Full of Wisdom and Perfect in Beauty by Gadira

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In the Shadow of Mordor

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“I am here to see the lord Magon”. Amandil waited for the servant’s nod of recognition, and followed as he was motioned upstairs to the main chamber of the house. The wooden planks of the floor creaked under the weight of the heavy boots he wore, a preliminary for the full armour he would be donning before his imminent departure.

“Lord Magon. Lord Magon”. The servant stopped briefly before the threshold, his head peeking through a red curtain which was always drawn for privacy. “The Lord of Andúnië is here.”

Amandil could not hear the reply, but there should have been some kind of sign, for the curtain was opened before him. As he entered the room, he had to brace himself for the heavy air, filled with the scented smoke of incense, which was rendered almost unbreathable by the closed windows. Trying not to cough, he approached the couch and saluted the man who lay there.

“Your medicines arrived this morning.”

Magon the Older craned his neck like he always did, trying to find an angle from where he could look at his interlocutor. Familiar enough with this arduous procedure, Amandil sat next to him, which usually made things easier, and extended the ivory cask that he had been carrying under his left arm.

“Here. I believe this was for the eyes, and this… no, this! for rheumatism in the joints.”

The old man nodded slowly, then pointed at a small red silk bag, exhaling a strong smell of spice.

“This.”

“Very well.” The servant had been hovering behind them during this short conversation. Before Amandil could even make a signal, the Gadirite was already behind him, hand extended to receive the bag of powder. It was a deep red colour, the lord of Andúnië realized as it was carefully measured and decanted into a cup of water. For all year, he had seen many different medicines being delivered from the island, following the old merchant’s requests, as he had brought them to his house and sometimes even prepared them himself, but this one was new. A new ailment must have joined the ever-growing list which preyed on the frail body of his illustrious guest.

“You can retire now. Give the medicine to me”, he ordered Magon’s servant. The barge from Gadir had departed a while ago, and there was no further danger of messages being exchanged. Still, the man bowed and departed so fast that Amandil had to wonder if he was scheming something, or if it was merely the unsupportable smell of the room what he was trying to flee.

Magon’s hands trembled as he made to take the cup from Amandil. Knowing by now what he had to do, the lord of Andúnië did not let go, and pressed on, politely but firmly, until the cup reached the old man’s lips.

“Th-thanks. Red bark of the godstree from Khand, c-clears the mind, five thousand gold from the Númenor imports, two and four hundred from Umbar.” He glared at Amandil. “L-lost a shipment. Bandits, they say. At least two thousand lost. Incompetent fools!”

“Indeed. Was this recent?” Amandil frowned, feigning interest, though he knew very well that Magon’s dotage did not leave any openings for the seeking of valuable information. As soon as he detected that he was being pumped for it, he became as clear-headed as he should have been back when he sat in Ar Gimilzôr’s council.

Sometimes, Amandil had to wonder if he was being fooled for the sake of the old man’s amusement.

“Y-you going s-somewhere? S-so much n-noise outside. D-didn’t let me sleep.”

“I apologize for the disturbance, lord Magon. Yes, I am finally leaving today. We are going to travel upriver towards the land of the Arnians and inspect the entire supply route to the final outposts, and hopefully we will root out the disruptions once and for all.”

It had taken more than a year, but at last the long and tedious groundwork had been accomplished, if not to his entire satisfaction, at least close to it. If the courtiers and nobles who spoke of the “Bay of Gadir” as if it was the Forbidden Bay of Númenor had to read a list of the names of all the villages, tribes, peoples, chieftains, sorcerers and so-called-kings who inhabited this vast land, they would be begging for mercy halfway through it. If they also had to engage in long diplomatic exchanges with every one of them, demanding assurances, hostages, and the signature of treaties that had to be repeatedly translated, transformed, emendated to include more gods, more names, or changed into terms that everyone could understand, they might begin to see the simple wisdom of their ancestors, who retreated to the Island and left Middle-Earth to its own devices. And those had been the places where diplomacy had gained the upper hand, which was not always the case. Especially in the mountainous areas, the natives were much better disposed towards killing Númenóreans than they were towards talking to them. The self-styled Dark Lord of Mordor, on his part, had not been included in any talks, nor shown the slightest inclination in participating in them. The presence of his kingdom bordering a large part of the land that Amandil would have to travel across was enough to make the bravest general extremely nervous. He could only pray that King Xaron’s loyalty to the Númenóreans had remained as steadfast as that of his father, the late King Xaris the Third of Arne, and that he was not double-crossing his faraway allies to win security from his close neighbour.

