Author - so this took a while, I am sick, I am in middle of doing something time extensive and depressed as a motherfucker. Backwater governor update in 2/3 days.
I woke before the horn.
The private corner of the barracks was still dark, the air thick with the smell of thirty sleeping bodies sour wool, old sweat, and the faint metallic tang of mail left too close to the brazier overnight. My back ached from the thin straw mattress, but it was a good ache, the kind that reminded me this body was alive, and considering my old body was very much not feeling anything I see this as a positive.
I lay there for a long moment, staring at the rough basalt ceiling, letting last night's thoughts settle like cold iron in my gut.
Power and women.
A harem under the Eye.
The words had chased me into sleep and were still there when I opened my eyes.
No, not dreams but plans and goals.
I could feel the shape of them now, sharp and heavy, like the spear I would have to start carrying in about 20 minutes.
I lay there for a few moments thinking of possible plans and ways about going them, and after a while I swung my legs off the bunk and stood.
The stone floor bit cold through my bare feet. I dressed slowly, there was no rush after all. Linen undershirt, padded gambeson, hauberk. I buckled the belt, checked the short sword, then lifted the spear. Six feet of ash and iron. It felt balanced today, more than balanced. It felt like an extension of the cold thing growing inside my chest.
The horn finally sounded three low blasts that rolled through the fortress like distant thunder. Men like yesterday groaned, rolled, cursed in Adûnaic.
Meanwhile I was already moving.
Outside, the courtyard was still grey with pre-dawn light. Wind came up from Udûn, carrying the usual stink of sulphur and distant forges. I found Captain Thalor near the armory, arms folded, waiting for the men to roll out of the barracks so he can watch the muster form. His eyes flicked over me like I was a piece of equipment he wasn't sure would hold.
I stopped three paces away, spear planted, back straight, with a cold, level gaze. "Captain."
He raised one eyebrow. "Sergeant's whelp, what do you want before the sun's even up? Because there is no way you got dressed in 10 minutes and made your way down in the next 5."
I kept my voice flat, respectful but not servile. "Captain if I can speak my mind, the pens detail. The 12 hour shifts exhaust the men and the thralls. I suggest switching to 8-hour rotating cycles. Three shifts instead of two. It will result in sharper eyes on the walls, fewer mistakes, higher stone output. Test it on a 30-man group under my supervision for one week with a section of the thralls. If it fails, scrap it and flog me from the Black Gate all the way to Seregost in the East. If it works, the whole fortress benefits."
Thalor stared at me for five full heartbeats. Then he laughed, a short with an ugly bark. "Soft ideas from a minor-house whelp who's been here less than a year. You think rotating rest will make thralls haul faster? They'll just sleep on the job."
I didn't blink. "Not if the overseers do their job properly instead of slacking off, drinking or fucking some thrall in a corner. Numbers don't lie, Captain. One week with 30 men in my group supervising a section of the thralls. You lose nothing."
He studied me again, longer this time. I could see the calculation behind his eyes, the same cold weighing I was doing. Reputation versus risk.
Finally he spat on the flagstones. "Fine, one week 30 men and a group of 120 thralls. You lead the first shift yourself. If output drops even a cart-load, I'll have you flogged for wasting my time. Dismissed."
I saluted crisp, exact and turned away before he could change his mind.
The new shift started at once. I gathered the 30 men at the gate, most around my age, under us we will also have some low orcs as additional enforcers. I explained the rotation in short, clear sentences.
Eight hours on, eight off, eight on again, no one argued. They were too tired to argue.
We marched down the cliff path as the sky turned the colour of old blood. The pens looked the same at first vast pits crawling with 30,000 thralls, whips cracking, carts groaning.
I walked the upper ledge myself, spear loose in my hand, watching everything. In those first few hours everything went as it always did though, when the first change happened and some time after there was a slight noticeable difference already visible.
Fewer thralls collapsing from exhaustion with carts moving in smoother lines. An orc overseer who usually spent half his time whipping slow workers now only cracked the lash twice, he looked somewhat gloomy at that. Talk about loving your job.
I made a note in my head: adjust water breaks, stagger them so no pit emptied at once, same with lunch and only 5 people at a time to relive themselves.
