Gwaith i Innas Lain: Quenta Ambarmetto 3/10
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Chapter 2
Team Building
Dean’s first order of business, as the de facto captain of Team Free Will, was to pack Ben and Lisa off to Aman to live with Tuor and Idril until the war was over. Lisa wasn’t thrilled about moving, but once Ben got his head around the fact that Dean really meant that they’d be living with genuine Elves, his excitement knew no bounds-until Lisa decided to harness his energy by making him do a good chunk of the packing. Sam and Dean saw Tuor, Lisa, and Ben off at the Chicago airport Friday evening, held a garage sale Saturday and Sunday to clear out their apartment and her house, handed in resignations and put house and truck up for sale on Monday, and were on the road to Sioux Falls with Castiel in tow bright and early Tuesday morning.
Ellen Harvelle and Ash Buchholz had settled in Sioux Falls after the Roadhouse burned down, and Maglor had landed an adjunct professorship at the local college that gave him enough of a salary to have his own furnished apartment. Ellen’s daughter Jo also happened to be in Sioux Falls that week because she was between hunts. All four of them, therefore, met the Winchesters and Castiel at Bobby’s house to hear the full details of the message Castiel and Tuor had brought.
His nickname now firmly stuck and bemusedly accepted, Cas took off immediately after the briefing, claiming that he needed to deflect Zachariah’s attention from the brothers. Bobby recommended that the Winchesters stick around while they considered strategy, and they agreed, talking with the other unofficial members of Team Free Will late into the night for several nights running. That weekend, however, Bobby became concerned about a friend and fellow hunter in western Wyoming who’d suddenly stopped answering her phone. He took off to check on her, and Sam and Dean stayed behind to house-sit for him.
“Bad news, boys,” Bobby reported when he called to check in on the 29th. “Olivia’s been ripped to shreds, apparently by some kind of spirit. Looks like the same thing killed all the other hunters in the area. If it’s headed east....”
“We could be its next target,” Dean agreed. “We’ll stay locked down. You be careful gettin’ back.”
“Dean-if things get bad, Maglor and I built a panic room in the basement a couple weeks ago. Walls are salt-coated iron. You’ll be okay in there until I can get help.”
Dean laughed. “You’re awesome, Bobby. Thanks.”
They hung up, and Dean relayed the news to Sam. Jo and Ellen were on their way to a hunt in Pennsylvania, and Ash had gone to Austin on a research trip, so the only person left in town for them to worry about was Maglor. Sam suggested having him over for supper, and Dean agreed.
While they were eating, all three started feeling a strange sense of foreboding. They finished the meal rapidly and headed back into the living room, where most of the weapons were... just in time for the temperature to drop about ten degrees.
Dean shivered and pulled out his EMF meter, which screeched as soon as he turned it on. “Well, whatever ‘they’ are, they’re hee-eeere.”
Sam huffed. “Not the time, Dean.”
Before Dean could retort, multiple voices began chanting outside in some harsh, guttural language that neither he nor Sam had ever heard before. Maglor frowned as the chant finished and began again, closer and louder.
“I’m guessin’ these aren’t standard ghosts,” Dean stated.
“No,” Maglor replied. “They are spirits, but not of Men, though their speech is Mannish.”
“You know what they are?”
Maglor shook his head. “I have had no dealings with spirits such as these.”
“Well, what do they keep chanting?”
“It’s an obscure dialect of Westron, possibly from Cardolan-‘Cold be hand and heart and bone, / And cold be sleep under stone....’”
Sam’s eyes went wide. “That sounds familiar.”
Dean looked at him. “Didn’t Gollum....”
“In the movie, yeah, but in the book....” Sam dashed to the computer.
Maglor frowned as he caught more of the verse. “‘’Til the Sun fails and the Moon is dead’... ‘’Til the Dark Lord lifts his hand / Over dead sea and withered land’-Dean, this is some kind of curse. They seek to stop us from stopping Morgoth. Lilith must have sent them.”
Dean frowned. “If it’s a curse, why isn’t it working yet?”
“The wards on this house are too strong. But it may not take long for them to realize that we have not succumbed. And when they do-”
Something heavy landed against the door.
“Guess they just did,” Dean growled.
Maglor cursed in Sindarin. “There are too many things in the junkyard that they could use as a battering ram, too much that is not iron.”
“Dude,” Sam suddenly said. “I know what they are.”
“What?” Dean snapped.
“Barrow-wights.”
“Bar-” Dean sighed, rolled his eyes, and shook his head. “Great. That is just-how are we supposed to summon Tom Bombadil on this side of the Atlantic?!”
“Dean.”
“That’s all the lore we got, Sam! ‘Ho, Tom Bombadil, Tom Bombadillo!’ We don’t even know if the Withywindle still exists, never mind where! And even if Tom and Goldberry aren’t holed up in some love shack in Scandinavia, even if they could hear us halfway around the world, there’s no way he’d get here in time!!”
Another heavy blow landed against the door, as if to prove Dean’s point.
Sam held up his hands in a Whoa, stop gesture. “What about Castiel?”
“Cas has only been here since the Fifth Age. Barrow-wights went out with the Third Age.”
“Well, obviously not entirely-”
“Yeah, yeah, Lilith got some from somewhere, but they obviously also haven’t been attacking in Ages. Don’t you think we’d have more lore otherwise?!”
“Dean, he’s a Maia.”
“A Maia who’s trapped in a human body, Sam. We don’t even know where he is right now, and besides, it’s probably not safe for him for us to summon him so soon.”
The house began to groan as if a gale-force wind were blowing.
