"Then let's do it now," said the man. They readied the second grappling hook and fit it to the crossbow. Each fitted an arrow to his bow and had two more arrows ready in his hand. Elendur glanced around and saw each man ready.
"Now!" he cried, dashing out into the bright sun. They rushed out together, wheeled, and fired. The orcs, taken by surprise, pulled back howling. One slumped across the windowsill. Elendur raised the heavy crossbow and took aim at the lowest window. Just as his finger tightened on the trigger, an orc suddenly appeared, his broad body filling the opening, a throwing knife in his upraised hand. Without hesitating, Elendur pulled the trigger and the grappling hook arced into the window, striking the orc's chest. He screamed and fell back out of sight, the knife clattering to their feet.
Orth gave the line a heave. It gave a few feet, then caught. "It holds," he called, "though I believe you have speared the fish."
"Dare we climb with such a hold?" asked one of the Men.
"We must!" shouted another. "Look there!"
A line of orcs came running along the wall from the direction they had come. Each held before him a short pike.
"Quickly!" shouted Elendur. "We must climb. Hold them off as long as you can." And he swarmed up the line hand over hand. The others began shooting into the advancing orcs. Their arrows were swift and deadly. The orcs were in the narrow part of the wall and could only advance one at a time. As each came within range, he was shot down and the next had to clamber over his body. But each that fell was a little closer to the tower.
Elendur reached the window and tumbled over the sill. He fell sprawling across the dead orc, the body pinned beneath the overhanging window sill by the hook protruding from its chest. The room was otherwise empty. He jumped across to the open doorway and closed and barred the door, lest he be attacked from the rear. He raced back to the window just as a second man clambered through it and tumbled to the floor. Unslinging his bow from his back, Elendur stepped to the window and began sending a deadly fire down into the close-packed orcs. Firing as quickly as he could, he took care to send each shaft straight to its mark. Only moments before he and his men had been trapped down there while orcs fired down upon them; now the situation was reversed. A third man climbed into the room, blood streaming from a cut on his cheek. They hauled him roughly over the sill and resumed the feverish fire.
"Here's one for Belamon, you murdering fiends," Elendur growled, sending an arrow through the body of the orc chieftain, who toppled from the wall and disappeared with a shriek. The remaining orcs hesitated, but then came on again, leaping over their fallen comrades. Two men were on the rope now, leaving only Orth and one other to hold off the orcs. The window was too narrow to allow more than one man at a time to shoot, but they alternated, keeping up a steady fire at the foremost orcs. But still they came on. Orth pushed the last man to the rope, then strode forth out into their midst swinging his heavy staff like an immense club. The orcs fell back before his onslaught, though one managed to land a lance-thrust in Orth's side before he went down. Two more men reached the window safely. Looking out, Elendur did not dare shoot while Orth was among them, but orcs in the other tower windows fired into the midst of the combat, heedless of the comrades they slew.
The great oak staff swept like a scythe, reaping a terrible harvest of shattered bones and crushed skulls. Back and forth the strange combat flowed, the man taking wound after wound but fighting on, smiting down one foe after another as they pressed forward in the narrow passage. Then a black arrow flashed down from one of the high windows, striking Orth full in his broad back. He roared in pain and rage and fell to his knee, dropping his spear. Seeing their chance at last, three orcs leaped up on the battlements and jumped precariously from merlon to merlon, bearing down on the injured warrior. Elendur brought down one, and Orth swept a second over the side with a backhanded swipe of his huge arm, but the third brought down his scimitar in gory triumph. Even as he crowed in victory, two arrows pierced him and he fell across his victim. With a shout, the remaining orcs climbed over them both and raced to the foot of the tower. They were too late. The last man fell breathlessly through the window and the orcs howled in frustration as the rope flew up the wall and disappeared.
"Elendur!" called one of the men at the door. "They are outside. They are trying to beat down the door!" Heavy crashes could be heard from without.
"Let every man gather by the door with bow drawn. When I give the signal, raise the bar." They did as he commanded, standing in a tight semicircle around the door, every bow drawn to the full. Elendur drew his sword and nodded, and one of the men flung the bar from its brackets. The door burst open and three orcs tumbled to the floor with oaths of surprise, instantly cut short. Elendur leaped through the door and quickly cut down two more trying to flee. Leaving two men to hold off any pursuit from the upper levels of the tower, he led the other three down the narrow winding stairs.
The stairs ended in a large vaulted room, the gatekeeper's hall. Two orcs looked up in surprise and ran forward with scimitars raised, but the men of Gondor met them and would not be denied. It was over in seconds.
Elendur led them to an array of huge wooden gears and wheels along one wall of the room. A massive iron chain ran from the wheels and disappeared through a hole in the floor. Snatching up one of several long wooden poles in racks on the wall, Elendur thrust it at a huge pawl holding back the wheel and threw it back. With a heavy groan and rumble, the wheel began to turn slowly. The chain clanked down the hole, gathering momentum with each link. Then there came a deafening thud and the wheel thundered to a stop. The gate was open.
A roar of sound, the shouting of thousands of men, came in the the tall slit windows in the front of the tower and quickly grew to a single mighty cry: "Gondor!" they cried, "To victory!" Then the sounds of battle, the ringing of metal on metal, came nearer and passed under their feet, drowning out all other sound. The companions grinned weakly at each other. They had done it!
But there was no time to celebrate. They barred all the doors, then went back up the stairs and joined their companions. Room by room, floor by floor, they systematically went through the tower, slaying every foe they found. At last they reached the roof and found it empty. Rushing to the parapet, they looked out over the city as they had when first they topped the wall and found it much changed.
The great gate below them now yawned wide and through it the hosts of the Southlands continued to pour. Everywhere was combat and carnage. On every street corner, in every doorway, it seemed, Men and Elves and orcs were locked in deadly combat, much of it hand to hand. In the huge court behind the gate the catapults had been overrun by Frar's company of dwarves and the fighting was fierce and merciless there. The orcs began to fall back under the onslaught. Swords and axes and lances rose and fell in the press and groans and screams mingled with the war cries on both sides.
Then a new sound rose above all else: a high shrill keening of fear, of men struck dumb with despair. Elendur looked to the east side of the square, from whence the cry came, and lo, the throng melted back like wax from a flame, parted by an unseen hand. There stood three tall dark figures, each wearing a black cowled cloak over ebony armor and holding a long straight sword. Then they advanced as one, walking slowly forward, directly into the front ranks of the close-pressed army of Gondor. They held their swords in both hands and swung them back and forth with an unhurried sweep, hewing friend and foe alike. None raised a hand against them.