Middle-Earth, Dunland: T.A. 3000, January 1st
Ten years, it had been ten very long years since Mandos had first stepped foot onto this terrible plane of existence. Ten long years of battle, ten long years of struggling to make the creatures he'd spent most of his existence trying to stop screaming, into some form of an army.
But he had to do this, he just had to, he'd spent so much of his life trying to stop the screaming of the dead that he simply could not stomach the same from the living. It wasn't even like one of the second born had any reason to scream; they wouldn't suffer the same fate, when they died, they would go on to be with the creator. To be with Eru himself, couldn't they see how truly lucky they were? No, he supposed they didn't, as small minded as they were, he supposed they didn't see much of anything really. Not the pain those that went before them went through because their spirits were tied so tightly to Arda, nor the service those same wretched souls did them now by snatching their pathetic lives away. Truly if these past years had proven anything, it was that he would always remain the most unappreciated of his kin.
Well he supposed, it would all be over soon, one last battle and then he could finally rest.
***
Dunlich Castle
There was many a day in Mab's life that she wished she had been drowned with her brother that day, ten years ago. This was one of those days, in fact if she was completely honest, it had been one of those five years. Ever since the cave-in of the Passage of the Dead their enemy had become far more determined to see every one of her people dead and in the ground. Or worst by far, in their ranks.
If that hadn't been bad enough the Gondorians were now a known presence in the land. Or perhaps more accurately: a known threat. Their army had been surprisingly bigger than the council of chieftains had at first supposed. They were a bunch of green boys who could barely tell the pointy end of a sword, but there were rather a lot of them. Have enough of them thrown at you and even the most skilled and battle hardened of warriors would begin to bend.
Well most warriors, but perhaps not this one. The man in the bed before her didn't quale under even the most terrifying hordes of the Dead. The Leomhann didn't quell when the walls of that cave came crashing down on top of him, didn't even quell when they were dragging him out from under it…didn't even make a sound when they had to amputate that leg.
And for the last five years he had led them from the modified saddle of a great grey stallion. And he would still be out there on the battlefield now, if it hadn't been for that three-pronged, poison laced, arrow tip that got lodged in his other leg.
Mab arranged herself in the chair beside Leomhann's bed, the bowl she carried resting gently on her lap. He was still asleep, and if the reports of the healers were anything to judge by, would likely remain so for quite some time. Still it gave her something to focus on that wasn't a war strategy or prophecies predicting war strategies. At this point there was little magic could do to help her people defend their land, there were only so many fires you could fling at your enemy before it started to damage the land permanently. Also, it drained her far more now, in her twenty-second year of life, than it had when she'd been that scared twelve-year-old girl.
Memories of that day flooded Mab's mind, and she turned her eyes down to the Leomhann's face. He had aged since then, well they all had really, but it sat on him the best. His beard, though still dyed as blue as it had ever been, now showed signs of the grey that had never poked through before. His nose was far more bent and crooked, having been broken more times than any man could count and around his eyes the worry lines were deep and imbedded. He'd been younger than thirty, when she'd first met him, now she doubted even he knew how old he was – their people's tradition of stopping counting after you hit thirty, so as not to tempt fate, was a well-grounded superstition. Few people lived to thirty in this land, so why thumb your nose at the fates if you were lucky enough to live past it?
Half forgetting herself Mab's hand travelled to the side of the great man's face and cupped his cheek. Tired eyes flickered open then and stared up at her with confusion in their brown depths. But even then, under that great gaze, she did not take her hand away.
'Mab?'
His voice was thin and pain-filled; it made Mab weak to hear it. The bowl on her knee clattered to the floor as she surged forward and kissed him with all the passion she had in her thin body. His eyes widened and for just a second his arms floundered, before curling round her waist and pulling her closer.
***
Dunland, High Camp of the Gondorians
It had been a good five years for the Gondorian Army of Dunland; well their Steward might not have thought so, but the Youngest Brother was still quite happy with their success, well as happy as he could be these days. Sure, they might have lost the mine – and his one remaining brother in tow – but they'd reaped their vengeance two-fold in the blood of the Dunlanders. But no matter how many Dunland savages they killed or how much of this strange and bizarre land they reclaimed in Gondor's name, Denethor never seemed impressed when he wrote back. It was almost like, that without the metal from the mine, the Steward of Gondor considered invading Dunland a waste of their time.
