You surely recall Gandalf saying these words as Minas Tirith was about to come under siege by the forces of Sauron, “Prepare for Battle.” When I began writing the siege of Masara in the third book of my trilogy, Last Stand of the Living, I wanted to exceed the battle scene of Pelennor Fields. In the Silmarillion, there is also the battle of sudden flames in which orcs, balrogs and dragons join Morgoth’s forces. Unlike the Lord of the Rings, I wanted a single and decisive battle with varying twist and turns.
Let me set the scene. The hero, Arimar, has undergone a quest to free those enslaved by a possessed king. He has struggled mightily to return to his homelands with those he earned freedom for. He has reconciled the races, but now he has discovered that the forces of evil are gathering an army to destroy the last of ten heavenly worlds. These forces consist of giants, dragons, men, hybrid demons and weapons. The forces of good are asked by the creator to do no more than withstand the onslaught for forty days and forty nights, with a final revelation to be given. The small forces of good, 140,000 must build a five mile long wall and trench in six months to withstand this onslaught. Arimar appoints one male each of the races as the captains for this battle to stand and defend a section along that five mile wall.
Word has been dispatched to call for aid from all of the seven races, yet the couriers are captured, leaving only the 140,000 to fight this battle against millions. Arimar’s Dayanaran (think of someone from India) friend, Murlach, is a military engineer that designs weapons to kill as many as possible. Everyone, including the young and elderly are taught in some manner to fight, to make their last stand.
At this point, I will give you no more details, except to prepare you for the largest battle scene, in my opinion, to ever be written, for it not only involves all the mortal forces of good and evil, but the ethereal forces as well. My readers best describe this battle as an emotional roller coaster. The first two books set the stage of this mythical world and its characters, but the final story will grip you paragraph by paragraph. As George RR Martin kills off characters for seemingly no reason, the deaths in my story have a purpose, only revealed at the very end of times.
Prepare your heart for the battle ahead and have tissue ready.
