January 25, TA 3019.
Moria
The Istari Olorin, more commonly known as Mithrandir or...
Moria
The Istari Olorin, more commonly known as Mithrandir or...
To Rule Them All (Lord of the Rings and 1200 AD Europe)
- Thread starter severak
- Start date
- Created
- Status
- Ongoing
- Watchers
- 41
- Recent readers
- 0
- Threadmarks
- 25
-
Statistics (25 threadmarks, 140k words)
User Total severak 25
The Breaking of the World
- Location
- University of Saint Thomas, St. Paul, Minnesota
January 25, TA 3019.
Moria
The Istari Olorin, more commonly known as Mithrandir or Gandalf, was exhausted. How many hours, how many days, had passed since his battle had begun? Long ago he had lost all sense of time, his mind focusing ever more on simple survival. He had fallen through fire and water and crawled through the darkest pits of the world, gone through trials no mortal man, and indeed most elves, could ever have passed. But still his battle continued. Now, climbing the Endless Stair, he could feel his body finally starting to give out. Even a Maiar had limits. Soon, he would reach his.
With any luck, so would the Balrog. The Bane of Durin's fire seemed to be slackening, its movements slowing down. The Beast of Morgoth, horrible as it was, still had a body at least partially of flesh. But the Istar had little hope in victory by attrition. The Beast was still more dangerous than a thousand mail-clad knights, and its flame hot enough to melt iron. No, the one known as Gandalf would have to fight, and be victorious.
Mithrandir did not fear death, not in the sense that a mortal man would. Death, to him, was just another step in life. What he did fear was leaving the Balrog alive. Such a force, if put in service of the enemy, would be devastating. He feared what it could unleash upon Eregion and the other lands of the north. The Beast of Morgoth could easily accomplish what the Wizard had feared of Smaug, the great Dragon that had taken the Lonely Mountain. The Dragon had been defeated, yes, but at terrible cost. The Balrog had to be defeated. The wizard knew that much.
And so he continued his pursuit. Climbing up the Endless Stair, he followed the Balrog, striking at its heels, forcing it towards the peak. With every strike, he could feel his body giving out, but the battle was not yet over. After what seemed to be an eternity, they reached Durin's Tower, at the summit of Zirakzigil. Here, their battle continued. All around them, a ferocious storm raged, as if the mountains and skies themselves were trying to slay the two combatants. With everything they had left, the Istar and the Balrog fought on.
The one known as Durin's Bane was enraged. This little one, who had seemed at first to be no more than another mortal man (albeit one very funnily dressed), was clearly much more. No one, man, elf or dwarf could have survived preceding days and weeks of combat. And yet this one was still defiant. Their cloak was torn; a hundred wounds bled or blistered; their bones were cracked and broken. But their sword still struck out against the dark; their staff remained unshattered. And the Balrog, despite its power, was not invincible: the fall and the water had smothered its fire (although not extinguishing it), and even the endurance of Durin's Bane had been tested by the climb up to the peak. Its body was scarred, wounds carved into its mass of flesh, shadow and fire.
The Demon screamed, and advanced again. This one, who had defied them for so long and through so much, would fall, and would fall now. The battle had gone on long enough. With nowhere else to go, the Balrog pressed forwards, driving back the Istar, its hatred and rage pushing its flames ever hotter. It's flesh began to boil and burn, and the snow of the peak turned to steam below its feet. The power of Morgoth ran through the body of the Demon, and now that power welled to the surface as the Bane of Durin struck again and again.
At this moment, the Istar's body failed. The mortal frame, pushed far beyond its limits, crumbled beneath the onslaught, and the one called the Grey Pilgrim was forced to their knees. Their defenses were cracking. The fury of the Balrog's assault continued, pushing the Wizard further and further down, the Power of Morgoth threatening to extinguish his light. Finally, the Istar's guard was broken. The ancient sword Glamdring was torn from his grasp. His staff was broken and thrown aside. The Demon moved in for the final blow.
But the Wizard was not yet defeated. The power of the Valar flowed through the Istar as the power of Morgoth flowed through the Balrog, and now that power was unleashed. The one known as Gandalf, his mortal frame broken, called upon every last drop of this energy. Normally, the Istar was not meant to match strength with strength: they were meant to guide and lead the world, not fight the world's battles. But now, Mithrandir was out of options. The Balrog could not be allowed to threaten the world, no matter the cost. The one called the Grey Pilgrim, long limited, was now unleashed, and the powers of a Maiar of Manwe and Varda were unbound.
And when the Light of Manwe met the Darkness of Morgoth, the world exploded.
Author's Notes:
This story is a crosspost from both AlternateHistory.com (it's point of origin) and SpaceBattles; as of this post, those two threads are 13 months and 1 year old, respectively (it was originally recommended to me in the AlternateHistory thread that I crosspost this story to both SpaceBattles and here-for some reason, I only remembered to post it to SpaceBattles). If you wish to follow those threads, click here for AlternateHistory and here for SpaceBattles.
Also, here's a map which should prove useful for those of you that choose to follow this story:
Moria
The Istari Olorin, more commonly known as Mithrandir or Gandalf, was exhausted. How many hours, how many days, had passed since his battle had begun? Long ago he had lost all sense of time, his mind focusing ever more on simple survival. He had fallen through fire and water and crawled through the darkest pits of the world, gone through trials no mortal man, and indeed most elves, could ever have passed. But still his battle continued. Now, climbing the Endless Stair, he could feel his body finally starting to give out. Even a Maiar had limits. Soon, he would reach his.
With any luck, so would the Balrog. The Bane of Durin's fire seemed to be slackening, its movements slowing down. The Beast of Morgoth, horrible as it was, still had a body at least partially of flesh. But the Istar had little hope in victory by attrition. The Beast was still more dangerous than a thousand mail-clad knights, and its flame hot enough to melt iron. No, the one known as Gandalf would have to fight, and be victorious.
Mithrandir did not fear death, not in the sense that a mortal man would. Death, to him, was just another step in life. What he did fear was leaving the Balrog alive. Such a force, if put in service of the enemy, would be devastating. He feared what it could unleash upon Eregion and the other lands of the north. The Beast of Morgoth could easily accomplish what the Wizard had feared of Smaug, the great Dragon that had taken the Lonely Mountain. The Dragon had been defeated, yes, but at terrible cost. The Balrog had to be defeated. The wizard knew that much.
And so he continued his pursuit. Climbing up the Endless Stair, he followed the Balrog, striking at its heels, forcing it towards the peak. With every strike, he could feel his body giving out, but the battle was not yet over. After what seemed to be an eternity, they reached Durin's Tower, at the summit of Zirakzigil. Here, their battle continued. All around them, a ferocious storm raged, as if the mountains and skies themselves were trying to slay the two combatants. With everything they had left, the Istar and the Balrog fought on.
The one known as Durin's Bane was enraged. This little one, who had seemed at first to be no more than another mortal man (albeit one very funnily dressed), was clearly much more. No one, man, elf or dwarf could have survived preceding days and weeks of combat. And yet this one was still defiant. Their cloak was torn; a hundred wounds bled or blistered; their bones were cracked and broken. But their sword still struck out against the dark; their staff remained unshattered. And the Balrog, despite its power, was not invincible: the fall and the water had smothered its fire (although not extinguishing it), and even the endurance of Durin's Bane had been tested by the climb up to the peak. Its body was scarred, wounds carved into its mass of flesh, shadow and fire.
The Demon screamed, and advanced again. This one, who had defied them for so long and through so much, would fall, and would fall now. The battle had gone on long enough. With nowhere else to go, the Balrog pressed forwards, driving back the Istar, its hatred and rage pushing its flames ever hotter. It's flesh began to boil and burn, and the snow of the peak turned to steam below its feet. The power of Morgoth ran through the body of the Demon, and now that power welled to the surface as the Bane of Durin struck again and again.
At this moment, the Istar's body failed. The mortal frame, pushed far beyond its limits, crumbled beneath the onslaught, and the one called the Grey Pilgrim was forced to their knees. Their defenses were cracking. The fury of the Balrog's assault continued, pushing the Wizard further and further down, the Power of Morgoth threatening to extinguish his light. Finally, the Istar's guard was broken. The ancient sword Glamdring was torn from his grasp. His staff was broken and thrown aside. The Demon moved in for the final blow.
But the Wizard was not yet defeated. The power of the Valar flowed through the Istar as the power of Morgoth flowed through the Balrog, and now that power was unleashed. The one known as Gandalf, his mortal frame broken, called upon every last drop of this energy. Normally, the Istar was not meant to match strength with strength: they were meant to guide and lead the world, not fight the world's battles. But now, Mithrandir was out of options. The Balrog could not be allowed to threaten the world, no matter the cost. The one called the Grey Pilgrim, long limited, was now unleashed, and the powers of a Maiar of Manwe and Varda were unbound.
And when the Light of Manwe met the Darkness of Morgoth, the world exploded.
Author's Notes:
This story is a crosspost from both AlternateHistory.com (it's point of origin) and SpaceBattles; as of this post, those two threads are 13 months and 1 year old, respectively (it was originally recommended to me in the AlternateHistory thread that I crosspost this story to both SpaceBattles and here-for some reason, I only remembered to post it to SpaceBattles). If you wish to follow those threads, click here for AlternateHistory and here for SpaceBattles.
Also, here's a map which should prove useful for those of you that choose to follow this story:
The Players
- Location
- University of Saint Thomas, St. Paul, Minnesota
January 25, TA 3019/AD 1200.
Isengard
The Istari Curumo, also known Curunir or Saruman, had no warning. One moment, he had been reviewing production quotas, scouting reports and other trivial, but necessary matters. He was thinking of how to speed the breeding of the Uruk-Hai, where to put a new forge to increase armor production, how many more trees he would need to cut from Fangorn to fuel his war machine.
The next moment, he was on the floor of his study, screaming in pain. He felt as if his very being was being torn apart, his soul being ripped from his body and thrown into the unknown. Through the pain, he barely noticed the Tower of Orthanc, one of the sturdiest structures in all of Middle-Earth, shaking like a child's plaything.
All around the Tower, a furious storm raged. Lighting stuck down from the heavens, striking the shoddily constructed Orc watchtowers that had been thrown up around the base of the tower. The shaking of the earth collapsed these flimsy constructs, taking many orcs with them. Below the ground, the pits and forges of Isengard were subjected to the same tremors, and in the places where expediency had trumped caution during construction a bloody price was paid. Machines of war and industry, built for efficiency (not safety), collapsed, taking many orc workers with them.
After an what seemed an eternity, the quaking stopped. In his study, Saruman slowly pulled himself off the floor. Idly, he wondered if this was how Gandalf felt after having too much of the Halfling's leaf, or Radagast after too much mushroom stew. Exactly what he felt he couldn't exactly describe, but if he had to try it would be something along the lines of having an Oliphaunt jump up and down on his head for several hours. He was also unsure of exactly what had happened. He had felt a massive disturbance in the Great Music, to be sure, as if a percussion player had dropped a cymbal on top of a timpani during a flute solo. It had originated, he thought (or rather, had felt), somewhere to his north, further up the Misty Mountains. That blasted fool Olorin had probably done something stupid. He certainly had it in him.
Pulling himself into a chair, Saruman took stock of his situation. He began to notice the damage done to his study. Vaguely, he remembered the floor shaking beneath him as he had writhed in pain. An earthquake, then. The White Wizard frowned. In all the time he had occupied the Tower, there hadn't been any tremors. Certainly, none that had been powerful enough to notice. Thinking about it (as well as he could with an Oliphant tapdancing on his skull), he realized that the disturbance in the Great Music and the earthquake might very well be related.
In the back of his mind, the Wizard thought about the earthquake: the damage to his forges that it had no doubt done, and thus the repairs that would have to be carried out, the replacement workers that would have to be trained. But at the forefront of his thought was the disturbance in the Music. That was the key, the question around which everything was centered.
Doubtless, the palantir would have answers. Climbing higher into the Tower, Saruman meditated further on events. There had been a storm, he thought. Not that Isengard didn't have storms, but rarely did they come so suddenly. Yet another question in need of answering. Approaching the Seeing Stone, the Lord of Orthanc began going through theories on what had happened.
None of them was anything close to what he saw in the palantir.
Lorien
Galadriel, the Lady of Lothlorien, had been through many things in her life. She had been there when the sun had first risen, after Morgoth poisoned the two trees. She had marched out from Valinor with her kin the Noldor, following behind Feanor as he had led them into Middle Earth. She had survived that journey, through the grinding ice floes of the far north and down into the now long-gone lands of Beleriand. She had survived all the battles of the ages, those that had claimed her brothers and so many of her kin. She endured in Middle Earth when even more of her people had returned to Valinor, through the second age and its trials. She wore even now Nenya, the Ring of Water, using it to conceal and protect her small corner of the world. She had driven out the Necromancer from Dol Gurdur. And now the One Ring itself had found its way to her doorstep.
The Fellowship had arrived little more than a week prior at the edge of her wood. There was eight of them: a Dwarf, rugged and strong. An Elf, Thranduil of Mirkwood's son. The men, a ranger from the north that had passed through her woods many times before and the Captain of the White City, both so devoted to their duties, but yet so far from the same path. And of course...the Ringbearer and his kin, so small, yet so much stronger than their frail forms would suggest. Perhaps not the likes of Beren, Elendil, Gil-Galad and the other heroes of old. But for this day and age...perhaps enough.
Yes, Galadriel had done much. But not since the Second Age had she felt as she did now. Even now, mere hours after the event, reports were trickling in, claiming that anything recognizable east of the Anduin had vanished, the fields and plains beyond replaced by foreboding mountains. They spoke of the lightning that had struck almost unceasingly, of wind that had uprooted ancient trees at the edge of the wood, of the shaking of the ground that had split solid stone. Galadriel had felt this all herself. But what she felt most had been the tearing, as if her very soul had been being ripped from its spot and thrown in a violent maelstrom to somewhere unknown. She felt torn, as if the fabric of her being had been sheared away and knitted into a new and unknown tapestry. The calling to the West, which she had felt since she had first set foot on Middle-Earth, had been dimmed, as if smothered beneath an oversized blanket.
For the first time in centuries, nay, millennia...Galadriel felt afraid.
Rivendell
Bilbo Baggins hadn't been around as long as Galadriel, but he had still seen much in his life. He had faced the great dragon Smaug alone, and come through unscathed. By similar methods of hiding and staying away from anything that might kill him, he had survived the Battle of Five Armies. He had outsmarted both hungry trolls and the strange creature Gollum, as well as his own nefarious cousins, the Sackville-Bagginses.
That was all in the past. Bilbo was old now, and his body wasn't as strong as it had once been. He had wanted to go on one last adventure after leaving Bag End; to wander Mirkwood, maybe, or perhaps see the Lonely Mountain once again. But nowadays he couldn't climb a steep hill without having to pause and catch his breath halfway up. He'd barely made it to Bree before he felt like his legs were about to fall off.
In the end, he had stopped at Rivendell. The sanctuary of the Elves made nice enough final stop, he decided; the people here were always good to him, and the food...Still he had hoped for more in his final days. Perhaps he was being unrealistic. After all, what was he now? 120? 130? He could hardly remember himself some days. It was a fool's dream to believe that he had any adventure left in him.
At least, that's what he had started to believe. But then the storm had come, more vicious than any that Bilbo had experienced in several decades. The earthquake, too, was something that the old Hobbit couldn't say he had been through before. Their effect together, he decided, was similar to the time during his first adventure when, passing through the Misty Mountains, he and the Company of Thorin Oakenshield had gotten front row seats to a sparring match between a pair (or perhaps a trio) of stone giants.
Like back in that cold mountain pass, it seemed like forever before whatever was happening passed by. When it did so, Bilbo got the distinct sense that something was afoot. The physical damage to Rivendell itself, protected by Lord Elrond's enchantments (and, unknown to Bilbo, Vilya, the Ring of Air), was slight, a few of the more delicate structures needing repair and a handful of brushfires around the outskirts that were quickly contained, but the mental and spiritual health of Imladris had taken a beating.
Bilbo heard the rumors and stories, about everything beyond the Bruinen being unrecognizable, of the elves feeling as if their spirits were being ripped from place and hurled into a violent maelstrom, of the diminishing in the Call to the West. Lord Elrond was doing all he could to placate his people's fears, sending out his own twin sons, Elladan and Elrohir, to scout into the lands that had seemingly changed. Bilbo himself, along with Elrond and his daughter Arwen, now poured through old records and ancient tomes, searching for answers to what had happened. Despite everything, Bilbo couldn't help but smile to himself.
Maybe he'd get his Adventure after all.
Mirkwood
Grimbeorn the Skin-Changer wanted answers. In normal times, the son of Beorn had little worry for the world outside of his home (excepting, of course, when the dwarves needed him to clear the Carrock or the High Pass of orcs and wolves; then he gladly took their money [or whatever else they used to pay his tolls] but such interactions were increasingly rare). He hunted, he farmed, he killed any creature that was brave enough or stupid enough to enter his territory without his permission. In normal times, Grimbeorn the Old was troubled by little.
These were not normal times. The storm that had blown through had ripped apart trees older than he was, winds and thunder howling louder than anything he had ever heard, lightning shattering stone and igniting wildfires. The earth had shaken as if the whole world was being used as a dice in some giant's game. By the time it had dissipated, there was fire seemingly everywhere, eating away at the shredded remains of the trees and undergrowth. The rain, at least, made it so the fire wouldn't destroy everything, mainly by flooding anything that wasn't burned or broken.
And so Grimbeorn was left with wrecked lands and no explanation of what had happened. The first order of business would be to rally his people, whatever was left of them, and find somewhere to regroup. Staying in Mirkwood might not be a good idea; doubtless, the storm would have stirred up the various dark creatures that stirred within. This wouldn't normally worry him, but these times were decidedly not normal. From that line of thought, and idea occurred to him: who better to turn to in not-normal times than the least normal entity that Grimbeorn knew of? And going to them had the added benefit of perhaps finding some answers. The Skin-Changer hadn't spoken to him in months, if not years, but from what he remembered, Radagast the Brown was, for all his eccentricities, was one wise.
Surely, the Wizard would know something.
______________________________________________________________________________
At the other end of Mirkwood, King Thranduil was worried. The storm and the earthquake had done much damage to his kingdom. Fires raged across his lands, many barely controlled; trees had been uprooted by the winds, tearing apart some of the outer defenses; the tremors had wrecked some of his halls, wounding (or worse) many therein; the rains had flooded many of the lower chambers that hadn't collapsed.
What was worse, though, were the reports coming in from the western borders. The creatures of Mirkwood commonly prodded at the edges of his domain, but usually could be driven off with little effort. But now, with his kingdom in crisis, Thranduil's borders were vulnerable. Already, dozens of spiders were spilling over his borders, his guards barely holding them back. The storm seemed to have stirred them up. In all likeliness, more would be coming.
The news from the east was somehow even more worrying. Apparently, everything and anything familiar beyond the eaves of the forest had been replaced. The Lonely Mountain was gone, replaced with unfamiliar country. All the elves had felt the disturbance in the Great Music, the sense that they had been torn from where the stood and thrown...somewhere, but this...this was unprecedented. But for now, Thranduil couldn't afford to worry about it.
He, and his people, would have to survive long enough to do so.
The Lonely Mountain
Disaster and despair had come to Dain, son of Nain, and the Lonely Mountain. Not since Smaug the Dragon had driven Thror out centuries prior had the Dwarves of Erebor suffered so much within their own keep. The storm had done harm, the lightning shattering boulders and throwing out deadly fragment and the downpour causing landslides that blocked a few secondary vents and passages, but much of that was only superficial. The real damage had been done within the Mountain, caused by the earthquake.
The mines and halls of the Mountain were sturdy and strong, reinforced over the centuries to withstand the constant mining of the dwarves, each tunnel strengthened so that digging more shafts would not cause the old ones to weaken. But the builders had never considered what had happened a possibility. The earthquake had made the very roots of the mountain tremble, shaking Erebor from its lowest vault to the highest peak. The mines and chambers of the mountain were designed to withstand tremors, but nothing like this.
Dain II Ironfoot, King Under the Mountain, surveyed the damage. Dozens already known to be dead, crushed as their ceilings had come down on top of them. Hundreds more were injured, struck by flying debris or pinned as the walls around them had fallen in. Three mineshafts had collapsed outright: it was yet unknown if the entrances were merely blocked or if they had completely caved in, killing all that had been working there. Many chambers and passages in the lower levels had flooded out, the rains seeping through the cracks in the mountain. Such a disaster had never been faced by the younger generation of dwarves, many of whom were frozen by grief or fear. The casualties continued to mount; not since the Battle of Five Armies had so many wounded lay within the halls of Erebor.
Dain had immediately sent out for aid from the men of Dale, but his riders had yet to return. For now, this calamity was squarely on his shoulders, and those of his kinsmen. But he would need to bear most of the weight. His people were shaken, doubt and fear filling their minds. Now, more than any time since the Mountain had been reclaimed, Erebor needed its King. There were dwarves in the lower halls, trapped beneath the weight of the mountain, pinned in the flooding caverns. There was the question of what had caused the quake, but now was not the time to answer it. Rather than a lore-book, Dain instead grabbed a pickaxe and a shovel.
It was time to get to work.
______________________________________________________________________________
In Dale, King Brand had problems of his own, but not structural ones. The city had been struck by the storm and the quake, but much less damage had been done than in Erebor. The stone of Dale had stood up to the winds and the lightning, and while the earthquake had been damaging, most of the city was intact. In fact, all in all, Dale was in rather good shape.
No, what concerned him was the fact that, whenever he looked south, he recognized nothing beyond the spokes of the Mountain. The River Running, instead of curving southeast near Ravenhill, seemed to continue westwards instead, its course disappearing behind the south-southwestern spoke of the mountain.
He was not the only one to have noticed this, of course. There was a certain tension in the air, the people of Dale wary of whatever had happened. In a sense, he was relieved when the riders from Erebor arrived. He felt grief for the dwarves, of course, and empathized with their plight. He himself would lead whatever men he could find in the aid of their old allies. But secretly, he was somewhat glad for the distraction, terrible as the cause for it was. He was in no hurry to face the unknown; the people of Dale were laborers, not scholars, and their King was no exception. The whole of the court of Dale was unlikely to have any answers for Brand's concerns. No, better to bury himself in productive work than concern himself with something that he couldn't understand.
Besides, what could have possibly happened?
Ithilien
Faramir, Captain of Gondor, was frightened. He was not so prideful as to say he was not. Even as he presented to his man an air of calm and discipline, internally he was as scared as a small child. There had been nothing to indicate that the day would be anything out of the ordinary. He and his men were encamped near the Morgul Vale, carrying out pestering attack against the orcs in the area; business as usual for the Ithilien Rangers.
The storm had caught his men unprepared, lighting striking down around their small, hidden camp, winds tearing apart their meager fortifications, the earthquake taking out whatever was left. When the maelstrom had finally passed, it was apparent that they could not stay. Fires burned around them, consuming what little cover there was and exposing their position. It was obvious that the Rangers could not stay in the open. If this were normal times, they would have gone west, back into Gondor. Back towards home.
Even in the hardest times, the times when the Rangers had botched an ambush and found themselves forced to retreat, dragging their wounded with them and forced to leave the dead behind, the men of Gondor could look to the west and see the White Mountains, knowing that the White City stood at their base. They took comfort from seeing their homeland and the knowledge that they were doing their parts to defend it. They took much of their resolve from this, and whenever the times grew dark, the Rangers would look to the west, and remind themselves what they were fighting for.
But now the White Mountains were gone, in their place a far more foreboding and unfamiliar range. The Great River was gone, only open plains taking its place. The Rangers despaired at this, their fear and uncertainty beginning to gnaw at their courage. In their hearts, they were all terrified, their Captain no less than any other man. But Faramir could not let his fear show. He had a duty to his men, which for all he knew were all he had left, and he could not let them down. Faramir decided on going north, towards the sanctuary of Henneth Annun, main base of operations for the Rangers, where they could presumably link up with the rest of the the men of Ithilien. Whatever had happened, the Rangers would face it at full strength.
And they would face it with their Captain leading them.
Zirakzigil
Here, the storm raged on. Above the peak, lighting cackled and thunder roared. The blinding snowfall and howling winds continued unabated. If one could have looked through the encircling clouds and hail and discerned the peak itself, they would have noticed that the Tower of Durin was no more. What was left appeared to have been cleanly sliced off, as if a massive axe had cloven the Tower from the mountaintop. If they looked closer, they would have seen a small figure in tattered and burned robes, lying still on a cliff some distance below. And if they could have listened through the wind, they would have heard two very distinct noises.
The screech of an eagle, and the roar of a demon.
Krakow
Leszek the White, High Duke of Poland, knelt before the altar of God. A pious man (or rather, pious boy; he was not more than 17), he had come to Wawel Cathedral seeking council from the Lord. The Cathedral had always brought him comfort. For more than a century, it had been the beating heart of the Polish branch of the Faith. It was here that Kings (or, in Poland's case, High Dukes) were coronated, and at the end of their reign were laid down among their forebears.
The history of Poland was all around Leszek, in fact. Wawel Hill, upon which the Cathedral rested, was a living testament to the legacy that he now upheld. It was here that the earliest settlement of his people's ancestors was built, here that legend said the mythical King Krakus had slain the great dragon Smok Wawelski by feeding it a poisoned lamb (who's bones were said to now be displayed within the Cathedral), here that the first crowned King of Poland, Boleslaw I the Brave, had established his keep. Here, upon this hill, all of Polish history sat on display.
That history weighed heavily on Leszek. A mere matter of months he had held the throne, being installed by the machinations of various minor nobles and clergymen in the place of his uncle Mieszko, and a calamity unprecedented in Polish history was dropped upon him quite literally out of the sky.
A great storm had been seen to the south, lighting cackling out of the sky, thunder sounding across the plains, snow so thick that nothing beyond the edge of the storm could be seen. The earth itself had trembled as the storm continued on, shaking like a leaf in the wind. When the tremors had finally stopped, the storm had blown north across the plains. Luckily, the lightning seemed to have been spent, and all that Krakow received was a fair few inches of snow.
But when the people of Krakow saw what was behind the storm, fear welled up within them, and uncertainty ruled their hearts. Now, where there had once been nothing but open plains, great mountains now rose out of the ground, dark and foreboding in the appearance, as if some malevolent force hid behind them.
In the day since the storm, some had come to the city from the countryside further south. These riders had been sent by various village heads, requesting the aid of the High Duke. They spoke of a great Black Gate in the mountains, of a mountain that spewed fire beyond, of a Tower upon which a great burning eye gazed out upon them. Most disturbing of all were the stories of monsters, demons that had come out from the mountains and struck at small villages and left few, if any, alive. The messengers begged for aid.
Leszek wished he could give it to them, but there were far too many questions that were currently unanswered. The tales that the riders brought him he would have dismissed as paranoia, the dreams of scared and uneducated men, but they were far too numerous and far too consistent to ignore.
His advisers were less than helpful, each having a contradictory explanation for what was happening, every one more fantastic than the last. The priests were worse, many going through the streets, claiming that the End Times were upon them and that the people had to repent or risk damnation. There was unrest in the streets, and the city guards struggled to maintain order. Leszek was in well over his head.
And so Leszek the White, High Duke of Poland, prayed. In the Cathedral on Wawel Hill, surrounded by the legacy of all of Poland, with what seemed to be the weight of the world on his too-young shoulders, he prayed. He prayed for strength for the task that he knew lied ahead, he prayed for wisdom to choose right against whatever was to come, he prayed for courage against the fears that gnawed at his heart.
In the beating heart of Poland, Leszek the White prayed for the Lord to save him.
Seville
Far to Leszek's southwest, another Lord of Men was also praying, and for very similar reasons, although in a different way. He did not kneel before an altar, but instead stood on the battlements of his city. He recited the prayers laid down not by Jesus Christ and his Apostles, but those of the Prophet Muhammed. He was not silent and alone in his worship, as the High Duke of Poland was, but rather he shouted his prayers to the heavens, leading the men that stood besides him in calling upon Allah for strength and courage.
Muhammad al-Nasir was his name, and he was the Caliph of the Almohads. Two days before, there was little that troubled him. Seville was easily one of the safest cities in his domains. The ancient city was supposedly founded by the legendary Greek Hero Hercules himself, and it sat far from both the Christian Kingdoms that held northern Al-Andalus and the rival Muslim Banu Ghaniya Dynasty that probed at his borders in North Africa.
His father's victories against the Crusader states had brought peace to his realm. Despite the machinations of the distant Banu Ghaniya to seize his holdings in Tunisia, his lands prospered. Gold flowed through the markets and trade ports, knowledge through the schools and universities, and the people were happy.
That had all come crashing down the previous day. To the east, a great storm had raged, making the earth itself tremble with its ferocity. When the earth had stopped shaking, the storm had passed over the city, dropping a great amount of snow upon the city. But this was not what brought terror to the people of Seville.
To the east had been mostly flatlands with the occasional hill, country that much of the heartland of Al-Andalus resembled. What there hadn't been was a massive forest, reaching beyond the horizon to both the north and the south. As if the universe felt that the fear of an unknown forest taking the place of almost everything wasn't enough, there was an air of dread emanating from the dark and twisted trees, striking fear in the hearts of men. And just to make sure that the people of Seville were terrified, large parts of the forest were on fire.
Naturally, the people were afraid. Muhammad would be lying if he said that he wasn't as well. That first day, the citizenry had largely congregated in the mosques and other places that offered a sense of security. They had prayed in much the same way as Leszek the White did upon the Wawel Hill, kneeling silently before altars inside of the holy places. Then, there had been a sense of calm, that while the unknown was all around them they were not yet threatened.
But then the people from the east had come. They had started to arrive during the night, begging to be allowed within the city. They said that there were monsters in the forest, monsters that had began to come out across the countryside, slaughtering everything in their path. They spoke of great beasts, terrors like giant spiders and wild boars that could outrun horses.
Like Leszek, Muhammad would have ignored these reports, but for their number and consistency. He had put the city under lockdown, trying to head off any hysteria before it got completely out of hand. The guards of the city were mobilized, and soon Seville was crawling with troops. But still, the stories spread, and soon fear and uncertainty ruled. The people huddled in prayer, hiding away in either the mosques or their own homes, begging Allah for protection. Darkness had fallen upon the capital of the Almohads.
Dawn brought no relief. For when the sun rose, it brought with it naught but horror. With the first rays came warning of what was to come: inhuman shrieking and roaring sounded from the still-burning ruins of the forest, sounds that came from no known beast of the world. Gathering his men to the eastern wall of the city, Muhammad began to prepare for the worst.
What came was something he never could have prepared for. Giant spiders, hundreds of them, poured out of the forest, joined by twisted beasts that resembled, barely, such things as deer and wolves. They had been roused by the storm and the earthquake, and now struck out blindly, seeking to find food and shelter. The beasts of Mirkwood had stumbled into the outlying villages on their hunt, striking hard and fast, and now followed the survivors that had escaped them straight towards Seville.
And so Muhammad al-Nasir, Caliphate of the Almohads, stood on the walls of his city. Behind him were the terrified cries and desperate prayers of his people. To his side were fearful men, filled with dread at the great swarm of monsters that approached them. Before him were beasts from nightmare, creatures of hell that brought with them doom and despair. But the Caliph stood tall, raising his sword to the sky, calling his soldiers to stand to their posts, for Allah would not abandon them.
In the war between Europe and the Darkness, First Blood was about to be drawn.
Kiev
Rurik Rostislavich, Grand Prince of Kiev, was in a far better situation. The storm that had washed over his lands was far smaller than those that had brought great snowfalls to the heartlands of Europe, and had consequently done far less damage. The ancient trade city at the confluence of the Dnieper and Desna, heart of the Kievan Rus was largely untouched outside of all the snow that had to be cleared from the roads.
Still, the sense of dread and unrest that was now descending here too, although more as a thin mist than a thick fog. Relative to places such as Seville or Krakow, who had seen whole horizons change without explanation, the shift in the terrain around Kiev had been slight: a lone mountain, tall and mysterious, had fallen from the sky north of the city, bringing with it both a new tributary to the Dnieper and a long and narrow lake attached to said tributary. The terror that came with it was far less than that which came with the forest of Mirkwood, the Misty Mountains or the borders of Mordor.
Of course, Rurik had no way of knowing all this, and as far as he was concerned the people of Kiev were the most terrified in Europe. They demanded that their lord do something, anything, to give them comfort. In accordance with their wishes (and his own unanswered fears), he had called forth every wise man in the city to advise him.
The council that resulted was less than productive, going about as well as the ones called in Krakow, Savoy and a hundred other places across the continent. It fell into the usual pattern: the Holy Men prophesied about the end of the world, the learned men could offer no explanations and more questions were raised than were answered. After several hours of futile deliberations, Rurik realized that no answers were to be found within the halls of Kiev.
So now he called on his knights. If the wise had no knowledge for him, he would have to find knowledge himself. Assembling his bravest and strongest warriors, he prepared to march north. The people approved, joyful that their master was taking a proactive stance, and his call to arms was well answered. 300 in all was his company. More had come, but he had instead assigned many to the defense of the city, just in case.
And so, Rurik Rostislavich, Grand Prince of Kiev, rode north. He and his company followed the course of the new river, slowly working their way up the western bank. They moved slowly, wary of any and all potential threats, hands on the hilts of their blades, eyes scanning in all directions. The slightest sign of trouble was enough for the whole formation to be stopped, as it was understood by all that they were on unknown, and potentially hostile, ground. It was in this way that, as the column moved along the shore of the long lake, Rurik's company was brought to a halt, for the men on the right flank spotted something clearly unnatural.
For below the waters of the lake, something golden glistened.
Across Europe
Such patterns continued across the continent, especially in places that had been near the great storm: the people cowered in fear in the Churches and other Holy Places, the sudden changes to the world around them sowing terror in their hearts. They would plea with the local lords for protections, for knowledge, for anything that could sate their fears.
The lords, in turn, would gather their advisers, the local clergy, anyone that might possibly have the slightest idea of what was happening, calling them to come up with some plan of action. Inevitably, these meetings would break down, as no answers could be found among those gathered. From there, there were a handful of paths that one could take.
Some, such as Count Thomas of Savoy, unknowingly imitated Grand Prince Rurik, sending out scouts to survey the changed lands (although few rode out themselves, as Rurik had done), hoping to find answers. In a handful of terrifying instances, most commonly in outlying villages deep in the mountains, isolated and alone, the answers found the people, as orcs and other fell creatures descended upon them, slaughtering all in their path.
Most, however, simply prayed. They prayed in Churches, they prayed in homes, they prayed on street corners and in markets and on city walls. They prayed for guidance, they prayed for strength, they prayed for wisdom and knowledge and, above all, answers. The people of Europe prayed for the Lord to help them in the darkest of times. They sent up their fears and hopes and questions to God.
But only one man received an answer.
Rome
In Rome, life continued on. Here, there were no mysterious mountains on the horizon, no sudden storms or earthquakes, no dark forests or black gates. Here was peace and tranquility (as long as one avoided the seedier parts of the ancient city). The living heart of both Europe and God's Kingdom beat on, seemingly undisturbed by the calamity spreading across the rest of the continent.
The key word being seemingly. Deep in the heart of the Holy City, specifically at the Lateran Palace, once could find people engaging in similar amounts of frenzied activity as in Krakow, or maybe even Seville. Healers scurried to and fro, gathering supplies. Guards took up positions, curiously being stationed on rooftops rather than on walls. Scribes furiously duplicated a message, to be sent to all the Lords of Europe at utmost haste.
These scribes were sworn to secrecy, of course, but all the same stories about the content of the missive soon found itself being whispered about all across the Holy See, from the highest tower to the lowest chamber. Rumors swirled about, that the Holy Father had had a vision given by the Lord himself, that he had seen into the will of God Himself, that the message carried with it an account of a meeting with the Divine.
These stories, dismissed as false by many among the population, carried with them kernels of truth. Indeed, the letters now being sent out on the swiftest horses available held a within a description of a divine vision, a telling of what was and what was to come. This was the Revelation to Innocent the III, which history would long remember, translated into dozens of tongues and spread throughout all the world.
In the Greek translation, it's name was a single word: Apocalypse.
Isengard
The Istari Curumo, also known Curunir or Saruman, had no warning. One moment, he had been reviewing production quotas, scouting reports and other trivial, but necessary matters. He was thinking of how to speed the breeding of the Uruk-Hai, where to put a new forge to increase armor production, how many more trees he would need to cut from Fangorn to fuel his war machine.
The next moment, he was on the floor of his study, screaming in pain. He felt as if his very being was being torn apart, his soul being ripped from his body and thrown into the unknown. Through the pain, he barely noticed the Tower of Orthanc, one of the sturdiest structures in all of Middle-Earth, shaking like a child's plaything.
All around the Tower, a furious storm raged. Lighting stuck down from the heavens, striking the shoddily constructed Orc watchtowers that had been thrown up around the base of the tower. The shaking of the earth collapsed these flimsy constructs, taking many orcs with them. Below the ground, the pits and forges of Isengard were subjected to the same tremors, and in the places where expediency had trumped caution during construction a bloody price was paid. Machines of war and industry, built for efficiency (not safety), collapsed, taking many orc workers with them.
After an what seemed an eternity, the quaking stopped. In his study, Saruman slowly pulled himself off the floor. Idly, he wondered if this was how Gandalf felt after having too much of the Halfling's leaf, or Radagast after too much mushroom stew. Exactly what he felt he couldn't exactly describe, but if he had to try it would be something along the lines of having an Oliphaunt jump up and down on his head for several hours. He was also unsure of exactly what had happened. He had felt a massive disturbance in the Great Music, to be sure, as if a percussion player had dropped a cymbal on top of a timpani during a flute solo. It had originated, he thought (or rather, had felt), somewhere to his north, further up the Misty Mountains. That blasted fool Olorin had probably done something stupid. He certainly had it in him.
Pulling himself into a chair, Saruman took stock of his situation. He began to notice the damage done to his study. Vaguely, he remembered the floor shaking beneath him as he had writhed in pain. An earthquake, then. The White Wizard frowned. In all the time he had occupied the Tower, there hadn't been any tremors. Certainly, none that had been powerful enough to notice. Thinking about it (as well as he could with an Oliphant tapdancing on his skull), he realized that the disturbance in the Great Music and the earthquake might very well be related.
In the back of his mind, the Wizard thought about the earthquake: the damage to his forges that it had no doubt done, and thus the repairs that would have to be carried out, the replacement workers that would have to be trained. But at the forefront of his thought was the disturbance in the Music. That was the key, the question around which everything was centered.
Doubtless, the palantir would have answers. Climbing higher into the Tower, Saruman meditated further on events. There had been a storm, he thought. Not that Isengard didn't have storms, but rarely did they come so suddenly. Yet another question in need of answering. Approaching the Seeing Stone, the Lord of Orthanc began going through theories on what had happened.
None of them was anything close to what he saw in the palantir.
Lorien
Galadriel, the Lady of Lothlorien, had been through many things in her life. She had been there when the sun had first risen, after Morgoth poisoned the two trees. She had marched out from Valinor with her kin the Noldor, following behind Feanor as he had led them into Middle Earth. She had survived that journey, through the grinding ice floes of the far north and down into the now long-gone lands of Beleriand. She had survived all the battles of the ages, those that had claimed her brothers and so many of her kin. She endured in Middle Earth when even more of her people had returned to Valinor, through the second age and its trials. She wore even now Nenya, the Ring of Water, using it to conceal and protect her small corner of the world. She had driven out the Necromancer from Dol Gurdur. And now the One Ring itself had found its way to her doorstep.
The Fellowship had arrived little more than a week prior at the edge of her wood. There was eight of them: a Dwarf, rugged and strong. An Elf, Thranduil of Mirkwood's son. The men, a ranger from the north that had passed through her woods many times before and the Captain of the White City, both so devoted to their duties, but yet so far from the same path. And of course...the Ringbearer and his kin, so small, yet so much stronger than their frail forms would suggest. Perhaps not the likes of Beren, Elendil, Gil-Galad and the other heroes of old. But for this day and age...perhaps enough.
Yes, Galadriel had done much. But not since the Second Age had she felt as she did now. Even now, mere hours after the event, reports were trickling in, claiming that anything recognizable east of the Anduin had vanished, the fields and plains beyond replaced by foreboding mountains. They spoke of the lightning that had struck almost unceasingly, of wind that had uprooted ancient trees at the edge of the wood, of the shaking of the ground that had split solid stone. Galadriel had felt this all herself. But what she felt most had been the tearing, as if her very soul had been being ripped from its spot and thrown in a violent maelstrom to somewhere unknown. She felt torn, as if the fabric of her being had been sheared away and knitted into a new and unknown tapestry. The calling to the West, which she had felt since she had first set foot on Middle-Earth, had been dimmed, as if smothered beneath an oversized blanket.
For the first time in centuries, nay, millennia...Galadriel felt afraid.
Rivendell
Bilbo Baggins hadn't been around as long as Galadriel, but he had still seen much in his life. He had faced the great dragon Smaug alone, and come through unscathed. By similar methods of hiding and staying away from anything that might kill him, he had survived the Battle of Five Armies. He had outsmarted both hungry trolls and the strange creature Gollum, as well as his own nefarious cousins, the Sackville-Bagginses.
That was all in the past. Bilbo was old now, and his body wasn't as strong as it had once been. He had wanted to go on one last adventure after leaving Bag End; to wander Mirkwood, maybe, or perhaps see the Lonely Mountain once again. But nowadays he couldn't climb a steep hill without having to pause and catch his breath halfway up. He'd barely made it to Bree before he felt like his legs were about to fall off.
In the end, he had stopped at Rivendell. The sanctuary of the Elves made nice enough final stop, he decided; the people here were always good to him, and the food...Still he had hoped for more in his final days. Perhaps he was being unrealistic. After all, what was he now? 120? 130? He could hardly remember himself some days. It was a fool's dream to believe that he had any adventure left in him.
At least, that's what he had started to believe. But then the storm had come, more vicious than any that Bilbo had experienced in several decades. The earthquake, too, was something that the old Hobbit couldn't say he had been through before. Their effect together, he decided, was similar to the time during his first adventure when, passing through the Misty Mountains, he and the Company of Thorin Oakenshield had gotten front row seats to a sparring match between a pair (or perhaps a trio) of stone giants.
Like back in that cold mountain pass, it seemed like forever before whatever was happening passed by. When it did so, Bilbo got the distinct sense that something was afoot. The physical damage to Rivendell itself, protected by Lord Elrond's enchantments (and, unknown to Bilbo, Vilya, the Ring of Air), was slight, a few of the more delicate structures needing repair and a handful of brushfires around the outskirts that were quickly contained, but the mental and spiritual health of Imladris had taken a beating.
Bilbo heard the rumors and stories, about everything beyond the Bruinen being unrecognizable, of the elves feeling as if their spirits were being ripped from place and hurled into a violent maelstrom, of the diminishing in the Call to the West. Lord Elrond was doing all he could to placate his people's fears, sending out his own twin sons, Elladan and Elrohir, to scout into the lands that had seemingly changed. Bilbo himself, along with Elrond and his daughter Arwen, now poured through old records and ancient tomes, searching for answers to what had happened. Despite everything, Bilbo couldn't help but smile to himself.
Maybe he'd get his Adventure after all.
Mirkwood
Grimbeorn the Skin-Changer wanted answers. In normal times, the son of Beorn had little worry for the world outside of his home (excepting, of course, when the dwarves needed him to clear the Carrock or the High Pass of orcs and wolves; then he gladly took their money [or whatever else they used to pay his tolls] but such interactions were increasingly rare). He hunted, he farmed, he killed any creature that was brave enough or stupid enough to enter his territory without his permission. In normal times, Grimbeorn the Old was troubled by little.
These were not normal times. The storm that had blown through had ripped apart trees older than he was, winds and thunder howling louder than anything he had ever heard, lightning shattering stone and igniting wildfires. The earth had shaken as if the whole world was being used as a dice in some giant's game. By the time it had dissipated, there was fire seemingly everywhere, eating away at the shredded remains of the trees and undergrowth. The rain, at least, made it so the fire wouldn't destroy everything, mainly by flooding anything that wasn't burned or broken.
And so Grimbeorn was left with wrecked lands and no explanation of what had happened. The first order of business would be to rally his people, whatever was left of them, and find somewhere to regroup. Staying in Mirkwood might not be a good idea; doubtless, the storm would have stirred up the various dark creatures that stirred within. This wouldn't normally worry him, but these times were decidedly not normal. From that line of thought, and idea occurred to him: who better to turn to in not-normal times than the least normal entity that Grimbeorn knew of? And going to them had the added benefit of perhaps finding some answers. The Skin-Changer hadn't spoken to him in months, if not years, but from what he remembered, Radagast the Brown was, for all his eccentricities, was one wise.
Surely, the Wizard would know something.
______________________________________________________________________________
At the other end of Mirkwood, King Thranduil was worried. The storm and the earthquake had done much damage to his kingdom. Fires raged across his lands, many barely controlled; trees had been uprooted by the winds, tearing apart some of the outer defenses; the tremors had wrecked some of his halls, wounding (or worse) many therein; the rains had flooded many of the lower chambers that hadn't collapsed.
What was worse, though, were the reports coming in from the western borders. The creatures of Mirkwood commonly prodded at the edges of his domain, but usually could be driven off with little effort. But now, with his kingdom in crisis, Thranduil's borders were vulnerable. Already, dozens of spiders were spilling over his borders, his guards barely holding them back. The storm seemed to have stirred them up. In all likeliness, more would be coming.
The news from the east was somehow even more worrying. Apparently, everything and anything familiar beyond the eaves of the forest had been replaced. The Lonely Mountain was gone, replaced with unfamiliar country. All the elves had felt the disturbance in the Great Music, the sense that they had been torn from where the stood and thrown...somewhere, but this...this was unprecedented. But for now, Thranduil couldn't afford to worry about it.
He, and his people, would have to survive long enough to do so.
The Lonely Mountain
Disaster and despair had come to Dain, son of Nain, and the Lonely Mountain. Not since Smaug the Dragon had driven Thror out centuries prior had the Dwarves of Erebor suffered so much within their own keep. The storm had done harm, the lightning shattering boulders and throwing out deadly fragment and the downpour causing landslides that blocked a few secondary vents and passages, but much of that was only superficial. The real damage had been done within the Mountain, caused by the earthquake.
The mines and halls of the Mountain were sturdy and strong, reinforced over the centuries to withstand the constant mining of the dwarves, each tunnel strengthened so that digging more shafts would not cause the old ones to weaken. But the builders had never considered what had happened a possibility. The earthquake had made the very roots of the mountain tremble, shaking Erebor from its lowest vault to the highest peak. The mines and chambers of the mountain were designed to withstand tremors, but nothing like this.
Dain II Ironfoot, King Under the Mountain, surveyed the damage. Dozens already known to be dead, crushed as their ceilings had come down on top of them. Hundreds more were injured, struck by flying debris or pinned as the walls around them had fallen in. Three mineshafts had collapsed outright: it was yet unknown if the entrances were merely blocked or if they had completely caved in, killing all that had been working there. Many chambers and passages in the lower levels had flooded out, the rains seeping through the cracks in the mountain. Such a disaster had never been faced by the younger generation of dwarves, many of whom were frozen by grief or fear. The casualties continued to mount; not since the Battle of Five Armies had so many wounded lay within the halls of Erebor.
Dain had immediately sent out for aid from the men of Dale, but his riders had yet to return. For now, this calamity was squarely on his shoulders, and those of his kinsmen. But he would need to bear most of the weight. His people were shaken, doubt and fear filling their minds. Now, more than any time since the Mountain had been reclaimed, Erebor needed its King. There were dwarves in the lower halls, trapped beneath the weight of the mountain, pinned in the flooding caverns. There was the question of what had caused the quake, but now was not the time to answer it. Rather than a lore-book, Dain instead grabbed a pickaxe and a shovel.
It was time to get to work.
______________________________________________________________________________
In Dale, King Brand had problems of his own, but not structural ones. The city had been struck by the storm and the quake, but much less damage had been done than in Erebor. The stone of Dale had stood up to the winds and the lightning, and while the earthquake had been damaging, most of the city was intact. In fact, all in all, Dale was in rather good shape.
No, what concerned him was the fact that, whenever he looked south, he recognized nothing beyond the spokes of the Mountain. The River Running, instead of curving southeast near Ravenhill, seemed to continue westwards instead, its course disappearing behind the south-southwestern spoke of the mountain.
He was not the only one to have noticed this, of course. There was a certain tension in the air, the people of Dale wary of whatever had happened. In a sense, he was relieved when the riders from Erebor arrived. He felt grief for the dwarves, of course, and empathized with their plight. He himself would lead whatever men he could find in the aid of their old allies. But secretly, he was somewhat glad for the distraction, terrible as the cause for it was. He was in no hurry to face the unknown; the people of Dale were laborers, not scholars, and their King was no exception. The whole of the court of Dale was unlikely to have any answers for Brand's concerns. No, better to bury himself in productive work than concern himself with something that he couldn't understand.
Besides, what could have possibly happened?
Ithilien
Faramir, Captain of Gondor, was frightened. He was not so prideful as to say he was not. Even as he presented to his man an air of calm and discipline, internally he was as scared as a small child. There had been nothing to indicate that the day would be anything out of the ordinary. He and his men were encamped near the Morgul Vale, carrying out pestering attack against the orcs in the area; business as usual for the Ithilien Rangers.
The storm had caught his men unprepared, lighting striking down around their small, hidden camp, winds tearing apart their meager fortifications, the earthquake taking out whatever was left. When the maelstrom had finally passed, it was apparent that they could not stay. Fires burned around them, consuming what little cover there was and exposing their position. It was obvious that the Rangers could not stay in the open. If this were normal times, they would have gone west, back into Gondor. Back towards home.
Even in the hardest times, the times when the Rangers had botched an ambush and found themselves forced to retreat, dragging their wounded with them and forced to leave the dead behind, the men of Gondor could look to the west and see the White Mountains, knowing that the White City stood at their base. They took comfort from seeing their homeland and the knowledge that they were doing their parts to defend it. They took much of their resolve from this, and whenever the times grew dark, the Rangers would look to the west, and remind themselves what they were fighting for.
But now the White Mountains were gone, in their place a far more foreboding and unfamiliar range. The Great River was gone, only open plains taking its place. The Rangers despaired at this, their fear and uncertainty beginning to gnaw at their courage. In their hearts, they were all terrified, their Captain no less than any other man. But Faramir could not let his fear show. He had a duty to his men, which for all he knew were all he had left, and he could not let them down. Faramir decided on going north, towards the sanctuary of Henneth Annun, main base of operations for the Rangers, where they could presumably link up with the rest of the the men of Ithilien. Whatever had happened, the Rangers would face it at full strength.
And they would face it with their Captain leading them.
Zirakzigil
Here, the storm raged on. Above the peak, lighting cackled and thunder roared. The blinding snowfall and howling winds continued unabated. If one could have looked through the encircling clouds and hail and discerned the peak itself, they would have noticed that the Tower of Durin was no more. What was left appeared to have been cleanly sliced off, as if a massive axe had cloven the Tower from the mountaintop. If they looked closer, they would have seen a small figure in tattered and burned robes, lying still on a cliff some distance below. And if they could have listened through the wind, they would have heard two very distinct noises.
The screech of an eagle, and the roar of a demon.
Krakow
Leszek the White, High Duke of Poland, knelt before the altar of God. A pious man (or rather, pious boy; he was not more than 17), he had come to Wawel Cathedral seeking council from the Lord. The Cathedral had always brought him comfort. For more than a century, it had been the beating heart of the Polish branch of the Faith. It was here that Kings (or, in Poland's case, High Dukes) were coronated, and at the end of their reign were laid down among their forebears.
The history of Poland was all around Leszek, in fact. Wawel Hill, upon which the Cathedral rested, was a living testament to the legacy that he now upheld. It was here that the earliest settlement of his people's ancestors was built, here that legend said the mythical King Krakus had slain the great dragon Smok Wawelski by feeding it a poisoned lamb (who's bones were said to now be displayed within the Cathedral), here that the first crowned King of Poland, Boleslaw I the Brave, had established his keep. Here, upon this hill, all of Polish history sat on display.
That history weighed heavily on Leszek. A mere matter of months he had held the throne, being installed by the machinations of various minor nobles and clergymen in the place of his uncle Mieszko, and a calamity unprecedented in Polish history was dropped upon him quite literally out of the sky.
A great storm had been seen to the south, lighting cackling out of the sky, thunder sounding across the plains, snow so thick that nothing beyond the edge of the storm could be seen. The earth itself had trembled as the storm continued on, shaking like a leaf in the wind. When the tremors had finally stopped, the storm had blown north across the plains. Luckily, the lightning seemed to have been spent, and all that Krakow received was a fair few inches of snow.
But when the people of Krakow saw what was behind the storm, fear welled up within them, and uncertainty ruled their hearts. Now, where there had once been nothing but open plains, great mountains now rose out of the ground, dark and foreboding in the appearance, as if some malevolent force hid behind them.
In the day since the storm, some had come to the city from the countryside further south. These riders had been sent by various village heads, requesting the aid of the High Duke. They spoke of a great Black Gate in the mountains, of a mountain that spewed fire beyond, of a Tower upon which a great burning eye gazed out upon them. Most disturbing of all were the stories of monsters, demons that had come out from the mountains and struck at small villages and left few, if any, alive. The messengers begged for aid.
Leszek wished he could give it to them, but there were far too many questions that were currently unanswered. The tales that the riders brought him he would have dismissed as paranoia, the dreams of scared and uneducated men, but they were far too numerous and far too consistent to ignore.
His advisers were less than helpful, each having a contradictory explanation for what was happening, every one more fantastic than the last. The priests were worse, many going through the streets, claiming that the End Times were upon them and that the people had to repent or risk damnation. There was unrest in the streets, and the city guards struggled to maintain order. Leszek was in well over his head.
And so Leszek the White, High Duke of Poland, prayed. In the Cathedral on Wawel Hill, surrounded by the legacy of all of Poland, with what seemed to be the weight of the world on his too-young shoulders, he prayed. He prayed for strength for the task that he knew lied ahead, he prayed for wisdom to choose right against whatever was to come, he prayed for courage against the fears that gnawed at his heart.
In the beating heart of Poland, Leszek the White prayed for the Lord to save him.
Seville
Far to Leszek's southwest, another Lord of Men was also praying, and for very similar reasons, although in a different way. He did not kneel before an altar, but instead stood on the battlements of his city. He recited the prayers laid down not by Jesus Christ and his Apostles, but those of the Prophet Muhammed. He was not silent and alone in his worship, as the High Duke of Poland was, but rather he shouted his prayers to the heavens, leading the men that stood besides him in calling upon Allah for strength and courage.
Muhammad al-Nasir was his name, and he was the Caliph of the Almohads. Two days before, there was little that troubled him. Seville was easily one of the safest cities in his domains. The ancient city was supposedly founded by the legendary Greek Hero Hercules himself, and it sat far from both the Christian Kingdoms that held northern Al-Andalus and the rival Muslim Banu Ghaniya Dynasty that probed at his borders in North Africa.
His father's victories against the Crusader states had brought peace to his realm. Despite the machinations of the distant Banu Ghaniya to seize his holdings in Tunisia, his lands prospered. Gold flowed through the markets and trade ports, knowledge through the schools and universities, and the people were happy.
That had all come crashing down the previous day. To the east, a great storm had raged, making the earth itself tremble with its ferocity. When the earth had stopped shaking, the storm had passed over the city, dropping a great amount of snow upon the city. But this was not what brought terror to the people of Seville.
To the east had been mostly flatlands with the occasional hill, country that much of the heartland of Al-Andalus resembled. What there hadn't been was a massive forest, reaching beyond the horizon to both the north and the south. As if the universe felt that the fear of an unknown forest taking the place of almost everything wasn't enough, there was an air of dread emanating from the dark and twisted trees, striking fear in the hearts of men. And just to make sure that the people of Seville were terrified, large parts of the forest were on fire.
Naturally, the people were afraid. Muhammad would be lying if he said that he wasn't as well. That first day, the citizenry had largely congregated in the mosques and other places that offered a sense of security. They had prayed in much the same way as Leszek the White did upon the Wawel Hill, kneeling silently before altars inside of the holy places. Then, there had been a sense of calm, that while the unknown was all around them they were not yet threatened.
But then the people from the east had come. They had started to arrive during the night, begging to be allowed within the city. They said that there were monsters in the forest, monsters that had began to come out across the countryside, slaughtering everything in their path. They spoke of great beasts, terrors like giant spiders and wild boars that could outrun horses.
Like Leszek, Muhammad would have ignored these reports, but for their number and consistency. He had put the city under lockdown, trying to head off any hysteria before it got completely out of hand. The guards of the city were mobilized, and soon Seville was crawling with troops. But still, the stories spread, and soon fear and uncertainty ruled. The people huddled in prayer, hiding away in either the mosques or their own homes, begging Allah for protection. Darkness had fallen upon the capital of the Almohads.
Dawn brought no relief. For when the sun rose, it brought with it naught but horror. With the first rays came warning of what was to come: inhuman shrieking and roaring sounded from the still-burning ruins of the forest, sounds that came from no known beast of the world. Gathering his men to the eastern wall of the city, Muhammad began to prepare for the worst.
What came was something he never could have prepared for. Giant spiders, hundreds of them, poured out of the forest, joined by twisted beasts that resembled, barely, such things as deer and wolves. They had been roused by the storm and the earthquake, and now struck out blindly, seeking to find food and shelter. The beasts of Mirkwood had stumbled into the outlying villages on their hunt, striking hard and fast, and now followed the survivors that had escaped them straight towards Seville.
And so Muhammad al-Nasir, Caliphate of the Almohads, stood on the walls of his city. Behind him were the terrified cries and desperate prayers of his people. To his side were fearful men, filled with dread at the great swarm of monsters that approached them. Before him were beasts from nightmare, creatures of hell that brought with them doom and despair. But the Caliph stood tall, raising his sword to the sky, calling his soldiers to stand to their posts, for Allah would not abandon them.
In the war between Europe and the Darkness, First Blood was about to be drawn.
Kiev
Rurik Rostislavich, Grand Prince of Kiev, was in a far better situation. The storm that had washed over his lands was far smaller than those that had brought great snowfalls to the heartlands of Europe, and had consequently done far less damage. The ancient trade city at the confluence of the Dnieper and Desna, heart of the Kievan Rus was largely untouched outside of all the snow that had to be cleared from the roads.
Still, the sense of dread and unrest that was now descending here too, although more as a thin mist than a thick fog. Relative to places such as Seville or Krakow, who had seen whole horizons change without explanation, the shift in the terrain around Kiev had been slight: a lone mountain, tall and mysterious, had fallen from the sky north of the city, bringing with it both a new tributary to the Dnieper and a long and narrow lake attached to said tributary. The terror that came with it was far less than that which came with the forest of Mirkwood, the Misty Mountains or the borders of Mordor.
Of course, Rurik had no way of knowing all this, and as far as he was concerned the people of Kiev were the most terrified in Europe. They demanded that their lord do something, anything, to give them comfort. In accordance with their wishes (and his own unanswered fears), he had called forth every wise man in the city to advise him.
The council that resulted was less than productive, going about as well as the ones called in Krakow, Savoy and a hundred other places across the continent. It fell into the usual pattern: the Holy Men prophesied about the end of the world, the learned men could offer no explanations and more questions were raised than were answered. After several hours of futile deliberations, Rurik realized that no answers were to be found within the halls of Kiev.
So now he called on his knights. If the wise had no knowledge for him, he would have to find knowledge himself. Assembling his bravest and strongest warriors, he prepared to march north. The people approved, joyful that their master was taking a proactive stance, and his call to arms was well answered. 300 in all was his company. More had come, but he had instead assigned many to the defense of the city, just in case.
And so, Rurik Rostislavich, Grand Prince of Kiev, rode north. He and his company followed the course of the new river, slowly working their way up the western bank. They moved slowly, wary of any and all potential threats, hands on the hilts of their blades, eyes scanning in all directions. The slightest sign of trouble was enough for the whole formation to be stopped, as it was understood by all that they were on unknown, and potentially hostile, ground. It was in this way that, as the column moved along the shore of the long lake, Rurik's company was brought to a halt, for the men on the right flank spotted something clearly unnatural.
For below the waters of the lake, something golden glistened.
Across Europe
Such patterns continued across the continent, especially in places that had been near the great storm: the people cowered in fear in the Churches and other Holy Places, the sudden changes to the world around them sowing terror in their hearts. They would plea with the local lords for protections, for knowledge, for anything that could sate their fears.
The lords, in turn, would gather their advisers, the local clergy, anyone that might possibly have the slightest idea of what was happening, calling them to come up with some plan of action. Inevitably, these meetings would break down, as no answers could be found among those gathered. From there, there were a handful of paths that one could take.
Some, such as Count Thomas of Savoy, unknowingly imitated Grand Prince Rurik, sending out scouts to survey the changed lands (although few rode out themselves, as Rurik had done), hoping to find answers. In a handful of terrifying instances, most commonly in outlying villages deep in the mountains, isolated and alone, the answers found the people, as orcs and other fell creatures descended upon them, slaughtering all in their path.
Most, however, simply prayed. They prayed in Churches, they prayed in homes, they prayed on street corners and in markets and on city walls. They prayed for guidance, they prayed for strength, they prayed for wisdom and knowledge and, above all, answers. The people of Europe prayed for the Lord to help them in the darkest of times. They sent up their fears and hopes and questions to God.
But only one man received an answer.
Rome
In Rome, life continued on. Here, there were no mysterious mountains on the horizon, no sudden storms or earthquakes, no dark forests or black gates. Here was peace and tranquility (as long as one avoided the seedier parts of the ancient city). The living heart of both Europe and God's Kingdom beat on, seemingly undisturbed by the calamity spreading across the rest of the continent.
The key word being seemingly. Deep in the heart of the Holy City, specifically at the Lateran Palace, once could find people engaging in similar amounts of frenzied activity as in Krakow, or maybe even Seville. Healers scurried to and fro, gathering supplies. Guards took up positions, curiously being stationed on rooftops rather than on walls. Scribes furiously duplicated a message, to be sent to all the Lords of Europe at utmost haste.
These scribes were sworn to secrecy, of course, but all the same stories about the content of the missive soon found itself being whispered about all across the Holy See, from the highest tower to the lowest chamber. Rumors swirled about, that the Holy Father had had a vision given by the Lord himself, that he had seen into the will of God Himself, that the message carried with it an account of a meeting with the Divine.
These stories, dismissed as false by many among the population, carried with them kernels of truth. Indeed, the letters now being sent out on the swiftest horses available held a within a description of a divine vision, a telling of what was and what was to come. This was the Revelation to Innocent the III, which history would long remember, translated into dozens of tongues and spread throughout all the world.
In the Greek translation, it's name was a single word: Apocalypse.
The Revelation
- Location
- University of Saint Thomas, St. Paul, Minnesota
Letter Sent by Pope Innocent III to the Christian Kings of Europe, Dated January 25, TA 3019/AD 1200.
To the Kings of Europe:
Greetings.
I, the Bishop of Rome, Vicar of Jesus Christ, Successor of the Prince of the Apostles, Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church, Primate of Italy, and Servant of the Servants of God, call all the Lords of Europe to a great council in Rome. For a Great Shadow now descends upon us, plunging all our lands into darkness. If we do not face it as one, we are all doomed.
Doubtless, many of you are aware of the calamity that has come to us, having seen your lands be changed by the great storm that descended on the 25th of January, Year of Our Lord Twelve-Hundred. Perhaps you have heard rumors of Demons and Monsters, descending from the new mountains, devouring all in their path. I tell you now that all these tales are true. The Mouth of Hell has been opened upon the Earth, and all must gather to stand against it.
I know this because on the night that the storm descended, as I lay resting in my chambers, I heard a great voice calling out to me, asking for me by the name of my birth. I awoke at once, going to my door. Upon opening it, I asked my guards who had called for me. They replied that none come to my door. Returning to my bed, I returned to rest, only to be awoken again by the same voice, calling my name.
Again I rose and went to my door, and again my guards said that none had called for me. Now I recalled the tale of Samuel, who the LORD called by name. Returning again to my chamber, I knelt in prayer, saying "Here I am, LORD. Command me." And then the great voice called out again, saying "Behold my messenger. Listen to him well." And then my chamber was filled with light.
When the light faded and I could again see, there before me stood an angel, who rode a great steed and carried a great horn, and who said his name was both Orome and Michael. He said to me: "The One has willed that you ride with me, and for you record all that you see, so you may know of what is to come. For the tale you now find yourself a part of is dark and full of danger: if you are to survive, you will need to know of all that has come upon you" And in my hands I found a scroll and a pen, and so I mounted the steed with Michael who is also called Orome and rode out with him.
We rode above the clouds, with the world standing still around us. The steed carried us north and east, over Italy and the Adriatic, passing Croatia and Slavonia along the way. As we rode, I looked out to the east, and saw great mountains, cloaked in shadow, that had risen out of the ground. As I looked upon them, I knew they were not of this world. I asked Orome who is also called Michael: "What devilry is this, that these great peaks come from nothing? What power of Earth or Heaven could have thrown them up?"
The Angel looked to me and said: "Nothing in the memory of this world. In a far distant place, there were two, a servant of the One and a monster of the Enemy. They clashed against each other, and in their wrath and desperation part of their world was unmade. What remained has come here, as debris from the sinking of a ship. But woe unto you! What has washed up upon your shores is not mere ruins and wreckage, but something far more vile. Beyond those mountains lies the realm of Sauron, who is the Enemy of All the World."
When the angel spoke that name, a dark chill came upon me, and I knew in my heart that he spoke of a great evil. Soon afterwards, the steed stopped, and the Angel said to me: "Look to the southeast! See with your own eyes the works of the Enemy!" And I turned my eyes as the Angel told me, and there I beheld for the first time the works of the Dark Lord.
There before me was a great black wall, standing between the mountains of shadow and ash. It was as high as any in the world, as tall as ten men, and forged of solid iron and black stone and steel. It's tower's were like great teeth anchored upon the dark peaks, their roots set deep into the unyielding stone.
Manning this wall were what could only be demons. Their stances were bent and their eyes full of malice; their faces were like wild boars, and their teeth like knives. A great multitude there were, all in arms with bows and swords and spears. Behind the wall were two great ramparts of stone, and upon them stood giants, chained to the wall. As I watched, a great horn was blown, and the giants marched forth along the ramparts, and the walls parted, like the opening of a gate.
Said the Angel: "This is the Morannon, door of Udun. Beyond lies the dark land of Mordor, where the shadow lies. Come, while the gate is open! There is much that must be seen. Do not be afraid, for none within may yet touch you, for they can not see, nor hear, no feel your passing. I am with you; I will light the way." And so we rode on, through the black gate, into the land of shadow.
I can describe that place only as Hell. All was covered in ash and dust, and searing heat was present in all places and times. No green grass grew, no breezes cooled the air, no springs or streams cut through the ashen ground. Smoke and fire filled the sky, and the air itself was poison; I saw even the demons choking on the fell winds. And many demons there were; most small, with twisted faces and limbs and claws; some giant, as much as three men, crushing the lesser ones underfoot; some were twisted mockeries of beasts of burden.
But all this terror, all this horror, paled when compared against the Flaming Eye. Above all the horrors of that Hell it was perched, watching all that passed below. It turned and looked over all the lands of Hell, and when its gaze passed over me it felt like the burning of a great fire, fueled by hatred. In appearance it seemed like the sun at its most terrible, searing all that it shone upon. I looked upon it for but moments before I was forced in terror to turn, for seeing into its depths is to court madness.
Then I asked the Angel: "To whom does that great Eye belong? It must be that of the Devil himself!" And they in turn said to me: "Not the Devil, but near enough. That is the Eye of Sauron, from where he watches all the world, waiting to strike. It sees near all, be it in past or present. This sight is a strong weapon, and one he will wield against you. But come! Now is the time that I shall give you the same sight as he. I warn you, though: you will see this all through the eye of madness, and I can not guarantee that you will understand."
The Angel lead us to the place where the Eye is perched, which he called Barad-Dur. It was cast from Iron and Steel and Black Stone, and rose higher than all the towers of the world. A great army of Demons stood upon its ramparts, of all breeds and shapes and sizes, and they spoke in a black tongue, whose very sound hurt my soul. We ascended the tower, and there at last I beheld him: The Dark Lord, who sat on a Dark Throne within the Dark Tower. His name is Sauron, and he is the Enemy of All the World.
Not yet is he of flesh, being as yet made of shadow and fire, but even as I watched his shape became more solid, his form becoming whole. But the small portion of him that has become tangible is a thing of terror. His helm is burned and black and harder than iron. His hands are like claws, sharper than steel and stronger than stone (I saw that he had only nine fingers, though. The tale of the lost digit I will tell later in this writing). The rest remains a dark spirit on a bad wind, shadows made from fear and hatred and rage, swirling around what has formed like a whirlwind of malice.
I asked the Angel: "How came this to pass? Does not the Devil have a fair form that he wears as a mask, to tempt the hearts of men? Why are only the head and hands made real, and the rest like smoke from a fire?" And the Angel replied to me: "For the same reason that he has only nine fingers. The tale is one of triumph against the dark, and the knowledge it will give you will be needed in the times ahead. Come, and I shall show you."
We ascended high into the Dark Tower, passing many legions of Demons before coming finally to the uppermost chamber. Here, the Angel said to me: "Behold, The Palantir of Minas Ithil!" and indicated to me the stone in the center of the room. It was black, but could be seen through like glass, and was perfectly smooth. In it's heart, I saw a great storm swirling around.
The Angel spoke again, saying: "By the use of this stone, Sauron's sight and reach has grown long. It sees far, through mountains and across seas, and by its sight he has ensnared many." Then, the Angel took the stone in his hands and presented it to me, saying: "Take the stone in your hands. I will guide its gaze, and show you all that you need to know." And so I took up the stone, and within it the Angel showed me all things, past, present and future.
I was shown first the beginnings of the tale. In the beginning was the darkness, an endless darkness stretching on to infinity: Nothing was there. But then I heard the word, saying: "Let there be light!" and I heard a Great Music, like ten thousand choirs singing in unison, and the tune was perfect. From the tune itself I beheld the start of all of creation: I watched the building of all the world, the birth of all the creatures and the making of all the mountains and seas.
Then I saw there the Garden of Eden in all its glory, peaceful and beautiful and perfect, with all things living in harmony in the light of the Lord. Two great trees stood in the center of the Garden, and the grace of God flowed from them, lighting all the world in splendor, and all was good. All the creatures of the world praised the Lord, and the Lord walked among the creatures, demanding only that they not harm the great trees.
But then I saw a great Leviathan, who arose in might to challenge the Lord, and it poisoned the trees and made itself a King of all living things. It deceived all the world, and destroyed the trees and plunged the garden into darkness and chaos. The Leviathan turned many to his cause, and under its feet it crushed all that dared stand against it.
Now among those that bowed down to the Leviathan was one called Mairon. They were of a fairer complexion than most that served the Leviathan, being tall and well-shaped and possessing a handsome face. He was a master craftsman, greater than any other in the world, and their crafts were as near to perfection as could be found outside of Heaven itself. But still Mairon seeked improvement, seeked perfection, but he could not find it. Always in his works he found flaws, imperceivable to nearly all but existent nonetheless. In this was did the Leviathan enthrall them, saying: "Bow to me, and I shall give you the perfection that you seek," and Mairon became the Leviathan's right hand. Those that defied them cursed his name, and called him Sauron, the Abhorred.
For many years and generations war was waged between the Leviathan and his servants and the Lord and his servants, with much valor and horror on all sides and in all places. Finally, the Lord decreed that the world would suffer no more, and He Himself descended, and all the world was shattered and the Leviathan was thrown down into the pit, where it will be imprisoned until the end of time. Many of the Leviathan's servants were captured, and taken up above the clouds to stand trial. But Sauron escaped, and went to hide in the far reaches of the broken world.
Now a long time passed, and the Leviathan and his servants faded away from memory, turning from history to legend and from legend to myth and from myth to nothingness. That which should have never been allowed to fade was lost to the ages. But although the world chose to forget the Leviathan and all his servants, Sauron did not forget the world. He went about to the blackest crags at the edge of creation, drawing out to him all the dark shadows of the world. In this way did he become ruler of all that spurned the light.
But his fair form he kept, and many a time he would go out into the light and give great gift to those that dwelled there, seeking to ensnare the Children of the One. He appeared at their gates as he had before his fall, and those that saw him said: "Here is a servant of the One! Come, let us go out and welcome him, for surely he is here for our betterment!" They called him Annatar, and it was in this way that Sauron deceived the world. Few among the Children of the One turned him away, and against those that did he swore terrible vengeance.
And so it was that in that time his power was ever on the rise. To the banner of the Flaming Eye rallied all the scattered servants of the Leviathan, who were seeking to unleash horrible revenge for their master's fall. Under his thrall fell many kings of men, looking to go out as conquerors and conquered. To his side came all manner of dark beast, hungary and wild. But to those in the light he showed only his fair face, and in this way was his army kept in the shadows.
Now Sauron came to the height of his power. He looked over towards those that remained to defy him, planning their unmaking. Seeking not to risk his power, he went out to those in the light wearing his fair face Annatar, giving them great praise and gifting them great treasures. And so the Children of the one became ever more ensnared, for Sauron in this time forged great weapons, which could make and unmake the world.
20 of these great weapons I saw in all, and they were divided into groups of one and three and seven and nine. The Nine he gave to those that would serve him and now serve him still, for their hearts were weak and wills weaker yet, and they will be his thralls until the end of time, smiting all that oppose him. The Seven he gave to the earth itself, and the soil where they were planted became sick so nothing would grow but greed and fear, and then fire consumed them all, so that nothing remained. The Three were kept from his hands, and taken up by the Skies and the Waters and the heavens, and ever after were they defiant against him, holding back his black tide.
But the One stood greater than all the others. It was forged in secret, in the hottest and deepest pits of Hell, and its power was beyond all the others together. With it in his hand, Sauron would rule them all, all the people of the world. He would find all that dared stand against him, and bring them under his power and bind them in darkness. I saw it wielded against his foes: it makes nations crumble and Kings weep, and none could stand against it. With it he turned even the mightiest against the light, corrupting their hearts and souls and making them bow before the image of the Leviathan. All that would dare face him were thrown down or driven into the dark places, and tribute was paid to him by all the world. And so it was that the shadow ruled, and it fell over all the earth, and Sauron named himself Lord of the World.
And so it was that all of creation bowed before Sauron, and now he looked to overthrow the One Himself, and to conquer even the Heavens. It was at this time that he raised up a Great Armament from all the nations and kings that knelt at his feet, and he compelled them to build a great navy for him, to sail against the angels themselves. The number of slaves and soldiers and beasts of burden that gathered to sail in his name is beyond reckoning. When they set out a great cry went up, and their voices and horns and drums outsounded the thunder. For 39 days and nights the slaves rowed hard on the oars (for there was no wind), and on the 40th day they arrived at the Door to Heaven, and prepared to storm it.
But the One in Heaven looked down upon the vast navy, and, seeing that the only inclination of their thoughts was to evil, he swore that he would wipe them from the face of the earth, every pack animal and chained servant and weapon bearer, so that the world may be made pure again. But to those that remained true to the light he gave favor, and he said to one called Elendil (who is also called Noah): "I am about to destroy the great navy, but I fear that with it will fall much of creation. So I say to you this: Build for yourself and your wife and your sons and their wives a great Ark, so that you may ride out the storm and come through safe, while the shadow is thrown down."
