The Last Ringbearer

Tzerlag grunted, but got up from his task and went over to the dead body. Taking out his scimitar, he stuck the blade under the bottom edge of the Elf’s armor and cut it open in one movement from crotch to neck, as if gutting a large fish.

“Hey, look, a coat of mail! Real strange, too, never saw one like that…”

“Seems to glow a little, right?”

“Right. Did you know or did you guess just now?”

“Had I known it, I wouldn’t have bought his open body trick,” Tangorn grumbled. “It’s mithril. I couldn’t pierce that mail, nor can anyone else in Middle Earth.”

Tzerlag cast a sharp look towards the baron – a pro saluting a pro. Haladdin came up, helped the sergeant take the precious scaly skin off the dead Elf and examined it closely. Indeed, the metal was slightly phosphorescent, resembling a blob of moonlight, and warm to the touch. The mithril mail-coat weighed about a pound and was so thin that it could be rolled into an orange-sized ball; when it accidentally spilled from his fingers and pooled into a silver puddle at his feet, he thought that it would be impossible to find on a moonlit night.

“And here I’ve thought that mithril was a legend.”

“Well, it’s not, as you can see. I think you can buy half of Minas Tirith and all of Edoras to boot with one such mail-shirt. There’s no more than twenty in the entire Middle Earth and there’ll be no more, the secret is lost.”

“So why did he hide it under that leather fake?”

The scout responded for Tangorn: “Because only an idiot shows his trumps. Uruk-Hai the Great’s principle: if you’re weak, show strength to the foe; if you’re strong, show weakness.”

“Right,” the baron nodded, “and don’t forget the Easterlings. Had those carrion-eaters known about the mithril mail, they’d’ve cut his throat the first night and fled south – to Umbar, say – to become rich men there. Provided they didn’t waste each other dividing the loot, of course.”

The sergeant gave a gloomy whistle. “Hot damn! So this Eloar was some kinda Elvish big shot. Which means that the Elves will turn over every stone on the hamada and sift every dune looking for our band, and spare neither time nor effort…”

He clearly pictured how it would be done, having played the role of both hunter and hunted in many a dragnet search. Most likely they’ll gather at least a hundred fifty men for the task, foot soldiers and riders, however many can be found on this stretch of the highway. First the mounted soldiers will cut off the route to Morgai and form a half-circle against the unapproachable edge of the hamada, while the foot soldiers will move in a dragnet from the destroyed camp, checking every desert rat hole. With this approach they won’t even need experienced trackers, the superior numbers will be enough, as usual. The whole gang will be based at the nearest outpost, the only place with a large enough well; the commander’s headquarters will be there, too…

Tzerlag knew that ‘outpost’ well – a caravanserai abandoned together with the entire Old Nurnen Highway when the irrigators’ efforts have turned the Western Nurnenlands into dead salt pans. It was a large square building of clay bricks surrounded by all sorts of adobe outbuildings, with the ruins of the old one, knocked down by an earthquake, in the back, overgrown with thorn bush and serge… Wait a minute – those ruins will be the last place they’ll think of searching! Right, the last one – meaning that those will be searched as well, sooner or later, by elimination. Too bad, at first the idea looked pretty good… How about a diversion, a false trail with a sideways move… where?..

Time was slipping away like water from a torn water-skin, and suddenly the scout’s expression and posture changed subtly in a way that told Haladdin with cold certainty that the other did not see any chance of escape, either. A soft icy hand moved into Haladdin’s bowels and began leisurely sorting through them as if through freshly caught fish on the bottom of a boat. It was not soldier’s dread before a battle (he had already been through that today), but something rather different, akin to the dark irrational terror that grips a suddenly lost child. Only now did he understand that Tzerlag did not just fetch him water through the Elf-infested forest at Osgiliath, did not only carry him on his back under the nose of the sentries at Minas Morgul – no, all this time the scout had also shielded the doctor with his powerful and comforting ‘there’s a man in the house’ protective aura, and this aura was now in tatters. To be honest, Haladdin had agreed to this mission of vengeance only because he had firmly decided that it was better to be in any kind of a bind, but with Tzerlag – and had guessed wrong this time. The circle has been completed: Eloar paid for Teshgol, in a few hours they will pay for this camp… Then, frightened and despairing, he yelled in the Orocuen’s face:

“Are you happy now?! First-rate vengeance, still can’t get enough of it?! You paid with all of us for one Elvish bastard, may the earth swallow him and his ilk forever!”

“What did you say?” the scout echoed in a strange tone. “May the earth swallow this Elf forever?”

Chapter 13

Suddenly Haladdin, brought up short, beheld before him the usual Tzerlag – the one who knows what to do.

“Sorry,” he mumbled guiltily, looking away.

“Whatever, it happens. Bygones. Now, try to remember exactly – you too, Baron – did that pair of Easterlings beat it before or after I took on Eloar?”

“Before, I think…”

“Before, Sergeant, I’m positive – bet my life on it.”

“Right. So they can’t possibly know that Eloar is dead or that he even fought… All right. Now, doctor – can the baron walk at least a couple of miles, with crutches?”

“With crutches – yes, I think so. I’ll stuff him full of analgesics… There will be a bad reaction afterwards.”

“Do it, doctor, or he won’t have any ‘afterwards’. Put together the medkit, some water and those breads, nothing else. Oh, and some weapons, just in case.”

A few minutes later the sergeant handed Tangorn a pair of cross-shaped crutches he had just fashioned out of shortened Easterling spears and began laying out instructions.

“We’ll split now. You two will get on the edge of the hamada and head north…”

“North?! But that’s where the outpost is!”

“Exactly.”

“Oh, I see – do the opposite of what the foe expects?”

“You got it, doc. Listen. Don’t stray from the hamada to the sand. If – no, when – the baron conks out, you’ll have to carry him. Don’t lose the crutches, hear? Watch that the wound does not reopen, or else there’ll be blood drops on the stones. The most important thing for you right now is to not leave any tracks; that’s easy on the hamada, it’s all gravel. I’ll catch up with you in two, two-and-a-half hours.”

“What are you going to do?”