The East Bight. South-eastern reaches of the Mirkwood.
A town of Northmen.For years these dales had seen a constant dribbling of men migrating west, as if an ancient calling to the Sea was somehow awakened. The village had formed on the southern edge of the Bight. It enjoyed a position somewhat close to the forest, but distant enough to fend off its threats. The houses aligned by a pathway running east and then turning north, towards the road that finally ventured into the Narrows of the Forest. Many would go through that road, resupply in the village, rest and eat, and then continue on across the path.
But that path was long gone, and no longer did the men try to cross the Mirkwood on that part. Perhaps because the spiders and the madness within the forest made it near-suicide to do so. Perhaps because no longer did men live under the shadow of the Dragon, and those who remained by the Celduin were either content with Smaug or too far south to really have an urge to escape His grasp.
But the village endured. Some people got used to it, and fifteen families lived along the pathway, with about ten more scattered between the nearby hills and streams. They were frontiersmen, used to be careful while venturing into the danger. Accustomed to defend their houses from the dangers of Dol Guldur or the Forest. From time to time an odd elf or an astray dwarf would pass by and pay handsomely for furs, food or just a place to lay down. Sometimes entire bands of men from Rhovanion, fleeing a Terror they dare not speak, would pass by, trying to get to Lothlorien.
And it endured. So did the things that watched. Sometimes a man wold be driven insane and run into the wilds to never be seen again. Sometimes a cry would be heard, followed by the sorrows of a mother who can’t find her babe. Sometimes a hunter would take the wrong path. They grew used to it, and as it endured, the village provided a lifeline to the Spiders, to the Brood of the Forest. A lifeline that would now be severed.
Night. They always strike at night. The Lady herself watched, perched on a tree at some distance. The mass bulk of Shelob gracefully watched as her Brood encroached. The lights of the village did some small harm to her black eyes. But she watched still. Some windows still holding candles.
It wasn’t easy to convince her, but she did as the Lady say. The large, black-haired spider was a new thing in her Brood, appearing only after their arrival to the edges of the forest, and only seemed to procreate under the influence of the Naked Hill. And now two of them moved forth towards the house. It was sitting outside of the village itself, connected to the outward path by a smaller trace. And the trace was already infested. A dog barked, but it was quickly silenced. They were used to hunt Orcs, but these smaller ones, dark-brown and somewhat slender, were happy to have better tastes now. The dog was silenced, and the horse never neighed.
The trigger was ready, and Shelob turned in silence to see the fangs being set. Elongated spiders, somewhat flattened and light-haired, with prominent fangs projecting outwards, were aligned along the northern path distant enough to hide in the darkness, and larger ones moved to the front, their bodies silently placing under bushes near the path, their frontal legs ready to snatch, and they began moving their back legs to dig, always in silence, lowering their height even more.
The trap is set. And the fuse is ready to be lit.
Inside the house there was silence, as the final candle was blow away by a man. For hours there had been some careful joy, music, laughter. Shelob raised her back legs and scrapped each other and the wood. And the fuse was lit.
The two large black bulks were near the windows, but they didn’t seem to reach in for the prize. Instead they did much like the Lady. Their hairs became frittle and cracked, making a dark dust that floated by air exhaled by the fiend. It moved into the window. Then cough.
“
I can’t… breath.” The voice protested between coughing. The sound travelled well enough for Shelob to hear. “
Water! Water! Where is the water!”
A voice replied. The woman. “
Are you ill? Outside!”
A door opened, and a man stumbled outside. Then a child screamed inside the house, then another. And now the woman screamed too. They screamed nonsense. The man looked back.
”Water! The fire! It’s burning me inside!” He fell to the ground and shook. More screams. The woman rushed outside, carrying a bundle in her arms.
Why!!! My baby! WHY!!! She yelled, then threw the bundle away. It still screamed as it landed on a bush.
The house! We have to burn it! The man stood up and pushed the woman as he rushed inside. From her tree Shelob could start to
<<see>> what happened inside the house, as a nearly-invisible web was laid on the roof, and it was extending over the grass and wheat to her tree. The woman had followed the man inside, and kept screaming, threatening the children who screamed back. Then the fire. It hurt Her, but it also brought Her joy. For the plan worked.
More screams joined, these from the village.
<<Fire! To Arms! The Dragon’s Come!>> She could see, under the torment of the Moon, the men of the village wielding clubs and knives. Many holding bows. They rode their horses and rushed north towards the house. A horn blasted the night and more men rushed from the other dwellings, to see what happened. Hapless women and children gathered and sought shelter in a clearing near the end of the path.