Which was probably why, when they had called for more aid and arms to help fight their righteous crusade: Denethor had not even replied. Still regardless, they had made their mark on this monstrous land. Camps with the flag of Gondor were littered all around the jagged hills of this country.
It was a testament to true Gondor strength and courage that they had been able to withstand and hold their lines when the Dunlanders had literally begun raining fire down on their heads. Sure, they'd had to abandon a couple of camps north of the river that ran through Dunland, but they'd re-founded them on the other side, and the land was ruined up there any way. So, it had been a good five years, for the most part.
His brothers' faces may still chase him when he closes his eyes at night, but he was doing good work here. Honourable work, and perhaps when he was gone his people, would remember him with pride instead of the shame they felt... about his brothers.
As he walked the length of the camp the Youngest Brother gazed at his men. They were preparing for battle, they were always preparing for battle. They had accomplished much in the past year, and they had done so by never letting their guard down, not even when they ate their meals. There were always guards posted at every corner of the camp, and there was always a look-out at the highest point over the camp. Dunlanders tended to attack when the sun went down, and often in rainy weather, but considering this was Dunland and the days were almost always rainy and / or dark, that meant they could attack at any time.
Still there was something different about this time, something more… final feeling. Now he didn't know whether that meant they would finally eliminate the Dunlanders once and for all – a possibility that remained remote, for there were a lot more of them than Gondor had originally thought, – or if it meant that they would fail at last. That the Dunlanders would finally rid the land of all Gondor men for good – an outcome that was far more likely he was sad to say, for they could not last like this forever. Food stores were already beginning to look scarce, and it wasn't as if this land was a safe one to hunt in.
Whatever the cause of it, this feeling of finality still hung over the camp like the waiting call of death.
Dunland, Valley of the Living Death: T.A. 3000, January 11th
The Battle – that would later be known by many names, since nobody could quite agree on what to call it – began at dawn. Or rather began at the time that would have generally been considered dawn, if the sun had come up that day. Though many parts of the battle would later be debated over in great length, the one part that all parties could agree on, was that the Dead began it.
It was in the valley below the High Camp of the Gondorians, where they began to accumulate. At first only a couple stumbled out of the trees and stood waiting in the field below. They didn't attack though, just stood there swaying in the wind, so the look-out on duty didn't even think them worthy of a report. Within an hour though they stood in their hundreds, rim-rod straight and all with their faces turned to the camp above them. The look-out certainly thought them worthy of notice then, but now it was too late. That didn't stop the soldiers grabbing their swords and their shields and running out to defend the field-camp that they had tried to call home for the past five years.
The Dead began to scream. Now the thing you must understand here is that the scream of a Dead Man is not like the scream of a living one. For a start it is far louder: to stand anywhere near such a thing for more than a few seconds, would cause most men to go mad. It is also, even forsaking the volume, not a sound a human would ever make in life; having far more in common with the dying screams of a great bird. Which was probably why when the Dead began their terrible assault on the ears of the living, men were not the only ones to take notice.
The Great Crows of the Fates – known to most out-siders as Crebain from Dunland – were not accustomed to being called so loudly back to their homeland, nor to being so aggressively addressed. So hence they were not in the best of tempers upon their arrival.
The birds were like nothing the men of Gondor had ever seen, in fact they were so strange and so alien that on first sight they couldn't even identify them as birds at all. They seemed more like a black cloud than anything even distantly related to poultry.
Yet when they made their landing and began their own attack – after realising what exactly had called them home – the soldiers couldn't doubt anymore, that these were birds. Great big, completely terrifying birds; more than a few of them fainted.
As for the Crows themselves they were not sure who they were angrier at: the strange men of Gondor Stock who seemed to be invading their home, or the creatures who had possessed the bodies of the people they had long ago deemed adequate to live on their land.
Unable, or just unwilling to decide, they attacked them both: half the birds driving the men from camp downwards into the valley below, and the other half attempting to drive their undead pests backwards.
As for the dead themselves, while they had at first been thrown off by the appearance of these strange birds, the sight of their Lord slicing down the greatest of their air-born attackers spurred them into action. They clawed at the birds above them, ripping into flesh when they could get a good hold, tearing wings from bodies and beaks from heads. And when the fleeing soldiers met their ranks in their terror, well, that was where the fun really began for the creatures that had once been known as the First Born.
