Interview 273
Date: December 4th, 1985
Interviewers: Dr. Took & Profs Lasso.
Transcript
Dr. T: Could you speak your name into the Microphone please?
E.K: Well, that is a tricky question, and a dangerous one at that to ask in a place like this, girl. My name? I have many, but none your people have called me by. You cannot ask for my true name, for you know I shall not give it, but you must call me something.
Prof. L: What did He call you?
(Silence for a few seconds and then)
E.K: Yes, that is the heart of the matter. He called me Herne, but I have never been called that since. So, call me Herne if you must, but I shall never answer to it from another's lips.
Dr. T: Fine…Mister Herne. We're here to ask you about your association with the Ringbearer. And before you say one more word, you already know which Ringbearer we mean.
E.K: Aye, that I do. Fine, what do you want to know?
Prof. L: How did you meet him?
E.K: He came to my Mother – then the Queen of the Goblins – with a proposed alliance. A combination of our forces if you will, to combat our mutual enemies.
Dr. T: To fight off the dead.
E.K: Yes, good Doctor, to fight off the dead.
Prof. L And your mother considered that a good enough reason to fight?
E.K: It was the only reason to fight in those days. Ah now, you look at me as if I were mad my good human, but you know that I am not. You are in my realm and see its splendour, observe my people's teeth and claws…would you think my mother's kingdom any less fearsome?
Prof. L: No… of course not.
E.K: No living force could have ever stood against her, but then it was not a living force that drove us underground; that confined us to the caves underneath the deadland of Rohan. Fire cannot kill the dead, nothing can and no matter how many of their bodies you destroy they will always come back. We thought ourselves truly destitute.
Dr. T: And then you met the Ringbearer.
E.K: And then we met the ringbearer.
Dr. T: How old were you?'
E.K: Too young to fight in today's age, even here in the Fairy realm – but back then they didn't even ask.
Prof. L: What was your impression of him? The Ringbearer, that is.
E.K: That is a strange question, for a creature like the Ringbearer there were many layers to him, to say one has an impression of who he was would be to say one has an impression of how terrible a storm is without standing in the middle of it. Aye, I knew The Ringbearer and I knew him well – but an impression I never held.
Prof. L: I see…well…what…
E.K: Enough of these pointless questions. You have braved the gates of fairy and battled your way through to the realm of the goblins, all for the sake of speaking to the King of the Wildfae, that is I. And yet you now waste both our times by bantering about the parts you already know. You must know that I left my mother to join with him, and his Queen's Army otherwise you would not have sought me out to begin with. And you must have gathered your own impression of him from your previous studies, otherwise you would not have known why it was so very vital to speak with me before your story was ended.
Dr. T: Okay then your Majesty, why don't you tell us what we're really here to hear.
E.K: Ah, now there's the question I was waiting for. You want me to tell you about the final battle, between the living and the dead. You want me to tell you what it was like standing by his side, standing by their sides waiting for it all to end. But more than anything you want me to tell you about the last days of Middle- Earth.
Some will say, in the years that would follow, that The Ringbearer was a fool. No Hobbit of course – for their own culture and mythology makes them see the Ringbearers with greater clarity – but the race of Man? Ever is their arrogance that they think they know what has occurred before their stinking race was even learning to smear their shit on the walls. No offence, of course. Men will tell their stories, and for many years it was their custom to demonize or infantilize those of humble origins, as it was for the hobbits and the Elves and the Dwarves. And much to my shame, even the Goblins, and perhaps that is a weakness of mine. But if you had ever met him perhaps you would be filled with your own shame.
You have told me your story and so now little ones; I will tell you mine. I was not but one and twenty when the Ring-bearer came to us as a messenger for Queen Malika, Ruler of all the Hobbits who still dwelled among the living. He promised us great things if we were to lend our armies to his Queen's, and nay all the living's cause. He promised a life free of fear from the dead, and that which my mother valued above all else…vengeance. And so, she agreed and sent me, her favourite son, as her envoy. And so, for the first time in my life I left the comfort and safety of my mother's protection and went out into the world as my own goblin.
I was to serve as his right hand until we made it back to Queen Malika's court, where I was to take my place as a representative of my mother's people in the War for the Living. But if you are here to hear my tale, than you must already know that this was not how my story went.