So on the 40th day after the Great Armament set sail, the One Himself came down and wrecked the entire fleet in a great storm, and threw down the lands from which they had sailed, and much of the earth was drowned under the sea. This included all the monuments built to the Leviathan and the all the great lands that had bowed to the Dark Lord and even the fair form of Sauron; all were lost under the waves. But Noah called Elendil and all his children and servants survived in their great Ark, and came out of the sea onto solid ground, and rallied that had stood in the light to their banners.
Now all those that had opposed the shadow rose as one, seeking to throw down Sauron, who's strength was now much diminished. In a final and desperate alliance, they marched together to the great gates of Hell, where Sauron had now fled to regain his strength. It was there before the Black Gates that they waged ferocious battle against all the legions of shadow for days and weeks and months before their entry was finally secured. For seven years, then, did they lay horrible siege to the Dark Tower that holds the Dark Throne, and many great men fell to rise no more before it's black ramparts.
And then, finally, with the victory of the light near, Sauron himself came forth. He was now a twisted thing of shadow and steel and fire, his fair form forever lost; his new shape was like that of a Dragon in the form of a Man. His touch burned like a hundred suns, warping armor and swords like paper in a hearth. His own armor was harder than the hardest stone, and no blade could bite him. He wielded in his hands the One, the great weapon which can uproot the mountains, and terrible was the wrath he visited on all that dared challenge his might.
But the time had come that he would be unmade. His armies were broken and scattered to the four winds, and were pursued and cut down as they fled; has lands were trampled and overthrown, so that no more would rise to his aid; even the power of the One which makes the earth tremble could not overcome the vengeful light that now came down to cleanse the world. Even then, with all fortune having abandoned him, Sauron defied the alliance, smiting many princes and kings of the nations of the light, until finally the One that rules all the shadows was cut from his hand, and Sauron was finally himself thrown down.
Despite all of this, however, Sauron survived. So great was the malice and hatred that he had poured into making the One the cuts down kings that he endured even with his body reduced to dust. And the One, the great weapon, was not destroyed: the man that cut it from Sauron's grasp, who's name I will not speak (for they deserve no honor here), took it for themselves, for it whispered to them and made them love it, and upon their death it was lost in the waters of time. The Dark Tower was destroyed, but its foundations were not laid bare and remained intact. The black legions of hell were not pursued to the final end and so hid, seeking to regain their strength. And so, although the victory of the light was great, it was incomplete.
It was here that my visions of the past ended, and I began to see both what is now and what is to come. I warn you now: I was shown much of both what will be and what is at once, and not always could I tell one from the other. Thus, little that I saw is straight forwards. Much is out of order: I know not what was the beginning and what was the end, and there was little of anything that was familiar to me. Some, however, I recognized, for I had read of it before, and I had read it the Holy Scripture itself, in the Book of Revelations.
This is a cause for great terror, for that which I recognized from the writings of St. John of Patmos are writings of woe and pain and persecution. They foretell of great suffering for all that follow Christ. Many parts did I recognize, all of them telling of disaster and calamity to come. That which I noted as being told again are as follows:
I beheld The Great Dragon which has ten horns and stands at the shore of the sea, which I am now sure is Sauron, come to devour the world. In a likewise way, I saw one like the First Beast prophesied in John's Revelation, rising out of the water. They had their own power and throne, and was granted great authority by the Dark Lord on his Dark Throne in his Dark Tower. Their mouth uttered proud boasts and blasphemies and stole the hearts of men, turning them into servants of shadow. They waged war, and conquered the people of God, and they were worshiped by many. I saw too arise the Second Beast, who will show great signs and make all the world serve the Darkness, who calls down fire from the sky and speaks like a dragon. All that did not worship them, the Dragon and the Two Beasts, I saw put to the sword.
I watched as God's wrath was poured out on the throne of the Dragon, and his land was covered in darkness. I saw the three unclean spirits that are like frogs, that come from the mouths of the Dragon and the Beasts and deceive nations so that they may turn against the Lord, God Almighty. I saw the great earthquake, that throws down cities and kingdoms.
I watched the great star Wormwood fall burning from the heavens, trailing behind it fire and gold. It fell upon the rivers, and then poisoned all the waters. Those that drank the poisoned waters became cursed to be like Wormwood had been, and in this way many died. I saw the Dragon's ten horns become like 10 Kings, who received authority from him and will wage war on all creation. I saw the darkening of the sun and the stars and the moon, and the moon turned as red as blood.
I saw all of these things come to pass, and I recognized them from the writings of St. John the Divine. This fact filled my heart with woe, for I realized that if this is what to come, then Revelation is being fulfilled, and the End Times are well and truly upon us. The rest of what was shown to me is less clear and contained no solid pieces of scripture, but all the same they indicate that these are indeed the times of Armageddon.
These visions contained many reasons for both horror and hope. The horror I will tell of first; I will preserve the hope for the end of this writing, so that it will not end in despair. I beheld the Dark Lord on his Dark Throne in his Dark Tower, and before him knelt 12 Forsaken Kings of Men, dead but yet unable to die. And then the Dark Lord said to them: "Rise, and come forwards to be armed." To nine of them he gave swords, and sent them out to spread his shadow across the whole world. And they rode out on horrible fell beasts, whose wings were like those of bats and faces were like those of snakes and bodies were like those of elephants.
To the other three he gave daggers, and he sent them out in silence on the black wind, to strike from darkness against the light. The first I saw go to a great city, guarded by a two-headed eagle, who held a sword in one talon and orb-and-cross in the other. One half of its body had feathers of regal purple, while the other half was pure gold, and it wore a great crown on both heads. The bearer of the dagger entered the city in silence and struck the eagle in one of it's heads. The eagle went mad, and the two halves began to strike at each other in a mad rage.
The second I saw go into the frozen wild. I saw it strike the fertile ground, and all around it withered and died and turned black. Then the one that the Dark Lord had sent there unleashed a great cry, and as I watched a great horde of wild men and beasts emerged out of the blackened land, gathering to the one that had born the dagger. They kneeled before the servant of the Dark One and worshipped the shadow. Then they rose as one and rode out like a swarm of locusts, going forwards to consume all in their path.
The third I saw enter into the wide desert. They went to an oasis, and there I saw a herd of camels, coming out of the east with the rising of the moon. When they came to drink of the waters, the one that Sauron had sent out plunged their dagger into the spring, and the water turned to shadow and poisoned many in the herd, and they began to stampede and trample those that had not been poisoned.
Then I heard a great roar of thunder above me, like ten thousand lions. I looked up to the heavens, and I saw the sky itself split apart, spitting lighting in all directions. From the seam that formed I saw came a great gust of wind, frozen like ice, and snowfall so thick that I could not see my own hands when I put them in front of me. And when the sky calmed, I saw before a multitude of mountains, rising like dark towers above the good earth.
Out from these new mountains which had fallen from the sky I saw come a great horde of demons and monsters. I watched as they descended upon the world, and none could stand against them. They are lead by a monster of fire and shadow and smoke, who served the Leviathan and now will march against all of creation in service of Sauron. It is wounded and scarred: twice has it fallen, only to rise again.
Finally, I saw a great tree which the Lord had planted in the world of man. It radiated His glory, and it's roots spread out to all the corners of the world, and its branches and leaves were as numerous as sand on the seashore. It had four trunks which reached as high as the heavens, and to each the heavens gave a mark. One, the first and oldest, was given the stars. Two others, twined together and yet growing apart, were given the sun, one for its rising and the other for its setting. The last and youngest had been given the moon.
But Sauron came up to the great tree which the Almighty had planted, and he began to whisper to it with his silver tongue. And I saw the shadow on his breath, and it poisoned the tree so that many of the branches withered away and many of the leaves fell to the ground, where Sauron and his servants crushed them underfoot. And as I watched, the four great trunks turned dark, and began to strike at each other, each scarring the other's bark.
All this I saw, and it caused me great despair. But so it is written: "Do Not Be Afraid." I say the same to you now, that fear and terror do not overtake you, despite all that is coming to pass. For know this: the Lord, God Almighty, Creator of Heaven and of Earth, has not abandoned us; Not alone do we stand against this storm. The Maker of All of Creation has given to us great gifts, that we may face down this foe. I saw much that stands against the growing tide, that we may not be drowned in shadow.
I saw the light of seven stars shine down from the hand of the Lord upon the two-headed eagle. One head I saw the grace of God return to, and that half of the body I saw begin to heal. So to healed did I see those that had drunk the water poisoned by the burning fall of Wormwood: I saw a clean hand thrust into the dark waters, and they were made pure, and up from their depths the hand pulled those had fallen in, so that they did not drown. And I saw the heavens open up, and an army of angels descended into the world of men to take up the battle.
Then I heard a great cry from the skies, and from there I saw descend the Archangel, who will lead the Lords of Men through the dark times. He is cloaked in purest white, and is given power by the Lord, God Almighty: in their right hand they wield His sword, that he may smite those that would betray His children; in his left hand they wield his sceptre, that the Archangel may have authority over all that would defend the light. He carries with him the fire of the Holy Spirit, that he may give great courage and hope to all, so the hearts of men should not fail. He comes on the wings of Eagles, and all that serve the Dark shall rightly fear him.
Finally, I beheld the four elements themselves taking up arms and defying the shadows. I saw beings of unyielding earth standing against Sauron's thralls; they have bones of steel, and skin made of iron, and his tongue cannot touch their souls. I saw a place of fire, and it burned away the darkness that surrounded it, and I saw it give hope to the hearts of men so that they could stand. I saw a great river coming out of the dark mountains, and it's waters stood ready to cleanse all that the shadow had twisted into darkness. And I saw a great whirlwind descend from the heavens, blowing down all the legions of hell, and in its heart I saw our greatest hope.
For in the eye of that storm I saw the One, the weapon which reaps the stars, and I saw the way of its unmaking. A lamb has been prepared for the slaughter, and through their sacrifice the One that shatters the heaven shall be finally and totally destroyed. They do not bear this weight alone: with them I saw three shepherds, who will guard the lamb until the time that it is to be offered up, and the four corners of the world have sent forth the four elements to guide the way.
Up from the south has come a heart of burning fire that has been sworn to protect the lamb and the shepherds, and their oaths shall not be forsaken. Down from the north came the waters that washed away the one that failed and took the One that cuts down the sun and moon for themselves; they have come to redeem the line that was broken. Out of the west came a green leaf on the winds, cutting down all in its path. The east gave a golem of stone and steel, strong and brave and resilient.
This was all that I saw, and I hold that all of it is true. It was here that my visions did end, and Michael who is called Orome returned me to the Holy City, lest the Flaming Eye behold me, and see that I have walked in his tower and been given Revelation. As I dismounted the great stallion, Orome who is called Michael said to me: "My duty is unfinished, as is yours. Go, now, and call out all those that would stand with the Lord! Tell them all that you have been shown, and that the Angels of the Lord walk always with them. Remember this, from now until the ending of the Age: The One is always with you, and will never leave your side. So do not despair, even at the fall of the world, for you shall never walk alone!" And so the Angel rode away on their steed, blowing their horn so that all who heard would answer the call.
And so it has fallen to me to say to all those that would call themselves Christian: send your lords, your kings and your princes to me, so that we may stand as one against this tide. The Lord, God Almighty has called upon all of you; His messenger has come before me, and shown me all that is to come. Let every nation heed the call, for these are indeed the times of Armageddon: let your names be written in the book of life, so that you may live forever. If any shall not answer, their name is to be struck out, and for all eternity shall damnation take them.
May Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, be with you all.
Signed,
Pope Innocent the Third, Witness to the Lord.
To the Kings of Europe:
Greetings.
I, the Bishop of Rome, Vicar of Jesus Christ, Successor of the Prince of the Apostles, Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church, Primate of Italy, and Servant of the Servants of God, call all the Lords of Europe to a great council in Rome. For a Great Shadow now descends upon us, plunging all our lands into darkness. If we do not face it as one, we are all doomed.
Doubtless, many of you are aware of the calamity that has come to us, having seen your lands be changed by the great storm that descended on the 25th of January, Year of Our Lord Twelve-Hundred. Perhaps you have heard rumors of Demons and Monsters, descending from the new mountains, devouring all in their path. I tell you now that all these tales are true. The Mouth of Hell has been opened upon the Earth, and all must gather to stand against it.
I know this because on the night that the storm descended, as I lay resting in my chambers, I heard a great voice calling out to me, asking for me by the name of my birth. I awoke at once, going to my door. Upon opening it, I asked my guards who had called for me. They replied that none come to my door. Returning to my bed, I returned to rest, only to be awoken again by the same voice, calling my name.
Again I rose and went to my door, and again my guards said that none had called for me. Now I recalled the tale of Samuel, who the LORD called by name. Returning again to my chamber, I knelt in prayer, saying "Here I am, LORD. Command me." And then the great voice called out again, saying "Behold my messenger. Listen to him well." And then my chamber was filled with light.
When the light faded and I could again see, there before me stood an angel, who rode a great steed and carried a great horn, and who said his name was both Orome and Michael. He said to me: "The One has willed that you ride with me, and for you record all that you see, so you may know of what is to come. For the tale you now find yourself a part of is dark and full of danger: if you are to survive, you will need to know of all that has come upon you" And in my hands I found a scroll and a pen, and so I mounted the steed with Michael who is also called Orome and rode out with him.
We rode above the clouds, with the world standing still around us. The steed carried us north and east, over Italy and the Adriatic, passing Croatia and Slavonia along the way. As we rode, I looked out to the east, and saw great mountains, cloaked in shadow, that had risen out of the ground. As I looked upon them, I knew they were not of this world. I asked Orome who is also called Michael: "What devilry is this, that these great peaks come from nothing? What power of Earth or Heaven could have thrown them up?"
The Angel looked to me and said: "Nothing in the memory of this world. In a far distant place, there were two, a servant of the One and a monster of the Enemy. They clashed against each other, and in their wrath and desperation part of their world was unmade. What remained has come here, as debris from the sinking of a ship. But woe unto you! What has washed up upon your shores is not mere ruins and wreckage, but something far more vile. Beyond those mountains lies the realm of Sauron, who is the Enemy of All the World."
When the angel spoke that name, a dark chill came upon me, and I knew in my heart that he spoke of a great evil. Soon afterwards, the steed stopped, and the Angel said to me: "Look to the southeast! See with your own eyes the works of the Enemy!" And I turned my eyes as the Angel told me, and there I beheld for the first time the works of the Dark Lord.
There before me was a great black wall, standing between the mountains of shadow and ash. It was as high as any in the world, as tall as ten men, and forged of solid iron and black stone and steel. It's tower's were like great teeth anchored upon the dark peaks, their roots set deep into the unyielding stone.
Manning this wall were what could only be demons. Their stances were bent and their eyes full of malice; their faces were like wild boars, and their teeth like knives. A great multitude there were, all in arms with bows and swords and spears. Behind the wall were two great ramparts of stone, and upon them stood giants, chained to the wall. As I watched, a great horn was blown, and the giants marched forth along the ramparts, and the walls parted, like the opening of a gate.
Said the Angel: "This is the Morannon, door of Udun. Beyond lies the dark land of Mordor, where the shadow lies. Come, while the gate is open! There is much that must be seen. Do not be afraid, for none within may yet touch you, for they can not see, nor hear, no feel your passing. I am with you; I will light the way." And so we rode on, through the black gate, into the land of shadow.
I can describe that place only as Hell. All was covered in ash and dust, and searing heat was present in all places and times. No green grass grew, no breezes cooled the air, no springs or streams cut through the ashen ground. Smoke and fire filled the sky, and the air itself was poison; I saw even the demons choking on the fell winds. And many demons there were; most small, with twisted faces and limbs and claws; some giant, as much as three men, crushing the lesser ones underfoot; some were twisted mockeries of beasts of burden.
But all this terror, all this horror, paled when compared against the Flaming Eye. Above all the horrors of that Hell it was perched, watching all that passed below. It turned and looked over all the lands of Hell, and when its gaze passed over me it felt like the burning of a great fire, fueled by hatred. In appearance it seemed like the sun at its most terrible, searing all that it shone upon. I looked upon it for but moments before I was forced in terror to turn, for seeing into its depths is to court madness.
Then I asked the Angel: "To whom does that great Eye belong? It must be that of the Devil himself!" And they in turn said to me: "Not the Devil, but near enough. That is the Eye of Sauron, from where he watches all the world, waiting to strike. It sees near all, be it in past or present. This sight is a strong weapon, and one he will wield against you. But come! Now is the time that I shall give you the same sight as he. I warn you, though: you will see this all through the eye of madness, and I can not guarantee that you will understand."
The Angel lead us to the place where the Eye is perched, which he called Barad-Dur. It was cast from Iron and Steel and Black Stone, and rose higher than all the towers of the world. A great army of Demons stood upon its ramparts, of all breeds and shapes and sizes, and they spoke in a black tongue, whose very sound hurt my soul. We ascended the tower, and there at last I beheld him: The Dark Lord, who sat on a Dark Throne within the Dark Tower. His name is Sauron, and he is the Enemy of All the World.
Not yet is he of flesh, being as yet made of shadow and fire, but even as I watched his shape became more solid, his form becoming whole. But the small portion of him that has become tangible is a thing of terror. His helm is burned and black and harder than iron. His hands are like claws, sharper than steel and stronger than stone (I saw that he had only nine fingers, though. The tale of the lost digit I will tell later in this writing). The rest remains a dark spirit on a bad wind, shadows made from fear and hatred and rage, swirling around what has formed like a whirlwind of malice.
I asked the Angel: "How came this to pass? Does not the Devil have a fair form that he wears as a mask, to tempt the hearts of men? Why are only the head and hands made real, and the rest like smoke from a fire?" And the Angel replied to me: "For the same reason that he has only nine fingers. The tale is one of triumph against the dark, and the knowledge it will give you will be needed in the times ahead. Come, and I shall show you."
We ascended high into the Dark Tower, passing many legions of Demons before coming finally to the uppermost chamber. Here, the Angel said to me: "Behold, The Palantir of Minas Ithil!" and indicated to me the stone in the center of the room. It was black, but could be seen through like glass, and was perfectly smooth. In it's heart, I saw a great storm swirling around.
The Angel spoke again, saying: "By the use of this stone, Sauron's sight and reach has grown long. It sees far, through mountains and across seas, and by its sight he has ensnared many." Then, the Angel took the stone in his hands and presented it to me, saying: "Take the stone in your hands. I will guide its gaze, and show you all that you need to know." And so I took up the stone, and within it the Angel showed me all things, past, present and future.
I was shown first the beginnings of the tale. In the beginning was the darkness, an endless darkness stretching on to infinity: Nothing was there. But then I heard the word, saying: "Let there be light!" and I heard a Great Music, like ten thousand choirs singing in unison, and the tune was perfect. From the tune itself I beheld the start of all of creation: I watched the building of all the world, the birth of all the creatures and the making of all the mountains and seas.
Then I saw there the Garden of Eden in all its glory, peaceful and beautiful and perfect, with all things living in harmony in the light of the Lord. Two great trees stood in the center of the Garden, and the grace of God flowed from them, lighting all the world in splendor, and all was good. All the creatures of the world praised the Lord, and the Lord walked among the creatures, demanding only that they not harm the great trees.
But then I saw a great Leviathan, who arose in might to challenge the Lord, and it poisoned the trees and made itself a King of all living things. It deceived all the world, and destroyed the trees and plunged the garden into darkness and chaos. The Leviathan turned many to his cause, and under its feet it crushed all that dared stand against it.
Now among those that bowed down to the Leviathan was one called Mairon. They were of a fairer complexion than most that served the Leviathan, being tall and well-shaped and possessing a handsome face. He was a master craftsman, greater than any other in the world, and their crafts were as near to perfection as could be found outside of Heaven itself. But still Mairon seeked improvement, seeked perfection, but he could not find it. Always in his works he found flaws, imperceivable to nearly all but existent nonetheless. In this was did the Leviathan enthrall them, saying: "Bow to me, and I shall give you the perfection that you seek," and Mairon became the Leviathan's right hand. Those that defied them cursed his name, and called him Sauron, the Abhorred.
For many years and generations war was waged between the Leviathan and his servants and the Lord and his servants, with much valor and horror on all sides and in all places. Finally, the Lord decreed that the world would suffer no more, and He Himself descended, and all the world was shattered and the Leviathan was thrown down into the pit, where it will be imprisoned until the end of time. Many of the Leviathan's servants were captured, and taken up above the clouds to stand trial. But Sauron escaped, and went to hide in the far reaches of the broken world.
Now a long time passed, and the Leviathan and his servants faded away from memory, turning from history to legend and from legend to myth and from myth to nothingness. That which should have never been allowed to fade was lost to the ages. But although the world chose to forget the Leviathan and all his servants, Sauron did not forget the world. He went about to the blackest crags at the edge of creation, drawing out to him all the dark shadows of the world. In this way did he become ruler of all that spurned the light.
But his fair form he kept, and many a time he would go out into the light and give great gift to those that dwelled there, seeking to ensnare the Children of the One. He appeared at their gates as he had before his fall, and those that saw him said: "Here is a servant of the One! Come, let us go out and welcome him, for surely he is here for our betterment!" They called him Annatar, and it was in this way that Sauron deceived the world. Few among the Children of the One turned him away, and against those that did he swore terrible vengeance.
And so it was that in that time his power was ever on the rise. To the banner of the Flaming Eye rallied all the scattered servants of the Leviathan, who were seeking to unleash horrible revenge for their master's fall. Under his thrall fell many kings of men, looking to go out as conquerors and conquered. To his side came all manner of dark beast, hungary and wild. But to those in the light he showed only his fair face, and in this way was his army kept in the shadows.
Now Sauron came to the height of his power. He looked over towards those that remained to defy him, planning their unmaking. Seeking not to risk his power, he went out to those in the light wearing his fair face Annatar, giving them great praise and gifting them great treasures. And so the Children of the one became ever more ensnared, for Sauron in this time forged great weapons, which could make and unmake the world.
20 of these great weapons I saw in all, and they were divided into groups of one and three and seven and nine. The Nine he gave to those that would serve him and now serve him still, for their hearts were weak and wills weaker yet, and they will be his thralls until the end of time, smiting all that oppose him. The Seven he gave to the earth itself, and the soil where they were planted became sick so nothing would grow but greed and fear, and then fire consumed them all, so that nothing remained. The Three were kept from his hands, and taken up by the Skies and the Waters and the heavens, and ever after were they defiant against him, holding back his black tide.
But the One stood greater than all the others. It was forged in secret, in the hottest and deepest pits of Hell, and its power was beyond all the others together. With it in his hand, Sauron would rule them all, all the people of the world. He would find all that dared stand against him, and bring them under his power and bind them in darkness. I saw it wielded against his foes: it makes nations crumble and Kings weep, and none could stand against it. With it he turned even the mightiest against the light, corrupting their hearts and souls and making them bow before the image of the Leviathan. All that would dare face him were thrown down or driven into the dark places, and tribute was paid to him by all the world. And so it was that the shadow ruled, and it fell over all the earth, and Sauron named himself Lord of the World.
And so it was that all of creation bowed before Sauron, and now he looked to overthrow the One Himself, and to conquer even the Heavens. It was at this time that he raised up a Great Armament from all the nations and kings that knelt at his feet, and he compelled them to build a great navy for him, to sail against the angels themselves. The number of slaves and soldiers and beasts of burden that gathered to sail in his name is beyond reckoning. When they set out a great cry went up, and their voices and horns and drums outsounded the thunder. For 39 days and nights the slaves rowed hard on the oars (for there was no wind), and on the 40th day they arrived at the Door to Heaven, and prepared to storm it.
But the One in Heaven looked down upon the vast navy, and, seeing that the only inclination of their thoughts was to evil, he swore that he would wipe them from the face of the earth, every pack animal and chained servant and weapon bearer, so that the world may be made pure again. But to those that remained true to the light he gave favor, and he said to one called Elendil (who is also called Noah): "I am about to destroy the great navy, but I fear that with it will fall much of creation. So I say to you this: Build for yourself and your wife and your sons and their wives a great Ark, so that you may ride out the storm and come through safe, while the shadow is thrown down."
So on the 40th day after the Great Armament set sail, the One Himself came down and wrecked the entire fleet in a great storm, and threw down the lands from which they had sailed, and much of the earth was drowned under the sea. This included all the monuments built to the Leviathan and the all the great lands that had bowed to the Dark Lord and even the fair form of Sauron; all were lost under the waves. But Noah called Elendil and all his children and servants survived in their great Ark, and came out of the sea onto solid ground, and rallied that had stood in the light to their banners.
Now all those that had opposed the shadow rose as one, seeking to throw down Sauron, who's strength was now much diminished. In a final and desperate alliance, they marched together to the great gates of Hell, where Sauron had now fled to regain his strength. It was there before the Black Gates that they waged ferocious battle against all the legions of shadow for days and weeks and months before their entry was finally secured. For seven years, then, did they lay horrible siege to the Dark Tower that holds the Dark Throne, and many great men fell to rise no more before it's black ramparts.
And then, finally, with the victory of the light near, Sauron himself came forth. He was now a twisted thing of shadow and steel and fire, his fair form forever lost; his new shape was like that of a Dragon in the form of a Man. His touch burned like a hundred suns, warping armor and swords like paper in a hearth. His own armor was harder than the hardest stone, and no blade could bite him. He wielded in his hands the One, the great weapon which can uproot the mountains, and terrible was the wrath he visited on all that dared challenge his might.
But the time had come that he would be unmade. His armies were broken and scattered to the four winds, and were pursued and cut down as they fled; has lands were trampled and overthrown, so that no more would rise to his aid; even the power of the One which makes the earth tremble could not overcome the vengeful light that now came down to cleanse the world. Even then, with all fortune having abandoned him, Sauron defied the alliance, smiting many princes and kings of the nations of the light, until finally the One that rules all the shadows was cut from his hand, and Sauron was finally himself thrown down.
Despite all of this, however, Sauron survived. So great was the malice and hatred that he had poured into making the One the cuts down kings that he endured even with his body reduced to dust. And the One, the great weapon, was not destroyed: the man that cut it from Sauron's grasp, who's name I will not speak (for they deserve no honor here), took it for themselves, for it whispered to them and made them love it, and upon their death it was lost in the waters of time. The Dark Tower was destroyed, but its foundations were not laid bare and remained intact. The black legions of hell were not pursued to the final end and so hid, seeking to regain their strength. And so, although the victory of the light was great, it was incomplete.
It was here that my visions of the past ended, and I began to see both what is now and what is to come. I warn you now: I was shown much of both what will be and what is at once, and not always could I tell one from the other. Thus, little that I saw is straight forwards. Much is out of order: I know not what was the beginning and what was the end, and there was little of anything that was familiar to me. Some, however, I recognized, for I had read of it before, and I had read it the Holy Scripture itself, in the Book of Revelations.
This is a cause for great terror, for that which I recognized from the writings of St. John of Patmos are writings of woe and pain and persecution. They foretell of great suffering for all that follow Christ. Many parts did I recognize, all of them telling of disaster and calamity to come. That which I noted as being told again are as follows:
I beheld The Great Dragon which has ten horns and stands at the shore of the sea, which I am now sure is Sauron, come to devour the world. In a likewise way, I saw one like the First Beast prophesied in John's Revelation, rising out of the water. They had their own power and throne, and was granted great authority by the Dark Lord on his Dark Throne in his Dark Tower. Their mouth uttered proud boasts and blasphemies and stole the hearts of men, turning them into servants of shadow. They waged war, and conquered the people of God, and they were worshiped by many. I saw too arise the Second Beast, who will show great signs and make all the world serve the Darkness, who calls down fire from the sky and speaks like a dragon. All that did not worship them, the Dragon and the Two Beasts, I saw put to the sword.
I watched as God's wrath was poured out on the throne of the Dragon, and his land was covered in darkness. I saw the three unclean spirits that are like frogs, that come from the mouths of the Dragon and the Beasts and deceive nations so that they may turn against the Lord, God Almighty. I saw the great earthquake, that throws down cities and kingdoms.
I watched the great star Wormwood fall burning from the heavens, trailing behind it fire and gold. It fell upon the rivers, and then poisoned all the waters. Those that drank the poisoned waters became cursed to be like Wormwood had been, and in this way many died. I saw the Dragon's ten horns become like 10 Kings, who received authority from him and will wage war on all creation. I saw the darkening of the sun and the stars and the moon, and the moon turned as red as blood.
I saw all of these things come to pass, and I recognized them from the writings of St. John the Divine. This fact filled my heart with woe, for I realized that if this is what to come, then Revelation is being fulfilled, and the End Times are well and truly upon us. The rest of what was shown to me is less clear and contained no solid pieces of scripture, but all the same they indicate that these are indeed the times of Armageddon.
These visions contained many reasons for both horror and hope. The horror I will tell of first; I will preserve the hope for the end of this writing, so that it will not end in despair. I beheld the Dark Lord on his Dark Throne in his Dark Tower, and before him knelt 12 Forsaken Kings of Men, dead but yet unable to die. And then the Dark Lord said to them: "Rise, and come forwards to be armed." To nine of them he gave swords, and sent them out to spread his shadow across the whole world. And they rode out on horrible fell beasts, whose wings were like those of bats and faces were like those of snakes and bodies were like those of elephants.
To the other three he gave daggers, and he sent them out in silence on the black wind, to strike from darkness against the light. The first I saw go to a great city, guarded by a two-headed eagle, who held a sword in one talon and orb-and-cross in the other. One half of its body had feathers of regal purple, while the other half was pure gold, and it wore a great crown on both heads. The bearer of the dagger entered the city in silence and struck the eagle in one of it's heads. The eagle went mad, and the two halves began to strike at each other in a mad rage.
The second I saw go into the frozen wild. I saw it strike the fertile ground, and all around it withered and died and turned black. Then the one that the Dark Lord had sent there unleashed a great cry, and as I watched a great horde of wild men and beasts emerged out of the blackened land, gathering to the one that had born the dagger. They kneeled before the servant of the Dark One and worshipped the shadow. Then they rose as one and rode out like a swarm of locusts, going forwards to consume all in their path.
The third I saw enter into the wide desert. They went to an oasis, and there I saw a herd of camels, coming out of the east with the rising of the moon. When they came to drink of the waters, the one that Sauron had sent out plunged their dagger into the spring, and the water turned to shadow and poisoned many in the herd, and they began to stampede and trample those that had not been poisoned.
Then I heard a great roar of thunder above me, like ten thousand lions. I looked up to the heavens, and I saw the sky itself split apart, spitting lighting in all directions. From the seam that formed I saw came a great gust of wind, frozen like ice, and snowfall so thick that I could not see my own hands when I put them in front of me. And when the sky calmed, I saw before a multitude of mountains, rising like dark towers above the good earth.
Out from these new mountains which had fallen from the sky I saw come a great horde of demons and monsters. I watched as they descended upon the world, and none could stand against them. They are lead by a monster of fire and shadow and smoke, who served the Leviathan and now will march against all of creation in service of Sauron. It is wounded and scarred: twice has it fallen, only to rise again.
Finally, I saw a great tree which the Lord had planted in the world of man. It radiated His glory, and it's roots spread out to all the corners of the world, and its branches and leaves were as numerous as sand on the seashore. It had four trunks which reached as high as the heavens, and to each the heavens gave a mark. One, the first and oldest, was given the stars. Two others, twined together and yet growing apart, were given the sun, one for its rising and the other for its setting. The last and youngest had been given the moon.
But Sauron came up to the great tree which the Almighty had planted, and he began to whisper to it with his silver tongue. And I saw the shadow on his breath, and it poisoned the tree so that many of the branches withered away and many of the leaves fell to the ground, where Sauron and his servants crushed them underfoot. And as I watched, the four great trunks turned dark, and began to strike at each other, each scarring the other's bark.
All this I saw, and it caused me great despair. But so it is written: "Do Not Be Afraid." I say the same to you now, that fear and terror do not overtake you, despite all that is coming to pass. For know this: the Lord, God Almighty, Creator of Heaven and of Earth, has not abandoned us; Not alone do we stand against this storm. The Maker of All of Creation has given to us great gifts, that we may face down this foe. I saw much that stands against the growing tide, that we may not be drowned in shadow.
I saw the light of seven stars shine down from the hand of the Lord upon the two-headed eagle. One head I saw the grace of God return to, and that half of the body I saw begin to heal. So to healed did I see those that had drunk the water poisoned by the burning fall of Wormwood: I saw a clean hand thrust into the dark waters, and they were made pure, and up from their depths the hand pulled those had fallen in, so that they did not drown. And I saw the heavens open up, and an army of angels descended into the world of men to take up the battle.
Then I heard a great cry from the skies, and from there I saw descend the Archangel, who will lead the Lords of Men through the dark times. He is cloaked in purest white, and is given power by the Lord, God Almighty: in their right hand they wield His sword, that he may smite those that would betray His children; in his left hand they wield his sceptre, that the Archangel may have authority over all that would defend the light. He carries with him the fire of the Holy Spirit, that he may give great courage and hope to all, so the hearts of men should not fail. He comes on the wings of Eagles, and all that serve the Dark shall rightly fear him.
Finally, I beheld the four elements themselves taking up arms and defying the shadows. I saw beings of unyielding earth standing against Sauron's thralls; they have bones of steel, and skin made of iron, and his tongue cannot touch their souls. I saw a place of fire, and it burned away the darkness that surrounded it, and I saw it give hope to the hearts of men so that they could stand. I saw a great river coming out of the dark mountains, and it's waters stood ready to cleanse all that the shadow had twisted into darkness. And I saw a great whirlwind descend from the heavens, blowing down all the legions of hell, and in its heart I saw our greatest hope.
For in the eye of that storm I saw the One, the weapon which reaps the stars, and I saw the way of its unmaking. A lamb has been prepared for the slaughter, and through their sacrifice the One that shatters the heaven shall be finally and totally destroyed. They do not bear this weight alone: with them I saw three shepherds, who will guard the lamb until the time that it is to be offered up, and the four corners of the world have sent forth the four elements to guide the way.
Up from the south has come a heart of burning fire that has been sworn to protect the lamb and the shepherds, and their oaths shall not be forsaken. Down from the north came the waters that washed away the one that failed and took the One that cuts down the sun and moon for themselves; they have come to redeem the line that was broken. Out of the west came a green leaf on the winds, cutting down all in its path. The east gave a golem of stone and steel, strong and brave and resilient.
This was all that I saw, and I hold that all of it is true. It was here that my visions did end, and Michael who is called Orome returned me to the Holy City, lest the Flaming Eye behold me, and see that I have walked in his tower and been given Revelation. As I dismounted the great stallion, Orome who is called Michael said to me: "My duty is unfinished, as is yours. Go, now, and call out all those that would stand with the Lord! Tell them all that you have been shown, and that the Angels of the Lord walk always with them. Remember this, from now until the ending of the Age: The One is always with you, and will never leave your side. So do not despair, even at the fall of the world, for you shall never walk alone!" And so the Angel rode away on their steed, blowing their horn so that all who heard would answer the call.
And so it has fallen to me to say to all those that would call themselves Christian: send your lords, your kings and your princes to me, so that we may stand as one against this tide. The Lord, God Almighty has called upon all of you; His messenger has come before me, and shown me all that is to come. Let every nation heed the call, for these are indeed the times of Armageddon: let your names be written in the book of life, so that you may live forever. If any shall not answer, their name is to be struck out, and for all eternity shall damnation take them.
May Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, be with you all.
Signed,
Pope Innocent the Third, Witness to the Lord.
A Lesson, Bought With Blood
- Location
- University of Saint Thomas, St. Paul, Minnesota
January 26, TA 3019/AD 1200
Seville
The horde of demons and monsters drew ever closer to the ancient city of Seville, a seemingly endless stream of twisted beasts flooding towards his city. Most of them appeared to be some kind of gigantic spiders, their sizes ranging from that of an average dog at one end of the scale to comparable to a small bear at the other. Even from this distance, the men manning the walls could see their fangs gleaming like sharpened knives, their eyes glowing with malice.
With them were other beasts, somehow even more terrible: twisted versions of boars that had fangs the size of scimitars and glowing red eyes, deer with sickly green skin and black horns, gigantic wolves that were closer in size and build to the lions that prowled about Africa than any beast of Al-Andalus. Taken in with the still-burning forest behind the ravenous horde, which produced a terrifying backdrop to the whole affair, one could easily assume that the gates of Hell had opened up before the city of Seville.
Many of its inhabitants had, in fact, made said assumption, and now fear and panic swept like a fell wind through the capital of the Almohads. People ran screaming through the streets, desperately seeking any kind of shelter. Many fled into the mosques, throwing themselves on the ground in prayer, begging for Allah to save them. Much of the populace locked themselves away in their homes, praying that the coming storm would pass them over. Desperation and terror all-too-easily turned into violence: wrecked market stalls were looted, people brawled in the streets and old scores were settled. And why not? The world was ending around them, and anyone that could have stopped them were manning the walls of the city.
From his position on said walls, Muhammad al-Nasir watched all of this unfold. The Caliph of the Almohads grimaced, his hand tightening around the hilt of his sword. This was a disaster. No, it was far more than that. Muhammad doubted that there was a word in Arabic, or indeed any language, to describe what was happening to Seville. Rioting and looting in the streets, a massive swarms of demonic beasts flooding towards the walls and the whole blasted thing happening in a not ignorable depth of snow (which, of course, wasn't hampering the beasts of hell in the least). The Caliph of the Almohads felt as if nothing could possible go right for him, and the thought idly crossed his mind that the best thing for him to do might very well be to hop in a carriage and run for Cadiz.
Muhammad paused at that thought. Then he smiled mirthlessly at it, internally ringing with bitter laughter. As if running, fleeing, to Africa was the correct solution to the problem. For one, he was quite the fool if he believed that something so simple as a few leagues of distance, or even the waters of the Al-Zuqaq, would be able to protect him from the wrath of whatever Hell had emerged in his lands. For another, and far more importantly, Muhammad was the Caliph of the Almohads. He had all the responsibilities that came with the title, and that meant a duty to defend his seat of power against all challengers, even those of supernatural origin.
