Above the army the walls of Minas Tirith, white and shining in the dawn�s light, rose upwards, peaking in Tower of Ecthelion. The lower level was black and burned, ruined and stained with blood and soot, but a grey rain had put out the fires and now the men who were to stay and hold the city were working to fortify it again. The Gate still lay in ruins; but the massive battering-ram used by the orcs, a grim, snarling, fire-tongued wolf fashioned of iron in Mordor�s depths, had been hauled away.
Aldamir and Lindir were there as well, alongside the D�nedain. Both wore their chain-mail, their swords were girt at their sides, their quivers were filled, and their bows were ready in their hands. They were prepared.
Aldamir�s wounded ankle was still bound tightly in linen; it was not fully healed yet. He could put weight on it and it had stopped seeping blood, but it was still painful and it was far easier for him to ride than to walk. So he and Lindir rode with the cavalry.
He glanced sideways toward Lindir. His companion was quiet and thoughtful, his fingers stroking the wood of his bow. A strip of linen was still bound about the cut on his head. His dark hair lifted slightly in the subdued breeze which whispered among the army�s ranks. For a moment he seemed lost in thought, far away, but then he turned to Aldamir.
�They say we ride to our doom,� he said, but he was strangely peaceful.
Aldamir nodded. One part of him was in fearful dread of what lay ahead, and the other part was calm and resolved. He had been urged to stay behind because of his wound, but he had refused. �I have ridden this far with the D�nedain and Elrond�s sons; I have fought in Helm�s Deep and on the Pelennor fields; and I have walked the Paths of the Dead. I am a part of this now, and I cannot turn back. I will not stay behind!�
And so he now sat upon Fear�n among the ranks of the West, waiting.
Silver trumpets sounded, a call to the ride of doom. The army moved forward, across the expanse of the Pelennor, and rode away from the White City.
That journey, taken in a brooding atmosphere of doom waiting to strike, was an experience none ever forgot. When they had left Minas Tirith, clouds drew over them as if chasing them, a heavy black mass of stormy fog, blotting out the light. The clanking of swords in scabbards, the soft rustling of chain mail, the clop of horses� hooves against the ground and the sound of quiet, broken conversation were deadened and dulled under the overhang. All the air seemed to be grey; the world seemed to holding its breath.
Before noon they came into Osgiliath. The city lay in ruins from the repeated attacks and ravaging of orcs, but men were busily at work repairing it. It would be many years before it was fully restored, but workers were hauling away rubble and broken stone, clearing the streets, strengthening the broken bridges, and throwing up hasty defenses on the East side of the city.
They did not tarry but passed through Osgiliath, and rode through the ruins of Old Gondor, over the wide River, and on up to a long, straight road which in old days had led from the Tower of the Sun to the Tower of the Moon. But now the latter had become the dreadful Tower of Minas Morgul, lying black and feared in its terrible vale, and few indeed ever took this road, infested as it was with orcs and such. Still they pressed on through the gloom, and at nightfall they reached the Crossroads, lying silent and brooding in a great ring of trees. They heard no sound, and there was no sign of the enemy; not a shadow had moved throughout that day nor any blade that gleamed furtively. Yet they felt as they went on that the land was watching them, and that the watchfulness increased with every step they took. It was an eerie feeling.
Near the Crossroads stood the statue of a sitting King, carved of white stone. Near it lay the severed head, chipped and disfigured by orcs; where the head had sat a hideous, crude eye of stone had been placed. This was thrown down and broken, and instead the king�s head was replaced, crowned by a golden vine of flowers.
That night they stayed there, lighting fires and setting watchmen all about; yet no sign of the enemy did they see or hear.
Before the dawn they set out again, riding north toward the Gate of Mordor. Aragorn had left many Rangers of Ithilien and other skilled bowmen to hold the Crossroads if Mordor should send out forces from Minas Morgul, and they lay hidden now in the woods about the crossing of ways. Then Gandalf and Aragorn rode with the vanguard of the army and looked upon the dreadful dark city of Minas Morgul.
Aldamir could not repress a shudder as he gazed down at it. It was dark, and no life stirred, for the orcs and other lesser creatures of Mordor which had lived there long ago had been slain or driven away in battle, and the Nazgul were abroad, hunting their prey. The city itself, built mainly of sharply-pointed, menacing towers in black stone, lay silent, but it seemed to glower at them in deep hostility. Here and there a torch still flickered, burning the last of its pitch; to Aldamir they seemed to be small, red, evil eyes.
Though nothing stirred, he could feel the air around him to be heavy with malice and hostility; it was as if the very wind which sighed through the dark buildings was a hiss of hate. Fumes, noisome and poisonous, rose from the hideous fields around the city and made Aldamir�s head reel; he felt sick. Such pure evil dwelt here, in a place that had once been so beautiful and good......he turned away in sorrow and horror.
Aragorn ordered the bridge broken and fire set to the fields, and then they departed.
The next day, the third since they had set out from Minas Tirith, they had yet a hundred miles to go. Aldamir wondered if indeed they would come so far, or what would happen if they didn�t. The army rode openly but warily and watchfully; scouts were sent a little ways ahead and rode on all sides of the army. Ever and anon the heralds would blow the trumpets and sound a challenge to the silent lands about them, but never was there a reply.
Near the end of that day they were warned by their scouts of an approaching force of Easterlings and Orcs, coming from the north and attempting to ambush them. Aragorn laid a plan with his captains and sent Mablung and his Ithilien Rangers ahead. The rest of the army waited for them to come, drawing their swords and stringing their bows.
It was not a large battle, and Aragorn�s army won easily. Mablung had done his work well, and the ambush itself had been trapped.
But it did little to encourage Aldamir, or any of the Captains of the Wesr. �It is only a small taste,� he sighed, slipping his sword back into his scabbard. �A foretaste of Sauron�s might. It will be far worse than this if we reach the Black Gate.....�
Time wore away, and the outwardly hopeless journey with it. On the sixth day away from Minas Tirith, there were some hosts who became terrified and unnerved, and were unwilling to go further. Aragorn was not angry, but rather, he pitied them, seeing the deadly fear in their eyes. They were only young men, to whom Mordor had only been an old legend of fear, not something real and terrible, looming before them. He bid them turn south-west to Cair Andros, and retake it to hold it for Gondor and Rohan to the last. Some were enheartened by this and went; others were shamed by his mercy and rode onwards with him.
So it was that having started out with a great army, Aragorn and the Captains of the West and the Elves came with less than six thousands to the dreaded Black Gate of Mordor.....