Magon, of course, had used his dotage as a shield to protect any precious information he might have had, and placidly watched Amandil plough on as he attempted to reconstruct all the pieces and come up with his own conclusions. Whether the Merchant Princes had orchestrated all this unrest, or whether they were merely passive victims of it, and expected the King to waste his time and strength solving their mess, Amandil would never know by talking to him. Their conversations were filled with other things, like pointless ramblings about a former lifetime organizing trade through a net of associates that spread across Island and mainland, equally pointless reminiscing on his daughters, and, sometimes, less pointless exchanges when Magon deigned to acknowledge his and Amandil’s previous history together. Amandil remembered how unnerved he had been the first time they had touched upon the subject of the old merchant’s hand in his many childhood ordeals, only to realize that Magon expected him to justify them.

“Children are innocent. H-harming children is a t-terrible thing. But ch-children grow older. Look at you n-now! You are the enemy.”

“I am not your enemy, lord Magon. I am working for the good of Númenor under the will of the Sceptre, and so are you.” Amandil had argued, trying to keep his cool. “What you did back then was evil, and has no justification.”

“Look at you now”, Magon repeated, then closed his eyes as if he was done proving his point. Amandil had to exert all his willpower not to shake him awake.

“I may be away for a month or two, but you will not lack protection during that time.” Or vigilance, Amandil thought, knowing that the old man could read the thought in his eyes anyway. “A garrison will be left in charge of the camp and the hostages. They will see to your every need, and take care of your medicine shipments as well.”

“That is very k-kind of you, lord Amandil.”

“I am merely doing my duty, lord Magon.” Suddenly aware that he had to get the remainder of the preparations going, Amandil rose. “I will take my leave from you now. Be safe and of good health.”

Magon made a gesture as if pointing at himself, and laughed self-deprecatingly. His laugh turned into a cough. Not for the first time, Amandil wondered if burning so much incense could be good for his already tortured lungs.

“F-farewell, lord Amandil. Until we s-see each other again.”

Or until we don’t, the lord of Andúnië thought, darkly. Trying to calculate who had the highest chances of short-term survival at this point of their lives, however, was a morbid thought, and as such he forced it away from his mind while he fled the fume-infested house.

 

*     *     *     *     *

 

“Have a safe trip, my lord.”

Amandil stopped in his tracks right before he set foot on the plank that would take him to the deck of the long river barge. All around him, the improvised harbour was full of similar boats, each of them bustling with armed Númenóreans, their weapons and their provisions.

Behind him, the wooden palisade that encircled their camp, and all the buildings inside it looked more than ever like an ugly blot in the landscape of venerable ruins, a blemish erupting in the flesh of the beautiful old city of white stone. For a moment, the sight gave him pause, and he felt the first stirrings of a premonition. For they were not the Númenóreans of old, and their works were nothing like theirs, and that was why their efforts to reclaim their lordship among Men through peaceful means were vain and misplaced.

As if to reinforce the gloom of this assessment, the lieutenant in charge of the garrison reached his position at that moment and bowed.

“Rest assured, I will ensure that the hostages remain secure, and that every move of the Gadirites is followed.”

“I trust you to fulfil your role to the best of your ability”, Amandil replied. Without hostages, they would never be able to reach the North unimpeded; this was as certain as it was damning as an evidence of how far they had veered from the idealised relationship with the natives envisioned by Tar-Palantir from his palace in Armenelos. “Do not leave any of Magon’s servants unfollowed, and remember not to let them exchange words with the hostages or with any of the Gadirite sailors who bring the medicines.”

“I will keep that to heart, my lord.”

“I will be departing, then.” Finally crossing the wooden plank, he boarded the barge, and two men lifted it and stored it away. In the chaos of the last preparations, involving the location and organization of the fighters and the rowers on deck, he did not even look at the men who stood lined upon the riverbank, ready to defend their post to the last drop of their blood if things should not go as intended. As he leaned on the railing and saw that they had become a gleaming line, receding in the distance together with fort and ruins, this omission struck him as ominous.

“Orders, my lord?” the ship’s captain asked, two steps behind him. Amandil shook his head, willing himself to stop having dark thoughts that would serve no one.

