The Dark Lands. June 3, SA 722
GRIMWINE squinted, trying to see through the fog and the smoke. People called these lands Dark Lands, but the land was not dark. Rather, it was filled with smoke and fire.
He wiped away the trickle of sweat dripping into his eyes. He glanced at the lone mountain to the east of him. Although they were some twelve leagues away from the smoking mountain, Grimwine could still feel the heat in the air. Whenever a wind stirred, he could smell a faint odor of rotten eggs. But more than that, something in the air boded ill. The very air of this place felt ominous. Clouds above the land seemed unusually dark, as if all the light was sucked out of it. And thick darkness seemed to crawl about the crevices of the black rocks, twisted and full of holes.
As much as he hated entering this place, Grimwine disliked what lay ahead of him even more. He was certain his brother felt the same as he, but Dernwulf had convinced Grimshod somehow to venture out here.
For three days they have walked through this god-forsaken place, but they had not seen even a shadow of the Elf Dernwulf had told them about.
Grimwine scanned the jagged crags running parallel to the Mountains of Shadow. The rocks here were serrated, like enormous teeth of some monster.
Perhaps we are just insects caught in its foul mouth.
Grimwine shook his head to shake away the dark thoughts. He moistened his cracked lips and whispered to his brother, "Shoddy, are you sure? Let's go back. We have been looking for him for long enough. Perhaps he perished. If not, perhaps he is too strong for us."
"He's only one, Wino. And there's ten of us."
"But that is what worries me. Why did Dernwulf feel he needed to send ten of us to find this one Elf? Remember that elf we saw in the forest? The one with the white hair?" Grimwine shuddered, remembering the Elf with the long white hair. Despite the unmistakable beauty to him, the Elf had been terrifying. "I don't feel good about this place."
"When did you ever feel good about anything? Besides, those Elves took us unaware and by overwhelming numbers. Dernwulf assured me there is only one of them this time. We'll be fine. And look at those warriors Dernwulf sent us with."
He gestured toward the six warriors who were clad in red armor with black capes and face coverings. An eye with a pupil of red and gold flame emblazoned across their black capes.
"Anyway, we are here only to lead them to the Elf. They would do the fighting. We have nothing to lose."
Four days ago, twelve of these warriors arrived from the east.
Although Dernwulf assured his brother that these eastern warriors will not interfere with Grimshod's authority, Grimwine and his brother had been wary of the newcomers. They not only looked different from them, they also spoke in a language that was completely foreign to the brothers. All twelve of them were armed with curved swords, similar to what the brothers had, yet different, as if they were made from a different metal.
Grimwine had not seen them use their weapons, but he could tell they were experienced warriors, highly disciplined and well trained. Besides their sturdy armor and heavy arms, there was a certain air of danger to them. And among them, their leader, the one Dernwulf called Kemik, looked the most dangerous of them all.
It should be afternoon now, but Grimwine could not tell. The sky was hidden behind a thick layer of dark clouds. The land ahead of them was a wide plain marred with smoking fissures. Where there were no fissures, jagged rocks, black and twisted as if tortured, littered the area.
They stopped where a great number of tangled brambles with thorns as thick as talons of eagles stood like a living wall before them.
"He could not have gone that way," Frumgar said, pointing beyond the brambles to the smoking mountain and the plain full of fissures and rocks. "We would be lucky if that mountain does not spit fire while we are here."
"At least, it doesn't look as bad as when we were here years ago, eh, Frumgar?" Grimshod said.
When they were here last, almost a decade ago now, the entire plateau had been on fire. The ground under them had groaned, and the mountain spat fire and smoke. Frightened and desperate, they had climbed the jagged crags that closed this land like a forbidden walls.
"Well, friend, which way should we go now?" Kemik asked.
As they stood looking about, the ground trembled. All the men stopped in their tracks. The face of Frumgar and the other of Shoddy's men turned pale.
"It's just the Fire Mountain. It rumbles, but it should not spew any more fire. If it did, this whole place would be burning. But look how most of those rocks have hardened. The last time we were here, there were fires everywhere. I know. My brother and I lived here for years," Grimshod told the men as if the trembling was nothing.
