Gothmog-Utar grinned cruelly, foul black blood dripping through the slits of his heavy iron jaw-guard.
His harsh laughter cut through the sudden, freezing silence.
“Do you think a few fallen monsters can stop us, *Little King*?” Gothmog roared, his voice sounding like boulders grinding together.
He smashed his massive mace against the stone floor repeatedly.
*BAM!
BAM!
BAM!*
In response, dark war drums echoed from beyond the cliff slope.
Out from the swirling blizzard, tight ranks of enemy forces poured forth endlessly.
It was no longer hundreds, but a full thousand warriors of the Gundabad Black Battalion—a combined host of iron-shielded Uruks, dark-eyed Goblin archers, and wave upon wave of reserve Warg cavalry filling the cliff path to overflowing!
“They still have a thousand troops!” an archer shouted from above, his voice laced with shock.
Arthur stood unmoving, his gaze cold as ice.
“Let them come,” he whispered softly.
“This cliff will be their mass grave.”
The first wave of a thousand Orcs slammed into the main gate like a black tide.
Hundreds of heavily armored Uruks pressed against the barricade, using their own bodies and iron-plated wooden shields to crush the defense.
“HOLD!
DO NOT GIVE AN INCH!” Arandhir roared.
The crushing pressure cracked the courtyard floor beneath the soldiers’ boots.
Heavy Shield Knights in the front line groaned as their armor joints creaked under thousands of pounds of force.
Arandhir leaped atop the shield line, his sword spinning in a lethal arc.
Every strike severed necks and shoulders, spraying black blood into the freezing air.
“Second line spears, thrust!” Arandhir commanded.
Twenty long pikes jabbed in unison through the bottom gaps of the shields, piercing legs and bellies, creating a pile of corpses that served as a natural barrier against the oncoming horde.
High on the main watchtower, Elmir realized the narrow cliff path was a fatal bottleneck for the army of a thousand.
“Archers!
Ignore the front line!
Rain arrows on the middle of the path!
Make them trample each other!” Elmir ordered.
A torrent of flaming and steel-tipped arrows rained down from above into the packed ranks.
Trapped on the narrow ledge, panicked Orcs pushed each other off the sheer drop, sending hundreds tumbling into the dark abyss below.
Meanwhile, on the right flank, Kaelan spotted reserve Wargs trying to flank across a steep ice slope.
“Bring the oil and war torches!” Kaelan commanded.
His men rolled barrels of pitch down the icy incline and set them ablaze.
A wall of fire erupted across the slope, roasting the Warg packs and trapping hundreds of Orcs in a roaring inferno.
Behind enemy lines, Boran and his *Dagor-Gathol* took advantage of the chaos.
With a thousand troops jammed together, the enemy’s chain of command was extremely fragile.
Moving like shadows, they targeted the war drummers and banner bearers instead of common Orcs.
Boran’s dagger pierced the throat of the lead drummer.
The iron drum crashed down, silencing the rhythm of attack.
Leaderless and confused, the rear ranks collided blindly in the blizzard.
Realizing his army was stalled by the narrow terrain and unyielding defense, Gothmog-Utar charged forward in a fit of rage, battering aside his own troops.
Leaping over the wall of corpses, he swung his giant mace at Arandhir.
Arandhir raised his shield, but the sheer force threw him meters back onto the stone floor.
“King of Men!
Face me!” Gothmog bellowed.
A flash of blue light cut through the dark.
King Arthur dropped gracefully from the gate archway, landing between Gothmog and the fallen Arandhir.
His Ice Sword glowed with deep blue aura, freezing the marble floor beneath his feet.
Gothmog swung his iron mace in a blinding horizontal sweep.
Instead of stepping back, Arthur stepped inside the weapon’s reach, parrying the handle with the hilt of his blade.
*CLANG!*
A shockwave froze the airborne snowflakes.
Arthur pivoted, redirecting the momentum, and slashed his frost blade across the Gundabad Commander’s heavy breastplate.
The black armor cracked and instantly frosted over.
Gothmog roared as bone-chilling cold bit deep into his flesh.
“Your thousand troops are merely prey for this storm, Gothmog,” Arthur said, his eyes glowing with silver light.
“Your journey ends here.”
Gothmog spat black blood that froze instantly upon hitting the snow.
