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First, there was fire. Agony. Oblivion.
Then she was drowning. She was drenched, soaking wet. Pushed under water, fighting to breathe. Searing pain, she was awake and this was torture. They forced her eyelids open and poured water in her eyes, held her mouth open and poured it into her throat, until she retched and threw up all over herself. Water. She struggled, desperately, but they swarmed her, clamoring, growling. Hideous beasts, corrupted beyond recognition, covered in dust and fumes. She screamed, but she did not hear a sound. What had they done to her throat?
Nightmarish faces hovering over hers. Water again. It burned, like everything, like the flame along her throat and chest. It would not be extinguished, not with all the water they poured on her. Clothes torn off her body in tatters. She did not feel anything except pain.
She prayed for death.
Do not let yourself be taken. She had been told it could happen. She had been hopeful it would not. Had any of Númenor’s soldiers believed they might fail? Had any of them believed in a monstrous catastrophe?
They will torture you. Of course she had known. Death on the battlefield may be swift, but captivity means torture. Captivity means pain, and humiliation, and the utter destruction of what you are. You may be strong, but they are stronger.
They feed upon human flesh.
She had tried to fight, she had wanted to. Her strength had failed, gone up in flames. She had trusted in death, a moment of weakness, but death had forsaken her. Now there was only her wounded shell, naked and alone.
***
I am still here. I breathe, I think, I feel. My eyes, my face, my limbs, my fingers, my toes.
I am Thalias, of the sea guard, stranded.
She was awake then, but she did not open her eyes. Her flesh was still on her bones. She lay flat, on her back, and her back was unbroken. She moved her toes. She was covered by a coarse blanket. Under the cover of the blanket, she was naked. There was smoke on the air. Had Númenor regrouped and built a camp? Who had come for her?
She opened her lids, incrementally, in case she was being watched. Was it day or night? It should have been easy enough to tell, but it was not. Her heart started hammering. It was all wrong, horribly wrong. The dwelling was nothing like a Númenor campsite. Crumbling stone walls, shuttered windows. She pressed broken fingernails into her palm to keep herself from screaming. Her arm twitched, involuntarily.
The movement made her bed crackle under her. A heap of bones, covered by dead skin. She panicked. I’m lying on broken bones. She tried getting up, but her arms would not support her. Pain flared across her bound chest. She dropped backwards, helplessly, as the door creaked open. For a moment, she could see the world outside.
A world of dust and ash in yellowish twilight.
And she remembered. There had been fire and death, raining from the mountain. No one had come for her. No one had built a camp. It was over, they were all dead. She alone had been forsaken, and the world had reached its end.
A shadow appeared at the door, filling the frame. Thalias scrambled backwards from her bed of bones, belly up like a flopping fish. Hurting herself, hurting her chest, and she hit the wall behind her, nowhere to go. She tried to draw her legs under her, make herself small, but she had no strength. Nothing left. As he came towards her she started crying, pitifully, like a little girl.
“Do not fear.”
His voice was raspy, so broken she almost did not catch his words. But he had not approached further. She covered her face in her hands and sobbed. She could feel him there, shadow and menace, but he stood very still.
Pain tore at her throat and chest, burning a fiery trail. She slid down the wall, earth-packed floor under her naked skin. No weapon, no strength, no courage left.
“Do not fear.”
He moved then, stooping to pick up the blanket. She rolled on her side, shivering, staring at the dirt floor. Wishing for death. A big, bloodied hand drew the blanket over her. Her stomach twisted.
He stepped back, towards the shuttered windows. He opened one, then the other. There was no glass. The view was the same as before. Dust and fumes, stretching to the horizon.
“I am glad you are awake.” His words came slowly, haltingly. Directed at the twilight outside. “You have slept for a long time. The world has changed while you rested.”
She knew him now. The shape of his shoulders, of his armour, his shaggy hair. He was the one Commander Galadriel had chained up in the barn. The orc leader, the one with the burnt face. He had seemed different then, small, weary, defeated. The half-orc, someone in her squadron had called him. It had been a fine, sunny day.
“My children are not safe yet. There is much work to do.”
