Thread: Cirith Ungol

Lminzil Pass of Cirith Ungol Lminzil was exhausted, she dozed as best she could cradled as she was between the massive arms of her orc guardprotector. She hated the beast but knew he was likely all that kept her from the other orcs' cook pot. This was not at all what she had expected of the prophecy for which she had been prepared for what seemed like her entire existence. It had been a privileged life, a comfortable life and she missed it. Truth be told she had always thought she would live out her years preparing for a prophesy that would never come to pass, just as her mother, her mother's mother, and her mother before her had done. It had all been so easy, physically at least even if the studies could be quite demanding. But this? This was hell. She missed the sun, the light, the warmth. Yes she could feel the seduction of the dark lords power, craved it even, but at what cost? Despite her exhaustion she felt it might be better to walk than to continue riding this infernal creature. She was beginning to understand why the orcs wouldn't listen about finding the other shards. The end game was easier for the creatures of darkness than for the world of men and light. The orcs need only keep one shard from falling into the hands of men and already they had one, the very one held by the dark witch. She had become little more than a captive, a beast of burden though the burden was a single shard of the sun, the hope of men but the bane of orcs. They were frightened of it, hated it, for that they kept her alive and relatively unmolested. What had she done? She asked herself, faced with an eternal darkness, and no hope of the sun ever rising again. Though she had never been here before, she knew the lay of the land well enough from studying maps to know they were nearing the point of no return. Beyond a small outpost, all but overrun, there were only orcs or worse ahead of her. The shard she carried was about to be taken beyond the reach of free men. Though she had never seen the grandeur of Gondor, she had seen pictures and heard stories of her distant kinsmen. As she saw the bright helm through the fog she thought perhaps she was dreaming, it seemed all the more a dream as she was suddenly falling. But as she hit the ground she realized it was not a dream at all. She watched with curious detachment as her protector was skewered by a lance. She had thought that orc nigh indestructible but she watched as he fell to the ground spouting dark blood. She feared the other orcs would pounce upon her but they went for the rider, now unhorsed. She watched with horror, having seen the fate of the few hapless men the rampaging orcs had consumed on their march. But this was no defenseless farmer, she watched another orc fall, this one could fight back. But there were just too many orcs, it was hopeless, just one more man falling into the black abyss of eternal night. It was then she realized that this was her very last chance. Still laying where she had fallen she searched in the dark for her pack. Fearing it was already too late she fumbled with the covering, as if in a dream she simply couldn't move fast enough. But finally she held it aloft and pulled the special cloth off of it. It shone as the sun, of which it was a mere fragment, but in this small pass it filled the dark with light, burning the haze of fog as the orcs shielded their eyes and cursed the light. It wouldn't hold them for long, they were after all Urak-Hai, they would regroup and come for her, unless there was other hope in this pass.