Chapter 387: The Battle of the Pelennor Fields
In Gondor, a Mordor host made up of Uruk-hai and Olog-hai, the trolls that fear no sunlight, poured out of Cirith Ungol in a raging flood.
Half of Mordor's force swept toward the ancient city of Osgiliath, preparing to seize the strategic fortress that spanned the River Anduin.
The other half bypassed Osgiliath entirely. They chose instead to force a crossing of the Anduin and strike straight at Minas Tirith, the capital of Gondor.
Among Mordor's army were the drakes Saruman had once bred. They could not fly, and they could not breathe fire, but their sheer bulk made them like living siege engines, crashing through the battlefield almost unstoppable.
Polluted by Sauron's power, fed on filth, and with evil spirits lodged within them, those drakes had grown far more wicked, becoming true monsters.
They sprawled across the River Anduin with their massive bodies, making bridges of flesh and scale so that Mordor's troops could cross the great water.
And so the Anduin, that natural barrier, was robbed of its purpose.
Once across, Mordor's host surged toward Minas Tirith.
In Minas Tirith, Denethor II had already seen the oncoming army through the Palantír.
He ordered the beacons lit to call for aid from Rohan, while at the same time swiftly mustering every force he could and drawing them into the capital for a fight to the death.
Yet Denethor's burden grew heavier still. Mordor's army was not the only threat. From the south came tens of thousands of Haradrim, and among them, the most terrifying were the mûmakil riders.
Upon the backs of the mûmakil, war-towers could be mounted, siege engines hauled, and their thick hides shrugged off arrows. They were the bane of cavalry, and the long tusks bristled with sharpened spikes that could rip men open in rows. They were living tanks.
With enemies on two fronts, the pressure on Gondor doubled. Denethor remained in the White City, watching the battle unfold through the Palantír, and because he could communicate at a distance through two-way mirrors, he could direct armies remotely and respond quickly.
Even so, Denethor knew Gondor's strength could not match Mordor's, and if his forces stayed scattered, they would be broken one by one.
So he ordered Faramir, commanding at Osgiliath, to withdraw and return to Minas Tirith with the troops, gathering all of Gondor's strength together for one decisive struggle.
Armies stationed elsewhere in Gondor received the same command, racing back toward Minas Tirith as fast as they could to defend the White City.
As a result, Mordor's armies and the Haradrim met and merged with little resistance, then rolled forward in an enormous tide toward Minas Tirith.
The only small mercy Denethor could find was that Gondor's greatest naval enemy, the Corsairs of Umbar, had sailed north to strike the Grey Havens, and so Gondor was spared the even worse fate of being attacked from three sides.
But even without Umbar, the combined host of Mordor and Harad, nearly five hundred thousand strong, crushed Denethor with dread.
And the monsters marching with them left him closer to despair.
If Denethor had any comfort at all, it was that Boromir—his beloved eldest, his pride—was not in Gondor. He was away with the Fellowship.
Even Faramir, the son Denethor had never truly favoured, had used the magic he'd learned at Hogwarts to break the garrison at Osgiliath out of Mordor's encirclement and bring the men safely back to Minas Tirith.
The existence of his two sons kept Denethor from collapsing entirely. Even if Minas Tirith fell, he would fight to the end, determined to drag Mordor down with it.
And Denethor still clung to one thin strand of hope. Over the past decades, nearly a hundred of Dúnedain blood, including both his sons, had received Hogwarts letters and completed seven years of magical study.
Now those Dúnedain wizards formed a strike team under Faramir's command, defending the capital.
They could not compare to Ministry Aurors, but against ordinary soldiers, they were something altogether beyond mortal measure.
So on the Pelennor Fields outside Minas Tirith, Gondor's armies clashed in a brutal, grinding battle with Mordor's host and the Haradrim.
Faramir's wizard strike team used Apparition to blink and weave across the battlefield, harrying the dozen or so monstrous drakes, striking at the mûmakil, and sowing chaos.
Faramir landed a Conjunctivitis Curse straight into a drake's eyes. Blinded, the beast became violently enraged and began lashing out without distinction, tearing into Mordor's own ranks and throwing the enemy into confusion.
The other wizards copied the tactic, striking at drakes and mûmakil alike.
With their level of power, killing such monsters outright, creatures with strong resistance to magic, was almost impossible.
But back at Hogwarts, in Defence Against the Dark Arts, they had heard their professor speak of the best way to deal with powerful magical beasts such as dragons. Attack the weakest point. Their eyes.
Now, on the battlefield, what they learned in school saved lives.
Working together, the strike team blinded more and more drakes, and the monsters rampaged through Mordor's host, striking friend and foe alike.
The mûmakil also lost control and began to trample wildly.
Mordor's host fell into disorder, and Gondor's armies seized the moment and charged.
Just as Gondor began to gain the upper hand, a Ringwraith leading Mordor's forces finally revealed itself.
The Ringwraith rode a fell beast, gripping a Morgul war-hammer. A crushing pressure rolled off it, choking the lungs, dragging courage into the dirt. Its shriek did more than frighten. It shattered hope itself, breaking men's will to fight.
Gondor's soldiers, moments before fierce with resolve, crumpled under that terror and that scream. Their courage drained away. Their faces turned pale. Some threw down weapons and fled without thought.
Even Faramir and the Dúnedain wizards were affected. Fear rose on instinct, and their movements turned slow, stiff, hesitant.
The Ringwraith did not intend to spare them. The fell beast dove. With two enormous talons, it seized two wizards while they were frozen in terror, flung them into the air, then snapped its jaws and swallowed them whole.
Two comrades gone in an instant, Faramir and the others went ashen. They forced down the fear clawing at their throats and struck back.
Their spells did nothing. The Ringwraith did not even bother to block them.
Instead, it wheeled and drove the fell beast at them again.
This Ringwraith was stronger than ever. The darkness that poured from it was thicker, more dreadful. Wherever it passed, it brought a sudden winter, and fear crept through the ranks like frost.
Before it, men lost the will to resist.
Faramir fought his own terror and snapped up his wand, summoning a silver-white bison Patronus.
The Patronus dulled the edge of fear around them, giving the wizards a single, precious breath of relief.
The powerful bison lowered its horns and charged the Ringwraith.
The Ringwraith gave a cold snort. Its evil red gaze flared brighter, instinctively loathing that creature of light and hope. The black mist around it surged outward, compressing into a single arrow, dense with curses and ill omen, and shot toward the Patronus.
The dark arrow struck. The Patronus gave a silent cry, its holy silver form corroding under the darkness, and then it broke apart into drifting sparks and vanished.