Meriadoc remained standing, his vision blurred by tears, unnoticed by those around him. The scene before him was surreal: his weapon lay on the ground, its blade emitting wisps of smoke akin to a dry branch flung into a raging fire. As he watched, the sword contorted, shriveled, and finally turned to ash. So ended the sword of the Barrow-Downs, a creation of Westernesse. The craftsman who painstakingly forged it long ago in the North-Kingdom would have found solace in its noble end, during the time when the Dunedain were rising and the fearsome realm of Angmar and its sorcerer king were their greatest adversaries. No hand, irrespective of its might, could have inflicted a wound as grievous upon that foe, severing the necromantic ties and shattering the curse that bound his invisible sinews.