A Burg’s Tale: Chapter 26

I wasn’t sure why we’d cleaned ourselves of the muck and grime of the swamp when we headed right back into it the next day. My clothes hadn’t even dried completely when we set out with the dawn. It left me chilled and wishing for my borrowed clothing from the Eglain once more, even if they had been completely ill-fitting. I hadn’t been the only one in that predicament, at least: the only one who had found anything that suited him had been Tinendail. Dwarf, Hobbit, and extra-tall Man had to make good with almost fitting. Even then, a shirt was all that they had required to be modest and decent. I had spent the majority of the evening wrapped in two cloaks and wearing a voluminous skirt to cover my nethers. The Eglain had finally found a large shirt for me to put on that, while it had been broad enough, only fell to my navel. “Who did this belong to?” I had asked Trennil softly as I had bedded down for the night. “Who could possibly be wider than they are tall?”

Trennil had simply stared at me for a long moment before replying, “Who indeed?” His flat tone had modified after as he, too, had settled in for sleep. “Though, to be sure, I don’t know of many Men who fit that description, it’s true.”

Thinking on how my stomach had been exposed between the end of the shirt and the top of the skirt, however, I decided being slightly chilled would be preferrable after all. You can’t save the world when you’re hoping it all ends immediately to end your suffering, I hazarded as retort to my own desire during our slog.

And slog it was. Unlike the first foray into the morass of Haragmar, this journey took us completely through the swamp and past the Circle of Blood and eastward still. The undead shambled in increasing numbers the closer we came to the looming darkness that was Nan Dhelu. “I can feel the evil from here,” whispered Tinendail as he clattered along as quietly as he could manage. Even the small bits of cloth we’d had him tuck into his armor to help muffle the sounds could only do so much, especially once they’d fallen free into the mire and required wringing out and replacement. At least Elves don’t feel the cold, I comforted myself.

“Is it getting darker the closer we get?” Trennil asked a moment later.

“It is,” Tinendail replied softly. “That is the darkness I spoke of creeping forth.”

Dandelion lifted a hand so that we stopped. Ahead of us, three walking corpses moved together across the rocky incline leading toward the mountain-carved hold. We waited for them to be out of earshot once more, though how they could hear anything given their corpse state was beyond me, before continuing. “Remember what it is we’re looking for,” she then said. “Gaunt-men, not these dead things.”

“Not that they’re really alive, either,” Trennil muttered.

“Aye,” Dandelion agreed. “But not in the way of the wights.”

“Pale, terribly thin,” I added. “As if they’d starved for months. Flesh laid over bone. They seem withered rather than decayed and putrid.”

Trennil grunted. “Jerky and not spoiled meat.” We halted all together to stare at him. “It’s true!” he hissed defensively.

I grimaced beneath my mask and saw Gammer openly doing the same. “Morgoth,” our Elvish companion began in a tone that sounded as if he meant to explain something, but I interrupted him. “Salted and smoked his minions for long storage rather than leave them out to rot. I can see it. Ivar did seem…” I paused to find the best word. “Dried? Crispy?”

“Chewy,” Trennil offered. “Maybe leathery?”

Dandelion shook her head and turned away. “Can we stop pondering the texture of gaunt-men and lords and move on to–”

“But wouldn’t turning them into jerky darken their flesh from pale to brown?” Tinendail asked in confusion. “Perhaps the addition of fell spirits lightens them?”

“TO BATTLE TACTICS FOR ANCIENT TRAVEL RATION EVIL,” Dandelion finished far louder than she intended. We snapped our mouths shut immediately. Casting wary looks around in case the forces of evil had overheard Gammer’s voice, we finally relaxed to talk about how to handle our foes.

I turned my attention to the elf among us. “Did Radagast have any words of wisdom as to what we could expect from these gaunt-men and war-singers?”

“Necromancy,” Tinendail replied immediately. “Pestilence and plague. The undead, both bestial and not. Perhaps even the ancient trees and creatures here have been poisoned by them to attack everything – even their own.”

Trennil sank to a crouch with a grim nod. “Aye. And that means they can use some form of magic, too, I’d wager. Especially if it relates to this Shadow Realm that Radagast mentioned they could summon spirits from.”

Gammer and I both sank to the ground for a few moments of rest. Tinendail managed not to clank too much as he shook his head. “It is the Unseen Realm,” he offered to us hesitantly. “I have yet to learn much about it, but I do know that it is a world like our Ennor. All that exist there are spirits, things that we cannot readily and easily see with our eyes.”