“Straight ahead to our first stop, the tribe of the Tree People”, he ordered. “We should be there before nightfall.”

 

*     *     *     *     *

 

“Praised be the Valar for their thousand blessings and for this drink, which makes one thousand-and-one!” Captain Melek raised his glass, then extended it towards Amandil, who proceeded to extricate it from his hand with a warning glare.

“I said no more drinking, beyond the one glass required for the toast! Have you already forgotten the dangers!”

“Oh.” The man looked a little abashed as the barley liquor was spilled on the ground at his feet, but he still tried to argue. “I am sorry, my lord, but I thought… there is no threat for us here, it is just an agricultural colony, and the natives are friendly! They don’t even know what a sword is!”

Amandil was tempted to sigh. Around them, the welcoming ceremony under the eaves of the main granary had evolved into a lively feast. The attending Númenórean soldiers were armed, but they seemed to have developed a keener interest in showing the local ladies what their weapons could do than in keeping them at the ready.

“That is because they use spears. For the last time, there is no friendship in this lands that we can take for granted! I have seen ambushes start in situations exactly like this one! Now go and tell this bunch of idiots to reassemble and stop drinking. We have to organize the sentries around the boats, and above all, we need sleep, because tomorrow we enter the borders of King Xaron’s land!”

“Very well. I.. I am sorry, my lord.”

Properly apologetic at last, the captain departed towards the bonfire where most of the others had gathered, having grimly accepted the unpleasant task of ending the fun. Amandil watched him from afar, wishing to sit alone in the dark for a while longer.

He could not wholly blame the others for their optimistic assessment of the level of danger. Most of them, excepting the veterans from the garrison of Sor, had not fought in the mainland before now. Too many were fairly recent recruits, plus Amandil’s own men from the Island, who were nowhere near the level of Pharazôn’s Umbar troops. For those inexperienced soldiers, the first weeks of their upriver progress must have seemed like a dream: hailed as protectors and heroes by the agricultural tribes, invited to the ceremonies of the Forest Men, treated deferentially by warrior barbarians armed to their teeth, and offered food and provisions by all. Amandil, however, had seen treachery before, and so he refused to let himself be lured into an unwarranted sense of security. The peoples he had met so far had all struck deals with him and sent hostages. They had protested their innocence, and blamed other, more remote and savage tribes who were allies of the Orcs for the stories they had heard about the pillaging of the supplies. Hearing them speak, anyone would believe that the crisis which had shaken Númenor had been nothing but a rumour that had gone wildly out of hand.

Tomorrow, they would finally be entering the area closest to the borders of Mordor. This region was mostly occupied by the Arnian kingdom, ally of the Númenóreans, whose current dynasty of kings was responsible not only for guaranteeing a sizeable amount of the food shipments to the Island, but also of a far more valuable branch of trade: the precious metals mined in the Northern mountains, needed for jewels, metals, and weapons. Their capital, Arne, was a civilized place, almost as civilized as the Númenórean cities in whose image it had been built, but their alliances had always been struck with the Merchant Princes, not with the Sceptre, which begged the question as to how they would react if their interests should collide. So far, they had seemed polite enough, sending envoys regularly to Amandil in Pelargir and even hostages, a requirement that had not originally been made of them because of their status as old allies. The King was inclined to have a favourable opinion of them because of that, but Amandil was not so certain.

“So, what do we do now, my lord?” Melek was back. He looked flustered, and Amandil had been hearing him shout from the distance. Still, everything seemed quiet enough now, and the feast was dying in the embers of the bonfire, which at that moment was being extinguished by the efforts of several male natives.

“We set the watches, and we sleep”, he replied. “Tomorrow will be a long day.”

 

*     *     *     *     *

 

Mordor was a threatening name when shown in a desk map in Númenor, encircled by its formidable natural defences and watching, like a large bird of prey, over the beautiful lands of the Anduin and the Bay of Belfalas. It was even more threatening when whispered by tribesmen and colonists who lived in perpetual terror of the Dark Lord’s raiding parties, or spoken of as the powerful force behind the leaders of the brutal Haradric uprisings. And yet, Amandil thought as he leaned on the prow of his barge, idly watching his men’s attempts to anchor it to the large stone platform, nothing of this could possibly compare to the instinctive fear evoked by the chain of mountains that seemed to be hanging above their heads now. They did not look like the other mountains they had passed in their journey, not even like the holy Meneltarma, with its peak covered in perpetual snow. Instead, they were dark and repulsive, bereaved of the pleasant greens of vegetation and the gleaming white of snow alike. Their peaks were hidden from sight, crowned by a mass of dark stormclouds, and their slopes had been bared of every tree and blade of grass, displaying instead a formidable array of jagged rocks where an entire army could be lost if they were reckless enough to invade. They could also hide bands of Orcs, whom he easily imagined emerging from their ravines to prey on the unsuspecting population in the long nights of winter.

