment. "We may have to go into town to find a way to reach him. In the meantime, I want to see what's in that hangar. There might be a maintenance truck or something, it’s an airfield right?"
Miranda did not appear optimistic at the idea but knew they had little choice in the matter. They were running out of time. With Fred’s announcement that the rings were back in play and a nuclear holocaust might Saeran’s end game, they simply had to reach him.
"I'll go get the others," she volunteered, leaving his question unanswered. Pushing herself away from the wall, she rounded the corner in a second, her gun leading the way as she made a beeline for the plane.
“Right let’s do this,” Bryan declared and Legolas offered him a nod of acknowledgement before the elf sprinted across the patch of short grass between the terminal and hangar to reach the smaller door next to the main hangar entrance. Bryan followed him closely, eyes darting about to ensure that the Uruk’s hadn’t shown yet.
Legolas pulled open the door and stepped into the darkness, his nose curling in disgust at the strong stench of chemicals the Edain seemed to revere. He could see shapes but nothing resembling the vehicles that Bryan believed they needed so desperately. "I do not see anything..." he started to say when light flooded the large, expansive room.
Bryan had had searched the space along the doorway inside the hangar a second after Legolas had entered it. It hadn’t taken him long to locate a light switch that was probably old thirty years ago and fumbled to flick it on as it was rusted. The switch gave way with slight metallic wince before the powerful lights illuminated the inside of the building.
While there was no cars or trucks present as he'd hoped, inside the aluminium construction with its mesh superstructure, its ramps, machinery, crates, drums (presumably filled with fuel) and other equipment was something that made that absence tolerable. It sat in the middle of the hangar and brought a smile to his lips when he took in the sight of it.
“What is it?” Legolas asked.
“Just what we need,” Bryan said with a sneer.
********
Aaron had been slightly incensed when Bryan told him to stay inside the vehicle, aware that the former spy did not think him capable of defending himself or covering his back in a firefight. Truth be told; Aaron was too much a doctor to ever be comfortable with pulling the trigger of a gun the way Bryan and Miranda did. He could hold his own in his fight mostly because Bryan, Eve and Legolas had taken pains to teach him how but he was never going to be the warrior king that Aragorn had been.
Still, Eve was his wife and he was prepared to do whatever it took to get her and their baby back alive. Even kill.
Thus when Miranda came to get them, Aaron was more than ready to move. They'd gathered all the weapons they'd collected on route, taking as much as they could carry before abandoning the plane and following her out into airfield. As they emerged, the distant rumble of gunfire and artillery renewed his sense of foreboding and Aaron remembered what Tirion had looked like before they left Valinor. Before the end, Saeran, no Sauron, they had to stop thinking he was anyone else, was going to see the world burn.
"Did we find a car?" Aaron looked up from his thoughts when he heard Frank ask Miranda the question. Frank was carrying Pip in his arms, while Sam and Fred stayed close together as they always did, trailing behind the archaeologist and his wife.
"Not yet but Bryan and Legolas are checking the hangar but I'm not holding out much hope." There was a decided lack of encouragement in her tone.
"I'm not surprised," Frank sighed, "with what we saw over the city, any car that isn't wrecked is probably on its way out of town with people trying to escape those damn Uruks."
"Any chance we can make it to Searan in the Lear?" Aaron asked, directing the question at Lori who was walking behind him next to Eric. Now that they were so close to Eve, Aaron didn't want to be held up any longer than necessary.
"I can try," the pilot replied but the doubt in her expression was clear. Lori glanced over her shoulder at the jet in contemplation, trying to determine if there any real chance of making the trip there. After a moment, she answered, "It won't be easy though. We'd have to be able to navigate through those mountains and then find a track or road long enough or clear enough for me to put down without crashing. “It will be a risky gamble."
"Which means the odds are good we'll bloody crash," Eric declared pointedly, breaking his self-imposed silence for the first time since they'd left England. Until now, everyone had respected his silence, aware that he was still grieving and wanted to give him some scant time to mourn his best friend in peace. He deserved longer but like Bryan, they didn't have time to spare.
Lori shot him a look of sharp annoyance. "I wouldn't put it quite that way," she returned although it was not all that far from the truth.
"But pretty close to it I reckon," Eric snorted, not about to stand on diplomacy. "If we don't crash, the dragons will take us out anyway."
"Hey!" Frank declared, noting the anxious faces on his sons. They didn't need to be any more frightened than they already were. As it was Frank wasn't happy that the children were still with them. He'd prefer them away somewhere safe but the circumstances had deemed otherwise. He didn't want them to feel worse by Eric's stark reminder of the odds they were facing.
"The dragons are still in France aren't they?" Lori asked in an effort to diffuse the situation. As annoyed as she was with Eric, she understood his demeanour. Like him, she'd lost friends over the skies of Exeter and the anger and frustration of that loss was something with which she could relate.
"Not for long," Eric returned bitterly. "All these attacks, the sudden communications black out, it’s all for a purpose. Trust me, this long in the broadcast news game and I know what it looks like when somebody's setting the stage for a show. The way he's been disrupting satellite transmissions so the folks at home gets bits and pieces of the picture, showing just enough to make sure everyone's good and frightened but not enough to know what's really going on, he's building up to the grand finale."
"This is about fear," Aaron declared with a sudden flash of insight. "It’s not the people in Europe he's trying to scare shitless but the ones the countries controlling nukes. America, Russia and China. He's letting them see what's happening, showing them that the Nazguls' Black Breath is defeating our armies and the dragons are decimating our air capability. That's where the rings are, the ones from two years ago. All he has to do is create enough fear and panic and the brass in all those countries will start considering a nuclear solution. All he has to do is get one person to wear a ring who can press the button and he'll annihilate the human race without firing a shot."
"Jesus," Lori gasped, the enormity of it settling into her brain. It was a good plan because people were just that paranoid when they were afraid.
"How long do we have you think?" Frank asked. "Days?"
Fred spoke for the first time. "Hours."
Suddenly Miranda cried out. "Get down!"
Her words had no sooner left her lips when a burst of gunfire exploded around them, forcing the group to get down low immediately. Aaron looked up long enough to see a cadre of Uruk-hai taking position at the far end of the terminal, setting up to gun them down. Even though the creatures were relics of the Third Age, at this moment, they were very much a modern fighting force. All of them were armed with machine guns and wearing body armour.
Miranda wasted no time. They were out in the open and their nearest cover was the hangar. Reaching into her kit, she thanked Bryan Miller for the paranoid, militant bastard that he was and pulled the pin on the F1 grenade.