“It’s full of evil, then?” Gammer asked with a troubled expression.

The elf’s features brightened. “Oh, no, Gammer Digweed. There are some fell things there, but also gloriously brilliant ones. The Nazgul exist in both the Seen and Unseen Realms as do the Quendi and, I’m sure, other beings.” We offered him blank expressions that took another moment or two for him to fully realize as he happily nattered on. “Olorin and other Maiar were said to move in the Unseen World in Valinor long ago while the Quendi,” he quickly added, “– we Elves – remained fully in the Seen Realm.” He shrugged slightly. “It is neither good nor evil. It simply is.”

I chewed on my lower lip in thought as everything slowly connected in my brain. “Then,” I drawled slowly as I verbally hashed it out, “when the necromancers summon spirits to take over corpses and do their bidding, become wights, they’re summoning them from the Unseen Realm.”

Gammer made a displeased noise. “Then when we defeat these wights, or even the spirits inside them if they’re visible, do they truly die?”

“No.” Tinendail sighed. “They only return to the Unseen World, weakened enough that they’re unable to return to our own unless summoned and given enough power to do so once again.” He paused. “It’s what happened to Sauron at the end of the Second Age. Instead of dying, he merely vanished and wandered the world until he could grow powerful enough again to threaten it.”

Trennil growled, “It was far better to believe that he had been defeated for good.”

The elf pressed his lips into a thin line. “The wights, some of them, have an aura to them that is disturbing. It seems to detect you even when you’re virtually impossible to see or sense, Morchandir. I believe these gaunt-men, especially the war-singers, may have something similar. They would also have a lesser form of Shadow pulsing from them to produce fear in their opponents. Having never met them in person let alone the Witch-King, I cannot say if it is less or more powerful. I would think less, or they might be higher in rank as the Nazgul.”

“Terrible enough as it is,” Dandelion said. “But is there nothing we can do to defeat these creatures?” She motioned at Trennil. “Dwarf-made weapons seem to harm dragons and their kin.”

I snorted. “I’ll keep that bit in mind when we meet a dragon, then.” Just our luck that’s what will happen, I silently groused. I bet Radagast would want to make a friend of it.

“Not very likely,” Trennil said with more than a little pride. “We dwarves killed them all years ago. Bard took care of Smaug, and he was the last dragon.”

Dandelion frowned. “Was he? Mad Baggins always said so, but I have my doubts…”

Tinendail motioned. “Elf-made weapons,” he said firmly. “Beleriand make, they’re called by you Men, yes? Those will harm the spirits of the Unseen World far more than any others.” He touched the sword he carried. “You happen to have one, here.”

“Much to your father’s dismay,” I added drolly. “I’m not sure he’ll let you live to see your first century when he catches up to you.”

The young elf suddenly looked stricken. “Do you think he’s searching for me? Ah, Elbereth! I hope Trennil has covered our passage with his skills, then!” Gaunt-men and undead shambling horrors all around us, I thought as my masked face lowered, and this boy is more afraid that his father will find him and drag him home by his pointy ear than he is of dying horribly in an ill-fitting suit of armor.

I cleared my throat. “So, what you’re saying is that you’ll lead the charge against the enemy when we find them,” I stated. “I might feel better if you had Gammer helping to shield you so that you can get close enough to use that sword.”

“I can fire from a distance,” Trennil assured us. “If the war-singer summons anything, I’ll be able to see it before the rest of you since you’ll be much closer for melee.”

I sighed. “That’s going to leave me. I won’t be much use when it comes to stealth, and that will limit my effectiveness. I do more damage when I can steal in from behind unseen for my strikes.” I half-drew one of the long knives I carried without looking. “I don’t have Beleriand weaponry.”

“You can be on wight duty along with me,” Trennil said with a quick pat on my shoulder with an impressively sized hand given his height. “If all else fails, let Gammer distract him, Tinendail hack at him, and leap onto him from behind to saw off his head.” He smacked his lips in satisfaction. “Shouldn’t be terribly difficult even if he is a bit leathery and tough.”

I pulled my mask free of my face. Though the elf had seen me bared this way before, he still took the time to peer intently at my features as if he might discover some new answer in them. It unnerved me. Attempting to ignore his stare, I instead asked our dwarf, “You want me to remove a dangerous creature’s head in the most awkward way possible while on their back?” At the Hunter’s nod, I sighed. “Right, then. How many pieces are our wights going to be in out here, again?”