Upon watching this impenetrable range from up close, Amandil had to wonder if that landscape could have been created naturally like the rest of the world, or if, somehow, the Dark Lord who had made it his abode had been powerful enough to reshape it with his sorcery. According to the ancient legends of his people, Sauron was not a man nor an Elf, but a spirit of great might, of similar nature to the Valar but corrupted to the core. He had once served the real Melkor, the original Dark Lord, in the wars against the Elves of the First Age, and learned many of his secrets, so in theory such a feat could be possible for him. Thinking of this, however, only made Amandil want to despair of the hopeless state of Men. For only the Powers who became corrupted ever became involved in their affairs, to conquer, enslave and destroy them, while the radiant and the good remained hidden in their faraway Forbidden Lands, inaccessible to all. Praying to gods who could see and help them seemed, more than ever, like the only means to survive this madness.

“They are waiting for us in the harbour, my lord.” Adunazer brushed his shoulder tactfully, and this made him return to his senses enough to realize that a mounted party was waiting for them to disembark. Among them, there was a covered palanquin, which he took for a dignitary of the realm coming to welcome the Númenóreans to their soil. At once, he forced himself to discard his pensive demeanour, but not before the other man noticed something.

“It looks threatening, doesn’t it?” he remarked. Amandil did not need to ask what he was referring to.

“As long as he stays there, there is no reason to believe that he does not fear us more than we fear him”, he replied, with a bravado that sounded slightly overdone to his own ears. “Come, let us show ourselves before our gracious hosts.”

The man in the palanquin was emerging from it just as Amandil set foot on the harbour, followed by his main advisors. As always, the herald announced him as the lord of Andúnië, and the legate of Tar-Palantir, Protector of Númenor and the colonies and Favourite of the Powers. The herald from the other party took the cue at once, and announced his lord as his Highness the Prince Noxaris, son of the late King Xaris, High Councillor, Commander of the Armies of the Realm and Main Furnisher of the King’s Palace. Amandil glanced at him curiously, remembering having heard this name before while he was at Pelargir. Then, it dawned upon him: one of the man’s children, a boy, was being held hostage at his camp at this very moment. Since the King himself had produced no proper heirs from his true wife, who was also a close kinswoman of some sort, the children of his brother were highest in the line of succession. From what Amandil had gathered, the boy in Pelargir had at least an older brother, but there was some sort of religious interdiction that forbade the heir to the throne to leave the capital of the realm.

“Prince Noxaris”, he saluted, politely lowering his head. His interlocutor seemed to be of about middle age, between thirty and forty in the reckoning of short-lived barbarians, with strong and sharp features and the fit body of a warrior. Both his finely ornated robes and his carefully shaved face mirrored the most distinguished fashions on the Island.

Noxaris imitated his salute, then sunk to his knees and bowed theatrically.

“Lord Amandil, I humbly salute the power of the Sceptre who sent you to us”, he recited in perfect Adûnaic. “In the name of our King, I bid you welcome to our fair realm. I am to be at your disposition for anything you may require during your trip. We have guides, provisions, safe-conduits and all what is necessary for your inspection tour to the Northern lands.”

“Stand up, please. You need not bow to me, as I come in friendship”, Amandil replied no less theatrically, considering the circumstances. The barbarian prince smiled, allowing himself to be helped to his feet. He was at least a head shorter than he was, he noticed, though he was by no means a short man among his people. Elendil’s height would have probably been a source of awe among them.

“Please, let me offer refreshments to you and all your men before the journey.”

As he spoke, Noxaris pointed in the direction of the small harbour town, largely perched upon a hillside, like all their cities, for defensive purposes. A man who looked like the chief of his retinue promptly offered Amandil his own horse, which he accepted gracefully, but not before signalling to Adunazer that sentries should be left in all the barges. Civilized or not, he was inclined not to trust people who grovelled too much, and the court of Armenelos was a case in point.

