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.
She struck patrols in the outer slag tunnels — never the central guard.
She collapsed a minor storehouse — never the primary vault.
She sabotaged a gear assembly in the eastern crane towers — but left the heart of the forge untouched.
Enough to unsettle.
Never enough to provoke a full siege.
The orcs stationed there grew restless. They blamed ghosts. They blamed Shereg. They blamed each other. Watches doubled. Sleep thinned. Blades were drawn at shadows.
And sometimes they were right.
From the high ridge above Anglach, Deorla watched patrol routes shift below like veins under skin. The Easterlings Shereg had left behind — loyal, disciplined, hardened — were not enough to seize the foundry outright. Not yet.
She needed more than fifty swords.
She needed weight.
So she pressed lightly. Carefully.
A missing scout here.
A supply wagon vanished into ash there.
A captain found dead with no sign of struggle.
The message was clear without ever being spoken:
You are not safe.
But she never struck hard enough to trigger Ugrukhôr’s full retaliation. Not yet. Not until she could close her fist and not merely brush with her fingers.
Patience was a sharper weapon than steel.
And on the second moon of the third watch, Shereg returned.
The Return from Dunland
He did not arrive with banners.
He arrived with dust.
A column of hard-eyed Dunlendings rode behind him — not many, perhaps sixty — but they were the right kind. Scarred. Bitter. Loyal to coin or creed, and in this case, creed had been spoken.
Frestang had kept his word.
They entered through the eastern approach of Anglach, where the mountains choke the wind and force all riders into a narrow throat of black stone. Deorla stood waiting, armored once more — her repaired plates darkened with oil and soot, edges sharpened, no longer bearing the wounds of Ithilien.
Shereg dismounted slowly.
For a long moment they only studied one another.
“You breathe,” he said at last.
“You obeyed,” she replied.
That was enough.
What Dunland Promised
They spoke that night within their camp, still perfectly defended.
Frestang had gathered more than fighters.
He had gathered belief.
“The Dunlendings remember the Eye,” Shereg said. “Not as a god. As a force. As an order in the world. They are tired of bowing to Rohan and being forgotten by Gondor.”
Deorla said nothing.
He continued.
“Frestang spreads your name carefully. Not as Dark Lord. Not yet. As the one who survived the fall. As the one who understands the new age.”
A faint smile touched her mouth.
Smart man.
“And the Company?” she asked.
Shereg’s expression shifted.
“They received the letter."
Silence stretched.
"And?"
Shereg just shrug "They ignored it"
What Changed in Mordor
Two months was enough time for rot to surface.
Ugrukhôr had noticed the strain on his supplies. Durthang’s forges burned less frequently. Patrols grew harsher along the border. Scouts vanished near Anglach — taken quietly, questioned, discarded.
But he had not yet struck openly.
Because something else held his attention.
“The Pale Herald has withdrawn further into Lhingris,” Shereg reported. “Shelob’s brood grows restless. Rumors say he seeks relics beneath Cirith Ungol.”
Deorla nodded once.
“Let him chase spiders, at least we do not have to deal with Shelob now, that's one enemy I do not wish to face at all.”
“And Dulgabêth?” Shereg asked.
Now that name lingered heavier.
“He courts Lhaereth openly,” Shereg said. “The wedding has not happened. Some say she delays him. Others say she studies him.”
“And which do you believe?”
“I believe,” Shereg answered carefully, “that she waits to see who bleeds first between you and Ugrukhôr.”
That made Deorla laugh softly.
“Then we shall not bleed.”
The Land That Remembers
That night, long after Shereg’s men had welcomed him back and had a toast with him and the Dunlendings that settled in, Deorla walked alone along the upper ruins of the Narchost, one of the two towers that formed the Black Gate. For what purpose? One say to calm her mind and think about the past.
Udûn stretched beyond the iron balconies like a scar that never healed.
The ash wind moved softly across the valley, carrying distant echoes of Shereg’s war preparations.
She rested her hands on the blackened railing and looked outward.
“You always hated this place,” she said quietly.
There was no one beside her.
Not truly.
But in her mind, Firebryn leaned there as she once had — arms folded, eyes bright with defiance, hair catching forge-light like living flame.
“You said Udûn felt wrong,” Deorla continued softly. “Too quiet. Like it was holding its breath.”
In memory, Firebryn had laughed at the darkness rather than feared it.
Deorla’s gaze swept the valley.
“This land was not born to Sauron,” she murmured. “Before him, it was Morgoth’s wound. Before that, it was simply broken earth from a war that reshaped the world.”
Her voice was steady — almost instructive, as it had once been when teaching.
“Sauron did not create Udûn. He disciplined it. He forged order from chaos. That is why it endured him.”
The furnaces below throbbed, red light flickering across her armor.
“Ugrukhôr thinks he commands a fortress,” she said. “He does not understand what he stands on. Udûn belongs to whoever commands its memory. Whoever shapes its fear.”
Silence answered her.
For a fleeting moment, the wind shifted — and she almost imagined Firebryn’s reply:
Then command it.
Deorla closed her eyes briefly.
“You wanted a meaningful death,” she said at last. “Not a quiet ending in Rohan. I gave you fire.”
The valley offered no judgment.
Only ash.
When she opened her eyes again, the softness was gone.
“Watch, then,” she whispered into the dark.
“Watch what I build.”
The Citadel in Shadow
While the valley burned, Deorla moved.
Not with an army.
Alone.
She circled eastward through the broken ravines carved by old lava flows — paths she remembered from years past. She avoided the main war road entirely, climbing instead along a jagged escarpment that overlooked Durthang’s rear elevation.
The fortress rose like a blade from stone.
Durthang had changed.
Reinforced outer palisades. Additional ballista towers. Ore caravans funneled directly into a newly fortified lower gate. Smoke rose thicker from its inner forge shafts — Anglach’s reduced output had forced Ugrukhôr to compensate internally.
Good.
Strain bred mistakes.
She observed guard rotations. Counted banners. Noted which towers signaled fastest. Which commanders responded with discipline — and which with panic.
One detail pleased her most:
The eastern supply conduit — a narrow ravine passage feeding water and ore carts — was under-manned during full mobilization.
Because Ugrukhôr did not expect threat from that direction.
Because he believed the mountains protection enough.
He was wrong.
As twilight swallowed the battlefield noise below, Deorla crouched upon a blackened ridge overlooking Durthang’s highest tower.
The banners of Ugrukhôr snapped in the ash wind.
“For now,” she murmured to herself.
Below, Shereg’s forces disengaged exactly as planned. Ugrukhôr’s troops pursued briefly — then withdrew, thinking they had repelled an ambitious assault.
They celebrated too soon.
By the time Deorla returned to their camp under cover of night, she carried something far more valuable than bloodshed.
She carried understanding.
Shereg awaited her in the forge chamber, armor dented, cloak torn, but alive.
“Well?” he asked.
She removed her gloves slowly.
“He defends the front like a beast,” she said.
A pause.
“But he leaves his spine exposed.”
The firelight reflected in her eyes.
“We are not ready to take Durthang,” Shereg said carefully.
“No,” she agreed. "At least with not brutal force alone"
Then her voice sharpened.
“But now, I found other way around all that I just need more time to work on the details”