“It’s only in extreme last measures,” Trennil protested. “I’m sure that your weapons do more than enough damage on their own despite not being of elf-make, Morchandir. Leaping in to steal a stab at a war-singer’s kidneys…” He stopped. “Or at least where they should be, if they even still have them,” he amended. “I’m sure that will still suffice.”

Tinendail made a soft noise from my right. “I don’t see how you can stand the mask,” he said thoughtfully. “Hot and bothersome. Do you even see well out of it, or—”

“You can find out later,” Dandelion stated firmly to quash the line of questioning. “We have no time for it now, nor will it be enough to keep you lingering on here in spirit form if you die without an answer.” She got to her feet to check our surroundings once more.

The elf seemed mildly offended. “I would not linger here in death even so,” he assured her as he, too, prepared to move once more. “Provided I have not been trapped by one of the necromancers, I will return to Valinor.”

“Do Men go there?” Trennil asked our companion. “Or Hobbits?”

“No,” the Champion replied sadly. “Valinor is for the Elves alone.”

I couldn’t resist. “Then it’s why we see so many Men wandering around as evil spirits. We’re not allowed to rest where the good people go.” I snorted. “Not exactly a fair exchange, if you ask me.”

Tinendail blinked over at me with his hand poised above the visor of his helm. “Oh, Men do not linger, either,” he says. “What ultimately happens to them is unknown even to the Valar, we are told. They have a purpose none can know until the end times. The final battle with Morgoth. They go to the Halls of Mandos and truly die, are sundered from this world, while Elves do not. Then they are sent beyond the confines of this world. Beyond the Music of the Ainur. That is your fate, Morchandir, as a mortal Man doomed to die. But it is also the Gift of Iluvatar, and many among my kind envy yours for it.” He slid his visor down with a soft metallic clap. “Morgoth convinced Men that the gift was a curse. I can only hope that you will not fear it when your time comes, no matter how painful, for it means you will not suffer as the Quendi – or even the Valar.”

Dandelion paused to look back at the elf. “And Hobbits?”

“You are like Men,” Tinendail said with a nod, his voice echoing slightly in his visor. “You will share the same fate.” He turned his head to Trennil. “Dwarves,” he began.

“Go to the Halls of Mandos in a place set apart for them by our maker, Aule,” Trennil finished with a firm nod. “We will have a place among everyone in the end and aid in rebuilding this world.”

Tinendail didn’t reply for a long moment. “Ah,” he finally said very softly. “We have always said that you will return to the rock and stone that gave birth to you via Aule.” He moved ahead. “We should track our quarry.”

Trennil harrumphed and moved ahead on his thick legs. “Yes, yes. I’m on it, leaf-ears, don’t let your temporary leadership go to your head.”

I slipped my mask back over my head. I hadn’t ever considered what happened to us after we died. I’d assumed, for the most part, that we simply vanished into the ether never to be seen again. We had no afterlife. We weren’t special. Death was something to be feared. Was it, though? If what Tinendail, young though he was for his kind, had said was true, Dandelion and I would be headed to an afterlife that even the Valar couldn’t foresee. Only Eru knew.

Or does he? I suddenly wondered with slight unease. Does he simply point the way for us, we walk off, and nobody knows what’s there? If he didn’t make where we end up and knows nothing of it, then who did?

“Bloody elf,” I muttered under my breath with a glower at his armored figure ahead of me. As if I didn’t have enough to worry about already.

 

It wasn’t until an hour later, after nearly dying more than once in various ways courtesy of the gaunt-men, that I spotted yet another target on the mountain near one of the dilapidated and crumbling stone columns of Nan Dhelu. “There’s another one ahead,” I told the others as they finished tending Dandelion’s light wounds.

“How many are there?” Trennil asked in exasperation. “We’ve killed more than is healthy already!”

“Radagast wasn’t sure,” Dandelion replied. “It’s why we’re here, I think. We’re flushing them out and getting the sigils he wants in the process.”

Tinendail sighed. “There can’t be terribly many. Most of them were destroyed by the wizards long ago. Morgoth created them. Without him, no more can be created.”

I snorted behind the mask. “Not unless Sauron learned from him.”

The elf’s expression turned concerned. “That might be beyond him. He’s not one of the Valar like Morgoth. His powers aren’t great enough, I think.”

