Dusk, Umbar City

The lone dwarf weaved her way through the tented stalls and noise, the crush of bodies against the dusty walls of Umbar, and down to the city gate that led to the docks. Despite Umbar being the sea haven of the Corsairs, the main harbour was situated on a steep slope away from the city gates, and the wide, winding road that led down past the outskirts of the walls was now slick with mud from the summer storm that had whipped across the bay only an hour ago.

The scent of the rain on the dry earth almost drowned the aroma rising from the food zek, now crammed with people clamouring for the last of the vendors' produce for the evening – meats, sauces, rices and baskets of seafood carted up fresh from the shore – but already there were stall holders packing up shop to dismayed shouts.

Lumkha's lips tightened as she fought her way against the legs of the crowd. With her tersely muttered apologies giving way to shoving and elbowing upwards, she let out a sigh of relief as she burst free from the main gate like a cork out of a bottle, casting a glance over her shoulder in amazement.

Despite the night settling in slowly, with purple and orange deepening to an indigo on the horizon, more and more caravans were arriving from the Coast Path. They were laden with goods, people, whole houses and families and clans backed up as far as she should see. Several city guards ran past her, their sweat drenched faces visible by the glare of torch brackets high on the outer towers and the glittering lamps that lit up windows piled up to the palace far above her.

A scuffle had broken out between two wagons, and the Ironfist had half a mind to go and sort it out herself; her blood was up and she thought quietly that laying a blow to the thick skull of a Man would make her night immeasurably better. She gingerly felt where she'd been pushed aside by some faceless person in her escape from the crush at the gate, and groaned as she traced a gaping tear in the fabric hanging from her shoulder.

"Perfect," Lumkha hissed, glaring at the offending patch of bare skin as she rooted in her leather pack for some pins. Almost as soon as she'd had that idea, she threw her bag over her shoulder again and twisted on her heel, willing herself not to fall onto the matted grass as the made her way down to the harbour.

Passing the queue into the gates, her eyes couldn't help registering the places the caravans were from: the nightly lines of people vying to enter the gates had been her source of news without directly asking anyone, though on the coast of Umbar she got information quickly enough from the Corsairs that she considered her allies.

It seemed Gondor was picking up the pace in their southern raids.

Lumkha remembered the first of it, the slow beginning when news was just seeping north – it had only been Felaya then, and she had desperately hoped it was a one-off attack of hatred or retaliation. She remembered holding her friend in the middle of a hot afternoon one month ago, an Umbari dye seller with a father from the Felayan province, as she had broken down in tears: Gondorian naval ships had come without warning, looting the land and sacking homes and businesses alike.

In disbelief, the dwarf had listened that night in her local haunt on the dock as the Corsair captains spoke of the destruction caused, with others stocking up through the night as they turned their pirate ships for home in panic. That was when the first refugees started to make their way to Umbar. It hadn't stopped.

Though Lumkha hailed from the Orocarni herself – her hometown in Guthelabad seemed both too far and uncomfortably present with the upsurge in dwarven mariners in Umbar these days – a rage even fiercer than the throb of venom she usually bore for Gondorian men rose in her as she saw the lines of people waiting, possessions clutched tight in their hands. In Urfanmi's tears, she heard the ghost of the destruction the Numenoreans had brought on Umbar ages past, still remembered now amongst its citizens who had lived through the newest burning of Umbari ships forty years previous. But she forgot how fast the years hastened by for her, and how slowly it passed for Men. Despite that, the past month had been the slowest she had ever encountered, as she both searched near obsessively for news of more raids and at the same time willed that there was nothing to tell but the comings and goings of pirates and traders and Corsairs, the hub of Umbar rebuilding itself again.

More and more families, more and more of the Men she knew sitting in stunned silence with her, their faces vacant as they made space in their cramped rooms for extended families and friends fleeing northwards. Children and mothers without fathers or husbands wandering on the streets and sitting under the covers of canopies hastily erected outside the city walls.

Who was it now?

The dwarf ran a hand through her beard and tugged it absent-mindedly; she had been scolded by Varhi the other day for nearly ripping out a chunk of it. Her stomach flipped as she realised some of the people were from Mardruak, a short journey down the coast from Umbar itself. Less than a few hours away.

Pirates were always useful sources of information; if you were in deep enough, you were guaranteed reliable news often as you liked it, but she hadn't even bothered to ask the intricacies of what was going on. She overheard enough talk, anyway. When she could bear it no longer, Lumkha turned away from the caravan train, taking the larger path where it split from the road that linked all coastal states in Harad together to the main wagon-way to Umbar. The cold wind made her light hood useless, and she grabbed her cloak to her face, walking faster and eyeing the building she was making for: a thoroughly disgusting hole on the Umbar's harbourside behind the storehouses and shops, hidden between the tight walls of an alleyway. Abandoned some time ago by the previous owners and carefully avoided by the City guards (who took a blind eye to most things the Corsairs and their allies did) The Red Cap was almost entirely run and staffed by seafarers from Harad to Khand, and even those traders from the Sea of Rhun. The rum was black market, and the food was plentiful and cheap if you didn't come too late in the evening.

