“Greaves, to make your step undaunted.”
“Gauntlets, so that your hands know no bite save that of your own weapon.”
“The Cuirass, to shield your heart from weariness.”
“The Mantle, to carry the burden of The Thousand.”
“The Helm, so that the Enemy knows whom to fear.”
“You are wrath, and you are ruin. You are The Spear and The Shield. A torch carried at midnight. You are war made manifest. Duty unto death.”
Valers’ words rang clear. The Oath was sworn. Only duty now remained. From Angband to Mordor, the Host was approaching its finest hour. An anvil which they would either break or be tempered into the finest blade of all. They would not break, not until he still drew breath.
They came unto them like a tide, poised to crush all beneath its terrible grip. A swarm of flies buzzing around a fresh corpse. “Hold! Hold, Sworn-Blades!” Cardanith cried out, one hand clutched The Spear of The First, the other heaving the Standard of The Host. Before him, members of The First Company tightened their formation, planting deeper into the bog-ground, their blades keen, prodding between broad shields of silver and crimson. In truth, they all knew doom was upon them. Once Oropher-King's companies had charged so eagerly, they left the Host’s left flank exposed, a soft crack in the dragon scale, where a single dagger would be enough to undo all of them. “Balor, I want four Talons flanking our right! Mylher, heed the seventh and fifth, reinforce the line near the ridge, they must hold!” He turned to address the First once more, tapping the standard against the black stone. “Stand! Fear not the Night! Duty unto Death, Sworn-Blades!” They would not break, as long as he still drew breath.
The battle raged on for another day, with the Host in a fighting retreat. What dead they could recover were being pulled back, and their count soon threatened to overtake those who still fought. They were closing back to allied lines, yet the Enemy licked its fangs, the taste of blood on its forked tongue, and came after them again. Cardanith was in the thick of the fighting now, dancing amidst the smoke. He struck forward, his lunge piercing flesh and bone before he moved on to his next victim. Bodies of slain yrch laid strewn around his feet, his plate bearing streaks of blackened blood. The Noldo’s body moved with the rhythm of battle, dodging, parrying, felling. Members of the First flanked him, standing unchallenged against the tide, offering what little relief they could for the healers that saw to the wounded and the dying. Cardanith spun, hewing at the neck of the nearest Orc, an arc of thick blackness trailing behind following the strokes of his spear. He continued to carve a bloodied path through the Enemy. There was a certain beauty to his movements, even if were crude and bloody work, his spear leaving a feint trail of silver as it swung upwards, then downwards, splitting bone and flesh alike. For a moment, he caught something moving amidst the black sea. An iron crown, worn proud over a hood of crimson. A tower of fear striding through the fray, lines of darkened steel jotting through his rancid flesh. The anvil upon which they would either break or be temper into the finest blade of all. “Sally forth! Unto them!” Cardanith called out and piled into the Orcs once again. He had a single purpose in mind, and it stood perched upon the black stone, one wicked finger pointing towards him. A challenge. And it would be met. Dashing through foe after foe, carving like a hot knife through butter, the Autarch drove onwards towards the King’s Man, with his most veteran warriors following on his trail. “Lacho calad! Drego morn!” He called and looked his foe in the eye. There was a moment there, of pause, of appraisal, the two of them circling each other, waiting, watching. Cardanith would not be found wanting. He struck first, aiming for the man’s chest, yet the blow was met with the blade, parried. Swinging once again, Cardanith feinted a thrust upwards, before bringing the spear down in a swift arc, outpacing the heaving longsword of the Black Numenorian. His weapon bit flesh just under the man’s knee, punching through bone, before being pulled back, slipping from the wound with ease. A heaving overhead swing came from his foe, falling directly upon the Noldo’s shield, leaving a wicked scar in the tempered steel. The Autarch used this moment to lunge, slamming the dauntless shield into the foe’s chest, then engaging with a lightning-quick snap of his spear. It drew blood from the shoulder and recoiled just in time to block another brutish blow of the longsword. Steel met steel, sending turbulent shakes down the heft. With a twist, Cardanith brought the blunted end of the spear across the Numenorian’s cheek, then followed up with a lunge, striking true. The point drove home, splitting the iron breastplate of his foe, and punched through to the other side. A blow such as that would leave any other foe gasping for breath, clutching the last, fleeting moments of life. Not the Crowned Man, though. He grinned and brought his cleaving blade across the Autarch’s shoulder. Its bite was spiteful, sending burning needles of pain through Cardanith’s muscles. He twitched, trying to shake away the shock, only for his foe to strike him across the head with the force of a hurricane, sending his proud helm scattering across the charred rock. He was on his knees then, the Noldo, bleeding from wounds earned during the day’s battle. The man broke the shaft of the spear he was impaled on as if it were a twig. The shattered weapon clattered onto the ground, hewn in half. Three millennia of service, undone in a moment. The Crowned grabbed Cardanith by his mane, tarnishing the silver strands with black and crimson. “You will die, Noldo, as will all your wicked kin. And we shall build great towers upon your bones, wretch.” The man spat, foolishly, pulling the Autarch closer, so close he could smell the foulness from his breath, so close he could see the rotten and blackened teeth, and a tongue that only spat venom. “Death is a feather. Duty is a mountain.” The helmless responded, his hand reaching to the knife sheathed behind his back. In a flurry of movement, he sallied forth, driving the point of the blade between the man’s collarbone and neck. He stabbed and stabbed, warm blood sprouting from the open wounds. Leaving the dagger buried in the Numenorian, now bathed in thick hues of red, then broke away from his opponent. Heaving the Standard of The Host from where it had stood planted into the ground, Cardanith drove the spear-end of the banned through the man’s chest, with a mighty cry. “You will build nothing but ash, wretch. Warn your master, we will drag him out of Mordor in bonds of iron.” He reached to pull the crown from his foe, and he lifted it aloft for all to see. Standing perched upon that blackened mound, bloodied, bruised, but unbroken, clutching a Standard bathed in crimson, and a crown taken from his felled foe, Cardanith seemed like a figure drawn in ancient verse and song. With their leader slain, the Orcs broke within the hour. The Host stood battered but tempered. They withstood the dark and lived to see starlight once more.