“A single Maia will not be aid enough,” Maglor said quietly. “Iarwain Ben-adar might, but Dean is correct; Iarwain ceased to concern himself with affairs beyond his own borders long before even the War of the Ring. He will not come. But perhaps the Red Book contains some other information of value.”
“Here,” Sam said, ushering Maglor to the computer. “I’ve got an e-book version open to the right chapter.”
Maglor sat down and skimmed to Bombadil’s song, then shook his head. “This is the new moon; we have too few heavenly lights to call to our defense. Starlight is sacred, but it would not be enough to drive away one Wight, never mind the host that seems to surround us.”
Dean sighed as the door shuddered under another blow and started grabbing shotguns. “Door’s not gonna hold out much longer. And if they’re usin’ brute force, panic room ain’t gonna slow ’em down much.” He shoved one gun at Maglor, who took it warily, but before he could hand another to Sam, Sam had already picked up one of his own.
Sam met Dean’s eyes and deadpanned, “For a minute there, I thought we were in trouble.”
Dean snorted and led the way to the door. Maglor stood to his left, Sam to his right, and all three of them shouldered their guns and prepared to go down fighting.
And then a horn sounded in the distance-not a car horn, but a hunting horn.
Sam and Dean frowned. Maglor stared.
“One of theirs?” Sam asked.
“No,” Maglor replied, sounding confused. “One of mine.”
Dean wasn’t sure how he could tell, but the Barrow-wights’ focus seemed to shift away from the house and toward the sound of the horn. And seconds later there was a sound of terrible battle raging around the house, combined with singing that was clear and sharp as starlight and the shrieks of fleeing Wights. Dean’s hair stood on end.
Almost as suddenly as it started, the battle ceased. The silence that followed reminded Dean of the silence after a poltergeist had been dispatched, and he glanced over at Sam.
“I think it’s clear,” Sam finally replied, still looking kind of shocked. “I mean, I think there’s still something out there, but it’s not Barrow-wights.”
“Agreed,” said Maglor. “Let us greet our friends, whoever they may be.”
Dean stepped forward and cautiously opened the door with his left hand, keeping his gun ready to shoot any enemy that was still outside. He found himself looking at... an empty junkyard. Cautiously he made his way onto the porch, followed by Sam and Maglor.
“Le suilon, Dean Winchester,” said... something Dean couldn’t see. “L’a mellyn. Odulem am edraith anlen.”
Dean blinked. “Uh... thanks?”
But Maglor was staring into the darkness as if he could pick out some form invisible to the human eye. “Man le?” he finally called.
“I enneth nîn Thranduil Oropherion,” came the reply, though Dean still couldn’t tell where the voice was coming from. “Mae govannen, Fëanorion.”
Maglor’s eyes widened in shock. “Thranduil Oropherion?! You are far from Lasgalen, Elvenking!”
“And you are long among mortals to speak their tongue so freely,” Thranduil replied, amused. “But for their sake, I will do likewise.”
“Elvenking?” Sam echoed. “Like... King of Mirkwood? That Elvenking?!”
A ripple of laughter ran through the unseen band of what Dean assumed to be Elves.
“Yes, Samuel,” Thranduil replied. “There is no other remaining in Middle-earth, to my knowledge. Unless....”
Maglor shook his head. “Nay, I will not claim that title or any other. Elrond had more right to it than I, and he did not claim it. Even had Maedhros not confirmed Fingolfin as High King, though, I have forfeited my right to rule by my own deeds. Justly am I dispossessed.”
The invisible Elves’ relief was palpable.
Dean shook his head in confusion. “Wait, wait, wait. Why is the Elvenking in South Dakota, and why can you see him and we can’t?”
“To answer your second question first, Dean,” Thranduil replied, “we are neither ghosts nor wholly incorporeal. The best English description is that we have faded-our fëar have largely consumed our hroar, and we no longer have such incarnate form as the eyes of most Edain may see. This state can have advantages, as you saw tonight; but it is also very difficult to avoid being killed in a war when neither side knows that you are there. Europe was no longer safe for us once the Great War began, so at its end we found an American troop transport ship and sailed hither.”
“Yeah, but why are you here? Don’t get me wrong; I’m grateful. But....”
“It does seem kind of random,” Sam agreed.
“That is partly my fault,” said a second voice.
Thranduil chuckled. “You have, as some might say, a fairy godfather. Rúmil was very fond of your mother, though he never spoke to her directly and she never saw him. He was unable to save her life, but we have taken it upon ourselves to aid you as much as possible whenever our paths have crossed.”
Dean’s eyebrows shot up in surprise, but Sam frowned slightly. “Did... wait, you killed Gordon, didn’t you?”
“Yes, Samuel,” replied the second voice, which Dean concluded must belong to Rúmil. “He had become that which he hunted, and you were his next target. The thief betrayed you to him.”
“Thief-that Bela chick?” Dean frowned. “Why would she do that?”
“He had an artifact she wanted. But it did her no good. The hellhounds took her some months ago.”
The Winchesters sighed in unison. Bela Talbot had been a nuisance, but nobody deserved hellhounds.
“We became aware that the Barrow-wights had been summoned,” Thranduil continued. “So we followed them here.”
Dean nodded. “Thanks.”
“But why would they follow you hither?” Rúmil asked. “You both are Isildur’s heirs, that much is plain, but the Barrow-wights have lain hidden for Ages.”
Dean sighed. “Maglor, maybe you’d better explain.”
Maglor quickly briefed the other Elves in Sindarin. Then there was a short murmured conversation that Dean wasn’t able to follow at all.
