Give a Whistle
After the sacking of Ost-in-Edhil, the Dark Lord Sauron ordered his prisoners crucified and carried at the head of his army as banners so that their approach would strike fear into the hearts of his enemies. At least that was the idea. No one could have imagined that the last resistance of the Elven City had no plans to go out quietly… literally.
Contains: Mentions of torture, shout-outs galore to other works of literature and film alike and lots and lots of literal gallows humour.
The fog rose reluctantly from the earth and was chased away by the first rays of sunshine, revealing an army stretched out on the hills (and in the valley behind, and on the next chain off hills, for that matter), resting.
The army was motionless and black, like a big scaled, spiky dragon still curled up in reptilian sleep and dreams of fire. But if the army was a sleeping dragon, then its heart rate was already quickening, the blood was beginning to boil in its veins, its claws were twitching and the membranes of its wings were beginning to unfold. Behind closed lids, fire was beginning to fill its eyes. The dragon was waking. And, for that matter, so was the army.
Last night's fires had mostly burned down and the men in the tents were still sleeping while the Orcs, who did not see the use in resting when they could be tearing something or someone apart, conducted their cannibalistic fighting at the edges of the tent-city out of consideration for the human lieutenants who got all cranky and loud when they did not get enough rest.
There were, however, a few hubs of bustling activity and from these hubs awakening and liveliness stretched out like a growing maelstrom, enveloping and waking more and more parts of the tent site. Tired soldiers crawled out from under flaps of tents, hung-over officers cried for more wine against their headache, and bleary-eyes privates discovered that they had forgotten to pull on their boots and went back into their tents only to discover that they had most likely lost said boots in a game of dice last night.
Leading a war was bad enough, but waking up after a victory celebration was downright horrible.
This, at least, was the opinion of Private Jester. (Who bore in fact a different name, but since his real Rhûnian name contained enough consonants to give an Orc trouble, and because he had been conscripted after he had impressed a Haradrim general with a particularly difficult type of tap dance, jester had kind of stuck.)
Jester had a very particular view on war and what it entailed, and while no one cared to hear about it, he was still very eager to give his opinion on the matter if he was asked.
War was honest and upright bloodshed. You met your enemy on the open field, each of you had a sword in hand and then everyone got a fair go at each other's throat. Come nightfall, everyone would shake hands, exchange a bit of pipe-weed and retire for the night to try again tomorrow. It was clean, it was fair and everyone would go home feeling slightly bruised, but with the sure knowledge that this was just a mad game between opposing kings who wanted to have each other's lands or daughters or wives, but nothing personal between the soldiers.
Soldiers were just cogwheels in the big war machine and they knew it, and they also knew that no cogwheel could blame another for turning when it was meant to.
But this….this was not what he had signed up for as a soldier. This was not clean. This was not fair. This made it personal.
Jester hated personal. It was one of those words that would come back to bite you in the a-la-doolally when you woke up one night and a sword was pointed at your throat, attached to a vengeful young man who would say something along the lines of "You were the one who tortured my father to death, now pay for it!"
War was impersonal. War was between kings or dukes or counts. But after the big players had left the field to count their spoils of war, the little men came in to clean up the mess … or make the mess just a little bit worse. A lot of lords felt the need to make an example even after wars had been won and then you got funny orders like "Burn the sacked town to the ground, take this dragon" or "Hang up the prisoner by his big toes and feed him this liquorice-spinach cake through his nose".
And then you found yourself outside of the fair, impersonal territory of war and in the ugly, very up-close-and-personal lands of post-war imprisonment and torture.
Jester knew a lot of people who would disagree with him on this. In fact, there seemed to be a lot of soldiers (mainly Orcs) who nobly held back during the actual fighting to make up for it afterwards when they were presented with bloody and beaten enemies who were too tired to hold any weapons. He, however, followed other schools of thought which was precisely why the Sorcerer had chosen him to look after the prisoners.
"Most others would kill them just for the sport of it. Their senses are blunted by bloodlust," the eerie voice out of the shadowed face in the huge, dusky tent of the General had said. "You, however, seem to have retained a sharp perception of things that are merely uncomfortable, the ones that are painful and the ones the are unbearable. See to it that the prisoners get equal measures of all three without having them die. I have utmost faith in you and your will to survive."
Jester had looked up, trembling and sweating on his body, and the urge to cough crawling up his throat because the air was stuffy and so hot and everything smelt like incense and the air just after a lightning-strike. His sense of self-preservation overrode his coughing reflex, though, and he swallowed and said, "Yes, my lord."
"Very well. You may rise, Private Jester, and see to your new duties."
Jester stood, his knees feeling like jelly with the Jittery Disease, and turned to walk away. He was already reaching for the flap of the tent when the voice spoke once more.
"Private Jester?"
Jester closed his eyes, said a silent prayer to his gods (and then to all other gods he knew for good measure, just in case someone was actually listening) and turned around, once more facing the shadowed figure at the other end of the tent on his golden throne. He bowed. "My Lord Sorcerer?"