As for guards same rules applied, though they were happy they did not have to 'encourage' the thralls to work after they collapsed and could just stroll the pits in boredom.
The week passed in that same steady, grinding rhythm.
Day two: a thrall dropped a basket near the eastern ramp, normally it would have meant twenty lashes and an hour of delay. This time two of my men were there before the orc even raised his whip. They hauled the thrall up by the scurff of his neck, poured water into his mouth and put the basket in his hands before they barked the thrall back to work at spear point.
Like that, the line never stopped.
Day four: a fight broke out between two coffles over a spilled water-skin. My night-shift relief spotted it from the tower and had it crushed in under two minutes no spread, no lost hours.
Day six: the tally-keeper came up from the lower quarries shaking his head. "Cart count's up. Fifteen more loads than last week, with the same number of bodies."
I said nothing just nodded wordlessly.
On the seventh evening, as the sun bled out behind the Ephel Dúath, Captain Thalor stood at the edge of the yard with the tally-slates in his hands. The rest of the officers watched from a distance.
I marched my group in, formed them up, and waited.
Thalor scanned the numbers once then he looked at me. "Output up with the same number of bodies, with no thralls lost there were also less delays and mistakes made, with the men being less tired."
He grunted the closest thing to praise I had ever heard from him. "Keep the rotation, all available pens details will switch by the next month."
He turned and walked away without another word. I stood there in the fading light, spear planted, feeling the first real weight of victory settle on my shoulders.
I can feel a small unoticable grin form on my lips.
Small numbers and tiny changes. But they compounded, like interest in a bank.
Inside my head the old me laughed dry, cold, satisfied. One week, one lever moved.
And the ladder was already creaking under my boot.
---
Three days after Captain Thalor's grudging nod, the new 8-hour rotation had already sunk its teeth into Durthang.
The difference was small enough that most men wouldn't have noticed, but I saw it everywhere. On the upper ledge of the pens, guards stood straighter, their eyes no longer glazed after the 9th hour.
Thralls moved in tighter lines because the whips cracked less often not from mercy, but because fresh overseers actually saw the slowdowns before they became delays. Cart tallies at dusk were climbing again, 12 more loads yesterday, 14 today.
The numbers were singing to me like a quiet, bloody hymn.
I kept my face blank through every meal, every muster, every patrol. Cold and indifferent. The less I smiled, the less I gave away and they got more weary and respectful towards me.
Evening meal that night was the usual slop in the long basalt hall: thin barley stew with stringy goat, hard flatbread, and watered wine that tasted of rust. Torches guttered in iron brackets, throwing jagged shadows across the tables.
The air stank of boiled meat, wet wool, and unwashed bodies. More than Two hundred guards and cadets crammed shoulder-to-shoulder, spoons scraping bowls, low voices muttering about quotas, orc overseers, and which thrall girl had the best tits this week.
I sat at the end of my usual bench, back to the wall, spoon moving mechanically.
No conversation or laughter like my fellow humans in service to the lieutenant of Morgoth.
Just the slow chew and the cold calculation running behind my eyes: next week I would suggest staggering water rations by pit sector instead of individual groups, another two percent productivity, maybe three.
That was when Karnad decided the silence had gone on long enough. He slammed his bowl down two tables away, loud enough that half the hall glanced over.
Tall, broad, still nursing the bruise on his ribs from our sparring. His lip curled as he stood. "Oi. Iron Shadow." He said it mockingly. That was the nickname that had started spreading.
I didn't acknowledge the semi-sentient troll in human skin. Just kept eating.
Karnad shoved past two cadets and stalked down the aisle until he loomed over my end of the bench. The hall quieted by degrees while spoons slowed and eyes turned in hidden excitement at the entertainment.
"You think you're clever, runt?" His voice carried, thick with spite. "Rotating shifts like some soft Gondorian clerk. Stealing credit that belongs to real soldiers. My father's been sergeant here twenty years. You've been here five minutes and suddenly the captains are nodding at you like you shit dwarven gold and piss elven starlight."
I set my spoon down neatly beside the bowl, the urge to scoop his eyeballs out and feed it to an orc snaga rising but suppressed for now.
I looked up at him with flat, black eyes. "Results are results," I said quietly. "Numbers don't care whose father wears the stripes."
A couple of men at nearby tables snorted.
