Under strange stars by Idrils Scribe

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Chapter 2

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Once more Glorfindel lifted his half-empty waterskin to drink the smallest possible sip. Around him arid plains of rough sage-brush stretched to the horizon. The ceaseless wind parching his throat seemed to blow straight from a furnace. A harsh copper sun beat down on the caravan of camels led by slaves on foot while their Black Númenórean masters rode high above the scorching sand. 

 

Glorfindel had paid most of the silver Elrond had generously supplied him with to join this caravan of traders on its way to Zimrenzil. That city was Umbar’s last stronghold, teetering on the edge of the wild, empty desert.

 

The Umbarian penchant for violence and savagery had made a lasting impression on Glorfindel. Pellardur had been a walled trading town, its dust-filled market square dwarfed by the cavernous slave market where chained men, women and children were paraded and auctioned off like cattle. The mere sight of such violence and degradation from one child of Ilúvatar to another made the ancient Elda feel contaminated by the uncleanliness, the wickedness of it all. It was a bitter irony, he felt, that if Orcs could not live in these sun-lands the feeble race of Men should obey Sauron’s will so eagerly that they’d turn to behave just like them.

 

Emperor Zimrathôn of Umbar retained a strong garrison there, and the steel-clad warriors patrolling the streets reminded Glorfindel that these slaves tended to rise up against their masters with equal violence. Various amputated body parts displayed on every gate and tower in the city sent a clear message about the consequences of rebellion.

 

The Umbarians brought that same attitude with them on the desert journey. Obedience was enforced with whips and the ever-present threat of the heavily armed imperial soldiers protecting the caravan. At the sight of the lash-marks on the emaciated men leading his camel, Glorfindel tried his best not to imagine the sweet, quicksilver child he had once known as Elrohir making his way to the desert in a similar manner.

 

Jagged mountains loomed ever closer on the southern horizon, and the Númenóreans became restless. They spoke in fearful tones of raids by Haradrim rebels in the area. As the caravan entered the foothills, Glorfindel sensed a change. All his ages of experience as a warrior screamed that hostile eyes were watching from the rocky hilltops, and whispers of their approach ran through the valleys. He felt a spark of fierce joy despite the oppressive dread of an inevitable attack. Whoever was lying in wait to ambush the caravan, they might know of a grey-eyed man by the name of Thanak.

 

The Haradrim came at night. Glorfindel had to admire their skill and strategy at setting traps. The Umbarians were cleverly brought to camp for the night on a valley floor that was nigh impossible to defend against attack from above. A rockslide, doubtlessly prepared days in advance, had closed off the way forward and it was too late in the day to turn the caravan around and return to higher ground. Glorfindel had known for days that they were being watched, even though the scouts neither saw nor heard any sign of Haradrim raiders. A leaden silence hung over the canyons, broken only by the stirring of small animals indifferent to the violence of Men.

 

Glorfindel decided not to warn his companions about the imminent attack. After witnessing their cruelty he felt no sympathy for them. Their defeat would make it more likely that Glorfindel could continue his journey in the company of someone who could lead him to Elrohir. 

 

In silence he put out his bedroll on the edge of camp and feigned sleep. When the encampment fell silent he slipped between the guards unseen, into the desert. He changed his Umbarian robes for a cloak of Grey Elven make brought from Imladris. To his great satisfaction it seamlessly blended with the moonlit ochre of the valley’s tumbled rocks.

 

Glorfindel made a detour through a small side canyon to reach the hillcrest above the sleeping camp. Nothing stirred below but guards moving between the tents and the small campfires, where he had lain not an hour ago. He would have laughed, had his life not depended on silence. Where the heavy-footed Umbarians had found nothing but empty desert and frustration, sharp Elvish senses and three ages of military experience had succeeded. Glorfindel had found the Haradrim.

 

About fifty of them, and probably a similar number on the valley’s opposite rim. All wore flowing robes, turbans and face-veils the color of the desert sand. They had no mail as far as Glorfindel could see, but were armed to the teeth with spears, scimitars and metal crossbows, likely looted from earlier raids on Umbar. Their clothing might be all alike, but Glorfindel had never seen so diverse a gathering, doubtlessly representing the Umbarian fondness of exotic slaves. What was visible of their faces ranged from almost coal-black to Edain-pale. Some had the slanted eyes of the Far East, others were light-eyed, probably captured Northerners like Ruhiren. Glorfindel watched their movements for a time, until he could identify their captain as a tall, dark-skinned man whose grey eyebrows betrayed his age.

