Mordor

Narali sat near the edge of the northern camp, where the watchfires burned low and steady rather than bright. Voices carried in quiet tones across the tents—healers finishing their work, guards changing posts, the soft murmur of those who had begun to remember what safety felt like. It was as safe a place as could be made in this land, and there were kind hands at work throughout it, shaping order out of ruin.

Firelight at Mirrormere

Ashes That Answered

Udûn had grown quieter.

Not weaker — never that — but quieter.

The forges of Anglach no longer roared without pause. Deorla had ordered the fires controlled, rationed, disciplined. She had no intention of burning through strength too early. Ugrukhôr’s supply lines had been bled carefully rather than shattered. She did not want chaos.

She wanted ownership.

But Anglach was not yet fully hers.

For weeks she had haunted it.

The fire between them burned low, settling into a bed of coals that glowed like watchful eyes. Deorla stood over the map Shereg had spread across a scarred table—Mordor, broken into jagged regions by ash, iron, and old rivalries. Once, she had walked these lands as a servant. Now she looked upon them as something to be taken.

“I am done surviving,” she said at last, her voice calm in a way that made it dangerous. “I will take all of Mordor. Every pit, every tower, every broken banner still clinging to the idea of power. And I will unite it.”

Deorla did not have to search long.

Sereg had chosen his ground with the instinct of a born commander — and she recognized it immediately. His base lay cradled in a bowl of blackened stone near Anglach, the mountains rising steeply on all sides like clenched fists. Only a single road led inward, narrow and steep, choked with sharpened wooden stakes and iron-spiked barricades. Watchtowers rose at measured intervals, each manned and alert. Fires burned low and disciplined, never flaring high enough to betray their numbers.

The march-cry of orcs echoed far behind her as Deorla slipped deeper into Udûn, moving not along the obvious roads, but through slag-filled ravines and forgotten service tunnels known only to those who had once ruled this land rather than merely survived it.

She did not approach Anglach by the main causeway.

The Herald Returns to the Ashlands

The Dead Marshes died behind her like a bad dream that had crawled into reality.
Ahead, heat rippled through the air, and the world turned iron-grey beneath a sun that seemed ashamed to shine.

The night air was thick and damp as Deorla reached the lowlands where Ithilien’s greenery withered into pale reeds and stagnant pools. A ghostly mist rolled over the earth, swallowing the moonlight until only her breath and the faint drip of water could be heard.

She had traveled for hours without rest—north, then east, always keeping the stars of Eärendil behind her. Her cloak clung wet against her armor, and the scent of rot grew stronger with every mile. At last she found a rise of broken stone above the marsh and made her camp there, too weary even to eat.

Knackered Neekerbreeker

The tavern of Knackered Neekerbreeker buzzed with the hum of conversation, but none spoke louder than the old man by the hearth. His voice, raspy and sharp like dry grass, carried above the clatter of mugs and laughter.