The sound of hammer and chisel upon stone was a comforting sound to Talion. It might seem mad, but it brought back happier memories; looking out over the battlements of the Black Gate watching men drill as the masons repaired years of damage to Narchost and Carchost, trying to take his mind off things as Ioreth brought him lunch one sunny day and they sat and talked over everything and nothing, his hand pressed to the swell of Ioreth's belly, both laughing as they felt their unborn child kicking, and then years later, watching as Dirhael and the other children the men and women of the garrison had fathered and given birth to over the years clambered and chased each other, refighting the Battle of Dagorlad and the fall of Sauron, interrupting the game as Dirhael played at being Isildur cutting the One Ring from the Dark Lord's hand to laughingly point out his mother was going to kill him for getting dirt on his clothes again...
"How much longer?" Talion asked, allowing himself to be dragged from his reverie as the tall, gaunt figure behind him cleared his throat. Zûgor the Gravewalker, a creature of the Mystic tribe, leaned against the battlements and replied, his face, half-hidden by a shamanistic helmet cobbled together from a ram's skull and silvered steel that rattled and clanked along with the charms and magical fetishes bound to his armour with every step the Orc took as the Overlord and his master made their tour of the defences.
"Repairs to the outer walls should be complete within a fortnight. The captains you dispatched to Gorgoroth should return with sufficient means to acquire siege beasts to defend the gates. Ar-Pratu has provided a significant number of caragors that for the time being, we can turn loose on an attacker's forces, and my hunters should be able to overwhelm creatures set against us. From the air, we are somewhat more exposed; it may do us well to draw some captains commanding archers to bolster our defences- it would help discourage any drakes in the area from attacking. Besides that, I would advise-"
"Thank you, Zûgor. That will be all" Talion interjected brusquely, raising his hand to silence further talk. Looking a little put out at being interrupted, but unwilling to push the matter, the Orc necromancer nodded and departed for the fortress keep, leaving Talion with the sound of hammers hitting stone once again. It was a much comforting sound than the hisses and whispered chanting of their new Overlord's minions as they worshipped and cast spells before graven idols dotted around the fortress's interior. As much as Zûgor had proved a useful ally and a resourceful bodyguard- that had seen him rewarded with the position of Overlord- his mere presence brought back memories too for Talion, though ones far more bitter and terrible... 'Rain pelting his face, armour-clad hands forcing his arms behind his back, nearly tearing them from their sockets, the smell of fear and smoke and blood in the air as the Orcs made sport of the dead and dying around them, Ioreth's frantic weeping, Dirhael's terrified screams and above it all, a sibilant whisper of a voice snarling an incantation in Black Speech-'
"We will be together, my love...soon...forever"
"Ghuramu shirkush'agh ya apakurizak. Gûl-n' anakhizak..."
"The work is taking too long. It needs to happen faster" a haughty, irritable voice snapped from behind him, saving Talion from his brooding. It was the same refrain Celebrimbor had said every time one of Mordor's fortresses had fallen into their grasp. The elven wraith was convinced that a counter attack on their new prizes was inevitable and he wanted to be prepared for the moment it did, and to have their armies ready to retaliate against the Dark Lord's holdings once the assaults were repulsed and Sauron's forces diminished as a result.
"It's progressing as fast as we can. We don't have enough slaves or resources to complete the repairs. We have the fortress but the quarries and mines of Seregost remain under the command of Sauron's forces. The outposts that oversee them are still held by captains loyal to the Dark Lord; since you insisted on laying waste to this fort instead of neutralising those outposts-"
"This fortress knew it was going to come under attack after you helped Baranor and Idril storm it and wreak havoc in the arena!" Celebrimbor retorted, pacing the battlements like a caged tiger. "It was necessary to neutralise this fortress and its master before they could send to Barad-dûr, for reinforcements! Our capture of these fortresses is an insult Sauron will not let pass! He will strike back at us, and when he does, I want his assaults to break against our walls like water against rock! His momentum will falter, and then we will sweep back the scum beneath the banner of the Red Eye all the way to the gates of Barad-dûr, and tear Sauron from his throne!" Unfortunately, Celebrimbor's ambitions, more and more, were exceeding his grasp and it fell to Talion to remind him of the logistics of their goal.