"I take it Private Jester is not your real name." It was not a question.
"No, my lord."
"Do you care to explain to me how this …epessë came to be?"
"E-pay- what?"
Jester had never before seen a shadowed outline look at the same time annoyed and exasperated.
"Your nickname."
"Ah." Jester straightened and saluted. "My lord, General Al-Khar gave it to me, my lord. He could not pronounce the name my mother had given me when I was born. He said he lacked a properly degraded vocal apparatus, my lord. And he was impressed by a tap dance I did, which reminded him of the jester at the court he had served in Harad. My lord."
The Sorcerer sat motionless and a bead of sweat trickled down Jester's temple. When the shadow on the throne had not moved for at least fifteen minutes, Jester cleared his throat.
"Uhm. My lord?"
The shadow sat up a bit straighter as if he had only just remembered that the soldier was still there. "You are still here, Private Jester?" The question was as soft and gentle as a snake slithering around the throat of its victim before strangling it.
"You haven't dismissed me, my lord."
"I see. Forgive me my negligence, I was just thinking about how to extract the —" The shadow interrupted himself and Jester had the distinct impression he was frowning. "Be on your way, Private Jester."
Jester didn't need to hear any more. He turned on his heel and marched out of the Sorcerer's tent at a pace that Lieutenant Bhurat called "controlled flight" and which he was very fond of using when he found himself face to face with an Elven Lord in the midst of the scuffle. Lieutenant Bhurat denied firmly that you should never tempt fate and show it the middle-finger. However, he added, you should in any case wait until it had turned its back on you and there was no mirror around before you did. Just like fate, Elven lords could be stabbed in the back. But if they turned around fast enough and caught you red-handed, it came always in handy to know how to Flee in a Controlled Manner which allowed you to stay alive and not make your mother feel ashamed of you.
Since this fateful day, Private Jester was in charge of the prisoners of war. Thankfully, the torture itself was still left to people who were more suited for inflicting harm on harmless people. Jester merely had to know the various methods and compile the daily lists the torturers had to complete. This left him in charge of the other, more menial things that needed to be done in regards to the prisoners. A lot of people forgot that after the torture, they needed to be kept alive as well. They needed a place to sleep, however dirty and uncomfortable, something to eat and a few rags to keep them from freezing.
Jester took an odd sort of pride in keeping them alive. This happened even against the prisoners' will sometimes. After all, the ones who lived to become prisoners in the Sorcerer's army knew only one thing: It would be better if they were dead. Therefore Jester's care was mostly unwelcome. It must be mentioned, Jester didn't keep them alive out of cruelty, but because a still untouched, pure part in his tattered soul refused just to hand them over to Death. Instead, he fretted about them in the way of a mother hen in chain-mail. He saw to it that they had a clean bed, that they had their heads shaven regularly to allow for no fleas, he encouraged them to eat and he regularly sent the field medic their way to sew up a few cuts or, in the worse cases, reattach a few limbs. And while some of the prisoner begrudged him for his care, most accepted it with a rueful smile and the remark that under other circumstances, they could have been friends.
Jester even did what no prison-keeper should do if he took any pride at all in his job. He formed bonds with his prisoners. He asked them their names. He told them his name in return. He listened to their tales. And in his head, he began to refer to them as my prisoners.
This led, of course, to conflicts as soon as the prisoners were to be disposed of. A crusade was just like any other type of group-activity voyage in the aspect that you travelled, stayed at a place for a bit to get to know (or slaughter) the indigenous folk, invited friends over into your tents (or took prisoners), had a nice talk (or an interrogation) until came the inevitable day when you would pack up your rucksack and say good-bye (or kill of the prisoners you had no longer any use for).
Jester sighed when he made his meandering way through tents and past fireplaces, stumbled over one particularly drunken soldier stretched out right on the path, and came toward the fenced area behind which the prisoners were kept. Usually, there were few enough of them not to warrant an own enclosed area, but after the sack of the Elven city, there were an astounding number of survivors and for some inscrutable reason, the Sorcerer did not kill every single one of them as he was wont to do sometimes. Therefore, the soldiers and Orcs built a wooden palisade in a rough circle in which the prisoners' cages were put. The only entrance was guarded by two heavy-set and perpetually bored Haradrim.
On a particularly boring day, Jester had walked up to them and handed them a board on which two shores and a big river was painted. Then he had handed each man twenty figurines either in green or red and a die.
"What's that?" one had asked.
"It's a game from Rhûn," Jester said. "Each of you is the general of an army and you have to get your soldiers safely across the river and past the crocodiles. If the die shows an even number, you have to go straight, when it shows an odd number you go diagonally. You have to avoid the squares with crocodiles. Whoever gets his army across first or with the most remaining soldiers is the winner."
Both Haradrim played one game under the instruction of Jester, decided it was entertaining and at the end of the game, turned to face him.
"That's a fun game," the first one said. "What's it called?"