And the trap was set loose. The first riders to approach the turn and move north towards the house, now smoking and with the first flames coming out of the windows, didn’t see the running spiders, moving towards the village. Some did and screamed to turn back. But there was no use.
Twelve larger spiders rose on their back legs, reaching over the path and grabbing either man or horse and taking them under the bushes to kill them. Those who fell to the ground rolled in terror, ready to fight, and some followed their comrades or mounts into the bushes. From the north more riders came, and these were met by more of these hiding spiders, but these had buried themselves entirely, and ambushed the party from both sides and in-between. Soon the northern path was a carnage of just a few survivors trying to flee, only to find themselves pinned back to the ground and bitten, left to agonize inside out by quick venom.
The running spiders heard the screams of terror of those who sought refuge in the center of the village and rushed straight to them. They passed between building, sometimes fending the odd man with an axe or a bow. Some did fall under the strike of the defenders, but most were overwhelmed by the sheer speed, their oversized fangs piercing leather and skin, tearing through flesh and into the bone. They soon surrounded the villagers, some wielding knives and sticks, all huddled around a well in between the two branches of the road, which forked before the forest.
On the southern side of the village the weavers began extending their web. A death-pale substance covered the trees, and lesser spiders took place in the bushes between those trees and right before them. Soon it became an ominous defense. Shelob descended in near silence, as the last of the riders were killed or dragged away. She then gave another command, and the pale, smaller spiders invaded the house itself, taking away the half-burnt family into the taler grasses. They were asleep, but still breathing. At the same time something similar happened in the village, the running spiders randomly reaching into the huddle of villagers and snatching away those they were able to catch, until one in every six was separated from the group, taken to the back of the houses were they were silenced.
It was hours until the survivors dared to walk out of their refuge in the path. The spiders stopped their attack short after the screams from the house were silenced. But they watched. The women and what remained of the men could still see the shadows crawling over the buildings, or simply standing in their many legs, watching. Then the faint shine of the sun came from the plains of Vidugavia, and the shadows melted, retreating into the shade of the woods. Some relief came to their spirit as the enemy seemed to leave them alone now. Maybe the nightmare was over? Maybe they could now wake up?
Then the silver bath of the sun grew and revealed the devastation. Or the near lack of it. No bodies. Some traces of blood through the dirt were the only pieces of evidence of the battle that took place. One after another the elder men detached from women and children, wielding their pitchforks as they explored, wandering farther away from the well.
The spiders were gone. But at the same time they weren’t. The light shifted, and the men reached with their gaze to the sky. The silken threads were spread above the path, forming a thin layer that spread between the houses and odd trees. It was very thin, and it fell under the first scratch. But within minutes the flies and the insects that woke up found themselves decorating the air around the villagers, trapped and dying.
Then one of the men pointed to the forest, for the light reached it. The light didn’t seem to reflect well on the cog, but it made the substance seem ghastly and imponent at the same time. The forest had become a grey wall, rising many feet over the village. Some trees towering above the line, and serving as the source of the webs, now waving under the morning breeze like a wraith’s robe. And in the firmer, starker parts of that wall they could see black figures, with many legs spread and sometimes moving below the sheets. And they moved around, maybe disturbed by the movements of the things that shared the space. Some brave villager approached the wall, getting as close as his valor allowed him. He walked until the bushes of the field became too thick to go on, made firm by the entanglement the spiders wrought on them. He saw the movement of the spiders just before him, but they didn’t attack, they just watched and raised their legs, barely visible but enough to be a deadly thing not to be watched upon any more. The man then rose his sight and watched at the wall. For there he felt a noise. Up in the air, in between the layers of silk, a woman wiggled and seemed to wake up from the venomous sleep she was tossed into. And one of the spiders seemed to crawl to her and sink the fangs in the huddle of silk and cloth, and the struggle ceased, for a while.
The Lady stood on the webs once more, deep within the Forest, away from any aid her New Brood could provide. It had been hours since the raid.
<<I know you watched. You kept eyes on that village already, feeding off their people when you wished to. Nevertheless, my children, your kin crawled through your gaze, and instilled terror on that people, decimated them and left a monument to us for them to remember this night. You’ve seen it too.>>Her voice travelled across the webs, into the forest. Unheard, but tapped into.
<<I will go after every village of men, elves and dwarves, against every orc and every creature you crave. I will make sure you starve, that you wither and die until those who remain submit once more. And my faithful children will feed while you do, and multiply, and thrive. Remember this.>>Edges of the Celduin. Some days later.Stumbling through the grass the man made his last steps, then collapsed. He could hear the Running. The Celduin was flowing within reach. The man extended his hand and felt the striking cold water. It was a balm to his mind that soon drew him into a frenzy, and he jumped into the water, taking off his clothes and laughing as he bathed.