The highest part of the hill was occupied by a large, domed stone building, whom Noxaris, through the curtain of his palanquin, declared to be a temple of Eru and Melkor. Amandil did not know whether to be shocked or amused at this pronouncement. The building looked like a miniature version of a Númenórean temple of Melkor, which was probably what it had been until some time ago, when news first reached them of the new Númenórean King’s strange preference for the ancient cult of Eru. However, it had obviously not occurred to them that both gods should be incompatible for any reason, or reluctant to share a dwelling place.

This temple had an annexed house where the priests lived, with a nice inner garden and a private audience room with a view on the surrounding plain. It was to this last spot that the prince led Amandil, after making sure that the men who had followed him were well provided for.

“You do not seem too fond of the view, my lord. I can say, it grows on you after a while”, Noxaris jested, while a servant filled two silver cups with sweet iced wine. Amandil sipped on his, watching the mountains in silence.

“My royal ancestors cleaned this country of Orcs and claimed it for their own. With the help of your people, of course”, the prince insisted after a while. “That is why we do not fear them, because we already defeated them once.”

From what Amandil knew of the history of the area, the Númenóreans in the time of Ar Adunakhôr had allowed this people to settle here and build a kingdom because they needed someone to watch the area for them, and were reluctant to settle so far inland themselves. But as barbarian lives were shorter, so their legends also sprung faster into life, since none was left to remember the truth. Perhaps the Elves also found the Númenóreans ridiculous for the same reason, with their devout worship of the very evil they had once helped to defeat.

“That is an admirable spirit”, he nodded politely. “If the news that have been reaching us are true, however, you must have your hands full at this moment.”

“You speak of the supply lines”, Noxaris guessed. “To be honest, we were quite shocked when we heard the news. It is true that there are incursions now and then, especially in the North, where the mines are, but we have been delivering most shipments without trouble. I suspect that many of them have simply been waylaid by the tribes on the way to Gadir.”

“Oh.” Amandil finished his wine. “Well, this is proving to be quite a mystery. The mystery of the missing supplies, as I could call it. Every tribe on my way here has let us pass, sent us hostages and protested their loyalty.”

Noxaris let go of a contemptuous laugh as he, too, set the cup on the table.

“Let you pass! Of course, you were many and you were armed. Sent you hostages! They have sent hostages to Mordor, too. Protest their loyalty! Words cost them nothing.”

Amandil decided it was time to drop the pretence.

“Did you send hostages to Mordor?”

Noxaris stopped laughing. For a brief moment, his façade of courtesy fell, and underneath it he looked anything but friendly.

“I have sent you my son. My own son, who was no older than ten when he left a year ago. You did not ask for him, but I knew that we would immediately become suspect if I did not do it.” He snorted. “Apparently, it was all in vain.”

Amandil was not so easily deterred.

“And yet you advise me not to set much value on the hostages of others. Are you the only father who loves his child?”

“Those are barbarians. They do not think as we do.”

For the Númenóreans you are also barbarians, you fool.

“Now, Prince Noxaris, let me be very clear on this. Your son is a wonderful boy. We are happy to have him, but we are not from Mordor.” Amandil spoke with intent, allowing each of the words to sink well in his royal interlocutor’s mind. “We are your friends and we did not ask for hostages from you because we trust you. As long as you act like friends to us, you have nothing to fear. If you have enemies, we will help you defeat them, as we already did long ago. And if you are being threatened or pressured by anyone, you only have to say a word and we will rid you of them, whoever they are”, he insisted. “That I can promise, and uphold it with my honour.”

There should be no room for misunderstandings now, he thought. The message had been delivered, received, and understood.

“In that case, we can begin the journey North tomorrow at dawn, if you wish. There are three hundred horses on their way from Arne, and I must confess I am quite eager to get out of that stifling palanquin and ride one of them at your side. “Noxaris had suddenly become again the very picture of geniality, as if their previous conversation had never happened. “Let us see how we can organize your stay here tonight, can we?”

Amandil repressed a sigh. And, apparently, ignored as well.

“I leave everything in your hands, my lord prince.”

 

*     *     *     *     *

 

The first day, they journeyed through the most populated area of the kingdom. Amandil did not intend to visit the capital, and risk becoming entangled in a web of ceremony which would delay them from their purpose, but they saw it from afar, a magnificent city built atop the highest of the hills of Arne. Its Palace and temples were all made of stone, in traditional Númenórean fashion, and they gleamed white under the afternoon sun.