That was not the whole truth. His brother and he lived here, but only for a short while. Had they stayed, they would not be alive today.
"This man," the leader of the eastern warriors interrupted Grimwine's thoughts.
"Elf," grumbled Grimshod.
"El…f," the warrior corrected, repeating the word as if he wanted to ingrain it into his head. "Excuse Kemik, friend, but unsafe is this land. This El…f could not have gone forward like the other man said if he has a good head." He gazed at the far distance where dark smoke curled over the land, hanging about the cluster of black rocks. "At least, there is no sign among the bushes here that he went that way."
For a foreigner, Kemik spoke their tongue quite well except for some strange expressions which had surprised Grimwine when he heard the warrior speak for the first time.
"Oh, is that so?" Grimshod glared at the warrior.
Kemik stared back, his dark eyes calm and unafraid.
"You are right. He could not have gone that way. Perhaps this way." Grimwine pointed to the jagged crags surrounding them. If they had to find this Elf, he wanted to do so and leave this place as soon as he could.
Ten years ago, Grimshod and he were driven here with five others who had escaped the slave traders. With only scant arms wrested from their captors, seven of them, half-starving and terrified, had fled with an army of marauders pursuing them. Cornered with nowhere to go, they had entered the gap between the mountains. The gap led to a deep valley, dark and foul-smelling like a mouth of a predator, but they could not go back. Strangely, the marauders did not follow them into the gap. The seven of them had wondered why until they climbed the jagged hill before them.
The fire had raged everywhere they looked. Dark clouds loomed over the land. The ground and the very air had trembled. And from the red mouth of the lone mountain, rivers of molten rocks had gushed, burning the wide plain before it. Trees, brambles, and bushes burned. The red river had swallowed everything on its path, leaving flames and destruction. The land had looked as if it was a world soaked in blood and chaos.
They thought they had met their end.
But the passing time had changed the face of this land of fire. Once gushing rivers of molten rocks had solidified into rocks of strange black shapes now. Only near the base of the lone mountain, a reddish glow remained. But the streams of molten rocks barely moved now.
"No matter the danger, my Lord and Master wants this El..f. We will deliver him even if it costs our lives," Kemik said. His dark eyes were resolute and fearless.
"Who is your master, this lord?"
"Friend, he is no mere mortal like you and me," said Kemik. "He is god, lord and king. Our savior and protector."
"God, you say?" Grimshod scoffed. "And why would any god want with this elf?"
"You ought to watch your feet when you speak of our Lord, friend. You are filled rich with our Lord's wealth, but what he has given, he can also take away. And his reason for wanting, he need not give it to you or me." Kemik placed his hands on his waist. His eyes glowed like fire. "Be glad he is with us. Your men may fear, but my men do not fear danger. Our god will protect us."
Grimwine scowled as his head rang. There was a power in the voice, as if the words delved into his head.
Grimshod stood still. Grimwine glanced at his brother. Frumgar and the other of Shoddy's man reached for their axes, but Grimshod stayed their hands.
"If you want the elf, then follow me." Grimshod walked toward the wall of crags. "There is only one pathway I know out of here other than the one we came in." He pointed east along the Mountains of Shadow where a jagged stone ridge ran with the mountains. "When we were here last, we skirted that mountain range, as far away from the Fire Mountain. A river flows in the valley between that wall of jagged rocks and the mountainside. If I were him, I would have gone that way."
"But those rocks look too steep to climb." Kemik gazed at the cliffs, a ridge of jagged crags, notched and sharp like fangs of a dragon. It ran along the side of the Mountains of Shadow like a fence, too steep and too close together to squeeze between them.
"There is a cleft among those crags. It is a narrow passageway. That elf may have found it. They say that Elves have sharp eyesight."
"If the Elf went that way, we go there." Kemik gestured and spoke in his strange tongue to the five warriors who came with him. All six of them turned and looked up at the crags. Lined up with their black capes billowing in the wind, the fiery red eye woven on the capes seemed to rove as if it was alive.
Grimwine felt a sudden chill. The red color of the eye seemed to glow, as if the background of the Fire Mountain empowered it.
