The Last Ringbearer (8 page)

“I’m here, spawn of Morgoth,” a scornful voice replied, “Come over, I’ll scratch you behind the ears!” and, addressing his troops now: “No panic, carrion eaters! There’re only three of them, we’ll do them like babies! Whack the slanted-eyes, he’s the chief, and stay away from their archer!”

The Elf appeared beside the fire on the right – tall, golden-haired, clad in light leather armor – his every move and every feature conveying a bewitching impression of sinuous deadly power. He resembled his sword – a thin shimmering ray of bluish starlit ice, the very look of which sent shivers through Haladdin. Tzerlag swung his scimitar with a hoarse cry – a feint to the face and an immediate right arc to the knee; Eloar parried casually, and even a field medic (second class) could see right away that the sergeant had bitten off more than he could chew. The master of stealth and infiltration has met a master of the sword, and the only question now was whether he’d be finished off in two or three thrusts. Tangorn understood it best of all, so he raced across the fifteen yards separating him from the fight in a flash and laid into the Elf from the left, yelling at the haphazardly retreating scout: “Cover my back, dumbass!”

A professional at work (no matter what profession) is always fascinating to watch, and here there were two masters of the highest caliber. Too bad that all of the few spectators were too busy with their own affairs to admire the show – mostly they were trying to kill each other, which takes a certain amount of concentration. Nevertheless both partners put their all into their work, their tightly choreographed moves fitting them into the gaps of the deadly lace being crocheted by their shining blades with mathematical precision. Tangorn’s remark about covering his back was quite
a propos
– the sergeant immediately had to take on the two remaining Easterlings, one of whom was thankfully lame. Haladdin, armed with only a bow, was under strict orders not to get into close combat or even get out of the darkness; since shooting at that tangle of friend and foe would be sheer madness, he just milled around the edges looking for a good target.

Gradually it became obvious that Tangorn was winning. Although his sword was a good three inches shorter, he managed to pink his opponent twice, in the right arm and above the knee. It is known that the Elves do not handle blood loss well, and Eloar’s thrusts were losing their swift precision with every moment; the baron pressed him, calmly waiting for the right moment for a decisive strike, when something inexplicable happened. The Elvish blade suddenly wavered and pointed aside, opening up Eloar’s trunk, and, lightning-fast, the Gondorian’s sword immediately struck him in the lower chest. Haladdin swallowed involuntarily, expecting the steel to come out of the Elf’s back steaming with blood – no mail could have stopped that thrust, much less leather armor. But Tangorn’s blade bounced off the leather as if it was enchanted, and the Elf, who had clearly expected just that, grabbed his sword with both hands and immediately delivered a terrible hacking top-down blow. The baron could neither evade nor parry. He only had time to drop to one knee and catch Eloar’s sword with his – ‘edge against edge’; shoddy Eastern steel shattered like glass, and the Elvish blade went into his thigh by almost a third. Tangorn managed to roll away from the next, pinning thrust, but the Elf caught up with him in one stride and … And that was when Haladdin, figuring that he had nothing to wait for any more, let fly.

Later he realized that he had performed an impossible feat. The doctor had never been a good shot with a bow, and knew nothing of running shots, especially at a moving target, and especially since Tzerlag and the two Easterlings he was fighting were between him and Eloar. But the fact remains: he had shot without aiming and his arrow hit Eloar right in the eye, so that the Elf, as the saying goes, “died before his body hit the ground.”

CHAPTER 12

T 
he fire was almost out by then, but the fight went on in the dark. Both Easterlings kept attacking Tzerlag relentlessly; twice did Haladdin shoot at them when they broke off for a moment, and twice – for shame! – he missed. Finally the lame Easterling let through another thrust; dropping his sword, he fell down to his knees and crawled away, dragging the wounded leg and moaning. Haladdin almost let him go – plenty more to deal with – but was lucky enough to notice in time that the man had crawled up to one of the packs and, sitting up, has already fished out a bow; reaching into his own quiver, he found only one arrow and shivered. They aimed at each other in unison, but the doctor’s nerves failed and he let fly and jumped sideways, hearing the deadly hiss pass a foot and a half left of his stomach. The Easterling was less lucky: after his shot he could not evade and was now lying flat on his back with Haladdin’s arrow under the collarbone. Meanwhile Tzerlag managed to trick his opponent into opening up and struck him in the neck; the Orocuen’s face was now covered with sticky droplets, and his arm was fairly dripping. So, is that all of them? Victory, dammit …

Haladdin lost no time throwing more wood into the dying fire; then he sat so as not to block the light and cut open Tangorn’s sticky pant leg with a single practiced movement. There was quite a lot of blood, but not too much for such a deep wound. At least the thigh artery is intact; thank the One that Elvish swords are so narrow, like a third of the Easterling width. All right, a tourniquet … now a tampon … The sergeant went around the campsite, finished off the two Easterlings that showed signs of life, and crouched beside the field medic.