Karnad's face darkened to the colour of old blood, he grabbed the front of my gambeson and hauled me half off the bench. "You're a minor-house nobody playing at lord. One day the captains will see through your fancy tricks and you'll be back in the pens with the thralls where you belong."
I let him hold me there for two heartbeats.
Felt the fabric twist in his fist and the heat of his foul breath. Then I moved.
My left hand snapped up, clamped his wrist, twisted hard outward, modern leverage, elbow lock, his arm hyperextended with a wet pop of tendons.
He gasped.
I rose in the same motion, drove my right elbow straight into middle right of his chest, not hard enough to break ribs, I wasn't stupid but it was still hard enough that all the air left him in a strangled wheeze.
His knees buckled as I stepped in close, kept the lock on, bent him forward until his forehead almost touched the table.
My voice stayed ice-cold, low enough that only the nearest tables heard."Touch me again with your foul hands and I'll break them next time. Then I'll make sure the captains hear exactly why."
The hall was dead silent now. Only the crackle of torches and the distant drip of water somewhere in the stone.
Karnad tried to wrench free but I tightened the lock until he whimpered.
Sergeant Varnad's voice cut through the quiet like a whip. "Enough!"
He was suddenly there scarred face, milky eye, heavy tread. One massive hand clamped on Karnad's shoulder and yanked him upright. The other hand landed on my chest, not gently, but not punishing either, just enough to separate us.
Varnad looked between us, his good eye lingered on me longer. Measuring and weighing. The same look he'd given me after the first drill.
"Save the duels for the yard," he growled. "Or I'll have both of you flayed and hung beside the last three ringleaders. Clear?"
We both muttered "Clear, Sergeant."
Karnad stumbled back, clutching his wrist, face twisted with humiliated rage, he shot me one last glare that promised future knives in the dark, then shoved his way out of the hall.
The murmurs started before he even reached the door.
"…cold little bastard…"
"…actually made Karnad squeal…"
"…maybe the rotation wasn't such a stupid idea…"
I sat back down, picked up my spoon, and resumed eating as if nothing had happened the stew tasted disappointedly exactly the same.
My pulse was steady.
Inside my head I gave a dry, satisfied laugh.
One public crack. One small fracture in the old order. reputation wasn't built with grand speeches. It was built with moments like this quick, quiet, and impossible to ignore.
I felt eyes on me from every corner of the hall now. Some wary, some calculating. A few, very few almost respectful. And somewhere in the shadows near the serving line.
I caught a glimpse of dark hair and sharp eyes watching me with curious eyes and a little bit of hunger.
Lirien, a fellow low blood but not martially inclined so she became a servant, she just stood there holding a pitcher, studying me like I was a puzzle she suddenly wanted to take apart.
I met her gaze for half a second. No smile. No nod. Just the same cold indifference that had already started drawing her closer, then I looked back at my bowl.
The crack has begun. And the ladder beneath my boots felt a little more solid.
---
The rotated shifts had become routine by mid-week, and the fortress felt it in the bones. Guards walked taller on the ledges while thralls hauled stone with fewer collapses and even the grumpy tally-keepers stopped complaining about shortfalls.
The only ones dissapointed were the orcs who could not savage the thralls as often as they did which reduced the amount of "fresh meat" from dead thralls.
But numbers didn't lie, and the numbers were climbing, I kept my expressionless face a mask through it all, cant know who is watching, cant afford to seem 'weak'.
But, emotions and lock of emotions especially from young blood drew attention without asking for it.
A low born kitchen girl named Lirien noticed first.
Sixteen, maybe seventeen, dark hair braided tight against her scalp, sharp hazel eyes that missed nothing, only reason she is not training alongside us is because her blood is only marginally purer and she showed no real aptitude for combat.
She'd been bringing me extra bread for three days now without me asking or us ever having direct contact. It was Not much, a thicker heel of flatbread, a second ladle of stew when no one was looking but enough that it registered.
At first I ignored it, thought she was just slow. I Took the food, nodded once, kept eating while ignoring her existence.
That seemed to make her try harder.
Tonight she approached during the evening meal rush, the hall was loud with clattering bowls and low voices. She moved between tables like a shadow, pitcher in one hand, tray of bread in the other.
