The field exercise in Gathbúrz, a hilly, lightly forested area northwest of Dol Guldur, had been going on all night. Trolls were exempted from the exercise because they were too stupid to understand the difference between a mock battle and a real one, and would benefit very little from practice anyway. Trolls were slow learners and in battle they relied entirely on their brute strength and hulking mass. Uruk-General Ghâshbúrz stood on a high wooden platform overseeing the mock battle raging below.
”Did you see that?” Ghâshbúrz enthused to another Uruk standing on the platform beside him. ”Looks like your boys are in great shape tonight, huh, Captain Wurgoth?”
Captain Wurgoth, who had returned from a campaign in Khand crushing the last resisting Easterling city-state a few months ago, could not share Ghâshbúrz’s enthusiasm. General Ghâshbúrz had never seen real war, never smelled the smell of blood and death and reeking flesh or heard the clanking of steel against steel and screams of death and agony. Real war was messy, not this disorganized spectacle that looked more like a drunken scrimmage than a real battle.
”The elf side doesn’t put up much of a fight”, Wurgoth pointed out. ”I think they should fight back more.”
Ghâshbúrz grinned at Wurgoth fiercely, revealing a set of sharp, filed teeth. ”Poor Wurgoth”, he chuckled. ”You have been fighting the Easterlings for too long. You have lost your confidence in the brilliance and strength of our Dark Lord Sauron. When our enemies see our unstoppable armies marching towards them, they will cower and flee in panic.”
”Perhaps so, General”, said the younger orc. ”In our war against the Easterlings I learned that the enemy always puts up a fight, even when all hope is lost. That’s what the Easterlings did anyway. But perhaps elves are different, the craven, weak wormlings that they are.” Wurgoth did not sound convinced, but he knew better than to disagree with Ghâshbúrz. Wurgoth had a thick neck and a broad, brutish face. Like Ghâshbúrz, Wurgoth was exceptionally intelligent for an orc, even for an Uruk, and that quality had allowed him to rise quickly in the ranks of Sauron’s armies.
The ”elf village” had been built up in a low valley near the center of Gathbúrz. The wooden huts were crude mockeries of what orcs imagined typical elven dwellings like, painted with garish colors and derisive, primitive paintings of flowers and trees. The orcs that had been assigned to play the part of the ”elves” in this ridiculous spectacle wore no armor, but their tattered and threadbare robes were dyed with such gaudy and showy colors it almost hurt Wurgoth's eyes to look at them. The mock engagement offered very little challenge to the raiding orcs attacking the village, dragging the helpless and passive ”elves” out of their huts and smacking them around with their wooden training swords. The night air was full of roaring laughter and coarse curses and insults. The orcs seemed to be having a good time. In Wurgoth’s opinion it looked more like orc-children playing than a serious drill.
About five months earlier, just before winter, a visitor from Mordor had arrived in Dol Guldur, a Black Númenórean named Arnubên. Arnubên was a man who spoke in a soft voice and had a face that never showed any emotion. Arnubên had come to meet General Ghâshbúrz in his command tent in a camp in Dol Guldur and questioned him a long time about the strength and readiness of the troops stationed in Dol Guldur. A full hour had passed before Ghâshbúrz had learned that he should be expecting the arrival of a huge army of orcs and trolls in Dol Guldur shortly.
”Have you ever heard about an elven refuge in the valley of Rivendell in the foothills of the Misty Mountains in Eriador?” the man called Arnubên had asked him. ”If you were to lead an invading army from Dol Guldur to seize Rivendell, how would you go about it?”
”I would march the army north from here, skirting the western edge of Mirkwood to the Old Forest Road”, Ghâshbúrz said cautiously, moving his thick finger on a map unscrolled on the table between them. ”From there the army would cross the Old Ford to the High Pass and make a camp here, near Goblin-town. But no orc can invade or even come too close to Rivendell Valley. It is protected by powerful magic.”
Arnubên had moved on to other questions, but the discussion always circled back to Rivendell Valley, High Pass and the Goblin-town.
”What if Elrond’s magic wasn’t a factor?” Arnubên had asked at one point. ”If the valley wasn’t protected by magic, how easy do you think it would be to capture?”
Ghâshbúrz had become a little angry then. ”Is that wishful thinking or a pipe dream? If the valley wasn’t magically protected, Sauron would have obliterated it many centuries ago. And if my aunt had meat clackers she would be my uncle. I don’t see the point in building castles in the air.”
Arnubên had leaned back in his chair and offered the Uruk-General a condescending smile. ”Perhaps you will see the point in time, General Ghâshbúrz. For now I am only here to relay the orders of our Dark Lord Sauron to you.”
”And what would those orders be?”
”When the army from Rhûn arrives, you are to drill them in shape for a potential invasion of Rivendell Valley. There will be about ninety-thousand orcs and three thousand trolls arriving within a few weeks. See that they are in shape for war before summer. That should be more than enough to capture Rivendell without major losses, don’t you think so, General?”
”And what about Elrond’s magic?”
”You don’t have to think about that at all, General.”
Arnubên’s last words had lingered in Ghâshbúrz’s memory during the following months. But he would not be bullied by the arrogant little man from Mordor. He would do exactly as he was ordered and leave thinking and strategy to the masterminds in Mordor.
