(AN: This is the first time where a certain canon character is mentioned. Only one of his names is from Tolkien's works, the rest are made up [one of which is from Shadow of the East, if any of you from that fic are reading this one].)
(I made a word in this chapter, based somewhat on Tolkien's Sindarin/Quenya. The word refers to the substance which was used in the construction of Orthanc, the first wall of Minas Tirith and the black stone of Erech. I'm also trying to make some sub-plots going on in this story that will tie the whole thing together, as well as adhering as strongly as possible to the established lore of Numenor: namely that the Dunedain at this point lived very long and had cures for most ailments.)
(Really? Two chapters and already my story is being called "trying" and my character an MS? Not even gonna try to give it a chance, are you? Just cut it off before it even gets started. Oh well, that's life. Nobody liked Eirik from my Skyrim stories, so i'm used to getting trolled. And while i honestly realize that i'm not the best author, i don't think that my story should be categorized with...well, other MS stories. I wouldn't even consider Adunaphel a morally good character. And if you, LadyJocelyn, don't like the idea of a female Nazgul, then take it up with the folks at MERP, because they made Adunaphel, not me.)
Resistance
The host remained on the plateau here at Vamag, pitching their tents in a place on the western shores with the doors of their tents facing the sea. The people they set about to gathering food for the host, as well as for finding and bringing them water. Adunaphel oversaw this and was, for the most part, amazed at how much wealth these poor fisher-folk had for themselves. Every one of them had golden rings upon their fingers, in their ears, noses and bracelets upon their wrists.
"Where did all this wealth come from?" she asked Jubayr, who stood at her side.
"Harazan from the farther deserts inland," Jubayr grimly replied. "Trade gold for fish."
"So there's more?" she asked, looking at the pile of earrings and bracelets on the ground before her. "I should very much like to meet these tribes who give away gold as though it were dust."
Jubayr was not pleased with how things turned out. But for the present, he did not make his displeasure known.
For the rest of that day, Adunaphel sent scouts to explore the cape and judge its strengths and weaknesses. These then made their reports on maps of animal hide and brought them before her and Abrazir, who poured over the maps. The western side of the cape was protected from the east by tall cliffs, sheer and smooth like the Sorontil in her homeland in the North. These extended southeast to a point where there was a single narrow pass between the northern arm of the sheer mountains and the southern range which they had followed all throughout their journey: here the cliffs were close and only six could walk abreast. The plateau of Vamag could not be reached by land from any other pass besides the southern way, which they had come, and this narrow pass. The mountains could not be scaled by reason of their sheerness and roughness, and on the northern range of the mountains there was a great wood. Only from the sea was the plateau vulnerable.
Adunaphel deemed this to be strength enough. The sea was no concern to her, for the Haradrim built no ships and she had with her twenty ships and crew trained in warfare. Even if a host came from the south, her fleet could be mustered shortly to defend the southern flank on its long, empty path along the sea-side. The eastern pass could not be assailed by a great force, for the narrowness of the path made numbers count for nothing: and how narrow it was meant that even if their enemy brought one of the fabled mumakil to bear against them, they could not bring it through the pass to the plateau.
"Our southern flank will be our weakest point," Adunaphel told Abrazir, pointing to the map. "But our ships cannot be in every place at once. And it will be best to keep them in Umbar for the time being. But nevertheless, I would want a fortress in this plateau. We might find good stone in the cliffs here, enough to build a great wall to guard the south and east."
"We'll get to work on it right away," Abrazir stated. "I'll have some of these men get to quarrying stone from the mountains. We have enough masons to guide these savages in proper stone-work."
"I would care to use the local stone as much as possible," Adunaphel replied. They had brought little morgond with them from Minul-Tarik, the great mountain in the center of Numenor, called in the Elvish tongue Meneltarma, the Pillar of the Heavens. It was said in the Second Age that of iron mined from the earth and beaten for steel there was mithril, and of stone carved from the earth and fashioned for building there was morgond. It was a black stone, unlike anything that could be found in Middle Earth, whether North, South or East. The Men of Westernesse fashioned and polished it into a substance harder than iron and smoother than glass. No power less than that which sank Beleriand at the end of the First Age could have broken anything made of morgond, whether it be towers or walls, and pledges were made upon morgond. But it did not grow and could only be fashioned out of what was on hand.