When she reached my bench that has been subconsciously reserved only for me and those directly under me, as soon as she got here she paused longer than she needed to and set down a fresh round of flatbread right in front of me. The piece on top was still warm, steam curling faintly in the torchlight.
I looked up and met her eyes, held the gaze for exactly two seconds, then looked back at my bowl without a word.
She didn't leave immediately or after a few seconds like before. Instead this time she leaned in just enough that her voice reached me under the din. "The bread's fresh. From the last batch. Thought you might want it before the others take the good ones." I tore off a piece, chewed slowly and swallowed.
"Appreciated." One word flat as the northern wastes of Forodwaith with no warmth to it either.
Her lips pressed together not in anger, but in something closer to annoyance or exasperation. She lingered another heartbeat, then moved on to the next table. But I felt her glance back twice before she disappeared toward the serving line.
The next morning she was there again, this time with watered wine poured into my cup before I even sat down the cup was noticably more fuller than what the others got.
I took it, drank, set it down. "Heard the tally-keepers talking yesterday, pens output up again. They say it's because of the new shifts."
I met her eyes. "They talk too much."
A small smile flickered across her face quick, gone probably due to me replying in more than a single word. I held her gaze until she dropped it first, cheeks faintly flushed, then hurried away. Shes weird.
That afternoon, after the midday patrol, she found me near the armoury wall where I sometimes sharpened my dagger during break, once is an accident, twice is coincidence, the third time is a pattern.
With no one else around, she approached with a small cloth bundle leftover cheese and dried figs, the kind reserved for captains.
I narrowed my eyes at that. If they find that she stole this out of the captains kitchen and I am here with here we will both be skinned alive and fed to the orcs after we worked as thralls for years.
Not caring or simply suicidal she held it out for me. "For you you train harder than the others and need the strength."
Well, we are by ourselves and I am quite honestly fed up with the toxic wastes that the cooks labelled as food.
I took the bundle out of her hands and unwrapped it. Ate a fig slowly while she watched. Then: "Why?"
She blinked. "Why what?"
"Why the food, why the attention."
Lirien shifted her weight. "You're… different. Cold. Like you see everything and care about none of it. Most men here leer at me or other women or boast or beg for favours. You don't. You just… do. And things get better when you do."
We got a little crush here have we? This should prove interesting.
I chewed another fig. "Flattery won't make me warm up to you."
"I don't want to warm up to you," she said quietly. "I want to be useful."
That got my attention.
I studied her properly for the first time, really studied. Sharp cheekbones, clever eyes, the way her hands stayed steady even when her voice trembled just a fraction. She was not the most beautiful, even some new and fresh thrall women are better than her.
Though she can be prove useful. She seems hungry and ambitious in the small, dangerous way low-born women had to be in a place like this.
I set the bundle down beside me. "What do you hear in the kitchens?"
She stepped closer, as if I could not hear her where she stood before, hand secretly on my dagger. You never know.
I could smell the faint smoke and smell of bread on her apron. "Everything, captains complain about their subordinates. Lieutenants drink and talk after fucking one of the servant girls. While other servants gossip about everything and nothing like who's skimming rations, who's bedding who, who's falling out of favour. We in the kitchen hear it all."
I nodded once. "Tell me something useful then."
She hesitated only a second. "Sergeant Varnad's second-in-command, Drenar has been taking extra wine from the stores. Not much just enough to sell to the orc overseers for black-market blades. He thinks no one notices."
I filed it away for later. "Proof?"
"Not yet. But I can get it, watch him tomorrow night."
"Do it. Bring me what you find. Quietly."
She nodded quick and eager. "I will."
Then she turned to go, I spoke before she could take two steps. "Lirien."
She stopped and looked back, fidgeting slightly. "Don't get caught," I said. "I wont protect fools and deadweight."
Her smile was small, sharp, almost grateful. "I'm not a fool."
She vanished into the corridor shadows.
I sat there a moment longer, finishing the figs, tasting nothing but the cold satisfaction of another lever found. She wanted to be useful.
I would let her and when she proved it when she brought me the proof, the names, the weaknesses I would decide exactly how useful she could be.
---
The next evening Lirien came to me again. I was sharpening my dagger on a small whetstone near the armoury wall, the same shadowed corner where we'd spoken before. The sun had already dropped behind the Ephel Dúath, leaving the courtyard in bruised twilight.