The birds had driven the horde back but had lost too many of their flock to continue. They were halfway to their nesting ground, when their leader called a retreat. This land was their home, these people were theirs, but they wouldn't help them by sacrificing the last of their own people. So, they left, and left the humans to deal with their own battles.
The Dead Horde were almost disappointed when the tasty birds flew away, but not for long. The crows had driven the men of the camp to them, and they were almost as tasty, and they were coming up on the castle which they knew was just full of the most scrumptious sweets imaginable.
So close now they were so very close.
The Men of the Clans had not, on that day, been planning an attack. Or at least not one that would result in full scale battle, sure there were always raiding parties hitting the camps of the invaders, but this wasn't exactly the wisest time to mount a full-scale attack upon their second enemy. Their leader was injured and would be out of the battle-field for quite some time, if not permanently. And they were only now beginning to restock their food stores after a particularly biting winter…so no, they had no intention of starting a battle of the magnitude like the one going on right now in the valley below the high camp of Gondor…despite what later Gondor scholars may claim.
It was, strangely enough, Chief Leomhann who spotted the creatures first. Even though the healers huffed and puffed in worry, every time they saw him out of his bed, the chief had no intention of remaining in so cramped a place for any longer than he absolutely had to. He hobbled down the hall, clutching his stick tightly with his good hand.
He'd half collapsed onto one of the stone-benches below the windows before he even cleared three steps from the stairs. Perhaps the healers weren't quite as unreasonable in their demands as he had thought. It was from there, collapsed upon that bench and leaning against that wall that he saw them. They were a swarm, a writhing mass of rotted flesh, and they were heading straight for them. By looks of things they were barely over the third jutting hill from the castle, hardly time to give the cry and alert the others, but hardly time was still time.
The Youngest brother had been swept up in the rush forward, he was almost completely deaf, one eye had been pecked out by a particularly determined bird and he was pretty sure that one of the bones in his right leg had popped free from its socket. But regardless of all that, he kept running forward because there was nothing left to turn back to. The birds had destroyed the camp, and now here he was running amidst an army of…well he couldn't quite say. They weren't ghosts, of that he was certain, yet these were not the faces of living men.
Creatures of death and destruction as much as any enemy of Gondor perhaps, but these were not the living men of Dunland he had thought they were. They wore their clothes and their weapons, but their hands and bodies were rotten like corpses and they clawed at him like cats tearing into a mouse. Oh Eru, he'd known since the death of his brothers that he would not die safe at home in Gondor, but he never thought it would be like this, never like this. Oh Valar, let him not die like this.
The powers of the world seemed not to have listened to this desperate plea, when he was grabbed from behind and flipped onto his back. The face he looked up into now was abysmal: barely more than a skull, rancid flesh hanging off its cheeks. Its eyes rolled back in bare sockets and its teeth gnashed together like hungry beasts desperate for more to eat. So this was how it was all to end, this was how his great crusade would finish, there could not be a worse way.
Screaming and the sounds of horses caused the creature to turn its eyes from its next meal just long enough for the youngest brother to grab his sword again and slice the thing's head from its neck. It didn't seem to kill it; the mouth still clattered its teeth at the heels of those that ran past, but it had certainly saved him. The youngest brother turned then, for up ahead there were screams of men…real, living men, but they were not men of Gondor.
A rush of adrenalin pushed him up to the front, up to his former enemies' side and taking his sword, for the first time since he'd stepped foot on this wretched land, he raised his sword in aide of those savage men of the Dunland Hills.
Rhys was not sure when it had happened, when during battle, they had begun fighting alongside the Gondor invaders. Still it made little difference, even with the combined strength of their fighting prowess, it was not enough to keep back the hordes of the dead. The best they could manage was to keep the retched creatures where they were. Prevent them from coming any nearer to their wives and their children, but they could do little more than that.
Suddenly a great wall of purple and orange flame surrounded the battlefield. A figure appeared on the horizon and Rhys had the strong feeling he knew who it was. That was until the fire parted and the figure came into view at last, Rhys had been expecting Mab – the fire was her signature after all – but it was not the young sorceress who appeared out of the flame that day, no, it was the Leomhann.
Good Gods help them, they were all going to die.
The man Rhys had fought beside all these years strode forward, seemingly unaffected by his missing leg: which was probably because of the artificial one he'd somehow acquired between now and the last time Rhys had clapped eyes on him…which had been yesterday. Honestly, Leomhann was one of the greatest men Rhys had ever known, but sometimes he could be such a gype.