It didn't take long after leaving the safety of my mother's arms…enough of that snickering back there or I'll break your neck Griphook…for me to realise that things were not all as I thought they would be up on the surface. I had never been there you understand, never stepped foot beyond the caves my mother had made for us. Everything was so bright and so…cold. Our breath came out in puffs of mist, and suddenly the heavy wool clothing the hobbit troops wore made a whole lot more sense.
There was no life up here save for the ones that trudged along beside me. I cannot tell you what I'd imagined the up above to be like for the memory has long since faded, but it was not this. Perhaps I had thought that the world would be green, as green as the Ringbearer's eyes, or worse perhaps I had thought it a maggot. A squirming mass of half-dead flesh, that only the truly brave and noble would dare to even tread on. But whatever I thought I remember clearly being disappointed by it, for whatever your imagination may have twisted it to be the world up above was just that, a land. Empty yes, and quickly dying from the curse of the dead, but nothing more terrible than that. It wasn't the land, that a Goblin should have feared. For you see my dears, we were attacked as soon as we were free from the cave and not by the dead.
'Get down!'
The Ringbearer screamed and suddenly I found myself pushed down, onto the muddy ground. Above me, I could hear the sound of screams and curses such as you would never hear today. I do not speak the language of the hobbits, or the elves, even now, so I could not tell you what those strange mud coated creatures screamed at us. All I knew was that they wanted to hurt us, kill us even and I was very much afraid. So much to my chagrin I stayed where the General had ordered me, as around me the others flew to their weapons and launched themselves at the creatures. The tall creatures with mud-soaked hair and savage eyes.
I pressed my face into the mud, as I heard the others scream and fall and bleed around me. The noises, the screams of dying hobbits in my ears haunts me even to this day, even as I am prince no more but king. This was my first taste of any battle and it was an ugly affair, there is no honour in war despite the songs. And there was even less in this battle for we did not fight the dead, we did not fight the enemy, those held sway under evil…that's the scary thing isn't it, Sauron, Morgoth, Fëanor none of these forces compelled that fight. It was nothing but hunger, and desperation and the mistrust of foreigners that urged these blades forward.
And then, suddenly the Ringbearer's voice screamed out with an almighty bellow such as I had never heard before nor since.
'Stop!' He cried, and it was as if for a moment the sun filled the sky again and then it was gone and we stood – myself having been dragged to my feet by one of the burlier hobbits – in the dribbling, stinky mud. And we were able to look at ourselves and the hobbits and the men and elves that had fallen under the living's blades and we were ashamed.
'What the Fucking Blarney do you mean by this?' Snarled the Ringbearer, the cock of his helmeted head expressing what his covered face could not. One of the taller attackers stood forward then, reached his long-fingered hand up and swept his own muddied helmet away from his face. I had never seen an elf before, though I had certainly heard many a terrible tale of their ilk. He was not pretty by goblin standards – with long, mud encrusted hair and his half-mad blue eyes – but few people are. Yet something must have certainly been remarkable about him, for the Ringbearer gasped. Yet the elf did not seem to notice this.
'My apologies, we mistook you for the Dead. I am Legolas Thranduil, and these are my troops. We fight for the Army of the Living, what little is there left of it once the dead had their way with our land, our mines and our homes. We did not think any Hobbits yet lived.'
'Aye,' said the Ringbearer's deep voice. 'I suppose there are hobbits in the world that don't live,' and with an air of finality he yanked the helmet from atop his head. 'But I'm not one of them.'
It was the first time I had seen his face. His eyes were a shocking green colour, the lines stretching from them creasing his scarred face. Oh aye, the Ringbearer's face was very scarred indeed. Long raucous scars that stretched from hairline to jaw, with smaller puckered scars in between as if nails had stabbed and raked through the skin of his face. He was an old hobbit, with wrinkles deepened until one could hardly tell where they stopped and the scars began. He was not beautiful, even by Goblin standards, but he was quite remarkable. Clearly the elf must have thought so too, for he stood in awe at our leader's splendour. Letting his helmet fall, he dropped to his knees and cried out, though out of joy or despair I knew not.
The Ringbearer led us back to the mud dweller's base and we looked at our enemies in the full light of day, without their mud garb to hide them anymore. It was a sad sight – Elves with their face's half torn off, blinded children of men, dwarves with their beard's half torn out and the lingering stench of feces in the air. Perhaps this was the life, what we had vowed to protect, but I could not see it then…my mind was too overwhelmed with the wretchedness of it all.