"When I throw this, RUN!" That was all the warning she gave before she bowled her best cricket delivery and sent the grenade flying through the air.
It landed a few feet shy of the target but that much Miranda was grateful for. She knew she'd never actually hit them but the aim of the exercise was to ensure that the explosion gave them enough of an opening to reach the safety of the hangar. As expected, the lobbing of the grenade had the Uruks retreating before it actually hit.
"Go! Go! Go! Get the kids!" She shouted when the grenade detonated, sending a ball of flame in all directions, the concussive forces flattening anything and anyone nearby.
Frank didn't have to be told twice. When it came to such matters, he obeyed his wife without question. This was what Miranda trained to do and she'd proved on occasions how capable she was at it. He already had Pip in his arms and didn't have to look behind him to see Eric bend over to sweep Sam off the ground and carry him towards the hangar. Aaron had done the same to Fred, slinging his gun over his shoulder and ferrying the little girl away from the danger behind them.
Only Lori lingered behind, watching Miranda retreating along with him. The Uruks were disorientated but they were recovering quickly. Giving them no opportunity to draw breath, she let rip a hail of bullets in their direction, forcing them to retreat further behind the terminal building. She had no illusions that they were coming back real soon and felt Miranda's hand grip her arm and pulled her towards the hangar.
They were almost to it when the other contingent of Uruks appeared from the other side of the terminal. They'd circled the building and outflanked them. Lori and Miranda raised their M-16s to fire when an arrow flew past them and struck the nearest beast in the throat, followed by another arrow, giving the second approaching creature no chance to react.
"Move your arses!" Bryan bellowed, making Lori jump just before he started blasting, adding his gunfire to Legolas' superb marksmanship.
The two women raced through the door like sprinters racing for the finish line. The urgency of the situation kept them from taking offense at his hard tone. Once they were through, Bryan turned his attention to Legolas who was still firing arrows at the Uruks. Bryan himself was laying down suppressing fire, keeping them back until his brother’s wife and their pilot were safely inside.
"You too!" He ordered the archer, grabbing Legolas’ arm and gesturing him to go inside. Legolas nodded and Bryan covered his retreat by emptying an entire clip at the Uruks. He had put down a number of them but they were still coming. Bryan could see them emerging from both ends of the terminal building. Withdrawing, he started to reach for the door to shut it as he entered the hangar when the Uruks started firing again.
The bullet caught him on the side.
White hot lead tore straight through his jacket and penetrated his flesh. He wasn’t exactly sure where he was hit but the force of it was enough to knock the wind out of him. The pain was exquisite and bloody well made his knees buckled. He forced himself to regain his footing so the others wouldn’t see what had happened. He’d been shot before and knew this was no minor injury but there were still bullets flying past him and Bryan had presence of mind to squeeze off a few more rounds before he slammed the door shut behind him.
Fuck, Bryan cursed as he checked quickly the wound quickly before he re-joined the others. Pulling his jacket over the darkening stain on his shirt, Bryan was grateful that he liked wearing darker colours as it hid the extent of the damage he'd sustained. As expected, the others were preoccupied with their find in the hangar.
"Can you fly it?" Bryan heard Eric asking Lori about the Mil Mi-17 ‘Hip’ Soviet helicopter that he and Legolas had found earlier.
“We don’t have much of a choice,” Bryan announced himself to the others, ensuring he projected no sign of injury, even if he was moving a little more gingerly than usual. “That door isn’t going to hold them for any more than a few minutes. I had a chance to look it over, she’s got a half a tank of fuel but that’s plenty to get to us to Saeran.”
Lori had not answered, determined to see for herself if the craft was safe to fly. Seated in the cockpit, she went through the motions of bringing the chopper to life, until the propeller above the craft started to turn slowly.
“If it’s in a maintenance hangar, doesn’t that mean that there’s something wrong with it?” Frank pointed out the obvious.
“Even if there is something wrong with it, we don’t have a choice. We’re cut off from the plane and it won’t be long before those Uruks come through the door. We have to leave,” Aaron said firmly. “And we have leave now.”
Almost on cute, the gun fire resumed with bullets tearing through the thin metal walls of the hangar. One of them caught Eric on the thigh and he went down cursing, clutching his wounded leg.
“ERIC!” Miranda cried out in horror.
“I’m alright, I’m alright!” Eric declared hastily as he stood up painfully, blood running down the leg of his jeans. “It’s just a flesh wound! Get on the chopper!” He said struggling to his feet.
“You heard him!” Bryan added his voice to the mix before turning to Legolas. He couldn’t move fast enough and they needed speed more than anything else. The bullets were coming faster and faster through the walls, they were smashing glass, slamming against machinery. If they didn’t get killed by the bullets they’d be cut to ribbons by the ricochet. “Legolas, we need to get those doors open! You need to push that button there!” He pointed to the angry red button protruding from the panel next to the door.
“It will be done,” Legolas retorted and moved quickly towards the device as Bryan his head down, wincing because the compression of his ribs was only aggravating the gunshot would he suffered as he advanced upon the chopper.
The shooting caused Lori to forgo the usual pre-flight check as she flicked on switches and knobs on the central console. As the craft powered up, the main and rudder rotors began to pick up speed until the whump whump whump sound felt like a whirlwind was blowing inside the walls of the warehouse.
When Bryan reached the passenger bay of the chopper, he saw Aaron helping Eric on board while Frank and Miranda were securing the children. Bryan caught sight of Fred’s worry gaze upon him and he knew then that she was staring at him like the frightened child she was, not the entity that was currently sharing her body. The little girl however remained silent as Miranda secured her and Sam to the seats while Frank did the same for little Pip.
It only took a momentary glance in Bryan’s direction for Aaron to catch a glimpse of what the man was concealing.
“What the hell....!" Aaron exclaimed as he noted the blood on the Bryan’s hand, the hand that was trying not to clutch his sides too overtly to give himself away.
"What?" Frank shot Aaron a look and followed the doctor’s aghast expression to his brother. “What’s wrong?”
Bryan cursed again at being discovered and retorted abruptly, “It’s nothing,” he lied and then added to pacify Aaron who would not accept that as any kind of explanation. “We’ll deal with it on route! Just tell her to get going.”
It wasn’t nothing and Aaron knew it but he could not protest or argue at the moment because another round of gunfire had resumed, this one fiercer than the first barrage. The Uruks were going to keep shooting until they hit something and it was a minor miracle that not more of them were hurt. He swore under his breath, giving Bryan a frown that told the man that this discussion was by no means over and poked his head through the cockpit entrance to do as Bryan ordered.
