Snow blankets the White Mountains, whereas outdoors the fortress partitions of the Hornburg, Dunlending warriors unfold the story of a ferocious Helm Hammerhand who strikes by the Dunlending camps like a wraith, tearing males aside together with his naked palms, feasting on their flesh.
In the meantime, his daughter Hèra paces nervously within the bowels of the Rohirrim stronghold, questioning the place her father has disappeared to throughout a vital night’s battle. Hèra’s good friend, a fellow shieldmaiden, hushes an aged servant who relates the gossip about their king’s preternatural vengeance. On the exact second she says it’s not possible for Helm to have disappeared from his locked, windowless room, Hèra, in a hallway close by, by accident unlocks a secret panel within the stone wall, leaving her personal bed room empty.
Hèra feels her approach alongside the key passageway at nighttime, visions of a ghost’s arm, shining armor –Helm’s – flitting by. She rounds a nook and sees the sunshine of daybreak forward. This cave leads Hèra to exit onto a snowy mountainside… proper into the paths of two orcs looting the lifeless.
The orcs are below orders from Mordor to take away each golden ring from each corpse they arrive throughout. Neatly, the 2 orcish foot troopers don’t wish to suppose too deeply concerning the motive behind such a directive; it’s clearly above their paygrade. “Contemporary meat,” the lead orc says, salivating on the scent of Hèra, crouched behind a rock. Simply as the 2 orcs and their big companion are about to swarm the human woman, the mighty Helm Hammerhand falls upon the orcs from above, in a flash of shining armor, white hair, and his tooth bared together with his struggle cry.
The orcs shortly dispatched, father and daughter stroll throughout the bridge and return to the primary gates of the Hornburg, chased by Dunlendings. The door mechanisms fail, nonetheless, and the door can solely open a crack. Helm understands what he should do subsequent to guard the daughter who’s the sunshine of his life. Protesting, Hèra is pushed inside to security by her father, who stands alone in opposition to the approaching horde. He squares his broad shoulders and, with a gleam in his eyes, faces his destiny as solely a proud warrior-king can.
Kenji Kamiyama, who has advised thrilling authentic tales in some legendary sandboxes earlier than, together with Blade Runner: Black Lotus and Ghost within the Shell: Stand Alone Complicated, was thrilled to work with Academy Award-winning Lord of the Rings screenwriter and producer Philippa Boyens. The Battle of the Rohirrim is a a lot smaller story in precise phrase rely, taking over solely 4 pages within the Appendixes of The Return of the King, but it surely nonetheless examines the human and ethical ravages of struggle.