"Watch Your Privates," Jester translated and even while he was speaking he realised by the rising eyebrows of the Haradrim that had had walked straight into a pitfall of the Common Tongue. "Uhm, you know, because otherwise the crocodiles will eat them," he hurriedly added.
Silence.
Jester stood and then it slowly came to him that he had not only successfully put his foot in his mouth, but with a muddy boot attached for good measure. "I am talking about the soldiers of your armies," he said lamely and held up a little green figurine.
"Obviously," the second man from Harad said and did so with a completely serious face.
From that day on, whenever those two Haradrim were on guard, they did not so much greet Jester as give him an unnervingly suggestive wiggle of their eyebrows.
Even today they tried to do so, but today Jester did not spare them any glances. His face was pale and his steps were increasingly panicked. It was the day after the victory celebrations had come to an end. And this meant only one thing.
Sometimes he hated his job.
"What do you mean, move on?" one man called Aedan with a short black beard asked and stuck his head out from between the bars of his cage.
"Well, we are on a campaign of sorts," Jester said apologetically. "We can't remain here. The army will move on. You know, other cities to sack, other lands to burn down. It's … it's sort of in the rules as to how wars go."
"And how are you planning on carrying the cages? I mean, no offence to you lads, you seem to be strong as trolls—in fact, I think I have seen a troll walking about here the other day—but how on Earth do you want to lift them?" Aedan asked.
"That's exactly it," a rugged dwarf which Jester recalled was named Nori said from the next cage. "They're not going to carry us anywhere, ain't they? Am I right, lad?"
Jester fiddled his thumbs and looked anywhere but into the dwarf's eyes. "Uhm."
"What?" Aedan gripped the bars of his cage tighter. "I thought we… we would be taken along! Doesn't the Dark Lord need labour slaves? Or… or fighters? I can fight, too!"
"You shameless traitor!" someone else from further down the row of cages howled. "May Carcaroth eat your mother's entrails while vampires suck out her blood!"
"Shut up! I am only trying to survive!" Aedan roared back. "Besides, weren't you the one part-time believer who shifted from Morgothism to Valarism whenever it was convenient?"
"That was a purely academical question, there is nothing wrong with covering all your bases—but you, you are betraying us all by switching sides! Faith is faith, this is real!"
"Yes, and I am going to be really dead if I am not doing anything!" Aedan growled. "So shut up!"
"What does it matter to you?" an elf woman in the cage opposite of Aedan said. "You're human, your demise is only the blink of an eye away anyway. Why does the thought of dying aggravate you so?"
"Well, maybe because I don't want kick the bucket when I am just thirty years old" Aedan shouted. "Actually, I don't want to leave this world at all! I'll try to live forever or die trying! Take this, Elf-wench!"
The elf-woman just shook her head and turned away.
The man further down the row of cages started spouting curses again, while Nori just shook his head and slowly stepped up to the row of bars that separated him from Jester, freedom and a long happy life.
"The Dark Lord doesn't need any slaves, does he?" he asked, his voice rumbling like a small avalanche of stones.
Jester fixed the tip of his boots, then he shook his head. "No," he said, his voice barely above a whisper. "The generals said we couldn't burden us with any prisoners on our campaign."
"May Gothmog roast your grandfather with his whip of flame, you shameless turncoat!"
Nori sighed and this time it sounded like millstones grinding together. "I knew it." He looked at his hands which, after three days of torture, were mainly reduced to bleeding clumps of flesh with three remaining fingers. "And I can't even ask you to pass the remaining time playing cards with me anymore. You men from Rhûn have a fine selection of games, I have to admit."
"Yes," Jester said and swallowed.
"May Morgoth string you up by your dirty toes and chew your nails off!"
Nori leaned against the bars and in the sunlight Jester could see the black eye, the cuts and bruises, the blood in his beard…
"You're a good lad, Jester. Haven't you ever felt like you've fallen in with the wrong crowd?" Nori asked. "You don't belong here. Still, I'd strangle you in a second if it meant that I could walk out of here. Nothing personal, of course," he added.
Jester nodded. "Nothing personal," he repeated in the practiced tone of soldiers everywhere around the world. He wiped at his burning eyes and then cleared his throat. "Would you like to have some breakfast?"
Nori waved it off. "I doubt that I need much more food in this live anyway. Give my ration to those who still have hope and take comfort in those rituals. That way they'll at least get their bellies full one last time."
Jester nodded and turned away.
He moved down the row, cage after cage, stopping each time to exchange a few words with the prisoners.
There was Elwen, an elven alchemist who had surprised him on the first day by building a bomb out of a stick, an obscure chemical ingredient and shoelaces, very nearly managing to escape. Had it not been for the noise the bomb had made, she would have ran off into the night and Jester gladly would have allowed her to escape. She did not talk much, but stared ahead with empty eyes that told Jester that her soul would hopefully no longer be there when her body would be killed.