She squinted up at him. He had turned towards her, twilight across his marred face. Whatever work he did, it did not include caring for himself. His temple was caked in dark blood, his hair and body covered in dust.
“Children”, she whispered. He referred to those murderous, merciless beasts as children. It made her furious, but her voice came out tiny and terrified. “They choked me”, she whispered, “again and again. Why didn’t they finish the job?”
“Choked you?” He looked at her curiously. “Who did that?”
Did he honestly not know? Water, all that water, ice-cold, searing her, drowning her. Her eyes filled with helpless tears, again. Valar, she was pathetic. She needed no one else to humiliate her, she did it herself.
He knelt beside her, eyes too soft. She made herself look at him. Never, not even on the most hardened veteran, had she seen a face so badly scarred. “They ran far and wide, to fetch clear water”, he said. “You got burned, soldier. They helped me clean you, wash your wounds, rinse poisoned fumes from your eyes and mouth. I am not a healer. But you are alive.”
She shook in sudden terror. So they had kept her, and tended to her, for some evil purpose. “I will not serve you”, she whispered, “or work for you, in any way.”
He stood. “No”, he said, “you will not. You will heal, soldier, and return to your home.”
She stared after him, dumbstruck, as he walked out the door. There were voices outside, and then silence.
She shivered. The floor beneath her was cold. The bed she had slept on was disheveled by her panicked scrambling earlier. She reached a hand towards it and lifted the cover. There were no broken bones underneath, but twigs and rustling leaves. Slowly and painfully, she crept back. As she stretched out again, twigs crackling under her weight, she did not so much fall asleep as pass out.
***
It was pitch dark. Torchlight moved outside, carried by ghastly arms. Voices growled, some far away, some too close for comfort. From time to time, a shadow passed right in front of her windows. Sometimes, a ghoulish face appeared in the opening, eyes shining in the dark.
She sank deeper into her bedding. She had slept, and woken, and felt strong enough to examine herself more closely. The worst pain, the pain that drained her of all strength and made it impossible to move properly, ran along her throat and chest. It was like a fiery column, and when she touched a fingertip right under her chin, she felt where it began. Raw skin, sticky with some kind of salve.
A memory came to her. Something hot, hitting her throat and chest. Sliding under her breastplate, sulfurous, clinging to flesh, burning, burning.
She started up, choking on bitter fumes, gasping for air. Breathe. It is a memory. The muscles in her back shook with the effort of keeping her upright. With trembling hands, she touched her bound chest. The fabric felt smooth and looked clean. Someone – some ghastly creature – had found a piece of clean fabric in this burned-up hell-hole and dressed her wounds with it.
From the open window, bulging eyes stared at her. Probably this one, she told herself with bitter humor. The eyes vanished as she made contact with them. Strangely, her fear subsided. If the orc-leader had control of his people, she was reasonably safe for now. If not, fear would not protect her.
She lay back down. The orc-leader. The half-orc. Really? He was repulsive, disfigured, but to Thalias he looked more elven than anything else. Was such a thing even possible? Galadriel would have disputed it. She had called him an abomination. He probably was.
Footsteps approached, shadows moved, voices rang out. Thalias listened up. The leader’s dark, raspy voice issued orders. Questions were asked, orders confirmed. Some of it was spoken in a growling, throaty language she thought must be Black Speech. Other voices sounded raspy, shrill, or growling, but she understood them fine. Adar, some called their leader. Lord Father, said others.
Then came a knock at the door. As it was pushed open, she managed to raise herself up on her elbows. A black, steel gauntlet held up a battered lamp, then a scarred face appeared, a dusty body, an arm carrying a bundle, and the door was closed again.
He breathed heavily, like he had walked a long way, and quickly. He dropped the bundle on the floor and hung the lamp on a hook in the corner. Thalias squinted against the sudden light. The darkness outside seemed all the more frightening.
“Please”, she said. “The shutters?”
He closed them. Then he lowered himself on the floor, leaning his back against the wall. “I brought you some things”, he said, indicating the bundle.
She stared at him. He looked weary, and strangely sad. The blood had been washed from his face and hair, but grey dust had settled everywhere, from the tips of his pointy ears to the tip of his nose.
She realized her throat was parched. “Water?”, she asked.