Take now for instance, any sane or remotely intelligent man having just woken up from the induced comma the healers had to put you in, so they could basically stitch your entire body back together without you screaming all the time and distracting them, would probably have taken it a little easy...just for the first few days or so.
Not the mighty Leomhann though, no obviously it was straight back on the battlefield for him…no matter how much of a hindrance he may or may not be to the soldiers who had to defend him.
There was no one defending him now though – Rhys might have, but he was rather preoccupied by not getting a chunk torn out of his neck right now– but this did not seem to bother the mighty Leomhann. He moved into battle as smoothly as if he had possessed both legs and made a b-line for the Lord of the Dead, who had thus far been standing untouched in the middle of the battle. It was such a Leomhann move that Rhys almost cried from laughing, but the clang of the sword of the Gondor man beside him snapped him back to himself, just in time for Rhys to throw off the grasping and decaying hands at his throat.
When the one-legged human had at first approached him, sword swinging at the ready, Mandos had found it hard not to laugh. It was not that the man would not have been considered a threat in a normal situation, even without a leg he was still an impressive specimen of the second born. No, it was the sheer foolhardiness of a mortal going after the lord of the dead, that made it hard for Mandos to keep his face straight.
It was at the first swing of the sword that Mandos' resolve broke and he began to laugh. With each new swing Mandos laughed harder, and with each new pearl of laughter his opponent became angrier and angrier. But no matter how hard the fool fought Mandos would not stop laughing, even when the great fool swung his large sword right at Mandos' head, the lord of the dead did not stop laughing. Even with his head swept clean from his shoulders; Mandos did not stop laughing until the boot of the big fool came down hard and crushed his skull in.
Once the thing is dead the Leomhann laughs himself, he laughs until he falls back into Rhys' arms, he laughs until the fighting around them has come to a standstill – the remaining dead having fled and scattered as soon as their lord's head hit the ground – he laughs until his is the only voice on the battlefield. He laughs until the blood in his mouth chokes him off and then all is silent.
Mab woke clutching her belly and screamed so loud that the entire castle of Dunlich and its surrounding villages were woken from their slumber. Soon all would hear the news: The Lord of the Dead was slain. The men of the Clans had triumphed, and Falkirk Leomhann was dead.
But the dead were still there, and now without a leader they would have no reason to stop. They would spread, Mab saw it now, they would spread through all the lands of Men, and Elves, and Dwarves and Halflings. They would spread until not a single living soul remained. All that stood against them now, was the rage in Mab's belly.
In the land beyond the walls of the slowly crumbling castle, the earth began to shake. Not, this time, with the power of the dead, but the power of the very much alive. It rumbled and shook the very land that the victors stood on, and from there it twisted and snaked through every riverbed, every crack in the stone, every tree, every animal or bird, or insect that scuttled on the ground till at last that power, that huge surge of raging magic reached the edge of the land these Clans of Men called home.
It reached that rocky part of the land that separated Dunland from the Plains of the Strawheads, and from there it began to grow upwards, twisting and turning until…until it began to take a solid form. Trees, all around the land of Dunland, Trees had grown and twisted, blocking out the light until all that remained was a crowning gem at the top where the sun should have been. The people on the ground screamed, the sudden blackness of the sky drowning out any sane thought that might have once entered their heads. They were alone, now truly and no one…not even the gods could reach any man, woman, child or Dead man that had stood upon this earth when the barrier had gone up. There was no escape, neither for the living or the dead anymore.
Outside that cage of tangled, twisted tree limbs, in a tower of black stone sat an old man. Bent and proud looking, well why shouldn't he be…after all, wizards were all proud in some way and none more so than the wizard who sat in the tower. For he was the wisest of all the wizards, and the greatest by far and he did not take kindly to his plans being disturbed. Magic like this was not supposed to exist anymore, particularly not in the hands of men and yet…here it was, plain as the day he had first seen such things.
He'd thought he'd stamped it all out, that strange mortal magic…and yet clearly here it was, still very much alive.
This would need some thought, it was a pity that this…strange object's appearance interfered with his Lord's plans, but still, perhaps all was not lost. The Dunlanders themselves were most likely lost as pawns, but their magic…ah yes, now that could be helpful indeed.