The rest of that day was spent drawing floor-plans and schemes of the fort that would be placed here at Vamag. Houses would be built as well, and barracks and stables and blacksmiths for the garrison. But as evening was on its way, there was a loud shout and Adunaphel and her guards and Jubayr ran thither. A quarrel had broken out, it seemed, between the Dunedain soldiers and the locals over something or other. Now it had almost come to blows, with the Harazan wielding short fishing spears against the Dunedain's swords. They came up to one of the soldiers who stood with sword in his hand before a tent: at the entrance stood a short, thin, spidery Southron fisherman clad in a loin-cloth and painted with streaks of white, black and red.
"What is going on here?" Adunaphel demanded.
"We were collecting gold, my lord, as you ordered us," said the soldier. "But this rascal refused to surrender his share!"
"Jubayr, speak!" she returned. "Demand that he give what he has!" Jubayr shouted his words in the Haruze tongue, and the fisherman replied angrily. Jubayr did not immediately reply.
"What did he say?" Adunaphel asked.
"He said..." Jubayr replied slowly, his eyes looking towards the fisherman. "That you have no right to what is his. Go back to your island and leave him and his people in peace."
"No right?" Adunaphel returned, her voice rising slowly in wrath as her gray eyes burned with greed. "No right! Who are you to say who has right or no, you swarthy, impudent little fish-monger? Who was it who saved your people from ignorance, teaching you language and learning, smashing the old idols and putting to death the heathen priests that sacrificed your own children to the Dark Lord?"
Jubayr did not interpret her words, for he, like the fisherman, was transfixed by the wrath of Adunaphel. Though the House of Silmarien were the tallest members of the royal house of Numenor, the Dunedain were, as a whole, taller than the lesser folk of Middle Earth. Even among women, they stood six feet tall at the very least. Adunaphel was hardly least in stature among the Dunedain women, and was as strong as many man in a sword-fight. But she bore also the spirit of her father, and her wrath was as his wrath was against her mother for her daliance with the Eldar.
The fisherman, though he did not understand her words, shouted back at her in his own tongue and brandished his spear towards her and her guard. It was a weak spear, and could not have defended the fisherman from a rusty goblin scimitar. At a command from Adunaphel, the soldier seized the spear from out of the fisherman's hand and broke it over his knee. In horror the fisherman staggered back and fell to the ground. Jubayr cried words to him in the Haruze tongue, gesturing towards the narrow pass to the East. At this, the fisherman forsook his little tent and scurried off towards the pass in fear, crying and yammering in his own tongue.
"Where has he gone?" asked Adunaphel.
"I told him what you said," Jubayr said: he had lied. "But he has fled."
"Then we must hunt him down!" Abrazir replied. "We are not ready to fend off an assault."
"No," Adunaphel shook her head. "Let the little man go. Let him tell whoever he wishes to tell that I am here, and I am their king. If they resist, they will see my might."
By nightfall, the camp had been arrayed and Adunaphel had ordered sentries to keep watch all through the night in case those others the fisherman had brought attacked at night. But she and Abrazir remained awake in her tent, for she was wary. They had gone over the schemes for the fortress that would be built a hundred times, it seemed. Rooms and halls and passages going this way and that were planned down to the smallest detail. And more and more plans were added onto these, until it seemed that many plans would be lost before the foundation bricks were laid.
"Get some rest, my lord," Abrazir stated. "We've come a long way through scorching deserts and blistering heat. I would not see so great a thing worn and wearied before its time."
"I am not yet wearied," Adunaphel replied. "And there are things that trouble my mind. These things drive sleep from my body."
"Then please, my lord," Abrazir said. "Open your mind to your servant. I am but a simple man, even among the Dunedain, and not a great lord as you are: but I will do what I can and help you with what wisdom and strength as are within my power."