His brother, however, seemed undisturbed. Grimshod led the way to a passageway which was narrow and steep.
"We lost one of our companions climbing these rocks. The water from the mountain trickles over them and the rocks are slippery," Grimwine warned.
But they did not advance too much. The pass before them was blocked. It seemed a mass of rocks tumbled onto the ravine, forming a high wall, too steep to climb.
"What do we do now?" Frumgar asked. "He certainly did not go this way."
"How about the passage on the cleft over there?" Grimwine gazed at the slope of the mountain to their right, remembering how two of their companions went that way when the rest swam across the river to the other side of the valley.
"That is right. I remember Eddun yelling up on that slope telling us that there is a passage behind a cave." Frumgar nodded, his face flushed red. "Let us get out of this valley. Something here gives me the creeps."
They all turned to climb up the steep side toward the cleft in the mountainside. Halfway there, the faint light of the day that seemed to struggle in this forbidden land finally lost its feeble light.
"It will get too dark soon. We better find a safe place to lodge for the night." Grimshod stopped to look away into the west where the dying sun was bleeding across the sky.
"Here!" Kemik, who had led his men up the side of the mountain ahead of Grimwine, leaned over the edge. "There is a wide ledge here, friend." Kemik offered his hand and Grimwine took it.
When hauled up, Grimwine saw that the warriors from the east were setting up a camp. They had gathered the dry branches and leaves from the two nameless trees which had grown through the rocks and were making fire. When Grimwine reached it, he saw that the clifftop was wide enough to accommodate twice their number.
"It looks like someone stayed a night here." Kemik walked over to the side near where a rock stood like a wall. There was ash there, as if someone had made a small fire using stray branches.
Grimshod climbed up and walked over to see. He touched the ashes.
"Fresh. It is no more than a day old. This could be our Elf. He was here. We are only a day behind him at the most. With this rough terrain, it is only a matter of time. You keep your men quiet," Grimshod turned to Kemik. "He may be above us, in which case he could hear us talk. We do not want to let him know we are pursuing him."
"It is not my men who are loud here, friend," Kemik said, tilting his head toward Frumgar who was chopping down one of the trees.
Thump, thump, thump.
The sound of the ax hitting the wood echoed through the mountainside.
"Frumgar, stop that, you idiot!"
"What's this?" Frumgar pulled out his ax. Something thin and white shimmered on his ax head. He tried to wipe off the tangled mess on his ax.
"It looks like a spider's web, friend," Kemik said.
"It can't be. I have never seen a spiderweb that thick." Grimwine grimaced as he helped Frumgar get the white mess off his ax.
"That one is thicker than the ones I have seen, but where I come from, we have spiders as big as cats." Kemik laughed. "And poisonous. One sting and you are dead unless it just wants to knock you out to eat you later."
"Thank the gods that we do not have such things where we come from," Grimwine said.
The sun sank, and they were plunged into deep darkness which oozed out of the valley and the crevices of the fang-like crags all about them.
"I don't like it here," Frumgar grumbled, moving closer to the camp fire.
"I thought you didn't like the valley down there." Grimshod threw him a piece of bread.
"This place is worse."
"You are the one who wanted to go this way." Grimshod reminded his companion. Then lowered his voice when he saw Kemik taking two pieces from their meal, threw one into the fire and the other over the cliff. Then, all of them bowed their heads as if in prayer in front of the fire before they ate.
"What are they doing?" Frumgar asked.
Grimwine shrugged. But, Kemik turned to them. "We favor thanks to our king and god, Lord Ah Natah."
"Ah? What-tah?"
"Ah Natah. It means Lord of Gifts. He sees through fire."
"So, he eats through fire, too?" Grimshod asked.
"It is our way to show our devotion."
"How about the food you threw down the cliff?"
"That is for other wandering spirits, so they would not play us."
"Play you? You play hide and seek with spirits?"
"Some spirits are harmful."
"Ah! Your god cannot prevent them from harming you?"
"Do not belittle my god, friend." Kemik's eyes glinted. "Those wandering spirits are too beneath him. He is not here to help us with small things. That is for us. But in his generosity, my Lord favored me with a gift. When it matters, he will protect us." There was such conviction in the warrior's voice, no one doubted the man believed it.
