1.The Prisoner
Funny, how little you realise what impact your small choices may have on the future. When you're in the heat of the moment, you just go with the flow, letting every single choice reveal itself to you and following your gut. That was how I won battle after battle; that was how I built a kingdom of stone and steel, and how I raised a son to be a famed warrior and my worthy heir. Step by step, you toil through life, and only by looking back, you realise how your choices have affected your future options and how – sometimes – fate has lent you a helping hand.
This story, you might say, is the story of small choices and their history-changing consequences. As such, I don't even know where I should start telling it. I might begin at the dream that had been haunting me for weeks. Prophetic, you might call it. Unsettling and ominous, I called it at the time, not knowing its true meaning. Mostly, the dream would start with a hunting party in the dense undergrowth of a lush forest. In waking, I never knew which forest it was, but in the dream it always seemed familiar. We were a band of five Orcs chasing a golden stag with antlers as wide as the back of a mountain troll. Then, everything would grow still and I would find myself alone in the thicket, all my comrades and the stag gone. Suddenly, something would hit my chest, and as I would look down in surprise I would recognise a poisonous Elven arrow. I would immediately know that I was going to die, but at the same time, being a trained warrior, I would wonder at the shape of the weapon that was about to kill me. It was slender and strong, but it was shorter than an ordinary Elven arrow, and it seemed to sing as it found its way to the core of my heart. But in every dream, instead of killing me, the arrow would grow into a pale and thorny branch with silver leaves and snow-white flowers…
On the other hand, I might start relating this story from that fateful, but rather un-romantic autumn morning when I got out of bed, my forehead sweaty from my recurring dream, my limbs cold to the bone and my mind being little conscious of the turn the big wheel of my life was about to make on that very day.
The fires in the two braziers had gone out, and the tentative light of dawn, visible through the only window of the bed-chamber, was veiled by the late autumn mists rising from the rocky mountainsides. Only the faint glow of an ember in the bottom of one of the braziers indicated that there was still hope for some light and heat in this gods-forsaken chamber. I cleared the ash from around the ember, piled some dry twigs onto it and blew cautiously until the fire caught on. As the flames rose, I fed them more wood, relishing in the beginning warmth.
The water in the metal jug was as cold as the air, and I cursed loudly as I rubbed the soaked washing cloth across my stiff limbs. Usually, my bed-warmer was responsible for keeping the fires going, as well as bringing in hot water and, of course, keeping my bed warm and snug. But during the last couple of months, she had grown so burdensome that I had been forced to evict her. Not that she had been a bad bed-warmer, far from it – she had even been pretty and relatively cleanly. Furthermore, she had been an over-average whore, but she had gained this fancy of trying to seduce me into making her my consort. She had thought herself irreplaceable, and she had started to boast about her position to all who would listen. She was lucky; she got away with an eviction and a good public flogging. That was hopefully a lesson not just to her, but to all the other women of my court who aspired to get into my bed. Not that I dislike women generally – not at all! – but I hadn't had a consort since the mother of my now adult son. Being the consort of the king of Moria is a rare honour you have to earn. And alas, now I didn't even have a bed-warmer.
I looked up into the polished brazen mirror. What looked back at me was a warrior in his best years, covered by old battle scars, new bruises and goose bumps. These freezing morning ordeals would chase life out of me more quickly than the renewed strife with the Eldar, I thought ruefully. I let the palm of my hand slip from my neck over my shoulder and down my chest. Not an inch of fat, though I was surely not growing younger; only a mountain of firm muscles and hard tendons under a thick layer of hairless white skin. No wonder one of my names among my enemies was The Pale Orc. I turned to find my loincloth, belt and boots in whatever corner I had thrown them last night.
"Let another one of my small everyday battles begin," I sighed, picking up my clothes.
Since Thorin Oakenshield – may his name and the names of all his kin be cursed for all eternity! – took off my strong left hand, life had not been quite the same; and the steel hook ending in a couple of claws now protruding from the stump did not always make things easier.
While I struggled with my belt, I reviewed the tasks of the coming day. There was the lashing of two deserters, the public de-gutting of their general, the inspection of the dungeons, the treasury and the armoury and last but not least the evaluation of the gains and losses of yesterday's battle. A tight schedule, but not impossible to overcome. If it wasn't for the inevitable bragging and story-telling of the war-leaders and captains of my court trying their best to impress me and thus make me lavish them with more riches, the day would even promise to be delightful, I mused.
A loud and decisive knock on the door tore me out of my chain of thoughts.