"We got to go!" He declared and then realised that she probably guessed that for herself.
“No shit!” Lori bit back, not looking at him as she continued what she was doing. “What the hell do you think I'm doing up here.” She shouted over the sound of gunfire and the whirr of the chopper blades.
A split second later, the floor beneath him heaved and Aaron lost his balance slightly, needing to grip a wall to steady himself as Lori lifted the chopper of the ground, its landing lifts beginning to hover off the hangar floor. Pushing the throttle forward, her feet moved in tandem with her hands as she worked the chopper pedals.
"Go sit down!" She ordered him as the helicopter began to move forward.
Aaron did not argue and returned in time to see Legolas running back towards them, trying to dodge gunfire after activating the main doors so the chopper could leave the hangar. Almost on reflex, he grabbed his gun and started shooting in the direction of the enemy fire. He couldn’t see any of them and each new bullet hole created a stream of light through the shadowy insides of the building. Very soon, light beams were crisscrossing each other all over the place. Aaron’s returning fire gave the Uruks reason to pause momentarily, allowing Legolas jumped into the bay. The elf caught Frank’s outstretched hand before he was hauled to safety. Once he was inside, Aaron slid the door of the chopper shut and shielded them to a degree from any more gunfire.
“We’re in!” He shouted at Lori. “Let’s go!”
Lori was already flying the chopper towards the open door when three Uruks appeared in front of her. Probably in an attempt to stop them from taking but she was not about to let ugly SOBs get in her way now that they were so close to escape. Pushing the throttle to full, the chopper surged forward, the danger of its spinning rotors cutting them to pieces forced the Uruks out of the way and in a second, the chopper was out in the open. Brasov was 30 kilometres away from the location of Saeran’s former fortress and by chopper it would take less than twenty minutes of flight time to reach it. She hoped that whatever reason that had forced the craft to be in that hangar, could remain at bay for the duration of their trip.
Once in open air, Lori’s first priority was to get them away from the Uruk and gunfire. They were heading towards the sky at a steep 45 degree angle and while the chopper was nothing like her Gripen fighter, Lori had the confidence of an Air Force pilot who didn’t think there wasn't any damn thing with wings she couldn't fly.
Everyone held on tight as the craft made its steep ascent and Aaron was glad the kids were strapped in because they were clearly frightened if their expressions were anything to go by. Even Fred was troubled though Aaron wondered if it was because of the bumpy ride or was it because she knew Bryan was hurt. The Uruks made a last ditch effort to bring them down as they continued to fire at the departing craft. Fortunately Lori was a combat pilot accustomed to flying under fire and they left the bastard behind without further injury to anyone else in their company.
However the damage was done.
Aaron turned his attention to Bryan who was still resting against the wall that separated the passenger bay from the rest of the chopper. Miranda was already tending to Eric’s wound which the Australian had called right when he claimed it was merely superficial. It looked like the bullet had merely grazed his leg. In any case, Miranda was more than adept at attending him as she retrieved Aaron’s medical bag and was presently riffling through its contents to find dressing and some antiseptic swabs to clean the wound.
Legolas was already checking on Bryan when Aaron reached him along with Frank. Aaron saw Legolas lifting Bryan’s jacket to examine the wound and the MI6 agent promptly brushed the elf’s hand away, much to Legolas chagrin.
“Let him help you git!” Frank insisted, rolling his eyes in exasperation at his brother’s stubbornness.
“I’m fine,” Bryan insisted with irritation and in completely in character with his gruff since Bryan tended to believe that he was indestructible while everyone else was fragile and needed delicate handling.
“You’re not fine!” Frank barked back, “you’re hurt.”
Legolas turned and left the brothers to their debate while he gestured at Aaron for a quiet word, as quiet as could be had under the circumstances.
"Aaron, his injury is grave,” Legolas spoke with clear distress. “He needs healing now. He will not last long otherwise.”
This Aaron had already guessed from the amount of blood he was seeing coming out of the wound. The slick shimmer of damp on Bryan’s shirt told Aaron just how much he was bleeding even without him taking a closer look at the man’s wound.
“I’ll do what I can to help him,” Aaron replied quietly in Legolas’ ear, “but you know as well as I do, that he will not stand down. Even if we could find a place to leave him, he would not agree to it and I don’t think we have the right to make him stay behind. Sauron murdered Tory. Bryan deserves the right to be there when we kill the son of a bitch.”
"Even if it costs him his life?" Legolas retorted sharply, not at all happy by that reasoning. He had lost too many loved ones in his long life and had no wish to add Bryan Miller to that list.
There was a frustrated growl behind them before Bryan hollered at them, “I can bloody here the both of you. There’s no whispering inside a chopper you gits.”
“Bryan you have been hurt gravely,” Legolas implored. “You need to heal. You cannot fight in your condition.”
“Aaron tell him,” Frank insisted. “Tell him he need to sit this one out.”
Aaron met Bryan’s gaze and for a moment, Aaron almost said the words that Frank wanted him to speak but then he remembered Tory, lying there under the rain, her perfect English rose skin turning grey with death, the sorrow in Bryan’s face when they’d found her. At least Aaron had the comfort of knowing that Eve was still alive. If Saeran had murdered her, would Aaron have been able to stand down? How could he expect Bryan to do the same when he wouldn’t be able to himself?
“I need my bag,” Aaron said abruptly, reaching for it now that Miranda was gotten what she needed and came up alongside of Bryan. “I’ve got some Celox, that’s a chemical haemostat that will slow down the bleeding, like a clotting agent.” As Aaron retrieved the vial and the syringe that would administer it, he thought of all the things he had to do. Slow the clotting, seal the wound, put enough pressure on it and maybe, maybe Bryan could stay alive long enough because they needed him.
“See,” Bryan said looking of Aaron’s shoulder to Legolas and Frank, “I’ve got the best doctor about patching me up. I swear once we’ve sent that bastard to hell for the last time, I’ll take myself to the hospital, I’ll even be nice to the nurses.”
Frank let out another frustrated groan while Legolas said nothing.
Bryan lifted his eyes to Aaron, “Thanks Doc.” He said quietly.
“Don’t make me regret this,” Aaron retorted as he administered the Celox and hoped that it would be enough.
FRANCIS E WARREN AIR FORCE BASE
CHEYENNE, WYOMING, USA
He’d left Washington on the first flight available and was in Cheyenne, Wyoming in less than six hours. It would be at least seven hours after his arrival in that city before the Joint Chiefs at the Pentagon realised he would not be attending their scheduled meeting. However, if everything went according to plan, they would notice his absence well before that.
Then his fate would be in the hands of history. Would they call him madman or martyr? Before they decided that what he had done for the good of all, his actions might even be considered sedition. Whatever the lawmakers chose to call him, General Dennis Etherton could not say. He did not expect to survive the day to hear their final conclusions. After he carried out his plan, he intended leaving his life on his own terms. For king and country, he had sacrificed his family and his relationship. For his final act of service to the flag he so revered, Dennis did not intend on being the star attraction at Leavenworth.
The voices that had started speaking to him in the office with the Joint Chiefs had become a constant now. So much so that he no longer questioned his sanity. Sometimes they felt so real, he thought he could feel their breath against the back of his neck when they spoke. At other times, when he thought he was tired or perhaps losing grip with reality in more ways than he knew, he felt that they were in the room with him, as if they were guiding him with voices spoken from unseen lips.
In the end, he put it down to his conscience taking on a life of its own, no longer willing to wait in the recesses of his mind, to be beaten into silence by practicality of the situation or duty to men who did not always have the right answers. And nothing the voices were saying seemed unreasonable. The actions of the moment demanded this level of response. It wasn’t like they were telling him to hijack a plane or dose the water supply with some terrible pathogen for the sake of a God.
Despite how terrible the action he needed to undertake; Dennis knew he was doing the right thing.
Europe was falling to an enemy they had never seen before. It would only be a matter of time before it spread to Asia and then the rest of the world. The continent was on the brink of all out chaos. Armies were succumbing to mysterious powers, cities were being burned and creatures of mythological origin were emerging from every forgotten crevice in the world. Where they appeared, civilian casualties usually followed.
When they arrived on American soil, all Dennis could think was they’d find a population rich and fat for the feasting. It would only take a hop, skip and jump for everyday citizens to start turning on each other.
Thanks to the 2nd Amendment, it would become a blood bath.
And yet when he’d left the Joint Chiefs, they’d reached no decision as to what was to be done. All they did have was platitudes and assurances to each other that it was better to wait and see. After all, the trouble had not reached US soil yet and there was still time to gather more data and come up with an effective plan later. Who knew, perhaps the Europeans would resolve the crises themselves, without their interference?
To Dennis, it was the war cry of the inept.
********
After leaving Cheyenne Regional Airport, he drove to the base in a rented car, foregoing the option of military chauffeur since he was trying to keep his visit low key. Visit from the brass usually came with paperwork submitted days before the event and Dennis had none of these. As it was, he expected questions form the base commander when he did finally arrive on the premises.
Officially known as the Francis E Warren Air Force Base, the facility had been established in 1867 when the new railroad required a military presence to protect its workers against hostile Indians. From a frontier infantry station, it had evolved over the last century to become one of the most important military centres in the country. In 1967, it had become the first fully operational ICMB launch base and was now home to the 90th Missile Wing and 150 Minuteman III ICBMs.
The base had become the main source of income for Cheyenne’s population of 50’000 people. The town had originally grown up around the facility but as industry and other commercial enterprises developed in response to the increased population. It did not take much before this urban sprawl took with it new neighbourhoods and crawled away to establish a new central hub.
Besides, no one wanted to live near nuclear missiles.
Dennis had little regard for Cheyenne beyond what he needed to do here. To him, it was like so many other cities that had been elevated from Podunk because of a military presence. It didn't look like a city to Dennis, certainly not in the way Washington was a city. The skyline looked bland with very few structures that stood above four storeys high. There was no vast network of roads, overpasses and freeways, just a number of multi-lane roads with lethargic levels of traffic travelling along them. The backdrop was devoid of mountains or hills, none of that purple mountain majesty that America was famed, just a flat plain that seemed to run endless into infinitum.
It didn’t take him long to get to the base once he’d gotten on the I-25. Fifteen minutes of steady travel and he was ready to take the turn- off onto Missile Drive and then Happy Jack Road. From where he was, he could see the tip of a missile protruding from the facility. A showpiece, he realised, one for the tourists to snap pictures at so they could tell the folks at home they’d seen a real life ICBM. The live missiles were in their bunkers, waiting for the launch codes that would send them on their way.
Launch codes that he had.
As he approached the masonry arch that stood over the road leading to the main sentry gate to the base, he saw the facility ahead and felt a moment of anxiety creep into his thoughts, infecting him with uncertainty that had not been there before. He could feel Walter’s ring against his skin, the smooth metal making him very aware of its presence. It just didn’t feel right, he thought subconsciously but brushed the thought away as being foolish. It was a ring. It wasn’t supposed to feel anything.
Was he doing the right thing? Was he absolutely sure there was no other way? On the surface, it seemed like he was but the more he thought about it, the more it felt…wrong.
Do not fear your destiny, the voice started speaking again. Do not suffer the weakness that your comrades have allowed to infect them. There is no time to hesitate. Do what must be done or watch your nation die.
Dennis shuddered, feeling the chill in the air that had nothing to do with the air-conditioning being raised too high. He felt it on his flesh, until his skin puckered with goose pimples. For a moment, he almost looked over his shoulder but then told himself he was being stupid. It was just nerves. What he was about to do would ensure his name in history, either as a hero or a mass murderer. A little anxiety was normal.
With that reasoning behind him, the moment of indecision passed as the nose of his rented car reached the tall, imposing iron gates that barred the outside world from the premises of the air base. A tall, All-American type with a regulation buzz cut, broad shoulders and squared jaw approach the driver’s side window. His posture was relaxed until Dennis wound down the window and the young man saw the number of stars on the epaulettes of his uniform.
“General Sir!” the young man straightened up immediately and declared with a sharp salute laced with a hint of a good ol’ boy Arkansas accent.
“At ease soldier,” Dennis offered coolly, “I’m here to see Commander Latimer. Please tell him that General Etherton is here from Washington.” He handed the kid his credentials through the window just to keep things in accordance with protocol.
“Yes Sir,” the soldier returned quickly, having studied the General’s identification, including the levels of clearance attached to it, before handing the document back to Dennis. “I’ll let him know you’re coming. His office is through that road over there. We call it the Hub, you can't miss it." He added helpfully.
A few seconds later, Dennis left the young man behind as he drove past the gates into the base. Commander Latimer would be rushing about now, readying his office for the General's arrival. Perhaps even rouse the troops for a snap inspection, there was no telling what an anxious base commander might resort to impress the visiting brass. Dennis knew it would take several minutes for the base personnel to realise that he wasn’t going anywhere a visiting general should be.
By the time they realised what he was here for, it would be too late.
********
The lack of clothing made Dwaw uncomfortable.
The Nazgul had faded into shadow so long ago that by the Third Age, they could not be perceived by anyone save each other and their master. The dark robes they wore were illusions of self that serve a multitude of purposes, not always for their benefit. It reminded them that they still creatures of form even though they sometimes forgot and when confronting their enemies, the sight of them or rather lack of it could strike cold terror into the hearts of the men and elves. Many had been reduced to madness realising beneath the dark robes of the Nazgul was nothing.
However on this occasion, neither Dwaw nor Khamul made any attempt to reveal their presence to the human ensnared by their lord’s ring. They had been drawn to him the instant he slipped the gold band around his finger, learning quickly that he was susceptible to all its temptations and could be swayed to their purpose. Entering his life, they maintained a silent presence in his keep, whispering the possibilities of a destiny greater than he had ever imagined during the dark hours of his slumber.
By the time he had brought them here, he was well and truly a creature of the shadow world. Like the previous owner of the ring, the human Etherton who bore striking resemblance to the son of Ecthelion, was in a position to strike the final blow against the world of men. This place was home to weapons of war so exquisitely devastating that Morgoth himself might have fashioned them at Angband. These weapons, turned against the Eldar and Edain, would poison Arda for all time. And when the bones of both races were little more than crushed ash in the dirt, it would be the dawn of a new age.
The age of shadow.
********
The flight to Saeran's stronghold was meant to take less than an hour but they saw it well before that.
The structure stood against the backdrop of the ever greying sky. Clouds were being drawn to it like a vortex draining all the light in the world. It emerged from the range of mountains as if someone had reached into the earth and tore out its innards, stretching the dirt flesh as far as it would go. The tall line of obsidian impacted against the mind like a scream given form, clawing at the sky in desperate agony. It stood as an affront to all things good, a shadow cast in the memory of the ancient monument upon whose ruins it stood.
Even from a distance, they could see jagged windows that looked like mouths scowling angrily at them for daring to approach. Balconies protruded like perches for carrion birds to roost in waiting for the battle that would be fought at its door step. Waiting for the bodies their sharpened beaks would soon feast upon. The base of the tower was ringed with levels and levels of battlements so impregnable that only a god could have created it.
The shaft of the tower tapered into a platform from which two forked points pierced heavy clouds, pregnant with fat rain, threatening to rupture them at any time. Among them, only Legolas recognised what the tower for was it was and the sight of it sent a cold chill down his spine. It was a sight he had thought he’d never have to see again. It was enough that in Third Age, he’d stood with the King of Gondor facing the great eye of Sauron, breathed in flame, watching over the land of Mordor from a tower that look very similar to the one they were approaching now.
“Six hundred years it took to build Bara-dur,” Legolas mused bitterly as he stared at the structure in the distance, feeling as if he were viewing a memory now the reality of the moment. “Now he rebuilds it in days.”
“Well he’s definitely making a statement,” Eric remarked, eyes filled with the sight of the thing that made the Empire State Building look positively tiny in comparison. “Was it the same size as before?”
“More or less,” Legolas nodded, choosing not to comment on Eric’s observations of Saeran’s need for theatrics. “These were once the mountains of Ephel Duath and the tower sat in the heart of Gorgoroth, where Sauron’s army were camped. The last time I was at this place, I stood with Aragorn, Eomer and the armies of Gondor and Rohan. “
Legolas had lived through the greatest doom of the Third Age and tragedy had been written into the tapestry of his life but he would have changed none of it because of the people he had shared those days with him. There were too many to name but standing out in those list of faces was Aragon, Gandalf, Boromir and of course Gimli, the irascible dwarf who had been his friend despite all enmity between dwarves and elves at the time. "Now we are here again and only Gimli remains unrepresented,” Legolas said mournfully, eyes misting over with emotion, “he would have relished the chance to resume our old game."
Legolas knew that there were reasons for this. It was said that the souls of dwarves did not go to the place prepared for elves nor were they reborn in the flesh like men. Their fate was bound for the deeper places of the world, were they would sleep until they were needed. When the forces of light and darkness were gathered once more to fight the last battle, they would emerge again. However, this was indeed the End of Days then the dwarves appeared to be late in their arrival. Or perhaps, Legolas thought, they knew that time had passed and saw no reason to emerge.
Iluvutar had promised that the Music of Ainur would be sung a second time so that the world could be remade and that the End of Days or Dagor Dagorath would begin the transformation of Arda in something no one could anticipate. Maybe the dwarves knew better than the elves that their time was done and this was their final end.
If this was their end, then Legolas could think of no fitting way to meet it than to face the old enemy once more, with the friends he loved. Legolas regarded Eric who had been Eomer, the King of Mark, who’d turn his grief at losing his friend Jason, formerly a hobbit of the Shire named Merry, into a fierce determination to defeat Sauron at all costs. Eric was glaring at the dark tower in the distance, his brow knotting in barely concealed fury. Legolas understood his outrage for Jason had been a comrade and a friend who thanks Morgoth’s servant was forced to sacrifice his life to save the children of Miranda.
He looked to the others and saw Fred, who held the soul of a ring bearer, lying against Bryan. He was still alive and Aaron’s attendance of him would ensure that he would continue to fight but Legolas suspected and perhaps Aaron and Bryan did as well, that the former Captain of Gondor would not last much beyond that. The thought filled him with sadness. This moment resembled the manner in which they had found Boromir after the warrior had been felled at Parth Galen. It appears in this life too, Bryan was destined to similarly abrupt fate.
Fred’s small arms were wrapped around Bryan’s neck. The child she was clung to the man who was father and protector, knowing in that way that only children knew, that she was about to lose him. Not even the entity sharing her little body could hold back that fear.
********
Somehow Frank had always known this was how it was going to end between him and his brother.
Kneeling next to Bryan, ignoring Aaron’s ongoing treatment to his injuries; Frank took the sight of his wounded brother and felt himself struck with a sense of déjà vu. There was a sense of inevitability dogging him all his life that Bryan would go first. Frank had expected it a dozen times over the years when Bryan had gone to fight in the various wars during his military career and then after when he’d join MI6. So many times, Frank had expected the worst, expected to get that nondescript telegram that would tell him that Bryan had been killed in action. He’d always thought that would be the worst thing, to not be there when it happened. Now he was here, he realised he was wrong.