The mud-soaked elf known as Legolas and our Ringbearer left us, to go talk in a secluded corner of the cave that the Mud-dwellers called home. To this day I do not know what they spoke of, all I know is this: I should have gone with them. But I didn't, no instead I stood with the others – all those fine hobbits of the East, and the South and even a couple from the North – as around us the Mud-dwellers moved like frogs in the dark. They did not seem afraid of us, not as I defined fear but there was something wrong in the way their eyes skittered around us as if even the thought of looking at us was too painful to bear. We did not move, for even then I think we could sense that something terrible would happen if we made ourselves notable. Well, more noticeable than we already were, for standing in the middle of these forgotten wretches, the gold shine of the hobbits' armour stood out like a star in the dark of the night sky.
'Halflings…why did they bring Halflings here?' An old man with strange signs scratched across his face snarled from the darkness. 'Are they our food? Are we to eat the Dead now? The cursed? The rotted flesh?'
'I would not call others rotted flesh if I looked like you,' spat a soldier next to me. His helmet was off, exposing his dark olive face to the room. He was young, maybe even younger than I and he was grinning…grinning at me like it was all a big joke. I wanted to grin back, I really did but the sharp voice of the Ringbearer's actual right hand broke through our moment of joy, like a pickaxe to the head.
'Kaldo, shut the fuck up, or I will hurt you.'
When you hear the tales – the books, the moving-pictures that men will try to tell of this part of Middle-Earth history – you may pick up a certain image of the kind of hobbit that dwelled within that far off land. This hobbit is soft, with a round belly and shining golden buttons. This hobbit prioritises comfort and food, and lives in the rolling green hills of the idyllic Shire. This kind of hobbit lives a life of leisure, sometimes occupied by rewarded research but most of the time occupying themselves with nothing but frivolity. They are gossip obsessed, when they are not pulling cruel pranks on their neighbours and kinfolks. In short, the hobbit that you my dear Professor, will know best is a creature that is completely helpless without the aid of man. Addo Ballbreaker was none of these things.
'But Captain…I was just saying…he started it.'
Ah, Doctor I see you know that name well, as someone of your birth should. This was my first real meeting of Addo Ballbreaker – a name that admittedly was probably assigned to him posthumously but never the less suited him to a tee.
'Do not provoke them. Do you understand me.'
He was big, for a hobbit at least, probably as tall as a Took, with much larger shoulders. He was a Southern hobbit, possessing the dark eyes and complexion of the Men of the south; and he carried himself with an air of finality, as if his word was to be the end of each and every argument between us, and indeed it was. The Ringbearer was our general, no doubt, but Ballbreaker was our captain and had far more sway over our day to day lives. There are many tales that have and will be told of him in years, centuries to come, but all of them say least to one single truth about his character: he was not a hobbit that you crossed lightly.
Ah, I've confused you haven't I…by that statement you think I did not like him, that I resented his harsh words and strict demeanour with me. But that is a child's view, and despite my age back then I had not been a child for some time. In Hobbit myth and legend Addo is a hero, as he was back then, but one of – oh how can I put it in human terms, ah yes that'll do – Hercules like stature. You would hardly think him mortal in such stories, but this is a tale of facts not fiction, and the Captain Addo that I knew was not the reckless adventurer of myth, or the immortal demigod of legend, but a soldier through and through. And one who had the particularly knack for reading a room. It was just a pity that his soldiers did not always follow in his example.
Example A, for instance.
'Or they're gonna do what, Captain? Fall all over us? Gum us to death? Please, give us a challenge why don't you? Hey…hey! Old man, come on I'll give you the best shot, try and hit me across the chin and I swear I won't even try to hit back.'
The old man, beaten and ragged stood up then and Kaldo stepped forward, an arrogant grin plastered over his young face. I never realised then how young he was…how young we all were. Really, only Captain Addo and the General were anywhere past their thirty-third birthday. Kaldo did not fear the living, not as I did, for he had fought the dead and knew in his heart that there was nothing worse than that. What could a living man do to you… that a Dead man couldn't do a hundred times worse? He was right in a way of course, but to this day I wish he had just shut up and followed orders.