He nodded. With his gauntleted hand, he unfolded the bundle, retrieved a waterskin and pushed it across the floor. She drank, gratefully.
“You are better.”
“Yes.”
“I found this.” He reached for a piece of dark, rough-spun cloth and held it up.
Her heart clenched. A dress.
“Thank you”, she whispered. “Where did you find that?”
He raised himself up on his knees to hand it to her. “It will do for traveling, I believe.”
She noticed he had avoided the question. She ran her hand over the dress and suddenly felt cold. But slipping it on meant raising her arms, and that was too painful.
“Can you help me with it?”
She sat up, as straight as she could. It felt strange when he knelt next to her. He took the dress in both hands and pulled it over her head and chest.
“I cannot change your bandage”, he said quietly. “We have no salve left, and nothing to dress the wound. Are you in pain?”
Her eyes filled with tears.
“There is nothing I can do. I am sorry for it.”
She flinched when his hand touched her arm. He pulled back immediately. Outside, there were growls and screams.
He sat down in his spot between the windows, leaning his head against the wall. “My children are getting restless. We have to leave the village soon.”
“Leave where?”
“That is not your concern. I will send one of my warriors, to escort you to the river. From there, you will have to find your own way.”
A flesh-eating beast, guiding her to safety. She thought of the faces that had peered through the window. Valar help me. And then? What river? She only knew of the Anduin, but her knowledge of the land was limited. It did not matter. Any way out of here was the right way.
His eyes on her face made her shiver. It felt as if he had read her thoughts.
“Forgive me”, she said, feeling foolish. “My thoughts have strayed. I am grateful for your offer. For your help, for all of this.”
He gave her a long, hard look. “It was Thrak, who pulled you from the rubble.”
“Then I am grateful to him, too. Please, thank him for me.”
“He died from his wounds. He saved two living souls, but he could not save himself. He was a brave warrior.”
She was surprised by the depth of emotion on his face. “I am all the more grateful for what he did for me. I am -” Her voice trailed off. “Thrak, you said? That was his name?”
“That was his name.”
“I shall remember him. I promise.”
His head sank back against the wall. “It is late, and I am very weary. Do not fear when one of my children comes in here. I told them to wake me when they are ready.”
He closed his eyes. She watched him, but could not tell if he was sleeping or resting. His face had softened, though, and she noticed her fear of him had all but vanished.
She lay back and listened to his rasping breath. She felt her pain again, throbbing and burning.
***
When she woke, she was alone. Twilight filled the room. If one or more orcs had been inside the dwelling while she slept, she had neither seen nor heard them. The one they called Adar was gone.
Very carefully, she sat up. Her hand brushed against earthenware. There was a plate on the floor next to her, and a wooden cup, filled with water. She drank thirstily, then looked at the food. Grub made of grain. She took a bite. It tasted plain, half-cooked, but edible. Her stomach growled. She wolved it down, before she could think too much about it.
The door creaked open, just a fraction. A hairless head with bulging eyes appeared in the gap. Glowered at her and disappeared again.
“You!” She set down the plate. “Wait!”
“Don’t have time”, he growled.
“Please, just a moment!”
He snarled and stepped inside. His arms and legs seemed to long for his body. “What?”
“Could you open the shutters for me?”
“Open what?”
She prayed she had not made a lethal mistake. “The windows? Please?”
He had a strange, hopping kind of walk as he moved along the wall. “There”, he said, turning around. “You can look out now.”
The yellowish twilight streaming in made her sick, but she forced a little smile. “Thank you.”
He stared at her. “You ate up the food.”
“Yes. Did you make it?”
“No! I don’t cook.”
She swallowed her pride. “Do you have more?”
“More?” He growled savagely. “No more food. For nobody!”
He hopped to the door and smashed it shut.
Thalias let go of the breath she had been holding. No more food. Of course not, this part of the land was dead. Dead and buried under grey dust. Not even orcs could live like that. That was why they had to leave, to where they could hunt or whatever they did to sustain themselves. Taking care of a wounded Númenorean only held them back. As of now, she was useless ballast to them.
She drew her feet up under her. Movement still hurt, but she got herself to a kneeling position. She had to try standing up. More than that, she had to try walking. Before they realized she was ballast.