Finally, Thranduil spoke up again. “It is long since we dealt directly with the Edain, Dean. But in the Elder Days, our houses were allied, and it is time that we renew that allegiance. What would you have us do?”
Sam and Dean looked at each other in astonishment. Then Dean drew a deep breath and turned back toward where he thought Thranduil was. “Um. There’s this convent, St. Mary’s, in Ilchester, Maryland. We think that’s where Lilith’s gonna try the spell first. Could you, like... guard it for us?”
“With a good will, my liege.”
Dean stuck out his hand, and warm invisible fingers grabbed his forearm just below the elbow in a warrior’s handshake. It took Dean a second to figure out how to return the grip, but he did manage it and found Thranduil’s arm to be truly too solid to belong to a ghost and yet not quite what he normally considered corporeal.
“We will send word if aught occurs,” Thranduil continued.
Dean nodded. “Awesome. Ah-le hannon.”
Thranduil chuckled and squeezed Dean’s arm. “Navaer, elvellon.”
Then he let go, and Dean sensed the Elves leaving. He and Sam stood there for a moment, frozen in shock, until Sam finally shook his head and said, “Dude.”
“Seriously,” was all Dean could manage by way of reply.
Team Free Will had very few run-ins with Lilith after that, though the rest of Team Destiny, as Dean called them, did give the hunters some trouble. Pallando did his best to conjure the ghosts of Sauron and Saruman on Halloween, but despite Uriel’s attempt to ‘help’ Cas by offering to level the town, Cas and the Winchesters were able to stop Pallando from succeeding. Uriel then tried to set a trap for Sam and Dean by ‘capturing’ Alatar and asking Dean to torture the Istar for information, but Maglor saw through the ruse and, in the process of ensuring the brothers’ safety, very nearly killed Uriel. They saw very little of Rincaro, though, until Zachariah attempted to kidnap and brainwash Sam and Dean; then Cas and Rincaro not only rescued and disenchanted the Winchesters but sent the fallen Maia packing before he got a chance to work the brothers over face to face. Dean was so grateful that he started calling Rincaro “Rinc,” and the nickname stuck. And the Winchesters repaid the favor a month later when Uriel and some others of Zachariah’s followers captured Cas and Rinc and attempted to “re-educate” them.
Between skirmishes, the hunters had their usual caseload to handle, and a few of their hunts had surprisingly positive outcomes. Perhaps the most surprising of all was the Orc infestation near Blue Earth, Minnesota, that led Sam and Dean to discover that the pulpit of Sacrament Lutheran Church, once held by their friend and fellow hunter Jim Murphy, had been taken by another hunter named David Gideon who had rallied his congregation to form a small but efficient hunting militia. Once the Orcs were dispatched, Pastor Gideon talked with the Winchesters late into the night to get the full story behind the uptick in monster activity, and he urged them to contact him when they got word that Lilith was moving on Ilchester. “If there’s any way we can help ensure that the Apocalypse happens on God’s schedule rather than Lilith’s,” he said, “we ought to do our part.”
Sam started having nightmares about Ilchester during the last week of April. So it wasn’t too much of a surprise when a mockingbird flew up to Maglor on May 7, while he was having a picnic lunch on campus with the Winchesters, and started singing at him, gesticulating jerkily with its wings. Maglor whistled what were apparently short questions and got answers that made him increasingly concerned before he tilted his head in thanks and the mockingbird flew away.
“What was that all about?” Dean asked.
“Message from Thranduil,” Maglor replied, pulling out his cell phone. “We need to speak with the others as soon as possible.”
“Well, I can spare you two phone calls,” Rinc said, appearing at the end of the table. “Castiel and I know, and we’ll go along with whatever plan you come up with. But we’re a little busy keeping Zach from catching up to you again, so we can’t come to the briefing.”
Dean blinked. “Dude, were you eavesdropping?”
“Technically, no. You’re in a public place, and I was on my way here to warn you anyway. But now you know, so I can leave. Bye!” And he was gone.
Sam rolled his eyes, Dean shook his head, and Maglor calmly proceeded to call Bobby.
When the team assembled that evening, Ash had found maps of the convent and of the surrounding terrain. These he spread out on the table while Maglor relayed Thranduil’s information:
“Thranduil has summoned as many Elves as he could find in North America; his force numbers thirty in all. They have kept constant watch on St. Mary’s since the beginning of October. All was quiet there until the last week, when Wargs and Orcs began moving into the surrounding woods. So far, Thranduil reports, there have been only minor skirmishes, no more than a handful of Orcs at a time. But two nights ago his scouts followed the survivors of such a skirmish back to their base. Based on the conversations they overheard, he believes that Lilith will attempt the spell on the 17th.”
Dean nodded. “What kind of numbers are we looking at?”
“It is impossible to say for sure. Thranduil estimates at least two hundred Orcs and perhaps as many Wargs are already in place, but we have no sign of how many Lilith will bring with her, or how many of the Houseless will take part.”
“Sam?”
Sam sighed. “Not very easy to tell from my dreams, but... it looked like a lot more than two hundred to me. I’d guess more like a thousand. And I’m pretty sure I saw spiders as well-not, like, Shelob-huge, but... elephant-sized, maybe.”
Dean cursed quietly.
Maglor leaned back. “The date seems an odd choice to me. It cannot be the full moon, surely.”
Jo looked at a calendar. “Nope. Full moon’s the 9th, new moon’s the 24th. The 17th is the waning half.”