She approached without a sound, apron still dusted with flour, hands clasped tight in front of her.
She stopped three paces away.
Waited until I looked up."Drenar," she said quietly. "Tonight at midnight. His room in the lower barracks wing. Three skins of expensive Dorwinion wine the one reserved for officer class will be hidden under the floorboard by his bunk I dont know which one but he was drunk bragging to a servant girl he fucked before that "its close so he can reach it at night when he is thirsty." the pale northern thrall girl from what remains of people of Dale (this is still before the events of the hobbit) the one Varnad keeps for himself is already there. She's been going to him for weeks, possibly longer tonight he got careless. The door will be barred, but its weak."
I tested the edge of the dagger against my thumb, a thin line of blood welled instantly. I wiped it on my breeches. "Proof?"
"I watched him take the wine myself this afternoon, saw him slip the girl in after dusk. If you go now you'll catch them red-handed."
I sheathed the dagger and met her eyes." You understand what happens if this is wrong."
Her chin lifted a fraction. "It's not wrong."
I studied her for another long moment, then I nodded once. "Go back to the kitchens be seen there all night. No one connects you to this."
She turned to leave then paused and looked back. "When you rise higher… you'll remember who helped you."
Ah, so not crush but fellow pragmatism and ambition. I can respect that and I feel slightly more assured.
"Just keep listening," I said.
She slipped away into the shadows.
I waited until the torches were lit for the night watch, then went straight to Captain Thalor's small stone office. The door was ajar; light spilled out, I knocked once and waited till he called me in.
Thalor sat behind his desk, tally-slates open, Sergeant Varnad stood beside him, arms folded, scarred face unreadable as he was going through rota for the guard shifts for the next week.
Thalor looked up. "Speak."
I kept my voice low and even. "Drenar, lower barracks wing, three skins of stolen Dorwinion wine under the floorboard, with him a pale northern thrall now."
As I said pale northern thrall I also looked at Varnad which he caught immediately.
Varnad's milky eye narrowed while his good one burned.
Thalor studied with calculation."You're sure."
"I am."
He closed the slate and stood. "Come."
We moved through the corridors like ghosts Thalor, Varnad, me, and two silent guards that Thalor summoned with a gesture. We reached the lower barracks wing.
Drenar's door was the third on the left heavy oak, iron-banded. A faint orange glow leaked under the crack.
Muffled sounds came from inside: low laughter, a woman's gasp, the wet slap of flesh.
Varnad's jaw clenched so hard I heard the teeth grind.
Thalor nodded to the guards they took positions on either side of the door. Varnad stepped forward, raised one boot, and kicked the door in with a splintering crash.
Drenar was on his back on the narrow bunk, breeches around his ankles, the pale thrall girl astride him naked, hair tangled, skin flushed. One wineskin lays beside the bunk while a floorboard on the right side was cracked open with one wineskin top peaking out of it.
The girl screamed and scrambled off.
Drenar tried to rise, face slack with shock and wine. He didn't get far. Varnad crossed the room in two strides grabbed Drenar by the throat and slammed him back against the wall. The impact cracked plaster.
Thalor stepped inside, calm as stone. "Stealing from the stores," he said quietly. "Defiling a thrall claimed by your superior." Drenar choked out something incoherent, Varnad squeezed harder. The man's face purpled.
Thalor looked at me just once, a brief, silent acknowledgement. Then he turned away. "Take him away." They dragged Drenar out naked, chains already snapped around his wrists. The girl was left sobbing on the floor, no one touched her.
She is Varnad's property and Varnad's problem, Vernad came up to her and started dragging the girl by the hair down the corridor.
Midday the next day the yard was filled with people watching.
Drenar was chained to the whipping post stripped, shivering, still reeking of wine and sex. The entire guard complement watched from the edges: cadets, sergeants, officers.
Thalor took the whip, Nine-tailed, iron-barbed.
Varnad stood beside him, arms folded, face carved from granite. Though there are visable dark circles under his eyes, one does not need to guess what happened. The screams of the girl rang out throughout Durthang for better part of the night.
My little informant told me this morning that a handful of servants were called in to essentially save the brutalised thrall they omitted what was done to her exactly but that she wont be walking any time soon apparently.