Adunaphel sighed, straying from the tent and pacing before it. Abrazir followed her outside and saw her look eastward, towards the great red cliffs that flanked the narrow pass.
"Is it about what happened earlier today?" Abrazir asked. "Even in small numbers, we are stronger than those hereabouts, if they are in any way similar to yon fisherman."
"It is not of fish-mongers that I worry," Adunaphel shook her head. "For I fear them not. But there is another thing, a thing that has hidden in the middle of the land, a thing that is, for now, hidden from our view. Tomorrow, if you can, I would have you arise before the rising of the sun and climb with me to the tops of those hills on the east."
"For you, my lord," Abrazir smiled. "I will do anything."
Adunaphel smiled. "Your fealty is warming, my friend. Very well. Go now to your rest, and if you will indeed awake with me, then be ready for me when I awake."
Abrazir bowed and went to his tent while Adunaphel went to her bed as well. She had noticed his smile, and was certainly amused by it. She was not naive and discerned Abrazir's mind as best she could. How could anyone not love her, being fairest of the daughters of the Edain and a noblewoman of the House of Elros? She did not entertain his affections or give him any reason to believe that he had hope, for she was a noblewoman and he a simple soldier.
Without another thought of it, she tried to sleep, listening as often to the endless sighing of the waves against the shore. Yet for her, sleep did not come and she remained awake all that night. By the time morning came, she went to Abrazir's tent and found him awake. Together, with a sure-footed scout, they climbed the hills, following an old foot-path. It was not until the early morning sky was deep blue that they soon came towards the top of the mountains. With the morning dawning, they finally reached a place where the mountain-top flattened up and they could see over the mountains and far into the East.
Under the rising sun, Adunaphel and Abrazir, like their ancestors in the dawn of the first sun, gazed out at the rising of the sun here and now, over twenty-four hundred years after the dawning of their race. In its light, blazing red as if over the very Orocarni Mountains in the uttermost East, they could see a great desert land of mountains and plains stretched out before them to the East and South. To the North sight faded in a dull blue haze, where the haven of Pelargir marked the furthermost expansion of Numenor to the North of Middle Earth. Their eyes were drawn near at hand, and they followed the mountains that followed along the northwestern coast of Near Harad from the Glinfalas. Abruptly there was a great chasm cut into the land, where the desert heights fell away into steep, sharp cliffs that plummeted down towards the Harnen River, the greatest river of Haradwaith. On its northern shores the cliffs rose again, crowning the land nearest the sea with a ring of hills: this was Harondor, the northernmost lands of Haradwaith as far north as Emyn Laer and the Porus River.
But it was towards Harondor that their eyes were drawn. At the very furthest edge of the northeastern horizon, where sight began to fade, there was a dark line of hills, darker than the darkness. Even the rising of the sun could not shed much light on those hills. In the sight of those hills the hearts of both Adunaphel and Abrazir sank: for no shadow had they ever seen that the rising of the sun or the bright light of the sun sinking towards the Blessed Realm could not dispell. Yet this darkness was greater than all others and no light could penetrate that darkness.
"Is that what I think it is, my lord?" Abrazir asked.
"Aye, my friend," she replied. "You see before you, afar off, the southwestern foothills of the Ephel Duath, the mountains of Mordor, the land of the Dark Lord."
The name of Mordor was one that, even now, was grown to a name of great fear. The Eldar were at war with the Dark Lord of Mordor, whom the lesser men, such as the Haradrim, feared and worshiped. Few knew his true name, for he did not permit it to be spoken or written in any fashion, but he had many names besides in many tongues: Annatar he was called among the Elves, the Lord of Gifts, Sur in the uttermost East and Gor'khan among the Easterlings of Rhun, but here in Haradwaith, he had another name.
"It's so far away," Abrazir muttered. "Barely a line on the horizon's edge. Yet too close for my liking. When were you aware that it was here?"
"The scouts told me yesterday," she said. "That is the reason I spoke of the Dark Lord to the fish-monger, for that was yet on my mind. Now I cannot help but think about it."
