Disclaimer: I don't own any of Tolkien's works or Lord of the Rings. If I did, I'd never have to worry about working. I contentedly only own this poem that I created.
A.N. - I noticed that there were a lot of fanfics and stuff concerning the Witch-King, Sauron, the Ring, the Nazgûl, and every other character, but strangely enough nothing or very little about Khamûl, the Witch-King's lieutenant and Sauron's second most powerful Nazgûl under his Will. So I decided to write a poem based on the little background we know of Khamûl the Easterling both from the books and the movies.
Funnily enough, this poem was originally going to be about the Easterlings themselves, but then it morphed into a Khamûl-themed poem. Apparently, the poem had other ideas on where to go with the plot of its being. So I had to adapt and "go with the flow," as it were.
The end result was spending a whole week on working this poem instead of it taking a few days like I wanted. But I'm content and satisfied with how it turned out. The poem pretty much wrote itself out. I'm starting to have my suspicions that the Ring is somehow involved in this. But, hey, I'm a writer. It's an occupational hazard. lol XD
Well, little one, off with you now!
The day is done, the sun has gone to bed,
The moon shall soon awaken and sit on its throne,
Thy mother shall sing you to sleep, stroking thy fair head.
Nay? Thou art not weary? Then, let me tell you a tale,
My dearest, my cherished blood and bone,
As I tell you the story of the Black Easterling,
Tell your mother nothing, for this story she won't condone.
The Dark Lord Sauron searches for his Ring,
He searches with desperate haste,
He sends forth his legions to smite mankind,
Wherever they go, doom and death lay waste.
Sauron sends out his servants of darkness,
To scour Middle-Earth for his Ring.
He gives them fell-steeds, those black horses,
Then gives them fell-monstrosities with bat-like wings.
One of them now, he sends on a mission:
To round up the armies of Rhûn,
To loose them on the Free-Peoples,
And have their rotting corpses strewn.
This horde of Dragon-Sons are led by a Man,
Not a Man, but Shadow Incarnate, you will find,
A creature enslaved in the empty void,
Enslaved by the Shadow's dark and twisted mind.
An ancient evil bent by The Shadow's Will,
Called by many Ring-wraith, Nazgûl,
This one is the Witch-King's lieutenant:
Fear him, his name that is Khamûl.
He is known to some as the Shadow of the East,
To most, he's the Black Easterling.
He is an adversary most foreboding,
As he rides on Fell-Beast's wings.
His height and stature was intimidating,
His mace could crush the broadest tree,
He has conquered all near the Sea of Rhûn,
Khamûl brings dread to those who are Free.
For he was once a Man, you see,
A mighty Man of legendary renown.
A valorous warrior who turned haughty,
At the weight of power on golden crown.
As with the other members of the Nine,
Khamûl was given a Ring of great power.
His authority and power grew tenfold,
Not realizing he became the slave of the Tower.
He controlled all the lands surrounding the Sea of Rhûn,
Naming his empire the Golden Khaganate.
He stretches his arm towards the West and South,
His eye looks to Gondor—a land he greatly hates.
He practiced the dark arts of necromancy,
His rule over Rhûn was cemented; he was unmatched.
His prowess in battle was unsurpassed,
Unaware that the gift of power had strings attached.
So eager was he to claim absolute power,
Khamûl failed to see the hidden catch,
That in return for power and long life granted him,
His soul to the Ring will latch.
And thus, he fell into that eternal slumber
All races are cursed to share in full,
Expecting to rest in everlasting peace,
What he got instead was death immortal.
For the ring of Khamûl was ever at work,
When the Easterling was alive,
To corrupt his soul and deform it irreversibly,
So that only the roots of evil thrive.
And so ends the life of Mortality,
Replaced with Living Death—eternal suffering.
Now eternally bound to the One Ring,
The Dark Lord was now and forevermore his King.
Khamûl and those of his kind became the Nine
Had made for them long swords and Morgûl-dirks,
And wherever they went on baneful steeds,
Their presence in Middle-Earth was a dreaded curse.
After the Witch-King, Khamûl was the most in-tuned,
To the Evil Voice of Sauron's Will, trapped within the Ring,
Giving him, in particular, a great weakness: the fear of the Day Sun,
But the Night made him a different creature, this Age-old King.
Their Dark Master gave unto the Witch-King, Chief of the Nine,
The realm of Angmar, then the fell-city of Minas Morgûl,
To our Easterling, Sauron gave all the East—of Rhûn and Khand,
And Dol Guldûr also did Sauron bestow Khamûl.
Much did the Black Easterling do in these lands,
As he fought to annihilate the remaining First-born,
Then attacking the Men of Dale and the Dwarves of Erebor,
And thus add their realms and lands as his to own.
