Chapter 361: Eastern Campaign
Though only a hundred Aurors set out, no one dared to underestimate them.
In Gandalf and Elrond's eyes, that hundred was more dangerous than the thousand Elven warriors from Rivendell and Lothlórien combined.
Beyond the Aurors themselves, the Ministry, at Kael's request, also provided Portkeys and laid down Floo connections and fireplaces throughout the Far East.
Thanks to that network, the Elves and Aurors reached the lands around the Sea of Rhûn in a matter of days rather than months.
On the battlefield, a thousand Elves and the eastern rebels met tens of thousands from Mordor head‑on.
The hundred Aurors, meanwhile, were an arrow aimed at the enemy's heart, cutting straight through the dark ranks.
They were drilled to perfection, moving as one. Wands flashed in their hands, and knots of Mordor's troops fell in swathes.
The Orcs' blades and the Easterlings' arrows might as well have been straw for all the harm they did. Only the Morgul‑shafts, steeped in dark enchantments, had any real bite.
Even then, the Aurors drew together in pairs and small teams. For every volley of cursed arrows, one attacked while another shielded, spells snapping into place faster than bowstrings could loose.
They had more than skill to rely on. Dragon‑scale arm‑guards thrummed with warding magic. Brooches, rings, necklaces, and alchemical trinkets winked with their own layered charms.
Even their uniforms were armour of a sort, woven from giant spider silk and enchanted at Madame Rosmerta's robe shop to turn blades and blunt spells.
Kael and the Ministry had armed them to the teeth for a reason. The loss of a single Auror was felt keenly.
This expedition was not only an aid for the East. It was the Aurors' first taste of true war.
Until now, the largest action they had seen was the clearing of the Troll‑wood, and the Trolls had been too stupid and clumsy to offer much of a lesson.
Here, against the legions of Mordor, they would learn what battle really meant.
Again and again, the Aurors vanished with soft cracks and reappeared deep in the enemy lines, Apparition turning them into ghosts that struck and were gone.
Others swept above the field on broomsticks, raining spells down from the sky.
Those best at Charms and curses filled the air with explosions and storms of conjured arrows. Whole companies of Orcs vanished in blasts of fire and shrapnel.
Transfiguration masters turned swords and spears in mid‑charge into snakes and beasts that whirled and struck back at their owners.
Prank magic, under their hands, became a weapon. Soldiers collapsed into helpless laughter, legs twitching through endless tap‑steps, or found their feet stuck together so they could only hop. Teeth and toenails shot out in grotesque growths, robbing them of the strength to hold a weapon.
Some Aurors scattered potions that burst into banks of thick grey fog, then sent gale‑force winds to drive the clouds into the Mordor ranks.
Any who drew breath from that mist dropped at once into deep sleep.
Those with a gift for Herbology flung out the seeds of Devil's Snare, bred by Professor Margles. Under a touch of magic, they sprouted and shot up in seconds, black tendrils whipping out to seize and crush every dark soldier within reach.
Spells streaked across the battlefield in a storm of coloured light. Fire bloomed, earth burst, and rolling booms of detonations never ceased.
Under the Aurors' assault, tens of thousands of Mordor's troops faltered and broke ranks. Pressed at the front by Elves and rebels, and harried within by wizards, their line sagged and began to give.
Yet the hosts of Mordor were not defenceless.
Among the Orcs, Trolls, and Easterling Men, more terrible things moved: were‑wolves, vampires, and the dark sorcerers themselves.
The lesser creatures were no threat to the Aurors. They had no answer to such magic.
But the others were not so easily brushed aside.
These were not ordinary Wargs, but fell‑wolves, beasts ridden by evil spirits, half wolf and half wraith. They were stronger by far, their claws and fangs dripping poison, their bodies wreathed in dark force.
The vampires were worse: great bat‑like monsters that dwelt close to Sauron, their huge bone‑framed wings tipped with hooks, their teeth craving blood. Save for the light of the sun, few things could kill them outright.
And behind them all stood the dark sorcerers, Men broken and remade in Sauron's service, schooled in the black arts.
Before he fell and rose as a Ringwraith, the Witch‑king had been one such warlock, so feared they named him Sorcerer‑king.
To Sauron, Orcs, Trolls, and most Easterlings were tools and fodder. Their deaths meant nothing.
The werewolves, vampires, and black magi were his true servants, kept close in Mordor and trusted to guard his will.
Now they had come forth.
The werewolves ran on all fours, huge and brutal. Red light burned in their eyes as they tore through the press of allied soldiers.
They darted at the Aurors in blurs of motion, faster than the eye could follow. Lesser spells burst against them without effect. Even curses that dropped Trolls in their tracks only tore bloody rents that healed before a man could draw breath.
Above, the vampires dived and wheeled, striking at the Aurors on brooms.
They were blurs of darkness, crossing the sky too swiftly for sight. They struck from nowhere, their claws and fangs tearing at throats, their wings battering riders from the air.
Their voices were weapons too, a keening song heavy with compulsion that clawed at minds and wills, drawing the unwary into sleep or trance.
Behind the lines, the dark sorcerers stood almost unguarded, wrapped in their own wards.
They chanted in low, harsh tongues, summoning up hosts of wraiths and binding them into the corpses that littered the ground, raising whole legions of the dead.
The Aurors did not break.
At close quarters, they linked their spells, weaving shields that flared and locked together into walls of force. The werewolves crashed into invisible barriers and found no way through.
Then the Aurors changed the shape of the battle again.
One by one, silver shapes burst from their wands—a pride of lions, a sweep of swans, hounds, cats, a dolphin, a great stag, and dozens more.
The Patronuses blazed with clean light as they charged.
Their radiance bit deep into the dark creatures. Werewolves howled and shrank from them. Vampires banked away, shrieking as their shadows burned.
The spirits riding the beasts and the dead could not bear that purity.
Where several Patronuses harried a single werewolf, they tangled themselves around it, biting and tearing—not at its flesh, but at the wraith that lurked within.
An antelope‑shaped Patronus lowered its horns and drove straight at the knot of darkness, smashing into it with all the weight of hope and light behind it.