"He is a mighty foe. We do not even know what manner of wight he is. He is neither Man nor Elf, but a creature wholly evil, intent on the destruction of all that is good and free and fair. He does not die, but he can be crushed and his power broken, or so the Wise tell us. The armed might of Gondor and Arnor, with the aid of our Elvish brothers, has succeeded in invading the Black Land and even encircling him there in his fortress of Barad-dûr. But his reach is yet long. The Corsairs of Umbar serve his purposes, and the cruel Haradrim work his will when they attack their neighbors. His evil is at work even here in the Southlands, for your neighbors of the mountains have become his pawns. The Eredrim have turned their backs on their friends of old and refused us their aid."
An angry murmur arose. Most had not heard these tidings yet. One captain standing nearby called out. "But did they not swear fealty to you and yours at Erech long years ago? For such is the tale that is told."
Isildur nodded grimly. "Aye, they swore, but their word is as dust in the wind. They have sold their honor to the Dark Lord."
Then many men cried out in anger. "They are traitors. We should not leave them at our backs. Let us assail them in their mountain fastnesses before we set out. They dishonor all of us in the south. We shall teach them the price of treachery!"
"No!" cried Isildur, and his voice was strong and commanding, echoing from the walls and drowning out all other voices. "Heed not the Eredrim. They serve us not, but they shall do us no more harm. They will hide in their deep places and never again come forth to trouble our councils, unless it be to fulfill their oath at last. I have laid a doom upon them that may not be broken. They are lost to themselves and the world!"
Then did the men look with wonder on the king, for they saw that his eyes pierced regions unknown to lesser men, and he wielded weapons beyond their ken, powers learned in far lands that are now no more. Many shuddered at the cold, unforgiving tone in his voice, and counted themselves fortunate they had willingly answered his call.
"No, we march not north against the Eredrim," he shouted, "but east, against the very source of the evil that threatens us. First we go to Pelargir to join with other allies there, then on to Osgiliath, where yet more friends will join us. There, on Midyear's Day, will be held a great council of many peoples." He swept out his blade and held it ringing above his head.
"There shall an army be assembled that will shake even the Black Throne itself. Nay, we shall even throw it down and crush it into dust!"
And the men brandished their weapons and roared their approval. "Isildur!" they cried, "Isildur, for Gondor and the South!"
Chapter Five
Pelargir
Throughout the following day the army set about preparing arms and equipment and organizing the chains of command. The camp was a hive of activity. Everywhere people were hurrying about bearing supplies. Guthmar provided huge wains drawn by teams of oxen, and the good people of Linhir filled them with grain and fruit and salted meats. Finally all was done and the men fell on their cots in exhaustion.
They had slept but a few hours when the horns rang out in the early morning air. By the first hour after dawn, Ohtar raised the standard beside the king and the host set off to the cheers of the townspeople on the walls. They were a much larger company now, a true army at last. Behind the king's company rode the knights of Ithilien, followed by the lancers of Calenardhon and Angrenost. Then came the first of the infantry: the handful of seamen and fishermen of Anglond and the few grim survivors of Ethir Lefnui with their banner of azure and sable forever at half staff. Then came a large body of mounted hill men from Lamedon with Ingold at their head, and behind them strode a long column under the colors of Dor-en-ernil and even far Belfalas, away in the south. Next marched the farmers and herdsmen and weavers and vintners of Lebennin, thousands strong. Finally a long train of supply wains pulled by oxen joined the column, now winding away eastward towards Pelargir.
The first day they covered no great distance, for many of the new foot soldiers were unused to long journeys. They held a slow and steady pace and had covered but a dozen miles by dark. They camped where they had halted, in a long line of tents down the center of the road, for the land was grown fenny and concealed many treacherous bogs. Each company built fires and the supply wains creaked slowly up the line, passing out the first night's dinner. Late it was before they pulled into the camp of the Ithilien knights in the vanguard, and later still before the teamsters had their animals fed and hobbled and could seek out their own dinner and rest.
The army travelled thus through low hills and across wide fields dotted with wildflowers all that day and part of the next, then the road began gradually climbing until they were winding among tall downs. Then in the tenth hour of the day as their shadows were lengthening before them, they crested a hill and there below them lay the city of Pelargir gleaming in the westering sun.
It was a city of great beauty, for it crowned a high domed hill set between two large rivers. It was ringed with a stout wall studded with many towers, and it was built of a pale rose granite that caught the light and sent back glints and sparks to the eye, as if stars twinkled within the stone. The city within the walls was lofty and well-proportioned. Many houses bore flat roofs where women could be seen at their work under parti-colored awnings. Here and there rose high-arched domes of white limestone or gilded wood. And from the very heart of the city, at the crest of the hill rose a tall slim tower with a conical roof and a gallery beneath, built all of sky-blue marble quarried high in the Ered Nimrais and hauled with much labor on sledges and barges to the city.
A great gate yawned in the wall to the southwest and a broad avenue led down to the quays. Long river barges lay at the docks beside broad-beamed merchantmen and swift coastal luggers from a dozen ports. But towering over all the other craft were the white masts of the long ships of the fleet of Pelargir, and their sails were the color of deep waters.
The icy river Sirith tumbled down from the snowfields of the Ered Nimrais and curled about the western walls of Pelargir like a protective arm. Thence it flowed under a broad triple-arched bridge with strong towers at either end, the only point below the mountains where a man might cross the Sirith in any safety. The river, as if conquered at last, then yielded its blue waters to the brown flood of the mighty Anduin, greatest of all rivers of Middle-earth, for the last miles to the sea.
The men of Pelargir built and fortified that bridge a thousand years ago, and it had never been unguarded since that day, for it was the only land route into the south of Anórien. Because Pelargir guarded both this bridge and the great river Anduin itself, it was known throughout Gondor as the Gate of the South. It was a title of which the men of Pelargir were justly proud, for in all those centuries no enemy had ever succeeded in passing Pelargir.
As the van started down the hill toward the bridge, a horseman burst from the nearest bridge tower and rode hard to meet them. As he approached, they could see he wore jet black armor and a tall helm with a plume of peacock blue that streamed behind him as he thundered up the slope in a cloud of dust. He was riding hard and seemed so resolute and fierce that some began to doubt his intentions, but Isildur merely drew up Fleetfoot and awaited his arrival.
The dark horseman drew up before the king so suddenly that his horse reared and neighed, a ghostly shadow in the cloud of dust that now surrounded him. The knight leaped nimbly to the ground and swept off his helmet. He was a young man with a strong and noble face, and his eyes gleamed with pride.