The Last Dreamwalker

Rolling Heads

It was when they threw the heads over the walls. That was when the all out battle broke out. The yells among the men in their ranks showed Lessien that.

"Men, stay at your posts!" she bellowed.

They were terrified.

And rightly so.

Lessien looked down at herself. She was still wearing this ridiculous dress. It was coming.

Soon.

She would have to fight. She would have to die. She knew that but it felt so very strange. She could have always died in her past battles but now she knew it to be certain.

Lessien was going to die today. Perhaps in a few hours. So her heart felt tight in her chest when she recalled her friends and her father and all of those who were dear to her. She hoped they would live so there was some good in this world when she left.

If the world could be saved.

Lessien held her breath and looked out onto the fields. There were so many of them.

So many, in fact, that it seemed an impossible number. She was supposed to take them all down?

She remembered the last few times she had killed orcs in her Dreamworld. All it had taken was her losing her patience with the creature and then he was pushed into the fire where he burned from the inside out.

Besides, now she knew magic. She could wipe a whole army out. Could she not?

She hoped.

"Men, to the catapults!" Lessien shouted and she heard the echoes of her order ripple through the ranks.

How many could they take out before the orcs did breech the walls?

Her thinking was drowned out by the yelling of men and the ominous, booming drums that the orc army had brought along with them.

"Load them up," Lessien ordered as loud as she could. She looked to either side of her where men were struggling to move huge blocks of white rock onto the catapults.

It was no more then two minutes, though, when all were ready. "And release!" Lessien yelled.

Simultaneously, the mechanisms snapped as they lifted the rocks and flung them far out onto the Pelinor Fields.

A fair amount of dark soldiers were wiped out with each launch but not enough. "Not enough," Lessien whispered to herself.

The men knew it too.

The catapults had aggravated the orcs and now they marched. It looked as though a colony of ants advanced forward. They were so far away but they would be upon the White City soon.

Lessien shook her head. "Men, keep loading! Fire at will! Fire at will!"

It would not help to be organized in their attack. They just had to be fast now and take out as many as possible.

Gandalf came to stand beside her. "What are we to do?"

Lessien looked at him incredulously. "Why are you asking me?"

"You seem to know what you are doing," he replied.

Lessien looked away and out onto the field. "It is simple enough, Gandalf. We take as many as we can before they are upon us. I am not sure it will make much a difference however. We can try."

"I mean, what are you to do?"

"Fight beside them."

"You are no use to us dead."

Lessien blew air out of her cheeks and clasped her hands above her head before rubbing her face. "I do not think I will die in combat, not with what I have learned with you. I need a warm up, after all."

Gandalf shot her a look. "If you take out too many at a time Sauron will claim you."

Lessien bit her lip. "I will be careful. Besides, how is He to get to me? Is He engaging in this battle?"

Gandalf frowned. "He has gotten the poison to grow before through Evil. The Palantir is evidence of that, as is Faramir's return. All he needs to get it to grow is for you to come into contact to anything of darkness. Some of these orcs are powerful enough to have an effect."

"Not all," Lessien snapped angrily. She rolled her neck and closed her eyes. She could hear them. There were voices whispering in her head.

She was grasping as many of the orcs' consciousnesses as she could from afar. She could not kill them because she would become weak and as soon as she was weak enough, Sauron would pump the poison into her system and as Gandalf said, she was no use to anyone dead.

"You have no idea what you are doing. You are just an old man who thinks he is of some use to us. Tell me, Gandalf, what really have you done to help mankind?" Her voice seemed unusually cold and dead.

The retort was harsh and out of character.

"How far has it grown now, Lessien?" Gandalf inquired slowly.

Lessien grimaced and reluctantly pulled up her sleeve. The poison had spread but minutes ago and was just settling. Her hand was now black but her arm grew lighter the farther and farther up. Now, a faint grey claimed her entire bicep, black veins stretching out over her shoulder, threatening to claim her entire arm. A pale white crystallized on her collarbone. She turned over her palm to show the chalky white brand. Pitch black veins running with evil blood decorated her arms.

It was a gruesome and terrifying sight.

Even Gandalf flinched. He grabbed her by her wrist but pulled away instantly as though he had been burned.

Lessien withdrew too. "It is usually cold," she began. "But when I touched you it was hot."

She grimaced. "Agh," she murmured, holding her arm. The black climbed and settled on her collarbone, the white spiderweb stretching under her bodice.

Lessien could feel it swirling on her chest.

Gandalf looked at her with worried eyes, frightened by what he had done.

"The light or the dark," Lessien started and finished, "They will both kill me."

"No, no," he murmured in a way that reminded her of Gandalf the Grey. "But you must be careful, Lessien Tiwele."

Lessien nodded her head. "And I will be as I fight by the Gondorians. As I fight beside the men who could have been my people."

Gandalf smiled, his old self showing further. "You continue surprising me," he said happily.

Lessien shook her head slightly and continued, "I must get ready. Look out to the fields. Things are getting bad."

Gandalf left to walk among the ranks.

Lessien returned to the fortress to prepare for battle.

The battle she was to die in.