They moved fast on horseback, so on the second day they were already entering the Northlands. Amandil had to admit that this was a prosperous, fertile country, and nothing he had seen until then had given him the impression that its inhabitants, whom he saw in great numbers working the fields and tending their gardens, seemed under the shadow of any kind of threat. Noxaris, who seemed as confident on horseback as he had been stilted on his palanquin, remarked upon this very often as he described the landscape to his guests, sometimes going as far as to mock his early suspicions.

“Look at them, they are recovering from an Orc attack”, he laughed, pointing at a group of around a dozen peasants, who had spotted them and were kneeling on the ground to pay their respects.

“I would rather they would stop kneeling so much. If they do that whenever someone arrives, they might not know that they are Orcs until it is too late”, Amandil grumbled.

“They do not do it for everyone, they are doing it for me,” the Prince replied with a smug smile.

“What do they do for the King, then? Fall face flat on the mud?”

Noxaris shrugged.

“The King never comes here.”

That same day, they crossed a vale that seemed to have been cleaved on the wall of rock that surrounded the Dark Land. It looked beautiful enough, with abundant vegetation, but Amandil refused to stop there. As far as he could see, there could be a pass that communicated directly with Mordor, and in spite of Noxaris’s good-natured taunts, he was not about to take any risks.

When they stopped for the night, they were reaching a large forest area, which was used for the timber needed to build the barges that sailed down the river. Amandil felt safer there, huddling in the cabins of the timber-workers, but not enough as to forego the night watches. The following day, they would cross the forest, and by night they might be close enough to the mines. That was the area where even the prince had admitted that some incursions might take place.

“Are the mines being worked at present?” he asked, as he and Noxaris prepared to share a cabin under the watchful glance of Adunazer.

“Of course! They are always being worked.”

“I assume that they are being watched over by your soldiers, in any event.”

“That goes without saying.” Noxaris smiled. “Otherwise the slaves would escape. Those mountain barbarians are wild and warlike.”

Even in the half-darkness, Amandil could see Adunazer’s eyes rolling in disgust, and his mouth moving to mutter something contemptuous. He had not seen enough of the mainland for it to have sunk in his mind yet that neither the allies of the Númenóreans nor the Númenóreans themselves were exempt from brutality.

“You must be very sure of your military strength, then.”

“When you see it, you will concur, my lord.”

Amandil closed his eyes, but for a long time he lay awake, pondering.

 

*     *     *     *     *

 

On the third day, the mounted Númenóreans and their guides entered the forest path. It was narrow and winding, not like a Númenórean road, but rather like a mountain trail of those he had often taken across Haradric territory. Coupled with the density of the foliage, it looked too much like favourable terrain for an ambush for Amandil’s comfort.

“Is this the only path?” he had to ask.

“Oh, we could also go around the forest, but this is fastest. Plus, you cannot see Mordor from here, so I am sure that this will make you feel more comfortable.”

Aware that he was being mocked, Amandil did not reply, but he did not lower his guard, either. At one of the scarce moments when the prince was not riding next to him, he sent a command to be spread to the column behind them: to keep their armour on and their weapons at the ready. His instincts, which usually lay in the grey middle between his immortal gift of foresight and common mortal anxiety, seemed to him somehow closer to the former than the latter the farthest that they travelled.

One of those times, when he was so overwhelmed by those feelings that he found it hard to concentrate, he sought for Prince Noxaris, only to find that he had galloped ahead of the column, and was deep in conversation with one of the indigenous guides. At once, he forced his horse to stop, and regrouped with Adunazer and Melek, who rode a few steps behind him.

“Take your weapons” he ordered. When he saw them hesitate, he hissed. “Now!”

It was not a moment too soon. All of a sudden, a scream rent the air from the rearguard, and he barely had time to duck before a black arrow whistled past his ear and embedded itself in the trunk of a large tree behind him.

“Orcs!” he shouted, brandishing his sword at one of the foul creatures who was coming towards him, spear in hand. The blade found its target, and one of its companions was trampled under his horse’s hooves, but the rain of arrows did not abate. Remembering his time in Harad, he adjusted his helmet and tried to assess the situation.

The column had stopped entirely, and all around it, foes were appearing, cutting both the vanguard and the rearguard and slipping from behind the trees at every turn. Arrows flew above their heads; as far as they remained there, they were sitting ducks, and in this narrow lane they would pick them one by one. Prince Noxaris was nowhere to be seen.