"These matters cannot be rushed" Talion insisted. "If we pay the due attention to the details, then this fortress will be unassailable against anything Sauron sends at us, like all those armies he has sent before. In any case, the Orcs that remain in this region are too fractious and disparate to band against us, Celebrimbor. There is no force that could assail this fortress within this region and hope to take it".
At the western wall of the fortress of Khargukor, a team of slaves were working on repairing a great rent in the wall where a rampaging graug had smashed apart the wood and brick defences apart to let the Bright Lord's warriors to storm the holdfast of Ukshak Black-Blade. Black-Blade was dead now, his skull impaled upon his namesake atop the fortress gates, and the Bright Lord was determined not to suffer his fate. The slaves were working to repair the walls high enough for new fittings to be installed into the walls that would allow burning oil or streams of toxic filth to be dumped on the heads of any attackers as they milled about trying to climb the walls. The overseers had given an estimate of two weeks to have the repairs necessary so the fortress could withstand an attack completed and they were not sparing the whip to see it done.
"Faster, you globs!" the overseer snapped, cracking his whip, marking the back of one slave with a long red slash across the spine. "Bright Lord wants that wall back up quick and you-"
His rant was cut off as three hooked blade swept out and tore his throat open, black blood spilling down his front, his blade and whip dropping to the ground as the Orc's hands vainly tried to staunch the wound before a long bladed dagger swept up and took his head off. The second overseer looked round at the ruckus, only to get a throwing knife buried to the handle in his eye. The slaves, sensing the danger, turned to run for the fortress gates to raise the alarm, only for spears thrown from the darkness to drop the three of them. Two were killed instantly, one taking a spear full in the chest, the second collapsing as the spearhead slammed into his brow. The third went down in a tangled heap as the missile took him in the small of the back; as he tried to crawl away, a black-clad Orc stormed over, pulled the slave's head up by his hair and opened his neck with a curved, saw-edged dagger. Khrosh of the Flies jerked his head up, but to his relief, there appeared to be no sound of a reaction from the fortress. His snaggle-toothed mouth contorted into an ugly leer of a smile as he motioned for his fellows, all Dark Tribe acolytes like himself, to start scaling the walls.
Ropes and grapnels saw Khrosh and three of his best clambering up Khargukor's outer wall; chancing a look over the battlements, Khrosh smiled as he saw a single guard, armed with spear and shield, prowling the walls. Waiting until the guard had passed them, Khrosh nodded to one of his men, who silently slipped over the battlements and opened the sentry's throat for him. The rest of the infiltrators clambered over once they saw the coast was clear; looking around, Khrosh could see a few more sentries prowling the walls, but no more than a handful, a single Orc prowling each stretch of the walls, with maybe one or two languishing near the braziers, waiting their turn to relieve the sentry on the wall. With Khargukor only recently fallen, it would seem the Gravewalker had fewer soldiers to hold it than he'd had to take it. It would be child's play to avoid being seen and get to the places they needed to be, Khrosh thought as his mutilated face twisted into a grotesque smile.
"You" Khrosh hissed to one of his underlings "Spike the grog barrels, and when the fun starts, set them ablaze; I want plenty of fire and explosions to cover the assault! You" he pointed to another "find where they keep the caragors in this place and turn 'em loose! The rest of you; find and free the prisoners this place might hold" Khrosh tittered maniacally as his minions departed to complete their objectives, while he moved to set a few explosives to the main gate, ready for when the main assault got underway. As he watched, his second-in-command, Bûth Eagle-Eye clambered up to the top of the gatehouse, ready to loose the signal for those hiding in the valley out of sight of the fortress sentries to launch the attack.
'I held up my end of the deal, Amûg' Khrosh thought as he slipped into the shadows, nodding up to Bûth to signal the attack as he slunk away, waiting for the opportune moment. 'Make sure you and your Shrieker master hold up yours'.
The first warning that the defenders of Khargukor had was a mighty explosion against the outer walls to the right side of the fortress. The stink of grog and smoke hung heavy over the air as Talion stormed out of the fortress keep, sword drawn, trying to work out what had happened as Khargukor's Orc garrison raced in the direction the blast had come from. "I warned the Grog-Brewer the next time his concoctions blew, I'd have his head!" Talion seethed furiously but the voice at the back of his head voiced disagreement.
"This is no accident" Celebrimbor insisted. "This is sabotage! I warned you that Sauron's forces would come to take this fortress back!"
"But how?" Talion demanded. "There is no force in this valley that had the power to attack this fortress! Nurnen and Cirith Ungol are pacified...the only place this could have come from-"
"Is Barad-dûr itself" the wraith's voice in the back of his mind concluded. "I warned you we should have built up our defences! Sauron has clearly grown tired of the setbacks we have inflicted upon him. Well, when this attack is turned aside, we will march to the gates of Barad-dûr and teach the Dark Lord the folly of underestimating our strength, of thinking his pitiful Orcs can get the better of our veterans! When this is over, I will hold Sauron's skull between my hands and -"TALION, GUARD YOURSELF!" Celebrimbor shouted and Talion dodged aside, an arrow that might have hit him in the chest slamming into the bricks of the garrison building at the exact height where his heart had been. Looking up, he saw an Orc perched atop the gatehouse reloading a crossbow and taking aim. Talion dived behind the cover of a nearby armoury, shielding himself from the Orc sniper's sights, mentally charting a course that would allow him to get to the gatehouse without exposing himself to the archer's shots, when another explosion rent the night. Chancing a look around the corner of the building, to his horror Talion saw the fortress gates had been blown apart and now a battalion of Orc berserkers, axes clutched in each hand, were pouring through the breach. As he watched, Talion saw a line of shieldbearers, their armour smeared with blue paint, move into a horseshoe formation, creating a barrier keeping the berserkers from advancing further into the fortress. At their head, Talion saw one of his finest captains, Ugakuga the Elder, a veteran of the Warmonger tribe, his leathery, battle-scarred skin, heavy plate armour and claymore all hallmarks of a life spent on the battlefield. The Elder had served him well in taking the fortress, and Talion was confident Ugakuga could hold the defences at the gatehouse for a time.
Suddenly, bellows and yelps of dismay came from the left; he saw a trio of Orcs running towards him and commanded them to stop. "You there! What is happening?!"
Two of the Orcs kept running, too panicked to stop, but the third remembered himself enough to stop and answer. "Bright Lord, the pens! Someone's opened the pens! We-!"
The report was cut short as a grey and white-streaked blur hit the Orc and bowled him over; he just had about enough time to scream before the caragor's jaws clamped shut on his skull. In an instant, Talion put an arrow through the beast's skull, too late to save the Orc though, and cast his gaze about him; it was fairly easy to piece together what had happened- the explosions had been set off, the fortress's garrison had gone running to investigate, allowing another enemy to get around and turn loose the caragors the beastmasters amongst his captains were trying to break. At that moment, a quintet of the beasts, their jaws and fangs slick with Orc blood, rounded the corner of an armoury and, sensing the sweeter taste of human meat, broke into a loping run straight for him. Talion held his ground, his eyes fixed on one point, waiting for the caragors to reach it...and then Celebrimbor loosed an arrow, hitting a stack of grog barrels exactly as the caragors were alongside it. Two of the beasts were incinerated almost instantly, while the remaining three ran in differing directions, their fur aflame, two fleeing away, the third heading straight at Talion. Whether it was coming for him in the hopes of lashing out at something in its own pain, or because it was trying to get away and didn't care what got in its path, Talion didn't know, but he held his ground until the last moment...when he dropped low and thrust his sword out when only a metre separated him and the charging beast. The caragor's own momentum did the rest.
Planting a boot on the dead caragor's flank and pulling his sword from its heart, Talion cast about him; the caragors were doing some damage, but it wouldn't be enough to fully undermine the defences. As he watched, several enemy Orc berserkers clambering over the walls were set upon by the rampaging caragors their allies had turned loose, and now they'd realised the explosion had been a distraction, those defenders who could be spared from the gatehouse and the battlements were forming up under the command of Ur-Edin Warborn, an Olog warmonger skilled in putting down Mordor's wildlife, to put down the rampaging creatures.
