Chapter 363: A Mysterious Sign
For now, at least, Saruman was safe.
In an earlier discussion, Elrond and Gandalf had reached that conclusion together.
The Ringwraiths had chosen to take him prisoner rather than kill him outright. That meant they had some use for him. Until that purpose was served, they would not truly threaten his life.
What other torments he might suffer in the meantime was another matter.
After all, to expect the Nazgûl to invite him over for a polite chat would be altogether too much to hope for.
Dale.
After arranging defences against Dol Guldur throughout the North-South Vales, Rhovanion, and the Vale of Anduin, and while the forces meant to assault the fortress were still gathering, Levi went a little further north. He flew to the Grey Mountains, to the old Dwarven colony the Halls of Dáin, which had been retaken not long before.
Glóin had spoken of strange stirrings there.
At present, the safest and swiftest way to cross the Misty Mountains was the Sky-road. Before long, the Fellowship would almost certainly pass this way.
If it could be managed, it would be best to clear out any lurking threats before they arrived.
Roar!
As luck would have it, the moment Levi reached the place, a distant call echoed from behind the towering peaks whose tops were lost in cloud. The sound carried with unnatural force.
Something was waiting in the Northern Waste, and it was nothing wholesome.
Levi weighed his options, then swapped his gear for the Blaze chestplate. With a sharp crack like a firework, flame-wings unfurled at his back, and he shot straight upward.
In moments, he reached the peak.
The blizzard was too thick to see through. He kept descending, gliding down the far side towards the mountain's foot.
Crash!
A massive shape slammed into him from the side. The fire-wings flickered and died. Before he could even register what had happened, he had been driven bodily into the mountainside.
Some enormous creature had charged him head-on. Against that kind of weight, the small knockback resistance from the Blaze chestplate was not nearly enough.
"What in the…" Levi muttered.
He shoved aside broken rock and hauled himself out, staring at his rune shield, which had lost a noticeable sliver of durability. He was mildly baffled.
Then he looked up at whatever had just attacked him, and his expression cleared.
It was exactly as he had expected.
Just as he had thought, there was something on the far side of the mountains, in the Northern Waste.
A dragon. A wingless cold-drake. The moment he had dropped into range, it had come thundering across the ice and snow and rammed him full-force, a perfect dragon-charge.
Beherdan could do the same thing, but he always held back. The worst he ever did was knock Levi off balance, or play a prank and send him sprawling on his backside. He never drained health or triggered the shield.
This stranger-dragon, however, had no such restraint. It clearly wanted him dead, the better to crack him open and eat him on the spot.
That hit had truly hurt, and that was with all his resistances active. Without them, it would have been far worse.
"Let me see what we have here," Levi muttered.
He drew the Dragonflame Steel greatsword and charged out through the blizzard, bringing the blade down hard on the drake's skull. The blow left it reeling and seeing stars.
The cold-drake, which had lived all its life in these snowy wastes, was driven back by the strike. It crashed through a great sheet of ice behind it.
With his current gear, a single flightless dragon was no real threat to Levi.
Even without the Star Ring, his equipment alone was enough.
He did not even need to think about combat sense or tactics. If he simply stood still and traded blows with the beast, hit for hit, he could grind it down by raw attrition.
That was how confident he was.
After a few more strikes, the dragon finally recovered enough to realise something was very wrong. This human was not normal. In pure strength, it was at a disadvantage.
The dual-knockback effect of the Dragonflame Steel greatsword kept it from advancing even one step. Every exchange felt like being clubbed by a siege-engine or slapped by one of Fangorn's Ents.
An Ent's slap was no joke. One blow could shatter stone and punch through steel plate. Apart from dragons, no living thing could take that kind of punishment.
After a few more clashes, the dragon was thoroughly cowed. Its body was scored with blood and wounds, its bones cracked beneath the scales.
And that was only because it had blocked every strike with the hardest parts of its body. If Levi had aimed for a weak point, such as driving his blade down its open throat, it would have died in a single blow.
"Running already? I was not done yet," Levi called after it.
The dragon turned its head and heard that dreadful human voice behind it.
It had made a terrible mistake.
A fatal one.
Since time out of mind, it had been dragons who mocked Men. Today, the tables had turned.
But it was too late.
From the moment the cold-drake entered Levi's sight, its fate had been sealed. And then it had actually charged him.
Soon it was nothing but a pile of materials. Not even a bone remained.
After gathering what the dragon had left behind, Levi pressed on deeper into the Northern Waste. To his surprise, he had not gone far before he met another obstacle.
The snowfield here was uneven. Something had passed through recently, leaving tracks that were still fresh, not yet buried by the storm.
Awoooo—
A wolf-howl rang out from somewhere unseen. Black shapes flickered across the snow, unsettling and wrong. In the distance, the sky flickered with a sickly green light, drawing him further in.
On this ancient snowfield, untouched for ten thousand years or more, Levi walked on, radiating heat, melting the frost beneath his feet as he went.
The road was long and dull. The endless, unchanging white began to stir something restless in him.
The temperature here was abnormal. Levi had no doubt that if he took off the Dragonflame Steel armour now, the cold alone would begin to drain his health.
Under the crushing chill, even the heat of the Dragonflame Steel was suppressed. It could no longer melt the snow and ice around it.
Walking and flying by turns, Levi had, without realising it, left the heartlands of Middle-earth far behind. He was moving ever closer to its edge.
All along the way, apart from the unbroken white, the only other constant was the growing density of monsters. The black shapes he had glimpsed earlier were the afterimages of Wargs. Now they lay still, burnt and skeletal, unable to run any longer.
There were also Orc corpses.
Wherever Levi passed in this wasteland, the land became "clean".
As these ancient, savage creatures fell one after another, the evil power over the snowfield seemed to lessen. The grey mists at the horizon and the howling, blinding storm were beginning to fade.
Perhaps it was time to turn back.
At a certain moment, the thought rose in him.
But at the same time, another feeling stirred: a premonition, or perhaps a sign. It urged him forward, deeper still, as if something waited there for him, something he was meant to do.
The sign was only a vague sensation. It had no force behind it, no specific content, no clear instruction.
It was simply there, making itself known, proving it was real and not imagined.
Whether to heed it was Levi's choice. He could follow it, or he could ignore it.
In the end, he decided to see where it led.
The feeling was familiar. It reminded him of the sign that had come when he first opened the Nether Portal, all those years ago. It came from the highest source.
Though it was not a command, the gesture deserved respect.
Screee—
After walking a while longer, a harsh, grating shriek rang out from above. If such a sound were heard over a city, it would cause panic.
To Levi, it was simply unpleasant and shrill.
When the shape in the air spotted him on the ground below, it seemed to startle, almost guilty, and fled at once into the distance.
"Oldest trick in the book," Levi muttered.
Even so, he followed.
Because the direction it fled was the same direction the sign was leading him.