“Whaddya say, doctor?”

“Well, could’ve been worse. The bone is intact, so are most sinews, as far as I can tell, as are the largest blood vessels. Hand me that rag.”

“Here you go. Can he walk?”

“Are you kidding?”

“Then,” the sergeant got up wearily and for some reason carefully shook the sand from his knees, “it’s all over, guys. Two of them got away, and there’s no sense in chasing them in this dark. They’ll make that highway outpost before dawn, there’s no way they can get lost – just hurry north along the edge of the
hamada
. Soon as it dawns, they’ll be back with a dragnet search, get it?”

Tangorn suddenly raised himself on an elbow; Haladdin realized with horror that he had been fully conscious while they were busy with his wound. The firelight clearly showed the baron’s face, shining with sweat, but his voice was just as steady, even if a little hoarse:

“Don’t worry about it, guys. After all, I was supposed to be dead two days ago; were I to play this round again, I’d use this break in the same way …” With those words he pulled down his collar, baring the carotid artery. “So, Sergeant, just do it: one-two, and all set. I’d really rather not be stuck in the sand again. Then get away, and good luck to you both. Too bad that our acquaintance had been so short, but that’s life.”

“Baron, I’m a simple man,” Tzerlag answered calmly, “and I’m used to doing things by the book. The Field Manual, paragraph forty-two, says clearly that the ‘strike of mercy’ is allowed only when there’s an immediate danger of the wounded man falling into enemy hands. When such a danger appears – tomorrow, say – then we’ll discuss it.”

“Quit fooling around, Sergeant! Why the hell would you doom all three of us, when you won’t save me anyway?”

“Quiet in the ranks! We came here together and we’ll leave together; the rest is the One’s will. Doctor, check the Elf’s pack, maybe there’s a medkit there?”

Haladdin called himself an idiot; he should have thought to check. What’s he got in there? All right, an excellent bow and a quiver with thirty arrows, each with a leather sheath on the point, so they must be poisoned; a wonderful weapon, I’ll keep it for myself. A coil of elvenrope: weighs half a pound, takes up a pint of space, a hundred feet long, can hold three
mûmakil
; this’ll come in handy. Elvish bread and a flask of Elvish wine, which isn’t wine at all; wonderful, the baron could use some right away. A purse with gold and silver coins, probably to pay the Easterlings since the Elves supposedly don’t use money; we’ll keep that, can’t have too much money. Writing implements and some notes, written in runes … damn, can’t make out anything in the dark; all right, if we live, we’ll read them. Oh, here it is, the One be praised! Having opened the medkit, Haladdin was stunned: it had everything he could think of, and all of the best quality. Antiseptic – spider webs covered with grayish-green spots of healing lichen; analgesic – little balls of dehydrated Khand purple poppy juice; coagulant – powdered mandrake root from the high meadows of the Misty Mountains; stimulant – cola nuts from Harad’s swampy jungles; tissue regenerator – a brown resin-like substance capable of mending a broken bone or a trophic sore in five days; plus much more he had neither time nor need to discern right then. Just let Tzerlag figure out how to throw the pursuit off track, and he’ll have the baron in good shape in no more than a week.

In the meantime the Orocuen was going through the Easterlings’ packs in search of flasks and rations – in their position another ten or fifteen minutes meant nothing. What they needed was an idea; they were finished without one. So: they could go onto the
hamada
, he knew a few outcroppings nearby with suitable cracks; however, those were likely to be searched first. Hiding in the sand was not an option – with no wind, there was no way to erase their tracks properly, they’d be tracked down in no time. The only thing he could think of was to head west at best possible speed, towards the mountains, and try to reach the edge of the Morgai plateau with its wind-hollowed caves, but what chance did they have of covering over thirty miles with a non-walking wounded? … The baron, revived somewhat by a couple of good draughts of Elvish wine, interrupted his thoughts: “Sergeant, a minute of your time? Please examine the Elf.”

“Whatever for?” The scout was surprised. “I’ve already checked – dead as a snake skin.”

“That’s not what I mean. I keep thinking about that leather breastplate of his that a sword can’t pierce. Please check whether there’s anything special under it.”

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 possibly 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 in 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 really 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 foot soldiers and riders for the task, or however many can be found on this stretch of the highway. The mounted soldiers will first block the way 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 Núrnen Highway after the irrigators’ efforts had turned the Western Nürnenlands 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 caravanserai, 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 decent … How about a diversion, a false trail with a sideways move … to 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 Orocuen did not see any chance of escape, either. A soft icy hand entered the doctor’s bowels and began leisurely sorting through them as if through freshly caught fish thrashing 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 noses 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: