Relics of the Third Age: A Lord of the Rings Quest

One of Nine​

"No," I growled and shook my head, trying to cast off the phantom voice and its demands. "I will not 'krimpatul.' Nobody deserves to be bound and forced to serve another. Not even Orcs. Nor will I betray the Gondorians to make common cause with the very Orcs they came here to protect my people from. That is not how a noble daughter of Numenor conducts herself."

I turned my eyes to the wounded Orc, still on his knees before me. A moment later I realized that he'd taken the opportunity provided by my distraction to slowly inch his remaining hand towards the broken shards of my old sword. I struck the Orc's head off, with a contemptuous growl, putting an end to any talk of binding it to my service. Even if I had gone through with that mad plan, the Orcs probably would have stuck a knife in my back the first time I dropped my guard around them. Truly loyal Orcs needed to be cultivated, the way Sauron's legions had been. I couldn't just conscript a band of raiders.

I glanced down at the new sword resting at my hip, and the ring on my finger. For a moment I considered putting the sword right back into the stone where I'd found it, but I still needed to make my way back to camp and past any remaining Orcs. Besides, dropping them on the ground would just leave them for some passing Orc to take as a prize. It was better to keep them in my own hands until I understood what I was dealing with, though I already had suspicions.


The trip back to the camp thankfully went without further incident. Orcs passed by in the night, no doubt fleeing the battle, but they made such a racket crashing through the underbrush and howling into the night that it was easy to keep well clear of them. Not that I was afraid of fighting any Orcs I might encounter, but there was no reason to take the risk. Even if the pain of my injuries had faded since acquiring my new sword (something I didn't want to reflect further on the meaning of) I was still wounded, alone, and in the dark. Even with my new sword, a dozen Orcs might easily crush me under the sheer weight of their numbers.

Thankfully it wasn't long before I found the ranger's campsite. The fires they'd set to be able to fight in the dark of the night were probably visible from miles away. However, not long after I came within line of sight of the camp an arrow buried itself in one of the trees nearby, uncomfortably close to my head. "It's me!" I called out, only slightly frantic to announce myself before a second arrow came for me.

"Hold, it's Arphazêl!" Thankfully, Tirndis's voice called out before I sprouted a coat of feathered shafts. Moments later the ranger lieutenant approached me through the darkness. "I was about to send a search party out to look for you."

"Really?" It was hard to keep any hostility or skepticism out of my voice, considering our recent history with one another. "I would have thought you would be glad to have an excuse to relieve yourself of this unwanted burden. Not minutes before the Orcs attacked you seemed eager to kill me before any of them would get a chance to."

It was hard to make out any expression on her face with most of it covered and in the dark of the night, but I couldn't miss how she hunched her shoulders when she spoke. "What happened before the Orc attack was ... regrettable." The ranger sighed and shook her head. "I could blame this fell place for influencing me, but we both know it merely encouraged me to act on my darkest desires. I have no excuse for my actions, and offer my solemn word that I will never allow myself to display such weakness again."

I was a bit tempted to take some time rubbing her nose in her failure and weak-willed nature, but considering I'd now truly committed to trying to make this alliance work it would probably be best to display at least a little magnanimity. Like any true Numenorean, I could forgive the failures of lesser Men. "As you said, this place has a darkness that can infect even the most righteous souls. You regret your actions and have sworn they will never happen again, I see no point in dwelling further on the matter."

"Thank you." Though Tirndis's tone was entirely polite and gracious, I could at least take a little petty, vindictive pleasure from thinking about how much it must gall her to be in a situation where she had to thank me. As long as I kept that thought to myself, I could enjoy a measure of petty revenge without actually having to be petty.

I let her stew in that discomfort for a long moment before moving on. "I dealt with what I presume was the leader of the Orc warband, and it seems like you and your rangers handled the rest of them quite well. How much damage did they do?"

"More than I hoped, but less than I feared," Tridis answered with a sigh. "We should at least be able to leave our wounded at the Morgul fort to recover and replace them with fresh rangers. I suppose I should also thank you for taking their chieftain off the battlefield, Orcs are much less effective without good leadership."

That was hardly a surprise. One thing Tigkiz always emphasized in my lessons was that victory almost always went to the more disciplined force, even when their opponents had numbers on their side. That made me think back to one of the few bits of leadership advice my father had given me that I could remember. 'Make your accomplishments seem effortless,' "It seemed like the best course of action to take, even if he did give me a little trouble before I took him down." Tirndis hadn't been there for the fight, so she wouldn't have any way to know that I'd barely won the battle, and at significant cost.

My hand unconsciously drifted down to the new sword resting at my hip. Despite it being such a recent acquisition, it felt like it belonged there, practically an extension of my body already. She hadn't asked about it yet, but then considering it was still the dead of the night she might not have noticed it yet. I would need to come up with a good story to explain where the sword had come from. The last thing I needed was for the Gondorians to do something extreme about it potentially being an artifact of Mordor. Even if there'd been a few issues when I first pulled the blade out I had it under control now.

As we stepped into the firelight Tirndis's eyes quickly assessed me. "You're wounded."

I sat down beside the fire with a sigh. The pain of my wounds had been muted ever since I made my recent acquisitions, but it would seem that wasn't because the wounds had been healed by some dark magic. "Nothing serious, or I would've bled out in the night before I made it back to camp."

Tirndis nodded. "Very well. You can tend to yourself, or I can have our medic check your injuries once they're done with the more serious cases." She paused, her head tilting to the side. "Curious. Half the stories I'd heard said that your people had blood as black as an Orcs."

"I'm not surprised someone from Gondor would make up such a ridiculous story." I rolled my eyes and pressed a finger to the cut along my cheek, assessing the damage. Poking the wound was enough to tell me that I was not immune to pain, but thankfully the damage wasn't too serious. The worst of it would probably be the very large and tender bruise that would develop on my face by the morning.

However, the bruises on my face and elsewhere were by far the least pressing concern about the night's events. I'd survived, but I had to wonder just what the price of my decision to take the sword would be.

End of Chapter​

---

Arphazêl has gained a new name! Pick one from the selection below:

[ ] Silvertongue
+1 to interaction rolls when serving as a representative of Nurn

[ ] Orcsbane
+1 to combat rolls against Orcs

[ ] Wraithblade
+1 to combat rolls when using her newly acquired sword