If he fled, there was no doubt in his heart that his men's courage would fail totally, and the demons slaughtering the entire city was reduced from a possibility, albeit a likely one, to a certainty. In all likeliness, there would be no survivors. Muhammad had sent people to their deaths before, but those had been soldiers, fighting for a greater good. This would be...no, he could not live with an extermination on his soul. And to simply abandon his lands, his city, his people to the demons would attain for him a place in Hell's deepest pit for the rest of time.
No, Seville needed its Caliph, now perhaps more than any time in its history, and Muhammad al-Nasir would not shirk his duty. His men needed their commander; his people, their Lord. He could see the fear in the eyes of the former, threatening to consume them; he could hear the terror of the latter, crying out to him. It was time for him to answer. And so it was that Muhammad al-Nasir, Caliph of the Almohads, drew his sword and held it high, calling out to his men. His voice carried across the ramparts of Seville, even above the sounds of chaos within and the beasts without, and turned every ear to his words:
"Men of Seville! Listen! Listen now! Do you hear them!? Do you hear them!? Your people, you families, you wives and daughters and infants?! Do! You! Hear Them!? They cry out to you! From the streets, the homes, the mosques, they cry out! They cry out that you may guard their lives with yours, that you may keep them safe from what is to come! Will you fail them!? Will you flee from this storm and let your children feel its wrath!? Or will you stand with me, so that Allah may see that you are worthy of Paradise!?'
'I know that you are afraid, as am I! But we cannot turn from this task! May Allah never forgive us if we did! We must not turn away from this evil, but rather face it, with our heads held high and our swords held ready! What kind of men would we be if we fled before this shadow, and let it pillage our homes and murder our families?! I would say that we would not be men at all! We would be nothing more than fearful rodents, pests to be rightfully cut down!'
'So, Men of Seville, I bid that you stand against this nightmare! Stand and face this evil! For your wives, for your children, for your homes, for all you hold dear, stand up and fight! Let whatever Devil has sent these beasts know that we will not bow down before it! Whoever stands upon these walls today will be remembered by our people until the End of Days! Whoever falls in their defense will be given passage through the gates of Heaven! Now, as one! Let us beat back this darkness! Allahu Akbar!"
These final two words were echoed by Muhammad's men, a great chant rising from the walls of the ancient city. The men of Seville raised their own blades to the sky, their cries sounding like thunder. Their voices grew ever louder, and soon the praises of Allah seemingly drowned out all else. In the hearts of the brave men standing on the walls, a great fire began to burn, driving back the darkness that sapped their courage and fueled their fear.
The beasts of Mirkwood, savage and cruel, continued their advance regardless. All they knew was that the assorted meats that they were hoping to feed on had suddenly gotten a lot louder. All the better to pinpoint their locations. The swarm surged ahead like a black wave of claws and teeth, threatening to sweep the ancient city away. A great roar rose from the horde as it closed in on the walls. The battle was about to begin.
First blood was drawn by the Almohads, who began to rain down hundreds of arrows upon the beasts as they entered into projectile range. Volley after volley plunged into the swarm, tearing into and through the exoskeletons of the spiders, the hides of the wolves and boars, tearing flesh and piercing organs. Dozens of creatures fell to the onslaught, but the rest were barely slowed. Wave after wave of arrows screamed out of the sky, but the beasts, fueled by a burning mixture of feral rage and animalistic hunger, barely seemed to notice. They lacked the capacity to comprehend the losses they were taking, and so pressed on with little to no regard for the shafts raining down around them. If anything, it only seemed to make the beasts angrier: their cries grew ever louder, and the swarm surged ahead even faster than before.
Muhammad al-Nasir continued to shout encouragement to his men, watching as arrow after arrow after arrow buried themselves into the flesh of the beasts. Pointing his sword to the field, he called out to his men, to look for themselves and see that, yes, the monsters could die, that what faced them was not an impossible task. To himself, he noted that said task was about to get a good bit harder. The spiders were the problem. The wolves and boars and stags would-hopefully-be stopped cold by the walls of Seville, which were-hopefully-to steep for them to climb. But the spiders, if they were anything like the insects that made their webs in any sufficiently forgotten space, wouldn't find this a problem. Muhammad hoped and prayed that his theory was incorrect, but he doubted that his luck was good enough for that to be the case. His luck was about to be tested: the first of the monsters were almost to the wall, despite the best efforts of the archers to drive them off. They came like a storm: first a light trickle, as the faster beasts reached the wall before their kin. As the rest caught up, the trickle would become a downpour, the downpour a flood. Muhammad prayed that he would withstand the tide.
Sure as the devil, the damn things could climb. The spiders of Mirkwood scurried up the wall as easily as normal arachnids would climb up a window sill. The first few the archers handled, picking the beasts off either as they transitioned from the horizontal to the vertical or as the monsters moved up the near-vertical slope. But for every spider that fell screeching from the walls, there were three to takes its place. The archers were as good as useless in melee; once the creatures were on the ramparts, the bowmen would either have to pull back or be slaughtered. They would have a harder time affecting the battle if forced to blindly fire over the walls into the horde instead of having a clear line of sight, but Muhammad saw little choice in the matter.
In all likeliness, the monsters wouldn't allow the respite from the hail of arrows as the archers pulled back go to waste, either: the slackening of fire would allow more of the beasts to close in and begin ascending the wall, and then the battle would become a melee, in which the Almohads would almost certainly be at a disadvantage. These creatures were almost completely alien to them, being twisted mockeries of the animals that they did know. The spiders especially were total unknowns: how does one grapple a being with eight legs? Learning how to do so on the fly practically guaranteed a massive price in blood would be paid for the lesson.
Cursing to himself, Muhammad readied his blade. No matter how badly thing could go for his swordsmen, it would go worse if his archers were forced into melee. And anyways, it was a reasonable assumption that driving a blade into the monster's' heads would kill them rather effectively. With that thought in mind, the Caliph of the Almohads ordered his swordsmen forwards to cover the archers. Then the archers were pulled back, and his theory about attacking the head was put to the test.
It was very quickly confirmed to be true. Muhammad buried his sword in the first spider within reach, the blade cutting into its face as the abomination came over the wall. It fell screeching from the rampart, hitting the earth below it with a sickening crunch. Seconds later, another spider took its place, darting up onto the wall. This one the Caliph stabbed, driving his sword into the monster's mouth. Two down, Allah knew how many to go.
As Muhammad had suspected, the spiders did have tricks up their sleeve, tricks that his men paid with their lives to learn to combat. The beasts extracted a monstrous cost for their teachings, paid in men pinned by webs as the creatures tackled them to the ground and tore into their necks, soldiers thrown off the wall by the spiders jumping at their chests with strength and from distances far in excess of what their appearances suggested of their leaping abilities and defenders paralyzed and poisoned by the beast's venom, frozen helplessly in place as the monsters ripped them apart. All too often, with all too high a price paid for the lessons, the Almohads learned new ways to die, flesh torn asunder by the spider's fangs or skewered by their claws.
Fear ate away at the men, fear of pain and death and slaughter. The ancient instincts inside of them, to either fight or to flee, took over. Some of them fled, abandoning all hope in victory and seeking to save themselves from the massacre that they foresaw. Others drew strength from the horror, fueling their desperate strikes and dodges with terror of what would happen if they failed to stand against the monstrosities facing them. Both groups screamed in madness and desperation as the beasts closed in on them, their movements becoming ever more wild as the primal instincts of the species, born from centuries as both hunter and prey, came to the forefront.
As the hours passed, corpses began to pile high atop the ramparts, streams and rivers of blood spilling down to the ground below. The walls became slick with the innards of the dead and dying, the latter of which's screams rose above all else on the field of battle. This sound was driven by the monsters consuming them as a mid-battle lunch, viciously tearing apart their still-living meals one bite at a time. The men of Seville stumbled and slipped and fell on the bloodstained bodies of their brothers in arms, leaving them all the more vulnerable to the creatures. The heat of the sun, weak as it was in the depths of winter, bore down on the dead flesh, giving the whole city the stench of rot and decay and death.
The walls were practically overrun, and the battle moved to the courtyards behind and below. Some of the monsters broke through the porous and hastily assembled lines of the defenders, entering into the city proper. Here they sowed chaos, filling the already scared inhabitants of the city with panic and fear, flooding the streets with terrified mobs that ran every which way, desperate for protection. Hampered by the snow and slush in the roads, these crowds quickly became nothing more than free meals for the beasts.
The defenders, of course, did not simply lay down to die. Those that remained fought on like demons, burying their blades into the eyes of the spiders, hacking off limbs and and claws and crushing them with stones and even their fists if they could not reach a true weapon. Beast met beast upon the walls and the streets, and as the battle continued and the beasts being attacked learned the new trade of battling the monsters, they began to meet as equals. But still the spiders came, surging over the walls like a black wave, threatening to drown all the remaining defenders under their shadow.
The light, though, refused to be extinguished. The lessons in combating the monsters had been learned far too late for far too many of the defenders, but as the hours passed they had been slowly, achingly discovered. Now those men that remained applied their new knowledge with almost fanatical zeal, fighting with the strength and purpose of cornered wild beasts, striking down anything that moved against them. They payed back the ferocity of the spiders of Mirkwood with interest, hacking into any monster that came within reach and tearing them apart as a storm tears apart a young sapling. Arrows continued to pour into the horde, both inside the walls and out, and the creatures made little progress into the city, too occupied with those on the walls and immediately adjacent to make a deep push. Not all the blood and guts spilled upon the walls and streets of Seville belonged to its defenders: the juices of the spiders flowed just as readily, the sundered limbs of the creatures joining the piles of corpses in ever increasing numbers.
There was a small handful of other saving graces for the Almohads, beyond the valor of the men. They were tiny blessings, small thing that largely went unnoticed, but all the same gave the defenders a greater chance for survival. Not all of them appeared as such: few would have said that the spiders eating the men of Seville alive was a good thing. But every spider that stopped to consume the flesh of a dying Almohad (and there were many) was a spider that was distracted, a spider that wasn't fighting, a spider that could be dealt with with relative ease. And the other blessings were clearer: the walls still stood strong, preventing the boars and wolves and any other hellish beasts that couldn't climb from entering the city. The monsters of Mirkwood howled and roared from the base of the walls, but could do little else. The sun had come out and shone high in the sky, partially blinding and dazing the mostly nocturnal creatures, used to operating in near darkness.
The hearts of the men rose with the sun, and as it climbed ever higher, both the day and the hopes of the Almohads became ever brighter as they saw that yes, the monsters could die, that their battle was not one without hope. Many of those that had fled earlier in the day returned to the fray, eager to avenge their cowardice in the morning with bravery here at the noontide. Slowly, ever so slowly, the tide of the day began to turn in the favor of the men of Seville, the black wave that had threatened to drown them receding at a horrific cost in blood and flesh. The battle became one of attrition, pitting the creatures of Mirkwood's desire for food and shelter against the men of Seville's will to defend their homes. The fires of feral rage and hunger burned against the flames of desperation and courage.
Through it all, all the loss and the suffering and the pain, Muhammad al-Nasir, Caliph of the Almohads, had stayed atop the wall. Head to toe, his armor and body was stained with the bodily fluids of far too many brothers in arms and, as far as he was concerned, far too few of the spiders. He was covered, too, in scratches and scars and marks from Allah knew how many spiders that had tried and failed to bring him down. His eyes were wide and wild, and he screamed maniacally with every movement, cursing the spiders and encouraging his men. He fought with reckless abandon, fueled by a primal rage that coursed through his veins and gave him the strength to continue even as he felt as though his sword arm would fall off from overuse.
Most of his men were the same, bodies having long ago exhausted all their strength of flesh and blood. Only their hearts remained, beating loud and frantic like bass drums in their chest, powering the body with whatever desperation or fear or wrath that they could summon up. Hope had become the strongest fuel remaining, hope that the spiders would break first, that the beasts had an earlier limit to their stamina and courage than the men.
It was not a forlorn hope. Both the Almohads and the spiders were exhausted, covered in blood and gore and wounds, but the spiders had begun to fear the men, more and more of their number fleeing back over the wall, fewer and fewer braving the climb. The instincts of the beasts, once to find food and shelter, now told them to turn and flee from the stone place filled with prey that fought back as hard as anything that their short memories could recall. In contrast, the defenders had become ever braver and more bold, their spirits rallying and their courage returning. As the sun passed its apogee and began to descend, the spiders as a whole began to feel that taking shelter somewhere that wasn't here would be a rather good idea.
Atop the wall, Muhammad al-Nasir continued to roar both calls to his men and damnations to the monsters, adding to voice like that of a lion the strength and ferocity of one as well. Those defenders that had been driven below the walls and into the courtyards below now came together, answering the call of their Caliph to drive out the beasts, that victory was nearing, that Allah was at their side. They stormed up the stairs and passages to the ramparts, screaming "Allahu Ackbar!" with a passion and rage that made the enemy, who didn't even understand the words, cower before them.
Hope burned in their hearts, hope that they could see in the gradual retreat of the monsters, hope that the Almohads could feel giving him a last great burst of strength, hope that drove the defenders forwards and brought down their aching arms again and again into whatever spider dared to stay within their city. The men of Seville fought on, far beyond the point of total exhaustion, as the sun began to set behind them, as they gave their final strength to drive back the dark.
And suddenly they weren't fighting anymore, as there was nothing before them to attack.The monsters of Mirkwood had retreated back below the wall, and most could be seen fleeing back into the dark and burning forest from whence they had come. A feeling of stunned disbelief came over the Almohads as they watched the creatures withdraw. Had they truly done it? Had they faced down a horde of demons and escaped with their live? Had they passed the test? In their minds, they hoped and prayed that it was so.
In their hearts, they knew it was just the beginning.
Seville
The horde of demons and monsters drew ever closer to the ancient city of Seville, a seemingly endless stream of twisted beasts flooding towards his city. Most of them appeared to be some kind of gigantic spiders, their sizes ranging from that of an average dog at one end of the scale to comparable to a small bear at the other. Even from this distance, the men manning the walls could see their fangs gleaming like sharpened knives, their eyes glowing with malice.
With them were other beasts, somehow even more terrible: twisted versions of boars that had fangs the size of scimitars and glowing red eyes, deer with sickly green skin and black horns, gigantic wolves that were closer in size and build to the lions that prowled about Africa than any beast of Al-Andalus. Taken in with the still-burning forest behind the ravenous horde, which produced a terrifying backdrop to the whole affair, one could easily assume that the gates of Hell had opened up before the city of Seville.
Many of its inhabitants had, in fact, made said assumption, and now fear and panic swept like a fell wind through the capital of the Almohads. People ran screaming through the streets, desperately seeking any kind of shelter. Many fled into the mosques, throwing themselves on the ground in prayer, begging for Allah to save them. Much of the populace locked themselves away in their homes, praying that the coming storm would pass them over. Desperation and terror all-too-easily turned into violence: wrecked market stalls were looted, people brawled in the streets and old scores were settled. And why not? The world was ending around them, and anyone that could have stopped them were manning the walls of the city.
From his position on said walls, Muhammad al-Nasir watched all of this unfold. The Caliph of the Almohads grimaced, his hand tightening around the hilt of his sword. This was a disaster. No, it was far more than that. Muhammad doubted that there was a word in Arabic, or indeed any language, to describe what was happening to Seville. Rioting and looting in the streets, a massive swarms of demonic beasts flooding towards the walls and the whole blasted thing happening in a not ignorable depth of snow (which, of course, wasn't hampering the beasts of hell in the least). The Caliph of the Almohads felt as if nothing could possible go right for him, and the thought idly crossed his mind that the best thing for him to do might very well be to hop in a carriage and run for Cadiz.
Muhammad paused at that thought. Then he smiled mirthlessly at it, internally ringing with bitter laughter. As if running, fleeing, to Africa was the correct solution to the problem. For one, he was quite the fool if he believed that something so simple as a few leagues of distance, or even the waters of the Al-Zuqaq, would be able to protect him from the wrath of whatever Hell had emerged in his lands. For another, and far more importantly, Muhammad was the Caliph of the Almohads. He had all the responsibilities that came with the title, and that meant a duty to defend his seat of power against all challengers, even those of supernatural origin.
If he fled, there was no doubt in his heart that his men's courage would fail totally, and the demons slaughtering the entire city was reduced from a possibility, albeit a likely one, to a certainty. In all likeliness, there would be no survivors. Muhammad had sent people to their deaths before, but those had been soldiers, fighting for a greater good. This would be...no, he could not live with an extermination on his soul. And to simply abandon his lands, his city, his people to the demons would attain for him a place in Hell's deepest pit for the rest of time.
No, Seville needed its Caliph, now perhaps more than any time in its history, and Muhammad al-Nasir would not shirk his duty. His men needed their commander; his people, their Lord. He could see the fear in the eyes of the former, threatening to consume them; he could hear the terror of the latter, crying out to him. It was time for him to answer. And so it was that Muhammad al-Nasir, Caliph of the Almohads, drew his sword and held it high, calling out to his men. His voice carried across the ramparts of Seville, even above the sounds of chaos within and the beasts without, and turned every ear to his words:
"Men of Seville! Listen! Listen now! Do you hear them!? Do you hear them!? Your people, you families, you wives and daughters and infants?! Do! You! Hear Them!? They cry out to you! From the streets, the homes, the mosques, they cry out! They cry out that you may guard their lives with yours, that you may keep them safe from what is to come! Will you fail them!? Will you flee from this storm and let your children feel its wrath!? Or will you stand with me, so that Allah may see that you are worthy of Paradise!?'
'I know that you are afraid, as am I! But we cannot turn from this task! May Allah never forgive us if we did! We must not turn away from this evil, but rather face it, with our heads held high and our swords held ready! What kind of men would we be if we fled before this shadow, and let it pillage our homes and murder our families?! I would say that we would not be men at all! We would be nothing more than fearful rodents, pests to be rightfully cut down!'
'So, Men of Seville, I bid that you stand against this nightmare! Stand and face this evil! For your wives, for your children, for your homes, for all you hold dear, stand up and fight! Let whatever Devil has sent these beasts know that we will not bow down before it! Whoever stands upon these walls today will be remembered by our people until the End of Days! Whoever falls in their defense will be given passage through the gates of Heaven! Now, as one! Let us beat back this darkness! Allahu Akbar!"
These final two words were echoed by Muhammad's men, a great chant rising from the walls of the ancient city. The men of Seville raised their own blades to the sky, their cries sounding like thunder. Their voices grew ever louder, and soon the praises of Allah seemingly drowned out all else. In the hearts of the brave men standing on the walls, a great fire began to burn, driving back the darkness that sapped their courage and fueled their fear.
The beasts of Mirkwood, savage and cruel, continued their advance regardless. All they knew was that the assorted meats that they were hoping to feed on had suddenly gotten a lot louder. All the better to pinpoint their locations. The swarm surged ahead like a black wave of claws and teeth, threatening to sweep the ancient city away. A great roar rose from the horde as it closed in on the walls. The battle was about to begin.
First blood was drawn by the Almohads, who began to rain down hundreds of arrows upon the beasts as they entered into projectile range. Volley after volley plunged into the swarm, tearing into and through the exoskeletons of the spiders, the hides of the wolves and boars, tearing flesh and piercing organs. Dozens of creatures fell to the onslaught, but the rest were barely slowed. Wave after wave of arrows screamed out of the sky, but the beasts, fueled by a burning mixture of feral rage and animalistic hunger, barely seemed to notice. They lacked the capacity to comprehend the losses they were taking, and so pressed on with little to no regard for the shafts raining down around them. If anything, it only seemed to make the beasts angrier: their cries grew ever louder, and the swarm surged ahead even faster than before.
Muhammad al-Nasir continued to shout encouragement to his men, watching as arrow after arrow after arrow buried themselves into the flesh of the beasts. Pointing his sword to the field, he called out to his men, to look for themselves and see that, yes, the monsters could die, that what faced them was not an impossible task. To himself, he noted that said task was about to get a good bit harder. The spiders were the problem. The wolves and boars and stags would-hopefully-be stopped cold by the walls of Seville, which were-hopefully-to steep for them to climb. But the spiders, if they were anything like the insects that made their webs in any sufficiently forgotten space, wouldn't find this a problem. Muhammad hoped and prayed that his theory was incorrect, but he doubted that his luck was good enough for that to be the case. His luck was about to be tested: the first of the monsters were almost to the wall, despite the best efforts of the archers to drive them off. They came like a storm: first a light trickle, as the faster beasts reached the wall before their kin. As the rest caught up, the trickle would become a downpour, the downpour a flood. Muhammad prayed that he would withstand the tide.
Sure as the devil, the damn things could climb. The spiders of Mirkwood scurried up the wall as easily as normal arachnids would climb up a window sill. The first few the archers handled, picking the beasts off either as they transitioned from the horizontal to the vertical or as the monsters moved up the near-vertical slope. But for every spider that fell screeching from the walls, there were three to takes its place. The archers were as good as useless in melee; once the creatures were on the ramparts, the bowmen would either have to pull back or be slaughtered. They would have a harder time affecting the battle if forced to blindly fire over the walls into the horde instead of having a clear line of sight, but Muhammad saw little choice in the matter.
In all likeliness, the monsters wouldn't allow the respite from the hail of arrows as the archers pulled back go to waste, either: the slackening of fire would allow more of the beasts to close in and begin ascending the wall, and then the battle would become a melee, in which the Almohads would almost certainly be at a disadvantage. These creatures were almost completely alien to them, being twisted mockeries of the animals that they did know. The spiders especially were total unknowns: how does one grapple a being with eight legs? Learning how to do so on the fly practically guaranteed a massive price in blood would be paid for the lesson.
Cursing to himself, Muhammad readied his blade. No matter how badly thing could go for his swordsmen, it would go worse if his archers were forced into melee. And anyways, it was a reasonable assumption that driving a blade into the monster's' heads would kill them rather effectively. With that thought in mind, the Caliph of the Almohads ordered his swordsmen forwards to cover the archers. Then the archers were pulled back, and his theory about attacking the head was put to the test.
It was very quickly confirmed to be true. Muhammad buried his sword in the first spider within reach, the blade cutting into its face as the abomination came over the wall. It fell screeching from the rampart, hitting the earth below it with a sickening crunch. Seconds later, another spider took its place, darting up onto the wall. This one the Caliph stabbed, driving his sword into the monster's mouth. Two down, Allah knew how many to go.
As Muhammad had suspected, the spiders did have tricks up their sleeve, tricks that his men paid with their lives to learn to combat. The beasts extracted a monstrous cost for their teachings, paid in men pinned by webs as the creatures tackled them to the ground and tore into their necks, soldiers thrown off the wall by the spiders jumping at their chests with strength and from distances far in excess of what their appearances suggested of their leaping abilities and defenders paralyzed and poisoned by the beast's venom, frozen helplessly in place as the monsters ripped them apart. All too often, with all too high a price paid for the lessons, the Almohads learned new ways to die, flesh torn asunder by the spider's fangs or skewered by their claws.
Fear ate away at the men, fear of pain and death and slaughter. The ancient instincts inside of them, to either fight or to flee, took over. Some of them fled, abandoning all hope in victory and seeking to save themselves from the massacre that they foresaw. Others drew strength from the horror, fueling their desperate strikes and dodges with terror of what would happen if they failed to stand against the monstrosities facing them. Both groups screamed in madness and desperation as the beasts closed in on them, their movements becoming ever more wild as the primal instincts of the species, born from centuries as both hunter and prey, came to the forefront.
As the hours passed, corpses began to pile high atop the ramparts, streams and rivers of blood spilling down to the ground below. The walls became slick with the innards of the dead and dying, the latter of which's screams rose above all else on the field of battle. This sound was driven by the monsters consuming them as a mid-battle lunch, viciously tearing apart their still-living meals one bite at a time. The men of Seville stumbled and slipped and fell on the bloodstained bodies of their brothers in arms, leaving them all the more vulnerable to the creatures. The heat of the sun, weak as it was in the depths of winter, bore down on the dead flesh, giving the whole city the stench of rot and decay and death.
The walls were practically overrun, and the battle moved to the courtyards behind and below. Some of the monsters broke through the porous and hastily assembled lines of the defenders, entering into the city proper. Here they sowed chaos, filling the already scared inhabitants of the city with panic and fear, flooding the streets with terrified mobs that ran every which way, desperate for protection. Hampered by the snow and slush in the roads, these crowds quickly became nothing more than free meals for the beasts.
The defenders, of course, did not simply lay down to die. Those that remained fought on like demons, burying their blades into the eyes of the spiders, hacking off limbs and and claws and crushing them with stones and even their fists if they could not reach a true weapon. Beast met beast upon the walls and the streets, and as the battle continued and the beasts being attacked learned the new trade of battling the monsters, they began to meet as equals. But still the spiders came, surging over the walls like a black wave, threatening to drown all the remaining defenders under their shadow.
The light, though, refused to be extinguished. The lessons in combating the monsters had been learned far too late for far too many of the defenders, but as the hours passed they had been slowly, achingly discovered. Now those men that remained applied their new knowledge with almost fanatical zeal, fighting with the strength and purpose of cornered wild beasts, striking down anything that moved against them. They payed back the ferocity of the spiders of Mirkwood with interest, hacking into any monster that came within reach and tearing them apart as a storm tears apart a young sapling. Arrows continued to pour into the horde, both inside the walls and out, and the creatures made little progress into the city, too occupied with those on the walls and immediately adjacent to make a deep push. Not all the blood and guts spilled upon the walls and streets of Seville belonged to its defenders: the juices of the spiders flowed just as readily, the sundered limbs of the creatures joining the piles of corpses in ever increasing numbers.
There was a small handful of other saving graces for the Almohads, beyond the valor of the men. They were tiny blessings, small thing that largely went unnoticed, but all the same gave the defenders a greater chance for survival. Not all of them appeared as such: few would have said that the spiders eating the men of Seville alive was a good thing. But every spider that stopped to consume the flesh of a dying Almohad (and there were many) was a spider that was distracted, a spider that wasn't fighting, a spider that could be dealt with with relative ease. And the other blessings were clearer: the walls still stood strong, preventing the boars and wolves and any other hellish beasts that couldn't climb from entering the city. The monsters of Mirkwood howled and roared from the base of the walls, but could do little else. The sun had come out and shone high in the sky, partially blinding and dazing the mostly nocturnal creatures, used to operating in near darkness.
The hearts of the men rose with the sun, and as it climbed ever higher, both the day and the hopes of the Almohads became ever brighter as they saw that yes, the monsters could die, that their battle was not one without hope. Many of those that had fled earlier in the day returned to the fray, eager to avenge their cowardice in the morning with bravery here at the noontide. Slowly, ever so slowly, the tide of the day began to turn in the favor of the men of Seville, the black wave that had threatened to drown them receding at a horrific cost in blood and flesh. The battle became one of attrition, pitting the creatures of Mirkwood's desire for food and shelter against the men of Seville's will to defend their homes. The fires of feral rage and hunger burned against the flames of desperation and courage.
Through it all, all the loss and the suffering and the pain, Muhammad al-Nasir, Caliph of the Almohads, had stayed atop the wall. Head to toe, his armor and body was stained with the bodily fluids of far too many brothers in arms and, as far as he was concerned, far too few of the spiders. He was covered, too, in scratches and scars and marks from Allah knew how many spiders that had tried and failed to bring him down. His eyes were wide and wild, and he screamed maniacally with every movement, cursing the spiders and encouraging his men. He fought with reckless abandon, fueled by a primal rage that coursed through his veins and gave him the strength to continue even as he felt as though his sword arm would fall off from overuse.
Most of his men were the same, bodies having long ago exhausted all their strength of flesh and blood. Only their hearts remained, beating loud and frantic like bass drums in their chest, powering the body with whatever desperation or fear or wrath that they could summon up. Hope had become the strongest fuel remaining, hope that the spiders would break first, that the beasts had an earlier limit to their stamina and courage than the men.
It was not a forlorn hope. Both the Almohads and the spiders were exhausted, covered in blood and gore and wounds, but the spiders had begun to fear the men, more and more of their number fleeing back over the wall, fewer and fewer braving the climb. The instincts of the beasts, once to find food and shelter, now told them to turn and flee from the stone place filled with prey that fought back as hard as anything that their short memories could recall. In contrast, the defenders had become ever braver and more bold, their spirits rallying and their courage returning. As the sun passed its apogee and began to descend, the spiders as a whole began to feel that taking shelter somewhere that wasn't here would be a rather good idea.
Atop the wall, Muhammad al-Nasir continued to roar both calls to his men and damnations to the monsters, adding to voice like that of a lion the strength and ferocity of one as well. Those defenders that had been driven below the walls and into the courtyards below now came together, answering the call of their Caliph to drive out the beasts, that victory was nearing, that Allah was at their side. They stormed up the stairs and passages to the ramparts, screaming "Allahu Ackbar!" with a passion and rage that made the enemy, who didn't even understand the words, cower before them.
Hope burned in their hearts, hope that they could see in the gradual retreat of the monsters, hope that the Almohads could feel giving him a last great burst of strength, hope that drove the defenders forwards and brought down their aching arms again and again into whatever spider dared to stay within their city. The men of Seville fought on, far beyond the point of total exhaustion, as the sun began to set behind them, as they gave their final strength to drive back the dark.
And suddenly they weren't fighting anymore, as there was nothing before them to attack.The monsters of Mirkwood had retreated back below the wall, and most could be seen fleeing back into the dark and burning forest from whence they had come. A feeling of stunned disbelief came over the Almohads as they watched the creatures withdraw. Had they truly done it? Had they faced down a horde of demons and escaped with their live? Had they passed the test? In their minds, they hoped and prayed that it was so.
In their hearts, they knew it was just the beginning.
The Shadows Move
- Location
- University of Saint Thomas, St. Paul, Minnesota
January 25, TA 3019/AD 1200
The Dark Tower
The Burning Eye watched as much of the rest of Mordor, especially the rest of the Plateau of Gorgoroth, proved to be designed and build to a much lower standard than the Tower that served as its pedestal. Not even orcs willingly chose to spend any more than the absolute bare minimum amount of time in the hellscape that is northwestern Mordor. When inevitably forced into the burning plains by their masters, they tended to move through the blasted lands as quickly as possible on their ways to the relatively nicer pastures of the Ash Plains around the Sea of Nurnen or the outer fortifications at the Morgul Vale or the Morannon. The few and scattered buildings of the Plateau of Gorgoroth, as a result, were built to be no more than temporary hovels, and rarely repaired ones at that.
When an earthquake powerful enough to make the unbreakable tower of Orthanc shake like a leaf hit said structures, they did very good imitations of of delicate pottery being smashed against a stone floor. The storm took care of the rest, churning up dark storms of dust and ash that scoured the Plateau of Gorgoroth near as clean as the day that Sauron had first chosen Mordor to be his fortress.
The keep of that fortress, Barad-Dur, remained intact. In fact, it was all but untouched. The Black Tower was strong, quite likely more so than any of the other structures of Middle-earth. The foundation and black walls and shadowy ramparts had been designed by the Dark Lord himself, and the greatest master of the forge and hammer in all Middle-earth had built it well indeed. The original tower, on the roots of which the new had been built, had withstood the total might of the Last Alliance, a force second in all of history only the army that fought against Morgoth in the War of Wrath, for all of seven years. Even after the walls of the tower had been thrown down by the vengeful elves and men, the foundations had remained as solid as ever, unable to be made bare while the One Ring remained intact.
The new Tower, rebuilt on those same foundations, had been designed to be even greater. It had been drawn up by the Dark Lord himself, and it was built to his exact specifications. His design was beyond sound: such was the architecture of Barad-Dur that it could be easily and reasonably believed that if even if Sauron had decided to make his Tower entirely out of sand and then had allowed it to be rained on for a solid week, the impression was that it could have still held out against the entirety of the Gondorian Army for well over a month. The building materials, though, rather than mud, were the black stones of original structure, mined from the deepest pits of the Mountains of Shadow and Ash and as solid as the bedrock upon which those peaks were built, now reinforced with great bars of wrought iron buried in their hearts, and every single block and bar was imbued with the dark will of Sauron, his hatred and malice hardening them beyond anything in the natural world.
As a result, when the earthquake struck the dark land as it had all the pieces of Middle-earth torn out of Arda like carrots out of the soft earth, Barad-Dur was near-completely unaffected, the total of all structural damage done to the entirety of the Tower amounting to exactly nil. The affects of the storm were much the same: lightning strikes did not even scorch the stones, wind did nothing to rattle the walls, rain and snow melted away and became steam as they came anywhere close to the Tower of the Burning Eye.
The Eye watched all of this, silent and unmoved. It swept around its lands, taking note of the damages done. Mount Doom had burst into flame, being awoken by the quaking earth. It spewed fire and smoke and choking ash into the sky, blotting out the little light that came from the weak winter sun and plunging the land into darkness, finish off the little upon the Plateau of Gorgoroth that the tremors and storms had missed.
The burning gaze was then turned to the rest of Mordor, scanning for any locations in need of repair. But even as the Dark Lord did so, he felt...not fear, certainly, but perhaps unease. Something, he knew, had happened, besides a freak storm and a particularly strong tremor from Mount Doom. What he felt was all-too similar to what he had felt twice before, when the Valar had shattered Beleriand and also when they had sundered Numenor. Something had changed, something unforeseen.
And Sauron hated the unforeseen, more than all else in the world (excepting perhaps the malice he directed towards the heirs of Isildur). It had been his downfall before, more than once: against that elven bitch Luthien, who he would have captured without the unexpected strength of the wolfhound Huan; against the bastard elf Celebrimbor, who had forged the Three outside of his knowledge; against Eru himself had unexpectedly intervened against his conquest of Numenor. All else could be plan against, come up with counters and other ways to twist things to his advantage.
But the unforeseen...the unforeseen left him unable to do so, stuck stumbling around like some blind fool in the dark. And the Dark Lord hated such feelings. Unease, confusion, fear...such things were far beneath him, of course, but the current circumstances allowed them to ever so slightly creep in regardless. Now, then, he needed to peel back the unknown before him, tear it apart and turn it into weapons for his own use. The Morgul stone would serve well enough to do so, but it would lack fine details. Reconnaissance in force should be done as well
And for that, he needed his eyes.
______________________________________________________________________________
The Next Day
Ash fell upon the Plateau of Gorgoroth, choking the few living things that still stirred there. The skies were pitch dark: even if the sun had yet risen above the horizon, the clouds of smoke and ash were far too thick and black for any light to pierce. Fell winds blew across the plains, carrying rolling storms of dust and dirt that swallowed all in their path. With the exception of those that dwelt within the Tower of Barad-Dur, everything from Isenmouthe in the northwest to the spur of the Ered Lithui to the southeast was either dead or dying.
The Nine were affected by none of this. By all rights, they should have fallen into the former category. They were men by birth, with all the frailties that came with such lineages. In their lives, lived long ago, they had desired above all else to hold at bay the Doom of Men. Their wish had been granted to them by the Dark Lord, but with the words twisted and turned against them. They did not live, having instead a cursed undeath: a 'life' without anything that would have allowed them to be alive. They had no love, no laughter, no songs or stories. Only their wrath remained. Wrath, and their loyalty to Sauron.
This loyalty (enthrallment, perhaps, would have been a better word), now drew them to the Dark Tower to answer their Master's call. They rode for Barad-Dur from the Morgul Vale, passing without comment or even notice the blasted remains the remains of the encampments along the roads. With the rising of the sun, feeble and week behind the darkened skies, they crossed over the flaming moat of the Tower and passed through its barred gates, entering into the black halls of Barad-Dur.
There within the Mouth of Sauron, Lieutenant of the Tower, met them, and had their shadowy horses taken to be be stabled and fed. Then he led the Nazgul into the Tower, up the winding stairs to the room that held the Dark Throne. The corporeal body of Sauron, shadow and fire and hatred given form, gave them no greeting. The Dark Lord sat only in silence, he Dark Lord sat only in silence, his black helm barely acknowledging them. He then beckoned them to kneel. He began to speak, his voice echoing deep within the minds of his servants, telling them of his new plans.
The Great Eye had seen much. The fortifications of Mordor were largely intact: the Black Gate was near untouched, only losing a few fodder thrown from its ramparts as the earth below had shaken and trembled. Minas Morgul had seen only a few building collapses, which the slaves would have repaired in a matter of days. The main damages within the Dark Lord's realm were to the road and irrigation systems, slowing down troop movements and food production.
Outside the borders was a far different story. His slaves in Harad, Khand and Dorwinion had all vanished, as well as his armies in Ithilien. Only two lands, the Mountains of Mist and the Forest of Mirkwood, were recognizable, and both were in the completely wrong places. Saruman was still in his fold, but he reported being cut off from his puppet Theoden and having a not-ignorable part of his pits collapse.
But there was reason to believe that his foes, those damnable descendents of Numenor and the Eldar, had taken even worse losses. Gondor, that largest thorn in his side, was simply gone, vanished into thin air. Saruman said the same of the annoyance known as Rohan. There were elves and dwarves here, but they were in as much disarray as his own thralls, if not more. And the new world that they all found themselves in was one of men. Weak men. Divided men. Greedy men. Men that were already terrified by the mere appearance of his lands.
This chance could not be wasted. The men before him were scared and weak, but Sauron would not allow them to form effective resistance against him. He had learned the lesson of the Last Alliance: this time, he would strike first. The Mouth would remain in Mordor, enacting repairs, preparing the main body of his armies to march. Angmar would assemble all available forces in the Udun to march out and make an example of the city of men that now sat before the Black Gate. Khamul would issue forth from the Morgul Vale, laying waste to all in his path. The borders of Mordor would be made secure before any of these new men could raise a finger against him.
