Sam clutched the Ring in his hand and looked out at the green world around him: vines tore down the Dark Lord’s tower and crumpled the garrisons and camps of the orcs; trees burst forth full-grown out of rocky crags; and meadows of wildflowers rippled out over the wastelands of Mordor, spreading until they reached Ithilien to the west and all the land was one great garden.

He smiled at his triumph and at the destruction of the enemy’s works: Everything would be green and growing now, as it always should have been.

And across the wide lands of Middle-earth, the rampage of nature swept through the dominions of all Free Folk and drew their cities to the ground.