By day, the Elves worked without pause to shore up the shattered walls of Nargothrond, while the dark host lay hidden in the forest's shadow, nursing its strength.
As dusk fell, the flame-runes set into the black stone burned ever more fiercely, their glow deepening as the sun slipped beneath the edge of the world.
Elven women and children stood beneath the Tree. Under Anariel's guidance they chanted together, voices weaving into one clear, rising hymn.
The Sacred Tree answered their song. Light blossomed from bough and leaf, pouring down like a rain of stars until the whole of Nargothrond lay wrapped within its radiance.
...
From the woods beyond the walls came the restless stir of the enemy, a sea of whispers and clanking iron. War-horns began to sound, one after another, low and ominous.
Anrod stood atop the main gatehouse, one palm pressed to the hot stone. Through the stone he could feel the faint quiver of the earth outside... the drum-beat of tens of thousands of Orc feet once more on the march.
"They are waiting for full dark," Gandalf said, his voice rough with weariness. He had only just finished helping the soldiers patch a breach along the eastern wall; his grey cloak was blackened with ash and blood. "The barrier will not hold for long."
Aragorn wiped Orc-blood from his sword, the blade reflecting his bloodshot eyes back at him. His voice was hoarse.
"Move the wounded back beneath the Tree. Its light will shelter them for a while at least."
Gimli heaved another stone block into a gap before him, hammering it into place with a grim sort of fury.
"Those trolls will join the fray tonight," he growled. "There must be a thousand of the brutes at least."
Gandalf's pipe had, somehow, reappeared in his hand. The smoke coiled before his eyes, forming and unforming pale shapes.
"The war-beasts trouble me more," he murmured. "The Orcs of the Misty Mountains would not loose them lightly. Not unless they meant to break a city in one night."
A roar split the air, so loud that the stone beneath their boots seemed to hum in answer.
Out in the dark, a whole line of hulking shapes lumbered into view. Their rough hides were the color of weathered rock, and when their maws gaped, broken bones still hung from their blood-stained fangs.
On their backs, iron frames had been chained in place... crude siege platforms, where Orcs manned heavy stone-throwers and great hooked engines.
"They are here," Denethor said tightly, sword flashing as he pointed forward. " War beasts and trolls together."
Thoom... Thoom... Thoom...
Hundreds of war-beasts advanced, each footfall like distant thunder.
Behind them thundered the ranks of the trolls, thousands strong, brandishing axes as tall as a Man. Their grey-white skin shone with a greasy sheen under moonlight, their massive bodies smashing aside trees that dared stand in their way.
"To arms!"
Anrod's shout rang out like a bronze bell.
The Elven stone-throwers spoke first. Fire-wreathed shot arced through the night, trailing golden tails behind them before crashing down in the midst of the enemy host. Each impact blossomed into a storm of flame, hurling smoking Orc bodies into the air.
A rain of arrows followed, dense as a summer downpour. Shafts traced golden lines across the darkness, burying themselves in Orc flesh. War-trolls howled and staggered as rune-tipped arrows punched deep and burst in cold white light.
Many fell. Lines broke. One war-beast toppled with a scream, the siege frame on its back shattering and crushing those beneath.
Yet the host surged on. There were simply too many. No matter how many were felled by fire and arrow, more came behind, trampling the fallen and pressing closer to the walls.
For the Elves who had once crossed the Sea from Aman, this was the first time they truly tasted what their forebears in Beleriand had known... the weight of numbers so vast that courage alone could not thin them.
But not one of them retreated.
Anrod stood upon the wall, wreathed in the Tree's light, his king's blade blazing like a tongue of gold flame.
"This is our home," he cried. "The Sacred Tree stands at our backs. We have no road left but forward. Fight to the death!"
"Fight to the death!"
The Elven warriors roared in answer. No one turned away. Faces were set in the hard calm of those who had already accepted death.
Then the war-beasts reached the walls.
The first swing of a great battering-ram broke against the gate. The entire wall shuddered; the rune-chains that braced the inner beams screamed as they took the strain.
Denethor watched the spreading cracks spider over the timbers. He drove the base of a long spear into a socket in the stone, and the wall answered.
Hundreds of spikes shot out from the masonry in an instant, a bristling hedge of black thorns. Orcs scrambling up the ladders screamed as they were impaled or torn away, tumbling into the ranks below, who clawed past them and flung themselves at the wall again.
"Left wall!" Corthalion's shout cut through the din.
Five Sindar bow-masters loosed in perfect unison. Their silver arrows pinned a war-troll that had hooked a claw over the low parapet, nailing it to the stone.
Yet even as it died, its falling hammer smashed through the hastily rebuilt crenelation. Stone exploded outward, leaving a breach three paces wide, and more than a dozen Orcs poured through the gap.
Aragorn was the first to meet them. His sword flashed like a streak of sun through storm-clouds, cutting a bloody path through the leading Orcs.
He took a wound for it... an axe caught him across the shoulder, carving deep enough to show bone. Blood ran hot down his arm, hissing into white steam where it spattered in the Starborn Sacred Tree's drifting golden motes.
"Stay on your feet!" Gandalf barked. His staff swept sideways, smashing two Orcs from the wall and giving Aragorn a heartbeat to breathe.
Then the Grey Wizard turned, facing alone a war-beast that had smashed through the outer defenses and was lumbering straight for the steps.
The old body moved with frightening speed. Gandalf planted his staff, vaulted past the monster's slashing claws, rolled on landing, and hewed through its ankle joint in a single clean stroke.
"Heavy arrows!" Anrod's voice cracked across the battlefield.
He himself drew a great bow wrought of steel of Aman, the string creaking as he pulled to his ear. His shot flew true, burying itself in a war-beast's throat. The creature crashed down, crushing a swathe of siege engines and warriors beneath its weight.
The night stretched to breaking under the weight of slaughter….