She nodded to some of those she recognised as she strode across the docks, passing from sparse countryside to paved stone and crumbling monuments far out in the water. Every so often, she heard a friendly word called by a captain or crew-member from this ship or that, and the people that had thinned out on the path now swelled again as ships jostled for space and traders unloaded for the evening. The tight knot of panic that had bubbled in her chest inside Umbar's city walls now began to subside as she walked in familiar territory; she'd never been a fan of the City itself, but being close to the sea was where she truly felt comfortable. As a young girl, Lumkha had grown up in the area of trade in the Orocarni, with the Eastern Sea flowing underground into a port twice the size of this one; much like Port Nazbukhrin, Umbar came with its familiar sights and smells, which had drawn her close all those years ago.

Over the past month, there had been more boats drifting into Umbar. Not traders or Haradi greatships, but small, battered fishing boats, guided to settle uneasily in the bay by wizened captains who Lumkha thought looked more at home in the field than the open sea.

Slipping in through the door of the Red Cap, the dwarf breathed in as she smelled something cooking – something meaty and much needed, along with the headiness of good, strong ale.

"Lums! Here!"

She peered over a few heads and shoulders to a corner of the bar, and made out the wild, curled mane that she knew could only belong to one person. She grinned, barely hearing him at first over the chatter.

Getting a drink! She mouthed back at the dwarf, who sat with his large forearms propped up on the table, a collection of mugs surrounding him. Optimism blossomed inside her at a sudden thought, and then, with a quick look to the bar to make sure she had been seen, she mouthed again – The Nazbukhrin?

The Blacklock dwarf shook his head, flicking it backwards and indicating that his own ship was back somewhere else; Lumkha suspected the Sea of Rhun or the city of Dale. Her eyes fell a little and she heaved herself up at the bar to order her drink and a side of stew. It would have been good to have a catch up with the captain about the recent events. While Lumkha was often left frustrated and unfulfilled with the politics of the world of Men, Captain Hafar Jazrul dealt with anything as he always did – with an envied patience, far surpassing the tolerance that Lumkha often fronted. His first mate, on the other hand, had seated himself far out of the way of anybody, at a deserted table half in shadow.

With a glass nestled precariously in the crook of her arm and a steaming bowl cradled in both her hands, she dodged the sailors streaming in, the crush in the bar mirroring the city above it as the harbour neared peak time. Varhi budged up on the bench, pulling the glasses to one side and sinking back with his pipe gripped between his teeth. The other dwarf tutted as she caught a whiff of the smoke around him; it was the strange Rhuni fare that Varhi always stocked up on when he was in Oszrahank – she was sure Hafar had gotten him hooked on it.

"How's things?" he drawled, his breath speaking of an ale too many. Lumkha spooned a healthy amount of broth into her mouth, breathing out deeply as she felt her muscles relax finally. Walking through the city for the best part of the last four hours had her back knotted, and she stretched backwards, leaning partially on her friend.

"Mardruak-"

"I know."

Lumkha stared into her bowl, tumbling the meat and vegetables slowly with her spoon, at a loss of what to say. She turned to Varhi sadly, but he was relighting his pipe with a frown of concentration.

"The raids aren't going to stop. They're getting closer," she said.

They all knew it. Every single person inside of the bar knew it, and she didn't want to open her ears to the conversations buzzing around their heads.

Varhi grunted, taking a deep drag and offering it to Lumkha out of habit.

"The Zindurlai crew turned back South today," he mentioned. "You just missed them."

A muscle tightened in Lumkha's jaw, but she took a swig of her ale and said nothing. The Zindurlai, while not affiliated with Umbar as a Corsair party, was the ship that had first taken her on, a scared young dwarrowdam pirate looking to make a name for herself when she had met them in her home at Port Nazbukhrin. She steadied her breathing for a moment, relishing the bitterness of the strange beer she only drank when it was shipped in from outside.

"What?" she snapped, as she saw Varhi eyeing her mug with an insufferable drunk smirk.

"With a slice of orange? Really?" the dwarf said, grinning at her and picking up what seemed to be his fifth or sixth glass. Lumkha rolled her eyes, twisting a wayward strand of coarse black hair from her face behind her ear, and noticed that she'd lost her hair clasp somewhere.

"It tastes better with the orange. Plus," she added, giving it a little squeeze and throwing it precisely into the larger dwarf's mug with a foamy splash, "you need some fruit once in a while!"

The sight of Varhi wiping froth from his thick beard was worth the punch in the arm she got, and a smile broke out on her face for the first time that day.

"How was the city?" Varhi asked seriously, absent-mindedly taking one of Lumkha's braids into his fingers and frowning at the untidiness of it. She batted his hand away and threw her hood up once more.

"From the state of you..." he continued, taking in the ruffled clothes and missing hairpieces, "quite a crowd?"