 

Glorfindel silently crept along, hidden by his Wood-Elf cloak. To the captain’s credit he made no sound when Glorfindel seemingly materialized out of the sand at his feet. A quick gesture, and spear points surrounded the Elf from every side. He raised both his empty hands.

 

“Hold your spears, I come in peace!”

 

The Haradrim captain looked him over. The whites of his clever eyes sharply contrasted the burnt umber of his half-veiled face.

 

“You are a Northerner, but neither from Umbar, nor Gondor.” The Mortal said. “Something else entirely. Something I have not seen before.” 

 

The man spoke Númenórean with a strange, heavy accent, probably from the far south. “You are not a slave, and never were one, if I am to judge. I have seen you riding a camel with the Umbarians while our people walked the dust beside. You bore no whip though. For that, I will allow you to speak before I decide the manner of your death.”

 

Even though the Mortal was incapable of seeing his mind, Glorfindel knew that this man would see a lie for what it was. He simply told him the truth. He spoke of Elrond, Imladris, the North. Elrohir’s abduction and the long search for the child now grown to manhood. He even named Ruhiren as the one who had put him on Elrohir’s trail.

 

When Glorfindel’s tale was told the captain’s eyes showed doubt. He was not a cruel man by nature. Glorfindel sensed that he, too, had children somewhere, maybe lost to the chaos and destruction that had engulfed so much of Harad. But he was no fool. Their chances against the Númenóreans this night were already balanced on a knife’s edge. The Haradrim could afford no mistakes. To leave a potential traitor alive in their midst might be the last one they ever made.

 

Before the captain could voice the order that would end Glorfindel’s life in Middle-earth for a second time a fine-boned Easterling woman interrupted him. Despite his predicament Glorfindel noted that among these people a commander’s authority clearly did not have the same tyrannical quality as with their Númenórean counterparts.

 

“He tells us at least some truth, Amuk,” she said. “I once knew a Northerling by the name of Ruhiren. He was a captured sailor, and did return to the North two years ago.”

 

Another man interjected that the time for talk was running short, pointing at the stars to show that the appointed hour for the attack was near.

 

The captain, whose name was indeed Amuk, came to a decision. “Take his pack, his weapons, and search him well for any he has hidden. Then tie him and leave him here until we return. We will decide what to do with him in the morning.”

 

Glorfindel bit back his anger and disgust at the humiliating treatment. There was no way forward but to swallow his pride and allow two Mortal warriors, who he could easily have bested with his hands tied behind his back, to do their captain’s bidding. Glorfindel’s face remained impassive as they patted him down, even going as far as shaking out his boots. Inwardly he could have spat at their unmelodious chattering in what had to be Haradi, and the sickening smell of their long-unwashed clothes. Glorfindel was tied securely, his face towards a rock face so he could not observe the course of the fight.

 

They left him utterly defenseless and alone. Glorfindel’s life now depended on the fortune of the Haradrim in the coming battle. If they were defeated and killed by the Umbarians he would die of thirst where he lay, forgotten and without a chance of being found before the desert reduced him to a pile of sun-bleached bones. He only just managed to keep panic at bay, reciting a prayer to Elbereth over and over in his mind to keep it from racing. 

 

Soon, he heard the Haradi attack on the Umbarian camp begin. From the sounds of the battle he could not discern which turn it was taking. He heard no battle cries from either side, only the clatter of steel on steel, screams of anger, fear and pain, and the dull roars of panicking camels running amok.

 

By first light the fighting died down. As the sun rose many voices took up a single call, echoing over the mountains.

 

“Ak-ren ghab, Ak-ghab Eru!”

 

Glorfindel knew not a word of the Haradi tongue, but the mere fact that victory was announced in a language other than Númenórean was blessed relief. He waited for another terrifying hour. Amuk did not strike him as the kind of man who would leave a bound prisoner to die. The question was whether Amuk had survived the battle, and if not, what his successor would choose to do with the strange Northerner. 

 

At last Glorfindel’s dark musings were interrupted by approaching footsteps on the gravel behind him. The very same warriors who had tied him up had come to retrieve him, looking the worse for wear. Their robes and veils were blood-splattered and torn. One sported a black eye slowly swelling shut. Despite their injuries they seemed in high spirits, chattering among themselves in excited tones while untying Glorfindel’s bonds just enough to enable him to walk. Without speaking to Glorfindel they led him downhill towards the campsite on the valley floor.