"Our lieutenants can handle the beasts; our presence is needed to hold the line at the gate! If they see the Bright Lord at their head, our legions will fight all the fiercer!" Celebrimbor insisted. With a nod of agreement, Talion raised his hand, the ring upon it ablaze with pale blue light, and gave a howling cry; seconds later in answer, a grizzled old male dire caragor leapt down from the rooftops and lowered itself enough for Talion to clamber onto its back. Talion grinned as he mounted the thing; one of the oldest and vilest beasts that had been caged in Khargukor when the fortress had fallen into their hands, the dire caragor had killed two Orcs and maimed a third that had tried to enter its pen. Zûgor had branded the creature 'a right spiteful piece of shrakh' and the name had stuck. However, its bestial mind had been easily overcome by the power of the New Ring and Talion had claimed Spite, as he'd dubbed the monster, as his own steed- the caragor was fast, resistant to injury and savage to anything its master pointed it at.
Digging his heels into Spite's sides, Talion hung on as the caragor clambered up the armoury's walls and leapt from rooftop to rooftop. Within seconds, they had leapt to the gatehouse, where the Orc marksman had been lining up a shot at Ugakuga when he realised there was a slavering, leonine predator stood right next to him. The Orc archer's eyes went wide with terror, Talion grinning as he realised the marksman was terrified of caragors, but before he could take two steps, Spite had knocked him down and pinned the Orc to the ground. He managed to scream once before the caragor's jaws crushed his skull like a walnut between them. Leaping from the saddle, motioning for Spite to attack any other enemy archers that tried to gain a vantage, Talion leapt from the battlements, dagger drawn, crashing down atop an enemy berserker about to finish off one of his own Orcs on the ground, driving his blade into the foe's eye socket, before his sword was unsheathed, pointing it at the mob of enemies streaming in through the broken fortress gates. The blade flashed out, parrying an axe swung at his head. Talion ducked under another Orc's blade, spun on his heel and buried his sword in the offending attacker's guts. He swept an Orc's legs out from under it and beheaded the ugly creature before its back hit the snowy ground. Black blood spilled in torrents as what Talion did not slay, the Orc defenders of the fortress, buoyed up by his example, flung themselves into the fray; twin axes wielded in each hand clashed against shield and spear, defenders shoving their foes away before driving spears through their guts to bring their enemies down. Ugakuga parried a blow aimed at Talion's head, bearing the foe to the ground, beating the offending Orc to death with the spike-knuckled gauntlets he wore. Talion returned the favour by quickly loosing an arrow over his lieutenant's shoulder, hitting a berserker pulling back its axes for a swing at the Elder's back clean through the throat. For a moment, the balance of the battle swung in the favour of the defenders...and then chaos erupted.
A pair of missiles that could only have come from Siege Beasts slammed down from above, and Talion, Ugakuga and the other defenders were sent flying as both the blast impacts and the grog barrel stacks the attackers were aiming at exploded. Staggering back to his feet, Talion saw more Orc berserkers, carrying banners bearing the insignia of the Machine Tribe charging through the flames, and at their head...
"You!" Talion spat at the sight of one of his oldest and most persistent enemies, Amûg Swords-Master. Their mutual enmity had raged across Nurnen, laying waste to Queen Marwen's territories, Talion having wrought ruin upon the Orc's visage time and again, with fire, with sword, with arrows and caragor claws, but time and again, Amûg had returned to plague Talion. He'd left him for dead at the gates of Ered Glamhoth when Talion and his forces had butchered their way through the Tower of Sauron's garrison, had plunged his sword through the wretched Orc's chest when Amûg, serving as the Witch King's personal champion, had duelled with the Gravewalker in the great arena of Minas Ithil, and yet once more he had returned. 'How?!' Talion thought to himself. 'How many more times must I kill you, Orc?!'
"You should have made sure I was dead in Minas Ithil, you miserable shrakh-stain!" Amûg taunted, unsheathing the twin, venom-dripping blades from which he took his name.
"I won't make that mistake again!" Talion shouted back. "This time, I'll take what's left of your ugly head off your shoulders!" the Ranger vowed as they collided together. Gondorian steel clashed against iron forged in the foundries of Gorgoroth as their blades locked, Talion shoving his opponent away, Celebrimbor's hand covering his own as a mithril-made smithing hammer materialised in Talion's grasp, colliding with Amûg's temple, stunning him. Taking advantage of the opening, Talion lunged forward, driving his sword into Amûg's belly, but to his horror, the Orc merely chuckled, showing no discomfort at having a metre of steel buried in his guts.