On top of all this, other tasks he must execute are these:
To gather forces from his Khaganate to march into Mordor,
By way of the Black Gate, to take part in the Last Offensive
To destroy once and for all the final bastion of the West: Gondor.
Khamûl and the rest of the Nine, with their Fell-Beasts,
Harass the defenders of Osgiliath down below,
Mauling and tossing any soldier in reach to a grisly end,
Stopped by the interference of their old and nefarious foe.
Again the Nine attack, this time during the Great Siege,
As they snatch their victims from up high,
Striking down at the columns of soldiers on the walls,
And drop them hundreds of feet below from the sky.
They would've won the battle, and the war, right then and there,
Had it not been for that one thing (always that one thing):
The sound of dozens of horns blowing, announcing Rohan's arrival,
The valiant army of Horse-lords led by their leader, Théoden King.
Khamûl's Easterlings and their Orc hordes tried to counter and hold fast,
Against the Rohirrim army charging down to rescue Gondor,
And so did this epic clash of violence happen between Man and Orc,
As the Horse-Lords trampled down their Orc foes on the Fields of Pelennor.
Khamûl and his fellow Nazgûl retreated to repel the threat,
To prevent from losing their nearly-won victory.
And with reinforcements from Harad, the Rohirrim were almost gone,
Had it not been for the hope that sprung from the sea.
For what came before them was a sight they thought was no longer possible:
Isildur's Heir was alive and well—Isildur's Blood and Bone!
He took the corsair ships and sailed hinder to Minas Tirith—and he's not alone,
For behind him is an army seeking to reclaim Isildur's Throne!
With the Witch-King slain at the hands of a Woman and Hobbit,
Their armies slain, rotting corpses strewn—as was their fate,
The Nine were called back to Mordor at Sauron's call,
To rendezvous back to Mordor, to Morannon's Black Gate.
Khamûl—now Chief of the Nine, now Eight—and his fellow Black Riders,
Were commanded by Sauron to search far and wide on Mordor ground
Under every rock and cranny for the Ring-Bearer and the One Ring,
For their Dark Master greatly desired obsessively for It to be found.
They were interrupted by the Shadow,
Calling back the remaining Nine—now Eight.
For Isildur's Heir, the one called Aragorn,
Has challenged the Dark Lord at the Black Gate.
They stopped their searching, to do the Shadow's bidding,
On fell-wings, they flew to smite Men's pitiful show of might.
Khamûl saw that those foolish men were losing, about to be destroyed,
About to slay by his own hand the mighty Gandalf the White!
But once again, fate interfered with his satisfaction for revenge,
For out of the blue came the Eagles, come to join the fight!
His Fell-Beast tried in vain to get a pair of Eagles off of it,
But, alas, greatly they struggled against the Eagles' might!
Then a noise pierced the air, a shriek came from the East,
Their Dark Master was calling them to Mount Doom.
For the Halfling, against all odds, was in the mountain's belly,
To destroy the One Ring at its birthplace for the Fires to consume!
In haste, Khamûl and his fellow Riders disengaged from the battle,
And made a beeline straight for the ominous volcano,
Alas, for them, for t'was in vain; the mountain consumed the Ring,
The crater then erupted, so great was its inferno!
An earthquake of great magnitude shook Middle-Earth's foundations,
And the Gate collapsed upon itself, alongside the Towers of the Teeth.
Barad-dûr crumbled beneath the Eye, and he soon fell into the void,
His armies soon joined him down into the dark abyss beneath.
But the destruction of the Ring wasn't yet done with the agents of Sauron,
For it spewed out missiles of craters and hardened ash from Mount Doom,
And none of the Nazgûl escaped the fury of the earthquake,
Nor the fiery wrath of the volcano, and thus sealed forever their doom.
Khamûl urged his vulgar Fell-Beast on, trying to escape this Hell,
Valiantly he tried in vain to escape disaster,
Until a crater smote him, and down, down, fell Nazgûl and Fell-Beast,
Into the dark, empty void did he join his Master.
Thus ends the life of Khamûl the Black Easterling,
Thus ends that Nazgûl, named Shadow of the East.
For o'er are the endless centuries of bitter suffering,
In the Halls of his fathers, his soul can finally rest in peace.
And thus endeth the tale, my beloved blood and bone;
My child, learn from this: That Evil, though deadly is Its sting,
Is no match for the power of Good; Evil's fate is always death,
And such was the fate of whom was called the Black Easterling.
A.N. Hope this poem has made your day and maybe even gave you ideas for possible storylines. Though if you choose to use this as inspiration, I would ask that you seek my permission before you base anything you write off of my work. Thank you.