CHAPTER 10

Mordor, the Teshgol boundary

April 9, 3019

“So why not wait until nightfall?” Haladdin whispered.

“Because if this really is a trap and the guys who set it are not total idiots, they’ll expect company by evening. What does the Field Manual teach us, doctor?” Tzerlag raised a finger. “Right – do the opposite of what the foe expects. So, don’t move until my signal, and if I’m lost, may the One preserve me, even more so. Clear?”

He cast another look at the camp and muttered: “Damn, I don’t like this picture.”

The Teshgol boundary consisted of fixed sands dotted with fairly thick copses of white saxaul in shallow depressions between small hillocks covered with desert serge and sacaton.

The camp consisted of three yurts pitched in a triangle, with entrances facing in, in a small wind-protected hollow about hundred and fifty yards from their hideout, so everything in it was clearly visible. Tzerlag has watched it for an hour, detecting no suspicious movements; however, there were no non-suspicious movements, either, the camp looked deserted. This was very strange, but it was time to make some move.

A minute later Haladdin, holding his breath, watched the scout in his brown cloak fairly ooze along the barely discernible creases in the ground. He was right, of course: the only thing a field medic could do to help was to not bother a professional. True, but it is not very pleasant to sit in the relative safety of a hideout when your comrade is risking his life a few steps away. He scanned the horizon once again and then discovered, to his amazement, that meanwhile the sergeant has vanished. Nuts! One could almost believe that the scout had turned into an agama lizard and sank into the sand, the way they can; or, more appropriately, was now slithering along as a deadly saw-scaled viper. The doctor has been staring into the hillocks around the camp till his eyes hurt for almost half an hour, when suddenly he saw Tzerlag standing up right between the yurts.

Everything is fine, then! The departure of the feeling of danger was an almost physical pleasure; every muscle of his, previously tense, was now blessedly relaxing, and the world, once discolored by adrenalin, was regaining its natural colors. Climbing out of the pit under a saxaul tree that leaned almost to the ground, Haladdin easily shouldered the bag of gear and marched forward, looking closely at the ground – the slope was seriously dented by desert rats. Almost at the bottom he finally looked up and realized that something was wrong. Seriously wrong, to judge by the Orocuen’s behavior: after standing for some time at the entrance to the left yurt, he then trudged to the next one without entering. Yes, trudged – for some reason the sergeant’s step had lost its usual spring. Only a barely audible hum disturbed the unnatural quiet of the hollow, like tiny ripples on the oily surface of a swamp… Then he suddenly understood everything, recognizing it as the sound of a myriad of flies.

…Even in the sandy desert soil it takes more than a few minutes to dig a grave for ten people (four adults, six children); they had to hurry, but they had found only one spade and so had to share. Haladdin was about waist deep when Tzerlag walked up to him.

“Listen, you keep digging, I’ll go walk around one more time and check on something.”

“You think someone may have survived and is hiding out there?”

“Unlikely, seems they’re all here. But over there there’s blood on the sand.”

“But weren’t they all murdered right in the yurts?..”

“That’s the point. Keep working, but look around once in a while. I’ll whistle if I need you– one long, two short.”

He heard the signal in no more than five minutes. The sergeant waved to him from a small dune near the path to the highway, then disappeared behind its crest. Following, Haladdin found the scout crouching before a dark round object; only when he was almost there did he realize that it was the head of a man buried in the sand up to his neck, and that the man appeared to still be alive. There was a clay bowl of water a few inches from his lips, just beyond reach.

“That’s who put up a fight back there. Are we too late, doctor?”

“No, it’s all right. See, he’s still sweating, so it’s only the second stage of dehydration, and he has no sunburns, thank the One.”

“Yeah, they put him in the shade of the dune, precisely so that he’d take longer to die. By all signs he’d pissed them off mightily… Can I give him water?”

“At the second stage – yes, but only in small portions. But how did you know?..”

“To be honest, I was looking for a corpse.”

With those words Tzerlag put his leather flask to the blackened and cracked lips of the buried man. The man shuddered and gulped down water, but his barely opening eyes remained clouded and lifeless.

“Wait up, fella, not so fast! Hear what the doc says: not all at once. All right, let’s pull him out; the sand is loose here, so we don’t need a spade… Got him?”

Shoving the sand back some, they grabbed the man by his underarms and: “One-two!” and pulled him out like a carrot from the garden patch. “Damn!” the Orocuen said with feeling, grabbing his scimitar; the rush of sand off the clothes of the rescued man revealed a green jacket of a Gondorian officer to their stunned gazes.

This, however, did not affect the rescue operations in the slightest, and in a dozen minutes the prisoner was, in Tzerlag’s words, “ready to use.” The cloudiness in his gray eyes gone, his gaze was now steady and slightly mocking. After a quick glance at his rescuers’ uniforms, he fully appraised his situation and, much to their surprise, introduced himself in good, if accented, Orocuenish: “Baron Tangorn, lieutenant of the Ithilien regiment. To whom do I have the honor of speaking?”

