Chapter 8: Bloodbath (or "Cause and Effect")

Matthis roared a battle cry, and threw the swords of the corpses on the wall to the slaves below. The other rebels joined him. The slaves in the fields picked up the weapons and swarmed toward Lartzgàsh and his soldiers. The bodies of slaves fell left and right, but gradually, Lartzgàsh's forces were thinned.

Matthis ran down the steps into the nearest guardhouse, blood flying everywhere from his wounds. By the time he got there, the battle was nearly over. The corrupted slaves had surrendered once a few of their number had been killed. The remaining camp guards were routed. It was down to Lartzgàsh and his followers.

With the death of the last Easterling, the battle was over. The slaves in the fields had rounded up every corrupted slave that they knew of, and had lined them up.

One of them looked at Matthis, who had earned himself authority by being one of the last of the original rebels, as well as one of the hunters who had motivated the rebels to begin with.

"What should we do with them?" asked the slave.

Matthis looked at the pawns of the Serpent one by one. He remembered his mother's screams, and his helplessness to end her agony.

Then, he smiled.

"Kill them," he said.

The slaves needed little encouragement - many had lost family or friends thanks to one of these traitors. Matthis took one of them, a young man his own age, and cut him to pieces. Only when Matthis had heard enough of his howling did he deal the final blow.

When the bloodbath ended, Matthis looked around. Dead orcs lay everywhere, accompanied by the bodies of slaves both pure and corrupted. Both wore the same expressions of pain and terror.

Children flocked around the bodies of the corrupted slaves Matthis had ordered exterminated. Their tearful cries for their dead parents echoed across the fields.

Matthis looked up at the smog-filled Mordor sky, and he laughed uncontrollably.

And as his knees collapsed and his body shut down from loss of blood, he was still laughing.

Epilogue

The slaves only noticed the absence of Lartzgàsh and his steed a few minutes later. They were disappointed at his survival, but still set out from Central Fields Camp, led by Fallothen and Alledmir.

A day into their great trek, Lartzgàsh led a force he had accrued from an orcish outpost and routed the entirety of the slaves. Alledmir was crushed by a troll, and Lartzgàsh invited Fallothen to face him in single combat. He disarmed the elf easily, and pondered what to do with him.

Then Lartzgàsh remembered Matthis's impressive display at the end of the uprising at Central Fields Camp. The Black Uruk had watched the massacre of the corrupted slaves from beyond the gates, having used a secret entrance in the wall to escape. In particular, he remembered Matthis's treatment of his own victim, zooming in on the scene with his enhanced vision. He remembered how Matthis had ripped apart the young man before killing him.

And truly inspired, the Overseer did the same to Fallothen.