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. It was four or five steps between her bed and the wall. She braced herself and pushed herself up, up, up. And stood, swaying, on naked feet. Four steps. Five. Stumbling, she reached the wall between the open windows and leaned against it.
“Well done.”
She started at the sound of Adar’s raspy voice, but she was too exhausted to move away from the wall. “I did not fall.”
A wave of smoke and dust engulfed her. He held out his arm to her. “Try the wall over there.”
Did he expect her to lean on him? She eyed his arm, covered in chainmail. The terrifying spiky gauntlet. No way she was touching that.
“I need a break.”
“There is no break when you cross the mountain.” He inclined his head. “Take my arm.”
Her hand trembled as she held on to him. His muscles felt strong and solid under her palm. She stared at the far wall. “Quite the journey”, she said quietly, setting one foot in front of the other.
In the middle of the room, her head started spinning. She stopped, wheezing. He looked at her. She realized her fingers had clamped around his arm. “I can go on”, she whispered, suddenly exhausted and ashamed. One foot in front of the other. When she reached the wall, her whole body shook. She leaned her forehead on the stone, breathing deeply. After a while, her heartbeat slowed.
“Turn around, soldier”, he said softly.
She turned, swaying, and pressed her back against the wall. Valar, what magic had made the room even larger than before? Defeated, she shook her head.
“Twenty steps”, he said. “Then we can sit.”
She looked at him. He moved around her, holding out his left arm again. Curious. She had noticed before that he seemed to be favoring his right hand. She filed the information for later. Bravely, she took the first steps on her own. Only when she was getting dizzy, she reached for his arm. The rest of the way was much easier.
She slid down on the floor between the windows, where he had stayed the night before, and stretched out her legs. He sat across the corner, leaning on his left wrist, keeping his right hand close to his thigh.
She peered at him. “What’s with the hand?”, she asked. She felt drained, but the success of her little training made her cocky.
“What do you mean?”
For the first time in days, she smiled. Whatever he was, orc or elf or something else entirely, he was also definitely male.
“Your right hand”, she said. “What’s wrong with it?”
He shook his head. “It will be fine.”
She sat up, holding out her palm. “Show me. I have tended to my share of wounds, at sea.”
“You sailed the sea?”
“I was a sailor, before I volunteered.”
He looked away, but then, to her surprise, he gently put his hand in hers.
Up close, it was rough and grimy, nails too long. Like an orcs, she had to admit. Carefully, she pushed up his sleeve. Through the back of his hand went a broad cut. The wound had closed, but the tissue around it seemed swollen.
“Can you turn it over?”
“I can.”
She wondered at the faint amusement in his voice. She looked up at him, but it did not show on his face.
His hand moved in her hold. It felt like a tiny animal, frightened but alive. Very gently, she straightened out his fingers to get a better look at his palm. The cut went right through, as wide at the palm as on the back. This had been done deliberately, to inflict as much hurt as possible. To cripple someone’s sword hand. He should not even be able to move his fingers.
She felt his gaze on him. “I told you”, he said kindly. “It will be fine.”
The vision of a bright, sharp dagger flashed before her. “Did Commander Galadriel do this?”
“No. Not her.”
The other one, then. The so-called King of the Southlands, who had also been at the interrogation.
His eyes were so dark, so open. She had not expected to feel pity for him. Her fingers moved along his, rubbing them, tight muscles loosening under her touch. He sighed, quietly. Then he pulled his hand from her grasp.
“Most of my children left today”, he said. “A detachment remains with me, dismantling the camp. We leave tomorrow, after a night’s rest.”
“What about me?”
He gave her the tiniest smile. “I believe you met Brûgho.”
Brûgho? The grumpy, spidery guy with the bulging eyes? She did not say what she thought of him. “If he opened the shutters for me then yes, I met him.”
“He is a great scout, and he knows the mountains well. He is also quick, and deadly with a blade. He will defend you like one of our own.”
Like one of the orcs. It tugged at her heart, despite everything. “You think I can travel?”
“I have a horse for you. Brûgho will take care of the rest.”
“I can never repay what you did for me. I have no power. No influence.”
“You will remember that the Uruks have names.” He squinted at her. “Is there any water left?”