"Father?" Bolg's voice carried a trace of urgency I hadn't heard since the day Thráin's damned Dwarves had suddenly stood at our gates.
I opened the door and glared at my son with a look that asked for a very quick explanation.
"There's trouble in the dungeons, sire," he panted, "You have to come quickly. It's the Elf."
Yesterday's clash was just the latest addition to a prolonged strife between us, the Orcs of Moria, and the Eldar of Rivendell – or the Folk of the Fissure as my people are teasingly calling them – which has lasted almost as long as we have been occupying these lands. I dare say that the Dwarves living in these caverns before us must have had the same conflicts with the Eldar; they are a most cantankerous lot. To sum things up, the whole conflict is about the highland area between the gates of Moria and the rocky borders of Rivendell. To the west, this territory is boarded by the river Bruinen – or the Bronn as we call it in Orcish – and to the east, the relentless Misty Mountains run all the way to Rivendell and indeed beyond, up to Angmar. These fields, which we call Toknahai, No-Man's-Land, may seem as a narrow strip of land on a map, but in truth they are vast and bountiful grassland with sparse thickets of low trees and shrubs, still lakes and clear streams – ideal for hunting and pasture. Now, having the Orcs of Gundabad pressing in on one side and Moria on the other, Rivendell understandably wants to keep the No-Man's-Land Orc-free.
For the last ten years or so, there has been what, for want of a better word, we might call a truce between Moria and Rivendell. We have used the No-Man's-Land as our hunting grounds, but haven't made attempts to annex it, and they have used it as thoroughfare to Dunland and Lórien without crossing our paths. However, the increased number of raids of the Orcs of Mordor along the Great River and the Isen during last summer seems to have unsettled this delicate balance, and Rivendell is determined to win more space.
So it came to pass that a week ago, a band of young Elves shot and killed two of our best scouts just on the other side of Hollin, ignorant as the Eldar are, probably believing our men to be from Mordor. Retaliation was inevitable. We confronted a band of their warriors escorting a trader's caravan yesterday and it came to a short but bloody battle. They were defenceless in the open grassland, and our Wargs were quick to finish them off. Most of them died in the field, a few escaped and one – a young lad from the caravan – was caught.
Now, this one prisoner seemed to give some trouble. Bolg filled me in on the situation as we stomped through the stone corridors to the dungeons.
"He was brought in right after the battle, sire," my son related, "but he said that he wanted to talk to you and you only. We gave him a good beating for his impertinence, but when the jailer tore off his clothes to make him taste the whip, he turned out to be a she – a female! She's still asking for you, sire, but she's very week. And all the jailers have started to draw lots on who should be the first to rape her…"
At this point, we had turned the corner to the heavy iron gates of the dungeons, and word spread like wildfire that the king of Moria had arrived. By the time I reached the cell of the Elf, the jailers were bowing their heads humbly and pointing me to the prisoner with an apologetic smirk on their faces. I would have to deal with them later.
The Rivendell Elf was hanging by her wrists from the vault of the cell, her feet barely touching the floor. The cord around her wrists had made deep tears in her skin, and blood was oozing down her arms. She had clearly been fighting for her freedom. Her naked body was covered in black and blue bruises, and a couple of bloody gashes on her sides showed where she had been hit, cut and kicked by the jailers. Long black strands of hair covered her face, and her head was hanging limply against her chest. She was barely breathing.
"Cut her down," I ordered dryly.
She made a bump as her lifeless body hit the stone floor. I knelt down beside the lump of bloody flesh and soiled hair.
"We call her Kasaksma… because of the way she was fighting back when she was captured," the jailer said with an insecure grin, trying to lift the tension of the situation, "My nephew lost three teeth and half an ear to her."
I cast him a glance that would have sent a Balrog straight back into its bottomless pit. I grabbed the hair of the Elf and lifted her head off the floor. Her eyes were closed, but her broken lips were moving slightly. I bent closer to hear the words, defying the mixed stench of Elf and dungeon.
"Defiler…" she whispered in the Common Tongue, "I must talk… to The.. Defiler…"
"I am called The Defiler," I said, "Who asks?" But there was no answer.
I let her head fall back onto the floor and wiped my hand on my loincloth as I stood up. As I walked out of the cell, a sudden irresistible idea hit me. There was no way out, I had to act on it and see where it would take me.
"Bring her to my quarters," I said, turning to the head jailer. The man bowed so deep, I thought his forehead would brush the floor.
As an afterthought, I added: "And clean her up."