He finished with Dandelion’s bandaging and stood, offering her a hand to get back to her feet. “Then these gaunt-men may be all that are here,” she said. “Especially if they were decimated in the First Age. There are most likely more in other parts of the world. Let us hope that these are all that remain in Haragmar.”

Trennil peered at the patrolling creature. “It has a servant at its side,” he said after a moment. “A skeletal wight.”

“Joy,” I growled. “More stabbing things I won’t be able to sneak up on and dispatch.” Those had been notorious, from the Barrow-downs to this place, for shedding dread that kept me from using my stealth.

The pat that I received from Dandelion coincided with her look of pity. “We’ll manage, grandson.”

I gave her a long look through my mask. “Will you be fit to fight again? This one looks like the worst of the lot.” Always the best for last, I told myself sardonically.

“It takes more than these shallow wounds to keep me down and render me useless.” She hefted her heavy shield and rolled her armor-clad shoulders. “Just keep an eye on yourself and on Trennil, young man. I’ll keep that gaunt-man’s attention while our elf friend makes short work of it. You and Trennil should be able to handle its companion or anything it summons, like the others.”

The elf nodded slightly. “Those tactics have been working thus far,” he agreed. “This should be no different.”

A rough grunt sounded from the direction of the dwarf. “So far as any battle is the same as another.”

It was a caution I could appreciate. Dropping back so that Dandelion and Tinendail could take the lead, mostly the Guardian, I once again waited for Trennil to call the shots for the two of us. He pointed toward a bit of higher ground from where the war-singer’s path would take it. “Let us head there,” he said. “I have a good range and safe place to let fly with arrows. If you need to leap in with them, it’s not too much of a drop to hurt you.”

“Good thinking,” I responded as we made our way to the half-fallen wall of stone. I wasn’t lightly prone to heroic acts like soaring from broken walls to stab my enemies. The chances of hurting myself remained too great. It would do me no good to dive in with knives bared only to land, twist my ankle, and lame myself so I slowed. I would be permanently grounded, then. Any other place, that might mean buried, but here, I’d be another shuffling corpse dropping limbs off as I rotted away. Heroes died early deaths, and I had a son to consider. Unless the payout was worth it, of course. Regardless, this little mission I’d been sent upon hadn’t necessarily been my idea even if it meant I protected him. I didn’t have to behave stupidly to become respected.

* * *

Silence entombed us for several long moments while we panted and realized we had survived. Trennil knelt by the emaciated figure of the gaunt-man and poked at one of its arms with his thick index finger. “Definitely leathery and not chewy,” he ultimately declared. “Though I bet -”

“We do NOT eat ancient evil, Trennil!” Dandelion declared firmly from nearby.

I stumbled over to the gaunt-man. “We do rob their corpses, however,” I said as I pulled the last sigil from its pride of place. Slipping it into the small satchel alongside the others, I scanned the area for any further danger. “Do you think there are any more of these war-singers here or was this the last of them?”

“I think if there are,” Trennil answered, “they can stay here. If that wizard wants their sigils, he can bloody well come get them himself. Five should be plenty for him to find out what he needs, I say.”

Tinendail frowned down at the gaunt-man as Trennil stood once more. “Some had no sigils. Five of them did. That there were more than five here concerns me, as I know it will Radagast.” He looked up at us again through his opened visor. “We should get back to him.”

I finished searching the strange necromancer and moved to the wights he had summoned. They held nothing, given they had no pockets, and it made the looting efficient. We headed off into the Red Swamp with Trennil in the lead as pathfinder, avoiding both dead and corrupted things, until we climbed the hill leading into Ost Guruth once more.

The sun had begun setting by the time we pushed open the tower door. Both Tinendail and I removed our headwear. “Didn’t we just have to bathe yesterday?” the dwarf groused. “We’ll need to do so again tonight after that slog and all the fighting.”

“Dandelion,” Tinendail began, amending it at her sharp look to, “Gammer should, at least. Her wounds need better than field medicine for tending. They have a healing house.” He grew chipper as we mounted the spiral stairwell. “At least none of us required Elvish healing. I’m afraid I can’t do much of that presently.”

“Skivved off from school that day?” I asked with a long-suffering look at the blasted stairs. I didn’t understand how the elf wasn’t as exhausted by now as the rest of us.

He laughed lightly. “Oh, no, mellon.” He clapped a hand onto my shoulder as we paused on a landing between flights. “It takes many years to learn the art of healing, just as it does anything else. I’m not even that much of a fighter yet.”