The man attacked, with blunted teeth and shattered nails and all we could do is stand and watch. Because if anyone else stepped in, if anyone else lent their blade or their spear in Kaldo's defence then the Mud-dwellers would be able to step in too. That was the rules of the Challenge, that Kaldo in his idiocy had accidently provoked. So, no one stepped forward, we just stood there in utter silence as that young hobbit…as that young hobbit was torn apart. It shouldn't have happened, an idiot Kaldo might have been but he was still a soldier of Queen Malika. He was still a warrior of the Turtle-Fish – this frail old man should not have been enough to overpower him, and even then, his armour should have at least offered some protection from…from…the throat ripping.
Oh…the blood…there was so much blood. And the old man…oh Mother…the old man just laughed his blackened teeth stained red as he howled.
'Looks like meat's back on the menu boys.'
And they all laughed at that, as they slowly began to circle the rest of us.
'Formation.'
Said Ballbreaker, without breaking a beat. I remember being dragged backward into the middle of the formation circle, while all the others faced outwards…outwards at our enemies, their spears ready for attack.
'Okay, we don't want a fight today. You've had your fun now, let's be sensible here. Stop now of your own accord, or we'll be forced to stop you ourselves.' Captain Addo's voice was calm and almost melodious, he did not look at the tattered remains of Kaldo's throat or the human crouching over it making crunching sounds.
'Hobbits are all dead anyway,' came the sing song voices of the crowd, and then they advanced. I do not know if we would have been able to hold them off. I am great now, but I was very small then. Ballbreaker was a mighty warrior, but even he would break under the greater and more ravenous odds of the Mud-dwellers if he had to stand against them alone. We'll never know, because fate was kinder to us that day.
'I said STOP!'
And suddenly the cave filled with such a light, that it made the Mud-dwellers cringe and cry out.
It made us all cry for it touched us all.
For it was us all.
It was everything and everyone.
From the old kings that still stood in the East, to the smallest babe born under the Northern skies, this light made them all. It was what had been before, not just Eru Ilúvatar, this light had been here as long as there had been a here. Before Men, before Elves, Dwarves or Hobbits, even before Middle-Earth, before the first songs of the Valar, before the Valar themselves. This light had been here, beautiful, living all on its own and thriving.
It came before Ilúvatar, I see that now. In fact, it is what drew him here. Before the light he was nameless, a creature just like so many that lived out beyond the walls of the world. Existing but not truly living, in the blueness of his world. And then he had seen the light, quite literally, and like a miser he coveted it and sought to keep it for himself. But there was no way to keep that light away from the others, for there was no way that he could reach it for he was a creature of the Other Realm and he never could enter this one, not for long anyway, not without breaking it.
And that was the trick in it all, for if Ilúvatar were to finally lay claim to the light it would break and then there would be nothing at all, nothing but the storm and the howling beasts at the door. So, he had made them, made the Ainur – who were his make but not him himself, they could walk in the world and they would not break it. He taught them to sing, he taught them to create while yet they still dwelt in his mind and then when they were formed in full, he sent them out, into the walls of the world so they might sing and create more for the glory of the light. And they would sing the world into being and the light would create it for them.
That is the secret, one that not even the Valar wise in their age, had been able to grasp. Eru himself did not grant them the ability to create the world, it was the light. And everything, and every one that Ilúvatar tried to create, was an aspect of that light. For that light was life, it was the living – it even touched the Valar and their lesser spirit kin, every single one of them even down to the most corrupted.
They had always thought that it was the trees, the trees that Melkor and that monstrous spider had destroyed, but it wasn't. They were just the light's avatars in this physical realm. They had not been the light, for the light was life and even the most corrupted among the people of this universe held it within them – even Melkor himself, though he would never know it.
Thus, the Silmarils were not special at all, they were simply the light forced into a physical shell that it was never meant to be. They were not evil, but they were not good either, they are simply what all that touched that light were…. they were living.
And I could see them all, for I was them all, every Silmaril, every man, every child, every creature that crawled across this earth. I was them and they were me, and I could see where they stood, where they would stand and where they would never tread. I saw the living all around me, but I could not see the dead, for though the light touched them too it was not in the same way. For they were the past, they were those that should never have returned and so the light shifted and twisted from them, and they were shadows, deep purple shadows amongst the living. And the greatest of those shadows sat not in the dead land of Dunland, but closer in Gondor where the King once dwelled.
Fëanor, I could see him…and more importantly he could see me.
This is what dwells behind the Ringbearer's skin, where anyone else would have their soul, beaten and shaped by the world around them he has this. He has the light, bright and loud like a fire in the woods. Everyone comes from the light, even the orcs, this is true, but the Ringbearer is the light heart and soul like no other mortal or immortal is. This is what the mortal conscience hides in the Ringbearer.