His other forces, those of Mirkwood and the Misty Mountains, would have to be raised out against his new foes. He would send two wraiths to Dol Gurdur to prepare it for war. Two others would go to Goblin-town and Gundabad to do the same. Saruman would have to move as well, gaining a new puppet if possible.
They would unleash further terror in time, sowing the seeds of fear and doubt throughout these lesser men. And in their terror, it was all the more likely that they would throw themselves down before them to save their own pathetic lives, and in so doing would become his servants in this new world. And perhaps, seeing their neighbors falling around them, some would be much more accepting of his gifts: peace, his forces guarding their lands, maybe even a few small rings...
But there was one reason above all others to believe that his victory would come. The One was here in this world, somewhere within his reach. He could feel it, deep within the black fire that was his soul. It called to him, and he called to it. His three remaining wraiths would be sent out to hunt it, wherever it tried to hide. He would find it, despite all the efforts of his enemies.
And then he would rule them all.
The Dark Tower
The Burning Eye watched as much of the rest of Mordor, especially the rest of the Plateau of Gorgoroth, proved to be designed and build to a much lower standard than the Tower that served as its pedestal. Not even orcs willingly chose to spend any more than the absolute bare minimum amount of time in the hellscape that is northwestern Mordor. When inevitably forced into the burning plains by their masters, they tended to move through the blasted lands as quickly as possible on their ways to the relatively nicer pastures of the Ash Plains around the Sea of Nurnen or the outer fortifications at the Morgul Vale or the Morannon. The few and scattered buildings of the Plateau of Gorgoroth, as a result, were built to be no more than temporary hovels, and rarely repaired ones at that.
When an earthquake powerful enough to make the unbreakable tower of Orthanc shake like a leaf hit said structures, they did very good imitations of of delicate pottery being smashed against a stone floor. The storm took care of the rest, churning up dark storms of dust and ash that scoured the Plateau of Gorgoroth near as clean as the day that Sauron had first chosen Mordor to be his fortress.
The keep of that fortress, Barad-Dur, remained intact. In fact, it was all but untouched. The Black Tower was strong, quite likely more so than any of the other structures of Middle-earth. The foundation and black walls and shadowy ramparts had been designed by the Dark Lord himself, and the greatest master of the forge and hammer in all Middle-earth had built it well indeed. The original tower, on the roots of which the new had been built, had withstood the total might of the Last Alliance, a force second in all of history only the army that fought against Morgoth in the War of Wrath, for all of seven years. Even after the walls of the tower had been thrown down by the vengeful elves and men, the foundations had remained as solid as ever, unable to be made bare while the One Ring remained intact.
The new Tower, rebuilt on those same foundations, had been designed to be even greater. It had been drawn up by the Dark Lord himself, and it was built to his exact specifications. His design was beyond sound: such was the architecture of Barad-Dur that it could be easily and reasonably believed that if even if Sauron had decided to make his Tower entirely out of sand and then had allowed it to be rained on for a solid week, the impression was that it could have still held out against the entirety of the Gondorian Army for well over a month. The building materials, though, rather than mud, were the black stones of original structure, mined from the deepest pits of the Mountains of Shadow and Ash and as solid as the bedrock upon which those peaks were built, now reinforced with great bars of wrought iron buried in their hearts, and every single block and bar was imbued with the dark will of Sauron, his hatred and malice hardening them beyond anything in the natural world.
As a result, when the earthquake struck the dark land as it had all the pieces of Middle-earth torn out of Arda like carrots out of the soft earth, Barad-Dur was near-completely unaffected, the total of all structural damage done to the entirety of the Tower amounting to exactly nil. The affects of the storm were much the same: lightning strikes did not even scorch the stones, wind did nothing to rattle the walls, rain and snow melted away and became steam as they came anywhere close to the Tower of the Burning Eye.
The Eye watched all of this, silent and unmoved. It swept around its lands, taking note of the damages done. Mount Doom had burst into flame, being awoken by the quaking earth. It spewed fire and smoke and choking ash into the sky, blotting out the little light that came from the weak winter sun and plunging the land into darkness, finish off the little upon the Plateau of Gorgoroth that the tremors and storms had missed.
The burning gaze was then turned to the rest of Mordor, scanning for any locations in need of repair. But even as the Dark Lord did so, he felt...not fear, certainly, but perhaps unease. Something, he knew, had happened, besides a freak storm and a particularly strong tremor from Mount Doom. What he felt was all-too similar to what he had felt twice before, when the Valar had shattered Beleriand and also when they had sundered Numenor. Something had changed, something unforeseen.
And Sauron hated the unforeseen, more than all else in the world (excepting perhaps the malice he directed towards the heirs of Isildur). It had been his downfall before, more than once: against that elven bitch Luthien, who he would have captured without the unexpected strength of the wolfhound Huan; against the bastard elf Celebrimbor, who had forged the Three outside of his knowledge; against Eru himself had unexpectedly intervened against his conquest of Numenor. All else could be plan against, come up with counters and other ways to twist things to his advantage.
But the unforeseen...the unforeseen left him unable to do so, stuck stumbling around like some blind fool in the dark. And the Dark Lord hated such feelings. Unease, confusion, fear...such things were far beneath him, of course, but the current circumstances allowed them to ever so slightly creep in regardless. Now, then, he needed to peel back the unknown before him, tear it apart and turn it into weapons for his own use. The Morgul stone would serve well enough to do so, but it would lack fine details. Reconnaissance in force should be done as well
And for that, he needed his eyes.
______________________________________________________________________________
The Next Day
Ash fell upon the Plateau of Gorgoroth, choking the few living things that still stirred there. The skies were pitch dark: even if the sun had yet risen above the horizon, the clouds of smoke and ash were far too thick and black for any light to pierce. Fell winds blew across the plains, carrying rolling storms of dust and dirt that swallowed all in their path. With the exception of those that dwelt within the Tower of Barad-Dur, everything from Isenmouthe in the northwest to the spur of the Ered Lithui to the southeast was either dead or dying.
The Nine were affected by none of this. By all rights, they should have fallen into the former category. They were men by birth, with all the frailties that came with such lineages. In their lives, lived long ago, they had desired above all else to hold at bay the Doom of Men. Their wish had been granted to them by the Dark Lord, but with the words twisted and turned against them. They did not live, having instead a cursed undeath: a 'life' without anything that would have allowed them to be alive. They had no love, no laughter, no songs or stories. Only their wrath remained. Wrath, and their loyalty to Sauron.
This loyalty (enthrallment, perhaps, would have been a better word), now drew them to the Dark Tower to answer their Master's call. They rode for Barad-Dur from the Morgul Vale, passing without comment or even notice the blasted remains the remains of the encampments along the roads. With the rising of the sun, feeble and week behind the darkened skies, they crossed over the flaming moat of the Tower and passed through its barred gates, entering into the black halls of Barad-Dur.
There within the Mouth of Sauron, Lieutenant of the Tower, met them, and had their shadowy horses taken to be be stabled and fed. Then he led the Nazgul into the Tower, up the winding stairs to the room that held the Dark Throne. The corporeal body of Sauron, shadow and fire and hatred given form, gave them no greeting. The Dark Lord sat only in silence, he Dark Lord sat only in silence, his black helm barely acknowledging them. He then beckoned them to kneel. He began to speak, his voice echoing deep within the minds of his servants, telling them of his new plans.
The Great Eye had seen much. The fortifications of Mordor were largely intact: the Black Gate was near untouched, only losing a few fodder thrown from its ramparts as the earth below had shaken and trembled. Minas Morgul had seen only a few building collapses, which the slaves would have repaired in a matter of days. The main damages within the Dark Lord's realm were to the road and irrigation systems, slowing down troop movements and food production.
Outside the borders was a far different story. His slaves in Harad, Khand and Dorwinion had all vanished, as well as his armies in Ithilien. Only two lands, the Mountains of Mist and the Forest of Mirkwood, were recognizable, and both were in the completely wrong places. Saruman was still in his fold, but he reported being cut off from his puppet Theoden and having a not-ignorable part of his pits collapse.
But there was reason to believe that his foes, those damnable descendents of Numenor and the Eldar, had taken even worse losses. Gondor, that largest thorn in his side, was simply gone, vanished into thin air. Saruman said the same of the annoyance known as Rohan. There were elves and dwarves here, but they were in as much disarray as his own thralls, if not more. And the new world that they all found themselves in was one of men. Weak men. Divided men. Greedy men. Men that were already terrified by the mere appearance of his lands.
This chance could not be wasted. The men before him were scared and weak, but Sauron would not allow them to form effective resistance against him. He had learned the lesson of the Last Alliance: this time, he would strike first. The Mouth would remain in Mordor, enacting repairs, preparing the main body of his armies to march. Angmar would assemble all available forces in the Udun to march out and make an example of the city of men that now sat before the Black Gate. Khamul would issue forth from the Morgul Vale, laying waste to all in his path. The borders of Mordor would be made secure before any of these new men could raise a finger against him.
His other forces, those of Mirkwood and the Misty Mountains, would have to be raised out against his new foes. He would send two wraiths to Dol Gurdur to prepare it for war. Two others would go to Goblin-town and Gundabad to do the same. Saruman would have to move as well, gaining a new puppet if possible.
They would unleash further terror in time, sowing the seeds of fear and doubt throughout these lesser men. And in their terror, it was all the more likely that they would throw themselves down before them to save their own pathetic lives, and in so doing would become his servants in this new world. And perhaps, seeing their neighbors falling around them, some would be much more accepting of his gifts: peace, his forces guarding their lands, maybe even a few small rings...
But there was one reason above all others to believe that his victory would come. The One was here in this world, somewhere within his reach. He could feel it, deep within the black fire that was his soul. It called to him, and he called to it. His three remaining wraiths would be sent out to hunt it, wherever it tried to hide. He would find it, despite all the efforts of his enemies.
And then he would rule them all.
At the Edge of Darkness
- Location
- University of Saint Thomas, St. Paul, Minnesota
January 27, TA 3019/AD 1200
Esztergom, Hungary
Here, in the city that was in many ways the heart and soul of the Kingdom of Hungary, chaos reigned. All semblance of order had completely collapsed: panicked mobs ran through the streets, composed of people that in normal times would have been perfectly respectable farmers, laborers, even nobles, now reduced to little more than cornered animals desperate for an escape. Children and mothers cried out and screamed on every corner, terror ruling their hearts and all across the city the madness of fear and despair turned to violence. Everywhere, it seemed, grudges were being settled, market stalls were being looted, people were being trampled beneath both hoof and foot by those trying to flee. The city was tearing itself apart.
The Shepherd of Esztergom looked on as his flock stampeded. Job, Archbishop of Esztergom, had held the Bishop's staff for 15 years, but had been shepherding the souls of Hungary long before he had received his Bishop's ring. Never, in all his years of shepherding the faithful, had he seen such madness. Not two sunrises ago, the city, and indeed the whole nation, had been at peace: in fact, before the events that had transpired the day before, the only recent disruption to the tranquility that Hungary had enjoyed had been the brief succession crisis after the death of Bela III in 1196 (which by now was all-but-settled in the favor of his firstborn, Emeric, with the younger son Andrew being forced to flee to Austria). It would be a lie to say that these lands, or indeed any of the lands of Europe, were completely at peace, but the realm of the Magyars could lay a far better claim to such things than the majority of the other states on the continent.
Or at least, it had been able to. Now, within the passage of a single day, the illusion that Hungary was a safe harbor from the ravages of the world had come crashing down, quite literally. Out to the east, a tall and foreboding range of black mountains that stretched beyond the horizon to both north and south had seemingly fallen out of the sky. The dark peaks had risen a mere stone's throw away from the walls of the city, the plains that had previously stretched out seemingly without end to Esztergom's east vanishing beneath their fall.
In response, like in Krakow and in Kiev and in hundreds of other places across Europe, from the smallest villages to the largest cities, King Emeric had called for council. Summoning all the cities priests, learned men and anyone and everyone else that might possibly have an answer, any answer at all, to the question on the minds of all, the grand hall of Esztergom Castle had been filled to the brim with dozens of men from walks of life as different as hunters and fishers to merchants and nobles. Job had answered the summons, and soon afterwards found himself watching and listening as everyone from himself and the other members of the clergy to tradesmen from places as distant as Rome or Constantinople had presented their thoughts on the matter at hand.
Or rather, their lack of thoughts: it quickly became rather apparent that no one among those assembled had any explanation for what on earth had happened. The wise could find no record; the tradesmen no tales from distant lands; the huntsmen no old legends or tales. The only clear thing was that this was an act of God, but none could give satisfactory cause as to why the Lord Almighty would do such a thing. The only idea presented which could be readily believed by all also being the most horrible to contemplate (said idea being that these were the beginnings of the End Times), the King had opted to go out and find his own, hopefully less Apocalyptic, answers.
Much like Rurik of Kiev, Emeric now called up his warriors: every brave man willing to go to into the unknown was to report to the Castle courtyard by first light the next morning. The summons was sent out through the whole city, and soon the scouting force had been assembled, 500 riders in all. As the moved as one towards that eastern gate, the people had come out to them, throwing flowers out into their path and saluting them, like they were crusaders bound for the holy land. Job had watched them go, giving his blessing to the formation as it had passed him by. Then he had returned to his Cathedral. Kneeling before the altar of the Lord, he had called for the Almighty to guard his King and the King's companion, to light their path with his spirit.
Those prayers went unanswered. In the night, the remains of the company had returned, battered and bloodied and with them far too many wounded and dead. But the maimed and injured were not the worst thing they carried: that honor went to the horror stories that they conveyed, of monsters and demons and hellish beasts that had ambushed them in the twisting hills, destroyed the small camp they had established and scattered the Hungarians to the four winds. The number of their dead and wounded was unknown: the company had been forced to flee in all directions from the assault, leaving well more than half their number unaccounted for. Among the missing was the King himself, last seen trying to lead a breakout against the creatures that had encircled their camp.
These tales spread throughout the whole city, always growing in the telling, and soon the fog of madness and despair had descended, gripping Esztergom like a noose around the neck of a condemned man. With the world seemingly ending around them, the people of the city gave into their darkest desires, doing whatever pleased them in what they imagined to be their final days and hours. After all, who would stop them? The Lord, many thought, was condemning them: these were the End Times, were they not? What could man do against such things?
And so it was that Job, Shepherd of the souls of Hungary, watched his city begin to kill itself. He watched as more and more of his flock turned on each other, more and more resigning themselves to the cold embrace of oblivion. If he was another man, perhaps, he would have joined them, given in to the despair, to the fear and the terror. But no. He was the Archbishop of Esztergom, defender of the people's souls. And now, with everything crashing down around him, he realized the reason that the Lord had placed him on this earth, the duty that he was to carry out.
What could flesh and blood do in the face of the Apocalypse, the people asked? They could guard the soul that they carried within. If this was indeed the time of Judgement, then it was likely that the bodies of all were about to perish. But the soul would live on. If the time had come for the end of this life, then it was also time to prepare for the next. Job, Archbishop of Esztergom, Shepherd to the Souls of the people of Hungary, do the duty prescribed to him to the Lord: he would lead his flock, until his last and dying breath. If he could not save their bodies, then he would defend their souls. He would not, could not, shirk away from the task at hand: if he did, the Almighty would rightly condemn his soul forever. No, Job would have to bear this cross.
He hoped that he wouldn't have to bear it alone. Job prayed to the Lord that madness had not yet utterly overtaken the city, that he may still yet find enough good men to help him prepare it for the oncoming storm. Order would have to be restored, of course; that would be the first task, making sure that the city wasn't burned down. Next would be the summoning of allies, the coordination and planning of the defenses, the levying of all the able bodied men (and possibly the elder boys) as soldiers to defend against the dark. There was much to do, and far too little time to do it.
After all, the world was ending.
______________________________________________________________________________
Emeric, King of Hungary, cursed many things, including himself, as he and the decimated remains of his company rode away from the slaughter. He cursed his idiocy in bringing a force composed mainly of cavalry into hill country, into terrain where foot soldiers or skirmishers would have been far more effective. He cursed his foolishness in deciding to divide his forces, seeking to cover the most possible ground to gain more intelligence as quickly as possible, valuing expediency over safety. He cursed his failure to keep his men in contact with each other, his messengers becoming lost in the unknown lays of this land, letting his formations become isolated and alone.
Emeric cursed his damnable belief that the people needed a show of force to reassure them that he had the situation under control; he should have just sent out a few scouts and be done with it. Instead, he had decided to take 500 very unsubtle riders into an unknown wilderness, and then, another thing about himself to curse, he had made the indefensible choice to establish a camp in these blasted hills.
When it had become apparent that reconnaissance in these lands was not going to be as simple as riding out and seeing what there was to see, Emeric should have gotten out while he was still ahead and immediately returned to Esztergom and planned out a better method for scouting the terrain. But rather than make what was no clearly the intelligent choice, he had went ahead and decided to stay out here in the wild.
But more than anything, he cursed them. The monsters, the demons, whatever you preferred to call them. They had come out of the darkness, picking off his men as they had wandered all but blindly through these cursed lands, riding what was best described as gigantic wolves and cutting apart the scattered columns of the Hungarians. Whatever these damnable things were, they were more than capable of carrying out ambushes, attacking from the cover of the trees and ravines and encircling their hapless victims before the Hungarians were even aware of their presence.
The first sign of trouble were the scattered and isolated groups that contact was lost with, those at the flanks that simply seemed to disappear. When the camp had been established, the sentries had thought that they had noticed or heard something prowling about just out of sight, but by the time that they realized that they were surrounded by a force that was not only apparently larger than their own, but also extremely hostile, it was too late: the demons and monsters were already pouring out of the woods around the camp.
The results of the attack were devastating. The Hungarians lost all cohesion within minutes of the the beginning of the assault, giant wolves and their twisted riders slicing through their camp and cutting down all in their paths. Those among the force of men that had managed to survive, be it by either skill or luck, now stumbled away in all directions, desperate to escape the creatures. But the lands that they were in were completely alien to the Hungarians, and with the sun setting the men had little-to-no way to find their bearings. They were driven in all directions by the onslaught of the demons, like leaves thrown into the four winds, not caring which way they went as long as the monsters did not follow.
But follow the monsters did, pursuing the lost and confused Hungarians across land that was at least somewhat familiar to them. They followed the men to the death, crying out for blood and manflesh, cackling madly as they hunted down the broken remains of the company. Nightfall would bring no respite: the howling of the wolves and the shouts of the demons echoed throughout the darkness, seeking out the men that cowered from them in terror, in bushes and trees and hollows of the earth.
Emeric, King of Hungary, found himself riding blindly in one direction or another, escorted by the bloodied remnants of his guards. He had a few dozen of his men had broken out of the camp, and no they spurred their mounts ever on, driven by the sounds of the pursuing beasts and their twisted mountains that were ever in pursuit behind them. In the darkness, many were lost, simply becoming separated in the shadows or picked off by their pursuers. Those that continued on were mostly wounded, untended wounds spilling blood behind the desperate riders. Others among them had lost their swords or parts of their armor in the earlier skirmishes. The sounds of pursuit continued unabated-if anything, they were becoming louder.
Emeric, King of Hungary, cursed it all.
Esztergom, Hungary
Here, in the city that was in many ways the heart and soul of the Kingdom of Hungary, chaos reigned. All semblance of order had completely collapsed: panicked mobs ran through the streets, composed of people that in normal times would have been perfectly respectable farmers, laborers, even nobles, now reduced to little more than cornered animals desperate for an escape. Children and mothers cried out and screamed on every corner, terror ruling their hearts and all across the city the madness of fear and despair turned to violence. Everywhere, it seemed, grudges were being settled, market stalls were being looted, people were being trampled beneath both hoof and foot by those trying to flee. The city was tearing itself apart.
The Shepherd of Esztergom looked on as his flock stampeded. Job, Archbishop of Esztergom, had held the Bishop's staff for 15 years, but had been shepherding the souls of Hungary long before he had received his Bishop's ring. Never, in all his years of shepherding the faithful, had he seen such madness. Not two sunrises ago, the city, and indeed the whole nation, had been at peace: in fact, before the events that had transpired the day before, the only recent disruption to the tranquility that Hungary had enjoyed had been the brief succession crisis after the death of Bela III in 1196 (which by now was all-but-settled in the favor of his firstborn, Emeric, with the younger son Andrew being forced to flee to Austria). It would be a lie to say that these lands, or indeed any of the lands of Europe, were completely at peace, but the realm of the Magyars could lay a far better claim to such things than the majority of the other states on the continent.
Or at least, it had been able to. Now, within the passage of a single day, the illusion that Hungary was a safe harbor from the ravages of the world had come crashing down, quite literally. Out to the east, a tall and foreboding range of black mountains that stretched beyond the horizon to both north and south had seemingly fallen out of the sky. The dark peaks had risen a mere stone's throw away from the walls of the city, the plains that had previously stretched out seemingly without end to Esztergom's east vanishing beneath their fall.
In response, like in Krakow and in Kiev and in hundreds of other places across Europe, from the smallest villages to the largest cities, King Emeric had called for council. Summoning all the cities priests, learned men and anyone and everyone else that might possibly have an answer, any answer at all, to the question on the minds of all, the grand hall of Esztergom Castle had been filled to the brim with dozens of men from walks of life as different as hunters and fishers to merchants and nobles. Job had answered the summons, and soon afterwards found himself watching and listening as everyone from himself and the other members of the clergy to tradesmen from places as distant as Rome or Constantinople had presented their thoughts on the matter at hand.
Or rather, their lack of thoughts: it quickly became rather apparent that no one among those assembled had any explanation for what on earth had happened. The wise could find no record; the tradesmen no tales from distant lands; the huntsmen no old legends or tales. The only clear thing was that this was an act of God, but none could give satisfactory cause as to why the Lord Almighty would do such a thing. The only idea presented which could be readily believed by all also being the most horrible to contemplate (said idea being that these were the beginnings of the End Times), the King had opted to go out and find his own, hopefully less Apocalyptic, answers.
Much like Rurik of Kiev, Emeric now called up his warriors: every brave man willing to go to into the unknown was to report to the Castle courtyard by first light the next morning. The summons was sent out through the whole city, and soon the scouting force had been assembled, 500 riders in all. As the moved as one towards that eastern gate, the people had come out to them, throwing flowers out into their path and saluting them, like they were crusaders bound for the holy land. Job had watched them go, giving his blessing to the formation as it had passed him by. Then he had returned to his Cathedral. Kneeling before the altar of the Lord, he had called for the Almighty to guard his King and the King's companion, to light their path with his spirit.
Those prayers went unanswered. In the night, the remains of the company had returned, battered and bloodied and with them far too many wounded and dead. But the maimed and injured were not the worst thing they carried: that honor went to the horror stories that they conveyed, of monsters and demons and hellish beasts that had ambushed them in the twisting hills, destroyed the small camp they had established and scattered the Hungarians to the four winds. The number of their dead and wounded was unknown: the company had been forced to flee in all directions from the assault, leaving well more than half their number unaccounted for. Among the missing was the King himself, last seen trying to lead a breakout against the creatures that had encircled their camp.
These tales spread throughout the whole city, always growing in the telling, and soon the fog of madness and despair had descended, gripping Esztergom like a noose around the neck of a condemned man. With the world seemingly ending around them, the people of the city gave into their darkest desires, doing whatever pleased them in what they imagined to be their final days and hours. After all, who would stop them? The Lord, many thought, was condemning them: these were the End Times, were they not? What could man do against such things?
And so it was that Job, Shepherd of the souls of Hungary, watched his city begin to kill itself. He watched as more and more of his flock turned on each other, more and more resigning themselves to the cold embrace of oblivion. If he was another man, perhaps, he would have joined them, given in to the despair, to the fear and the terror. But no. He was the Archbishop of Esztergom, defender of the people's souls. And now, with everything crashing down around him, he realized the reason that the Lord had placed him on this earth, the duty that he was to carry out.
What could flesh and blood do in the face of the Apocalypse, the people asked? They could guard the soul that they carried within. If this was indeed the time of Judgement, then it was likely that the bodies of all were about to perish. But the soul would live on. If the time had come for the end of this life, then it was also time to prepare for the next. Job, Archbishop of Esztergom, Shepherd to the Souls of the people of Hungary, do the duty prescribed to him to the Lord: he would lead his flock, until his last and dying breath. If he could not save their bodies, then he would defend their souls. He would not, could not, shirk away from the task at hand: if he did, the Almighty would rightly condemn his soul forever. No, Job would have to bear this cross.
He hoped that he wouldn't have to bear it alone. Job prayed to the Lord that madness had not yet utterly overtaken the city, that he may still yet find enough good men to help him prepare it for the oncoming storm. Order would have to be restored, of course; that would be the first task, making sure that the city wasn't burned down. Next would be the summoning of allies, the coordination and planning of the defenses, the levying of all the able bodied men (and possibly the elder boys) as soldiers to defend against the dark. There was much to do, and far too little time to do it.
After all, the world was ending.
______________________________________________________________________________
Emeric, King of Hungary, cursed many things, including himself, as he and the decimated remains of his company rode away from the slaughter. He cursed his idiocy in bringing a force composed mainly of cavalry into hill country, into terrain where foot soldiers or skirmishers would have been far more effective. He cursed his foolishness in deciding to divide his forces, seeking to cover the most possible ground to gain more intelligence as quickly as possible, valuing expediency over safety. He cursed his failure to keep his men in contact with each other, his messengers becoming lost in the unknown lays of this land, letting his formations become isolated and alone.
Emeric cursed his damnable belief that the people needed a show of force to reassure them that he had the situation under control; he should have just sent out a few scouts and be done with it. Instead, he had decided to take 500 very unsubtle riders into an unknown wilderness, and then, another thing about himself to curse, he had made the indefensible choice to establish a camp in these blasted hills.
When it had become apparent that reconnaissance in these lands was not going to be as simple as riding out and seeing what there was to see, Emeric should have gotten out while he was still ahead and immediately returned to Esztergom and planned out a better method for scouting the terrain. But rather than make what was no clearly the intelligent choice, he had went ahead and decided to stay out here in the wild.
But more than anything, he cursed them. The monsters, the demons, whatever you preferred to call them. They had come out of the darkness, picking off his men as they had wandered all but blindly through these cursed lands, riding what was best described as gigantic wolves and cutting apart the scattered columns of the Hungarians. Whatever these damnable things were, they were more than capable of carrying out ambushes, attacking from the cover of the trees and ravines and encircling their hapless victims before the Hungarians were even aware of their presence.
The first sign of trouble were the scattered and isolated groups that contact was lost with, those at the flanks that simply seemed to disappear. When the camp had been established, the sentries had thought that they had noticed or heard something prowling about just out of sight, but by the time that they realized that they were surrounded by a force that was not only apparently larger than their own, but also extremely hostile, it was too late: the demons and monsters were already pouring out of the woods around the camp.
The results of the attack were devastating. The Hungarians lost all cohesion within minutes of the the beginning of the assault, giant wolves and their twisted riders slicing through their camp and cutting down all in their paths. Those among the force of men that had managed to survive, be it by either skill or luck, now stumbled away in all directions, desperate to escape the creatures. But the lands that they were in were completely alien to the Hungarians, and with the sun setting the men had little-to-no way to find their bearings. They were driven in all directions by the onslaught of the demons, like leaves thrown into the four winds, not caring which way they went as long as the monsters did not follow.
But follow the monsters did, pursuing the lost and confused Hungarians across land that was at least somewhat familiar to them. They followed the men to the death, crying out for blood and manflesh, cackling madly as they hunted down the broken remains of the company. Nightfall would bring no respite: the howling of the wolves and the shouts of the demons echoed throughout the darkness, seeking out the men that cowered from them in terror, in bushes and trees and hollows of the earth.
Emeric, King of Hungary, found himself riding blindly in one direction or another, escorted by the bloodied remnants of his guards. He had a few dozen of his men had broken out of the camp, and no they spurred their mounts ever on, driven by the sounds of the pursuing beasts and their twisted mountains that were ever in pursuit behind them. In the darkness, many were lost, simply becoming separated in the shadows or picked off by their pursuers. Those that continued on were mostly wounded, untended wounds spilling blood behind the desperate riders. Others among them had lost their swords or parts of their armor in the earlier skirmishes. The sounds of pursuit continued unabated-if anything, they were becoming louder.
Emeric, King of Hungary, cursed it all.
The Dreamer Awakes
- Location
- University of Saint Thomas, St. Paul, Minnesota
January 28, TA 3019/AD 1200
The Peak of Zirakzigil
Here, high above the ancient realm of Khazad-Dum, high above its endless labyrinth of tunnels and mineshafts, at the top of the Endless Stair, the great storm raged on. Lightning flashed down from the sky, striking boulders and the cliff side and throwing deadly fragments in all directions. Thunder and screaming wind roared around the peak, creating a virtual wall of blinding ice and snow.
Despite all of that, Gwaihir the Windlord, greatest of all living eagles, flew on towards the summit, beating his wings furiously to overcome the raw power of the raging storm. The Eagle of Manwe's will and the howling winds met struggled against each other, both seeking to overcome the other. The Silver Spike itself seemed determined that the hatchling of Thorondor would not pierce into the heart of the storm. Gwaihir disagreed.
As to why it was so urgent for him to fly to the the summit that hemmed in the southern side of the Redhorn Pass, the Great Eagle's feeling were decidedly more vague. His eyrie was dozens, if not hundreds of leagues away, and he was doing his health no favors by taking flight through mountains that were always rather hazardous to fly through, even more so when storms more powerful than any in living memory tore through them as if they were prey in his talons. Rational thought said that in times such as this, when the roots of the mountains themselves were shaking like leaves and blinding snow limited even the vision of the Eagles, it was a good idea to simply take shelter within his nest and wait until better flying weather was available.
But it was not Gwaihir's rational mind that was calling him to the summit. It was something...else. Something different, like a voice deep in the center of his mind, or perhaps within his heart or his soul. It called out to him, shouting in a whisper to take flight, to go to the peak of Zirakzigil, silently promising that he would understand once he saw the summit with his own eyes. He might have been disturbed by such a calling, but something deep within him, a part of him that he knew that no other had ever, or even could ever touch, told him to instead to listen, that the voice was the one above all in creation that was worthy of his trust.
And so it was that the greatest of the living Eagles continued his flight, battling against biting cold, wrathful winds and doing all he could to avoid wherever it looked like lightning was common. It was a difficult battle. Excepting perhaps some of his kin, if any other creature had attempted such a thing, they would have been either forced back or forced into the ground. But if Gwaihir the Windlord enjoyed one thing in his life above all others, it was a legitimate challenge, and this was easily the best that he had faced in years, if not decades. The Great Eagle plunged ahead, defying every attempt by the winds and the snow and the thunder and lightning to throw him back. For hours and days he drove southwards, ever closer to the heart of the storm. Finally, after what seemed an eternity, he beheld the peak.
Gwaihir had flown past Zirakzigil before, and the summit Silver Spike was rather difficult to confuse with that of a different mountain. It should have been recognizable on sight, even to one that had only seen it a handful of times. Instead, upon reaching the Redhorn Pass and looking south to where the summit lay, the Great Eagle was forced to consider that the storm might have blown him off course. Whatever mountain he was looking at couldn't possibly be the Silvertine.
But at the same time, it had to be. There below it was the pass and the Mirrormere, and to the north and northeast were Caradhras and Fanuidhol respectively. This was certainly the right place, yes, but it was rather obvious that something catastrophic had happened here. Instead of a majestic peak embracing the Tower of Durin, this mountain looked as if a giant axe had been swung at it, carving straight down like the cleaver of a titan. Gone was the Tower, the path of the slice passing through it from the ramparts down to its base. The mountain itself had been split open, a vertical seam running hundreds of feet down from the summit towards its roots.
For the moment, the Great Eagle was oblivious to the storm, taking in the terrifying sight of the shattered mountain before him. Then he flew on. He was being called here by something, he knew, and that something had held the unspoken promise of answers when he reached the peak. As much as it seemed that only new questions had been raised, the voice in his heart and his soul told him to go forwards, that all would soon be made clear. Slowly, still battling the storm, the Great Eagle worked their way towards the crack in the mountain. His eyes scanned the remains of the peak for something, anything that could tell him what had happened. Finally, they saw it: Something was glistening on one side of the seam, even through the blinding snow and hail.
When he reached it, he understood.
Unknown Date, Unknown Place
There was nothing. In fact, there was significantly less than nothing. He drifted through an infinite, endless abyss, far beyond all thought or time. He didn't know what he was anymore, or where he was, or why. He was not frightened, or relieved, or anything at all. He simply...was. There was nothing to remember, nothing to forget, nothing to accomplish, nothing to fail. He drifted on through eternity, like a forgotten idea in someone else's head.
And then, all at once, it was if that someone remembered him. There were voices that spoke to him, of him, all around him, calling him to them. The shouted to him in a whisper, that his mission was not yet completed. They gave warnings, that all had changed, that there was no time for his broken form to be fully restored if the Shadow was to be stopped. They said that he would return him to turn back the tide, that his time as the Pilgrim, as the fire of hope, was over, that his time as the Warrior, the Cleansing Fire had begun.
Then there was a great light, and then there was nothing again.
January 28, TA 3019/AD 1200
The Peak of Zirakzigil.
Suddenly, there was cold. There was cold everywhere. Biting into his skin, his flesh, his very bones. Winds howled all around him, allowing the cold to cut through his naked body like knives of ice. There was, at least, one benefit to the cold: it dampened the sensation that followed. Pain shot through his body, dulled only by the all-encompassing cold. His body remembered his wounds, one by one, and one by one came from them pain anew. Flesh ached and burned; bones cracked and slipped. Even the slightest movement sent spasms through his body, so he instead simply lay there upon the mountain, wounds bleeding and boiling and filling his existence with naught but pain, watching as the storm raged on.
Something caught his eye. Slowly, painfully, he turned his head to face the source. There, laying besides a massive crack in the peak he lay upon, was a blade, long and silver and sharp. Glamdring. The word came to him from nowhere. Foe-Hammer. No, not quite from nowhere. He knew those words, but from where he had forgotten. From the same forgotten place, he knew that the blade was important to have. Ever so slowly, he rolled over onto his stomach and then, using only the slightest movements so as to not be crippled in pain, he began to crawl towards the blade.
As he did so, other words began to trickle into his mind, some which he remembered, some which he did not. Sauron, he knew, was something terrible, something to be stopped. Saruman was another, as was Angmar. Rome was one he did not know, but entered into his thoughts regardless. The same thing was true of the term Crusade. There were others, too, others that entered his mind unbidden and that he thought that he might have forgotten: Frodo, Rings, Pope...these words and others moved through his mind, one after another, some in flashes, others slowly enough that he could think on them. He was unsure of what any of them truly meant, but he knew that each was important, in its own way and time. He just didn't know how or why or when.
Slowly, ever so slowly, he crawled towards the sword. Every part of his body throbbed at the excursion. Those bones which remained unbroken creaked and groaned in protest at the task. Those that had cracked sent stabbing pain throughout his body at the slightest of jostles, of which there were many. He pressed on, as each and every part of his body screamed in protest. He was unsure as to why, but he needed to reach the blade. Crawling on, eruptions of pain continued to rip through his body, until finally he could move no more, crippled by the burning and tearing and and stabbing that consumed his flesh. Darkness once more moved before his eyes.
Just before the shadow fell once more, he thought that he heard the call of an Eagle.
The Peak of Zirakzigil
Here, high above the ancient realm of Khazad-Dum, high above its endless labyrinth of tunnels and mineshafts, at the top of the Endless Stair, the great storm raged on. Lightning flashed down from the sky, striking boulders and the cliff side and throwing deadly fragments in all directions. Thunder and screaming wind roared around the peak, creating a virtual wall of blinding ice and snow.
Despite all of that, Gwaihir the Windlord, greatest of all living eagles, flew on towards the summit, beating his wings furiously to overcome the raw power of the raging storm. The Eagle of Manwe's will and the howling winds met struggled against each other, both seeking to overcome the other. The Silver Spike itself seemed determined that the hatchling of Thorondor would not pierce into the heart of the storm. Gwaihir disagreed.
As to why it was so urgent for him to fly to the the summit that hemmed in the southern side of the Redhorn Pass, the Great Eagle's feeling were decidedly more vague. His eyrie was dozens, if not hundreds of leagues away, and he was doing his health no favors by taking flight through mountains that were always rather hazardous to fly through, even more so when storms more powerful than any in living memory tore through them as if they were prey in his talons. Rational thought said that in times such as this, when the roots of the mountains themselves were shaking like leaves and blinding snow limited even the vision of the Eagles, it was a good idea to simply take shelter within his nest and wait until better flying weather was available.
But it was not Gwaihir's rational mind that was calling him to the summit. It was something...else. Something different, like a voice deep in the center of his mind, or perhaps within his heart or his soul. It called out to him, shouting in a whisper to take flight, to go to the peak of Zirakzigil, silently promising that he would understand once he saw the summit with his own eyes. He might have been disturbed by such a calling, but something deep within him, a part of him that he knew that no other had ever, or even could ever touch, told him to instead to listen, that the voice was the one above all in creation that was worthy of his trust.
And so it was that the greatest of the living Eagles continued his flight, battling against biting cold, wrathful winds and doing all he could to avoid wherever it looked like lightning was common. It was a difficult battle. Excepting perhaps some of his kin, if any other creature had attempted such a thing, they would have been either forced back or forced into the ground. But if Gwaihir the Windlord enjoyed one thing in his life above all others, it was a legitimate challenge, and this was easily the best that he had faced in years, if not decades. The Great Eagle plunged ahead, defying every attempt by the winds and the snow and the thunder and lightning to throw him back. For hours and days he drove southwards, ever closer to the heart of the storm. Finally, after what seemed an eternity, he beheld the peak.
Gwaihir had flown past Zirakzigil before, and the summit Silver Spike was rather difficult to confuse with that of a different mountain. It should have been recognizable on sight, even to one that had only seen it a handful of times. Instead, upon reaching the Redhorn Pass and looking south to where the summit lay, the Great Eagle was forced to consider that the storm might have blown him off course. Whatever mountain he was looking at couldn't possibly be the Silvertine.
