The mission to destroy the ring of power was always going to be a dangerous one. When the important members of each race meet at the Council of Elrond to decide what can be done about the growing evil in the world, they are not only discussing their own fates, but that of the whole of Middle Earth. It is a serious task, and the fellowship who set our from Rivendell are aware that they very may well not return home with their lives.
They know there will be dark temptations along the path that would lead them astray, and they are even warned by Galadriel herself that ‘the quest stands on the edge of a knife. Stray but a little, and you shall fail, to the ruin of all.’ The fellowship can only go so far, and eventually, Boromir is killed, and Aragorn chooses to follow Merry and Pippin along with Legolas and Gimli, which leaves Frodo and Sam to enter Mount Doom alone.
Ultimately, it is up to these two hobbits, the hardiest and most trustworthy of all the ringbearers, to complete the quest and to destroy the ring. But standing in their way are many adversaries, including the creature Gollum, who has betrayed them at every turn, the army of orcs who like waiting for battle at the Black Gates, and most terrifyingly are the Nazgul, flying on their winged fell-beasts and seeking the ring out with a vengeance.
The Nazgul are the figures in black hooded capes who pursued the four hobbits out of The Shire as they fled to Bree, on the way to meet Aragorn at the Prancing Pony. They are cruel servants of Sauron, trapped halfway between the living realm and the shadows beyond, and they will stop at nothing until they have retrieved their master’s weapon and returned it to him so that he can rise once more and claim dominion over Middle Earth once and for all. So what happens to them once the War of the Ring is over?
In the ending chapters of the Return of the King, the third book in the Lord of the Rings trilogy by J.R.R Tolkien, it is explained that the Nazgul have a final, urgent attempt to stop Frodo from destroying the ring. The hobbits’ only advantage over Sauron and his forces of evil was that the dark lord could never possibly fathom the idea that someone would want to destroy his evil object. His assumption that they would be lured by it, possessed by its lust and the power that it offered, left him vulnerable to defeat, and Sam and Frodo subsequently had the element of surprise as they snuck through the dangerous way into Mordor and reached the edge of the volcano and prepare to finish it.
But when Frodo puts on the ring on the edge of the lava pool, having finally succumbed to its evil after months and months of painstakingly resisting it, the Nazgul are instantly alerted to his presence and the imminent threat to their master: ‘In a last desperate race there flew, faster than the winds, the Nazgul, the Ringwraiths, and with a storm of wings they hurtled southwards to Mount Doom.’
As they race back towards the flames, preparing with all their might to stop the hobbit in his tracks, a very lucky turn of events transpires inside the mountain as Gollum bites the ring from Frodo’s fingers, teeters on the edge of the vast drop, and then falls into the lava, taking the ring with him. Thus the ring is destroyed, as the task which Frodo was unable to complete is finally managed in the nick of time.
As the ring combusts, the dark magic that is contained within it is broken, and Sauron’s last remaining essence (or Ea as it is known in Middle Earth) is extinguished. As his life force goes out, so too does the evil will that he had infected all of his minions with. His connection to them is severed, and they are all cast back into the terrible realm (known as the Unseen World) from where they drew their power, essentially barred from Middle Earth forever.
‘The skies burst into thunder seared with lightning. Down like lashing whips fell a torrent of black rain. And into the heart of the storm, with a cry that pierced all other sounds, tearing the clouds assunder, the Nazgul came, shooting like flaming bolts, as caught in the fiery ruin of hill and sky they crackled, withered, and went out.’ They are essentially snuffed out of existence, as are many of the other evil creatures who thrived under Sauron’s reign of terror. Even Sauron himself is reduced to a withered husk, who can never again regain form or strength, therefore completing the quest. And so the fellowship, and especially the ringbearers, are rewarded with long lives and the chance to sail to Undying Lands with the Gift of the Valar.