You must be wondering, my dear learned children, why I have focused on this encounter more than anything else you might want to hear. I have not told you of the final battle between the living and the dead. I have not told of the last confrontation against Fëanor – even though these are the reasons that you sought me out in my kingdom below the earth. You need to understand why I focused on this…this scrap between Mud-dwellers and Malika's soldiers. Why I chose to focus on a fight that really only had one casualty, and only that because Kaldo was too stupid to obey his captain's orders. I tell you about this scrap because for the story you wish to tell, the story of the Silmarillion this is the most important battle of all. Because, don't you see, it was the first battle where we actually saw him for what he was. Not Goblin, or Hobbit, or Elf or Man, not even Mortal – the Ringbearer was beyond all that. And this is the moment when everyone in that cave saw it for themselves.
He was terrifying, a creature of pure golden light, and yet there was something more to him than that. Something much more dangerous, we could hardly see it past the light, but the shape of the head was not quite right …not how it should have been on a hobbit. And the hands, well they looked more like claws from where I stood. Goblins are said by many to be a fearsome sight, but we were nothing compared to this. Not even the dead could stand against such a sight.
Yet it was neither the light, or the claws or the teeth, or even the glass like skull that I stared at then, it was the eyes. They were green, like the colour of dead grass. And they stared, as if they were looking right into my soul and finding me wanting. I tell you this not because I want to scare you, although it is funny to watch your faces through my tale, but because I want you to know more than anything – that this was the first moment that I really met the Ringbearer..
This is the person that you tell your story about.
You sit there and stare at me, but I do not know why. Surely you knew already that the Ringbearer was not a normal hobbit. Surely you knew already of the effects his Silmaril soul had had on his body and his life and his family. Of his son born made of glass not blood but born of the light, and the creatures lying within each of his descendants' breasts? Surely this cannot be a surprise?
Perhaps I could expect this of a human but hobbit, doctor, truly you should be ashamed of yourself. Go back to your writings girls, and amend that which you have thought was truth. The Ringbearer was not…is not a mortal hobbit. He is a Silmaril and that encourages all the manner of wonders even your sad little minds can produce. Well? What are you waiting for? Go! Go before I sick my people's claws and teeth on you. They have been so hungry for human flesh for so long Professor, but I'm certain they'd settle for anything living, Doctor.
And still you stay? Still you want to know more, more tales of our battles and our feats of strength? Well, you show more steel than I would expect of creatures of your kind. But then I suppose, that is the one thing all the races of the free people of Middle-Earth have in common: an ability to surprise me.
Very well I will tell you one last tale and then we are done, and you shall leave my kingdom and never return. But if one day you forget what I have said and dare to venture past my borders again, I shall have you and everyone you hold dear slaughtered in my hunt. Do you understand? Good. Now, shall we begin again?
There are many tales of valour and might I could tell you from those dark days, when I walked the face of Middle-Earth. But there is only one tale that truly captures the horror of what we went through, of what we faced, which is good for it is the last tale I shall ever tell of this part of my life.
Long had the soldiers of the Turtle-Fish and the Mud-Dwellers fought side by side against the creatures of the dead since that first scuffle. Since the first time I had seen the Ringbearer for what he truly was. Ever we fought them with fire and blades of dead metal and for a time it seemed like their numbers were thinning. Like we were finally driving back those terrible hordes of Dead men. We began to joke and laugh again; we began to think of a time where we would not always have to be on guard. Where the sight of someone shuffling forward in the distance did not instantly fill us with terror. Before, during the day all we could do was sleep and during the night all we could do was fight. But now we began to talk of happier things, of wines and cheeses, and all the wonder that had once existed in the world. The survivors of the Mirkwood fires talked of the great wine cellars of their people, and we grew thirsty with each word from their mouths. And so, for the first time in I don't know how many years, we planned a party.
We didn't have much you understand – no great wine cellars or mountains of pork for us. (This was a time before hobbits had sworn off all animal products in their food, you understand.) Looking back now, a party, even if nothing had gone wrong, was a very silly thing to have, especially considering how little food we had left in our rations.
We had:
Lembas, half baked from the sun. One of the elves had discovered it at the bottom of their pack and had been saving it for a special occasion – or so he said anyway.
