LOTR

My father once told me that should a cat be unable to clear a tangle in one's fur with mere claws, use a dagger to cut the blasted thing out. The end result may not have been the most attractive to behold, but all in all the problem was fixed. Being young and headstrong as I was then, I didn't understand any higher meaning beyond the face value of mere words. But my father was wise. Growing older I could sometimes find myself thinking back on his old sayings and chants, discovering the element of truth no matter how small that each one contained. Normally I would never pay attention to his ramblings, most of them passed off as the result of a feeble mind drawn of age, but sure as the sunrise they would one by one come back to haunt me. By then, of course, it was usually too late. One day, without anything particularly special about it, I found myself a grown tom and out for blood when Sauron's forces invaded Middle Earth and threatened the lives and fates of, not only my kind, but all those who lived for anything we call good.

The scent of evil carried on the midnight air alerted us Jellicles to the oncoming storm long before most others. Our meetings with the elves only concluded what we already knew, and thus when we were called upon to assist the army at Helm's Deep...we went. Every tom and queen that could be spared took up arms. It was only some ironic, clever twist of Heaviside's will that separated me from them on our journey, and on that dark, fateful night I was the sole Jellicle who stood beside our allies as the army of Mordor approached. Where the rest of my kind were that night, I cannot say. Only that it was assuredly a better place than this. The vile odor had been a taint in the air since before we had set out. Now the atmosphere was heavy with an exceptional stench. It was time to put away the claws and break out the daggers.

Helm's Deep was an impressive dwelling, to say the least. Beyond Rivendell my kind remained beings of the woods and I had never set paw in a human city. Upon stepping into the great stone walls I felt as though caged, a bristle running down my spine that drew an involuntary curl from my tail. But my eyes gazed round, and I saw the desolate faces of the humans there: men, women, and their children. They gazed up at us from sunken depths rimmed in the trails of tears, a spark of hope flickering to life. From the crevices and corners where they huddled like damp, frightened rodents a cry rose up: a cheer of welcome, of hope, of wonderful fright. A creature such as myself I'm certain most of the humans had never before set eyes upon, but their affection fell upon elf and Jellicle alike, revering us as saviors to deliver them from this evil. But for the quivering in my heart, I could only hope the same.

Haldir and myself as the leaders of our respective people were given a royal welcome, if brief with the human king's manner quite curious, and that night armed for the impending battle. Which was where I stood now, clad in what they called armor but I hindrance, shoulder to shoulder with the other chieftains of our small army as the black, swarming mass from Mordor drew ever closer: a visible pestilence across the land darker than the night that covered it. Their torches' glow dulled by that same overwhelming black, though there was no moonlight to bless us then I could still see their twisted faces, hear their hungry cries, smell their blood-laden breath. What they were exactly - orcs, Uruk-Hai, or something more - I had never the chance to decide for certain. They were the enemy, and that was answer enough for me.

Word had swept up the ranks just prior to the battle that we stood no chance. Rain had begun to fall, pelting my fur and armor, as that rumor could have very well been proven true. The size and thickness of the Mordor army stirred the blood in our veins. I could hear it in those beside me: Aragorn, Haldir, others whose names I did not know and yet their scent, the fires alight in their eyes, spoke nothing but bravery, determination, intelligence, and strength. It was universally agreed that it was all of our honors to die let alone fight beside such individuals, though none of us need speak it. The rain was coming harder, the furious roaring as the Mordor army riled themselves up driving the sensation of impending battle to and even higher insanity. If I could have found any song to describe the emotions running so high along our lines, I couldn't think of it then.

They came again...the visions. The images that had so often plagued me since a tomkit. Coming and going as quick as flashes, they were not severe, although disturbing and deeply moving in the feelings they invoked. I saw my mate as I last remembered her: standing amid the band of our tribe ready to travel deeper into the woods where they might be safer until we returned. Her tail and palm raised to me, her other hand resting upon the silken-gold fur of her middle, rounded out well with the coming of our first kitten. I knew no greater sorrow than leaving her as such to a war I may very well not return from, yet at the same time the sight of her was a comfort. I knew she still waited...alive and well.

