The Mouth of Sauron: Chapter 2
Disclaimer: see chapter 1.A/N: Well, here's the seconds chapter. Hopefully longer and more interesting then the last (which I am frankly ashamed of) and certainly more action-packed and gory. Beware, when I say gory I mean GORY, you might want to ask the kids to leave the room.
The Mouth of Sauron weaved in and out of the advancing trolls, cutting down every Westerner that came in his path. Blood splattered against his face and dripped from his sword. He ran his tongue along the outside of his mouth, feeling an odd zinging pleasure at the hot salty taste of blood. A Gondorion tried to attack him from behind with a short bow. The Mouth felt it buzz past his ear and with a snarl he rounded on the man who barely had time to drop the bow before his horse trampled him into a bloody smear on the ground.
"My lord!" an orc called to him in heavily accented Common. The Mouth of Sauron rounded on him, sword held high for the killing stroke. The orc dodged instinctively only to hear the blade whistle and descend upon another Gondorion who stood not a foot behind him. His legs crumpled beneath him as his skull was split. Brain mattered spattered on to the first orc which he wiped away with a shaky hand. "My lord, we have captured one of those filthy Men from the white tower," he snarled then blanched slightly as he realized his error. The Mouth was after all, a Man.
"Kill him," the Mouth of Sauron spat.
"But he's in important among them, a king! The Master himself is after this one!"
The Mouth of Sauron growled deep in his throat, debating whether he should appoint the task to another or whether the situation was important enough to warrant his personal attention.
"Lead on," he commanded in a voice fit to chill the coldest winter day. The orc knuckled his forehead again and reached to take the halter of the horse. The Mouth of Sauron wrenched the reins away before the orc could touch them "Do you wish to kill me?" the Mouth said even more coldly then before but underneath was an ocean of white hot rage, "If you lead the beast I will be a sitting target. Now, take me to the hostage."
They made their way through the battlefield, occasionally dodging a locked battle between an orc and a Man. The Mouth's battle lust raged at him to rejoin the fray but calling on his inherent coldness he squashed the flaming desire. His face took on an icy cast and it was a wonder that everything within a span of him was not frozen from the gaze he swept across it.
Passing over a small ridge they left the battle behind them. In a small blackened dip, a ring of orcs surrounded a Man sprawled on the ground before them, watching him as if he would leap up and bite off all their heads. The Mouth sneered at them. This one posed no threat. Riding to the edge of their huddle he dismounted his horse, tossing the reins to the nearest orc without glancing at him. "Make way!" he shouted over the din of the battle behind them. Shoving two orcs out of his way he glared down at the apparently unconscious Man before him.
"You're faking," he said curtly, "Get up."
The Man struggled to rise as if he had indeed been stunned but climbed to his feet with dignity that belied it, trying to inconspicuously feel for his sword which lay on the other side of the ring of orcs. His back straightened and he stood proudly before the Mouth of Sauron, looking him straight in the eye.
Those eyes, the Mouth mused to himself. The same eyes he saw in the vision of the dark, statuesque man leaning defiantly into the wind. The same eyes he saw when he looked in the mirror. "Who are you?" He asked, though he already knew. Perhaps more then he thought he did.
The other man looked him up and down, his face a stony mask hiding all emotion, "I am called Strider."
"Liar," the Mouth of Sauron spat in his face. "You are Aragorn, a play-king to those fools in Minas Tirith." The Man said nothing only his face became harder, more stone-like. The Mouth resisted the urge to flinch, yet he had stared down much harder gazes before.
"I have also been called Aragorn, servant of Sauron, yet to you and your master I am Elessar."
"Truly, 'Elfstone', you are braver then you should be in this situation," the Mouth said.
"I do not fear death, nor the Shadow's foul slaves," Aragorn said, not a flicker across his face to prove his words false. The Mouth of Sauron smiled as if at a private joke and a cruel one at that.
"You hold no fear of death but what I bring is far worse. The Dark Lord would like to meet in person that Man who dared pit his will against the rightful ruler of Middle-Earth."