 

When he caught sight of it in the harsh white light of the desert morning, Glorfindel could not help a pang of sorrow for such loss of life despite his earlier antipathy for the Umbarians. His former travel companions had been slaughtered to the last man. The only people left alive in the valley were the Haradrim warriors and the now freed slaves, who had set to plundering their former masters’ corpses of weapons, clothes and armour. The stench of dead bodies beginning to rot in the heat was overpowering. 

 

Even the creatures of the desert seemed to rejoice in the carnage. Glorfindel had never seen this many carrion-flies on any northern battlefield, and packs of wild dogs congregated at the camp’s edges with much snarling and growling. Overhead, large vultures slowly circled through the steel-blue sky, waiting for the Men to leave them to their feast.

 

To one side of the camp the pack-camels and their precious cargo of wheat, wine, olive oil and dried fish were being gathered by Haradrim warriors, loudly counting and rejoicing in their bounty. 

 

Amuk stood in the remains of the Númenórean caravan leader’s tent, tallying what gold and precious stones had been looted. On Glorfindel’s approach the Haradrim captain carefully finished his count and gathered his treasure in a leather purse, which disappeared beneath the flowing robes. Amuk looked Glorfindel in the eye, gauging his reaction to the massacre in search of grief for the Umbarians. He found none.

 

“Master Glorfindel, as you can see we were fortunate this night and therefore you are, too.” Amuk smiled as if they were old friends meeting at a feast. “Your tale has garnered some sympathy among my people. You may ride east with us. One among our folk might fit your description. He rides with a company like this one. I know not where they are now but we may meet them on the road, Eru willing.”

 

Glorfindel made sure to thank the man profusely before asking “Am I your prisoner?”

 

Amuk’s eyes settled on the ropes binding the Elf. “You have neither desert experience nor skill with camels,” he said pensively. “We will keep your weapons and waterskins. Walking away without them means certain death. That will be shackle enough for you, unless you are a fool.”

 

With that, he gestured for his warriors to untie Glorfindel.

 

“Now there is much work to be done, and we’d be glad for your help.”

 

Glorfindel’s guards were called Samak, a quiet Haradrim, and a woman named Metalan. She was a freed slave from the far Southlands, her skin so dark it had an almost bluish tinge. They set him to the grisly work of stripping the Umbarian corpses. 

 

Glorfindel almost refused out of sheer indignation. He was intimately familiar with the sight and smell of violent death, but as a commander had never been present for the inevitable disposal of bodies that took place after a battle’s end. On some level he was aware that even Elvish warriors would have to lower themselves to handling the bodies of their fallen enemies, be they Men or Orcs, but for him this was a disgusting first. The one small mercy was that no tale of this episode was likely to reach Imladris. He would never live it down if Erestor ever caught wind of it.

 

Most Black Númenóreans appeared to have fallen in battle, but others clearly had their throats cut afterwards. The corpses were left to rot where they fell, stark naked as a reminder for future caravans of who controlled this desert. 

 

When Glorfindel next looked up the Haradrim were saddling their own camels, brought in from a distant valley where they had been hidden during the raid. These were majestic animals, taller than those the Umbarians had used, with an aloof and defiant air reminiscent of their riders. The former slaves had been outfitted with their dead masters’ gear and were now in their saddles. Samak took Glorfindel behind him on his own camel.

 

Glorfindel soon grew acquainted with the rhythms of desert travel. The Haradrim kept a guard on him, but he was treated with kindness. As a people they were not unlike the Sindar in their love of the nighttime and the stars. The company slept under tarps during the glaring heat of day, their camels hobbled and left to roam near camp to graze on the sparse vegetation. When the sun dipped to the western horizon a meagre meal of dried dates and rock-hard waybread was handed out along with a carefully measured water ration. The camels received nothing at all. When Glorfindel remarked on that he was told that the strange animals could go without drink for a fortnight before thirst would limit their use. 

 

As the sun set the Haradrim lined up their camels in a single file and rode all night, navigating by the stars. The unusual mounts appeared to have surpassing night vision. Even Elvish horses would have broken their legs riding at speed over the dark, wayless county. In the long dark hours the Haradrim often raised their voices in song. Glorfindel had not yet learned enough Haradi to understand the words, but the haunting melodies awakened visions of boundless freedom in wild, unconquered lands under open skies.

 

Amuk proved an unexpectedly pleasant travel companion. He was not a talkative man by nature, but he was cheerful enough, inviting Glorfindel to share most morning meals with him. The Southron could not have been more than fifty years old if Glorfindel was any judge of Mortal faces, but he possessed that hard, calculating cleverness born of long experience leading warriors into battle. 