“The new moon would be a more logical choice-but late May is a season of martyrs’ feasts, and the 24th in particular is one of the many feasts of the Blessed Virgin. To so profane a sanctuary bearing her name on that day would go ill, I think. The waning half moon would be a less formidable adversary-Isil will not rise before midnight.”
“Or it could just be a fakeout,” Bobby noted. “I mean, if you’re gonna have a Black Mass, I don’t think the church calendar matters as much as the moon phase. And the waning half don’t have much juice one way or the other.”
Sam shook his head. “Lilith will be there, Bobby. I saw it.”
“Maybe Lilith’s the diversion,” Ash ventured.
Sam frowned and grabbed his dream journal, flipping through the descriptions he’d written down. “Lilith, Alatar, Pallando, bunch of demons, Col. Klink-”
“Col. Klink?” Dean guffawed.
“Shut up, jerk, not literally. Guy just looked like Klink in the face, that’s all. Not even a monocle.” Sam kept flipping and frowned. “Huh.”
“What?”
“Uriel wasn’t there.”
Dean snarled suddenly. “He’s gonna try for the Devil’s Gate.”
Bobby frowned. “How do you figure, son?”
“Sam ain’t the only one who sees things,” Dean snapped, then froze and blanched as if realizing what he’d just admitted. “Um. It’s... it’s not like....”
Sam looked at him steadily. “Dean. It’s okay.”
“They’re not like yours, Sam. Just flashes. And sometimes I just know things.”
Maglor nodded. “That is to be expected. Not every descendant manifests all of the gifts in the same ways or to the same extent.”
Dean ran a hand over his face. “Been close to two years now. You’d think I’d be used to this whole Heir of Isildur thing.”
Sam squeezed his shoulder. “Hey. This time you got a flash that I didn’t. This is good, Dean.”
Dean nodded and took a deep breath. “So. Main group’s still headed for the convent, but Uriel’s makin’ a play for the Devil’s Gate. Two fronts. No way we’ve got the numbers to match Lilith, but we can up our total a little. Thranduil’s already at St. Mary’s; we can call Pastor Gideon, send the Blue Earth contingent out there as well. What about the nine of us? Where do we go? I mean, Gideon’s good enough with the low-level stuff, and Thranduil’s got Ages of experience with everything but the demons, but... with Lilith and two wizards in the mix, plus whoever this Klink lookalike is, I’d feel a lot better with a more senior hunter there.”
Bobby and Ellen exchanged a look and chorused, “Rufus.”
Dean frowned. “That old coot who tipped us off about Bela? Thought he was retired.”
“He is, technically,” Bobby replied. “But somethin’ this big, he’s probably already heard rumblings from his own contacts. Might be better to have him headin’ up things in Maryland while we head back to Wyoming.”
Sam nodded. “That sounds reasonable.”
Dean looked over at him. “Hey, you think maybe Cas and Rinc could fly all of us from Maryland to Wyoming and back?”
“What, leave the car in Ilchester?”
“Yeah, and have a strategy meeting with Rufus, Thranduil, and Pastor Gideon before we head out. That way, if the battle’s still going when we get back, we can come in from another angle, catch ’em off guard.”
Sam considered it. “It’s a thought. Y’know what else would be nice, though, is extra firepower.”
“Like what, automatics?”
“Well, that, yeah, would help with the monsters, but I’m thinking... something that could take out Zachariah if he shows up. Or something we could use on Uriel. I mean, Gríma was able to kill Saruman with a regular knife, so the Istari shouldn’t be that hard to kill. But Zachariah and Uriel aren’t bound to their physical forms the way Alatar and Pallando are.”
Dean nodded thoughtfully. “Yeah. Not a lot of places we could look on such short notice, though.”
“There’s Dad’s lockup. We never did finish the inventory after the break-in. Might be something hiding in there that Dad wouldn’t have recognized.”
“The chances of finding such a weapon are slim,” Maglor cautioned. “But it would do no harm to look.”
“No,” Dean agreed, “and even if we don’t find anything that would work for that, there might be something we’ll need for another reason.” He looked back at Sam. “How long do you think we ought to give ourselves?”
Sam shrugged. “I dunno. Twelve hours, maybe?”
“I’d feel a lot better,” said Bobby, “if I went with you two to stand guard. If Team Destiny has any idea you’re there, something’s liable to come after you.”
Dean nodded. “Sure. Makes sense.”
Ash leaned forward. “Now when you say ‘all of us’ are going to Wyoming, exactly who do you mean?”
“I mean us.” Dean indicated the seven individuals in the room. “Who do you think I mean?”
“I’m just sayin’, somebody needs to be in charge of communications.”
Dean frowned. “If I didn’t know you, Ash, I’d suspect you were tryin’ to chicken out.”
“Dude, you know I’m no good in pitched battle. A bar brawl’s one thing, but you get more’n fifty people involved, I get lost. Plus, we get to Ilchester and half of our side ain’t visible, I’m liable to shoot one o’ the good guys without meanin’ to. And besides, somebody’s gotta play the Smith to your Ike.”
Sam blinked. “You’re offering to be our chief of staff?!”
Ash shrugged. “More or less.”
Dean pinched the bridge of his nose. “How’d I get rooked into this?”
“Right place, right time, right bloodline?” Sam teased.
Dean glared at him. “That was rhetorical, genius.”
The others exchanged amused looks.
Dean sighed. “Okay. Ellen, you want to call Rufus while we try to work through strategies?”
Ellen nodded and pulled out her phone. “Sure.”
Sam pulled out his phone as well. “I’ll go ahead and call Pastor Gideon, too, see how many he can bring.”
Dean nodded. “Good plan.”
And while they made phone calls, the other five gathered around the maps to start planning defenses.