“Stop looking at me that way you git,” Bryan retorted, hissing a bit when Aaron tightened a bit of bandaging across his torso. The doctor rolled his eyes but continued working, leaving the two brothers to talk. “I’m not dead yet.”
“You shouldn’t be here,” Frank insisted, shooting an accusing glare at Aaron for enabling Bryan’s desire to remain with them. “You should be in hospital somewhere, getting fixed up properly.”
Bryan was shaking his head before Frank even finished the sentence. “Saeran and I have business with each other. I’m not going anywhere until that’s done.” Bryan’s eyes turned dark. “You understand that don’t you Miranda?”
Miranda was hovering behind Frank, not wanting to intrude but now that she’d been drawn in, she offered Frank an apologetic glance as she slipped her fingers in his and nodded at Bryan. “Yeah Tyke, I got it.”
“Will you do me a favour in case this doesn’t end well,” Bryan asked, grateful for her presence because she was strong enough to be there for Frank if it did go the way he guessed it would. Helping them find each other was perhaps the highlight of his life. He had helped wounded two broken people with that one introduction, Miranda and himself. Bryan had hoped that Miranda after the ordeal of that terrible mission in Ireland, that she might find some comfort in his brother who was always a gentler soul than he but he never imagined how well it would turn out.
“Go on then,” Miranda returned, never one to become mired in sentimentality, “don’t keep me in suspense.”
Bryan cracked a wry grin, grateful for that. Being a mum hadn’t dulled her edge one bit. “Fred needs a home. With a mum who can take care of her. If I’m still about, I’ll look after her but if I’m not, I need to know she'll be alright.”
Fred’s face scrunched up into an expression of sorrow, burying her face in Bryan’s shoulder because she didn’t want to hear any of this. As if reacting to her emotional state, Sam broke away from Pip and crawled alongside of her. When she noted he was there, she turned around and hugged him hard.
“Ring Bearers," Bryan smiled faintly, grateful that no matter what, Fred would never be alone. There were people around her that would look after her even if he was gone.
“She’s family, Bryan, you know that,” Miranda whispered as if there were any question of it, gazing at her son and Fred who were bound together by more than just the past. Their friendship had survived Mordor and then time. Sam would never be happy if Fred wasn't nearby. “I’ll fight for her Tyke, like she was my own. She’ll be safe and when this is done, she’ll be happy again. I promise you.”
“You’re going to be fine,” Frank returned, unable to write his brother off just yet despite all evidence to the contrary. This seemed all too much like a farewell but Frank suspected Bryan was saying this now because it may not be possible later. “You’re always fine.”
He was trying to convince himself more than anyone else.
“Alright, alright, that’s enough.” Aaron finally interrupted, unable to tolerate this much longer. “Let’s not write the guy off yet and you,” he looked at Bryan pointedly, “are not dead yet so stop acting like it. We’ve got enough crap to deal with without you going all Alamo on our asses. Lord Voldermort and the Dementors are still out there, he’s still planning to nuke us and somewhere in the Dark Tower is Eve and we need you to get to her! So let’s keep a little optimism here. We've got a lot of work to do”
"Lovely talk," Bryan commented dryly. "Do you think you made enough pop culture references or do you need to mention the Force and Obi-Wan as well?"
"Bite me," Aaron retorted sweetly.
“So I guess that means the Pom will live,” Eric added, smiling a little as he looked the Pom he called friend, who only days ago was a co-conspirator in a beer making scheme, before everything had gone to hell. Like Aaron, he not like the fatalistic direction everyone seemed headed towards and was happy to help diffuse the situation with some levity.
“Yeah, yeah,” Aaron answered before turning his attention back to Bryan and addressing the secret agent directly. “I’ve slowed down the bleeding and loaded you up with all the drugs you can handle including adrenaline and coagulants. It should keep you on your feet but like your brother said, when this is done you still need to get to a hospital. Just try not to overdo it," Aaron warned.
“Good luck with that,” Frank grumbled, knowing full well that Bryan was never one to heed doctor’s orders.
“He’ll leave the heavy lifting to us,” Miranda said assuring him. “Right?” She stared at Bryan with the same look she used to make her children cower with obedience.
“Right,” Bryan rolled his eyes in sarcasm, “the archaeologist, the journalist and the psychiatrist is going to do the heavy lifting." He was teasing of course but there a sliver of concern that his injury would prevent him from keeping them safe. While he trusted everyone present, only Miranda, Legolas and possibly Lori had any real combat experience. Frank, Aaron and Eric had survived because they’d had too and Bryan worried that with whole army of monsters between them and Saeran, they’d would not be as lucky as they had been before.
“Thanks, I’ll try not to take that personal….” He started to say when suddenly, the helicopter banked sharply they were tossed through the cabin like the beads inside a rattle.
“What the fucking hell!” Eric cursed angrily and grabbed onto to when suddenly Lori’s voice was heard shouting from the cockpit.
“Heads up! We’ve got incoming!”
Before any of them could even scramble to the windows to see what it was she was warning them against, they heard it.
The shriek that penetrated the walls of the chopper and cut through their ears sharply, could be heard over the whumping of rotor blades and the loud rumble of engines. Like the wail of some unholy thing being born, the shrill noise forced them to cover their ears in a futile attempt to escape its deafening power. It felt like coals burning hot inside their minds. Its intensity was unlike anything any of them had experience and captured them all in its agonising grip.
The pain had them writhing across the floor of the craft, driven to near madness. Even Sam and Pip were not spared the assault and the two children were forced to endure the same torture as their adult companions. The craft was flying lopsided with some of them sliding across the floor at the steep angle. Lori who was at the controls was in the same state as the others, disrupting her ability to fly the helicopter properly.
Only Fred remained unaffected.
As soon as the others were incapacitated, the little girl left Bryan’s side and climbed unto one of the folded chairs against the wall of the craft. Peering out the window, she saw the helicopter was veering treacherously towards the tops of the craggy mountain range. Her eyes searched the skies until finally she sighted their enemy.
A fraction of a second later, the shrieking ceased abruptly. Only the sounds of the distressed helicopter could be heard as Fred turned to her companions to ensure that they were free of their agony. Satisfied when she saw that they had stopped screaming, she knew they would recover soon enough.
Another sharp jolt from the uncontrolled flight of the helicopter had sent Eric rolling across the floor and hitting the door. The shock of impact shook him out of his disorientation and he shook his head clear to meet her gaze before turning to the cockpit.
"Christ!" Eric exclaimed and stumbled forward, trying to stay on his feet despite the chopper being angled steeply to the left. If Lori was out of it, he’d have to try and fly this thing.