"Munkustrap?" Haldir's voice brought me back from the winding corridors of my own mind. Finding his face among swirling, chaotic thoughts, I too found my senses. My one constant companion on this long journey. Were it not for Haldir my life would have ended three times over, and as it were I had yet to repay the favor. Turning to meet his eyes, their depths spanning as long as time itself, I curled my tail around his wrist that had set upon my shoulder, wary of its blade. We Jellicles are known for our vanity and pride, I'll admit, but in the time I'd spent in the elf's presence the greatest lesson of humility was impressed forever upon my mind: that of friendship. Haldir was a tough old tom and a good elf. His presence so near was a reassurance...my nerves were getting twitchy.

Our eyes turned back out into the dark mass, and I lifted my tail away from Haldir's wrist to shield my eyes against the oncoming rain. All was silent on the front now, only our hearts pounding like drums. Standing where we were upon the battle ramparts, bows in hand, we could see it all. The front line of the invaders stood like an impenetrable wall a mere arrow's shot away. Our commanders: Theoden, Aragorn, other humans, stood high above us, the voices that would pour from their throats dictating every soldier's move. I didn't think it right, leading one's army from behind, but now was hardly the time to bring it up. The Mordor army unsheathed their motley collection of weapons, and at the same time Aragorn's powerful voice cut the night air. "Archers!"

Moving as one unit our ranks withdrew a single arrow to fit into our bowstrings, the elves with their infinite grace, the humans with their usual stiff clumsiness. I drew back my own string until the bow bent, taut and quivering, the stiff feathers ruffled between my claws. The orders had been made clear: no one was to fire until the commanders gave the order. Military tactics were not the foremost skill when it came to myself, so what motive lay behind such measures escaped me. Theoden, the human king, had boasted already that the walls of his precious Helm's Deep could not be penetrated. Why then even bother with arrows? Let the rodents come right up to our door so we could kill them honorably. With claws and fangs. Drawn to the thought I licked my whiskers, ready and eager for the opportunity to do just that.

Blast humans and their weak nerves. It was bad enough that the army assembled at Helm's Deep was largely made of old men and children who could barely lift a sword, let alone hold an arrow steady. A single arrow flew from further down along our line, piercing the flesh of an unfortunate soldier on the ground below. A silence fell, as did the soldier. The arrow was no doubt let loose by mistake, but that was no factor to the Mordor army. Arrows began to fly. The fight had begun.

The invading army charged forward as a hail of arrows sailed into them. Those who fell were trampled beneath their comrades who ran on, entirely oblivious and uncaring, screaming their demonic warcries in a language I couldn't understand. As fast as we could reload another volley was shot down, each one hitting its mark with deadly accuracy, but even that hardly put a dent in their ranks. They pressed on, dauntless as the tide. Quickly running short of arrows, I snatched up the javelins that leaned readily against the battlements and threw them down with all my strength...but by then the enemy had reached our walls.

Ladders went up. We pushed them down. They came up again, this time with Mordor soldiers riding them. Swords and battle axes were drawn. Further on down the wall I heard the voices of Gimli and Legolas - two individuals made very well-known to every soldier in Helm's Deep - shouting back and forth to each other. Scores, insults, challenges...anything to keep the adrenaline of battle flowing. Snarling amid a near-giddy bout of laughter, I spun to find Haldir's face beside me. "I shall have to write a song about this."

Felling a particularly large Mordor soldier over the wall's edge, Haldir looked back to me briefly with one brow raised. A long-standing jest that had developed between us since meeting. Haldir with his insistent aversion towards any species that was not elf had constantly berated me in our early acquaintance for Jellicle culture being based so much on song and dance... I most confidently told him that a Jellicle Song could be found for any situation in the known world. Since then, he had put me up to that boast.

"Why wait?" he answered, voice ever steady and confident. "Compose one now."

Tail lashing, with a short sword in each hand I fought on beside him, Haldir whose arrows seemed to come in endless supply. "Very well," I yeowled over the fray. "A war ballad...in honor of you and your elves!" Allowing the will of Heaviside to take over my actions, I sang the words that first came to my mind, a song of pure feeling to encourage our soldiers and fighting the entire way:

"Into valleys, into waters, into jungles, into war!

Let us ride, let us ride home again with a story in store.

Into darkness! Into danger! Into storms that rip the night!

Don't give in, don't give up, but give thanks for the glorious fight!

You can tremble, you can fear it, but keep your fighting spirit alive, boys.

Let the shiver of it sting you! Fling into battle, spring to your feet, boys.

Never hold back your step for a moment! Never doubt that your courage will grow!

Hold your head even higher and into the fire we go!"