“Water?” She blinked.
He indicated the waterskin next to her bed. “Did you drain it?”
“Oh. No, I didn’t. Let me get it for you.” She could have crawled over, but for the sake of training she pushed herself up to a standing position, swayed and walked over. Bent down on wobbly knees, picked it up and dropped it in his lap. Then she crouched back down against the wall.
“Thank you. You will do just fine on horseback.”
“That depends on the horse, I think.”
She watched him hold the skin up with both hands and drink deeply. As he set it down beside him, she felt her eyes drawn to the black gauntlet on his left hand. His eyes met hers.
“Stretch out your hand”, he said. “Like you did before.”
She hesitated. Then she held her open palm out to him. He laid his steel-clad hand in hers.
“There is no secret”, he said softly. “Only my wounded hand.”
Very gently, she let her other hand cover the steely spikes. Then she turned his arm around, reached for the leather buckles on the underside and slid the gauntlet off his hand.
She heard his breath hitch as her fingers touched his bared skin. His hand was a map of pain. There was not a bone unbroken, not a spot of skin that had not been sliced, carved, stripped. Over and over again. Her eyes filled with tears. She had no idea who would do such a thing. She had no idea this kind of torture existed in the world.
“You have a kind heart”, he said in his raspy voice. “What is your name, sailor?”
“Thalias”, she said. She held his hand in both of hers. Her whole body shook.
“Thalias. The brave one.”
“I am not brave. Valar, I am not!”
“But you are, child. You are brave and kind.”
And she was crying again, helplessly, shamefully. “What does it matter? There is only pain, and death, in this horrible world.”
“There is much pain”, he said quietly. “But it is not all.”
He held her in his arms. She pressed close, drowning in her pain and fear. The rim of his breastplate cut into her cheek, but she did not feel it. She breathed in smoke and dust and felt safer than she had in a very long time.
***
„Wake up. Wake up.“
The grumpy voice was not the voice of Adar. She stretched, and realized she lay on her bed. Alone.
Alone except for the Uruk warrior looking down on her with a frown on his face. A frown and huge, bulging eyes.
“Can you stand on your own?”
He was dressed more completely than when she had last seen him, in a steel cuirass and helmet, with long, curved knives and a club under his belt.
“Yes.”
She sorted her arms and legs and sat up. It still hurt, everything did. He gave an impatient growl and reached a hand out to her.
“We’re leaving”, he said. “Right now.”
“Ok, just – ok.“
Taking his leathery hand took an act of will, but she did it. It was not so bad, like touching a dead snake. He pulled her up and watched as if he expected her to collapse any moment. When she didn’t, he looked around.
“Shoes?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think I have –“
He snarled at her. “We kept your cursed boots for you, now where are they?”
“I’m sorry, I don’t – “
He stooped to rummage in the bundle on the floor. “There”, he said placatingly and pulled out her boots. “Took them off you with the rest of your stuff. The Lord Father insisted we cut open your armour, so that was that. A shame, really. But you were burning up under it, so.” He grinned. “Tiny feet, you have.” He sniffed at her boots and handed them over. “Smells human to me.”
“Well”, she said, putting them on, “I am.”
"Númenórean, the Lord Father said."
"That is not so different."
Outside, a horse whinnied. She looked at Brûgho.
"It's all yours", he said. "Smells delicious, but my opinion does not count."
Step by step, she carefully made her way to the door. Next thing she knew, a wiry arm reached around her and pulled it open. “There.”
“Thank you”, she said without thinking.
Before her, in the yellowish twilight, stood a horse of Westernesse. Like Adar had promised.
“The Lord Father”, she asked, “where is he?”
Brûgho’s eyes shot daggers at her. “The Lord Father”, he growled, “left before morning. Waited around long enough for you, didn’t he?”
“Well, yes. I suppose.”
He growled, but there was no menace to it. Instead, he reached out a leathery hand to help her up on the horse’s back.
“Where do we go?”, she asked, pulling her dress up to her knees. Riding would not be very comfortable, without pants.
He took hold of the reins.
“I go first, the horse follows and you better not fall off. Simple as that.”
Then he led on in his peculiar, hopping gait.