His mind was still maddened, perhaps would never recover. But the memory of the last night returned. He had to return to his master, and him to his own master, and that to the Master. He had to send the message that She told him. For an entire night and an entire day he slept by her. She made him sleep within silken blankets. But the sleep wasn’t healing at all. How did they got him? He was riding once. Then he was dragged into the forest. Then he was with Her. And for hours she spoke to him, as she could have spoken. He could feel the terror breaking his mind until her
voice was loud and clear as the very river he now floated on, looking at the sky. It was loud and clear until it was all he could hear. But he couldn’t flee, not until she released him.
But he wasn’t free. He swam back to the shore and cried, then took his clothes back. He had to take this message to the Wyrm, to speak Her words in His presence. He had to or he would go mad entirely.
A timber camp, South of the Isen.
The Westfold.He rubbed his back against the brick wall while gnawing through the hard bread, sitting under a fleeting shadow from the sun, alongside other young Rohirrim. They had moments before being kicked back to work. But Snawhelm wished he had a bit more. The bite of the lashes on his back still stung him, weeks after the scourge, and reminded him on his moments of peace that peace no longer belonged into his world.
“It tastes like horse sweat! I would even choose the sweat over this!” Somebody protested, and a man, perhaps as old as his brother was, tossed the bread to the floor and into the sun. An orc passed near the group of workers and noticed the discarded meal.
“Y’ ready w’d it, aren’t you? Then y’ ve no business cooling yourself!” The orc, an adult-sized Uruk, strode his way into the shade and towards the young man. The others, both man and child alike, crawled apart, and left the defiant one to face the orc alone. He was pulled up and into the sun with a single trust, and a pair of kicks followed. “Now go t’ work, y’ worm!” The orc shouted as he waved a crop on the rolling young man. “Off the line y’ go! Get y’self chained and pull th’ mill! That y’ get for being so early!”
Snawhelm watched as the other had no choice, he crawled back up and dragged his feet across a dirt path, aligning behind other workers who were sorted by a big Dunlending, who promptly chained them to a turning mill wheel, used to give more power to the saw that simplified the timber, already powered by the Isen. “And y’ maggots better hurry with y’er chewin’!”
Where was father? He heard he was sent to a nearby construction, as that camp was being expanded. They needed more foundries.
“Had any luck with your hunting, boy?” A man asked him from the sunlight. A Dunlending called Mailcon, who was usually at the party set to fetch him and his father, talked into the shade. He looked imposing but had a better heart than an orc at any rate, and better than most of his kind.
“They wouldn’t let me. I had to join the others at the wagons.” He replied. It was true. They didn’t even let him get his bow that morning, the last before the day they left back home. Or at least that was what Uertur promised. The orc overseers sent him with other boys to pull the wooden carts with coal from across the river, cross the black stuff on iron buckets over it, and then keep pulling through a road, up to the camp, which had forges set on the southern edge. “I wanted to go now.”
But Mailcon nodded. “Gorbolg is back from’s ride. And he’s desperate for flesh. Any flesh. I am sorry…” He looked down and walked away, and as soon as he walked off the spot Snawhelm saw a couple of orcs walking towards the wall.
“The one w’d white hair!” One said to the other. Snawhelm didn’t have a lot of time to react. He thrashed across the dirt, but soon enough the orcs pulled him up on his feet and punched him in the guts. After that he would rather move his knees while focusing on breathing instead of getting away from the orcs’s goal.
And soon they reached the goal. The upper reaches of the camp, the south-eastern corner, were actually built atop a small outcrop of rocks. There had been trees recently separating the main labor area and the line of wooden shelves that were erected there, but the slaves were now clearing off the ridges from the last remnants of wood, allowing Snawhelm to quickly glance at the Isen before being pushed inside the shadow. He could smell the coal burning and hear the vague hammering of smiths.
“We brought th’ prisoner.” One of the orcs carrying Snawhelm announced before dropping him to the floor and kicking him. “He…”
“Stop your guts!” A voice stopped the kicks and Snawhelm could look through the shadow. There was a Wolf of Isengard, fully grown and terrifying, staring at the boy, who promptly knew he was prey. A darker figure stood out before the grey fur of the beast. The orc turned. It was Gorbolg, the Captain of the camp, to whom all overseers replied. He had been placed by a higher power on charge on the time Snawhelm was whipped, and soon came to like the fact this half-slave could bring fresh meat if provided some hours in the woods. It was a large orc, almost as wide as he was tall, and had a set of rings piercing through his left jaw, which were said to be great Men he had slain. Perhaps more unsettling were his eyes. They were as human as Snawhelm had ever seen. “So, boy… I hoped to have some fresh meat on my table on my arrival.”
