"Wait here," he said. He spoke with such assurance that Elendur, unused to taking orders from anyone, paused and looked at him in surprise. In that moment the man took the line from his hands and scrambled up it with surprising speed, his heavy oaken spear swinging from his belt.
"If the line holds him," chuckled one of the men, "it should bear the rest of us easily enough."
"Aye," said Elendur, "and I wager we could all ride up on his back without hindering him overmuch."
They saw him reach the battlement, peer cautiously over, then scramble through a crenel and disappear. A moment later his head reappeared and he beckoned the others to follow.
Elendur slung the crossbow on his back and started up. He found to his surprise that the Elvish rope, though soft and of an even lay, yet gave good purchase to his hands and he went up easily. When he was but halfway up however, he heard a muffled cry from above. He looked up just in time to see a dark shape hurtling toward him. Before he could react, the figure flashed past and struck the ground with a sickening wet thud. He froze, his heart pounding, spinning perhaps thirty feet off the ground, expecting at each moment to feel the line go slack in his hands and himself falling to certain death. He looked up, and there was Orth's big hairy face looking down at him.
"Orc," he explained. "Come."
Elendur hauled himself to the top, then found he couldn't fit through the crenel with the crossbow across his back. He started trying to pull the bow around with one hand while he hung by the other, but Orth simply grasped his shoulders and lifted him into the passage set into the wall. Still trembling, he rewound his bow and drew his sword, just as Orth hauled the third man, his old friend Belamon, over the parapet. Their eyes met.
"Full oft have I walked these walls," said Elendur, "but never before did they seem so lofty. Belamon, take up your position beyond Orth, lest we be attacked from that side. I will do the same here." Belamon nodded and fitted an arrow to his bow. Elendur watched him squeeze past the herdsman, then turned to see three large orcs rushing at him, one with a scimitar raised to strike.
Elendur parried the blow with his blade, but the force of it knocked him back against the outer parapet. The orc thrust straight for his chest, his big yellow eyes gleaming with murderous malevolence. Elendur rolled to the left and heard the scimitar ring against stone. The orc grunted with the shock and turned toward his opponent, but he met only steel as Elendur's blade flashed down and hewed through his massive shoulder and deep into his chest.
Wrenching free his blade, Elendur turned to find the other two orcs engaged with Orth. He leaped forward to assist, but Orth swung his heavy spear like a bat, crushing the side of one orc's head. The other staggered back in awe, only to meet his end on Elendur's blade. Elendur spun around, but there were no more orcs in sight. By this time two more raiders had joined them. They gradually spread out along the narrow wall, until all twelve were there. They peered cautiously over the inner wall.
The city was in a turmoil of activity. Companies of orcs raced here and there through the streets, bearing bundles of arrows and short bows. Wagons creaked down the narrow lanes, pulled by teams of shouting, cursing orcs while whips cracked around them. Most seemed to be hurrying north toward the gates. Above and beyond the eastern walls, they could see the orderly blocks of the archers of Lothlórien and of Pelargir, sending a continuous rain of arrows into that part of the city. No orcs could be seen on the walls on that side.
Then Elendur looked toward the large plaza stretching between the gates to the foot of the Tower of the Moon. There, not a hundred yards away, a large body of orcs was swarming around a row of massive catapults, bringing them a constant supply of rocks, balks of wood, even paving stones prised from the street. Striding among the squat orcs were two tall figures in gleaming ebony armor, directing the operation, laying about them with whips. Mailed and caped they were, with high helmets topped with golden crowns. A fear lay about them, for the orcs crouched and cowered at their approach.
"I like not the look of those tall ones by the catapults," said Belamon, coming up beside Elendur. "They seem unlike orcs, and yet somehow fouler still."
"Verily," aid Elendur. "It is so. For there walk the fell Úlairi, foulest of all of Sauron's creatures."
"Those are the dreaded Úlairi?" said Belamon in wonder. "Then let me put arrows through them both while they are yet unaware."
He stood and drew his bow string to his ear. But even as he sighted on the Ringwraith's chest, it must have sensed danger, for it suddenly stiffened and looked up toward the parapets. Elendur clutched Belamon's cloak and pulled him roughly down behind a merlon.
"Down, fool," hissed Elendur, "lest you bring the whole city down on us. Do not forget that they have seven brothers within these walls.
"But…," stammered Belamon, "is it not meet that they should die for all the evil they have wrought?"
"Aye, more than meet, and their deaths are long overdue, for they have lived beyond the span of years allotted to them by nature. But not such as we shall bring them down. Leave that to the Elves and the lords of magic, who now wait without the gate while we tarry here. If we fulfill our trust and open the gate, even though we perish in the deed, the Úlairi will see their death ride in through that gate. Now, to the tower."
Crouching low to avoid eyes in the windows, they sped toward the western gate tower. Suddenly a loud cry rang out from high above, calling a warning in a harsh tongue. Elendur as he ran glanced up at the many windows in the tower, but he could see no one. A man running just in front of him suddenly screamed and straightened up, clawing at an arrow in his back. He fell and Elendur leaped over him. Now there were orcs at several of the windows and arrows were flashing down amongst the raiders. A second man fell, then a third. Some of the men ducked into crenels in the battlement, seeking shelter from the fire from the tower.
"On, on," cried Elendur. "We cannot allow ourselves to be pinned down out here in the open or we are doomed. Make for the tower as you love life." At that moment a shaft glanced off his helmet with a deafening clang. He stumbled and fell, striking the wall and spinning to the pavement, stunned. He struggled to his hands and knees and tried to rise, but his head was spinning and the world seemed to have gone dark. Arrows clattered on the stones around him as he bent there.
Then someone grabbed him and dragged him roughly to his feet. Confused, he allowed himself to be hurried forward, nearly carried. Still dazed, he stumbled over a body and nearly went down again, but the other man held him up. Looking down, he saw Belamon's face white and staring beneath him. Then there was the tower before them. The tunnel pierced the tower and they all crowded inside, gasping and trying to catch their breath. Elendur stood doubled over, and gradually his vision cleared. When he stood up, he saw the giant herdsman beside him.
"My thanks to you, Orth of Calembel," he said. "You saved my life."
They looked around. Only seven of the original twelve remained, one with an ugly slash down his arm where an arrow had ripped it. The others lay sprawled out in the sun, black arrows protruding from their bodies.
Orth tried a heavy oak door that gave into the tower from within the tunnel. "Locked and barred," he said. "How do we get in?"
"We have to get through one of the windows," said Elendur. "We must use the grappling hooks again."
"How? There are orcs at every window by now," said another man.
"Our only choice is to rush out with bows drawn and fire as quickly as we can at the windows. As the orcs duck back, I will fire the crossbow through the lowest window. It is a desperate chance, but I see no alternative. It is only a matter of time until reinforcements arrive and we are driven from the wall."