"Well, what are your thoughts, my lord?"
"It is said," Adunaphel began. "That even the Eldar fear the Dark Lord of Mordor, and they fear nothing. Back home, I must admit that I never gave him much thought. After all, we are a great empire: the Great Sea lies between us and Middle Earth, and our ships have the mastery over all the seas from here to the uttermost East. But now the Sea lies behind us and Mordor before us and this land and the Harnen are all that separate us from yonder Black Land."
"What can we do about it?" asked Abrazir.
"Long ago," she continued. "Our people came to Middle Earth to enlighten the Men of Darkness, to free them from the grip of fear of the Dark Lord. I am not convinced that the Haradrim will not revert to their old heathen ways in the face of our might. And we cannot wait for a horde of orcs to march down upon us from the Black Land. We must seek out the Haradrim villages and cities from the Haven of Umbar to the Harnen. We must see whether the Dark Lord's hand is moving among his former servants."
"It's a good plan, my lord," Abrazir nodded. "But how shall we carry it out? We know of no villages around this area, besides the ones here at Vamag."
"That was another reason I let our little fish-monger go," Adunaphel added. "He will lead others to us, and then from them, we will learn where they are, how numerous they are and whether or not they have gone back over to the Dark Lord."
Having shown Abrazir what she wanted, Adunaphel made her way with him and the other soldier back down into the camp. After dismissing the captain of her guards, she returned to her tent. There she had her servants bring her lute: today would be the first day of settling down here in the Blood-Fells, and even if she had not yet a room in which to live, she would play her instrument. The morning also meant that her other servants would be attending on her, making her presentable for the day.
Most lords had their own private retinue of servants. Some of lesser renown would have fewer servants, but the lords of Numenor often kept large companies of servants as a sign of wealth and status. Adunaphel had forty servants in her personal retinue. First was a steward, who had authority to act in her name in her absence, sign papers in her name, and take command of her forces should she be away for battle or some other reason. Second to this was the personal attendant, a kind of esquire who would attend the lord during the day and perform various and sundry tasks. Often found around her were her three scribes, who could read and write Sindarin, Adunaic and the Common Tongue and who tended her library. Adunaphel was learned, but she did not spend her time reading, unless it was out of necessity. To complement the three scribes, she had also seven messengers, quick-footed and hardy men who each owned a swift horse and could ride day and night without rest.
After these were various personal servants and attendants, who saw to her every day needs. She had a personal physician skilled in the leech-craft of the day and an apprentice to assist him. Her kitchen staff numbered seven cooks and one butler who was the head of the staff. Three servants maintained her lute, procuring animal gut for the strings and polishing the finish: these three were also learned in the musical arts and kept her instrument in tune at all times. Eight personal attendants waited upon her momentarily, with five of them attending her throughout the day and three ladies-in-waiting taking care of her privy duties such as dressing, bathing and keeping clean. Lastly two grooms for her horse, two smiths for her weapons and armor and three seamstresses completed the tale of forty.
For seven days the fisher-folk were being supervised by the stonemasons in the construction of what would be Adunaphel's fortress. The work went slowly, for the Haradrim fishermen were not builders and Jubayr was often dragged from one building site to another to shout instructions to the workers in Haruze. During those seven days, Adunaphel had keen-eyed sentries placed along the cliffs overlooking the narrow pass to the east to keep watch for any assault that might come by day or night. Yet for three of those days and nights, there appeared no sign of any host, great or small, marching westward towards the ruddy Blood-Fells.
On the fourth day, the sentries reported a cloud of dust billowing up from the mouth of the canyon to the east. At once, Adunaphel sent scouts ahead to see from where came the cloud and what strength it brought. For two days they were away, finally arriving at night on the sixth day back in the camp. A company of horsemen were galloping across the desert, riding west towards the mountain pass. The company was not very large, no more than twenty, and they were armed with spears, short curved swords and bows.
"This is good," Adunaphel replied. A company of twenty would hardly be any match for their host.
