The Causeway Forts, also known as the Guard-towers and Bered Ondrath, were a twin-towered fortification with battlements on each side of the north-eastern gate of the Rammas Echor, from which the Causeway ran over the flat land to the city of Osgiliath. Within the Rammas Echor, the road ran for four leagues (twelve miles) over the Pelennor Fields to the Great Gate of Minas Tirith.
The Forts' purpose was to guard the Causeway on the road from Osgiliath to Minas Tirith against the possibility of enemy attack.
History
On March 10 in the year 3019 of the late Third Age, Beregond, a member of the Third Company of the Guards of the Citadel, returned to Minas Tirith from Bered Ondrath to which he had been sent from the city over the Pelennor Fields.
On March 11 the following day, the Steward of Gondor Denethor II sent his younger son Faramir to defend the crossing over the river Anduin at Osgiliath against the Morgul-host to decimate the attackers before retreating back to Minas Tirith.[citation needed]
On March 12, the attacking Morgul-host that was led by the Witch-king of Angmar and outnumbered the defenders tenfold had managed to cross the Anduin on a large number of floats and barges that they had secretly built in East Osgiliath so that Faramir retreated and rallied his men to the Forts.
However, in the early hours of March 13, the attackers wrecked the Causeway Forts and blasted breaches in the Rammas Echor. The defenders had to retreat over the Pelennor Fields to the Great Gate of the City with Faramir leading the rearguard. When cavalry from Haradwaith overtook the retreating men and caused them to rout, the entire remaining cavalry of Minas Tirith charged from the city, attacked the enemy forces and escorted the retreating men including Faramir, who had been shot with a dart during a fight with a mounted champion of Harad, back to the city. Only two thirds of the defenders including Faramir made it back to Minas Tirith.
Etymology
Bered Ondrath is a Sindarin name meaning "Causeway Towers" and possibly "towers of the stone road", derived from the plural of barad ("fort, fortress; tower; a great towering building"), the lenited form of gond ("stone - general as a substance or material; a rock"), and rath ("course, river-bed; a track, street").
In adaptations
The Lord of the Rings Online
In the video game The Lord of the Rings Online, these Forts guard the way west out of the city. In the version of the city that acts as the player-versus-monster-player map, they are the stronghold of the Free Peoples of the World, and cannot be accessed by enemy players.