But at the same time, it had to be. There below it was the pass and the Mirrormere, and to the north and northeast were Caradhras and Fanuidhol respectively. This was certainly the right place, yes, but it was rather obvious that something catastrophic had happened here. Instead of a majestic peak embracing the Tower of Durin, this mountain looked as if a giant axe had been swung at it, carving straight down like the cleaver of a titan. Gone was the Tower, the path of the slice passing through it from the ramparts down to its base. The mountain itself had been split open, a vertical seam running hundreds of feet down from the summit towards its roots.
For the moment, the Great Eagle was oblivious to the storm, taking in the terrifying sight of the shattered mountain before him. Then he flew on. He was being called here by something, he knew, and that something had held the unspoken promise of answers when he reached the peak. As much as it seemed that only new questions had been raised, the voice in his heart and his soul told him to go forwards, that all would soon be made clear. Slowly, still battling the storm, the Great Eagle worked their way towards the crack in the mountain. His eyes scanned the remains of the peak for something, anything that could tell him what had happened. Finally, they saw it: Something was glistening on one side of the seam, even through the blinding snow and hail.
When he reached it, he understood.
Unknown Date, Unknown Place
There was nothing. In fact, there was significantly less than nothing. He drifted through an infinite, endless abyss, far beyond all thought or time. He didn't know what he was anymore, or where he was, or why. He was not frightened, or relieved, or anything at all. He simply...was. There was nothing to remember, nothing to forget, nothing to accomplish, nothing to fail. He drifted on through eternity, like a forgotten idea in someone else's head.
And then, all at once, it was if that someone remembered him. There were voices that spoke to him, of him, all around him, calling him to them. The shouted to him in a whisper, that his mission was not yet completed. They gave warnings, that all had changed, that there was no time for his broken form to be fully restored if the Shadow was to be stopped. They said that he would return him to turn back the tide, that his time as the Pilgrim, as the fire of hope, was over, that his time as the Warrior, the Cleansing Fire had begun.
Then there was a great light, and then there was nothing again.
January 28, TA 3019/AD 1200
The Peak of Zirakzigil.
Suddenly, there was cold. There was cold everywhere. Biting into his skin, his flesh, his very bones. Winds howled all around him, allowing the cold to cut through his naked body like knives of ice. There was, at least, one benefit to the cold: it dampened the sensation that followed. Pain shot through his body, dulled only by the all-encompassing cold. His body remembered his wounds, one by one, and one by one came from them pain anew. Flesh ached and burned; bones cracked and slipped. Even the slightest movement sent spasms through his body, so he instead simply lay there upon the mountain, wounds bleeding and boiling and filling his existence with naught but pain, watching as the storm raged on.
Something caught his eye. Slowly, painfully, he turned his head to face the source. There, laying besides a massive crack in the peak he lay upon, was a blade, long and silver and sharp. Glamdring. The word came to him from nowhere. Foe-Hammer. No, not quite from nowhere. He knew those words, but from where he had forgotten. From the same forgotten place, he knew that the blade was important to have. Ever so slowly, he rolled over onto his stomach and then, using only the slightest movements so as to not be crippled in pain, he began to crawl towards the blade.
As he did so, other words began to trickle into his mind, some which he remembered, some which he did not. Sauron, he knew, was something terrible, something to be stopped. Saruman was another, as was Angmar. Rome was one he did not know, but entered into his thoughts regardless. The same thing was true of the term Crusade. There were others, too, others that entered his mind unbidden and that he thought that he might have forgotten: Frodo, Rings, Pope...these words and others moved through his mind, one after another, some in flashes, others slowly enough that he could think on them. He was unsure of what any of them truly meant, but he knew that each was important, in its own way and time. He just didn't know how or why or when.
Slowly, ever so slowly, he crawled towards the sword. Every part of his body throbbed at the excursion. Those bones which remained unbroken creaked and groaned in protest at the task. Those that had cracked sent stabbing pain throughout his body at the slightest of jostles, of which there were many. He pressed on, as each and every part of his body screamed in protest. He was unsure as to why, but he needed to reach the blade. Crawling on, eruptions of pain continued to rip through his body, until finally he could move no more, crippled by the burning and tearing and and stabbing that consumed his flesh. Darkness once more moved before his eyes.
Just before the shadow fell once more, he thought that he heard the call of an Eagle.
The Word of God
- Location
- University of Saint Thomas, St. Paul, Minnesota
January 28, TA 3019/AD 1200
Esztergom
In Hungary's beating heart, the duties of the King had now been taken up by the Archbishop, and now Job of Esztergom took faced his first task in such a position: bringing the city back under control. It was no mean challenge. Fear and terror ran unchecked through the streets, taking the form of screaming mothers and crying children, of rioting and looting. Bitterly, Job noted that the legions of hell may not be needed to lay the city to waste.
Pater Noster, qui es in caelis,
Restoring the peace through martial means would be all but impossible. The King had taken many of the city's armed men with him when he had marched out into the wilderness, and very few had yet returned. Those that did were almost always too wounded to fight, and carried with them horror stories of a demonic horde that had ambushed them in the night that only fueled the air of despair and hopelessness that engulfed the city.
Sanctificetur nomen tuum.
Already, the city guard had retreated back to a small perimeter encircling Esztergom Castle and a few other important points within the city, their backs pinned against the Danube. While they would be able to hold their own on the defensive, any attempt to push outwards had so far been crushed beneath the swarms of panicked and near-delirious citizenry.
Adveniat regnum tuum.
With force of arms not an option for restoring the peace, Job was forced to seek out other options. If order couldn't be reestablished, the city was doomed no matter what the monsters outside the walls did. There would be no hope for a defense, no chance for an escape, no way in all the world for the people of Esztergom to survive the storm that was surely coming for them all. This task, the Archbishop felt, was God's test to him, the weighing of his soul in what could well be the End Times. He could not fail it. He would not.
Fiat voluntas tua,
He was not a wielder of force. But there was another method, one that he had followed all his life, that had guided him from his childhood to this very moment, and never before had it lead him astray. But he could not do it alone. He alone could not bear this cross. Others would have to follow. He could assemble a few to begin, the rest of the clergy of the city, but still that would be too few. If the city did not follow...then all was lost.
Sicut in caelo et in terra.
He started with a mere two dozen, fellow Holy Men and a small handful of Sisters from the local convent. They began at the Basilica, the holiest ground within the city. They prayed first to the Blessed Virgin, She assumed bodily into Heaven, and to Adalbert of Prague, their other patron, bringer of the faith to this land and martyr on the shores of the Baltic Sea, far to the north. When those prayers were said, they began to march, ancient and familiar words spilling from their mouths.
Panem nostrum quotidianum da nobis hodie,
The nobles joined them first, as they marched past the castle. One by one, the highborn of the city fell into the small column, heads bowed in prayer. The words were repeated, on every lip and in every heart. Next were guards, forming up along the side of the formation. Their blades were drawn as the procession exited their all-too-small perimeter and into the chaos of the city, fearing any move against them. They, too, chanted the words, as they looked all about them in fear.
Et dimitte nobis debita nostra sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris.
The words grew louder. Those that prayed along the roadsides were the next to join, moving to join their voices with those around them, hoping with all their hearts that making the words sound as one would carry them up to the Lord, and that He would look down and deliver them. As they moved further away from the river and towards the heart of the city, towards the cries and shrieks that emanated from that place, the words grew louder still.
Et ne nos inducas in tentationem,
A great snake now wound its way through the city, coiling itself into knots as it turned left or right whenever the crowds or damages before it were too thick to pass. Whenever it passed a knot of people, it would grow, the crowds being absorbed into the procession. They marched through market squares and through the docks at the river, before the homes of the rich and the poor alike.
Sed libera nos a malo.
For hours they endured, continuing their winding course through the city. Ever so slowly, all other sounds died away, with only the words sounding out over Esztergom. The breaking of glass, the screaming of women and children, the roaring of men...all of them faded away into the darkness, replaced by either silence or the words. By themselves, in pairs or in groups, even the most crazed of mobs began to join with the march.
Amen.
They chanted on through the night, thousands of voices joined as one. Candles and torches had been lit among the marchers as they trod on, casting an eerie glow on the scene. The rich and poor, the young and old, the strong and weak...on this night, there were no such distinctions, only a common home and a common cause. As one, the column turned for a final time, back towards the Basilica. There they knelt before the altar of the Lord, the words continuing on.
______________________________________________________________________________
The impromptu service lasted until dawn. Over and over again, the Shepherd of the souls of Hungary had led his flock in prayer, calling for the intercession of the Lord to their cause, pleading to the Saints to pray for them, for the Virgin Mother to hear their prayers. The Primatial Basilica of the Blessed Virgin Mary Assumed Into Heaven and Saint Adalbert was packed to its rafters, as common and noble, guard and criminal, beggar and merchant sent their voices to heaven.
Eventually, the sun rose, and the dull grey light of winter began to filter in through the windows. With that, Job rose to his feet and looked out over his children. They looked back up at him, eyes full of fear and questions, silently begging him for comfort, for hope. He prayed that he could give it to them. This was the next part of his test. Sending a quick and silent prayer to the Holy Spirit, he began to speak.
"My children...there can be no denying it. Mountains of darkness rise from nothing. Hordes of demons and monsters strike against us. The sky itself tears apart. This...I fear that this is the End."
A terrified murmur went up from the assembled crowd. Job raised his hands to silence them. Praying again for the Lord's guidance, he continued.
"Be afraid. I do not hold that against you. There is no shame in fear of such things. But whether or not you are afraid...that is not the question asked of you on this day! No, the question is not of if you are afraid: all of us are! Rather, it is what you shall with that fear!"
He had their attention now. Some of the assembly were rising to their feet, trying to peer over those in front of him as he spoke. Holy Spirit, work through me. Guide my tongue. Let the right words flow from my mouth. Let me save your people.
"Will you burn down your own homes!? Will you sack your own city!? Will you let this fear rule you, like it ruled Peter as he walked on the water!? If you do so, then may you fall in, as he did! May you be swept away in the coming storm, and all who would let their hearts be ruled by terror with you!"
"No! NO! Be afraid, but do not give your life to fear! Do not turn to violence and desperation and madness, not at this hour! For this...this is the final test! The final challenge! God is pronouncing his judgements! How will he find you! Where lies your heart!?"
"That is what you must fear! The wrath of the Lord, that he will find you unworthy of paradise! Fear God! Fear his righteous wrath against you, you who riot and rape and rob and burn! Fear the Lord! Not the monsters! Not the mountains! Not each other! But that God, the Almighty Father, will find you wanting!"
"The task is before us! Our final test! Will you allow yourself to fail!? Or will you stand with me, and let the Lord see that you followed in his path, until your last and dying breath!? Our bodies are condemned to die, those that wish us all damned to Hell say! They say, 'why care for the Law, for we are doomed to die in the coming hours.' To them, whom I condemn to the deepest crag of the black pit, I say this: That we may yet save our souls! We may yet walk in the light and grace of the Lord! Is that not a worthy cause!? Would you not answer such a call!?"
"Yes, this is the End. The old world is coming to its conclusion, a death that will surely be in fire and blood. But we yet stand. Not yet are we dead! We yet breath, and see and feel! And while we still live, we must accomplish the tasks that God has given us! We must pass this final test! The old world is over. Will you be given entrance into the new?"
The people roared to the affirmative. Job looked once more at his flock. He saw in them hope, for the first time in three days. Common and noble, saint and sinner, man and woman, all of them raised their voices to the heavens once more, calling out that they would not bow before the darkness, that they would not lay down and die. The Archbishop smiled as he raised his voice with theirs.
By no means would this be the end to his task. He had sworn many oaths to serve the Lord until the moment of his death, and now he intended to fulfill them all. The people were behind him, at least, but they still needed to be set to work. Already, the gears in the Shepherd's mind were moving. Esztergom itself would be indefensible, especially in the absence of the King and a large chunk of his men. The city would have to be emptied, its people moved away from the mysterious mountains and towards safer lands further west or south. Beyond that, he did not know what he would do.
But come what may, he would walk in the light.
Esztergom
In Hungary's beating heart, the duties of the King had now been taken up by the Archbishop, and now Job of Esztergom took faced his first task in such a position: bringing the city back under control. It was no mean challenge. Fear and terror ran unchecked through the streets, taking the form of screaming mothers and crying children, of rioting and looting. Bitterly, Job noted that the legions of hell may not be needed to lay the city to waste.
Pater Noster, qui es in caelis,
Restoring the peace through martial means would be all but impossible. The King had taken many of the city's armed men with him when he had marched out into the wilderness, and very few had yet returned. Those that did were almost always too wounded to fight, and carried with them horror stories of a demonic horde that had ambushed them in the night that only fueled the air of despair and hopelessness that engulfed the city.
Sanctificetur nomen tuum.
Already, the city guard had retreated back to a small perimeter encircling Esztergom Castle and a few other important points within the city, their backs pinned against the Danube. While they would be able to hold their own on the defensive, any attempt to push outwards had so far been crushed beneath the swarms of panicked and near-delirious citizenry.
Adveniat regnum tuum.
With force of arms not an option for restoring the peace, Job was forced to seek out other options. If order couldn't be reestablished, the city was doomed no matter what the monsters outside the walls did. There would be no hope for a defense, no chance for an escape, no way in all the world for the people of Esztergom to survive the storm that was surely coming for them all. This task, the Archbishop felt, was God's test to him, the weighing of his soul in what could well be the End Times. He could not fail it. He would not.
Fiat voluntas tua,
He was not a wielder of force. But there was another method, one that he had followed all his life, that had guided him from his childhood to this very moment, and never before had it lead him astray. But he could not do it alone. He alone could not bear this cross. Others would have to follow. He could assemble a few to begin, the rest of the clergy of the city, but still that would be too few. If the city did not follow...then all was lost.
Sicut in caelo et in terra.
He started with a mere two dozen, fellow Holy Men and a small handful of Sisters from the local convent. They began at the Basilica, the holiest ground within the city. They prayed first to the Blessed Virgin, She assumed bodily into Heaven, and to Adalbert of Prague, their other patron, bringer of the faith to this land and martyr on the shores of the Baltic Sea, far to the north. When those prayers were said, they began to march, ancient and familiar words spilling from their mouths.
Panem nostrum quotidianum da nobis hodie,
The nobles joined them first, as they marched past the castle. One by one, the highborn of the city fell into the small column, heads bowed in prayer. The words were repeated, on every lip and in every heart. Next were guards, forming up along the side of the formation. Their blades were drawn as the procession exited their all-too-small perimeter and into the chaos of the city, fearing any move against them. They, too, chanted the words, as they looked all about them in fear.
Et dimitte nobis debita nostra sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris.
The words grew louder. Those that prayed along the roadsides were the next to join, moving to join their voices with those around them, hoping with all their hearts that making the words sound as one would carry them up to the Lord, and that He would look down and deliver them. As they moved further away from the river and towards the heart of the city, towards the cries and shrieks that emanated from that place, the words grew louder still.
Et ne nos inducas in tentationem,
A great snake now wound its way through the city, coiling itself into knots as it turned left or right whenever the crowds or damages before it were too thick to pass. Whenever it passed a knot of people, it would grow, the crowds being absorbed into the procession. They marched through market squares and through the docks at the river, before the homes of the rich and the poor alike.
Sed libera nos a malo.
For hours they endured, continuing their winding course through the city. Ever so slowly, all other sounds died away, with only the words sounding out over Esztergom. The breaking of glass, the screaming of women and children, the roaring of men...all of them faded away into the darkness, replaced by either silence or the words. By themselves, in pairs or in groups, even the most crazed of mobs began to join with the march.
Amen.
They chanted on through the night, thousands of voices joined as one. Candles and torches had been lit among the marchers as they trod on, casting an eerie glow on the scene. The rich and poor, the young and old, the strong and weak...on this night, there were no such distinctions, only a common home and a common cause. As one, the column turned for a final time, back towards the Basilica. There they knelt before the altar of the Lord, the words continuing on.
______________________________________________________________________________
The impromptu service lasted until dawn. Over and over again, the Shepherd of the souls of Hungary had led his flock in prayer, calling for the intercession of the Lord to their cause, pleading to the Saints to pray for them, for the Virgin Mother to hear their prayers. The Primatial Basilica of the Blessed Virgin Mary Assumed Into Heaven and Saint Adalbert was packed to its rafters, as common and noble, guard and criminal, beggar and merchant sent their voices to heaven.
Eventually, the sun rose, and the dull grey light of winter began to filter in through the windows. With that, Job rose to his feet and looked out over his children. They looked back up at him, eyes full of fear and questions, silently begging him for comfort, for hope. He prayed that he could give it to them. This was the next part of his test. Sending a quick and silent prayer to the Holy Spirit, he began to speak.
"My children...there can be no denying it. Mountains of darkness rise from nothing. Hordes of demons and monsters strike against us. The sky itself tears apart. This...I fear that this is the End."
A terrified murmur went up from the assembled crowd. Job raised his hands to silence them. Praying again for the Lord's guidance, he continued.
"Be afraid. I do not hold that against you. There is no shame in fear of such things. But whether or not you are afraid...that is not the question asked of you on this day! No, the question is not of if you are afraid: all of us are! Rather, it is what you shall with that fear!"
He had their attention now. Some of the assembly were rising to their feet, trying to peer over those in front of him as he spoke. Holy Spirit, work through me. Guide my tongue. Let the right words flow from my mouth. Let me save your people.
"Will you burn down your own homes!? Will you sack your own city!? Will you let this fear rule you, like it ruled Peter as he walked on the water!? If you do so, then may you fall in, as he did! May you be swept away in the coming storm, and all who would let their hearts be ruled by terror with you!"
"No! NO! Be afraid, but do not give your life to fear! Do not turn to violence and desperation and madness, not at this hour! For this...this is the final test! The final challenge! God is pronouncing his judgements! How will he find you! Where lies your heart!?"
"That is what you must fear! The wrath of the Lord, that he will find you unworthy of paradise! Fear God! Fear his righteous wrath against you, you who riot and rape and rob and burn! Fear the Lord! Not the monsters! Not the mountains! Not each other! But that God, the Almighty Father, will find you wanting!"
"The task is before us! Our final test! Will you allow yourself to fail!? Or will you stand with me, and let the Lord see that you followed in his path, until your last and dying breath!? Our bodies are condemned to die, those that wish us all damned to Hell say! They say, 'why care for the Law, for we are doomed to die in the coming hours.' To them, whom I condemn to the deepest crag of the black pit, I say this: That we may yet save our souls! We may yet walk in the light and grace of the Lord! Is that not a worthy cause!? Would you not answer such a call!?"
"Yes, this is the End. The old world is coming to its conclusion, a death that will surely be in fire and blood. But we yet stand. Not yet are we dead! We yet breath, and see and feel! And while we still live, we must accomplish the tasks that God has given us! We must pass this final test! The old world is over. Will you be given entrance into the new?"
The people roared to the affirmative. Job looked once more at his flock. He saw in them hope, for the first time in three days. Common and noble, saint and sinner, man and woman, all of them raised their voices to the heavens once more, calling out that they would not bow before the darkness, that they would not lay down and die. The Archbishop smiled as he raised his voice with theirs.
By no means would this be the end to his task. He had sworn many oaths to serve the Lord until the moment of his death, and now he intended to fulfill them all. The people were behind him, at least, but they still needed to be set to work. Already, the gears in the Shepherd's mind were moving. Esztergom itself would be indefensible, especially in the absence of the King and a large chunk of his men. The city would have to be emptied, its people moved away from the mysterious mountains and towards safer lands further west or south. Beyond that, he did not know what he would do.
But come what may, he would walk in the light.
Of Wormwood and Other Stars
- Location
- University of Saint Thomas, St. Paul, Minnesota
January 29, TA 3019/AD 1200
Erebor
Brand, King of Dale, was worried. In the three days since the earthquake, most (if not all) of those that still lived within the lower halls of the Mountain had been found and spirited to the upper halls to be cared for. The dwarves still did all they could to remove the rockfalls that blocked their paths into the deepest chambers, hoping against hope to find more survivors, but as the hours and days passed fewer and fewer of the wounded and maimed were carried away from the worksites, replaced more and more by the broken corpses of the dead. Although none said as much, it was an unspoken truth among the dwarves of Erebor that they were no longer searching for survivors, but rather working to recover the bodies of their friends and kin.
Dain, son of Nain and King Under the Mountain, worked with them. He had not slept and barely eaten since the storm had come. Every muscle in his body ached in protest as he continued to chip away at the massive stones, moving rubble out of the barred passages and doing all in his power to reopen the lowest caverns in the desperate hope that he might still find those unaccounted for merely trapped, not crushed, in the depths. Ever did that hope fade, but still the Dwarf King worked, doing all in his power to move those parts of the mountain that had fallen.
With Dain continuing to lead those that worked in the depths, it thus fell to Brand to command those that remained in the upper levels of the Mountain, both the wounded and maimed and those that worked to heal them. He had arrived mere hours after the Lord of Erebor had summoned him to give aid, bringing with him desperately needed manpower and medicines, and since then had acted much like his counterpart among the Dwarves, rarely resting or taking sustenance as he did all he could to care for those that could no longer care for themselves.
From what his men told him, there was little chance of him getting his rest any time soon. The changes to the horizon that he had so easily dismissed all those days before were apparently not so dismissive of him, and now there were reports of an armed camp being established upon the shores of the Long Lake, near the ruins of Laketown. Rather distressingly, its inhabitants were apparently picking around the lake itself, and doing so dangerously close to the corpse of Smaug.
His own scouts had dared not pass to close to the fortifications, but there were those among them that were keen-eyed enough to see the glint of gold and the shine of gemstones as they were hauled up from the depths and spilled onto the decks of the small boats that now dotted the surface of the lake. Brand knew the tales, of how that cursed horde had driven great men and dwarves (and even, if you believed certain accounts, a few elves), to utter madness and total destruction. He didn't know much stock he put in such legends, but he would be a fool if he didn't have a plan if they were true.
Growling, the King of Dale began to plan. Whoever they were, those that now camped along the shore of the Lake could not be ignored. Optimistically, they had been motivated by simple curiosity and nothing more, simply seeking to find out the nature of the new landscapes around them. In such a case, the King would be more than happy to give them counsel, and to listen to their so as to learn of the new world that Erebor and Dale had found themselves in.
At the other end of the spectrum, there was the chance that the loot that they were robbing from the body of the Great Worm was already starting to turn them to madness, as it had done to the Master of Laketown and so many others, up to and including Thorin Oakenshield himself. It would be foolish to simply assume that the better possibility was the one that would come true.
Brand was no fool. His father had taught him well and raised him better. 'Hope for the best,' Bain, son of Bard, had always told him, 'but prepare for the worst.' He wished that his father were here, that the man that had given him so much could take away some of the weight on his shoulders, as he had done so many times when Brand was a child. When Bain, the mighty King of Dale, could banish away his fears with no more than a few clever words. But alas, no. It was Brand's weight alone to bear now. The King of Dale stood, feeling for the first time, truly, all of his 61 years. Heavy was the head that wore the crown.
But he would have to bear the weight. This moment had the potential to either bring his Kingdom crashing down around him or to help protect it against whatever calamity had caused the world in all directions to so drastically change. Either these men would be able to tell him about this new world and would make invaluable allies or the curse of Smaug would consume them all and he would soon have an army at his gates. No matter which of those scenarios was true, he could not simply sit around and wait for his fate to be decided.
He would march out and meet it.
____________________________________________________________________________
On the shores of the Long Lake, Rurik, Grand Prince of Kiev, was growing impatient. It had been three days. Three entire, blasted days since coming to this place, and still there was little project made. He was encamped (stuck, really, if you wanted to be more to the point) besides the mysterious lake, he and his company having decided against moving further into the mysterious new lands to Kiev's north and choosing instead to create an outpost on the southwestern shore of the waters.
Since then, what had once been a small scouting force had been more than tripled in size, swelling ever more in both number and equipment. More soldiers had arrived, of course, along with the cooks, animal-handlers and miscellaneous other support staff needed to maintain a small army, but far more important to the Grand Prince were the others, the fishermen and sailors and river-dredgers, the ones that were taking far too long in arriving and accomplishing far too little.
The reason for Rurik's impatience sat tantalizingly close, taunting him from beneath the clear blue waters of the lake. It was the reason that they hadn't advanced further towards the mysterious mountain on the northern horizon in the first place, the reason that a rather large force of men now sat around on the shores of the lake. There, just sitting there right in the water, almost close enough to reach out and touch, was the the faint shine of what could only be silver, the sparkles of what must have been precious gems and jewels, the bright gleam of what had to be gold.
There must have been more treasure just sitting there at the bottom of the lake, ripe for the taking, than all the wealth that passed through the markets Kiev in a full year. Some of it was shallow enough that the men could simply strip off their armor and clothes and dive down to retrieve it. They surfaced with hands and pockets full of gleaming coins and flawless jewels, and soon it seemed that the whole of the army had been diving into the lake after the treasure.
Rurik had done nothing to stop them, instead simply laughing and smiling along with them as they came up from the depths, singing the praises of God Almighty as he did so. Truly, the Lord was a great and merciful one to simply hand him such a gift. The fears that had been eating at the Grand Prince's heart since the mountain had first appeared began to slowly fade away, the treasure of the Lord instead filling him with a surprising amount of hope and optimism for the future.
Soon afterwards, he had summoned fishers, dredgers, sailors, anyone and everyone with experience in salvaging things from bodies of water, ordered them to recover the wealth that sat there, just waiting to be claimed. The method of simply swimming down to collect the god and carrying it back up proceeded at an absolute snail's pace when it was going quickly, which it rarely did, but it soon proved that other techniques had just as many flaws to them.
The fishermen cast nets into the waters, but their nets were designed for fish, and most of the gold and jewels and precious metals simply slipped through the many holes in the netting, bringing up only pittances of what they should have. The dredgers brought up more of the wealth, and did so at a faster rate, but still only a fraction of should have been pulled out of the depths had been, and did so along with large piles of muck and mud and weeds that had have the treasure filtered out of it and then had to be dumped back down into the lake. The sailors had promised him a series of great cranes, that they assured Rurik would have every single coin and jewel pulled out of the water in a matter of mere hours, but the assembly of the devices never seemed to move at a reasonable pace.
And on top of the slowness of the work there was another problem: what to do with all the wealth. Rurik had ordered that a great many chests and carts to be brought up from Kiev, to transport the treasure safely back to the city, where it would be entered into the treasury for the betterment of the whole State. The Grand Prince, although by no means a cruel or otherwise uncaring men, very much doubted that the rabble that had marched here with him could be entrusted with so much wealth.
Of course, there those that stole away gold and silver and jewelry that they thought wouldn't be missed, having the gall to steal from what rightfully belonged in the treasury of Kiev. Oh, the bastards claimed that they were only taking payment for their assigned tasks, that the so-called 'small' portions that they slid into their own damn pockets was a rightful reward for their labor. Rurik had payed them, all right, with lashings and beatings and other torments. If more damn fools decided that they were going to steal away from the Princedom (and by extension, from the Grand Prince himself), it may be that some of them may quickly find themselves with their heads on pikes.
It hadn't quite come to that yet. Most of his men seemed to realize and accept the truth: every last coin would be going into the treasury, and the majority of those that refused to acknowledge that fact were cowed by the punishments meted out against those thieves that had so far been caught. Still, Rurik was suspicious. The men of Kiev were by no means soft, and there would be a great many that would have enough daring to attempt to steal from the coffers. As Grand Prince, it would then be his duty to protect the trove from those that would take from it. For the good of Kiev, of course.
Lost in such thoughts, Rurik barely noticed the arrival of one of his sentries, a picket that had been sent to watch for anything coming out of the unfamiliar north. The man was dirty and sweating, with a ragged and fearful look in his eyes. It was not so much his appearance that alerted the Grand Prince to his presence so much as his heavy breathing, a rapid and shallow panting that one would have to be nearly deaf to ignore. The man slouched over, hands on his knees, working to slow his breathing. Watching the man, and more to the point watching him simply stand there and pant like a dog, Rurik felt a bubbling irritation rise within him. What did this man have to report that was so important as to disturb his peace?
"Well?" The Lord of Kiev snapped, a certain amount of venom behind the word. The man abruptly stood up to his full height, eyes wide with fear at the implied threat, before throwing his torso and head forward once more and entering into a deep bow. Taking a deep breath, he finally began to relay his report.
"Muh-my-huh-Lord," the man spoke around his breaths, an annoyance that Rurik grit his teeth and bared, "Thuh-there's-an-ah-army-huh-coming."
"What!?"
The man took another long and deep breath, and Rurik's molars could have ground stone as he waited for the messenger to continue.
"From the north, my Lord," the man said, finally able to carry a normal conversation. "We've spotted columns moving towards us along the river, from the direction of the mountain. They seem to have stopped for the moment and are just...watching us. Like they're waiting for something."
Under his breath, Rurik cursed. Always with the damnable complications. First the delays in the salvage process, then the thieves, and now this. Oh, what he wouldn't give for all his problems to simply disappear! To have them consumed in the storm that had blown through! But of course, he would have to make his own solutions. God had given him this gift, and he would not be parted with it lightly.
"My Lord?"
Rurik turned to the messenger, sparing one last brief glance at the gold and gems piled on his table. It was only the smallest portion of even the meager amount that all of his scavengers and fishers and sailors had managed to bring up. Even stained as they were from the muck and sand at the bottom of the lake, their beauty was undeniable. They seemed to almost sing to him, promising wealth beyond measure once the rest of the horde had been brought to the surface, of unending prosperity for himself and his lands. Truly, this was a work of God, a gift given unto him to make his Kingdom the greatest of all the Rus states, no, all of Europe, if not the world. If only he could hold onto it.
"Gather the troops."
Isengard
The so-called 'spies' had easily been captured. Their clothing and complexions were similar to those that one would expect from Rohan, enough that someone unobservant could potentially confuse them for being one and the same, but their tongue was completely unfamiliar and their strange mannerisms, especially those of kneeling with clasped hands and chanting when confronted by the Orcs or Uruks, were similarly alien. Saruman, Lord of Orthanc, was well familiar with grovelling for mercy, but this form of begging, involving staring at the sky and heavy repetition of the same phrases over and over again, was something different.
No matter how these intruders begged, the Wizard of Many Colors was not feeling particularly merciful. The Palantir of Orthanc was powerful and long sighted, but it lacked the ability to show fine details. Landmarks were easy to discover, as were the sizes of given armies or cities. But names, diplomatic relations and other such particulars were much harder to find. The Eye could show such things (there was little that it could not see), but the effort of will involved was rarely worth the effort to learn such simple things, especially when much simpler methods were available. After all, why use an ancient and great power such as the Palantir when he could simply extract the necessary information from these natives?
Very, very few men could have resisted the tortures that Saruman employed, and those that could were mainly found among the high-born of Gondor or the Dunedain. The men of Savoy, mainly low-born peasants that had seeked out higher employ in the service of the Count, did not fall into this category. The language barrier was a minor annoyance, but not such an obstacle that a Maia of Aule could not overcome. Within a matter of hours, he had the information he needed.
He was now bordered by a land known as Savoy, ruled over by a man named Thomas. It was just one of many dozens, if not hundreds, of small states that were strewn over what the captives called 'Europe.' There were only men in this world, with the likes of Elves, Dwarves and even Orcs relegated to places in legend and song. The powers of Sauron and even the Valar were similarly unknown to them, the only such strength to bend the world to their will apparently falling to a singular being known by half-a-dozen variations of the name God. Or maybe it was three of these gods, a Father, a Ghost and a man named Jesus. As far as Saruman could tell, these men believed in a system where there was a One who was also a Three at the same time, a system that struck the Wizard as rather odd.
Whatever these men believed, the fact was that his current situation was far more hopeful than he had first believed. Those petty kingdoms that surrounded him were weak and divided, constantly squabbling over tiny scraps of land and worthless titles, populated by weak-willed and uneducated rabble that were easily swayed to whatever cause their so-called 'Lords' assigned to them. Their only unifying factor seemed to be their shared faith in their One-in-Three/Three-in-One God.
Said faith seemed to everything to these peasants. Whenever they spoke of it, they did so with reverence and awe, in a way similar to how the uneducated of Middle-earth would speak of the old tales of long-gone ages or of the realms of the elves, as something beyond the reach of mortal men, something to be overawed by. A certain 'Pope' was mentioned several times, apparently the head of these beliefs, spoken of in tones of wonder. Saruman tucked away the knowledge of such a position, certain that such things would become useful to him eventually.
In the meantime, he started making his plans. His power over Rohan was lost to him, his connection to his puppet Theoden severed (the feeling of which was not dissimilar to that of a sailor cutting off the end to a too-long rope). His own forces were currently committed to repairing the damage to his holdings; while he had more than adequate numbers to mount a defense if it came to that, his ability to project power was sorely lacking. If he wanted to come out ahead in this situation, he would need to increase his influence in this new world, a way to wield power over these pathetic excuses for men.
And he knew just how to do it.
____________________________________________________________________________
Thomas, the Count of Savoy, was anxious, despite the number of armed men that he marched with. Scores of spies had he sent into these mountains, to scout out the new terrain that seemed to have fallen out of the sky into his lands. Only a handful had managed to return, most speaking of an impossibly tall black tower surrounded by apparently bottomless pits filled with hundreds of blazing forges and manned by what the men described as demons. Thomas might have dismissed such reports out of hand, but every surviving scout told nearly the same stories, and those that did not had reportedly been chased away the demons before they had reached where the tower stood.
So now Thomas marched out in force. Already the stories and tales swirled around his lands, telling of the monsters that were hidden away in the new peaks, waiting to strike. In such times, the people turned either to the Lord, praying for His help, or to their lord, demanding that he take up action. There had been an unspoken threat of riots, rape and looting if he did nothing against such things, and in response Thomas had ordered his army assembled, calling on every brave and willing man in his realm to march with him into the unknown lands, a show of force that would both reassure his own people that he was answering their calls and (hopefully) deter any attempt by the monsters to attack his people.
They went north towards Lake Geneva, the reported location of the Tower and its demonic hordes. Archers, men-at-arms, knights...the assembled army numbered into the thousands, a stronger force than would have been necessary for anything short of a full-scale war in normal times. But these were strange times, stranger than any in living memory, and even with all his knights and foot soldiers and bowmen marching with him, Thomas felt uneasy at best. What would he find on the shores of the lake? Had his scouts been accurate in their reports? Was he marching headlong into a legion from the depths of Hell itself? What had been dropped from the heavens upon him?
He found answers to the first question soon enough, and the unease in his heart began to grow into outright fear. Yes, there was the black tower, reaching towards the heavens like the Tower of Babel. Yes, there were the deep pits, spewing fire and smoke into the sky like the breath of dragons. And yes, there were the monsters, the demons, manning the outer wall of the fortress, armored and armed and staring back at him and his men, to all appearances daring them to come forwards.
His first instinct was to immediately turn tail, return to his keep and build up his army, followed summoning the forces of every ally available to him. He was in no mood to challenge an army of demons, and a quick glance over his men showed him that neither were they. He had the information he needed. The task he had assigned for himself had been completed; logically, there was no further reason to stay here.
But something caused him to pause. Looking out over the tower, he could see that he and his men had been spotted, but no challenge had been sent out. No arrows were loosed against him, no riders sent out to scatter his men, no stakes or barricades laid about the grounds. In fact, the main gate of the ring sat wide open, the road leading to it flanked by what appeared to be some kind of an honor guard, the soldiers their easily being the most finely armed and armored, as well as being the tallest and strongest. All of them were adorned with a white hand. Standing in the gate itself was a man, wearing only what at this distance appeared to be an old cloak and leaning heavily forwards on an old cloak. Apparently, rather than with fearsome resistance, he was being met with a welcoming committee.
Cautiously, he gave the signal to advance. He saw no reason to approach what could very well be a trap at anything less than full strength. His men creeped forwards, cavalry at the flanks ready to sweep in and meet any challenge, ranks of spearmen prepared to break up any assault his center, files of archers behind. Every step they took was slow and deliberate, every eye looking warily for the first arrow to come soaring towards them, every ear turned for the first horn to sound.
But the sound that they heard was no call to battle, but rather the most beautiful voice that many of them had ever heard, calling out from the gate. It was low and melodious, calling to the hearts of the men to calm, sounding wise and reasonable.
"Welcome, Count Thomas, son of Humbert and Lord of Savoy. I am Saruman of Many Colours, Head of the White Council and Holder of the Keys of Orthanc. I welcome you and your men to my humble abode."
The fear in the Count's melted like frost under a summer sun. Around him, the soldiers loosened their grip on bowstrings and sword handles. Even the horses seemed to calm. A creeping sense of shame seemed to filter through the assembled ranks at the size of the force arrayed against the tower. There was no hostility here, obviously. How dare they march out as if to arrest a simple and kind old man! Doubtless, this Saruman was just as confused as they were to suddenly find his surroundings changed.
"I apologize for coming before you so armed, Lord Saruman." Thomas felt like a small child trying to explain themselves to a disappointed parent. "I simply feared the worse of you, given the suddenness and method of your arrival. I see now that I could not have been more wrong about your nature. Please, excuse any trouble that my scouts caused by intruding on your lands, and let us start again, without suspicion and fear ruling our hearts."
"I find no offense in the actions that you have taken, Count Thomas. If I were to wear your shoes, no doubt I would have acted much the same. A good ruler must have no shortage of caution, especially in times such as these. In fact, I am quite pleased that you marched out here to meet with me. I had desired to meet the Master of the Lands that I find myself bordering, and I do hope that you would hear my council as I would hear yours."