Then there was Aedan, a smith who had come to learn the high arts in the city of the Elves and who still refused to believe that this was the final station in the journey of his life. In fact, he often joked with his guardians about bribing them into letting them go and they shared many a good laugh, but of course, no one ever opened the door for him, because that would have meant facing the wrath of the Sorcerer and no one wanted that.
Nori was as calm and collected as ever, while the other man who was called Frollo was still uttering a stream of curses directed at no one in particular when Jester offered him a bit of the insipid oatmeal sludge which was the only thing the prisoners were allowed to eat.
With a bit of reluctance, Jester approached the last two cages at the end of the trampled grass-path. One was inhabited by Daeror, an elf who was, as far as Jester was concerned, legitimately mad and probably had a certificate somewhere to prove it. Word had it that he had been singing during battle at the top of his voice before one of the Haradrim had convinced him to be silent with a blow of his hammer. Since he had been put in the cage, he had absolutely ignored any attempt of Jester to talk to him or to eat or drink. Instead he was always humming happy tunes that made every one of his enemies feel decidedly uneasy and approach him only with utmost caution and a stick to keep him at a distance.
The last cage was also the most heavily secured one. It was not made of wood, but out of steel and sported not only vertical bars, but also horizontal ones, forming a narrow grid which allowed the prisoner inside not even to stick a finger through the grid. If the prisoner inside still had fingers, that is.
Jester slunk closer with his bowl of sludge feeling like a whipped dog approaching its master.
The prisoner inside didn't react. He was sunken against the back wall of the cage, his face and upper body still in the shadows, fingerless hands lying nerveless in his lap. But what bits of his body the sunlight illuminated made Jester recoil. He was by no means an expert on humanoid anatomy, but he was fairly sure that there shouldn't be so much bone visible on a healthy leg and that this bit of jagged bone over there was not supposed to pierce through skin and stick out at that angle like this.
He fought back the bile rising at the back of his throat. Rumour had it that the Sorcerer himself had taken to interrogating this prisoner. If that was true, Jester wished him a swift and safe passage into the afterworld, rather today than tomorrow.
"Good morning, my lord," he croaked.
For a moment, the prisoner did not move, but then he stirred softly and something thumped heavily when he slumped against the wall of his cage and dragged himself forward into the sunlight by his the bleeding stumps of his fingers.
"Good morning," the prisoner said, although his lack of most teeth and a severely bloated tongue made it come out more like Guh-oaheng.
Jester, however, was used to this kind of speech. He had, he thought sadly, enough practice in order to understand it by now.
"How are you feeling?" Jester asked, feeling very stupid and the look the prisoner gave him only confirmed this.
"I can still feel my legs and every other muscle and bone in my body, for that matter, so I'd say it cannot be to bad."
"You are bleeding," Jester remarked.
"That's alright," the prisoner said. "I have time to bleed. There is not much else to do in here."
"He took your fingers?" Jester said, his voice barely more than a whisper.
The prisoner crept forward a bit and the sunlight hit an angular, regal face that was strangely unscarred, safe for a few nasty burns on his throat. "That he did. He was angry yesterday."
"But he left your face?" And your hair, Jester mentally noted.
"The Kindler knows why. I'm surprised he was content taking the fingers. But I fear that if I don't give him what he wants today, he might deny me the right to bear arms." The prisoner let out a chortled laugh and hacked up a clump of blood.
The strange burning in Jester's eyes got stronger and he rubbed his sleeve over his face. "May I ask you something, my lord?"
"I can't stop you, can I?"
Jester gripped the mesh of iron bars. "Why don't you just give him what he wants to make it stop?"
The prisoner looked up at him and something flared up in his grey eyes that made Jester very nearly recoil. It was a bit like having a bucket of cold water emptied over his head and a bit like being stuck with a fiery whip.
Then the prisoner sighed and the strange sheen in his eyes vanished. He mulled the question over for a moment. Sunlight lent a bit of sheen to his dark hair that was mostly matted and dusty. Finally he said: "Some men want to live at all costs, even if it means others die, and others want their loved ones to survive even if the cost is their own death. That's the best way I can explain it."
"But what for? Why being so noble? Even if you keep your silence, might be that there is no one left after the war to ever tell your tale."
"I am not being noble. And I don't do this so that songs will be sung about me," the prisoner said, his voice suddenly icy. "I am just trying to save what can still be salvaged from the damage I have done."
Jester made a step backwards, then decided that it might be good to change to a safer topic. "Are you hungry?"
"Do you have orders to force-feed me if I say no?"
"No."
"In this case, I am not hungry. You said to the others we'd be moving soon. That means it cannot go on like this much longer, can it?"
"I think so," he said.
"Good. The torture gets a bit tiring after all. I can't even scratch my nose since yesterday and there are more comfortable things than leaning against a wall with a flayed back. And I think the leg wound is infected. Hurts like a … hurts like … it hurts very badly."
Jester stands and stares and all the thinks is that no one should talk about torture and death so nonchalantly and almost boredly, because he was used to it. "I think it will be over soon," he said.
