Chapter 402: Into Mordor
The creature that stepped into view was as large as a house.
Every face in the group went pale at once. Shelob's enormous body filled the path ahead, her many eyes gleaming with cold hunger.
Gollum seized the moment of chaos and slipped away, disappearing into the rocks before anyone could grab him.
Aragorn and Legolas moved immediately, putting themselves between Shelob and the two Hobbits.
Gimli let out a battle cry and swung his axe at one of Shelob's legs. The blade rang off her shell like steel against an anvil, sparks scattering from the impact. It left no mark.
Shelob barely glanced at him. Something else held her attention: something carried by the small figure standing further back. She flung Gimli aside without effort and drove straight toward Frodo.
Legolas fired a volley of glowing arrows, but they skittered off her armoured hide without breaking through, and the impacts only enraged her. She rounded on him with a screech, stabbing forward with her barbed forelegs. Legolas was already moving, vaulting between the boulders, weaving and dodging while continuing to loose arrow after arrow at her eyes, the one place on her body that might be vulnerable.
Aragorn came at her from the flank with Narsil. The blade had some effect on her. Shelob flinched from it, her advance losing some of its certainty, giving the others a moment to breathe. Gimli, undeterred by having been hurled through the air, came charging back in, axe raised and roaring.
For a time, the three of them held her.
Frodo and Sam stayed back where Aragorn had told them to, watching the fight with a sense of helpless urgency. They had little to offer in a battle like this.
Then Gimli was knocked flying again. The Elven spider-silk rope caught his axe and pinned it. One of Shelob's threads found Aragorn's sword arm, sticking fast, and his Alohomora and other spells did nothing against the ancient creature's webbing. The fight was turning.
Frodo got to his feet. "We have to do something."
Sam caught his arm. "Frodo, they said you're the most important one. If there's danger, you go first, no matter what. That was the plan."
But Frodo was not going to leave them. He drew Sting from its sheath, the blade Bilbo had pressed into his hands before they parted, and pulled the Phial of Galadriel from his dimensional pouch. Then he ran toward Shelob.
The moment she saw him coming, Shelob abandoned the others entirely. Whatever instinct or hunger drove her, it fixed itself on Frodo above all else. She lurched toward him, enormous and terrifying.
"Frodo, get back!" Aragorn's voice cracked with alarm. Legolas fired again and again, a rapid string of arrows aimed at her eyes, trying to slow her, to stop her, to do anything.
Shelob kept coming.
Frodo swallowed his fear, lifted the Phial, and shook it.
The Phial flared in response, as if sensing the darkness bearing down on him. The light of Eärendil burst from the crystal, pure and fierce, blazing across the rock-strewn ground like a piece of the morning sky.
Shelob recoiled as if the light itself were a physical blow. She stopped mid-charge, shrieking and writhing, unable to push forward and unable to turn away, lashing at the air with her forelegs in blind distress.
Frodo held the Phial high and walked toward her, step by steady step, pushing the light forward.
Shelob retreated. Each time the radiance intensified, she fell back another pace, driven by something that went deeper than pain, some ancient revulsion at the light that no hunger could overcome.
Aragorn did not let the moment pass. He Apparated directly beneath her, drove Narsil up into the soft, unarmoured flesh of her abdomen, and thrust with everything he had.
Shelob's shriek tore across the mountainside. She thrashed wildly, throwing Aragorn clear, then turned and fled, crashing back into the darkness of her tunnels and disappearing from sight.
The silence that followed felt enormous.
Everyone let out a long, ragged breath.
Aragorn turned to Frodo and put a hand on his shoulder, his expression warm with genuine admiration. "Well done, Frodo."
Legolas and Gimli were looking at him with new eyes. Neither of them had expected that from a Hobbit who seemed, by all appearances, to be the last person suited for a fight. Sam was staring at his master with open, uncomplicated pride.
Frodo ducked his head, a little embarrassed. He held up the Phial, its glow already fading back to a soft shimmer. "It was the light of Eärendil Lord Kael gave me. That's what drove her off."
The others looked at the Phial in his hand, and the acknowledgement in their expressions was quiet but sincere. "Lord Kael has given us more help than we can measure," Legolas said, and no one disagreed. Every one of them had needed the protective items Kael had sent with them during the fight. Without those, several of them would not still be standing.
There was no time to linger. The noise of the battle had been considerable, and staying in the area risked drawing attention from whatever Mordor forces remained nearby. They moved at once.
Gollum had not gone far. Aragorn tracked him down using a Tracking Charm, and it did not take long.
By now, the whole group had worked out what Gollum had tried to do. He had led them straight toward Shelob's hunting ground. He had been counting on the spider to do his work for him.
Finding him crouched in a crevice, trying to make himself invisible, they dragged him into the open. Gimli raised his axe, his expression leaving no doubt about his intentions.
Aragorn stopped him. So did Frodo.
"This is your call, Frodo," Aragorn said, stepping back. "He's your guide. What do you want to do with him?"
Gollum had heard Gimli quite clearly. He was shaking badly, wide eyes fixed on Frodo with the most wretched, pleading look he could produce.
Frodo was angry. He had no illusions about what Gollum had tried to do to them. But he shook his head slowly. "We still need him. He knows the way into Mordor, and we don't. We can't kill him yet."
Gollum nearly collapsed with relief. "Yes, yes! Gollum is useful! Gollum knows the way! Don't kill Gollum, please! Gollum will take you safely to Mordor, yes, precious, safely..."
Aragorn looked at him with undisguised contempt. He levelled Narsil, still dark with Shelob's blood, until the tip was inches from Gollum's face. "One more trick," he said quietly, "and you will not have the chance to beg. Do you understand me?"
Gollum stared at the blade that had wounded something as terrible as Shelob. He nodded almost frantically.
Aragorn did not trust the nodding. He reached into his pack and produced a length of Elven-woven rope, enchanted so that it could not easily be cut and would lengthen or shorten as needed. He looped one end around Gollum's neck and handed the other to Sam.
Sam took it without a word. He was not going to pretend this felt safe, but he held the rope firmly.
This time, Gollum did not try anything. Whether he was genuinely cowed or simply being patient was hard to say, but he led them without deviation to a hidden opening among the rocks: a narrow crack that gave onto a long, steep stairway carved into the mountain's interior, descending into close darkness before rising again through the stone.
After half a day of climbing up and down through that lightless passage, they finally emerged on the eastern side of the Ephel Dúath and found themselves standing before the Tower of Cirith Ungol.
This was the last gateway into Mordor, and it was heavily defended. Orcs and Uruk-hai moved along its walls and clustered around its base.
The group pressed into the shadow of a boulder and studied the defences with grim expressions.
"What now?" Legolas said. "Do we wait for nightfall and try to slip past, or do we follow Gollum's suggestion and find another way around?"
Aragorn studied the terrain in silence, then shook his head. "Going around would more than double the distance. It means more time, more chances for something to go wrong. Getting to Mount Doom as quickly as possible is what matters most right now. And we still have a good stretch of daylight left; staying here that long is its own kind of risk."
He paused, then allowed himself a slight smile. "But I think there is a better way. One where we can walk straight through in plain sight without being recognised." He drew out the Polyjuice Potion and held it up. "We transform into Orcs and walk right in with them."
The realisation spread across every face around him. Somehow they had all nearly forgotten about it.
Legolas, who knew the Potion well, raised a practical concern immediately. "Polyjuice Potion needs Orc hair. Where are we supposed to get that out here?"
Aragorn's expression said he had already thought of this. He produced a separate vial from his pack, calm and prepared. "I collected it in Gondor before we left. It is already taken care of."