Glossary | Next
Chapter 2
Team Building
Dean’s first order of business, as the de facto captain of Team Free Will, was to pack Ben and Lisa off to Aman to live with Tuor and Idril until the war was over. Lisa wasn’t thrilled about moving, but once Ben got his head around the fact that Dean really meant that they’d be living with genuine Elves, his excitement knew no bounds-until Lisa decided to harness his energy by making him do a good chunk of the packing. Sam and Dean saw Tuor, Lisa, and Ben off at the Chicago airport Friday evening, held a garage sale Saturday and Sunday to clear out their apartment and her house, handed in resignations and put house and truck up for sale on Monday, and were on the road to Sioux Falls with Castiel in tow bright and early Tuesday morning.
Ellen Harvelle and Ash Buchholz had settled in Sioux Falls after the Roadhouse burned down, and Maglor had landed an adjunct professorship at the local college that gave him enough of a salary to have his own furnished apartment. Ellen’s daughter Jo also happened to be in Sioux Falls that week because she was between hunts. All four of them, therefore, met the Winchesters and Castiel at Bobby’s house to hear the full details of the message Castiel and Tuor had brought.
His nickname now firmly stuck and bemusedly accepted, Cas took off immediately after the briefing, claiming that he needed to deflect Zachariah’s attention from the brothers. Bobby recommended that the Winchesters stick around while they considered strategy, and they agreed, talking with the other unofficial members of Team Free Will late into the night for several nights running. That weekend, however, Bobby became concerned about a friend and fellow hunter in western Wyoming who’d suddenly stopped answering her phone. He took off to check on her, and Sam and Dean stayed behind to house-sit for him.
“Bad news, boys,” Bobby reported when he called to check in on the 29th. “Olivia’s been ripped to shreds, apparently by some kind of spirit. Looks like the same thing killed all the other hunters in the area. If it’s headed east....”
“We could be its next target,” Dean agreed. “We’ll stay locked down. You be careful gettin’ back.”
“Dean-if things get bad, Maglor and I built a panic room in the basement a couple weeks ago. Walls are salt-coated iron. You’ll be okay in there until I can get help.”
Dean laughed. “You’re awesome, Bobby. Thanks.”
They hung up, and Dean relayed the news to Sam. Jo and Ellen were on their way to a hunt in Pennsylvania, and Ash had gone to Austin on a research trip, so the only person left in town for them to worry about was Maglor. Sam suggested having him over for supper, and Dean agreed.
While they were eating, all three started feeling a strange sense of foreboding. They finished the meal rapidly and headed back into the living room, where most of the weapons were... just in time for the temperature to drop about ten degrees.
Dean shivered and pulled out his EMF meter, which screeched as soon as he turned it on. “Well, whatever ‘they’ are, they’re hee-eeere.”
Sam huffed. “Not the time, Dean.”
Before Dean could retort, multiple voices began chanting outside in some harsh, guttural language that neither he nor Sam had ever heard before. Maglor frowned as the chant finished and began again, closer and louder.
“I’m guessin’ these aren’t standard ghosts,” Dean stated.
“No,” Maglor replied. “They are spirits, but not of Men, though their speech is Mannish.”
“You know what they are?”
Maglor shook his head. “I have had no dealings with spirits such as these.”
“Well, what do they keep chanting?”
“It’s an obscure dialect of Westron, possibly from Cardolan-‘Cold be hand and heart and bone, / And cold be sleep under stone....’”
Sam’s eyes went wide. “That sounds familiar.”
Dean looked at him. “Didn’t Gollum....”
“In the movie, yeah, but in the book....” Sam dashed to the computer.
Maglor frowned as he caught more of the verse. “‘’Til the Sun fails and the Moon is dead’... ‘’Til the Dark Lord lifts his hand / Over dead sea and withered land’-Dean, this is some kind of curse. They seek to stop us from stopping Morgoth. Lilith must have sent them.”
Dean frowned. “If it’s a curse, why isn’t it working yet?”
“The wards on this house are too strong. But it may not take long for them to realize that we have not succumbed. And when they do-”
Something heavy landed against the door.
“Guess they just did,” Dean growled.
Maglor cursed in Sindarin. “There are too many things in the junkyard that they could use as a battering ram, too much that is not iron.”
“Dude,” Sam suddenly said. “I know what they are.”
“What?” Dean snapped.
“Barrow-wights.”
“Bar-” Dean sighed, rolled his eyes, and shook his head. “Great. That is just-how are we supposed to summon Tom Bombadil on this side of the Atlantic?!”
“Dean.”
“That’s all the lore we got, Sam! ‘Ho, Tom Bombadil, Tom Bombadillo!’ We don’t even know if the Withywindle still exists, never mind where! And even if Tom and Goldberry aren’t holed up in some love shack in Scandinavia, even if they could hear us halfway around the world, there’s no way he’d get here in time!!”
Another heavy blow landed against the door, as if to prove Dean’s point.
Sam held up his hands in a Whoa, stop gesture. “What about Castiel?”
“Cas has only been here since the Fifth Age. Barrow-wights went out with the Third Age.”
“Well, obviously not entirely-”
“Yeah, yeah, Lilith got some from somewhere, but they obviously also haven’t been attacking in Ages. Don’t you think we’d have more lore otherwise?!”
“Dean, he’s a Maia.”
“A Maia who’s trapped in a human body, Sam. We don’t even know where he is right now, and besides, it’s probably not safe for him for us to summon him so soon.”
The house began to groan as if a gale-force wind were blowing.