In the meantime, Fred had climbed off her seat after seeing Pip nearby, curled up in a ball, still covering his ears with his hands, crying. She got onto her hands and knees and crawled up to him, tugging at his sleeve when she reached him.
“It’s okay Pip,” she spoke trying to get his attention. “The noise is gone now.” Though secretly, she knew what had caused it had not but she would leave that to Bryan and the others to deal with.
At the sound of Fred’s voice, Sam, who was lying not far away, raised his head to see where she was. Her attempts to speak to his brother provoked Sam’s own brotherly instincts and soon he was crawling towards Pip too. When they found each other, the three children huddled together waiting for the adults to recover themselves. It was not a long wait.
"You three alright?" Frank asked as he scrambled towards his kids and yes, at this moment, he considered Fred his too. Giving Pip a little kiss on the forehead because his youngest was the most frightened, he pulled back and said to Pip, "You have to be brave for me and mum okay?” He said lifting the child onto the seat and fastening the safety belt around him. Something he should have done earlier, Frank chided himself. Determined not to make the same mistake twice, he gestured at Sam and Fred to take their seats so he could repeat the same for them.
“Sam, Fred, you stay with Pip," Frank instructed hastily as he strapped them in, aware that the danger was not yet over. “And don’t look out of the window."
No sooner than he had given them that warning, the helicopter even out his tilted angle, allowing him to regain a steadier footing. Eric must have taken charge of the piloting or Lori had recovered enough to regain control of the craft.
"Remember, stay put,” he gave them a final reminder.
"We will dad," Sam answered, nodding obediently, with Fred and Pip doing the same.
Another sound filled the air at that instant. Unlike the terrible shriek earlier, this one did not paralyse them or render them senseless. However it was no less chilling even if Frank could not immediately discern its origin.
There was no mystery for Legolas. He recognised the flapping of large, powerful wings.
As he moved to the window, he did not know which one of Sauron’s servants was in the sky with them but there was no doubt in his mind that it was indeed Nazgul that had attacked them. What they had experienced earlier could only be one thing; the dreaded Black Breath of the Nazgul. During the battle of Pelennor Fields, Legolas had seen many of the soldiers of Gondor felled in the same manner before the onslaught of orcs cut them to pieces.
The only thing that was a mystery to the elf now was what had driven the Black Breathe away before he and the others could share a similarly grisly fate?
Whatever the reason, Legolas did not question it, grateful only that it had happened. Peering out the window, his suspicions were confirmed when he saw the familiar black robes worn by the most loyal of Sauron’s most creatures, the Nazgul. The robes swirled around its wearer like a dark, sinister mist. The Nazgul was being borne aloft by their own servants, the winged beasts of Mordor. It was the wings of this creature that they were hearing around them.
“Nazgul!” Legolas warned the others and almost as if the foul creature knew he had spoken, the Nazgul turned its head towards the elf. Even without a face, Legolas knew that the Nazgul was sneering at him in hatred.
The Nazgul was not about to let them escape yet another attack after the failure of the first. Legolas saw him pull on the reins of his mount with gauntleted hand, forcing the creature’s saurian neck to rear up before driving the beast towards them. Its large body slammed against helicopter, sending the craft jolting violently to its side. Anything that wasn't bolted down on strapped in was sent flying through the air. Himself included.
Flung across the breadth of the helicopter, Legolas crashed into Aaron and they both tumbled haphazardly into Bryan. For a few seconds, all three men were an unruly tangle of limbs but there was a little time to salvage their wounded dignity. The same jolt had flung Miranda against the door and the sudden impact strained the lock to breaking point causing it to snap and swing open.
Latching onto the edge of the open doorway, Miranda was barely able to keep herself from falling through. She was just beginning to pull herself back to safety when the Nazgul attacked again, ramming the chopper in mid-air once. This time, the impact send Miranda tumbling through the doorway.
"MUMMY!" Pip screamed frantically as Miranda fell out.
Arms flailing, Miranda avoided plunging to her death by catching hold of a strut beneath the wing of the chopper.
“Frank! She screamed out as she dangled precariously in mid-air. Her fingers were struggling to maintain her grip as the chopper weaved and swayed, trying to avoid the attack by the winged beasts. Trying not to look down, she still got glimpses of jagged peaks running along the spine of the mountain beneath her. Trying to restrain her horror, she knew if she fell there would be no surviving it.
In answer to his wife's terrified cry of help, Frank practically dove across the floor, skidding to the open doorway, his head sticking out over the edge, searching frantically for Miranda.
“Hold on Mira!” Frank shouted when he saw her, sparing no thought to his own safety as he leaned out, his body half hanging out of the chopper as he struggled to reach her. Gripping the doorway’s edge with one hand as tightly as he could, he extended the other hand as far as it would go. Legolas moved into help, keeping a secure grip of Frank to keep him from tumbling out and when necessary, to add his strength in pulling Miranda back.
Giving Legolas a grateful nod of thanks, Frank slid out even further now that he had the elf's help, his leg dangling over the edge. “Come on luv,” he pleaded Miranda ignoring the screaming protest of pain in his arm. "You can do to it!"
She made an attempt to swing forward and groaned in frustration when their fingers grazed each other for an all too brief second but did not connect.
"Come on Miranda, try again!" He barked, using his brother's tone to urge her to try again. "You're the bloody strongest person I know! Get your arse moving and SHOW those bastards that it will take more than this to do you in! NOW!"
Half assed psychology, Aaron thought as he stood next to Frank, ready to help him pull Miranda in when she was within reach. However, as the psychiatrist saw the determined set of Miranda's jaw and her face frowning with concentration, he knew it would work. Frank Miller knew his wife very well.
Miranda sucked in her breath, Frank's words reminding her that she wasn't this frightened thing waiting rescue, and she could take care of herself. Crushing her fear into submission, she put everything into swinging her body out as far as she could, her arm extended until she could feel the joints in her elbow pushing muscle against bone, reaching for Frank's outstretched hand.
She even ignored the shrill screech of the winged beast that was coming in for another pass and would most likely see her as easy prey. Gritting her teeth, she stretched out as far as she could until she felt his palm slapping against the middle of her forearm.
No sooner than that contact had been made, Frank clenched his hand around her slender arm until it was almost a fist for how tightly he was holding on. “I got you luv!” He exclaimed triumphantly and then yelled, “PULL LEGOLAS!”