Yellow soup with some kind of fish, and a small bundle of jasmine rice brought out by the Shinawatra brothers. And since they were both fine hobbits of ample girth – as all good hobbits ought to be my good Doctor – they were praised for their restraint.
A slice of old blue cheese.I forget who brought that.
A jar of non-regulation coffee smuggled under the nose of both Captain and General alike by one of the young hollowed recruits from the far north. Aluka was his name…or maybe it was Alki. I don't know, mortal names all sound the same to me.
Liver paste from the pack of one of the Dale Dwarves.
Some left-over Beef with Pepper and Garlic.
Assorted chewing sweets and toffee of both man and hobbit make.
Two clumps of sugar and chilli powder that somehow had disgustingly been smashed together.
Green Olives and rice stuffed grape leaves from the hobbit recruits from the Islands of the Gany Temple.
An old tin of canned fruit that Captain Addo had taken out of his pack, and laid out amongst the rest with more than his usual reluctance.
Onion flakes, but I don't know which rat thought that was something anyone wanted to eat at a feast.
And of course, the most coveted treat of all – a slab of rich, dark chocolate. I don't know who put this out either but, oh Mother, did I not care at the time. The Elves didn't recognise it of course, if they didn't discover it first then surely it must never have existed before. They thought it was some kind of dried food ration if you can believe that. I mean I knew what that large brown bar was, and I'd lived all my life underground.
Captain Addo used his sword to chop it into pieces enough for everyone – that wasn't as many pieces as it should have been. I remember one of the elves wincing as their tooth cracked when they bit down into the hard stuff. And I remember laughing…laughing…I hadn't laughed like that in weeks, no months, maybe even years…my sense of time had become somewhat askew since I'd been on the surface, and it wasn't like any of the others really cared anymore. Each day was just a trek until the dead rose for the night, and then the fight would begin again. We had walked for so long but…but we never seemed to get any closer to Queen Malika's reinforcements up near the mountains of Gondor. The Mud-dwellers had come with us because…because we were their last hope. Their leaders had learned about the dead metal's abilities, and the skill of the Ganymen – but it was too late. The Dead were already too strong, and like falling…dominos…the armies and soldiers of the living gradually fell and the armies of the dead swelled.
There was no stopping them…at least not as they had been. But that's a tale for another day, now we must get back to a party that will soon be very badly interrupted.
We all ate the chocolate, and for the first time since we had left my Mother's kingdom our hearts were lifted and we felt joy. What did it matter if we had no wine to drink, or loud noisy fireworks to light our sky – this was a celebration. A celebration of our long trek soon to be over, and so we partied on regardless. We laughed, and we sang long past the setting of the sun and we didn't even notice when the shadows around us began to look wrong.
Behind our backs they shifted and changed until they were not our shadows at all, but gremlins of the night that sank into shadows and waited…waited for the fire to burn low and our movements to become sluggish and sleepy. We had forgotten where we were, we had forgotten that in this Land of the Dead one can never turn their back on a shadow.
This is how my last battle in the company of the Ringbearer began.
We weren't complete idiots you understand, we may have let our guard down but we still left someone on watch. They were supposed to keep watch so the others, for once, did not have to. At the time of the growing shadows there were two guards on watch: Choochai Shinawatra, who was an old hand at looking out for other people's backs – being a twin and all – and…myself. Who'd only ever had ceremonial guard duty at my Mother's side before.
Sometimes I wish I'd stayed home instead.
It's not that we were blind to the shadows growing up and around us it was just…well, hobbits were such strange creatures. So very different to goblins and Choochai was so…so Hobbitish. I couldn't help but to pester him with question after question. About his homeland, his people and his brother. What was it like to be a Twin? Were you like one half of a whole? If he were to die, would you be like the walking wounded? At the end I do not think he enjoyed my line of questioning. Though to begin with he enjoyed talking of his home land, describing the rich lush jungle of vegetation that had never once felt the touch of a dead man's hand. He and his brother didn't have to go and fight the dead, they had been safe – their people having mastered the old magics and kept themselves and their land hidden from the eyes of the Dead King. And at this part Choochai's voice grew low and dramatic. That most loathsome of enemies – once elf, once wizard now neither. He walks the earth as a shade of the bright flame he once was, with nothing but the deep-set eyes – the colour of dead grass, or the finest emerald, depending on how much of a poet you were. And I thought that those eyes sounded…somewhat…familiar to me.