“A single Maia will not be aid enough,” Maglor said quietly. “Iarwain Ben-adar might, but Dean is correct; Iarwain ceased to concern himself with affairs beyond his own borders long before even the War of the Ring. He will not come. But perhaps the Red Book contains some other information of value.”
“Here,” Sam said, ushering Maglor to the computer. “I’ve got an e-book version open to the right chapter.”
Maglor sat down and skimmed to Bombadil’s song, then shook his head. “This is the new moon; we have too few heavenly lights to call to our defense. Starlight is sacred, but it would not be enough to drive away one Wight, never mind the host that seems to surround us.”
Dean sighed as the door shuddered under another blow and started grabbing shotguns. “Door’s not gonna hold out much longer. And if they’re usin’ brute force, panic room ain’t gonna slow ’em down much.” He shoved one gun at Maglor, who took it warily, but before he could hand another to Sam, Sam had already picked up one of his own.
Sam met Dean’s eyes and deadpanned, “For a minute there, I thought we were in trouble.”
Dean snorted and led the way to the door. Maglor stood to his left, Sam to his right, and all three of them shouldered their guns and prepared to go down fighting.
And then a horn sounded in the distance-not a car horn, but a hunting horn.
Sam and Dean frowned. Maglor stared.
“One of theirs?” Sam asked.
“No,” Maglor replied, sounding confused. “One of mine.”
Dean wasn’t sure how he could tell, but the Barrow-wights’ focus seemed to shift away from the house and toward the sound of the horn. And seconds later there was a sound of terrible battle raging around the house, combined with singing that was clear and sharp as starlight and the shrieks of fleeing Wights. Dean’s hair stood on end.
Almost as suddenly as it started, the battle ceased. The silence that followed reminded Dean of the silence after a poltergeist had been dispatched, and he glanced over at Sam.
“I think it’s clear,” Sam finally replied, still looking kind of shocked. “I mean, I think there’s still something out there, but it’s not Barrow-wights.”
“Agreed,” said Maglor. “Let us greet our friends, whoever they may be.”
Dean stepped forward and cautiously opened the door with his left hand, keeping his gun ready to shoot any enemy that was still outside. He found himself looking at... an empty junkyard. Cautiously he made his way onto the porch, followed by Sam and Maglor.
“Le suilon, Dean Winchester,” said... something Dean couldn’t see. “L’a mellyn. Odulem am edraith anlen.”
Dean blinked. “Uh... thanks?”
But Maglor was staring into the darkness as if he could pick out some form invisible to the human eye. “Man le?” he finally called.
“I enneth nîn Thranduil Oropherion,” came the reply, though Dean still couldn’t tell where the voice was coming from. “Mae govannen, Fëanorion.”
Maglor’s eyes widened in shock. “Thranduil Oropherion?! You are far from Lasgalen, Elvenking!”
“And you are long among mortals to speak their tongue so freely,” Thranduil replied, amused. “But for their sake, I will do likewise.”
“Elvenking?” Sam echoed. “Like... King of Mirkwood? That Elvenking?!”
A ripple of laughter ran through the unseen band of what Dean assumed to be Elves.
“Yes, Samuel,” Thranduil replied. “There is no other remaining in Middle-earth, to my knowledge. Unless....”
Maglor shook his head. “Nay, I will not claim that title or any other. Elrond had more right to it than I, and he did not claim it. Even had Maedhros not confirmed Fingolfin as High King, though, I have forfeited my right to rule by my own deeds. Justly am I dispossessed.”
The invisible Elves’ relief was palpable.
Dean shook his head in confusion. “Wait, wait, wait. Why is the Elvenking in South Dakota, and why can you see him and we can’t?”
“To answer your second question first, Dean,” Thranduil replied, “we are neither ghosts nor wholly incorporeal. The best English description is that we have faded-our fëar have largely consumed our hroar, and we no longer have such incarnate form as the eyes of most Edain may see. This state can have advantages, as you saw tonight; but it is also very difficult to avoid being killed in a war when neither side knows that you are there. Europe was no longer safe for us once the Great War began, so at its end we found an American troop transport ship and sailed hither.”
“Yeah, but why are you here? Don’t get me wrong; I’m grateful. But....”
“It does seem kind of random,” Sam agreed.
“That is partly my fault,” said a second voice.
Thranduil chuckled. “You have, as some might say, a fairy godfather. Rúmil was very fond of your mother, though he never spoke to her directly and she never saw him. He was unable to save her life, but we have taken it upon ourselves to aid you as much as possible whenever our paths have crossed.”
Dean’s eyebrows shot up in surprise, but Sam frowned slightly. “Did... wait, you killed Gordon, didn’t you?”
“Yes, Samuel,” replied the second voice, which Dean concluded must belong to Rúmil. “He had become that which he hunted, and you were his next target. The thief betrayed you to him.”
“Thief-that Bela chick?” Dean frowned. “Why would she do that?”
“He had an artifact she wanted. But it did her no good. The hellhounds took her some months ago.”
The Winchesters sighed in unison. Bela Talbot had been a nuisance, but nobody deserved hellhounds.
“We became aware that the Barrow-wights had been summoned,” Thranduil continued. “So we followed them here.”
Dean nodded. “Thanks.”
“But why would they follow you hither?” Rúmil asked. “You both are Isildur’s heirs, that much is plain, but the Barrow-wights have lain hidden for Ages.”
Dean sighed. “Maglor, maybe you’d better explain.”
Maglor quickly briefed the other Elves in Sindarin. Then there was a short murmured conversation that Dean wasn’t able to follow at all.