For a man who had just miraculously escaped a tortuous death only to face it once again, the Gondorian was acquitting himself very well. The scout gave him a respectful look and stepped aside, nodding to Haladdin to continue.

“Field Medic Second Class Haladdin and Sergeant Tzerlag of the Cirith Ungol Rangers.

Although it doesn’t matter now.”

“Why not?” the lieutenant raised an eyebrow. “Quite a distinguished regiment. If I remember correctly, we met last fall at Osgiliath – the men of Ithilien were defending the southern flank then. By the fist of Tulkas, it was an excellent battle!”

“I’m afraid that now is not the best time to reminisce about those knightly exploits – we’re interested in more recent events. What team had massacred this camp? Name of commanding officer, number, task, direction of movement? And no fooling: we’re not inclined to dither, as you may guess.”

The baron shrugged: “Quite legal questions. The company is made up of Easterling mercenaries commanded by Eloar, an Elf; as I understand it, he’s a relative of some Lórien ruler. Number: nine people. Their task is roving patrol of a stretch of desert next to the highway and mop-up of said territory as a counter-insurgency measure. Are you satisfied?”

Haladdin closed his eyes involuntarily and once again saw a toy bactrian made of woolen threads, trampled into a pool of coagulated blood. So that’s what they call it: ‘mopping up territory.’ Good to know.

“So how did you end up in the regrettable position in which we found you, Baron?”

“I’m afraid that it’s such an unlikely story that you will not believe me.”

“Then I will tell you myself. You have attempted to stop this ‘mop-up’ and wounded one of the mercenaries, perhaps even killed one. Correct?”

The Gondorian looked at them in obvious consternation. “How the hell do you know that?”

“That’s not important. Strange behavior for a lieutenant of Gondor, though.”

“It’s proper behavior for a soldier and a gentleman,” the prisoner replied drily. “I hope that you will not view my accidental admission as an attempt to plead for my life.”

“Oh, don’t worry, Baron. I believe that the sergeant and I owe you at least a partial payment on this debt; looks like it’s our turn to behave foolishly…” He looked back at the Orocuen; the latter hesitated, but then gestured acceptance: do as you think best.

“Forgive my not-so-idle curiosity: what will you do if we set you free?”

“Honestly, I’m not sure. Here, in Mordor, if the Elves capture me they will finish what Eloar’s men started, even if not in such an exotic manner. There’s nothing to come back to in Gondor: my King is dead, and I do not intend to serve his murderer and usurper...”

“What do you mean, Baron? We had no news since Pelennor.”

“Denethor died a horrible death; supposedly he immolated himself on a funeral pyre. The very next day there was a ready claimant to the throne. You see, there’s an old legend, which no one has taken seriously before, that the ruling Anarion dynasty is only taking care of the throne for the descendants of the mythical Isildur. Such a descendant has shown up –one Aragorn, of the northern rangers. To prove his dynastic rights he produced a sword, supposedly the legendary Andúril, although who had ever seen this Andúril? He also performed several healings by laying of hands, although all those healed were from among his northern followers… Prince Faramir, the heir apparent, retired to Ithilien and is supposedly a prince there under the eye of Captain Beregond – the same one who confirmed Denethor’s ‘self-immolation.’”

“And no one in the West objected to all this?”

“Aragorn’s Secret Guard – rumor has it that they’re all living dead, animated by Elvish magic – had quickly taught Gondorians not to ask such questions. As for Éomer, they get whatever they want from him, which is not surprising, since his sister is under guard with Faramir in Ithilien. Actually, it appears that Aragorn himself is an Elvish puppet, and the real ruler of Gondor is Arwen – his wife from Lórien.”

“What about our home, Mordor?”

“Barad-Dur has been razed to the ground. The Elves are now forming a kind of a local administration from all sorts of trash. It seems to me that they are destroying all remnants of civilization and are systematically hunting down anyone with an education. I think they intend to push your people back into the Stone Age.”

“What about your people?”

“I think that our turn will come, but for now they need us.”

Tzerlag broke the ensuing silence. “All right. First we need to finish burying the people of this camp. After that you can do whatever, but I intend to collect a debt from this – what’s his name? – Eloar. The owner of the blue yurt was my aunt twice-removed, so it’s a blood feud now.”

“May I join you, Sergeant?” Tangorn asked unexpectedly, and explained to the puzzled Orocuen: “They took my sword, a family heirloom. It would be nice to get the Slumber-maker back; besides, I would rather like to send these guys my regards from beyond the grave.”

The scout studied the Gondorian directly for some time, then nodded: “Tangorn… I do remember you from Osgiliath last year. It was you that took down Detz-Zeveg, the ‘King of the Spearmen.’”

“Right, I have had this honor.”

“The only thing is, we don’t have a sword to fit you. Ever use a scimitar?”

“I’ll figure it out somehow.”

“All right, then.”