Arda, Dunland, Mine of the Three Brothers: T.A. 2995, August 12th
Denethor may not have exactly lied about giving the brothers troops to command, he stayed true to every word he had said, it was just the words he hadn't that he disregarded. After all he swore they'd have troops, not competent troops. The Army of the Three Brothers was giving the greenest of the greenest boys to swell their ranks. The Youngest of the three brothers, might even have complained – it still felt like a betrayal even if the young man had no legal way to prove it so – but over the years of his rule, Denethor had developed the nasty habit of having anyone who didn't immediately agree with him, whipped. Sometimes until they'd stopped moving permanently, so the boy for once decided to remain silent.
Besides it didn't matter how green his soldiers were now, by the time they returned they would all be warriors. The battle the youngest brother had planned on his return, would have been one for the history books, a final stone in the coffin of the pests known as the Dunlanders. Yes, it certainly would have been…had there been a battle.
They'd arrived at the Mine of the Three Brothers in good time, or rather they arrived at what should have been the Mine of the Three Brothers. What they actually arrived at was a giant grave: the entrance to the mine had been caved in and flowers of an unpleasant aroma had been spread all around. There was no sign of his brother or the other miners. Some small part of him tried to convince himself that there was still hope: they might have gotten away before everything collapsed, but the rest of him knew it was a long shot.
His brother had been murdered by the enemy, the Dunlanders, and now he was going to butcher every one of them in return, right down to the very last child.
If you had gone up to one of the warriors of Dunland and told them they were now at war, they would have most likely replied 'of course I am, now get out of the way you're blocking my spear'. However, if you had gone up to one of them and said they were at war with Gondor, they would have dropped their spear and collapsed in a fit of laughter.
You see up until around a week ago the people known to the wider world as Dunlanders, were not even aware there were men of Gondor in their lands. Why would they be? The land the three brothers had claimed was a cursed one. After all what fool would choose to cross the lines of the dead? They were having enough trouble keeping their own from breaking, they didn't need to go looking for death to find it.
For the last four years the tribes of Dunland had ceased contact with the outside world – not that they had had that much to begin with, but even the raids on Rohan had stopped. No one else really gave it much thought; it was Dunland, who besides Rohan cared about it anyway. Even Rohan didn't really think much of the silence, other than a relief that the savage Dunlanders had finally learned their place, and that Rohan's villages would be safe from marauders for a time. But there was a reason for the silence, a very good one, and that reason was indeed a war; just not one with anything living.
The Dead had begun to rise, and they weren't the dead of men. Oh they looked like them alright. There wasn't a man, woman or child that couldn't pick out at least one sibling or parent among the ever-growing army of bodies. But the family and loved ones that they had buried in the ground weren't there anymore behind those eyes, something was though, but it didn't belong to any spirit of man.
The Dead spoke in a strange and unearthly tongue, but they were intelligent, and they knew what they were doing. Since the day they'd arrived on this plain, those spirits had snatched up every dead body that fell within their sight. Which considering their territory had expanded past the Dead Forest and through most of the fishing clans' territories, that was a lot of bodies to add to your army.
Their enemy's ever-increasing presence had pressed the clans closer together, both physically and figuratively. Times past most of them would have gladly put an arrow through a member of a rival clan's throat, but now the sight of anyone living was one to be welcomed and rejoiced at. Clans that had once guarded their crafts – the way they wove, the way they prepared certain dishes, even the way they made and fought with their weapons – with a fierce jealousy now shared and mingled them with the crafts of Clans who they once called enemy.
Dunland was becoming a land of united peoples. United, some even said, by a single leader. Of course, it was in no way official; clans were still clans and they all had their own chief, but it was commonly known that even the mighty Rhys of the Bear Clan would heed the call of the Leomhann. Falkirk Leomhann, the mightiest of all chiefs; a man whose voice it was said could make the dead tremble in their graves. So, you can imagine the bewilderment of the messenger lad, who had been sent to tell the great man the news of the strangers claiming the caves of the dead as their own, when the Leomhann was struck dumb at the news. The poor boy had been positively terrified when upon telling the greatest of all chiefs the second part of his news – that the strangers had sent for an army to try to erase their land of all Dunlander blood – the mighty man had presently fallen to the ground racked with fits of mirth.
Five Days Later
Falkirk stood at the mouth of the foul smelling cave and covered his nose with his cloak. As did many of the men that surrounding him, the place reeked of sickness and decay, even more so than the Burning Caves.
The Cave's walls stretched into the blackness contained within, no man could live and work in there and stay sane…or living if the smell was anything to go by. The men behind the mighty chieftain had faced the dead on the battlefield a hundred times over, and yet not one of them was willing to set foot in this place…this place where it had all begun: this place where the enemy had arrived.
As he walked further in – cloak firmly wrapped round his nose and mouth – Falkirk couldn't help but grip his sword tighter. Men had been in this place, recently if the reports were correct, yet there was not a sign of them to be found. Even if they had been attacked by the forces of the dead, there should at least be the tattered remains of their camp, yet there was nothing. Not even their blood on the walls. They could have just up and left, it would be what any sane man would do, yet the Leomhann had the growing suspicion that that was not the case here. Something had happened here, something terrible.
As the smell grew in intensity many of his men had to kneel to the ground and wretch, many of them in fact couldn't go on at all. But Falkirk had to know, so he couldn't stop, not yet…not before he found the bodies.
There was no way to see what they were walking into now, the blackness was so thick, not even the torches they carried would stay lit in a place as foul as this. But in the end, they didn't need their eyes to find the men of Gondor – or what was left of them – for they were not yet as silent as the dead should be. Leomhann's foot hit something soft and fleshy, and the youth beneath him cried out in pain.
The large man kneeled and reached a hand down to ease the boy into a sitting position. They could worry about such things as language barriers after they were free of this place. One of the soldiers' torches flared into life and the Leomhann was finally able to see the face of the lad, and his hand reeled back. The boy should have been dead, was dead if the gangrene on his face was anything to judge by. Yet the spark of life was still in his eyes, real life not the forced one the dead were made to live. The Plague…the plague had been through here.
A scream from behind him spun the large man around to face his men again: they huddled together in a defensive pile, their swords and spears stuck out before them creating the illusion of a giant deadly…hedgehog. If the days had been fairer the Leomhann might well have laughed at that image, but these were not the days for such whimsical bouts of jubilance and as the light of the torch's flame grew, he could see the cause of their terror. The walls of the cave around them were not made of stone, nor were they statuary. They moved and wriggled with the weight of the bodies trapped within them. Men and boys' faces looked down on the warriors with vague interest, their necks and bodies covered with what Leomhann had originally thought was limestone but now saw was a red, raw mound of flesh, moving in a rhythmic, thumping fashion as if it itself actually took breath as a man would.
The Leomhann's sword was fully out of his scabbard now, and the boy on the ground choked out sobs of mercy. To whom he begged such things the chief was not sure, but whomever the cry for mercy was directed at, the Leomhann would be the one to answer it. Oblivion could be the only solace for these souls now, not even the dead would welcome such creatures into their arms. The man began to approach the wall, his sword held high; and the faces of the men who had once lived here opened their eyes and watched him. Then just as he was about to swing, they opened their mouths and began to sing.
'Ring around the rosy, a pocket full of posies! A tissue! A Tissue! We all fall down!' Their voices were young, unburdened by the cares of the world. The warriors and their chief readied their swords, and their spears to plunge into the writhing mass of pain that was the wall before them. The creatures screamed when their flesh was pierced, and the walls of the cave began to shake and crumple. The Leomhann gave the order to run, but it was already much too late for that.