Using his remaining strength, he spun his mace and retreated into his ranks.
“Slaughter him!
Rain iron upon him!” he shrieked to his remaining troops.
Before the Uruks could step forward, the clear, ringing blast of a war horn echoed from the southern pass, cutting through the blizzard.
*TOOOOOT!*
It was no crude horn of the mountain tribes, but the bronze war horn of the Aetherion Cavalry.
“For the King!
For Aetherion!”
Snow exploded on the lower slope as dozens of warhorses charged through the storm.
Leading the charge, Halbarad spurred his black steed at full speed, holding high the silver banner of the Star of Elendil as he shattered the rear guard of the Black Battalion.
Beside him rode a high officer in gleaming silver armor.
Valerin—Aetherion’s Scouts Commander—raised his blazing longsword.
Though primarily a scout, Valerin was a master of mounted combat.
Since Kaelan had led the fast advance foot force to Cameth Brin, Valerin had temporarily taken command of the cavalry, now bolstered by fifty mounted Rangers under Halbarad.
“Royal Cavalry!
Charge their ranks!
Leave no creature of dark alive!” Valerin bellowed.
Valerin led one hundred heavy knights into the rear of the Uruks like a landslide.
His longsword cleaved three Orc captains in a single pass, while the lancers behind him impaled heavy armor and threw enemy soldiers off the cliffs.
Halbarad wielded his war banner in his left hand to shatter iron helmets, while his right hand wielded his longsword with the precision of a Dúnedain veteran.
“Reinforcements have arrived!” Arandhir shouted, rising to his feet and raising his sword high.
“Push the gate!
Out and slaughter them!”
A perfect double pincer now trapped the remaining Orcs with no escape:
From the Fortress, Elmir and his archers rained arrows into the panicked center.
From Below, Boran and his shadow hunters ruthlessly gutted troops trying to turn and face the cavalry.
From the Main Gate, Arandhir and Kaelan led the shield knights in a crushing counter-charge.
Trapped on the narrow cliff path, Gothmog-Utar watched his proud battalion of a thousand wiped out.
Wild panic seized his eyes.
As he turned to flee down the slope, a shadow vaulted over the pile of corpses in his path.
King Arthur landed silently in Gothmog’s escape route, his Ice Sword gleaming in the dark.
“You promised to bring my head to the gates of Gundabad, Gothmog,” Arthur said, his voice cold as ice.
“Let us see if you can take it.”
Gothmog shrieked, swinging his mace with all his remaining strength.
Arthur stood still until the weapon was inches from his face.
With a graceful sidestep, he let the mace shatter the stone ground, and in one fluid motion, swept his Ice sword across Gothmog’s neck.
*SLICCCK!*
A line of frozen blue light flashed across the Orc’s throat.
Gothmog froze in place, his roar cut short.
Thick ice spread rapidly across his massive body, encasing him completely within seconds.
Arthur sheathed his blade with a soft click.
Gothmog’s frozen body collapsed to its knees and shattered into pieces of black ice as the howling wind hit it.
With their High Captain destroyed and their entire battalion wiped out, the few surviving Orcs threw down their weapons and tried to scale the cliffs—only to fall into the abyss or be run down by Valerin’s cavalry.
As the first rays of dawn broke through the storm clouds in the east, silence returned to the peak of Cameth Brin.
The white snow was stained with black blood—witness to the total annihilation of the Gundabad Black Battalion.
Not a single one of the thousand enemy warriors remained.
Valerin dismounted and climbed the stone steps alongside Halbarad, kneeling before King Arthur at the main gate.
“Forgive our delay, Your Majesty,” Valerin said.
“We rode at full speed from *Barad-Glinn Nim* after Kaelan deployed his troops and contacted Halbarad to help counter the deployment of the Black Battalion.”
Arthur smiled proudly, patting both men on the shoulder.
“Your arrival was right on time, Valerin, Halbarad,” Arthur said firmly.
“The Gundabad Black Battalion has been completely destroyed today.”
Halbarad surveyed the northern cliffs, now clear of all enemy threats, and looked up at the Star of Elendil banner fluttering proudly above the fortress.
“With the fall of Gothmog and his thousand troops,” Halbarad said, his eyes shining, “the northern gate of the Kingdom is sealed.
Gundabad will not dare touch this land again for a very long time.”