 

News from outside the desert was hard to come by for the Haradrim. Amuk cared little for Glorfindel’s tidings from Arnor, which he referred to as "the Snowlands". The world north of the Mouths of Anduin was no more than a distant and wondrous rumour to the inhabitants of the deep desert, utterly without relevance to their own lives. Amuk was keen to hear all Glorfindel could tell him about Pellardur and its garrison and the state of Gondor’s military. The Haradrim felt great kinship with Gondor’s ceaseless war against Umbar, considering the enemy of their enemy a friend. Glorfindel gladly let himself be questioned in exchange for being taught the language and the customs of the Haradrim.

 

Customs that were strange indeed. On the first night of their journey Glorfindel convivially asked Amuk’s father-name, only to be met with the stony silence of insult. After Glorfindel’s baffled apology Amuk softened, and explained. Most of the Haradrim were former Umbarian slaves, escaped or set free in raids. Parentage was a source of pain rather than pride, a subject unfit for public discussion. The sorrow of not knowing their begetters, inconceivable as it seemed to Glorfindel, was considered preferable to an Umbarian father’s hated name, a permanent reminder of the torment he must have inflicted on their enslaved mother. Those slaves imported from distant lands had even less cause to dwell on what half-remembered kinships lay behind them, far out of reach in both distance and time, given the shortness of their Mortal years.

 

 It was a strange curse, Glorfindel mused, this Mannish ability to breed like Orcs whether the resulting children were wanted or not; yet another unbridgeable gap between Mortals and the Firstborn. 

 

Amuk saw rather blessing than curse, it seemed. “I am only of myself, Master Glorfindel, and my place in this world I wrested from Umbar with my own two hands. What other source of pride does a man need?”

 

Glorfindel, descended from a house of princes, did not possess the cruelty to gainsay him.

 

Not that the Haradrim would care overmuch for princes. Now that Glorfindel had learned more of their language he understood the battle cry he had heard for the first time over the carnage of the Umbarian caravan. The Haradrim defiantly called it out each morning as every member of their company turned east to kneel before the rising sun, turning their backs on the West.

 

“No Lord but God. No God but Eru.”

 

As they travelled south the signs of war were all around them. Whenever the company came upon a well or watering hole they were greeted by charred remains of straw and clay huts, some with the burnt bones of their inhabitants still in them. Whether these were Black Númenóreans raided by the Haradrim or that situation reversed, Glorfindel could not tell. It did not seem to matter much. Whatever small fields were suitable for planting had clearly been untilled for some time, which explained why the Haradrim had been more excited about their plundered wheat than the gold. During their journey they did not meet a living soul.

 

That changed on a dark night with a shroud of wind-swept dust blotting out the stars. Amuk’s company had been making slow progress with their navigation so hindered. Glorfindel was the first to notice the distant sound of camels behind them, their steps out of synchrony with the caravan. He alerted Samak, who dashed up the line to warn Amuk. 

 

The caravan reassembled itself in battle order, every eye trained on the dusty horizon. Glorfindel’s Elvish eyes soon found their pursuers. Five camels were following their tracks, the veiled riders dressed in Haradrim fashion. When Glorfindel described this to Amuk the man relaxed slightly.

 

The instant their pursuers became visible to mortal eyes a wave of relief swept the company. Clearly these visitors were well-known. How the Haradrim managed to identify each other with their desert-coloured robes and face-veils all alike, Glorfindel could not tell. When they came within earshot welcoming calls went up. A smiling Amuk gave Glorfindel a pat on the back.

 

“Eru favours you, Glorfindel! The man we call Thanak is among our guests.”

 

“Which one?” Glorfindel asked, eyes fixed on the approaching riders.

 

“The one in front, their captain.” Amuk said. “They seem to ride in haste, most likely a message. I would hear Thanak’s news first. Then you have my leave to speak with him and learn if he is the one you seek. Even if he is not, he might still be of use in your search. He travels far and hears many things.”

 

As the first rider approached, Amuk rode a small ways to meet him with a water skin in his hands. Samak trailed behind, allowing Glorfindel to observe the proceedings. 

 

Amuk made a welcoming gesture. “Eru bless the camel that carried you here!” he proclaimed in Haradi, holding out the waterskin.

 

“And Eru bless the hands that pass me this water!” The stranger answered solemnly before accepting it to take a ceremonial sip. For that he had to lower his veil.

 

Glorfindel’s heart stopped for a torturous instant before blood came rushing back into his veins. 

 

The rider’s face was Elladan's.