Haldir had told me of what we were fighting. All that I had ever heard of Mordor as a kitten was confirmed true: the land of darkness and fire, where Sauron's eye of flame watched the entire world's happenings. The ring that must be carried there and cast into the fires of a mountain by a single hobbit. Fire...it was always fire when it came to the enemy. So fire it would be. Haldir laughed - a rare thing to hear from him - and shouted something in his own language what sounded like a war cry. I joined in, our fighting efforts redoubled, as our cries rose up and over the clang of weapons and screams of the wounded. I killed three soldiers swiftly with my tail alone, but then another flash came to me.

Another flash...another vision... The past. When the sun fell on the eve of battle the very day we arrived, I had sat on the winding staircase of one of the castle towers. Armor in place, I held my tail in my hands, using twine and a bit of tree sap to attach a long, curved dagger to its tip. The weapon would be painful to remove once this was over, but that didn't matter now. Allowing the sap time to dry to its rock-hardness, I bound a cloth around it just as a human female came passing by. Men might call her beautiful, her mane of hair as golden as my mate's, her long white dress swishing with each step. It was the swish I remember, the kittenish urge to reach out and swipe at the ivory-white tassels. The woman gazed down my way, but I did not return it. She was not like the other humans here. Probably of royal blood. Respect was all that stayed my paw.

A trembling brought me back. I shook my head and looked up, away from battle, to the sky. No...only rain fell. There was no thunder. It was the ground that was shaking. The wall battlements we stood on. For a moment, a brief, precious moment, all activity stopped as soldiers of both sides looked to the trembling ground. A quiet calm descended, only to be interrupted by an explosion. An explosion that came from nowhere: that said fire rising up in an enormous ball of flame, shattering an entire section of our wall in the process. I threw my arms up against the searing heat, the chips and shards of stone and mortar that flew in every which direction. Large boulders fell from Helm's Deep's outer wall into the Mordor army, but that didn't stop them. "What in Heaviside...?" Pushing through the dust and smoke, Haldir and I stumbled over fallen bodies of both affiliations until we were finally able to see...and what we saw was an entire section of the outer wall gone, Mordor's army pouring through it like a black river.

"What sorcery can do such a thing?" Haldir gasped. But there was no time for wonder. The enemy had breached the walls of Helm's Deep. A look exchanged between us. "Into the fire," Haldir whispered.

"Time to get messy, Haldir."

Side by side we left the wall and plunged into the fray.

We fought like mad. Blades whirled, blood spilled, and cries cut the air as we fought an army that came on and on; a never-ending sea of death. What had seemed a defensive battle after that turning point was now a fight for our own lives. The pathetic soldiers of Helm's Deep fell quickly beneath the blades of Mordor, elves and humans alike. Without the protection of the wall our fighters were now vulnerable on all fronts, and like a spear driven into our side the attack was coming harder than ever before. Lost in the fury of battle Haldir and I were seperated. I found myself surrounded, alone, only my tail to watch my back amid a mass of shrieking orcs...if they were orcs. Beneath the roughly-beaten black armor they wore it was impossible to see what they really looked like. Not that I would wish to. The stench was bad enough.

I fought my way along the northern wall towards the open gap. Aragorn, Legolas, and several others scattered throughout my vision. Aragorn was calling commands, shouting out over the clamor of war. Were it not for my own hearing I wouldn't have been able to discern the words.

"Protect the caves!"

I threw down my two short swords in exchange for a spear that lay impaled in a poor elf, cutting my way through the black sea. Thrusting hard, I sent one Mordor soldier flying backwards into his fellow's sword, dizzying another with the shaft in the same blow to slice his throat with my tail blade. Slamming the butt of the spear down into the ground, I spun on it, tail flashing, catching two more foes in the back to knock them down, another blade falling from somewhere to dispatch them both. Snarling, I looked up, ready to behead the next one so unfortunate as to attack me, and found instead Haldir's face. Our blades both stopped a mere hand's width from each other's throats. Grinning with a sudden release of breath, we backed away and covered each other's backs as the fight continued.

"We have to get to the caves," Haldir shouted over his shoulder. "They're breaking in!"

Of course...the women and children. They were hiding in there, trapped like rats. Turning our direction of fight the two of us forced our way towards the inner building. The rain seemed to have stopped, but still the fighting had not lessened. I suffered two wounds myself, neither of them serious, while Haldir remained virtually untouched. We fought on, striving to keep our strength up, as a bulge seemed to grow up in front of us. What it was, I don't know. Nor did I care. It was larger than the other Mordor soldiers, sloshing its way through the pathetic remnants of our ranks trying to defend the inner building. The door was already giving way beneath the blades of the enemy. If the larger creature reached it... Then it happened again.