Kemik lifted his arm and showed them a thin gold bracelet around his wrist as if it was some great artifact of immense value. Grimwine noted that it looked exactly like the gold bracelet he had seen on Dernwulf although that strange man hid his under his garment. It was only by chance that Grimwine saw it.
"If you only know his generosity, his strength, and his great knowledge, you will believe as I do. He is the giver of knowledge, strength and life."
"Giver of life? I understand about knowledge and strength, but life?" Grimwine laughed. That sounded too good to be true.
"It is true, friend. Kemik does not lie. My Lord snatched my son from the door of death to return him to me and my wife. He…" Kemik stopped, then stood up, his hand on his hilt. "Something comes."
"What?" Grimshod stood up also.
Grimwine looked up from drinking. Frumgar walked over to the cliff.
"I think I hear something," he said.
Sheek. Sheek. Sheek.
A wind blew across the clifftop.
"It's only a wind, Frumgar, said Grimshod. "Nothing more."
Sheek!
A blast of wind swept past them and Frumgar flew up into the darkness and disappeared.
"Aaaaak!" Frumgar's scream rent the night and echoed in the darkness.
"Frumgar!" Grimshod and Grimwine both grabbed their axes, but only their voices echoed, screaming back to them in the night before falling silent. They could not see or hear Frumgar anywhere.
A naked sword glinted in Kemik's hand as the campfire danced in the wind.
"What in the hell was that? What happened?" Grimshod paced from one end of the clifftop to the other.
Sheek!
One of Kemik's men screamed as he was lifted up into the air. Kemik's hand moved and something shiny flew through the dark.
Clang! A dagger fell from the sky, but the warrior was gone.
Click, click, click.
Something moved across the crags. The remaining men grabbed their weapons and with their backs to each other, turned around where they stood.
Sheek!
The last of Shoddy's men flew up into the air and was swallowed by the dark, his scream echoing around them.
"Split up!" Grimshod shouted.
Kemik's men moved, then they were swallowed by the darkness as their dark clothing made it impossible to see them in the darkness.
"Wino, stay with me!"
Click, click, click.
Something skipped and jumped in the shadows of the crags. Grimwine picked up a burning stick in his hand to see. Something moved just in front of him. Grimwine thrust the burning stick to it.
SHEEEEEK!
It shrieked, the shrill sound tearing the night. Eight enormous eyes glowed green and eerie as it rubbed them with its front legs.
"Wino, watch out!"
Grimshod jumped in front of him, knocking him away.
Grimwine fell, rolling away from his brother.
"Shoddy!" Grimwine cried out as he righted himself, stretching out his hands in the dark for his ax when something sank under him. He teetered.
The ground fell open beneath his feet.
Grimwine fell.
"Shoddy!" He grabbed at the air when someone snatched his hand.
Dangling, Grimwine looked up. A dark figure hulled him up. Grimwine turned to where his brother was.
The light from the campfire threw shadows. Several strides away from Grimwine, an enormous creature, most of his body hidden in the dark, was rolling up his brother into a bundle of web that glinted red in the camp's firelight.
Grimwine looked for his ax and called out for his brother.
"Shod…" A powerful hand clamped over his mouth as he was thrust behind a rock.
"Stay silent, mortal," hissed a musical voice. "If you want to live."
Grimwine looked into the eyes that glowed as if they were stars in the night.
1 league equals about 3 miles.
A/N: The Dark Land I referred to is Mordor. Sauron is supposed to have started building his fortress, Barad-dur, around the year 1000 of the Second Age.
The Fire Mountain refers to Mount Doom.
The craggy wall of the mountain ridge is Morgai (Sindarin. Black Fence) which ran parallel to the Mountain of Shadow
The valley which they tried to pass is Morgul Vale, the valley through which Morgulduin, the river that originated from the Mountain of Shadow and flowed into Anduin, flowed past Minas Morgul which guarded the one of the two passes into Mordor from the west.
The other passage is through Cirth Ungol (Sindarin. Cleft of the Spider), the one by the cleft on the slope of the Mountains of Shadow.