Legolas yanked him backwards, his elven strength serving him well as he drew not only Frank backwards, but was now the last link in the chain to return Miranda to safety of the craft. Frank's face turn red with exertion as he held Miranda's weight with one hand, his joints screaming in protest but he would not let go. For the love of his life and the mother of his children, he'd hold until he was torn apart if necessary.
Aaron was standing next to him, poised to grab Miranda as soon as she was near enough. Once she was within reach, he grabbed her other arm and help to pull her the rest of the way into the helicopter. Miranda clambered back into the craft breathlessly, her blond hair tousled wildly across her face, her cheeks stained with tears of relief. No sooner than she had caught her breath, she was in her husband's embrace and for a few seconds, the world was devoid of everything but their exchange of fevered kisses.
“I’ll never let you go,” Frank whispered in her ear as he held her in his arms.
Unfortunately, the tender moment did not last as the Nazgul chose this moment to attack. The winged beast, carrying its master upon its back, flew straight at the open door, determined to pluck its occupants out of the craft if necessary. Legolas wasted no time, drawing out one of his arrows from behind the case slung across his back. Reaching for his bow, he took aim, preparing to shoot the elven blessed arrow into the dark heart of the Nazgul.
Suddenly another screech tore through this air and this one did not come from the creature flying towards him. This one came from behind.
“There’s another one!” He heard Aaron yell.
The psychiatrist had moved to the opposite side of the craft and was peering through the window. Legolas had only to glance over his shoulder to see the same ominous shape through the glass.
“They’re trying flank us so they can drive us into the mountains!” Bryan exclaimed. The MI6 agent was getting to his feet, unable to endure the inactivity that injury had placed upon him while they people he cared for were in danger. Wincing visibly, he tried to get to his feet.
“Stay put!” Aaron ordered and searched the floor of the chopper for their weapons. When the Nazgul had collided with them, their belongings had been thrown in all directions and it took him a few seconds to locate one of Bryan’s automatic machine guns.
“Do not shoot the Nazgul!” Legolas warned, once he saw Aaron pulling open the door on the other side of the helicopter. “Your bullets will do little harm. Aim for the beast!”
“Right,” Aaron nodded and wrapped a bit of cargo netting fastened to the wall around his arm, so that he could lean out a bit with some measure of protection.
“Make sure you’re on rapid fire!” Bryan called out as Aaron prepared to take aim. “Even if you can’t aim, you’ll hit something.”
“OH THANKS A LOT!” Aaron shouted back and pulled the trigger as the Nazgul and his mount came at him. The gunfire ripped through the air, eclipsing the noise of the engines and screeching of the winged beasts.
Unaccustomed as he was to handling guns, Aaron knew enough to do as Bryan advised and he sprayed the air between himself and the Nazgul with bullets. Heeding the advice of both Bryan and Legolas, he aimed not for the ring wraith but for the creature carrying it through the air. The creature turned at the sound of the unfamiliar noise, exposing its side flank. Aaron saw the tears through its greying mottled hide as the bullets tore through its flesh, spilling black blood that was swept away by the high velocity winds. The beasts reared its head and uttered a scream of pain. In fury, it flicked out its tail like a whip, striking the doorway and driving Aaron backwards.
Meanwhile Legolas was firing arrow upon arrow at the winged beast on his side of the craft. The Nazgul which commanded it was one that was expertly capable of avoiding his arrows and it concerned the elf that the beast did not seem to flying in the manner that Bryan had thought. While it attempt to collide with them, the effort seemed like a half measure. The Nazgul had other tools at his disposal and Legolas found it odd that the wraith had not tried to use the Black Breathe again. It was not like them to simply yield after one attempt.
Bryan stumbled to the front of the helicopter, emerging to see that Eric was helping Lori pilot. These particular Soviet choppers were designed for a crew of three, two pilots and an engineer. Lori had managed to fly it on her own when it was a straight trip to Saeran’s fortress but now there were in combat conditions, the presence of a co-pilot would keep them from crashing.
As he reached them, he heard her barking orders at him because Eric’s skills were mostly for flying smaller planes. This was an entirely different kind of piloting.
“When can we land?” Bryan demanded.
“We’re still twenty minutes out!” Lori looked over her shoulder. “We can land but it’s going to be tough on the kids moving through the terrain below. We’ve got nightfall in a few hours, it will be under ten degrees!”
“We’ve got no choice!” Bryan retorted, “at least in the ground we can take cover from those bloody things.”
“That other one,” Eric noted the Nazgul on their right through the window, swaying back and forth next to the chopper, trying to keep up with them but not really driving them like the other one that Aaron was shooting at was doing. “He’s not attacking. What’s he waiting for?”
********
Having recovered from her ordeal, Miranda had retrieved her gun and hurried next to the open window where Aaron was. The doctor was doing his best to keep the winged beast from sticking its long neck through the window with the barrage of bullets he was firing in its direction but he needed help. Leaving Frank to ensure the kids were safe, she took up position against opposite him on the other side of the doorway.
“Thank Christ you’re here!” Aaron declared. “I keep hitting it but I can’t seem to bring the goddamn thing down!”
“Keep shooting!” She ordered and pulled the trigger, adding her fire to his. The barrage of artillery was deafening, overwhelming all other sounds. Empty shell casing were swept away by the wind and Miranda heard the click of an empty cartridge from Aaron’s gun.
“I’ll cover you!” She shouted over the sound of gunfire and the doctor nodded, retreating back into the helicopter to find fresh magazines of ammunition. Miranda turned back to the Nazgul who was unhurt by their weapons but was keeping his creature weaving constantly to avoid being hurt any more than it was.
Suddenly, she saw his gauntleted hand tug sharply at the reins. The winged beast, bleeding from multiple wounds, reared its long neck and then started to flap away from the chopper, retreating. Miranda’s brow furrowed until she saw the sky around her become overcast. For a moment, she thought the clouds had moved in but then there was the sound of beating wings again and she thought that the Nazgul was approaching from above.
Gazing upwards, that thought was wiped away by instant terror. Her jaw dropped open and her fingers froze. She’d seen the images of dragons on the telly attacking London and Paris but until now, she hadn’t seen one with her own eyes and even if she had, the one descending upon them was nothing like those. She knew they were huge but this was seemed to fill the entire sky with its wings extended outward. Jet black, it felt as if night had fallen upon the world in an instant. Beneath its immense size, the chopper seemed insignificant.
She heard its voice in her head and it’s sounded like the low rumble of thunder. Miranda wondered if the others could hear it too.
I, Ancalagon the Black, bring you a message. Lord Sauron, welcomes you to Mordor.