And that is the moment when we heard the scream. It was a wild wail, high pitched and lacking even the pretences of a man behind it. We turned and grabbed for our weapons, but we were too slow or at least I was. Before I could blink, the creature was on top of me. Biting and snarling, its rotten jaws leaking the foulest of fluids on to my cheeks, and if I had not closed my mouth and flinched away it would had fallen into it and then…well then, I would have truly been dead. Do not mistake me the Dead, or Mewlips as they are deemed in Hobbit Mythology, are not Zombies by a human definition. Though they are undoubtedly the inspiration for that particularly human obsession. They do not turn you with their bite, no somehow, I feel like that would be too kind for the likes of them. For if you are unlucky enough to get their spit, their green mould filled spit into your mouth, then you will start to rot away.
They carry the filth, those terrifying diseases that spread from the passage of the dead, and they brought it to the mortals. It does not affect them because they're already dead, but I know what that filth has done to Goblins before. I'd seen it happen to a few of the guards that were sent up to the surface, Goblins were never quick enough when we were left out in the open like that. And it seemed…it seemed that I too would follow that horrifying fate. And then the blade stabbed through it's skull, and the creature screamed even higher. It was like it shrivelled up before me, and wilted, the spirit of the elf fëa fading away behind its hollow eyes. Choochai yanked his blade free, and held his hand out to help me to my feet.
'Come on Herne, don't be a lazy Goblin, we have to go warn the others.'
We ran, and we screamed but we were too slow and too slight of voice. For the shadows had already descended upon the party when we made it to their sides. Of course, that party had included, Legolas Greenleaf, Addo Ballbreaker, and the Ringbearer…so our failure wasn't quite as terrible as it could have been. But it was still a failure.
There were so many of the creatures, they seemed to spring from the shadows…tearing up the hillside, and leaving it dead and brittle in their wake. The sun had yet to rise, though the sky was not completely black, so we could not see their rotted faces. They were blurs in the shadows, striking us down one by one like we were nothing but flies to them. The fire had gone out, either wind or malice I knew not, but either way it was to the creature's benefit. Even I was struck dumb by the darkness.
They fought, oh how they fought, but eventually the number and the swiftness of the enemy was too much and I heard one of the elves cry out as the creature sunk its foul teeth into his shoulder. There were so many of them now…and the elves and men were falling back and, in this darkness, I could not even see the hobbits any longer. Maybe if I closed my eyes, I could hear the terrible thwack of Captain Addo's long sword slicing into a chest but nothing more. There was no sun, there was no fire, there was no light at all to save us from the Dead's gaping maws. Even the weapons of the Ganymen could only help if their wielders could see their targets – you couldn't just fling them around madly in the dark with so many living bodies around. That would just increase the dead's ranks.
They were all going to die. They were going to die and it was my fault.
'Where the Blarney were you?'
The Ringbearer yelled as he slammed his dead opponent with light from his hand…something I'd never seen him do in such a controlled way before. I tried to explain myself, for Choochai had already dived into the fight his dead blade flashing against the darkness. But the Ringbearer was done listening, for a brief second the sky was filled with a blinding golden light, consuming every dead man that fought there. The Ringbearer did not often do that, and the reason why lay now in his blinking and slowly panicking comrades. They had been blinded by the power of the Ringbearer's revealed being…I don't know why I was spared that fate; it certainly wasn't because the Ringbearer had pitied me and let me keep it. He had no control, even now on the devastating effect of his light. The elves, the men, the hobbits and the dwarves had all been blinded…but the Goblin had been spared. I know, I think I would have laughed too, had it not been for the actual tragedy.
I'm certain you might think that losing one's sight would be a terrible thing indeed, especially in a land where the dead do not have the common decency to stay in their graves, and I'm sure it was…but compared to what happened next, it was barely a road bump.
A scream such as no mortal has heard before or since pierced the air, it was loud and it was terrible, and sad and…and it made me want to scream in return. But I could not, or such was the thing's power that it silenced all other sounds. And so, we stood there in shock, weeping silently at the pain in that yell, as it slowly petered to quite nothingness again. The Ringbearer's light went out and beside him the elf named Legolas, his own blindness seemingly forgotten in the wake of such self-pity, began to weep quite openly.
'What was that?' said the elf.
'I don't know.' Said the Ringbearer, his green eyes narrowed in a suspicious manner.
'But whatever it is, we need to get to the cover of the mountain now.'
And that was the moment my dear girls, when the sky disappeared entirely from over our heads.