Meadow Flowers & Butterflies by StarSpray

Fires of Resistence

Rebels make trouble for Sauron's armies in eastern Rhûn.

Written for the 2019 Back to Middle-earth Bingo for the prompts "Rebels against Sauron in the East" on the Original Characters card, and "Haze" on the Color Burst: Purple card.

Mild warning for allusions to human sacrifice.

The air was thick with smoke, as soldiers ran frantically through their camp to try to douse the fires that kept springing up, now here by the armory, now there in the food stores. They were hunting also for those who set the fires, but could not find them. It was difficult to see small figures in the hazy darkness as they darted from shadow to shadow, tinderboxes in hand. Sparks flared, flames caught, and they were gone, like wraiths.

The temple to the Dark Lord stood over the scene, dark and jagged stone on plains where no stone should be. In daylight one could see that it was stained with soot and ash, and inside the floors were rust-brown with old blood, and the smell of it permeated the building. Priests in black robes and gilded, hideous masks chanted ugly words and brandished jagged knives. Many wore rings set with gems that seemed to glimmer of their own accord with a pale, unnatural light. When they spoke, you obeyed—or else you were served up on a golden platter to the Dark Lord of the Black Land, where mountains spewed fire.

If any were inside the temple on this night, they did not emerge. Sarnai darted into the shadow of the temple to crouch around the corner. The stone was cold against her back. Before long she was joined by Gerel and Kulan. They were all dressed in their darkest clothes, with cloths tied around their faces so that only their eyes were visible, glinting in the intermittent fire and torchlight. Their role this night had been distraction, and now they waited, holding their breath.

Something cracked over their heads, and the statue of the Dark Lord that stood atop the entrance to the temple came crashing down, breaking into many pieces on the steps, as arrows rained down after it onto the heads of the officers and soldiers that had come out of the west to conscript the sons of eastern Rhûn, forgetting that the daughters were warriors also. A great cry went up, and those conscripted boys abandoned their posts and fled into the darkness, where their sisters waited to spirit them away into the woods to the north or away into the vast steppes where one could wander for days without seeing another soul, and even the Dark Lord's lidless eye could not see all.