The Count smiled. The wizened old man had taken no insult from him then, and they could go forwards as friends. He briefly looked back over his men. Where once there was only fear and uncertainty, he now saw barely withheld hope. The old man who wore a cloak woven from every color, changing hue and tone with every passing moment, had soothed all their fears with but a handful of words. Without a single shadow of a doubt, he could only be a friend to the land of Savoy.
"Lord Saruman, I humbly accept your council, if only you would have mine."
Saruman smiled then, his face showing only kindness and compassion as he looked out over the army before him. Internally, though, his smile was much more of an arrogant smirk. Yes, these men were weak. He had barely even needed the power of his Voice to sway them against taking up arms against him. Maintaining the face of a wise old man, all the while cackling to himself about the pathetic weakness of these men, he beckoned towards the Count.
"Then come, Lord Thomas. We have much to discuss."
Henneth-Annun
Madril, Lieutenant of Gondor, had been lost. Those first hours, those first days, had been torment, to both him and his men. He had been left in command of the Rangers that had remained at the refuge of Henneth-Annun while Faramir, his Captain, had gone south with slightly less than half of the men to pester any orcs, Southrons or Easterlings moving towards Minas Morgul while Madril kept watch for anything coming or going through the Black Gate. It was a simple assignment, one much similar to others that the Ithilien Rangers had been carrying out since the fall or Minas Ithil and the desertion of Ithilien and contentment of Osgiliath. There was nothing to suggest that this time would be any different.
But it had been. The earth had shaken. The sky had screamed. The whole refuge had nearly collapsed in on itself, loose rocks falling from the ceilings and the walls cracking and threatening to fall. The Rangers had had the presence of mind to escape the hidden cave before the earthquake had brought it down, but the sights that greeted them upon exiting may have had them wishing, in the deepest and darkest parts of their hearts, that they had simply died in the storm.
Mordor stood seemingly untouched, that dark land apparently immune to whatever fell magics had come down upon them. But Gondor, but home...home was gone, swept away in by the trembling earth and howling winds and endless hail, replaced with unfamiliar flatlands nearly as far as the eye could see, a dark and unfamiliar range of mountains just visible on the far horizon.
The courage of the men had failed at such a sight. The White Mountains, the Great River, the Tower of Ecthelion; such things had always given them the strength to continue the battle against the forces of Sauron, had always reminded them of what they were fighting for, of all that they would lose if they failed. Now the storm had seemingly blown it all away. With Mordor itself apparently unaffected, the minds of the men turned to dark thoughts, that Sauron may have called down some power beyond that of mortal men and remade the world to his vision, that they were now left alone in a world ruled by the Shadow.
Such ideas had ruled the men's hearts for most of those first few days, the ominous sense that the Dark Lord stood victorious weighing heavily down upon them. There seemed no point to anything anymore, with home gone and the Enemy unmoved; all hope for victory seemed to have died. The men went through the motions of treating their wounded, burying their dead and doing their best to repair their fortifications, but the unspoken word among all of them was that it was all meaningless, that whatever they did they were all doomed anyways.
But then the refugees had started to appear. They moved in obvious fear, looking all around them in terror of an attack, moving quickly and without the slightest rest, so that anything or anyone that became separated from the main group was abandoned to the side of the road. It was readily apparent that they had been forced to flee wherever they came from quickly; they were dressed in ragged and worn clothing, and carrying with them few provisions and even fewer personal possessions. They stumbled towards the north, and soon afterwards it became clear what they fled from: bands of orcs and wargs, those forces that the Enemy used to occupy Ithilien, pounded after them, hungry for blood.
Among the Rangers, there was never any question of what to do next. The orcs very suddenly found themselves shot full of arrows, utterly surprised when a hunt for largely unarmed refugees turned into an ambush performed by their hated enemies. The refugees themselves were similarly shocked at their unexpected salvation, some throwing themselves to their knees and shouting to the sky in some alien tongue, others embracing the Rangers, giving them universal signs of thanks and relief.
To Madril, the way forwards finally began to clear. Yes, home was gone. Whoever these people were, they were clearly not of Gondor. Their tongue and customs were completely alien to him, the two parties just barely managing to communicate with hand gestures and facial expressions. But they were men, and men being assaulted by the servants of the Enemy no less. Whoever they were, whatever lands they came from, he had a duty to defend them from the Shadow.
Here before him lay a new purpose, a new task to live his life for, and he took it up without hesitation. He gave his orders quickly. The Rangers would march south, to turn those thralls of Sauron that hunted for those fleeing before them into the hunted themselves. With any luck, they would also be able to link up with Captain Faramir and the rest of their forces, who had hopefully not been swallowed up by the storm.
Admittedly, there was much that had been set against the men of Gondor. Their homes had disappeared. Many of their number were wounded, much of their equipment lost. When they did march, they would be slowed further by the refugees, who seemed loath to be separated from their saviors. But despite all of this, the spirits of the men were lifting, for the first time since they had looked out over the aftermath of the storm to see everything that they had stood for vanished into thin air. Once more, they had a purpose to fulfill, a task to complete. The Enemy was here, bringing with them their wares of death and enslavement, hungry for battle.
And the Rangers of Ithilien would march out to meet them.
Erebor
Brand, King of Dale, was worried. In the three days since the earthquake, most (if not all) of those that still lived within the lower halls of the Mountain had been found and spirited to the upper halls to be cared for. The dwarves still did all they could to remove the rockfalls that blocked their paths into the deepest chambers, hoping against hope to find more survivors, but as the hours and days passed fewer and fewer of the wounded and maimed were carried away from the worksites, replaced more and more by the broken corpses of the dead. Although none said as much, it was an unspoken truth among the dwarves of Erebor that they were no longer searching for survivors, but rather working to recover the bodies of their friends and kin.
Dain, son of Nain and King Under the Mountain, worked with them. He had not slept and barely eaten since the storm had come. Every muscle in his body ached in protest as he continued to chip away at the massive stones, moving rubble out of the barred passages and doing all in his power to reopen the lowest caverns in the desperate hope that he might still find those unaccounted for merely trapped, not crushed, in the depths. Ever did that hope fade, but still the Dwarf King worked, doing all in his power to move those parts of the mountain that had fallen.
With Dain continuing to lead those that worked in the depths, it thus fell to Brand to command those that remained in the upper levels of the Mountain, both the wounded and maimed and those that worked to heal them. He had arrived mere hours after the Lord of Erebor had summoned him to give aid, bringing with him desperately needed manpower and medicines, and since then had acted much like his counterpart among the Dwarves, rarely resting or taking sustenance as he did all he could to care for those that could no longer care for themselves.
From what his men told him, there was little chance of him getting his rest any time soon. The changes to the horizon that he had so easily dismissed all those days before were apparently not so dismissive of him, and now there were reports of an armed camp being established upon the shores of the Long Lake, near the ruins of Laketown. Rather distressingly, its inhabitants were apparently picking around the lake itself, and doing so dangerously close to the corpse of Smaug.
His own scouts had dared not pass to close to the fortifications, but there were those among them that were keen-eyed enough to see the glint of gold and the shine of gemstones as they were hauled up from the depths and spilled onto the decks of the small boats that now dotted the surface of the lake. Brand knew the tales, of how that cursed horde had driven great men and dwarves (and even, if you believed certain accounts, a few elves), to utter madness and total destruction. He didn't know much stock he put in such legends, but he would be a fool if he didn't have a plan if they were true.
Growling, the King of Dale began to plan. Whoever they were, those that now camped along the shore of the Lake could not be ignored. Optimistically, they had been motivated by simple curiosity and nothing more, simply seeking to find out the nature of the new landscapes around them. In such a case, the King would be more than happy to give them counsel, and to listen to their so as to learn of the new world that Erebor and Dale had found themselves in.
At the other end of the spectrum, there was the chance that the loot that they were robbing from the body of the Great Worm was already starting to turn them to madness, as it had done to the Master of Laketown and so many others, up to and including Thorin Oakenshield himself. It would be foolish to simply assume that the better possibility was the one that would come true.
Brand was no fool. His father had taught him well and raised him better. 'Hope for the best,' Bain, son of Bard, had always told him, 'but prepare for the worst.' He wished that his father were here, that the man that had given him so much could take away some of the weight on his shoulders, as he had done so many times when Brand was a child. When Bain, the mighty King of Dale, could banish away his fears with no more than a few clever words. But alas, no. It was Brand's weight alone to bear now. The King of Dale stood, feeling for the first time, truly, all of his 61 years. Heavy was the head that wore the crown.
But he would have to bear the weight. This moment had the potential to either bring his Kingdom crashing down around him or to help protect it against whatever calamity had caused the world in all directions to so drastically change. Either these men would be able to tell him about this new world and would make invaluable allies or the curse of Smaug would consume them all and he would soon have an army at his gates. No matter which of those scenarios was true, he could not simply sit around and wait for his fate to be decided.
He would march out and meet it.
____________________________________________________________________________
On the shores of the Long Lake, Rurik, Grand Prince of Kiev, was growing impatient. It had been three days. Three entire, blasted days since coming to this place, and still there was little project made. He was encamped (stuck, really, if you wanted to be more to the point) besides the mysterious lake, he and his company having decided against moving further into the mysterious new lands to Kiev's north and choosing instead to create an outpost on the southwestern shore of the waters.
Since then, what had once been a small scouting force had been more than tripled in size, swelling ever more in both number and equipment. More soldiers had arrived, of course, along with the cooks, animal-handlers and miscellaneous other support staff needed to maintain a small army, but far more important to the Grand Prince were the others, the fishermen and sailors and river-dredgers, the ones that were taking far too long in arriving and accomplishing far too little.
The reason for Rurik's impatience sat tantalizingly close, taunting him from beneath the clear blue waters of the lake. It was the reason that they hadn't advanced further towards the mysterious mountain on the northern horizon in the first place, the reason that a rather large force of men now sat around on the shores of the lake. There, just sitting there right in the water, almost close enough to reach out and touch, was the the faint shine of what could only be silver, the sparkles of what must have been precious gems and jewels, the bright gleam of what had to be gold.
There must have been more treasure just sitting there at the bottom of the lake, ripe for the taking, than all the wealth that passed through the markets Kiev in a full year. Some of it was shallow enough that the men could simply strip off their armor and clothes and dive down to retrieve it. They surfaced with hands and pockets full of gleaming coins and flawless jewels, and soon it seemed that the whole of the army had been diving into the lake after the treasure.
Rurik had done nothing to stop them, instead simply laughing and smiling along with them as they came up from the depths, singing the praises of God Almighty as he did so. Truly, the Lord was a great and merciful one to simply hand him such a gift. The fears that had been eating at the Grand Prince's heart since the mountain had first appeared began to slowly fade away, the treasure of the Lord instead filling him with a surprising amount of hope and optimism for the future.
Soon afterwards, he had summoned fishers, dredgers, sailors, anyone and everyone with experience in salvaging things from bodies of water, ordered them to recover the wealth that sat there, just waiting to be claimed. The method of simply swimming down to collect the god and carrying it back up proceeded at an absolute snail's pace when it was going quickly, which it rarely did, but it soon proved that other techniques had just as many flaws to them.
The fishermen cast nets into the waters, but their nets were designed for fish, and most of the gold and jewels and precious metals simply slipped through the many holes in the netting, bringing up only pittances of what they should have. The dredgers brought up more of the wealth, and did so at a faster rate, but still only a fraction of should have been pulled out of the depths had been, and did so along with large piles of muck and mud and weeds that had have the treasure filtered out of it and then had to be dumped back down into the lake. The sailors had promised him a series of great cranes, that they assured Rurik would have every single coin and jewel pulled out of the water in a matter of mere hours, but the assembly of the devices never seemed to move at a reasonable pace.
And on top of the slowness of the work there was another problem: what to do with all the wealth. Rurik had ordered that a great many chests and carts to be brought up from Kiev, to transport the treasure safely back to the city, where it would be entered into the treasury for the betterment of the whole State. The Grand Prince, although by no means a cruel or otherwise uncaring men, very much doubted that the rabble that had marched here with him could be entrusted with so much wealth.
Of course, there those that stole away gold and silver and jewelry that they thought wouldn't be missed, having the gall to steal from what rightfully belonged in the treasury of Kiev. Oh, the bastards claimed that they were only taking payment for their assigned tasks, that the so-called 'small' portions that they slid into their own damn pockets was a rightful reward for their labor. Rurik had payed them, all right, with lashings and beatings and other torments. If more damn fools decided that they were going to steal away from the Princedom (and by extension, from the Grand Prince himself), it may be that some of them may quickly find themselves with their heads on pikes.
It hadn't quite come to that yet. Most of his men seemed to realize and accept the truth: every last coin would be going into the treasury, and the majority of those that refused to acknowledge that fact were cowed by the punishments meted out against those thieves that had so far been caught. Still, Rurik was suspicious. The men of Kiev were by no means soft, and there would be a great many that would have enough daring to attempt to steal from the coffers. As Grand Prince, it would then be his duty to protect the trove from those that would take from it. For the good of Kiev, of course.
Lost in such thoughts, Rurik barely noticed the arrival of one of his sentries, a picket that had been sent to watch for anything coming out of the unfamiliar north. The man was dirty and sweating, with a ragged and fearful look in his eyes. It was not so much his appearance that alerted the Grand Prince to his presence so much as his heavy breathing, a rapid and shallow panting that one would have to be nearly deaf to ignore. The man slouched over, hands on his knees, working to slow his breathing. Watching the man, and more to the point watching him simply stand there and pant like a dog, Rurik felt a bubbling irritation rise within him. What did this man have to report that was so important as to disturb his peace?
"Well?" The Lord of Kiev snapped, a certain amount of venom behind the word. The man abruptly stood up to his full height, eyes wide with fear at the implied threat, before throwing his torso and head forward once more and entering into a deep bow. Taking a deep breath, he finally began to relay his report.
"Muh-my-huh-Lord," the man spoke around his breaths, an annoyance that Rurik grit his teeth and bared, "Thuh-there's-an-ah-army-huh-coming."
"What!?"
The man took another long and deep breath, and Rurik's molars could have ground stone as he waited for the messenger to continue.
"From the north, my Lord," the man said, finally able to carry a normal conversation. "We've spotted columns moving towards us along the river, from the direction of the mountain. They seem to have stopped for the moment and are just...watching us. Like they're waiting for something."
Under his breath, Rurik cursed. Always with the damnable complications. First the delays in the salvage process, then the thieves, and now this. Oh, what he wouldn't give for all his problems to simply disappear! To have them consumed in the storm that had blown through! But of course, he would have to make his own solutions. God had given him this gift, and he would not be parted with it lightly.
"My Lord?"
Rurik turned to the messenger, sparing one last brief glance at the gold and gems piled on his table. It was only the smallest portion of even the meager amount that all of his scavengers and fishers and sailors had managed to bring up. Even stained as they were from the muck and sand at the bottom of the lake, their beauty was undeniable. They seemed to almost sing to him, promising wealth beyond measure once the rest of the horde had been brought to the surface, of unending prosperity for himself and his lands. Truly, this was a work of God, a gift given unto him to make his Kingdom the greatest of all the Rus states, no, all of Europe, if not the world. If only he could hold onto it.
"Gather the troops."
Isengard
The so-called 'spies' had easily been captured. Their clothing and complexions were similar to those that one would expect from Rohan, enough that someone unobservant could potentially confuse them for being one and the same, but their tongue was completely unfamiliar and their strange mannerisms, especially those of kneeling with clasped hands and chanting when confronted by the Orcs or Uruks, were similarly alien. Saruman, Lord of Orthanc, was well familiar with grovelling for mercy, but this form of begging, involving staring at the sky and heavy repetition of the same phrases over and over again, was something different.
No matter how these intruders begged, the Wizard of Many Colors was not feeling particularly merciful. The Palantir of Orthanc was powerful and long sighted, but it lacked the ability to show fine details. Landmarks were easy to discover, as were the sizes of given armies or cities. But names, diplomatic relations and other such particulars were much harder to find. The Eye could show such things (there was little that it could not see), but the effort of will involved was rarely worth the effort to learn such simple things, especially when much simpler methods were available. After all, why use an ancient and great power such as the Palantir when he could simply extract the necessary information from these natives?
Very, very few men could have resisted the tortures that Saruman employed, and those that could were mainly found among the high-born of Gondor or the Dunedain. The men of Savoy, mainly low-born peasants that had seeked out higher employ in the service of the Count, did not fall into this category. The language barrier was a minor annoyance, but not such an obstacle that a Maia of Aule could not overcome. Within a matter of hours, he had the information he needed.
He was now bordered by a land known as Savoy, ruled over by a man named Thomas. It was just one of many dozens, if not hundreds, of small states that were strewn over what the captives called 'Europe.' There were only men in this world, with the likes of Elves, Dwarves and even Orcs relegated to places in legend and song. The powers of Sauron and even the Valar were similarly unknown to them, the only such strength to bend the world to their will apparently falling to a singular being known by half-a-dozen variations of the name God. Or maybe it was three of these gods, a Father, a Ghost and a man named Jesus. As far as Saruman could tell, these men believed in a system where there was a One who was also a Three at the same time, a system that struck the Wizard as rather odd.
Whatever these men believed, the fact was that his current situation was far more hopeful than he had first believed. Those petty kingdoms that surrounded him were weak and divided, constantly squabbling over tiny scraps of land and worthless titles, populated by weak-willed and uneducated rabble that were easily swayed to whatever cause their so-called 'Lords' assigned to them. Their only unifying factor seemed to be their shared faith in their One-in-Three/Three-in-One God.
Said faith seemed to everything to these peasants. Whenever they spoke of it, they did so with reverence and awe, in a way similar to how the uneducated of Middle-earth would speak of the old tales of long-gone ages or of the realms of the elves, as something beyond the reach of mortal men, something to be overawed by. A certain 'Pope' was mentioned several times, apparently the head of these beliefs, spoken of in tones of wonder. Saruman tucked away the knowledge of such a position, certain that such things would become useful to him eventually.
In the meantime, he started making his plans. His power over Rohan was lost to him, his connection to his puppet Theoden severed (the feeling of which was not dissimilar to that of a sailor cutting off the end to a too-long rope). His own forces were currently committed to repairing the damage to his holdings; while he had more than adequate numbers to mount a defense if it came to that, his ability to project power was sorely lacking. If he wanted to come out ahead in this situation, he would need to increase his influence in this new world, a way to wield power over these pathetic excuses for men.
And he knew just how to do it.
____________________________________________________________________________
Thomas, the Count of Savoy, was anxious, despite the number of armed men that he marched with. Scores of spies had he sent into these mountains, to scout out the new terrain that seemed to have fallen out of the sky into his lands. Only a handful had managed to return, most speaking of an impossibly tall black tower surrounded by apparently bottomless pits filled with hundreds of blazing forges and manned by what the men described as demons. Thomas might have dismissed such reports out of hand, but every surviving scout told nearly the same stories, and those that did not had reportedly been chased away the demons before they had reached where the tower stood.
So now Thomas marched out in force. Already the stories and tales swirled around his lands, telling of the monsters that were hidden away in the new peaks, waiting to strike. In such times, the people turned either to the Lord, praying for His help, or to their lord, demanding that he take up action. There had been an unspoken threat of riots, rape and looting if he did nothing against such things, and in response Thomas had ordered his army assembled, calling on every brave and willing man in his realm to march with him into the unknown lands, a show of force that would both reassure his own people that he was answering their calls and (hopefully) deter any attempt by the monsters to attack his people.
They went north towards Lake Geneva, the reported location of the Tower and its demonic hordes. Archers, men-at-arms, knights...the assembled army numbered into the thousands, a stronger force than would have been necessary for anything short of a full-scale war in normal times. But these were strange times, stranger than any in living memory, and even with all his knights and foot soldiers and bowmen marching with him, Thomas felt uneasy at best. What would he find on the shores of the lake? Had his scouts been accurate in their reports? Was he marching headlong into a legion from the depths of Hell itself? What had been dropped from the heavens upon him?
He found answers to the first question soon enough, and the unease in his heart began to grow into outright fear. Yes, there was the black tower, reaching towards the heavens like the Tower of Babel. Yes, there were the deep pits, spewing fire and smoke into the sky like the breath of dragons. And yes, there were the monsters, the demons, manning the outer wall of the fortress, armored and armed and staring back at him and his men, to all appearances daring them to come forwards.
His first instinct was to immediately turn tail, return to his keep and build up his army, followed summoning the forces of every ally available to him. He was in no mood to challenge an army of demons, and a quick glance over his men showed him that neither were they. He had the information he needed. The task he had assigned for himself had been completed; logically, there was no further reason to stay here.
But something caused him to pause. Looking out over the tower, he could see that he and his men had been spotted, but no challenge had been sent out. No arrows were loosed against him, no riders sent out to scatter his men, no stakes or barricades laid about the grounds. In fact, the main gate of the ring sat wide open, the road leading to it flanked by what appeared to be some kind of an honor guard, the soldiers their easily being the most finely armed and armored, as well as being the tallest and strongest. All of them were adorned with a white hand. Standing in the gate itself was a man, wearing only what at this distance appeared to be an old cloak and leaning heavily forwards on an old cloak. Apparently, rather than with fearsome resistance, he was being met with a welcoming committee.
Cautiously, he gave the signal to advance. He saw no reason to approach what could very well be a trap at anything less than full strength. His men creeped forwards, cavalry at the flanks ready to sweep in and meet any challenge, ranks of spearmen prepared to break up any assault his center, files of archers behind. Every step they took was slow and deliberate, every eye looking warily for the first arrow to come soaring towards them, every ear turned for the first horn to sound.
But the sound that they heard was no call to battle, but rather the most beautiful voice that many of them had ever heard, calling out from the gate. It was low and melodious, calling to the hearts of the men to calm, sounding wise and reasonable.
"Welcome, Count Thomas, son of Humbert and Lord of Savoy. I am Saruman of Many Colours, Head of the White Council and Holder of the Keys of Orthanc. I welcome you and your men to my humble abode."
The fear in the Count's melted like frost under a summer sun. Around him, the soldiers loosened their grip on bowstrings and sword handles. Even the horses seemed to calm. A creeping sense of shame seemed to filter through the assembled ranks at the size of the force arrayed against the tower. There was no hostility here, obviously. How dare they march out as if to arrest a simple and kind old man! Doubtless, this Saruman was just as confused as they were to suddenly find his surroundings changed.
"I apologize for coming before you so armed, Lord Saruman." Thomas felt like a small child trying to explain themselves to a disappointed parent. "I simply feared the worse of you, given the suddenness and method of your arrival. I see now that I could not have been more wrong about your nature. Please, excuse any trouble that my scouts caused by intruding on your lands, and let us start again, without suspicion and fear ruling our hearts."
"I find no offense in the actions that you have taken, Count Thomas. If I were to wear your shoes, no doubt I would have acted much the same. A good ruler must have no shortage of caution, especially in times such as these. In fact, I am quite pleased that you marched out here to meet with me. I had desired to meet the Master of the Lands that I find myself bordering, and I do hope that you would hear my council as I would hear yours."
The Count smiled. The wizened old man had taken no insult from him then, and they could go forwards as friends. He briefly looked back over his men. Where once there was only fear and uncertainty, he now saw barely withheld hope. The old man who wore a cloak woven from every color, changing hue and tone with every passing moment, had soothed all their fears with but a handful of words. Without a single shadow of a doubt, he could only be a friend to the land of Savoy.
"Lord Saruman, I humbly accept your council, if only you would have mine."
Saruman smiled then, his face showing only kindness and compassion as he looked out over the army before him. Internally, though, his smile was much more of an arrogant smirk. Yes, these men were weak. He had barely even needed the power of his Voice to sway them against taking up arms against him. Maintaining the face of a wise old man, all the while cackling to himself about the pathetic weakness of these men, he beckoned towards the Count.
"Then come, Lord Thomas. We have much to discuss."
Henneth-Annun
Madril, Lieutenant of Gondor, had been lost. Those first hours, those first days, had been torment, to both him and his men. He had been left in command of the Rangers that had remained at the refuge of Henneth-Annun while Faramir, his Captain, had gone south with slightly less than half of the men to pester any orcs, Southrons or Easterlings moving towards Minas Morgul while Madril kept watch for anything coming or going through the Black Gate. It was a simple assignment, one much similar to others that the Ithilien Rangers had been carrying out since the fall or Minas Ithil and the desertion of Ithilien and contentment of Osgiliath. There was nothing to suggest that this time would be any different.
But it had been. The earth had shaken. The sky had screamed. The whole refuge had nearly collapsed in on itself, loose rocks falling from the ceilings and the walls cracking and threatening to fall. The Rangers had had the presence of mind to escape the hidden cave before the earthquake had brought it down, but the sights that greeted them upon exiting may have had them wishing, in the deepest and darkest parts of their hearts, that they had simply died in the storm.
Mordor stood seemingly untouched, that dark land apparently immune to whatever fell magics had come down upon them. But Gondor, but home...home was gone, swept away in by the trembling earth and howling winds and endless hail, replaced with unfamiliar flatlands nearly as far as the eye could see, a dark and unfamiliar range of mountains just visible on the far horizon.
The courage of the men had failed at such a sight. The White Mountains, the Great River, the Tower of Ecthelion; such things had always given them the strength to continue the battle against the forces of Sauron, had always reminded them of what they were fighting for, of all that they would lose if they failed. Now the storm had seemingly blown it all away. With Mordor itself apparently unaffected, the minds of the men turned to dark thoughts, that Sauron may have called down some power beyond that of mortal men and remade the world to his vision, that they were now left alone in a world ruled by the Shadow.
Such ideas had ruled the men's hearts for most of those first few days, the ominous sense that the Dark Lord stood victorious weighing heavily down upon them. There seemed no point to anything anymore, with home gone and the Enemy unmoved; all hope for victory seemed to have died. The men went through the motions of treating their wounded, burying their dead and doing their best to repair their fortifications, but the unspoken word among all of them was that it was all meaningless, that whatever they did they were all doomed anyways.
But then the refugees had started to appear. They moved in obvious fear, looking all around them in terror of an attack, moving quickly and without the slightest rest, so that anything or anyone that became separated from the main group was abandoned to the side of the road. It was readily apparent that they had been forced to flee wherever they came from quickly; they were dressed in ragged and worn clothing, and carrying with them few provisions and even fewer personal possessions. They stumbled towards the north, and soon afterwards it became clear what they fled from: bands of orcs and wargs, those forces that the Enemy used to occupy Ithilien, pounded after them, hungry for blood.
Among the Rangers, there was never any question of what to do next. The orcs very suddenly found themselves shot full of arrows, utterly surprised when a hunt for largely unarmed refugees turned into an ambush performed by their hated enemies. The refugees themselves were similarly shocked at their unexpected salvation, some throwing themselves to their knees and shouting to the sky in some alien tongue, others embracing the Rangers, giving them universal signs of thanks and relief.
To Madril, the way forwards finally began to clear. Yes, home was gone. Whoever these people were, they were clearly not of Gondor. Their tongue and customs were completely alien to him, the two parties just barely managing to communicate with hand gestures and facial expressions. But they were men, and men being assaulted by the servants of the Enemy no less. Whoever they were, whatever lands they came from, he had a duty to defend them from the Shadow.
Here before him lay a new purpose, a new task to live his life for, and he took it up without hesitation. He gave his orders quickly. The Rangers would march south, to turn those thralls of Sauron that hunted for those fleeing before them into the hunted themselves. With any luck, they would also be able to link up with Captain Faramir and the rest of their forces, who had hopefully not been swallowed up by the storm.
Admittedly, there was much that had been set against the men of Gondor. Their homes had disappeared. Many of their number were wounded, much of their equipment lost. When they did march, they would be slowed further by the refugees, who seemed loath to be separated from their saviors. But despite all of this, the spirits of the men were lifting, for the first time since they had looked out over the aftermath of the storm to see everything that they had stood for vanished into thin air. Once more, they had a purpose to fulfill, a task to complete. The Enemy was here, bringing with them their wares of death and enslavement, hungry for battle.
And the Rangers of Ithilien would march out to meet them.
Horror and Hope
- Location
- University of Saint Thomas, St. Paul, Minnesota
January 29, TA 3019/1200AD
Northern Italy
The fringes of the storm expanded southwards, spreading outwards from its heart deep in the mountains. WIth it it brought great amounts of snow, of course, along with thick fog and bitings winds: everything to be expected from a winter blow coming down out of the Alps. Those that lived in the region, near the cities of Verona and Trento, simply shrugged their shoulders and went about their lives, having come to expect such things over the course of their lives.
But there was something else in the air. A dark feeling, not dissimilar to the fogs of despair and terror that had gripped Esztergom, Seville and so many other places across Europe. A feeling of deepest dread, like the breath of winter itself was blowing out of the mountains, carrying a cold that cut to the bones. But this wind did not blow down out of the Alps. It seemed to simply...cling to the entire region, as if something was hiding just behind the snow and hail, darting between the clouds and stirring up the storm. A small handful of peasants and hunters that went out into the storm for whatever reason swore that they had seen something in the storm, some kind of great beast that drove the howling winds and chilled the freezing air. Most dismissed such tales, putting the weather down to just being another winter storm from the mountains, albeit a nastier one than normal. They went back to their works without a second thought. The truth, of course, was far worse than their darkest imaginings.
By all rights, the ones that hid inside the storm should have been long dead. And in many ways, they were: all that stirred in what remained of their soul was pure hatred, an eternally burning black fire fed by the will of Sauron himself. Once, long ago, they had been great Kings of Men, lords of the wild peoples from the east. Those people were descended from the ones that the Numenoreans had, while listening to the whispers of the Dark Lord, abused and enslaved, and when Sauron returned, all those centuries later, they had followed eagerly, going forwards under the promise that the blood of Numenor would be spilled by their hands. Their Kings had sworn fealty to the Dark Lord for the promise of eternal life.
The hollow mockery of a life they now lived hardly deserved to be called such, but the former lords made no complaint. Only service to Sauron mattered now, as it had for the past several thousand years. And so it was that the one-time Kings continued their flights, spurring their Fell Beast on through the storm, continuing their endless search.The Ring was near. They could feel it. Its Bearer had passed through the Misty Mountains via the Mines of Moria according to the Wizard Saruman, likely bound for Lorien. Thus, the three Wraiths not assigned to ready Sauron's armies for war were sent here, to watch the Golden Wood, waiting for the Ring to come out of hiding.
It was to be a long wait. The Wraiths had seen no hide nor hair of anyone within the forest, elven or otherwise, the inhabitants hiding away within the shelter of the trees. The sight of the Nazgul was sharp and long, but the Ring of Air, one of the three great Elven Rings, was even better at obscuring what its wielder wished to remain hidden. And despite all of their power, the Wraiths did not yet have the strength to storm the Heart of Elvendom in Middle-earth by force.
And so they continued in their duties, unmoved by such pathetic things as boredom and impatience, flying constant search patterns above the forest and circling around its fringes. If any of them still had the capacity to enjoy life, that ability was not currently being aroused. Still, the Dark Lord had given them their orders, and they would follow those orders until they either accomplished their assigned task or were sent to oblivion in the attempt. There was never any question as to that.
What there was a question to was what to do if any unforeseen complications were to arise. Say, for instance, if a giant eagle, very clearly carrying something in its talons, were to break out of the storm, struggling to stay aloft, not even attempting to hide itself as it flew south. Rare was it to see such beings out of their eyries, rarer still to see one so ragged. Wherever they were going, wherever they came from, their task was obviously of the utmost importance to those that dared oppose the might of the Shadow.
Sauron was not one to actively encourage flexibility in his thralls (hating when actions were taken that went even slightly against his greater designs, being of the mind that his myriad slaves were incapable of improving what he had already set in stone), but the Dark Lord did value initiative when such golden opportunities knocked. Here before them lay such a chance: whatever mission the Great Eagle was carrying out, well...they would not be given the chance to finish it.
Some among the lesser of Sauron's forces, orcs and trolls and goblins, might have frozen in such a moment, lost without exact orders from their dark master on how to proceed. But not the Nazgul. They were hunters above all else, the long hand of the Dark Lord. And now before them came the perfect prey. Silently, without even a word being spoken, the plan was devised. One lone Eagle hardly rated their combined efforts. A single Wraith would be more than sufficient for the task of chasing them down. The others would stay here and continue to watch the forest, fulfilling their master's orders.. With the tasks meted out, the Wraith designated for the hunt spurred his Fell Beast forwards, still staying in the cover of the clouds as he and his mount began to close on the Eagle. The monster moved with unbelievable deftness, like a whisper on the winter wind, moving into a position above and behind the Eagle.
And then, like a hidden dagger, they struck.
Rome
Lotario dei Conti di Segni, better known by his chosen name of Innocent III, lay awake in bed, unable to sleep. Not that he was putting up much of an attempt. Too many thoughts passed through his mind, each one demanding his attention in turn, and his head raced to keep up with each one. It felt as though he was standing on the middle of a debate floor as God Almighty only knew how many different people attempted to shout over each other, each one trying to be louder than the last.
It was rather close to impossible to misinterpret the Calling that he had been given, and a (relatively) simple Calling it was: assemble a Holy Crusade by calling together the Christian Lords of Europe and send it out to contain the greatest threat in world history. There could be no denying the holiness of this task: this was no battle against misguided heretics, or even with the infidels and heathens, but rather with the legions of Hell itself! Demons and monsters now walked in plain sight among men, and as the Shepherd of God's Flock, it was his duty to drive back the wolves!
Yes, the purpose for which he had been Called was clear. The logistics of executing God's Will were proving significantly less so. This was not an unfamiliar problem to him: he had been dealing with such things ever since his succession to the Papacy, fighting resistance to his call for a Crusade to once more reclaim the Holy Land. He was well aware of the primary issues he faced, and he cursed the politics and greed of men every time that they crossed his mind.
Issue the First: France and England were at each other's throats. This was nothing new: the two Kingdoms had been trying to kick each other's teeth in practically non-stop for well more than a century, each trying to wrest from the other control over Normandy and the surrounding counties, many of which had changed hands more times than he could count. They were far too preoccupied with planning to slaughter each other to allow themselves to be bothered with the outside world.
Issue the Second: Many of the more secular princes in the Holy Roman Empire were attempting to undermine his authority (and, as Roman Emperors, they were sneaking increasingly greedy glances at the lands of the Patrimony of St. Peter). If that wasn't enough of a problem already, there was a brewing crisis within the Empire. The early and completely unexpected death of the previous Emperor, Henry the VI of the House of Hohenstaufen, had left the thrones of both the Empire and Sicily in the hands of his son Frederick, who was currently all of five years and two months old.
Innocent himself currently acted as Frederick's guardian and de-facto regent of Sicily: the poor boys mother, Henry's wife Constance, had passed away two years earlier, choosing him to be the child's watcher. But it was in Germany, in the heart of the Empire, that the trouble was originating. It was not as if the Pope could be elected Holy Roman Emperor, and so now other men scrambled to seize the throne.
Once again, Innocent cursed the greed of man. It had at first seemed that the Duke of Saxony, Bernard III of House Ascania, would be the one to ascend to the throne. However, King Richard the Lionheart of England, not long before his death, had instead suggested the election of his nephew, Otto of Brunswick, Duke of Aquitaine, a proposal that was initially met with general acclaim.
However, this simple suggestion had opened the Pandora's Box of Roman politics, as Otto was the son of another Saxon Duke, Henry the Lion (a rival to Bernard's House), and Bernard and his supporters feared that if he ascended to the throne he would allows his family, the House of Welf, to press their claims on Saxon territory. Fearing the loss of their lands, the Saxons now threw their support behind Philip of Swabia, brother of the deceased Emperor, who had come to the election seeking to secure the succession of his nephew, and soon others had flocked to their colors, especially those that bitterly resented Henry's attempts to make the crown purely hereditary. With their support, the reluctant Philip was elected King.
However, Otto's supporters refused to accept the result, and three months after the election they held their own conclave to elect Otto as King, as Philip had not yet been coronated. Both Kings were coronated soon afterwards, but neither of them did so by the legitimate process. Philip was elected with the full regalia of the Emperor, but had not been in either Mainz or Aachen (the traditional location) and had not been crowned by the Archbishop of Cologne (the traditional authority). For Otto, it was simply the other way around.
The minor lords of Germany wasted no time in jumping to pick sides. Innocent himself had been dragged into the morass, his guardianship of Sicily (or rather, his answer to the question of how much sway the Papacy should hold over the Kingdom and whether or not Sicily should be integrated into the Empire), pulling him in, and with the death of Richard the Lionheart he had become Otto's primary backer. The English backed the candidate of their late and beloved King, of course, and the French jumped at any chance to spurn their rival, siding with Philip's faction. As the months passed, the crisis seemed to grow ever on.
Now, with the Devil's hordes threatening the whole of the good earth, he realized how little it all mattered. Such disputes, about the possession of lands and the rights of certain factions, meant nothing at all, not against the ending of the world. What would a few more titles and and few more acres do against Hell itself? Innocent was wise enough to realize that the answer was nothing at all. He hoped, he prayed, that the princes of Europe would realize that soon. He sent out the message to all of them, regardless of politics or distance, and he called on the heavens that his warning wouldn't be ignored.
In the meantime, all he could do was pray for guidance and organize those nations that weren't seeking to rip each other's throats out. Without the Germans, and potentially without the French or English, they would be woefully inadequate. In Italy, only Sicily (which Innocent himself effectively ruled) could be guaranteed to send aid, with the northern states such as Genoa, Pisa and Venice being far more interested in undercutting each other than unifying as one. The Kingdoms of Hungary or Poland would have been more reliable, but both were likely soon to be neck deep in Hell itself, if they weren't already.
Looking further afield, the picture was slightly better, but still not what Innocent would call good. The Spanish and the Norse were brave and ferocious fighters, but Innocent feared that they would be too few in number to make a significant impact. The possibility of calling on their Orthodox brothers to the east brought with it other problems. The sheer distance to the Rus States made even simply contacting them difficult, and coordinating with them near impossible.