Draining the other quart of her beer, Lumkha nodded. She didn't need to tell Varhi that there was hardly any breathing room in the food market, that there were women and children on the streets, that there were unmarked gangs standing inside darkened and unguarded alleyways looking for easy prey.

"All of Umbar is fucked," the Blacklock spat, before fishing the orange slice from his drink with a finger and pushing it into his mouth. Lumkha smiled, leaning back against Varhi's leg which he'd propped up in front of him, and he laid a strong arm over her shoulder. She linked their fingers, tracing the cut of the new rings Varhi had bought for himself with hers, deep brown on gold, whilst she admired the jade and turquoise against the tan of his skin. It reminded her of the markets back at home, where the women had huge pale blue ear plugs carved with faces, animals, and the angular inlay of jewelled shapes.

"Oh-" Varhi began, halting for a moment to puff out a plume of acrid smoke into the air. Lumkha shot the dwarf an upwards glare, but only really caught sight of his nostrils and the thick ring pierced through the middle.

"Captain Ulbar sends his regards to you," he said, his eyes studying the ebb and flow of people outside the wide window on the other side of the room. "He wanted to see you before the ship left, but I think he got too angry with all the new boats in the harbour today – you know how he likes his peace and quiet."

Despite kicking herself for not getting out of the city quicker, Lumkha snorted at the half-jest. Ulbar was easy to anger, often liking more a deserted stretch of water than the bustle of a pub – but he was never adverse to kicking up a ruckus in a small crowd. Many of the Corsairs who called Umbar their home were frustrated at the new ships taking up space as more and more towns were evacuated, but there was nothing to be done, and there was nearly a tussle every day. Harbour space was a precious commodity; the guards of the haven had taken to anchoring boats at the front of the bay, sending all refugee ships to nearby town ports.

"May Mahal keep them safe," Lumkha said, raising a glass to The Zindurlai and closing her eyes briefly. She felt Varhi reach for his own drink – but the stiffening of his back made her crack an eye open.

The dwarf's gaze had flickered down at her from where he'd been staring out of the window, and she felt a soft hand on her shoulder. Lumkha followed his eyeline, but couldn't see anything without her eyeglasses (conveniently back at her ship) – she could sense something though, in the way Varhi moved, in the way he seemed to be hesitant about telling her...

"As I came into port this morning... I noticed there were others amongst the crowd of... survivors."

Lumkha stilled, swirling the last dregs of beer anxiously.

"There are Men from the Outer States here on the docks, some of them threatening the Corsairs."

At that moment, Lumkha wished she had the nerve to stop Varhi, to close her ears and block out what was inevitably going to come now. He took a deep breath, and the Ironfist pirate came up to meet him, offering her ear.

"They're growing in number – we all knew it was only a matter of time, but Ulbar... he was approached yesterday. I think that's why he wanted to get away – to Mardruak and then onto Nilul. They wanted the ship; they asked about prices and if he was in league with Him already..."

"I thought the Zigûr's base in Rhun had been destroyed long ago," Lumkha breathed, lowering her voice and looking back over her shoulder and the tables. Amongst the assorted dress and mannerisms of the Men around her, there were old faces she knew, but increasingly more and more were unfamiliar – the servants of the Deceiver could be anybody.

"The States along the Canal are already sending riders to Umbar – and I have already seen more than one ship with the Eye drawn onto its hull somewhere, or hanging from a mast," Varhi said quickly. His voice had dropped to a whisper, but Lumkha winced: the Eye hadn't been seen for an Age – it was an old symbol of Morgoth's overwhelming power, and to have it drawn onto a ship was troubling. She went to take another mouthful of stew which had lain neglected, swallowing the cold, spicy broth that burned at the back of her throat.

"They're going to take advantage of the City," she said, after allowing her mouth to cool for a few seconds.

"There is still time," Varhi replied in earnest. With every passing second, the dwarves' voices hushed lower, until they were almost bent double at their corner with the overhead torch casting their forms into shadow.

"Time enough for Umbar to put their trust in a stronger power, and time enough for Gondor to strike out in retaliation against anything these new zigûrens can whip up through the ranks of the Corsairs!"

The words tumbled from Lumkha's lips, all of the fears she had bottle up inside of her now being released like poison. For a moment, Varhi was silent beside her, and his only movement was to take another drink as the door of The Red Cap banged open and closed.

"I'm going to get a rum," he said darkly. Without a word, he stood, stretched, and Lumkha folded herself into the warm space he'd left, with enough of a mind to catch his arm and request one for herself.

It was going to be a night of thinking.

Outside The Red Cap, dusk had passed into night, and the torches and lamps were now lit in full, illuminating up the pathway. The sails of many ships, Khandisgi, dwarven, and Haradi, fluttered in the wind. Another storm was on the way, far out to sea.

Glossary:

Guthelabad - Kh. the Orocarni

Zigûr – Ad. Sauron

zigûrens - Ad. the worshipers of Sauron

zek - Ad. Market