There was only one thing for it, then.

“To me! Soldiers, to me! Charge for Númenor, charge!”

Discipline kicked in, and those who remained on their mounts echoed his yells and unsheathed their swords to join in his charge. Clenching his teeth, he steeled himself for the clash, for arrows and spears, and for death, and concentrated his every thought on the gleaming silver steel on the tip of his trusted weapon.

The impact was shattering. The first thing he felt was his horse ramming into the vanguard of the Orcs, who were hiding behind their shields. His sword moved right and left, mowing down those that came at him from the sides, and behind him, he could hear a cacophony of yells and ear-splitting screams. Black, putrid blood stained his helmet, his face and his arms. Someone tried to stick a spear in the flesh of his horse, but he cut the arm first. He saw it fly, drawing a grotesque circle in mid-air.

“Charge! Charge!” he yelled repeatedly, praying that his men would have the presence of mind to persist in the middle of this carnage. Surrounded, they were helpless, but no troop of Orcs on their feet could withstand the charge of Númenórean warriors on horseback. If only they could open a breach…

If only… if…

Just as he thought he could see the numbers of the enemy thinning out before him, Amandil felt a new impact, and realized that his mount was bleeding from the flank where a spear had penetrated it at last. He had only moments left, he thought, with the strange clarity of mind given to him by the imminence of his fate. He needed to steer the horse away from the charge and jump, so he would not be trampled by the others.

With a display of skill that had never come to him in normal circumstances, he pushed  the Orc away, untied his left leg from the stirrup and, with all his strength, jumped to the side of the path, where he fell on top of another Orc. Knocking it out, he rolled on his side and away from the fray. For a moment, he lay still as the rest of the men rode by him, but he knew that it was but a momentary respite. Almost before he could pull himself up in a battle position, he was already surrounded by the enemy.

Suddenly, he felt a kind of fell madness grow inside him, and he remembered Pharazôn in a sordid cave of Harad, almost a lifetime ago.

“I am not afraid of you”, he laughed. “You are vermin on two legs!”

One of the Orcs’s ugly features creased in a sneer of rage, and he charged against him, but the others paused. So it was true, you were right all along, my friend, he thought dizzily. If you do not fear them, they cannot win.

This might have been his last thought, except that then he heard a clatter of hooves heading in his direction, and Melek cut away the leading Orc’s head, while his companions made short work of the others. For a moment, a long moment in which he felt a world’s distance away from the previous instants of glorious and murderous clarity, he stared at a gloved hand that was being offered to him, unable to understand what he was expected to do.

“We did it! We made it past them! Hurry, my lord, before they regroup!”

Ashamed, praying that none of them had noticed his weakness, Amandil grabbed the hand with a strong grip, and the young captain pulled him up on the back of his horse.

“How many?” His voice was hoarse. Belatedly, he noticed that he was entirely covered in Orc blood.

“About a hundred.” Two hundred dead. That thrice-cursed, seven times damned traitor Noxaris. “That charge saved us, my lord. If it hadn’t been for you…”

“We are not saved yet. We need to leave this forest now. Let us cut across until we reach the lower turn of the path, and make for the open air as fast as we can. Orcs won’t pursue us into the sunlight, but the Arnians have military effectives by the mines, and they may join them soon. Do not lose sight of each other!”

“Do you think we can get to the barges before they catch us?”

“The barges?” Amandil laughed mirthlessly. He could not find Adunazer. “There are no barges anymore. If we wish to escape this traitorous country, we will have to find our own.”

The irony, he thought, while he covered his head with his arms to protect it from the low hanging branches that scratched it in their mad run towards an uncertain retreat. He had come all this way looking for evidence of betrayal, and he had obtained it, but now that he had it, he might not be able to bring it back to Númenor. If he did not reach Pelargir, the King in Arne would blame his death on the tribes they had met in their way, and swear retribution in the name of the Númenórean Sceptre, while reaping the benefits of his alliance with the Dark Lord. And the Merchant Princes would be free to operate again, after having rid themselves of their enemy.

The Merchant Princes.

Were they, too, in this alliance? What treachery was still left to be uncovered in this forsaken corner of the world?

Would he live to find it?

Even if it was the last thing he ever did, Amandil swore to himself grimly, he would hold fast to his miserable, aching body, and fulfil his duty to the end.