Finally a reaction. A brief spasm of what could have been panic flashed on the would-be king's face and his hand clenched. "Never. I Aragorn, son of Arathorn, will allow the Shadow to take me when all that is left is ashes and dust."
Arathorn... the name flickered across his conscious like a comet then vanished, leaving a sort of after-image burned into his mind. Something about Arathorn. Shaking his head in effort to clear his thoughts he glanced once more at the proud Man before him drawing his sword with a hiss. Without thinking he pivoted, his black sword flashing in the sun, and drove it deep into the throat of the orc behind him. Two orcs who had stood adjacent to the first glanced at each other, fear wild in their eyes, and bolted over the hillside. The momentary distraction this provided for the Mouth was enough for the other orcs to close their gaping jaws.
"Traitor!" a large uruk howled in Black Speech, flinging himself at the Mouth of Sauron. The Mouth slashed and parried, dancing away from the savage thing before swinging into full offensive, slashing high and low, each time met with a more desperate parry. The orc howled again, this time in shock and pain as the black blade cut through his chain mail and buried itself to the hilt in its broad chest. It gurgled, clawing desperately at the steel protruding from its chest. The Mouth of Sauron kicked the corpse hard in the stomach, slipping it off the blade then spinning to meet the next attack as another pair of orcs gathered the courage to attack their traitorous leader. But the sight of their fallen comrade put fear into their hearts, slowing their clubs and swords. A dagger crunched between the eyes of the first and he fell without taking another step. The other made the mistake of glancing down at his fellow. The mistake was his last as the sword snaked up under his chain mail shirt sticking into his lower belly hitting its upper spine. Three orcs remained staring across at him. He casually reached down and wiped his blade dripping with blood and gore on the pant leg of the first orc then smiled at them, revealing all his teeth. Their nerve broke. Two of them ran to either side of him. He ignored them, advancing of the center one, skirting the passive Aragorn who had watched the entire battle but had lent no hand to either side. The Mouth of Sauron brought his black sword up into the defending position. Fire raked the side of his arm drawing a deep gash that instantly began to swell with black blood. The orc stared as his knife wobbled in the ground just behind the lieutenant of Barad-dur, obviously horrified that it had missed the heart. This was the last thing the orc ever saw as the Mouth hefted his sword in his good arm and flung it end over end, impaling the orc and pinning it to the ground. The orc whimpered and lay still.
The Mouth of Sauron lurched over to the corpse; planting his foot firmly on its chest dragged the blade downward out of its stomach. A fountain of blood spurted from the wound, joining the gore that already covered the front of his armor and staining his arms up to the elbow. A low murmur of agony bubbled out of the fallen orc, obviously not dead yet. The Mouth roughly dragged his blade across its throat. More blood bubbled and the orc finally lay still. The Mouth bent to wipe his blade on the grass then slid it back into its sheath. Turning on his heels he found himself face-to-face with Aragorn, his eyes like chips of ice, Andúril flaming in his hand. The Mouth of Sauron reached to draw his sword again but was stopped by the tip of Aragorn's sword held an inch from his throat.
Looking him up and down but keeping the sword steady at his throat Aragorn said, "You are a strange man, lieutenant of the Dark Tower. You defended me by killing those orcs yet you serve Sauron. You are a savage fighter yet you utilized sword forms that I myself have use, taught to me by the Rangers of the North. It is said you are a Black Numenorean yet I could use your face to shave. Yes, a strange man."
The Mouth of Sauron threw back his head and laughed- a sharp and coarse sound. "Defend you? No, never defend you. You have done something that no Man or orc has done to me in the last decade. You have made me curious. Curious, for what man is he who sets my mind so aflame with questions that I betray the trust of my own men to satisfy my curiosity?" lightning quick he ducked under Aragorn's horizontal blade, coming up at his back, sword drawn. "Fight me, Elessar. Satisfy my curiosity and perhaps you will escape what my lord and master has in store for you."
A/N: More coming soon. Please review, if you don't I have no way of knowing what's good and bad OR how many people have read it. Those things mean a lot to me.
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