On the seventh day, the scouts reported that the company would be upon them before midday. Adunaphel ordered her soldiers to position themselves on the edge of the canyon with their bows pointed towards the canyon where the horsemen would pass through. She then positioned the remaining troops in a wide semi-circle about ninety yards out from the canyon entrance, with her guards, Abrazir, Zadnazir and Jubayr with her on horseback, facing the entrance. There they waited, with only the growing cloud of dust issuing from the top of the canyon as indication that their foe was surely approaching.
At last, as the sun was climbing to noon, they appeared from the mouth of the canyon. Twenty riders on small gray horses, armed with such weapons as the scouts had reported. But here, in the light of day and closer at hand, the weapons could be clearly discerned. The bows were shorter than the longbows of the Dunedain, the spears hunting spears and the swords short of reach. As for the riders themselves, their faces could not be made out: all of them were clad in scarlet and sable, with veils upon their faces. Gold they had upon their clothes and upon their saddles, and it glistened in the noon sun. At his left, Abrazir could see Adunaphel's eyes widening hungrily as she gazed upon the shimmer of gold from the Haradrim horsemen.
Presently, a rider rode forth from the group of the Haradrim. He bore a tall spear and a cuirass of golden scales over his desert clothes. He cried with a loud voice in the Haruze tongue, and Adunaphel ordered Jubayr to interpret.
"He says," said Jubayr. "'I am Bakr, chieftain of the Black Scorpion clan. I demand that you give back to the fisher-folk their villages, return to your ships and go back across the sea. There is nothing for you here.'"
"The impudence!" Adunaphel chuckled. "To think of making demands before so great a host." She turned to the interpreter. "Tell him that he has two choices before him: submit freely to the rule of Adunaphel, lord of Vamag, or be forced to submit." Jubayr spoke. At this, the chieftain Bakr laughed and shouted to his people. They too laughed, and then one of the other riders rode forth and dismounted. He began to make strange gestures that Adunaphel could not see, while chieftain Bakr shouted in Haruze.
"What's happening?" she asked Jubayr. "What is he saying? What is the other one doing?"
"Bakr says," Jubayr replied. "That he would speak to the master of this host. He says that a woman has no place, but in the bedchamber of her master. He says that he recognizes no woman as master over him." He hesitated.
"Go on," Abrazir stated.
"The other man is Bah'far, the brother of Bakr," said Jubayr. "He invites the Lord Ard to kneel down before him and give him pleasure. He says that is the proper place for a woman."
Adunaphel's eyes blazed with a fierce wrath. Though she had not the keen eyes of the Eldar or House Silmarien, she guessed what was being done before her eyes. None had ever denied her anything back home in Numenor; no one would dare deny anything of a scion of the House of Elros, even a distant one such as she. That this ignorant little man dared to deny and defy her brazenly before her great host was a great effrontery. In her heart, it smacked of the pretentious, condescending attitude of the Eldar, deeming that they alone should possess immortality above the Dunedain. Nothing would be denied her!
"This little man insults you, my lord!" Abrazir cried out. "Give me the order, and I'll ride across this plain and cut off his head."
"So be it," she returned. Abrazir gave out a loud cry, then spurred his horse and charged across the plain, drawing out his sword from its sheath. As he was riding, she turned to Zadnazir on her left. "Should the horsemen attack him, give the order to the men. Kill as many as you have to, but do not slaughter them all."
"My lord," Zadnazir bowed, then rode off towards the captains.
She turned back towards the plain, to witness the valiance of her captain. There would be no great need for a blood-bath today, though she discerned that the men, fatigued by heat and hard labor, were eager for a fight. Dead men made poor subjects.
Across the field, Bah'far noticed the lone rider and quickly mounted back up and took up his spear, wagging his tongue as he made a loud, defiant battle-cry before charging towards Abrazir. At the first charge, Abrazir's sword turned the spear and they rode apart for another charge. A second time they clashed, neither relenting against the other. Again they rode back, then turned their horses about and charged again. At the third pass, Abrazir's sword broke off the spear-head of the Haradan prince. The Southron threw the spear aside and drew out his sword. Abrazir's sword was longer and, unlike his brother, Bah'far bore no cuirass, whether gold or wicker. They charged again and the Dunadan's sword outreached the curved blade of the Southron. Bah'far cried out, slouching in his saddle, then fell off to the left side onto the ground.