"No! Not now!"

The vision showed me a ravaged world of destruction and chaos. As my father would say: a world where the rats ruled. The sky was black, dominated by a full moon of blood red color...like an eye. The ground, scorched, burned with fire where nothing could grow. Again, that fire. Trees were charred sticks, homes were ashes, and in the air: the distinct scent of burning flesh. The end had come... All around were the clashes and clangs of battle, the dying screams of a myriad of beings as they fell, slowly but surely, torn apart by the hungry teeth of monsters too hideous to look upon. I saw a pair of Jellicles fighting amid an overpowering number of black tentacled beasts, but they were not me. One, a female of golden fur, was my mate. At her side was a tom of silver stripes. Not me, but...my son...

"Munkustrap!"

Haldir... He bent to my level to help me, a final gesture on his part. Also his last. Behind him rose up a shadow; a monstrous, bloodthirsty shadow wielding an ax. I had just risen, meeting evenly his gaze, when the whistle of metal slicing air rang with deafening sharpness in my ears. His eyes gasped in their expression, though not a sound was uttered. The horrid realization of one's own death cannot be paralleled. Seeing it there, in his eyes, as the ax was withdrawn from the deep of his back, my own heart may as well have been cut in two. My one chance to repay the debt I owed, and all I could do was catch my friend as he fell, lighter than I ever remembered him being.

Haldir's murderer lasted not a moment longer before its head tumbled from its shoulders. Setting my friend down with utter gentleness, my pausing from the battle going on around me a near-fatal action, I stared. It was not as though I was unfamiliar with the death of friends - far from it - it instead caused the echo through my mind of everything he had ever said to me. When he spoke of his home, of Galadriel, of his arrogance and superiority when it came to other races. It stabbed an already bleeding heart, and it was all I could do to reach down, close his eyes, and cover him with his cloak. Galadriel would not be pleased when she heard... But proper respects would have to be paid later. I could vent my mourning in only one way.

"Into the fire!"

I suppose now it was a troll of some sort. It doesn't matter what it was. The only thing I or it knew before a moment had passed was that my spear was rammed halfway into the creature's back, and not bothering with the effort to try and withdraw my weapon I attacked with fangs and claws. My preferred method, though I did learn something important that night: creatures of Mordor may smell horrible but their taste is tenfold worse. But the troll's skin was thick, and its bulk great. Reaching one massive arm behind it tore me away from where I had shredded its back, throwing me to the ground where the breath was knocked from my lungs. Pelt now thoroughly coated in blood and soaked from rain, both that and armor did little to help when the creature-troll snapped the spear from its back, lifted the jagged wooden edge, and slammed it down into my middle. Cutting flesh and bone alike as a hot knife through butter, it lifted me up like a spit boar, my squirming useless against the impalement as the troll's massive jaws opened, hot breath stifling.

Yet as I was suspended, facing very well what I knew was my death with a surprising lack of fear as I had always felt I would, I saw something the majority of the Mordor army didn't. Through the gap in the wall...at the top of a hill only a short sprint's distance away, a glowing source of white light framed by the rising sun. Forms emerged from that light...beings on horses...soldiers...humans... It was the reinforcements needed at the most crucial time. In fact, I think I might have even grinned at the sight. The safety of Helm's Deep which had been of no concern to me barely a fortnight ago was now assured, and the wave of relief that passed over my body numbed any and all agony. It was a strange moment of reflection, though a moment was all I could spare. I was a Jellicle, by Heaviside! I wasn't fond of the idea of being eaten.

All this for a ring. This fight all over one small ring that caused so many to die...caused Haldir to be slaughtered like a deer. I fared no better. A Jellicle has a brutal tenacity that runs deep in us all, for certain, but it is our passionate rage that truly defines us. Despite my mortal wound as the creature lowered my impaled self towards its gaping mouth, a flood of rabid zeal and Heaviside's blessing allowed me to deliver one final scratch to the foe.

That is: zeal and a very long tail. The tree sap had remained true; my tail blade was still attached. One swipe... Though by the time the creature's head hit the ground, and I fell back to the blood-laden earth, other not-so-impressive examples of Mordor soldiers had gathered round as well and shoved a sword hilt-deep between my shoulder blades. The coming dawn was the last sight I would behold before making my own journey to Heaviside...

That little hobbit had better not disappoint us.