"I hope you have your rucksacks packed," Daeror suddenly sang loudly, "because we approach our final act! Take with you what courage you've left today, you can't bring anything to the other side anyway!"
"He keeps doing this," the prisoner said, more to himself than to Jester. "I don't know how many times we told him to keep his songs to himself." Then he righted himself and with surprising clarity and very loud, he said, "Daeror, your mouth is talking, you might want to see to that!"
"No power in the universe can stop me! From singing!" shouted Daeror. "Just try it and destroy my artificially upheld-joy-masking-desperation! You'll shatter like waves shatter on cliffs!"
Jester helplessly turned back to the prisoner. "Are you sure you don't want to eat something?"
"Very sure. But if you have something I could use for earplugs, I'd gladly take it. I haven't slept since the night your Dark Lord first wanted to 'talk' to me, but having Daeror as your neighbour negates the mere possibility of resting."
"I'll see what I can do," Jester said and walked away, feeling very hollow and with a crunching ache in his chest.
In the evening, Jester was called into the tent of the Sorcerer.
Dread sneaked through his innards and laid itself in coils about his stomach before it pulled taut and he almost lost his dinner. He would, however, lose a lot more if he dawdled, therefore he jumped to his feet and followed the limping Orc captain to the big tent on the highest hill overlooking the camp.
The sky was turning violet and blue like a fresh bruise and stars were twinkling overhead. The fresh evening air was substituted by stuffy heat when he entered the tent. Fires were burning inside, as always, and the Sorcerer was there, waiting on his throne.
Jester knelt. "My lord?"
"We will march on tomorrow, Private Jester. Make sure the prisoners are ready."
Jester swallowed. "Do you want pyres or the axe, my lord?"
There was a brief silence. "Neither. I said 'prepare', not 'dispose of'."
Jester looked up, his brow creased in a frown. He tried to discern any features in the semi-darkness of the tent, but all he could make out of the Sorcerer were the ominously glowing eyes and pupils like needle-pins that were fixed on him. "Do you… want to have them taken with us?"
"Exactly."
"In carts—"
"Poles."
"What?"
"Tie them to poles."
"I don't understand."
The shadow shifted and the flames flared a bit higher. Strangely enough, it merely made the shadows darker and the darkness thicker. "A few captains recently complained that our banners were not terrifying enough. I am inclined to agree. And I plan to remedy this shortcoming. You might want to inform those among the soldiers that are familiar with crucifixion. As far as I know, it is a practice that is still employed in Harad. You will surely find enough voluntaries to help you with your task."
Jester just stared at the shadow on the throne, his legs unwilling or unable to push him to a standing position again.
"Are there any more questions from your side, Private?"
Jester shook his head.
"Then I suggest you go and find some helping hands," the Sorcerer said softly, "because I want the poles ready by sunrise and someone is going to hang from them."
Jester scrambled around and ran from the tent. It was what Lieutenant Bhurat would have called an "Uncontrolled and Undignified Flight".
The sun was rising over the hills and a city of tents in the process of being dismantled. Weapons were clanging, horses were snorting and men and Orcs were donning their armour or what they could still find of it after five days of drinking, bets and games of dice.
A horn called out, deep and droning and on one hill a man let out a frustrated scream.
"You've got to be kidding me," Aedan wailed. "I offered you my superior knowledge of the inner workings of the defences of Elves and Men! You are throwing away your trump card! You don't know what you are doing! Let—me—down!"
"This one," an Orc said. "We'll have to kill his mouth separately so that he shuts up."
"But where supposed to let 'im live. Crying and begging. The Shining One said so."
"Well, the Shining One don't have to listen to this all day."
"Go and tell him, then."
That made both Orcs fall silent. A Harad approached them, all splendid armour and desperate anger. "What do we do about the dwarf?" he asked.
"What about it?" one Orc asked.
"He is too short! We can't tie him to the post properly, he keeps slipping off because his arms won't go around the horizontal beam! And he knocked out one officer who taunted them by butting his head against the officer's!"
"How about tying him up by his beard?" the other Orc suggested. "That'll get you plenty o' yammering and howling."
"Or nail him to the beam."
"Or kill him, cut off his beard, put it one a stone and tie that up. No one will notice the difference."
"We can't tie up a stone, that's even harder! And completely nonsensical!" the Harad said disdainfully.
"Well," one Orc said, "if yer so intent to find a problem for every solution we give you, you better be on your way. We got work to do here."
"Oh Mister Harad, my name is Aedan Cousland, could you please try to get me an audience with your lord and master so that I can convince him of my best intentions and incredible worth as an addition to his army, if he would only—"
Both Orcs and the Harad looked up, their expressions furious. "Shut up!" they shouted in unison.
"Oh, please! I'm innocent! You would not want to burden your conscience with killing an innocent!"
"For you I'll even burden myself with the knowledge of having killed a eunuch if you don't stop this shouting immediately!" the Harad shouted.