He was more refined in his speech than most orcs, Snawhelm remembered. It was obvious why he stood out. Perhaps he was half-Man, is such rumours were true and the Power in Isengard was doing such things. “I wasn’t allowed to hunt this morning.” Snawhelm whimpered but didn’t rise from the floor. “I hoped to hunt this afternoon.”
“What about yesterday? You surely got enough game by last night?”
“Not enough, I knew!” He replied, almost in desperation. “I brought some conies, but the Overseer took them.”
“Only rabbit?” Gorbolg’s voice caused the wolf to shake and growl. He made a gesture and a small-looking orc walked forward, shooing the beast outside through cloth serving as a doorway to the back of the shack. “That is under our arrangement. Your Man-friends told me you would get me good flesh and I would go easy on you and your coward father!” The Captain protested, raising his voice while pointing a finger at Snawhelm. “Rabbit doesn’t count as good flesh! Deer does, boar… even Manflesh serves me better than rabbit!”
Snawhelm didn’t like the implication, and he looked down.
Gorbolg wasn’t a friend of resorting to the slaves as source of food, but he had seen the orcs devour any worker who didn’t fulfil his quota. The last one was two nights before. A man who simply stopped working. He said that he used to be on the Prince’s Guard, that he would show more pride in death than in life. Then he was cut down, still alive as they tore out his guts, kicking and punching as he could before fainting and dying. It wasn’t a great sight. But Snawhelm endured it, as he felt he owed it to somebody. Father didn’t.
“I can still hunt!” Snawhelm protested. “But I need to get further away from the camp! The game is scared and won’t come near.”
That seemed to calm the orc for a moment. It seemed that was good enough for the Captain of Isengard. But then he began to chuckle. For a second Snawhelm was confused. And the boy grew now scared as the other few orcs inside, and even Uertur, who had come in a minute earlier, joined in, and the giggle became an all-out laughter.
“You think I am as stupid as the Overseer, boy? I know what you intend. How would I let you go off with a bow and arrow? You know this land, you can live off it. For you it would be easy. Wouldn’t it?”
The boy thought somebody was stupid. Himself, for not considering that slight. “No, My Lord… I didn’t.”
“Ah, Spare me your Man pleasantries! I am A Captain of Isengard!” The orc boasted. “Commander of the Dunnish March!” This comment, Snawhelm, knew, was to insult the Dunnish allies. “I am above your kings and lords. I brought them down. Me! The Orc!” With that the black bulk strode forward and raised a hand at Snawhelm, who looked down and held for the strike. It didn’t come.
“You are not worth of even talking to me.”
His steps paced away, then stopped, and the orc turned.
“Take the boy outside. The agreement is well known, so I want everyone to know why the riders won’t get any meat tonight. Give him twenty. Then send him to the iron mine. I think his father would like to see him.”
Snawhelm looked up. Gorbolg smiled. “Oh, yes. Your father is across the Isen. We are opening a mine and he is working at it. You will pull dirt till your bones melt!”
A hand pulled him up. This was a man. Uertur, it seemed, as Snawhelm recognized the fur and leather armour. “Wait!” Gorbolg stopped the man. “I have an idea.” The orc walked to Snawhelm, until he was a step before him, towering.
“You will hunt tomorrow and make up for your delay.” He made another gesture, and with a grunt, the Snaga orc that had led the Wolf outside vanished, returning with the beast on a leash once more. It was brought just behind the Captain, and Uertur pushed Snawhelm down on his knees. “My mount is also a great sniffer. It will find you, even if you dare escape and hide. And if it does it will not bring you back alive, for sure.” He turned towards a firepit that was brewing some brown substance inside a pot. The orc grabbed an iron that had been warming in it. It displayed a human hand with orcish claws. He had seen it on other workers, who said it was Gorbolg’s mark. Snawhelm tried to break free from Uertur’s hold.
The orc came back with the pot and the iron, each on one hand. The smell was awful, as are things orcs can eat. He laid them before Snawhelm. “You are still getting your lashes and pulling dirt, but tomorrow you hunt. I will just make sure we find you if you try to escape. Extend your arm.”
He didn’t, and Uertur had to force his right arm out, ripping apart his shirt. The orc lifted the bowl and poured the content on his shoulder. The brown porridge ran down to this elbow and splashed into his face. Then the pot fell to the floor stone floor. A blink of an eye later Snawhelm felt the branding. The iron roasted the skin on his arm, cooking the brew into his flesh, and an awful smell was just another excuse for his eyes to tear, as the pain was unbearable. The Warwolf shook, wishing to rip the boy apart.
“Now you can go get your punishment, and tomorrow you get me my lunch.”