Finally the forests came to an end for a while and we came upon a treeless expanse of land. "Be careful," said the captain. "This land is dangerous. We're days away from the Northmen's Town and Dwarf Mountain, but they send soldiers down here to keep watch for invaders from the East." Still, we walked across the grassy plain, occasionally glancing around for any signs of hostile soldiers.
Suddenly, I heard a yell from what seemed to be nowhere. Then, from over the hill in front of us, there charged to the top of the hill four short but stocky figures clad in heavy iron mail, carrying with them battle axes. The Dwarves were upon us.
Madly the Dwarves charged down the hill at us, their axes held high, screaming their war cry in the Dwarf tongue. Despite the lack of numbers, they look truly fearsome, determined to kill us at any cost.
"Men!" yelled the captain. "Formation!" Sloppily, the ten of us spearmen lined up with our spears high in the air. My heart beat faster as we prepared for battle. "Advance!" We held our spears in front of us and ran forward.
A change occurred in the Dwarves as we came upon them. Their valor that had been present just moments before was gone. I saw into the eyes of the Dwarf I charged, and I could see he was afraid. The force of impact of my spear against the Dwarf mail was enough to knock the target off-balance, though it did not penetrate the armor. Then Kazuo, with a look of grim resolution on his face, ran his spear into the face of the same Dwarf.
On my other side, Khâl had a wild look on his face I had never seen. He hurled his spear at the dwarf, hitting in the neck. The bleeding form collapsed to the ground, and Evrik with same wild look stood above the Dwarf, ramming his spear twice through the forehead of the Dwarf.
The bloody spectacle was soon over. Four bloody and disfigured Dwarves lay on the ground quite obviously dead, with no casualties on our side. "We must hurry," the captain said as the Men wiped their weapons clean of blood. "We're close to the forest. We can't afford to stay in once place for too long."
It seemed clear to me, there was some sort of difference between me and everyone else (except possibly Kazuo.) They seemed to actually enjoy that battle from they said afterwards, laughing at the fate of the Dwarves. I felt no pity for them, after all, they tried to kill me, but to laugh about their fate? And what was the wild look on the faces of either Men so alien I knew not even what it meant?
We soon came upon the forest. Just peering inside, I could see the interior of the forest had precious little light. How were we supposed to see to get through there?
"I didn't tell you this before," said the captain, "but this forest is the homeland of the Daemons. We must move as fast as we can down the path, or we will leave ourselves open to ambush."Daemons? Daemons were said to be nearly impossible to kill in an open field, but here where there ambush skills would be magnified? Where they knew the terrain? Where they could easily set traps?
At the edge of the woods stood a sign, written in the letters of the Daemons. "Can anybody read it?" the captain asked as he glanced over the strange letters.
"A little bit," I said as I walked up to the sign. My uncle, being a man of books, taught me how to read the letters of the demons, but their language I knew little of. Still, I tried to puzzle out the meaning. "Taur-e-Ndaedelos, ardh thranduil aran, cuina athan i thafn sen." I searched my mind for the meanings of these Daemonic words. "Forest of the... something... world... something... king... That's all I can read."
"Well," said Kazuo smugly, "thanks to your invaluable knowledge, we now this is a forest."
"We could only assume before," I responded. "Now we know."
There was a path through the woods, though calling it a path at all was generous. It was a space cleared of trees just wide enough for the carts we were guarding to pass through. Above all, the darkness seemed to swallow everything. The gaps in the trees overhead let in precious little light.
For two days we walked through that vacuum of light, stumbling around. We heard all manner of noises from the wood around us, no doubt horrible beasts we hoped not to meet. The second night, if there was indeed much difference between day and night in that maddening place, we sat down to rest. Evrik started a fire and we all gathered around it while the stew boiled.
"What do you suppose," wondered Zhine as she put a log onto the fire, "the soldiers of Mordor are like?"
"Horrible things," said the captain with a bit of a shudder. "Orcs. They're savage beasts. They don't even look human. I've seen them feed on the flesh of their enemies. They only reason they don't kill us too is that they fear the wrath of their masters if they touch us."
"Who are the masters?" I asked, wondering why I wanted to talk of such unpleasant things.
"Nazgûl," said Khâl as he stirred the stew. "Dark, ancient spirits loyal to the dread Lord of Mordor."
Out of nowhere, a whizzing noise came. An arrow from nowhere flew at a man on the other side of the fire. Without a helmet, the arrow plunged directly into his eye. All us Men went into shock for what must have been only a second, but seemed much longer as he slumped over dead.
"Daemons!" yelled the captain. We scrambled to our feet and grabbed our weapons, but outside of the range of the fire was total darkness, the fire ruining what night-sight we would have had. A flurry of arrows shot from all around us, most bouncing off our body armor, but two feeling Men around me. Our archer-women took their bows, but all they could do was blindly shoot into the darkness.
"We can't just stand here!" yelled Evrik. "Attack!" He charged out into the darkness, spear waving frantically. Caught up in the moment, we had a sudden impulse to either fight or run. With running impossible, we charged off into the dark after him.
The sound of several things leaping down from the trees and Daemonic words being yelled reached my ears. Blind, I began stabbing at whatever was around me. A sudden influx of light burned my eyes as a torch-wielding Daemon jumped from the trees.
I had no time to marvel at my first sight of a Daemon, for their was killing going on all around me. Daemonic knives slashed at us and we stabbed back, holding our spears as knives we could stab with. Screams and curses, Mannish and Daemonic, echoed through the darkness.
From a treetop, a Daemonic archer held aloft a flaming arrow. Our archers Zhine and Azire shot at the suddenly immensely visible target. His lifeless body fell from the tree with a dull thud, but not before he loosed his arrow. It hit its target, setting aflame one of the carts: horse, driver, and all.
In this chaos, I tripped over something and fell on my face. Panicking, I stabbed wildly above me. A cry in the strange tongue went out, and what I stabbed stumbled about, then the bleeding form collapsed on top of me. I shoved what was by then a corpse off of me, and I looked, though the there was not enough light for me to see, at the thing I had killed.
I know not how long it took, but finally the cries of the Daemons ceased. Kazuo, one of the survivors, was visibility shaking with fear and repulsion. I know, because I felt the exact same thing. Still, he lit several more fires around. Nine of us lay dead, including the charred remains of the cart driver and Evrik who led the attack. The survivors were myself, Kazuo, Khâl, the archer Azire, one of the cart drivers, and the captain. The corpses of the Daemons that we counted number only five.
Now I saw what Kazuo said about war. All Men know, at least on some level, that killing is horrible. But now... Men I knew, Men I befriend, Men I talked and joked with not an hour ago, were now nothing more than a heap of bodies. The captain, Khâl, and Azire gathered in front of the bodies and reciting a prayer, I supposed to Manamo the Judge to put their souls at peace. Having just witnessed a battle, I did not feel very much like praying.