The Byzantines were no better, and were in many ways worse. Alexios III Angelos had effectively bankrupted the Empire trying to secure his reign after he had ousted his brother Isaac II from the throne, gutting the once-mighty Roman military, and his methods of paying for doing so with heavy taxation and plundering Holy sights and Imperial tombs did little to endear him to the people. Imperial authority, especially in the outskirts, was crumbling, and Alexios III's rule seemed less stable by the day. And on top of all of that, there was the Double-Headed Eagle from his vision. Although he didn't quite say so in his letter, he would have had to have been a blind fool not to at least partially understand the imagery. He wasn't quite sure what the Eagle going mad ment (although he was inclined to believe that it foreshadowed a coming civil war), but couldn't mean anything good for Christendom.
The best available forces to Europe, then, came from old plans that had never quite come to fruition. The Crusade that Innocent had been assembling with the intention of reclaiming the Holy Land was still mustering in Champagne, and likely wouldn't be ready for months. Another attempted Crusade, which Henry VI had been organizing at the time of his death, had had its leadership abandon it after the Emperor's death and now languished in Tyre after panicking and fleeing there without any steady hands to guide them.
If Innocent did not live up to his Calling here, if he was not the steady and guiding Hand of God on earth, then this Crusade was likely to meet the same fate. It was a terrific weight to bear. He would have to make hated enemies and rival act as friends and comrades, make greedy and petty men put aside everything else and lead them to the, in this case, very literal Gates of Hell. With that in mind, Innocent sent up yet another prayer to God, pleading now for wise hands to guide all of Christendom, if not all of the World, through the dark.
And then God gave him an answer.
Northern Italy
Gwaihir the Windlord's wings beat on, even as it began to feel as if they would fall off at any moment. The Great Eagles were the mightiest fliers in all of existence, unmatched in skill, speed and endurance, and Gwaihir himself was the greatest yet living, but three days of battling non-stop against a ferocious storm, complete with blinding snowfalls, winds more powerful than any in an Age and an apparently endless stream of lightning bolts had pushed even him to his physical limit, aches running through his wings as he flew southwards.
Nevertheless, he continued. The not-quite-voice in his head prodded him forwards, pushing him onwards even as his joints began to burn with pain. He flew on southwards, destination unknown, guided only by instinct as he entered into unfamiliar territory. It was clear that he was no longer in the realm of Middle-earth. Behind him, the Misty Mountains had apparently been dropped into the center of another and alien range. Before him were clearly not the plains of Rohan or anywhere else that he could have flown to from the Silvertine. But still the calling in his mind continued.
At the very least it was readily apparent what he was supposed to do. He carried with him one who's weight he had born before, the Wizard called Gandalf, Olorin and many other names. He was to deliver him, to who and where he did not know, but he felt that the fate of a rather great deal rode on his ability to get the Wizard safely to his destination. The voice whispered that much. And deep in his heart, his mind and his soul, he knew that it was right. He didn't quite know how, but he did.
DANGER!
Said voice, usually barely more than a whisper in the center of his thoughts, suddenly screamed the word to him, through every part of his essence. Reacting on pure instinct, Gwaihir rolled swiftly to his right...and in doing so just barely missed being skewered upon the talons of the Fell Beast as it dove past him in deadly silence. The Great Eagle felt rather than saw its passing, a fell wind that promised death blasting past him at incredible speed. It's silence gave way to a bloodcurdling screech, a sound of fury that its prey had escaped it. But already its rider was pulling on its reins, bringing it around for another attempt at gutting the Great Eagle.
Gwaihir didn't feel like giving them the chance. As the worm swerved right at its master's command, the greatest living Eagle rolled hard to the left, dropping towards the ground as he did so. In response, the Wraith slammed his reigns down, forcing his mount into a dive, keen to keep the claws and teeth of his beast pointed firmly in the direction of the Eagle. Both the Eagle and the Beast now began to shoot towards the ground, the latter rapidly closing the distance towards the former. Suddenly Gwaihir's wings shot outwards, slowing him almost to a halt, and he performed another hard roll. With another angry and terrible scream, the Fell Beast shot past him once more. And once more, there was no time to celebrate: already, the Nazgul was pulling up, reorienting itself to make another attack run.
Normally, Gwaihir would have been thrilled at this prospect. Clearly, this beast would have given him a challenge to revel in defeating, being swift and strong enough to at least pose a threat to him, however miniscule. But he was in no condition for such a battle. He had had almost no rest in the last three days, and even less sustenance. Endurance wise, he was already at the end of his rope. And on top of that, he carried precious cargo, the kind that could not be risked in a duel to the death.
So evasion it was then. As he continued to roll, dive and swerve, always trying to keep the fangs and talons of the beast pointed away from him, Gwaihir considered his options for doing so. It was unlikely that he could simply outpace his opponent in level flight, especially in his condition. He a way to slip away from his pursuer, a method for slipping away from him that would leave Gwaihir clear to carry his passenger safely to his destination. And, unfamiliar as he was with the terrain of the lands below him, he was left with only one option.
The Wraith watched as the Eagle turned northwards, bolting back towards the storm. If the Wraiths could have smiled, they did now, wide and eager. The foolish animal thought that they could hide within the clouds and the snow, thought that they could run away on the fell winds. But there would be no escape. The storm was the domain of the Nazgul, of the Dark Lord Sauron, and it would not aid them in their flight. A horrible sound escaped from the Rider, a harsh mockery of laughter and joy. They spurred their beast onwards in pursuit, their cries echoing throughout the chill night air.
Almost as if listening to the Nazgul's cries, and almost as if insulted by the Black Rider's arrogant belief that it was the master of the winds and the snow and the lightning, the storm began to churn as the two beasts approached it once more, flying hard. It started small, almost unnoticeable, the skies dimming ever-so-slightly more, the winds starting to pick up by the smallest or margins, lighting flashing through the clouds just a bit faster. The two combatants hardly noticed as they madly darted all over the sky, each trying to keep the other firmly in front of them as they worked their way deeper and deeper into the storm. They darted through the clouds, tearing through the skies with movements punctuated by sudden swerves, dives and stops.
The Wraith snarled as he pursued the Eagle back towards the mountains. The skill of the beast was evident: every approach that the Nazgul made was countered, their every attack dodged with deft precision, almost as if they could see what was coming before the Black Rider made his moves. In response, he simply pushed his mount ever harder. It was clear that his prey was slowing down, wearing out: every attack he made was closer to landing a hit. It was only a matter of time until a blow struck home.
The Windlord knew this as well. Every move he made that was not a dodge was an attempt to conserve energy, riding on the existing winds and gliding as much as possible. There was no other choice. His stamina was long since drained, and every movement he made sent stabs of pain throughout his entire body. He clutched unto the Wizard in his talons with the last of his rapidly fading strength. The calling in his mind continued to echo, warning him whenever the Fell Beast came too close for comfort and lending desperate strength to his spirit. Even with his entire body burning under the strain, he continued to streak through the clouds, keeping just ahead of his pursuer. But it couldn't last forever. Something needed to change.
And something did. The winds began to roar. Lightning screamed out of the sky at an ever-increasing rate, thunder echoing off the mountains. More and more snow began to fall, distorting the vision of even the Nazgul and the Great Eagle. They both began to feel it, that something else was within the storm, something far beyond either of them. Or perhaps two somethings.
One was a shadow, a deadly breath on the winds, laughing and mocking as the Great Eagle deeper into its embrace. The air itself seemed to freeze like ice, the snow and hail sticking striking them from all directions, threatening to encase him whole and drag them screaming into the earth. Lightning crashed down from every side, releasing bellowing thunder that's power was felt in the bones rather than heard with the ears. There was a howling in the dark, a scream from all directions to simply lay down and die.
The other was just the opposite. Where the darkness shouted and wailed, this one whispered. When the ice and the snow threatened to drag him down, it became the wind beneath his wings keeping him aloft. When lightning streaked out of the clouds, it guided him away from the path that the carved to the ground far below. It was the slightest bit of light, cutting in through the surrounding darkness.
As the darkness around them closed in and the light did all that it could to keep the shadow at bay, the Nazgul and the Windlord continued their battle. The Wraith shrieked in fury with nearly every moment, the flaming wrath that was what remained of its heart and soul building up from a simmer into a raging inferno. How was it that this Eagle, this mere beast, could continue to evade the pursuit of his mount!? No matter how great the power of their body or the depth of their skill, the hunt should have been long over by this point. The damnable creature should have been killed by its own exhaustion alone far before now. As the winds howled and the thunder roared, the Wraith's black heart burned with hate, the essence of its rage and fury pouring out through its shadow of a body.
If the air could have somehow become even colder, they did so now. The winds almost seemed to bend to the pure hatred that emanated from the Wraith like heat from a furnace, the skies themselves bending and contorting into a single column of air, forming a solid wall of wind that centered around the Nazgul as his fury leaked out into the storm. Even the Eagle could no longer overcome the raw anger of the storm now, the circling winds ensnaring them inside the column.
Seeing no escape in punching through the churning wall of clouds and shadow before them, the Eagle now shot upwards, trying to escape the reach of the Nazgul once more. The Wraith roared again, a scream that drowned out even the howling of the storm, and began his final pursuit, furiously pushing his mount after the Great Eagle. His prey would not be allowed to escape, not anymore. The two began to madly climb towards the top of the cylinder, the black walls slowly collapsing in around them, the Eagle in front and the Nazgul behind. With every beat of their wings, through, the Fell Beast drew nearer and nearer...they were 100 paces back, 50...20...10...they were level…
With one last furious scream, the Wraith drew its sword. Even in the dark of the storm and the night, the blade seemed to glow, the malice of its wielder flooding into it. He looked upon the Eagle before him, no longer able to escape his wrath. Now, finally, it ended. With a guttural cry, like that of a maddened feral beast, the Nazgul struck outwards, aiming for his prey's underbelly.
CLANG!
Shock was not something that a Ringwraith was supposed to be able to feel. Their only emotions were meant to be hatred and its various derivatives such as sadistic glee. Nevertheless, the Nazgul froze as he saw the sword that had flashed outwards to parry his own blow. Their gaze traced the blade backwards from its point, seeing an old (but strong) hand clasped around its hilt, a scarred and blistered arm that lead back to a body that was battered and bruised and worn. The Wraith looked up from there, and found themselves staring into a pair of eyes that pierced back into the darkness, a great intensity burning behind them.
And then time started again. The Nazgul's blade flashed out once more, as fast as an eye could blink, but again the silver sword was there to meet it, parrying away the blow. The Wraith's blade struck out again and again, but every attack that the shadow unleashed found itself blocked, every thrust turned aside. With another furious scream, the Nazgul pulled on his mount's reins, and the Fell Beast pitched hard, attempting to ram the Great Eagle out of the sky.
Again, as it had done so many times before, the Windlord rolled aside, allowing the Wraith to pass harmlessly by. But unlike all the other times, a flash of silver appeared in the Eagle's talons, and a moment later black blood began to pour from a wound in the Fell Beast's neck. The Beast spasmed wildly as pain shot outwards from the wound, the Wraith struggling to maintain control of their mount. And in that single moment, with the Nazgul distracted, the Great Eagle shot away, darting into the black clouds. Even as they struggled to keep their mount aloft, a howl of bestial rage escaped from the Wraith, louder than all the wind and thunder, a sound of pure hate that followed the Eagle and the Wizard even as they turned once more to the south, carrying on the fell black winds.
Rome
It was a rather odd sight: the Pope, wearing only his nightclothes, running at a full sprint through the corridors of the Lateran Palace. He tore through the halls, his 40-year-old body performing like that of a man half his age as he sped towards the Palace courtyard. He wasn't the only one running. His guards chased after him, their armor clanking and their breath coming in pants as they thundered after the Heir of St. Peter. They were young and hale men, in their primes and at the peak of fitness, the very best specimens that Europe had to offer, for the Bishop of Rome deserved no less. And even then they struggled to keep pace with Innocent as he darted through the Palace, barely looking where he was going.
His gaze was fixed out the palace windows as he ran, hardly daring to believe what he was seeing. There, in the courtyard, calling out loudly to any that would here, was a massive Eagle, larger than any animal that Innocent had ever seen. He couldn't always see it, either: the maids and servants of the palace had been woken by the screeching, and now many of them stood slack-jawed in awe as they stared out the windows, vacant and stunned expressions on their faces.
Even with only those brief and often-obscured glances, the Pope sped on, his heart filling with hope with every step he took. There could be no mistake. If this matched what he had been shone in his vision, then God had just answered his prayer for guidance. The Archangel, the guard against the dark, the Sword and Sceptre of God, had arrived. The Lord's help had come to him.
With a last burst of speed, the Servant of the Servants of God pushed open the doors of the Palace and skidded into the courtyard. The Eagle turned and looked at him at the sound. It's eyes seemed almost human as it looked him over, its gaze seeming to look far beyond external appearances. And then, after a moment, it nodded, either to itself or Innocent he was not sure, and spread its wings once more. It lifted slowly off the ground, it's exhaustion evident to all who saw it, but it took flight with little effort regardless, turning towards the north as it gracefully returned to the skies from which it had come.
Looking to where the Eagle had landed, Innocent laid eyes on what he had been looking for. The one before him's body was cracked and broken in many places, he could see, but they still stood tall and unbowed, seemingly not noticing their myriad wounds. In their right hand was a silver sword, tip resting gently on the ground before them, and in their left they held a white staff with some sort of stone at the tip. A simple white cloth around their waist was their only clothing.
Innocent briefly turned back to the palace behind him, his eyes passing over the frozen and shocked faces of his guards and his servants. Every set of eyes either stared at the Archangel before them all or at the Successor of Saint Peter, silently asking the Bishop of Rome what they should do. Innocent himself wasn't exactly sure on how to act in this situation, but he still needed to lead.
"Gather the healers!"
That seemed to shock at least some of them into action, a few scurrying off to find the Palace healers. Even with their guest's divine nature, he was battered and bruised. He would need the aid, as the men of Europe would need his. Innocent turned back to the Archangel, and for the first time met his eyes. A certain fire burned behind them, a fire that filled the Pope's heart with hope and banished away, at least for the moment, all of his fears.
And with that, Lotario dei Conti di Segni dropped to his knees and praised God.
Northern Italy
The fringes of the storm expanded southwards, spreading outwards from its heart deep in the mountains. WIth it it brought great amounts of snow, of course, along with thick fog and bitings winds: everything to be expected from a winter blow coming down out of the Alps. Those that lived in the region, near the cities of Verona and Trento, simply shrugged their shoulders and went about their lives, having come to expect such things over the course of their lives.
But there was something else in the air. A dark feeling, not dissimilar to the fogs of despair and terror that had gripped Esztergom, Seville and so many other places across Europe. A feeling of deepest dread, like the breath of winter itself was blowing out of the mountains, carrying a cold that cut to the bones. But this wind did not blow down out of the Alps. It seemed to simply...cling to the entire region, as if something was hiding just behind the snow and hail, darting between the clouds and stirring up the storm. A small handful of peasants and hunters that went out into the storm for whatever reason swore that they had seen something in the storm, some kind of great beast that drove the howling winds and chilled the freezing air. Most dismissed such tales, putting the weather down to just being another winter storm from the mountains, albeit a nastier one than normal. They went back to their works without a second thought. The truth, of course, was far worse than their darkest imaginings.
By all rights, the ones that hid inside the storm should have been long dead. And in many ways, they were: all that stirred in what remained of their soul was pure hatred, an eternally burning black fire fed by the will of Sauron himself. Once, long ago, they had been great Kings of Men, lords of the wild peoples from the east. Those people were descended from the ones that the Numenoreans had, while listening to the whispers of the Dark Lord, abused and enslaved, and when Sauron returned, all those centuries later, they had followed eagerly, going forwards under the promise that the blood of Numenor would be spilled by their hands. Their Kings had sworn fealty to the Dark Lord for the promise of eternal life.
The hollow mockery of a life they now lived hardly deserved to be called such, but the former lords made no complaint. Only service to Sauron mattered now, as it had for the past several thousand years. And so it was that the one-time Kings continued their flights, spurring their Fell Beast on through the storm, continuing their endless search.The Ring was near. They could feel it. Its Bearer had passed through the Misty Mountains via the Mines of Moria according to the Wizard Saruman, likely bound for Lorien. Thus, the three Wraiths not assigned to ready Sauron's armies for war were sent here, to watch the Golden Wood, waiting for the Ring to come out of hiding.
It was to be a long wait. The Wraiths had seen no hide nor hair of anyone within the forest, elven or otherwise, the inhabitants hiding away within the shelter of the trees. The sight of the Nazgul was sharp and long, but the Ring of Air, one of the three great Elven Rings, was even better at obscuring what its wielder wished to remain hidden. And despite all of their power, the Wraiths did not yet have the strength to storm the Heart of Elvendom in Middle-earth by force.
And so they continued in their duties, unmoved by such pathetic things as boredom and impatience, flying constant search patterns above the forest and circling around its fringes. If any of them still had the capacity to enjoy life, that ability was not currently being aroused. Still, the Dark Lord had given them their orders, and they would follow those orders until they either accomplished their assigned task or were sent to oblivion in the attempt. There was never any question as to that.
What there was a question to was what to do if any unforeseen complications were to arise. Say, for instance, if a giant eagle, very clearly carrying something in its talons, were to break out of the storm, struggling to stay aloft, not even attempting to hide itself as it flew south. Rare was it to see such beings out of their eyries, rarer still to see one so ragged. Wherever they were going, wherever they came from, their task was obviously of the utmost importance to those that dared oppose the might of the Shadow.
Sauron was not one to actively encourage flexibility in his thralls (hating when actions were taken that went even slightly against his greater designs, being of the mind that his myriad slaves were incapable of improving what he had already set in stone), but the Dark Lord did value initiative when such golden opportunities knocked. Here before them lay such a chance: whatever mission the Great Eagle was carrying out, well...they would not be given the chance to finish it.
Some among the lesser of Sauron's forces, orcs and trolls and goblins, might have frozen in such a moment, lost without exact orders from their dark master on how to proceed. But not the Nazgul. They were hunters above all else, the long hand of the Dark Lord. And now before them came the perfect prey. Silently, without even a word being spoken, the plan was devised. One lone Eagle hardly rated their combined efforts. A single Wraith would be more than sufficient for the task of chasing them down. The others would stay here and continue to watch the forest, fulfilling their master's orders.. With the tasks meted out, the Wraith designated for the hunt spurred his Fell Beast forwards, still staying in the cover of the clouds as he and his mount began to close on the Eagle. The monster moved with unbelievable deftness, like a whisper on the winter wind, moving into a position above and behind the Eagle.
And then, like a hidden dagger, they struck.
Rome
Lotario dei Conti di Segni, better known by his chosen name of Innocent III, lay awake in bed, unable to sleep. Not that he was putting up much of an attempt. Too many thoughts passed through his mind, each one demanding his attention in turn, and his head raced to keep up with each one. It felt as though he was standing on the middle of a debate floor as God Almighty only knew how many different people attempted to shout over each other, each one trying to be louder than the last.
It was rather close to impossible to misinterpret the Calling that he had been given, and a (relatively) simple Calling it was: assemble a Holy Crusade by calling together the Christian Lords of Europe and send it out to contain the greatest threat in world history. There could be no denying the holiness of this task: this was no battle against misguided heretics, or even with the infidels and heathens, but rather with the legions of Hell itself! Demons and monsters now walked in plain sight among men, and as the Shepherd of God's Flock, it was his duty to drive back the wolves!
Yes, the purpose for which he had been Called was clear. The logistics of executing God's Will were proving significantly less so. This was not an unfamiliar problem to him: he had been dealing with such things ever since his succession to the Papacy, fighting resistance to his call for a Crusade to once more reclaim the Holy Land. He was well aware of the primary issues he faced, and he cursed the politics and greed of men every time that they crossed his mind.
Issue the First: France and England were at each other's throats. This was nothing new: the two Kingdoms had been trying to kick each other's teeth in practically non-stop for well more than a century, each trying to wrest from the other control over Normandy and the surrounding counties, many of which had changed hands more times than he could count. They were far too preoccupied with planning to slaughter each other to allow themselves to be bothered with the outside world.
Issue the Second: Many of the more secular princes in the Holy Roman Empire were attempting to undermine his authority (and, as Roman Emperors, they were sneaking increasingly greedy glances at the lands of the Patrimony of St. Peter). If that wasn't enough of a problem already, there was a brewing crisis within the Empire. The early and completely unexpected death of the previous Emperor, Henry the VI of the House of Hohenstaufen, had left the thrones of both the Empire and Sicily in the hands of his son Frederick, who was currently all of five years and two months old.
Innocent himself currently acted as Frederick's guardian and de-facto regent of Sicily: the poor boys mother, Henry's wife Constance, had passed away two years earlier, choosing him to be the child's watcher. But it was in Germany, in the heart of the Empire, that the trouble was originating. It was not as if the Pope could be elected Holy Roman Emperor, and so now other men scrambled to seize the throne.
Once again, Innocent cursed the greed of man. It had at first seemed that the Duke of Saxony, Bernard III of House Ascania, would be the one to ascend to the throne. However, King Richard the Lionheart of England, not long before his death, had instead suggested the election of his nephew, Otto of Brunswick, Duke of Aquitaine, a proposal that was initially met with general acclaim.
However, this simple suggestion had opened the Pandora's Box of Roman politics, as Otto was the son of another Saxon Duke, Henry the Lion (a rival to Bernard's House), and Bernard and his supporters feared that if he ascended to the throne he would allows his family, the House of Welf, to press their claims on Saxon territory. Fearing the loss of their lands, the Saxons now threw their support behind Philip of Swabia, brother of the deceased Emperor, who had come to the election seeking to secure the succession of his nephew, and soon others had flocked to their colors, especially those that bitterly resented Henry's attempts to make the crown purely hereditary. With their support, the reluctant Philip was elected King.
However, Otto's supporters refused to accept the result, and three months after the election they held their own conclave to elect Otto as King, as Philip had not yet been coronated. Both Kings were coronated soon afterwards, but neither of them did so by the legitimate process. Philip was elected with the full regalia of the Emperor, but had not been in either Mainz or Aachen (the traditional location) and had not been crowned by the Archbishop of Cologne (the traditional authority). For Otto, it was simply the other way around.
The minor lords of Germany wasted no time in jumping to pick sides. Innocent himself had been dragged into the morass, his guardianship of Sicily (or rather, his answer to the question of how much sway the Papacy should hold over the Kingdom and whether or not Sicily should be integrated into the Empire), pulling him in, and with the death of Richard the Lionheart he had become Otto's primary backer. The English backed the candidate of their late and beloved King, of course, and the French jumped at any chance to spurn their rival, siding with Philip's faction. As the months passed, the crisis seemed to grow ever on.
Now, with the Devil's hordes threatening the whole of the good earth, he realized how little it all mattered. Such disputes, about the possession of lands and the rights of certain factions, meant nothing at all, not against the ending of the world. What would a few more titles and and few more acres do against Hell itself? Innocent was wise enough to realize that the answer was nothing at all. He hoped, he prayed, that the princes of Europe would realize that soon. He sent out the message to all of them, regardless of politics or distance, and he called on the heavens that his warning wouldn't be ignored.
In the meantime, all he could do was pray for guidance and organize those nations that weren't seeking to rip each other's throats out. Without the Germans, and potentially without the French or English, they would be woefully inadequate. In Italy, only Sicily (which Innocent himself effectively ruled) could be guaranteed to send aid, with the northern states such as Genoa, Pisa and Venice being far more interested in undercutting each other than unifying as one. The Kingdoms of Hungary or Poland would have been more reliable, but both were likely soon to be neck deep in Hell itself, if they weren't already.
Looking further afield, the picture was slightly better, but still not what Innocent would call good. The Spanish and the Norse were brave and ferocious fighters, but Innocent feared that they would be too few in number to make a significant impact. The possibility of calling on their Orthodox brothers to the east brought with it other problems. The sheer distance to the Rus States made even simply contacting them difficult, and coordinating with them near impossible.
The Byzantines were no better, and were in many ways worse. Alexios III Angelos had effectively bankrupted the Empire trying to secure his reign after he had ousted his brother Isaac II from the throne, gutting the once-mighty Roman military, and his methods of paying for doing so with heavy taxation and plundering Holy sights and Imperial tombs did little to endear him to the people. Imperial authority, especially in the outskirts, was crumbling, and Alexios III's rule seemed less stable by the day. And on top of all of that, there was the Double-Headed Eagle from his vision. Although he didn't quite say so in his letter, he would have had to have been a blind fool not to at least partially understand the imagery. He wasn't quite sure what the Eagle going mad ment (although he was inclined to believe that it foreshadowed a coming civil war), but couldn't mean anything good for Christendom.
The best available forces to Europe, then, came from old plans that had never quite come to fruition. The Crusade that Innocent had been assembling with the intention of reclaiming the Holy Land was still mustering in Champagne, and likely wouldn't be ready for months. Another attempted Crusade, which Henry VI had been organizing at the time of his death, had had its leadership abandon it after the Emperor's death and now languished in Tyre after panicking and fleeing there without any steady hands to guide them.
If Innocent did not live up to his Calling here, if he was not the steady and guiding Hand of God on earth, then this Crusade was likely to meet the same fate. It was a terrific weight to bear. He would have to make hated enemies and rival act as friends and comrades, make greedy and petty men put aside everything else and lead them to the, in this case, very literal Gates of Hell. With that in mind, Innocent sent up yet another prayer to God, pleading now for wise hands to guide all of Christendom, if not all of the World, through the dark.
And then God gave him an answer.
Northern Italy
Gwaihir the Windlord's wings beat on, even as it began to feel as if they would fall off at any moment. The Great Eagles were the mightiest fliers in all of existence, unmatched in skill, speed and endurance, and Gwaihir himself was the greatest yet living, but three days of battling non-stop against a ferocious storm, complete with blinding snowfalls, winds more powerful than any in an Age and an apparently endless stream of lightning bolts had pushed even him to his physical limit, aches running through his wings as he flew southwards.
Nevertheless, he continued. The not-quite-voice in his head prodded him forwards, pushing him onwards even as his joints began to burn with pain. He flew on southwards, destination unknown, guided only by instinct as he entered into unfamiliar territory. It was clear that he was no longer in the realm of Middle-earth. Behind him, the Misty Mountains had apparently been dropped into the center of another and alien range. Before him were clearly not the plains of Rohan or anywhere else that he could have flown to from the Silvertine. But still the calling in his mind continued.
At the very least it was readily apparent what he was supposed to do. He carried with him one who's weight he had born before, the Wizard called Gandalf, Olorin and many other names. He was to deliver him, to who and where he did not know, but he felt that the fate of a rather great deal rode on his ability to get the Wizard safely to his destination. The voice whispered that much. And deep in his heart, his mind and his soul, he knew that it was right. He didn't quite know how, but he did.
DANGER!
Said voice, usually barely more than a whisper in the center of his thoughts, suddenly screamed the word to him, through every part of his essence. Reacting on pure instinct, Gwaihir rolled swiftly to his right...and in doing so just barely missed being skewered upon the talons of the Fell Beast as it dove past him in deadly silence. The Great Eagle felt rather than saw its passing, a fell wind that promised death blasting past him at incredible speed. It's silence gave way to a bloodcurdling screech, a sound of fury that its prey had escaped it. But already its rider was pulling on its reins, bringing it around for another attempt at gutting the Great Eagle.
Gwaihir didn't feel like giving them the chance. As the worm swerved right at its master's command, the greatest living Eagle rolled hard to the left, dropping towards the ground as he did so. In response, the Wraith slammed his reigns down, forcing his mount into a dive, keen to keep the claws and teeth of his beast pointed firmly in the direction of the Eagle. Both the Eagle and the Beast now began to shoot towards the ground, the latter rapidly closing the distance towards the former. Suddenly Gwaihir's wings shot outwards, slowing him almost to a halt, and he performed another hard roll. With another angry and terrible scream, the Fell Beast shot past him once more. And once more, there was no time to celebrate: already, the Nazgul was pulling up, reorienting itself to make another attack run.
Normally, Gwaihir would have been thrilled at this prospect. Clearly, this beast would have given him a challenge to revel in defeating, being swift and strong enough to at least pose a threat to him, however miniscule. But he was in no condition for such a battle. He had had almost no rest in the last three days, and even less sustenance. Endurance wise, he was already at the end of his rope. And on top of that, he carried precious cargo, the kind that could not be risked in a duel to the death.
So evasion it was then. As he continued to roll, dive and swerve, always trying to keep the fangs and talons of the beast pointed away from him, Gwaihir considered his options for doing so. It was unlikely that he could simply outpace his opponent in level flight, especially in his condition. He a way to slip away from his pursuer, a method for slipping away from him that would leave Gwaihir clear to carry his passenger safely to his destination. And, unfamiliar as he was with the terrain of the lands below him, he was left with only one option.
The Wraith watched as the Eagle turned northwards, bolting back towards the storm. If the Wraiths could have smiled, they did now, wide and eager. The foolish animal thought that they could hide within the clouds and the snow, thought that they could run away on the fell winds. But there would be no escape. The storm was the domain of the Nazgul, of the Dark Lord Sauron, and it would not aid them in their flight. A horrible sound escaped from the Rider, a harsh mockery of laughter and joy. They spurred their beast onwards in pursuit, their cries echoing throughout the chill night air.
Almost as if listening to the Nazgul's cries, and almost as if insulted by the Black Rider's arrogant belief that it was the master of the winds and the snow and the lightning, the storm began to churn as the two beasts approached it once more, flying hard. It started small, almost unnoticeable, the skies dimming ever-so-slightly more, the winds starting to pick up by the smallest or margins, lighting flashing through the clouds just a bit faster. The two combatants hardly noticed as they madly darted all over the sky, each trying to keep the other firmly in front of them as they worked their way deeper and deeper into the storm. They darted through the clouds, tearing through the skies with movements punctuated by sudden swerves, dives and stops.
The Wraith snarled as he pursued the Eagle back towards the mountains. The skill of the beast was evident: every approach that the Nazgul made was countered, their every attack dodged with deft precision, almost as if they could see what was coming before the Black Rider made his moves. In response, he simply pushed his mount ever harder. It was clear that his prey was slowing down, wearing out: every attack he made was closer to landing a hit. It was only a matter of time until a blow struck home.
The Windlord knew this as well. Every move he made that was not a dodge was an attempt to conserve energy, riding on the existing winds and gliding as much as possible. There was no other choice. His stamina was long since drained, and every movement he made sent stabs of pain throughout his entire body. He clutched unto the Wizard in his talons with the last of his rapidly fading strength. The calling in his mind continued to echo, warning him whenever the Fell Beast came too close for comfort and lending desperate strength to his spirit. Even with his entire body burning under the strain, he continued to streak through the clouds, keeping just ahead of his pursuer. But it couldn't last forever. Something needed to change.
And something did. The winds began to roar. Lightning screamed out of the sky at an ever-increasing rate, thunder echoing off the mountains. More and more snow began to fall, distorting the vision of even the Nazgul and the Great Eagle. They both began to feel it, that something else was within the storm, something far beyond either of them. Or perhaps two somethings.
One was a shadow, a deadly breath on the winds, laughing and mocking as the Great Eagle deeper into its embrace. The air itself seemed to freeze like ice, the snow and hail sticking striking them from all directions, threatening to encase him whole and drag them screaming into the earth. Lightning crashed down from every side, releasing bellowing thunder that's power was felt in the bones rather than heard with the ears. There was a howling in the dark, a scream from all directions to simply lay down and die.
The other was just the opposite. Where the darkness shouted and wailed, this one whispered. When the ice and the snow threatened to drag him down, it became the wind beneath his wings keeping him aloft. When lightning streaked out of the clouds, it guided him away from the path that the carved to the ground far below. It was the slightest bit of light, cutting in through the surrounding darkness.
As the darkness around them closed in and the light did all that it could to keep the shadow at bay, the Nazgul and the Windlord continued their battle. The Wraith shrieked in fury with nearly every moment, the flaming wrath that was what remained of its heart and soul building up from a simmer into a raging inferno. How was it that this Eagle, this mere beast, could continue to evade the pursuit of his mount!? No matter how great the power of their body or the depth of their skill, the hunt should have been long over by this point. The damnable creature should have been killed by its own exhaustion alone far before now. As the winds howled and the thunder roared, the Wraith's black heart burned with hate, the essence of its rage and fury pouring out through its shadow of a body.
If the air could have somehow become even colder, they did so now. The winds almost seemed to bend to the pure hatred that emanated from the Wraith like heat from a furnace, the skies themselves bending and contorting into a single column of air, forming a solid wall of wind that centered around the Nazgul as his fury leaked out into the storm. Even the Eagle could no longer overcome the raw anger of the storm now, the circling winds ensnaring them inside the column.
Seeing no escape in punching through the churning wall of clouds and shadow before them, the Eagle now shot upwards, trying to escape the reach of the Nazgul once more. The Wraith roared again, a scream that drowned out even the howling of the storm, and began his final pursuit, furiously pushing his mount after the Great Eagle. His prey would not be allowed to escape, not anymore. The two began to madly climb towards the top of the cylinder, the black walls slowly collapsing in around them, the Eagle in front and the Nazgul behind. With every beat of their wings, through, the Fell Beast drew nearer and nearer...they were 100 paces back, 50...20...10...they were level…
With one last furious scream, the Wraith drew its sword. Even in the dark of the storm and the night, the blade seemed to glow, the malice of its wielder flooding into it. He looked upon the Eagle before him, no longer able to escape his wrath. Now, finally, it ended. With a guttural cry, like that of a maddened feral beast, the Nazgul struck outwards, aiming for his prey's underbelly.
CLANG!
Shock was not something that a Ringwraith was supposed to be able to feel. Their only emotions were meant to be hatred and its various derivatives such as sadistic glee. Nevertheless, the Nazgul froze as he saw the sword that had flashed outwards to parry his own blow. Their gaze traced the blade backwards from its point, seeing an old (but strong) hand clasped around its hilt, a scarred and blistered arm that lead back to a body that was battered and bruised and worn. The Wraith looked up from there, and found themselves staring into a pair of eyes that pierced back into the darkness, a great intensity burning behind them.
And then time started again. The Nazgul's blade flashed out once more, as fast as an eye could blink, but again the silver sword was there to meet it, parrying away the blow. The Wraith's blade struck out again and again, but every attack that the shadow unleashed found itself blocked, every thrust turned aside. With another furious scream, the Nazgul pulled on his mount's reins, and the Fell Beast pitched hard, attempting to ram the Great Eagle out of the sky.
Again, as it had done so many times before, the Windlord rolled aside, allowing the Wraith to pass harmlessly by. But unlike all the other times, a flash of silver appeared in the Eagle's talons, and a moment later black blood began to pour from a wound in the Fell Beast's neck. The Beast spasmed wildly as pain shot outwards from the wound, the Wraith struggling to maintain control of their mount. And in that single moment, with the Nazgul distracted, the Great Eagle shot away, darting into the black clouds. Even as they struggled to keep their mount aloft, a howl of bestial rage escaped from the Wraith, louder than all the wind and thunder, a sound of pure hate that followed the Eagle and the Wizard even as they turned once more to the south, carrying on the fell black winds.
Rome
It was a rather odd sight: the Pope, wearing only his nightclothes, running at a full sprint through the corridors of the Lateran Palace. He tore through the halls, his 40-year-old body performing like that of a man half his age as he sped towards the Palace courtyard. He wasn't the only one running. His guards chased after him, their armor clanking and their breath coming in pants as they thundered after the Heir of St. Peter. They were young and hale men, in their primes and at the peak of fitness, the very best specimens that Europe had to offer, for the Bishop of Rome deserved no less. And even then they struggled to keep pace with Innocent as he darted through the Palace, barely looking where he was going.
His gaze was fixed out the palace windows as he ran, hardly daring to believe what he was seeing. There, in the courtyard, calling out loudly to any that would here, was a massive Eagle, larger than any animal that Innocent had ever seen. He couldn't always see it, either: the maids and servants of the palace had been woken by the screeching, and now many of them stood slack-jawed in awe as they stared out the windows, vacant and stunned expressions on their faces.
Even with only those brief and often-obscured glances, the Pope sped on, his heart filling with hope with every step he took. There could be no mistake. If this matched what he had been shone in his vision, then God had just answered his prayer for guidance. The Archangel, the guard against the dark, the Sword and Sceptre of God, had arrived. The Lord's help had come to him.
With a last burst of speed, the Servant of the Servants of God pushed open the doors of the Palace and skidded into the courtyard. The Eagle turned and looked at him at the sound. It's eyes seemed almost human as it looked him over, its gaze seeming to look far beyond external appearances. And then, after a moment, it nodded, either to itself or Innocent he was not sure, and spread its wings once more. It lifted slowly off the ground, it's exhaustion evident to all who saw it, but it took flight with little effort regardless, turning towards the north as it gracefully returned to the skies from which it had come.
Looking to where the Eagle had landed, Innocent laid eyes on what he had been looking for. The one before him's body was cracked and broken in many places, he could see, but they still stood tall and unbowed, seemingly not noticing their myriad wounds. In their right hand was a silver sword, tip resting gently on the ground before them, and in their left they held a white staff with some sort of stone at the tip. A simple white cloth around their waist was their only clothing.
Innocent briefly turned back to the palace behind him, his eyes passing over the frozen and shocked faces of his guards and his servants. Every set of eyes either stared at the Archangel before them all or at the Successor of Saint Peter, silently asking the Bishop of Rome what they should do. Innocent himself wasn't exactly sure on how to act in this situation, but he still needed to lead.
"Gather the healers!"
That seemed to shock at least some of them into action, a few scurrying off to find the Palace healers. Even with their guest's divine nature, he was battered and bruised. He would need the aid, as the men of Europe would need his. Innocent turned back to the Archangel, and for the first time met his eyes. A certain fire burned behind them, a fire that filled the Pope's heart with hope and banished away, at least for the moment, all of his fears.
And with that, Lotario dei Conti di Segni dropped to his knees and praised God.