The Last Ringbearer

Only a few black men survived that battle, including the head of cavalry, the famous Captain Umglangan. Ever since that day he had a recurrent vision, bright as day: two ranks facing each other in portentous silence upon a strange blue savannah, fifteen yards apart – the range of the assegai; both are comprised of the best warriors of all times, but the right line lacks one fighter. It’s time to start, but for some reason Udugvu the Fearsome has mercy on Umglangan and is delaying the signal to begin this best of men’s amusements – where are you, Captain? Take your place in the rank quickly!.. What is a warrior to do when his heart calls him to the foot of Udugvu’s black basalt throne while the commander’s duty orders him to report to his Emperor? It was a hard choice, but he chose Duty, and now, after surviving a thousand dangers, he has already reached the borders of Harad.

He brings sad news to Fasimba: the men of the North who were like brothers to the Haradrim have fallen in battle, and now there is nobody but enemies in the Northern lands. But this is wonderful, in a way – now there are so many battles and glorious victories ahead! He saw the warriors of the West in action, and there’s no way they will withstand the black fighters when those are an army rather than a small volunteer battalion under the scarlet banner. He will report that the cavalry gap which had so concerned them is no more: not so long ago the Haradrim didn’t know how to fight on horseback, and now they had acquitted themselves well against the best cavalry of the West. Nor do the Westerners know anything about Haradi infantry yet; of all he had seen there only the Trollish infantry could possibly match it, and now no one. And the mumakil are the mumakil – the closest thing to an absolute weapon. Had we not lost twenty in that cursed forest ambush, who knows how the tide might have turned at Pelennor… They’re afraid of fire arrows? Not a problem, we’ll take care of that when training calves. The West had chosen its fate when it crushed Mordor which stood between them.

…Mbanga the driver was concerned with a problem much less global in scope. Despite having no knowledge of mathematics, ever since that morning he had been working on a fairly complicated planimetric problem which Engineer Second Class Kumai (had he known about his partner’s plans) would have described as ‘minimization of the sum of two variable distances’ – from Mbanga to the overseer and from the overseer to the edge of the quarry. Of course, he is not Umglangan’s equal to count on a place in the ranks of the best warriors of all times, but if he manages to die as planned, then Udugvu in his boundless mercy will allow him to forever hunt lions in his heavenly savannah. Carrying out the plan was not going to be easy, though. Mbanga, weakened by six weeks of near-starvation and hard labor, intended to kill with his bare hands a large man, armed to the teeth and far from absent-minded, in less than twenty seconds; if he took any longer than that, the other overseers would reach him and whip him to death: a piteous slave’s demise…

It happened so quickly that even Kumai missed Mbanga’s first move. He saw only a black lightning hitting the overseer’s legs – the Haradi crouched as if to adjust his shackles and suddenly lunged headfirst; so does a deadly tree mamba strike its prey, penetrating a tangle of branches with astonishing precision. The black man’s right shoulder struck the overseer’s leg full force exactly under the kneecap; Kumai imagined actually hearing the wet crunch of the joint sack tearing and the delicate cartilage menisci snapping out of their sockets. The Gondorian sagged down without even a moan in pain shock; in a flash the Haradi had the unconscious man slung over his shoulder and hurried towards the precipice in a fast shackle trot. Mbanga beat the guards converging on him from all directions by a good thirty yards; having reached the coveted edge, he tossed his burden down into the shining white abyss and was now calmly awaiting his enemies, captured sword in hand. Of course, none of those Western carrion-eaters dared cross blades with him – they simply showered him with arrows. This, however, was of no importance: he had managed to die in battle, weapon in hand, so he had earned the right to throw the first assegai in the heavenly lion hunt. What’s three arrows in the gut compared to such eternal bliss?

The Haradrim always die smiling, and this smile boded nothing good for the Western countries, as some far-sighted men were already beginning to guess.

Chapter 34

“Bastard’s dead!” the huge blond overseer concluded disappointedly after carefully crushing Mbanga’s fingers with his heel (no reaction); then he trained his bloodshot eyes on Kumai, standing motionless to the side. “But devil take me,” he tossed his whip from one hand to another, “if his buddy won’t pay with his whole hide for Ernie right now…”

Kumai instinctively blocked the first blow with his elbow, immediately losing a patch of skin. Roaring with pain, he lunged at the blond man, and four others joined the fun. They beat him for a long time, attentively and with a great deal of inventiveness, until it became clear that further action was useless on the insensible Troll. Well, whaddya think – someone has to pay for the dead overseer, right?

By then the guard chief showed up, yelled: “Enough fun!” and chased them all back to their posts – he certainly didn’t want another deader on his report. See, the deal’s like this: if this animal kicks the bucket right here, then he’ll have to deal with the master of the works (another asshole!), but if it happens later, in the barracks – then it’s gonna be a ‘natural loss,’ no questions asked. He nodded for the nearest bunch of prisoners who had watched the beating fearfully to come over, and a short time later Kumai was sprawled over the rotten straw in his barrack. Anyone with experience could tell at a glance that this half-corpse covered in tatters of bloody skin was not for this world for much longer. A couple of months prior the Troll managed to cheat death after heavy injury in the Battle of Pelennor, but now his luck seemed to have run out.

…When Eomer’s riders broke through the South Army’s defenses and panic ensued, Engineer Second Class Kumai was cut off north of the camp, at the siege engine park. Seven more engineers were bottled up with him; being the senior there, he had to assume command. Not being an expert on either strategy or tactics, he saw just one thing clearly: in a few minutes all the abandoned machinery would be captured, so the only thing left was to destroy it. The Troll established order in his company with an iron hand (one of the seven who blurted something like “run for your lives!” remained lying senseless by a bunch of assault ladders) and ascertained that at least they had enough naphtha, the One be praised. In a minute his subordinates rushed all around like ants, pouring it over the catapults and the bases of siege towers, while he hurried to the ‘gates’ – the break in the ring of wagons surrounding the park – and ran smack into a forward troop of Rohirrim.

The mounted warriors treated the suddenly appearing lonely Mordorian without due respect, and paid for it. Kumai was strong even by Trollish standards (once at a student party he had walked a window ledge with dead-drunk Haladdin slumped in an armchair held in his outstretched arms), so his weapon of choice right then was a large wagon shaft that came to hand. Only one of the four riders managed to back off in time; the rest fell where they met that monstrous spinner.

Even so the Rohirrim were not discouraged much. Six more riders materialized out of the