Author's Note

I know that according to the Lord of the Rings the slaves in Mordor are a slave-race and not captured as individuals. And I know that an escape from Nurn would probably be impossible. I'm bending the rules for the sake of the story. However the story itself I think is good as it is, thank you for reading, enjoy.

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He was tired. Oh, so tired. Yet he was not compelled to sit down or stop working, because he knew that the drivers were watching. Indeed, at that moment the drivers were tormenting another pitiful creature at the end of the field. It looked like a man, and the drivers were having their fun by kicking at the grain basket he held, then making him pick up what had fallen out and doing it all over again. He pitied the man being tormented; soon the drivers would tire of this and kill him, only to go torment another slave. He knew this because, in the twenty-three years he had spent in Nurn, he had seen it done several times. How he wished he was somewhere else. He didn't know what the rest of the world looked like, but he was sure it had to be better than this. He turned his head and looked out over the wind-swept, lonely landscape of Nurn. The only things moving were other pitiful creatures like himself and the hated orcish slave-drivers.

He averted his gaze and closed his light grey eyes as he heard the anguished cries of the slave and the harsh, delighted laughs of the drivers. He continued picking grain, because he knew through experience that the more grain you picked, the more the drivers got fed, and the more the drivers got fed, the less they tormented and made sport of you. There emanated a sad, coughing moan from the man. So as not to be punished for helping, he merely picked the grain, yet at the same time moved toward the creature. The creature was in a pitiful state; blood covered his stomach and from his mouth came another cough, accompanied by a drizzle of blood that spilled down the front of him and pooled in the grain basket by his side. The drivers had pulled off and gone to join their captain, Bor-Hec. Bor-Hec was the worst of the drivers; he let the others have their sport, his idea being that the slaves should always work harder and if they couldn't... just get more slaves.



The creature was not a man, but an elf. He hadn't known many elves, but he knew that for some reason they didn't seem to age. The elf turned his head toward him and said, in the common tongue, "Help me, please... help." The elf gurgled again and laid his head back. "What I can do I will," he answered. "But first I have to move you from here. The drivers will soon return, and when they find your body hasn't been removed, they'll kill you outright." He picked up the elf and started to carry him to the sleeping area. The sleeping area was not much more than a group of poorly made low-roofed huts that's only purpose was to shelter the slaves from the elements. The elf started to seize up, his skin turned clammy, and his eyes began to cloud over. It was apparent that the elf was dying, so he laid him down and tried to stop the bleeding by tearing his rags and putting pressure on the wound.



An hour passed... then another. The day was ending when the elf finally regained consciousness. The wound on his stomach was starting to scab when the orc-captain and two others walked into the squalor of the hut. "You", Bor-Hec said pointing at the elf. "Stand up, now." The elf started to get up, but sat back down hard, holding his stomach. One of the drivers walked over, picked up the elf, and threw him into the wall. As the elf hit the floor, the driver unsheathed his scimitar and prepared to stab him. "No!" said Bor-Hec, reconsidering. The driver looked over at him quizzically, as though to ask why not,when Bor-Hec explained. "We need more slaves than we do corpses. Let him heal so he can work." With that the drivers left the hut, and all was silent.



Two days passed. The elf was still doing poorly, but he could walk again and even do some work, although he often just stayed in the hut. Bor-Hec had announced that any slave found resting in the fields or not working was to be killed. Although this had been an unspoken rule for sometime, it was now going to be more enforced than it had been before. The drivers were always watching, and when a slave would start to hang his head low from fatigue, the drivers would be upon him, stabbing and slashing him with their blades or shooting him with their arrows.



As more and more slaves died or were seriously wounded the drivers had fewer to torment in their foul way. This, in turn, disgruntled the drivers who, in turn, took all their frustration and poured it into malicious torture and death among the slaves. On that first day when he met the elf, the elf had asked for his name. He had said he had no name, so the elf gave him one, Deynak. It was his name now and he was called Deynak by his elf-friend, Cuthalion.



Dusk had settled over Nurn. What little sunlight got through the smokey haze of Mount Doom was fading, and the slaves were sent back to their huts with one loaf of bread for every hut. Deynak came bearing his loaf for himself and Cuthalion, the only people occupying their hut. "Well, Cuthalion,"said Deynak. "What do we talk about tonight?" For the past two days, Cuthalion had been telling him about the outside world, and Deynak was eager to learn.



Cuthalion was a middle-elf of a thousand years. He was from a place called Rivendell, and he had been caught while out scouting; unaware of the orcs that captured him until the net was around him.

"I intend to escape as soon as I can, and I'd like you to come with me," Cuthalion said.

"Escape!" Deynak said with surprise. "I tried escaping once when I was eight. I killed two orcs before another one grabbed me and hauled me back. That orc was Bor-Hec. I received twenty-five lashes for my attempt, though I doubt you could see them now. They're covered by all the others. Escape!" he repeated softly, a bit wonderingly. He had long since abandoned the idea as hopeless, and yet suddenly, he wasn't so sure. Cuthalion obviously believed it was possible - so naive, Deynak thought, rather bitterly. But still - we're going to die anyway. Why not, after all? He spoke up again.

"Well, I suppose we could try. But we'll need weapons and armor. We won't be able to escape tonight, so it's going to have to be tomorrow - and when they least expect it. That would be dusk or shortly thereafter. We can split up, grabbing weapons as we go and killing any orcs that get in the way. Then we could meet back here and head out."

"It won't be that easy,"said Cuthalion. "There are many guards and only the two of us." "Not so." said Deynak. "There are a few others who would share the risk, if they knew about it. I'll spread the word to those we can trust, and tell them when and where to meet us. As soon as we've agreed, we'll meet back here and head out."



The next day the word escape had been spread to thirteen others; three more elves, six dwarves, and four men. The men were: Sedlik, Gareth, Dacuntha, and Jehrong. The dwarves were: Ferdin, Daeron, Numli, Orenki, Thoreken, and Fatanui . The elves: Edrahil, Elemire, and Maedhros. Deynak trusted all of them and knew that if things went wrong, none of them would abandon their fellows.

The day went fairly quickly, and when they were sent back to the sleeping area, the escapees simply followed Deynak. Cuthalion was waiting for them in the hut, and was about to introduce himself when two of the drivers, who were wondering why so many slaves were going to one hut, burst in. Ferdin, Edrahil, and Sedlik jumped the first one while Deynak, Gareth, and Numli jumped the second one. Both drivers died quickly, stripped to the skin and without anything of any use to the escapees still on them. Numli was armed with a short axe, while Ferdin took a dagger and Deynak grabbed a scimitar. The rest armed themselves with what they could, and they set out.



It was dark now, with almost no light except for very faint torchlight a fair distance away. There were only two sentries around, and the only things they carried were a spear, a dagger, and a bow and quiver of arrows apiece. Both of them were dead before they could even reach for the alarm bell. Cuthalion and Elemire both carried bows now, and would take down drivers from afar, while the rest ran forward and stripped them of weapons and armor. Everyone in this strange-looking group was now heavily armed, and all of the dwarves were heavily armored as well. Most of the others simply took a helmet or maybe a breastplate, and the elves didn't wear any armor at all. The group could have walked out of Nurn, but they didn't, because they had a powerful vengeance to reap.

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A/N: So, did you like it? Please tell me!