Finally, Thranduil spoke up again. “It is long since we dealt directly with the Edain, Dean. But in the Elder Days, our houses were allied, and it is time that we renew that allegiance. What would you have us do?”
Sam and Dean looked at each other in astonishment. Then Dean drew a deep breath and turned back toward where he thought Thranduil was. “Um. There’s this convent, St. Mary’s, in Ilchester, Maryland. We think that’s where Lilith’s gonna try the spell first. Could you, like... guard it for us?”
“With a good will, my liege.”
Dean stuck out his hand, and warm invisible fingers grabbed his forearm just below the elbow in a warrior’s handshake. It took Dean a second to figure out how to return the grip, but he did manage it and found Thranduil’s arm to be truly too solid to belong to a ghost and yet not quite what he normally considered corporeal.
“We will send word if aught occurs,” Thranduil continued.
Dean nodded. “Awesome. Ah-le hannon.”
Thranduil chuckled and squeezed Dean’s arm. “Navaer, elvellon.”
Then he let go, and Dean sensed the Elves leaving. He and Sam stood there for a moment, frozen in shock, until Sam finally shook his head and said, “Dude.”
“Seriously,” was all Dean could manage by way of reply.
Team Free Will had very few run-ins with Lilith after that, though the rest of Team Destiny, as Dean called them, did give the hunters some trouble. Pallando did his best to conjure the ghosts of Sauron and Saruman on Halloween, but despite Uriel’s attempt to ‘help’ Cas by offering to level the town, Cas and the Winchesters were able to stop Pallando from succeeding. Uriel then tried to set a trap for Sam and Dean by ‘capturing’ Alatar and asking Dean to torture the Istar for information, but Maglor saw through the ruse and, in the process of ensuring the brothers’ safety, very nearly killed Uriel. They saw very little of Rincaro, though, until Zachariah attempted to kidnap and brainwash Sam and Dean; then Cas and Rincaro not only rescued and disenchanted the Winchesters but sent the fallen Maia packing before he got a chance to work the brothers over face to face. Dean was so grateful that he started calling Rincaro “Rinc,” and the nickname stuck. And the Winchesters repaid the favor a month later when Uriel and some others of Zachariah’s followers captured Cas and Rinc and attempted to “re-educate” them.
Between skirmishes, the hunters had their usual caseload to handle, and a few of their hunts had surprisingly positive outcomes. Perhaps the most surprising of all was the Orc infestation near Blue Earth, Minnesota, that led Sam and Dean to discover that the pulpit of Sacrament Lutheran Church, once held by their friend and fellow hunter Jim Murphy, had been taken by another hunter named David Gideon who had rallied his congregation to form a small but efficient hunting militia. Once the Orcs were dispatched, Pastor Gideon talked with the Winchesters late into the night to get the full story behind the uptick in monster activity, and he urged them to contact him when they got word that Lilith was moving on Ilchester. “If there’s any way we can help ensure that the Apocalypse happens on God’s schedule rather than Lilith’s,” he said, “we ought to do our part.”
Sam started having nightmares about Ilchester during the last week of April. So it wasn’t too much of a surprise when a mockingbird flew up to Maglor on May 7, while he was having a picnic lunch on campus with the Winchesters, and started singing at him, gesticulating jerkily with its wings. Maglor whistled what were apparently short questions and got answers that made him increasingly concerned before he tilted his head in thanks and the mockingbird flew away.
“What was that all about?” Dean asked.
“Message from Thranduil,” Maglor replied, pulling out his cell phone. “We need to speak with the others as soon as possible.”
“Well, I can spare you two phone calls,” Rinc said, appearing at the end of the table. “Castiel and I know, and we’ll go along with whatever plan you come up with. But we’re a little busy keeping Zach from catching up to you again, so we can’t come to the briefing.”
Dean blinked. “Dude, were you eavesdropping?”
“Technically, no. You’re in a public place, and I was on my way here to warn you anyway. But now you know, so I can leave. Bye!” And he was gone.
Sam rolled his eyes, Dean shook his head, and Maglor calmly proceeded to call Bobby.
When the team assembled that evening, Ash had found maps of the convent and of the surrounding terrain. These he spread out on the table while Maglor relayed Thranduil’s information:
“Thranduil has summoned as many Elves as he could find in North America; his force numbers thirty in all. They have kept constant watch on St. Mary’s since the beginning of October. All was quiet there until the last week, when Wargs and Orcs began moving into the surrounding woods. So far, Thranduil reports, there have been only minor skirmishes, no more than a handful of Orcs at a time. But two nights ago his scouts followed the survivors of such a skirmish back to their base. Based on the conversations they overheard, he believes that Lilith will attempt the spell on the 17th.”
Dean nodded. “What kind of numbers are we looking at?”
“It is impossible to say for sure. Thranduil estimates at least two hundred Orcs and perhaps as many Wargs are already in place, but we have no sign of how many Lilith will bring with her, or how many of the Houseless will take part.”
“Sam?”
Sam sighed. “Not very easy to tell from my dreams, but... it looked like a lot more than two hundred to me. I’d guess more like a thousand. And I’m pretty sure I saw spiders as well-not, like, Shelob-huge, but... elephant-sized, maybe.”
Dean cursed quietly.
Maglor leaned back. “The date seems an odd choice to me. It cannot be the full moon, surely.”
Jo looked at a calendar. “Nope. Full moon’s the 9th, new moon’s the 24th. The 17th is the waning half.”
“The new moon would be a more logical choice-but late May is a season of martyrs’ feasts, and the 24th in particular is one of the many feasts of the Blessed Virgin. To so profane a sanctuary bearing her name on that day would go ill, I think. The waning half moon would be a less formidable adversary-Isil will not rise before midnight.”