The prince Bakr lifted up his voice, and the cry was taken up by his horsemen, who then charged the lines of the Dunedain army. The battle was over almost before it had begun. Four more Haradan fell before they were surrounded and overwhelmed. Bakr was spared on Adunaphel's orders, as were most of his soldiers: she also gave orders to her men to take their weapons that they try not to kill themselves in the shame of their defeat. The gold was stripped from the Haradrim and placed at Adunaphel's feet; be it as little as a ring or as great and precious as the golden cuirass of Bakr. Once all the gold was taken, Adunaphel gave them back their weapons and told them to return to where they had come, that she would send messengers to them in time. Jubayr reluctantly translated her words. The dead man's head was cut off and sent back with Bakr and his men, while his body and his horse remained behind.
A little while later, and the gold was brought back to Adunaphel's tent along with Abrazir and Idhrendir, her steward: a man of some one hundred and ninety years dressed in gray robes with a white staff in his left hands. Before them was the gold they had gathered from the fisher-folk and Bakr's warriors.
"Such a great fortune!" exclaimed Adunaphel. "Surely this will be enough, will it not, Idhrendir?"
"Yes, my lord," Idhrendir bowed.
"I believe then, Idhrendir," she said to the steward. "That this sum before us will be enough to begin our ventures at the haven. Go at once to Umbar and invest some of our gold in some of the trading routes, such as would be beneficial toward us. Nothing too large, of course: we don't want to draw to ourselves the attention of the lord of the Havens. I trust that you, my steward, can use your own discretion in choosing what will be most profitable to our purpose."
"As you wish, my lord," Idhrendir bowed.
"As for you," Adunaphel turned to Abrazir. "Now that we know the identity of our first enemy, we know where to go to find them. I want you to disguise yourself in the dead Bah'far's clothes: they won't fit you, considering your stature, but they will hide your fair skin, your livery and other such details. Once you are disguised, follow the others back to their village and see if what we talked about is true."
"Me, my lord?" Abrazir asked. "I am honored that you think so highly of me, but my place is at your side."
"You are a worthy soldier," she replied. "And I would be loath to lose you. But you have proven your valor this day against these Haradrim filth. As such, I can think of none better to do this task: none whom I trust more for so great and important a task than you."
"Then, my lord," Abrazir grinned. "I must ask your leave as I pack for my journey."
"Granted," she replied, her eyes turned to the gold.
(AN: My purpose for this story, aside from delving once again into darker places, was to answer a question which i felt Peter Jackson and the fandom have not properly answered: what is the place of women in Middle Earth. I had initially planned on doing three more LotR stories, one set during the War against Angmar, where we see the Dunedain after the Fall [sort of a comparison and contrast with this story], and the third being my version of the War in the North, which was based on the campaign from Battle for Middle Earth 2 [not the video-game War in the North]. That one would showcase the lives of Elves and Dwarves, and would be the concluding piece of the unofficial trio.)
(I wonder if any of you Olog-hai know about Game of Thrones enough for me to state that i made a reference to it in this story. Of course i couldn't go all out in this story, since i promised not to go as far as i did in The Dragonborn and the Lioness as far as cursing and adult situations went. That story could have done this scene justice, but i'm challenging myself by restraining from going all the way. Anyhow, i got to depict said trolls in their proper way in this chapter...if you can catch my subtle description. Tolkien just isn't the place for extreme vulgarity [i remember Gandalf and the Hobbits saying "ass" and one of the Orcs saying "damn", but that's about it]: Elder Scrolls, on the other hand, with smut like The Lusty Argonian Maid and 36 Lessons of Vivec, is. But i did my best, trying to use "archaic" phrasing to make it sound more fitting in this world.)
