A/N: Sadly, I own none of this. It’s either Tolkien’s or EA’s.

Chapter 3: Rhudaur Falls

With the constant inflow of slaves and troops, the Witch-King’s fortress, which was now called Carn Dum, was finished! He soon turned his eye to Arnor.

After the death of the last king of all Arnor, the Kingdom was split into three smaller Kingdoms; Arthedain, Cardolan, and Rhudaur. While all three kingdoms were split equally, not all three had the same strength. Arthedain was by far the strongest with Cardolan not far behind, but Rhudaur had a low population of Dunedain and controlling the local hillmen wasn’t easy.

Since Rhudaur was the weakest and since conquering it would bolster his forces, the Witch-King turned his eye on the weak kingdom and was soon at work undermining it. To do this he would need to draw most of the Hillmen to fight for him so as not to risk all of his forces. To do this he made a secret alliance with Hwaldar, the Chief of the largest clan of Hillmen.

Rather than ride openly into Rhudaur, the Witch-King entered silently with a small vanguard and with the main army coming in slowly behind him. He quickly set up a camp in the hills and sent out spies to gather information.
As the spies came in, one rushed to Morgomir and quickly told him what he had to report. The information made Morgomir’s already pale face even paler.

“Master,” Morgomir weakly said as he approached the Witch-King, “A report has just come in that Hwaldar has been captured by the accursed Dunedain. He is being held captive in a small camp just south-west of here. The camp is only 100 strong.”

The Witch-King brought his gauntleted fist down on the nearby table with such power that it broke asunder.

“Curse the Dunedain!” he cried, “We shall need to free him before we can rally the Hillmen. Ready the snow trolls, wolf riders, and my horse, we shall make a quick strike and free him.”

Soon the Witch-King was silently leading a small strike force south-west across the hills. As they were riding a scout rode back and told the Witch-King that they were approaching the camp. With that he spurred on his troops, but ordered them to be silent. With amazing speed they swooped into the unsuspecting camp trampling and slaughtering every enemy. Quickly the camp was silenced, Hwaldar released from his prison, and several soldier set to counting bodies to make sure all the men were dead.

The Witch-King turned to the wolf-rider captain and asked, “What is the count?”

“Garn! We only counted 99 tarks your majesty!” he replied, waving his sword in the air.

“Blast!” the Witch-King cried, “We shall have to start the attack as soon as Hwaldar has summoned the Hillmen! Captain, send a messenger to meet us at the central Hillman camp.” The rider was soon off and the cavalry troops were riding towards the central village.

Once there, Hwaldar ran to the center of the village, held aloft his great war axe, and cried, “Rise Hillmen! Now is the time to fight for the Iron Crown!” Many war cries were heard as around 250 armed hillmen surged from the clustered huts of the village. “Send riders to the outlying villages,” continued Hwaldar, “Summon them to this camp!” Several Hillmen scrambled to do his bidding and the rest lined up in formation according to weapon and rank with the spearmen in front and axe throwers in back.

The scouts soon came back with the other Hillmen in tow, and right behind them came the rest of the Witch-King’s army. All told the count of troops numbered 3000 strong, enough to obliterate the Dunedain from Rhudaur, exactly what the Witch-King intended.

While the Witch-King was mustering his forces, the lone survivor of the camp made his way back to the largest of the Dunedain fortresses in Rhudaur and there he reported what he had seen.
Immediately a messenger was sent to King Argeleb of Arthedain that the Witch-King was attacking and all speed was needed if they were to crush him.
Luckily the messenger did not have to go far as Argeleb had anticipated this and had silently moved his forces near Rhudaur; however, he was still some miles away and he would not reach the twin fortresses of Rhudaur fast enough to reinforce them.

The Witch-King had just assembled his forces and was moving to strike the Northern fortress, but he had sent Morgomir and half of the army to the southern fortress and therefore kill two birds with one stone, as the saying goes.

Unluckily for the Witch-King, he had no knowledge of the impending Arthedain attack and when he heard the clear trumpets sounding across the hills he was filled with doubt for a brief moment, but doubt soon turned to hatred and he wheeled his forces around to crush the attack.

Argeleb turned to his troops and cried “For glory! For family! For Arnor!” With that he blew a mighty trumpet and many others joined in and he led the charge straight into the Witch-King’s line and the fierceness of their initial onslaught daunted the Witch-King’s army, but the arrival of the trolls from the back of the lines swiftly turned the tide and the hunters became the hunted.

While the main armies were fighting, Argeleb found the Witch-King and cried “I shall smite thee to the earth foul demon!” and with that they became locked in combat and none dared to come near them lest they be killed in the battle. Soon, Argeleb’s army had been defeated and besides some soldiers that had fled, he was the only survivor of the original army. As he began to tire, the Witch-King broke ArgelebÂ’s blade and picked him up by the neck, “Die now!” he murmured and he snapped the King’s neck and cast his body aside like a rag doll.

Morgomir’s orders had been to raze the southern fortress and when finished, assemble at the northern fortress and this was swiftly done because he had several siege engines. However, when he arrived at the northern fortress it was still standing and Morgomir, acting in behalf of the Witch-king, commenced an assault upon it as well.
Just as the gates were battered down, the Witch-King’s army appeared and swept inside the fortress along with Morgomir’s army and soon the entire fortress was ablaze and the army encamped outside of it. The Fall of Arnor had begun!

(A/N: My muse is hungry. Feed it reviews!)

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