“Or it could just be a fakeout,” Bobby noted. “I mean, if you’re gonna have a Black Mass, I don’t think the church calendar matters as much as the moon phase. And the waning half don’t have much juice one way or the other.”
Sam shook his head. “Lilith will be there, Bobby. I saw it.”
“Maybe Lilith’s the diversion,” Ash ventured.
Sam frowned and grabbed his dream journal, flipping through the descriptions he’d written down. “Lilith, Alatar, Pallando, bunch of demons, Col. Klink-”
“Col. Klink?” Dean guffawed.
“Shut up, jerk, not literally. Guy just looked like Klink in the face, that’s all. Not even a monocle.” Sam kept flipping and frowned. “Huh.”
“What?”
“Uriel wasn’t there.”
Dean snarled suddenly. “He’s gonna try for the Devil’s Gate.”
Bobby frowned. “How do you figure, son?”
“Sam ain’t the only one who sees things,” Dean snapped, then froze and blanched as if realizing what he’d just admitted. “Um. It’s... it’s not like....”
Sam looked at him steadily. “Dean. It’s okay.”
“They’re not like yours, Sam. Just flashes. And sometimes I just know things.”
Maglor nodded. “That is to be expected. Not every descendant manifests all of the gifts in the same ways or to the same extent.”
Dean ran a hand over his face. “Been close to two years now. You’d think I’d be used to this whole Heir of Isildur thing.”
Sam squeezed his shoulder. “Hey. This time you got a flash that I didn’t. This is good, Dean.”
Dean nodded and took a deep breath. “So. Main group’s still headed for the convent, but Uriel’s makin’ a play for the Devil’s Gate. Two fronts. No way we’ve got the numbers to match Lilith, but we can up our total a little. Thranduil’s already at St. Mary’s; we can call Pastor Gideon, send the Blue Earth contingent out there as well. What about the nine of us? Where do we go? I mean, Gideon’s good enough with the low-level stuff, and Thranduil’s got Ages of experience with everything but the demons, but... with Lilith and two wizards in the mix, plus whoever this Klink lookalike is, I’d feel a lot better with a more senior hunter there.”
Bobby and Ellen exchanged a look and chorused, “Rufus.”
Dean frowned. “That old coot who tipped us off about Bela? Thought he was retired.”
“He is, technically,” Bobby replied. “But somethin’ this big, he’s probably already heard rumblings from his own contacts. Might be better to have him headin’ up things in Maryland while we head back to Wyoming.”
Sam nodded. “That sounds reasonable.”
Dean looked over at him. “Hey, you think maybe Cas and Rinc could fly all of us from Maryland to Wyoming and back?”
“What, leave the car in Ilchester?”
“Yeah, and have a strategy meeting with Rufus, Thranduil, and Pastor Gideon before we head out. That way, if the battle’s still going when we get back, we can come in from another angle, catch ’em off guard.”
Sam considered it. “It’s a thought. Y’know what else would be nice, though, is extra firepower.”
“Like what, automatics?”
“Well, that, yeah, would help with the monsters, but I’m thinking... something that could take out Zachariah if he shows up. Or something we could use on Uriel. I mean, Gríma was able to kill Saruman with a regular knife, so the Istari shouldn’t be that hard to kill. But Zachariah and Uriel aren’t bound to their physical forms the way Alatar and Pallando are.”
Dean nodded thoughtfully. “Yeah. Not a lot of places we could look on such short notice, though.”
“There’s Dad’s lockup. We never did finish the inventory after the break-in. Might be something hiding in there that Dad wouldn’t have recognized.”
“The chances of finding such a weapon are slim,” Maglor cautioned. “But it would do no harm to look.”
“No,” Dean agreed, “and even if we don’t find anything that would work for that, there might be something we’ll need for another reason.” He looked back at Sam. “How long do you think we ought to give ourselves?”
Sam shrugged. “I dunno. Twelve hours, maybe?”
“I’d feel a lot better,” said Bobby, “if I went with you two to stand guard. If Team Destiny has any idea you’re there, something’s liable to come after you.”
Dean nodded. “Sure. Makes sense.”
Ash leaned forward. “Now when you say ‘all of us’ are going to Wyoming, exactly who do you mean?”
“I mean us.” Dean indicated the seven individuals in the room. “Who do you think I mean?”
“I’m just sayin’, somebody needs to be in charge of communications.”
Dean frowned. “If I didn’t know you, Ash, I’d suspect you were tryin’ to chicken out.”
“Dude, you know I’m no good in pitched battle. A bar brawl’s one thing, but you get more’n fifty people involved, I get lost. Plus, we get to Ilchester and half of our side ain’t visible, I’m liable to shoot one o’ the good guys without meanin’ to. And besides, somebody’s gotta play the Smith to your Ike.”
Sam blinked. “You’re offering to be our chief of staff?!”
Ash shrugged. “More or less.”
Dean pinched the bridge of his nose. “How’d I get rooked into this?”
“Right place, right time, right bloodline?” Sam teased.
Dean glared at him. “That was rhetorical, genius.”
The others exchanged amused looks.
Dean sighed. “Okay. Ellen, you want to call Rufus while we try to work through strategies?”
Ellen nodded and pulled out her phone. “Sure.”
Sam pulled out his phone as well. “I’ll go ahead and call Pastor Gideon, too, see how many he can bring.”
Dean nodded. “Good plan.”
And while they made phone calls, the other five gathered around the maps to start planning defenses.
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