In that moment, another, younger Harad came to a halt in front of his superior. "Sir, bad news, sir," he wheezed. "The dwarf fell off again. And—and." He gasped.
"And?"
"And in the fall a high-ranking Orc captain was killed. Brained him right, sir. They say if a Balrog falls, the ground will shake, but if a dwarf falls, the ground will break. Well. Gurshnakh's skull definitely did, anyway. Burst like a ripe melon. Sir." The young Harad saluted, obviously embarrassed by his enthusiastic delivery of the bad news.
The older Harad growled. "Wonderful. Just wonderful." He sighed. "I'll look into it. Take me to the dwarf."
Jester just stood off to the side and saw things happening around him like in a nightmare. He wanted to do a lot, including shouting, tearing at his own hair and setting fire to the Sorcerer's tent. All three of them would, however, have ended with him either tied up on the back of a mule with a gag in his mouth or as a pile of ash where he had been standing. Therefore, and because he could not bring his legs to move, he did nothing.
He said nothing when one of his officers found him and dragged him toward his tent, telling him to get ready to march. He mechanically donned his armour, his boots and helmet. He violently shoved his sword into his scabbard and slung his quiver over his shoulder.
Stone-faced, he assumed his spot in the marching order which was, unfortunately, as he still was assigned to the prisoners which were now tied to posts like grotesque banners, at the very front.
The army was spread out over a mile over the hill chain. It was gargantuan, it was surreal, the sheer size of it boggled the mind when you watched it. Far off, on a hill, he could see the Sorcerer on his pale steed, a blaze of white and gold blurred by the morning light so that he looked more like a pillar of flame than a vaguely human being.
The poles were clustered toward the centre of the army, the part that would later from the spearhead of the assault. Jester dully noted that his chance of surviving the next battle with the elves was about as slim as a lightning striking out of blue sky and pulverising the Sorcerer where he stood.
Wonderful. Just wonderful.
He blinked up against the blinding sunlight and saw the tortured silhouettes of the prisoners, some of them already limp, but most of them still fighting to keep enough tension in their bodies to enable at least shallow breathing.
Somewhere, a horn blew. Sluggishly, like an old dragon waking from a thousand-year-long sleep, the army moved. There was inertia in big things, that much Jester knew. They took some time to get moving. As soon as they were in motion, however... An avalanche might take a while to pick up speed, but as soon as it had transformed into a roaring river of stones and debris… well, there was a reason the people of Rhûn didn't build near the mountains.
To his great dread, Jester saw the Sorcerer closing in on them, at once burning and cold in his white and gold garments. He was not wearing armour. This was, of course, obsolete for someone who bent the elements themselves to his will, but the stubbornly human part in Jester's brain insisted that only a complete idiot would ride into battle without armour. It was like reaching out with your bare hand for a man who still had a sword in his grip.
Jester dropped his gaze when the Sorcerer drew closer and kept it firmly hefted to the his boots. It was fascinating how they moved, how legs just seemed to be able to go on forever, as soon as you thought of breaking infinity into steps first. Right foot, left foot, right foot, left foot—
"Well done, Private," a voice said, closer to his left ear than it had any right to be .
Jester jerked away and looked up involuntarily. The sun blinded him and he saw nothing safe for the blazing, burning-white outline of a great horse and a blurred figure sitting on top of it. He shielded his eyes with his hand, but it didn't help at all.
"I—I," Jester said, and suddenly he wanted to throw it all into the Sorcerer's face, but at the same time he knew he wouldn't, because there are men who want to live at all costs and that is me. Knowing he was all but betraying the people who he had ordered strung up on to the poles, he answered, "It is my pride and pleasure to serve you."
"Hey, Sauron!", Daeror suddenly shouted from further down the line. "I can see your Mum from up here!"
It should, by all means, be impossible that a marching army could fall completely silent right down to the last line while still being in motion but this was exactly what had just happened.
The Sorcerer's blinding light flickered, but only barely.
Then someone seemed to remember that he was supposed to be in charge in events like that. A whip cracked and Daeror said, "Ouch, that hurt."
"What did you say, you useless elf-maggot?" an Orc captain cried.
"I said." Daeror squinted over to where the Sorcerer was sitting on his horse, all his attention on the crucified elf like an arrow pointed at a target. "Eh. I said, I can see Aman from up here. Nothing wrong with that, ain't there?"
"That's not what you said!"
"Yes, it is."
"It is not!"
"Prove it," Daeror retorted.
"I—you—yes, it is!" the Orc captain cried, a sudden note of unbelieving desperation in his voice. Obviously, he was quite taken aback by Daeror's sudden refuge in audacity.
"What is what?" Daeror asked.
"What you said!"
"I didn't say anything."
The Orc let out a very un-Orcish wail, very much afraid that he'd have to stick his neck out if he didn't bring the elf to confess and lashed Daeror once more.
"Ouch. You have good aim."
"Be silent!"
