Author's note: I own nothing! Welcome back to Middle Earth
"We walked as men once before the moon wore such scars and the mountains grew still. We ruled but took no pleasure in reigning, watched life and found no joy in what we spied. We ate but remained hungry, thirsted but knew not what would quench us; we feared but found no respite. Death hunted us. Fate lay in wait behind every door. What could a man feel but fear when such a specter loomed behind, always but a step behind? We thought only of escape, and He knew we were fools."
Beneath thick clouds of smoke and ash the ruins of a malevolent land stretched to the horizon like a desiccated carcass. The heat of a hellish furnace rose from the remnants of Mt. Doom, the mountain whose smoldering veins spread death across the tortured landscape in lines of liquid had been life in this forsaken place once, life clinging desperately to the plains between the looming mountains, oasis of starved green in a rocky desert. Abominations of nature endured in the dark crevasses; hating, scheming, fighting for each ash tainted breath. None remained now. The eruption of the mountain had driven them from their ancestral home. Would they return? Perhaps… if they lived. That which belonged to Mordor could never be free of it, not truly. It was a land that had never learned to let go.
Just beyond the encroaching magma lay the mighty ruin of a black fortress, felled with shocking ease by the smallest of mortals and the slimmest odds imaginable. Sauron had fallen and all his works with him. The ruins where it had stood remained as mute testament to the power that had been Mordor.
No living eye took in the desolation of the dark throne, but it was seen. No living back stiffened in shock but eight dark figures held themselves tightly in saddle. Phantom fingers clenched in metal shells, tightening and jerking the thick black reigns of ebony chargers who stamped their hooves and chapped their bits in protest. The Nazgul sat mounted at the ready. They sat as they had in countless past years. They waited for the whisper of a fell voice to send them forth.
But all was quite now, terribly quiet. The strained breaths of their steeds and the distant bubbling of fire were the only sounds in the world. The eight were armed and waiting to do battle for an enemy no longer there.
In that silence one dismounted, boots making a terrible clank as they hit the hard packed ground. He moved slowly, almost timidly, forward from the rest. Rusty gauntlets pushed aside rock and shattered wall to reach the cracked doorway, clawed fingers stretched out to grasp it. They ghosted a caress over the familiar carved shape as their owner leaned through the arch. Giant pieces of stone blocked access to the remnants of countless stairs and the rooms beyond. Overturned braziers and ashes marked the remains of the once imposing entry hall. Everything above the fourth story had crashed to the ground and been utterly destroyed, everything below was filled with the debris from that destruction. He turned to faced the rest, breath frosting the stone.
"...There is… nothing left worth saving." One by one his fellows dismounted and came to his side. "We have no choice... we must move on."
The hoods of the remaining eight lowered in a parody of grief. Lost was that feeling, lost was all feeling in the wake of this blow.
"Move on to what? Nothing remains." Another spat, "There is nothing for us if he has… If he…"
"We could make for the Morgul pass, Minas Morgul likely stands yet." Another offered bleakly. "And once there wait..." But wait for what? There was nothing to wait for.
Still another turned his back to the rubble, his voice a mere scratch of sound. "It is finished. We will… will we fade?" Without the Dark Lord to rule their thoughts a creeping emptiness laid claim to their minds. They had never gone this far, never dared or been capable of imagining a world after their maker. And now they faced the unimaginable without one of their own. "We are no longer whole... ... we are... only eight now..."
He who had dismounted first seemed not to hear. A wail rose from his brothers but he did not join it. His form had bent across a pulverized piece of column, his hand was grasping for something in the dust. It came into his palm with the satisfying chime of metal on metal, shone a dull silver in the poor light. "This ring…" His breath caught, hissed out in a rush of strangled agony. "…The Witch King's ring…" The band caught fire when he held it aloft to the others, it flickered, it shone; it reflected the lava's glow and set off its crowning stone like a beacon light. "It still lives… How can this be? He fell… Our lord fell... yet this ring still lives…"
It seized them swiftly, an unspoken terrible thought and impossible hope. The task before them was clear. For uncounted years they had been a thought apart and that only, always feeling the echo of each other's minds, never separated, never truly alone. The ring bond between them had held strong long after flesh faded and memories died.
They must find their captain; they must find... "Murazor…"
Heads rose, eyes burned like icy stars, gauntlets clenched. The riders turned from the ruins and caught their mounts, not a one looked back. (We must find the Witch King) The only desperate thought echoing between them.(Find him, be complete once more, and then...)
Ghostly wails echoed across the burning plain as the eight rode forth onto Gondor. Midnight crawled in their wake; terror loped hound-like at their heels. A lone Fell beast roused from its perch on the gates, croaked after them. It turned its serpentine neck to the mountain, the tower and the fire; for a moment captured the scene in the slit of its eye. It would not stay.
It would seek cleaner skies, familiar skies, and swallow hope in its wings.