“Says the one who hasn’t even dented his armor with a blow from an enemy yet because of his agility and speed,” Trennil grunted in what might be envy.

The elf pulled a face. “Oh, that’s only because I know how angry adar will be if I bring it back too ruined. It’s not skill at all.”

I looked at him for a long moment. “Right. Not skill at all.” I hefted a sigh and continued up the final flight. He really is a child, I marveled. How does he not realize what he’s saying?

As we straggled into Radagast’s study, he never once looked up. “Have all of you returned intact?” he asked after a moment.

“I will visit a healer when we’re done here,” Dandelion replied curtly. “The wounds are shallow.”

The wizard held his place in his tome with a finger and peered up at her sharply. Beckoning her closer with his other hand, he waited until she stood at his side before laying a hand on her. Nothing changed that we could see, but he nodded and told her, “Strangsig will be most useful to you. None of your wounds have a taint of corruption to them.” He turned his gaze direct toward me. “You, however, I can sense it pouring from.”

I stepped toward his desk. “There were more gaunt-men there than we’d expected. Not all of them carried sigils. There had to be seven-”

“Eight,” grumbled Trennil.

“Eight,” I revised, “in total.” Pulling up my pack while I spoke, I unlatched it and offered it to him. I felt like dumping them out and letting him handle them, but I wasn’t sure what he was doing that interrupting might hurt. “Five war-singers.”

He took my satchel and opened it only after marking his place and setting the book aside. He dumped them out at that point and handed the pack back to me without looking at me. “Ah. That is troublesome,” he replied with a frown. “I shall have to let the head of our Order know how many seem to have escaped the First Age intact.”

More than you expected, I wanted to tell him smugly. All-powerful, all-knowing wizards who can only assume and don’t bother to check. Dandelion moved back to my side as Radagast lifted one sigil with obvious distaste. Again, I saw nothing happening as he did whatever it was that he needed to so that he could find out his information. He made a soft sound of what I could only say was dismay before setting the sigil aside. His dismay grew with each sigil he examined. Only when he had completed it, and my other two companions had drawn near to watch him, Tinendail especially, did he stare at them while tapping his lower lip.

He said nothing, however, and after several minutes of looking at each other and shrugging helplessly, Trennil asked, “What did you find out?”

“These sigils bear the mark of Ivar the Blood-hand,” Radagast said. “He is a powerful lord of the gaunt-men, and a dangerous and vile creature. It is he who is behind the corruption of the Red Swamp.” I held my tongue but could feel how the others glanced up at me meaningfully. “Why would a creature such as Ivar travel so far from Angmar? Power, perhaps. But what drew him here?”

Dandelion elbowed me in the thigh. I stumbled slightly at the bloom of pain and glared down at her. “Fine,” I sighed. “Radagast, Sambrog said Ivar wanted something powerful under the waters of this place.”

He pursed his lips. “Mm. That is entirely possible, though I’m not confident of what it could be.” I knew that was as close to an apology from a wizard as anyone might likely receive. “This land was the site of many battles in the past,” he explained. “Some say the swamp takes its name from the blood of fallen Men that stains the earth red. But my knowledge of the swamp’s history is limited.” He paused and looked up and to the side in sudden thought. “I do know of a man named Aric, a wise man of the Eglain, though only by reputation. He is a Stone-speaker, a scholar who studies the stones and collects knowledge from their markings. Aric knows much of the local lore.”

“Stone-speaker,” Tinendail echoed with gleeful anticipation. “I’ve never heard of them! Reading marks on stones – more than simply languages left behind? Are they only in the race of Men?”

“Tinendail,” I warned quietly, wanting him to rein in his enthusiasm.

Radagast seemed not to notice. If he did, he didn’t show it and remained somber. “Travel to him and ask for his help. He currently dwells south of here, beyond Talath Gaun, down in Harloeg. He may provide us with the knowledge we seek.”

“Tomorrow,” Dandelion said firmly. “I must see the healer, and we must rest. We have had a long day and cannot make another journey at this time. Nightfall brings out the worst creatures, and we should not be in the wilderness when they appear. Especially not if they are being directed by something as dire as Ivar Blood-hand.”

The wizard shook his head. “I fear I must ask you to leave as soon as your wounds are tended. Find Aric the Stone-speaker. We do not have the luxury of time.”

That’s very ironic given an immortal wizard is saying it, I thought with a snort as we turned away to exit. That didn’t mean Radagast was wrong, though. Even Dandelion, in her irritation, could see that much.