"I am silent. I told you, I didn't say anything." Daeror laughed and this earned him a lashing which made him fall unconscious. It was probably a blessing, because he saw and felt little of the mid-day sun and he did not hear anything of the unsettling conversation the Sorcerer tried to have with the dark-haired elven prisoner.
Jester tried to understand what they were talking about, but to no avail. It was not even as if they were speaking in a foreign language, but more like something in the air changed and distorted and muffled everything that was spoken and until the sound reached his brain, it was a muddled mass of droning and nonsensical syllables.
He could, however, clearly see the pained expression on the other elven prisoner's face. He saw his face twist in pain and sparks of hope and something else he quickly suppressed and then an agony that went beyond physical pain—and the subsequent blank, almost pensive look Jester had always seen on the faces of tortured men when they were seriously considering breaking their silence to make the torture stop. Then the prisoner closed his eyes, took a deep breath and when he opened his eyes again, his face was a hard and determined as steel and he said something to the Sorcerer which made him yank his steed around hard and ride elsewhere for a while.
They marched through the day and halfway through the night. In the morning, the call of a horn woke them, but it was not the deep, tinny drone of Orcish horns, but the bright and silver call of—oh-oh.
Hastily, the army formed ranks. The Sorcerer was the only calm point in a whirlwind of panic and activity. He sat still and silent on his steed and when he issued a command at last, the sudden storm of action and headless preparation came to a standstill.
His words seemed to be able to halt the very flow of time in its tracks. Jester had no idea whether his voice calmed the minds of his men or just overrode them with a fear so great that the terror of death paled in comparison.
He was the epitome of predatory calm. He was like one of the big spotted cats in the jungles of Rhûn lying idly in the shadow of a bush and sharpening its claws while a herd of antelopes passed by—prey that would not escape, and the cat knew it.
Jester could not see his face, but he would have given everything he had to be able to when he heard a second silver trumpet at the left flank of the army.
The deadly calm that had settled over the black army shattered like glass. The Sorcerer steered his steed around and shot down the front line to the left flank like lightning given physical shape.
"Hey, there are our kinsmen!" Daeror was awake again. "Hey, Tyelperinquar, look! Is that Celeborn? I think he got a new haircut… oh no, that's his wife. But over there, there is Elrond! The old fellow looks good! Almost as good as me! Are they encircling us? Smart move."
The black-haired elf lifted his head only very briefly. "So this is how it ends," he said quietly. "And the last thing they will see of us is our maimed flesh serving as banner to the army of the Enemy."
Jester flinched a bit, but Daeror just clucked his tongue.
"Ah, fellows, what are you all so wound-up about? It could be worse!"
"How could it possibly be worse, you rotten elf-dunce?" Aedan cried. "We are crucified and if the Orcs don't kill us, they archers of our fine kinsmen will! We are going to die!"
Daeror snorted. "You are so pessimistic."
"Pessimistic?" Aedan's voice rose to a shriek. "Have you gone soft in the head, you—you—aargh!"
There was kind of oppressive silence in which both the black army and the prisoners on the poles pondered the implications and consequences of imminent death.
"I still don't see what you're all so worked up about," Daeror said. "I mean, it really could be worse. The sun is shining, the view is nice, we have the best spots to see everything…" he trailed off.
"Somebody kill him," Aedan growled at the Sorcerer's soldiers at his feet. "Somebody kill him or I will do it myself."
The dark-haired elf still let his head hang. His grievously maimed body was a stark contrast to his unhurt head and now Jester understood why. They wanted the Elves to recognise just who they had caught. He felt something akin to a blow to the stomach. That was not a fair fight. That was psychological warfare. Why was the Sorcerer so damn intent on making this personal?
As far as he was concerned, he would have been happy to do his duty and go home. But no, the Sorcerer just had to wave around the equivalent of a red sheet in front of not one but two Elven armies and had effectively reduced the chances of anyone in the army making it through the day to zero.
No, zero was too probable.
The chance was approaching zero from negative numbers.
"You know what your problem is?" Daeror shouted. No one of the Haradrim or the Orcs had the nerve to spare to tell him to shut up. The two Elven armies were closing in. The miles between them were shrinking, and fast.
"You are being so damn negative about everything," Daeror said. "You are always complaining, always yammering. Try to see the good things for once."
"My mother once told me life is like a box of sweets, and about how you'll never know what you're going to get," Nori mused. "When I grew up I discovered she was right. It looks good and all on the outside and promises you chocolate cake, but then you open it and discover there is broccoli pie inside."
Daeror groaned. "There are two sides to every coin! You're letting life drag you down. You too, Tyelperinquar! Don't let your head hang, come on! Tell you what, let's sing a song!"
There was a collective uproar from all prisoners that made both Orcs and Haradrim and the few soldiers from Rhûn raise their heads.
"No song!"
"Valar have mercy!"
"No singing!"
"Just cut his tongue out already!"
But Daeror had already taken in a deep breath and then launched into full song a moment later:
"If life seems jolly rotten,
there's something you've forgotten
And that's to laugh and smile and dance and sing!