"I don't work like that anymore, Tark!" Amûg sneered, a gauntleted hand darting out and seizing Talion by the throat. The Ranger's eyes went wide as the Orc Warchief lifted him clean off the ground, holding Talion up to his sack-cloth wrapped face, the rank stink of rotting meat, grog and tooth decay causing the Ranger to gag in disgust.
"And this is for setting my head on fire!" Amûg sneered before hurling Talion through the air and into the heart of the raging flames the detonating grog barrels had ignited. Talion rolled as he hit the ground hard, ripping the cloak from his back- the entire thing had ignited- and throwing it over the head of an axe-wielding savage hoping to take advantage. The Orc staggered away, wrapped in the blazing rag and Talion drove his sword through the Orc's back. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Ologs, their faces smeared with black warpaint moving to attack, recognizing the gang in service to Ar-Pratu Pain-Seeker. He raised his hand to call them to his side...and was shocked when the gang of Ologs completely ignored his summons and attacked from behind the shield-bearers trying to fend off the savage Orcs storming through the fortress gates. Talion was so caught off-guard by this brazen treachery he never saw the attack coming. Something hit him in the small of the back with the force of a charging graug and sent him flying; Talion collided with the wall of a nearby building and hit the ground hard. He rolled over, but before he could get back up, a huge hand slammed down on him, pinning him to the earth. An ugly, scaly face, a sallow yellow-green in hue, distinguished by three deep scars where an untrained caragor had raked its would-be new master with its claws, leered down at him, baring a vicious smile of yellowed teeth, most filed to points.
"Everyone said you were too strong to take on. I had to wait for the right moment to strike...and I'd say the moment has arrived, wouldn't you?!" Ar-Pratu laughed gleefully, crushing Talion between the ground and the palm of the Olog's meaty hand. His laughter became a bellow of pain and fury as Talion's dagger stabbed between his fingers and the Olog recoiled; Talion rolled aside as Ar-Pratu's mace came smashing down where he had been seconds before.
"Long shall be your suffering, Man-swine! Joyous shall be your pain!" Ar-Pratu promised as he advanced, bellowing and swinging his mace in great sweeping arcs that would have crushed the man's head if they connected. Talion constantly rolled away, tossing a throwing knife or two to force the Olog to reconsider his assault. Talion ducked under the mace's next blow, aimed at his head and stabbed out with his own blade; the sword took Ar-Pratu between the ribs, but the only sound that escaped the Olog was a howl of rage that followed Talion as Ar-Pratu seized him by the shoulders and flung him across the courtyard. Suddenly, another heavy blow hit him across the back and Talion's vision began to swim; he looked behind him to see a mutilated and mutated visage, one he had last seen in Cirith Ungol. The Orc assassin licked the hooked metal claws he had in place of his arms, hissing venom dripping from their tips, the same venom making Talion's head spin.
"You!" Celebrimbor snarled hatefully at the smug sneer on the disgusting face of Khrosh of the Flies, the elven wraith baring his teeth, eager to cleave the living fly nest's head from his shoulders with the glaive he favoured on the ground, but Khrosh didn't wait for Celebrimbor to reach him, flinging two blades from his belt with the mutilated claws that served him for hands after Talion had severed both his arms. Talion ducked and dodged the knifes, wincing as a third hit him in the shoulder but he'd managed to cover the ground between them and lunged for the vile Orc when something hit him hard in the small of his back. Talion staggered forward, ripping out the point of an Orcish spear from where it had hit him; looking up, he saw a gaunt, grey-skinned Orc smile mockingly at him from a rooftop, before hurling another spear with his remaining arm, the other a rusted, hook-clawed metal prosthesis. Talion rolled away as the missile slashed through the air where his right leg had been, but before he could contemplate how to bring the enemy above him down, there came another roar from behind him and with the heavy blow of a mace to his upper back, Talion knew he was finished. He barely heard At-Pratu's mocking taunts as he was brought low, but he felt every blow pounding him deeper and deeper into the ground, tasting blood and snow and sodden earth on his lips, feeling bones break and snap...
The last thing Talion saw before darkness took him was dark green mist beginning to seep over the ground of the fortress. Above it all, he heard the leathery beating of wings and a keening screech like metal being torn...
Next time: Talion returns to send a message...