When you are tied to a hard pole
and the guy below is an… Orc,
just purse your lips and whistle!
That's the thing!
Aaaaaand—"
A Harad officer and an Orc Captain exchanged baffled glances. "Is that just really happening?" the Harad asked and the Orc shrugged.
Aedan seemed to try to commit suicide by forcing himself not to breathe.
"Always look on the bright side of life!"
"Now the whistle!" Daeror tried to whistle with his chapped lips and ended up spraying more spittle on the soldiers standing below him than actually producing a sound. "Sorry."
It said something about the state of the army that no one even thought to reach for the lash. Jester could understand it, he himself was more than flabbergasted.
"Second verse," Daeror said. "Come on, the tune is easy!" he shouted to no one in particular.
"For life is quite absurd..."
When no one chimed in, Daeror stopped. "Stop killing the fun," he said. "Be you Orc or Man or Elf, we know that were all equal when we're about to face our Maker—which won't be too long for any of us. We're all in this together. Come on, one more time!"
He sang on, keeping the tune and to his own surprise, Jester found himself tapping his foot to the rhythm of the song. He was feeling light-headed with fear, floating almost. Signing along seemed like the reasonable thing to do. What did it matter, anyway? And it was not only himself. Right next to him, a high-ranking Harad was nodding his head to the tune, completely oblivious to what he was doing. A few Orcs were actually humming along.
One of the drummers started drumming a beat on his war drum.
"All together now!" Daeror cried. "Always look on the bright side of—death! Hah! About half of you sang 'life'! Got you! Now the whistle!"
And before he knew what he was doing, Jester was whistling with the elf and about half a dozen other officers, soldiers, Orcish, Rhûnian or Harad. By the time the end of the next verse came around, half the army was humming along.
It was the exact moment when the Sorcerer chose to reappear before them in a flash of light.
"What is going on here?" His voice was no longer soft. He was shouting. He was angry.
His mother had often sung Jester a nursery song which was the usual advice about how little children should not play with fire. It also contained a line about how you should not put out an already existing fire with flammable stuff like gasoline, because that made all kinds of bad things happen, like your cat combusting spontaneously or theatres burning down. Obviously, elves did not know this song.
"What does it look like?" the dark-haired elf on the pole said, all of sudden raising his head. Jester looked up and his jaw dropped when he saw that the elf was grinning. Granted, it was bloody, it was nearly toothless and it wasn't in the least bit humorous, but it was a grin. "We are singing to push the morale. It would help you, too, Annatar. You look awfully tight-strung right now. Two elven armies are about to crush you, but it really helps when you try to look at the bright side..." The dark-haired elf laughed.
Daeror and a few others who had not noticed the Sorcerer's arrival were still whistling merrily.
"It is healthy, once in a while, to remind yourself that you, like everyone else, has come from nothing and will go back to nothing," the elf said. "And every victory you might win now is just a morsel that you glean because the Valar threw it to you like to a hungry mongrel. You can treasure it for a while, but it will merely last until Death takes you, like every last one of us. In the end even gods die. No matter how many Rings you find or make, that will never change—"
Jester could see the light that surrounded the Sorcerer and made his features impossible to see waver for a bit. It retreated just far enough to show burning orange eyes and slitted pupils.
He could still hear the whistle, or at least that's what he thought he did until the light became blinding, searing and there was another whistle, impossibly high, and then—
Celeborn was watching from a far hillside how the two armies momentarily halted in their course of closing in on Sauron's army.
"My lord," one of his stewards asked. "My lord, did," he hestitated, so as not to make a fool of himself by asking an obvious question, but then found he couldn't just not ask. "Did Sauron just smite a third of his own army?"
Celeborn watched it with an impassive face. Finally he turned to look at the young steward at his side. "Well, he is known for the fact that his temper gets the better of his intelligence at times. You now see why."
The young elf stared into the valley below where a smoking crater indicated the last remains of about three thousand Orcs, Haradrim and people from Rhûn. "And now?"
Celeborn watched it with a stony face. "Call the attack."
Next to him, Galadriel was sitting on her white courser and slowly shaking her head. "Oh, Tyelperinquar..."
"Worry not," Celeborn said. "It is better this way. His end would have become only more painful, had it been drawn out any longer."
"That is not what I am thinking of," Galadriel said. "But I wonder how he will explain his demise when he comes before Mandos. They were singing, my love. Singing this song… How is he going to explain this?"
"Mandos has taken pity on dead souls only once before," Celeborn remarked flatly, "but if he revived Lúthien and Beren for making him cry, I guess it won't be long before Celebrimbor walks the shores of Aman again because he made him fall from of his throne laughing. Frankly, I have never before heard that Silent One can laugh, but they say there is a first time for everything."
He paused.
"Morgoth be damned, now I have the tune stuck in my head."
And I know you do, too.
All rights of the song belong to Monthy Python and Eric Idle specifically.
Let me know how you liked it.