Thalor raised his hand and the entire area turned silent at once.
The first lash opened Drenar from shoulder to hip. Blood sprayed in a bright arc.
He screamed high, animal.
The second curled around his ribs, tearing chunks free hooks ripped meat away on the pull-back.
By the fifth lash his back was flayed to ribbons, white bone showing through shredded muscle, blood poured down his legs in thick streams, pooling black on the flagstones.
He stopped screaming after the tenth.
Just wet, bubbling gasps while his legs buckled while the chains held him upright.
Thalor went to thirty, then stopped.
They cut Drenar down. Left him on the stones, twitching, breath rattling, he didn't die clean.
They carried him to the infirmary, a dank stone room smelling of rot and herbs. For three days he lingered: fever burning, flesh blackening at the wound edges, infection spreading like ink in water.
Pus wept from the lacerations, he moaned, delirious, begging for water no one gave him. On the fourth morning the healers reported he was gone bled out overnight, or shock took him, or the festering finally reached his blood.
No one bothered with a pyre.
They dragged the body to the pens of the snaga (low cast orcs/goblins and in black speach slave) and threw it to them.
No one spoke his name ever again.
That evening Thalor summoned me to his office, the brazier was low as he sat behind the desk, tally-slates closed. "Drenar's place is empty," he said.
I stood at attention. "You hear things and you act on them, effectively. Continue to do so and you his place will be yours. Dissmissed."
---
The month rolled on like a slow landslide heavy, inevitable, crushing anything weak in its path. The rotated shifts were now law across every pens detail.
Stone output had stabilized at thirty carts more per day than the old regime; the tally-keepers no longer argued the figures. Thralls still died, of course they did but fewer from sheer exhaustion, more from the usual accidents or an overseer's bad mood.
Guards complained less about sore feet and blurry vision and the fortress felt… tighter, more efficient. Like a machine that had finally been oiled.
Lirien kept feeding me whispers, small things at first which lieutenant was drinking too much, which cadet was skimming bread then bigger ones.
She never asked for reward she just watched me with those sharp hazel eyes, waiting for the moment I would finally acknowledge her existence beyond utility. I didn't, though she is being useful I will give her that, maybe a small reward is in order.
One week something beyond whispers and training happened, the lower pens erupted.
It was a moonless night, the kind where the torches seemed to fight the dark instead of winning it, a single coffle of thirty thralls mostly Easterlings with the fire still in their blood refused the midnight haul after an orc had whipped one of their number raw for dropping a load.
The refusal spread fast: another coffle joined, then a third.
Chains rattled while torches waved and shouts turned to roars.
The night shift sergeant sent runners and my cohort was one of the ones called.
I was still in mail when the alert horn blew, my forty men fell in behind me at the gate as we jogged down the cliff path, boots ringing, spears low. The wind from Udûn carried the stink of sulphur and panic this night.
We reached the upper rim as the disturbance threatened to boil over the palisade torches flickered below like angry stars. I didn't hesitate.
"Wedge formation," I snapped. "Isolate the loudest three, chain them and no killing unless there is clear killing intent."
We moved fast and clean, spears leveled, shields locked where we had them. The thralls saw us coming and the roar faltered as they also glimpsed more guard torches start going down the path.
Fear is universal.
I pointed: three men at the front, the ones with blood on their knuckles, the ones still shouting defiance. "Those." I said coldly.
We took them in seconds with their arms twisted and faces ground into the dirt, dragged up the stone steps to the open ledge overlooking the entire eastern pit.
The newly arrived guards made a shield wall in front of us, though they looked a bit confused as to what I am doing chaining three thralls to the iron rings set into the basalt, the ones usually to chain rowdy beasts as motivation or rowdy thralls.
But this night they will be here as a motivational and educational performance for the thralls.
The three instigators kept on hurling insults and open defiance, they thought they will be chained here for a few days with no water or food, they are mistaken.
I drew my dagger and the first one screamed before the edge even touched his skin, I started at the shoulders with slow, deliberate cuts, peeling long strips of flesh away like parchment.
Blood welled dark and thick, running down his chest in hot rivers, he thrashed until his wrists tore on the chains.
The second man vomited when I reached his thighs, carving deep enough to expose glistening muscle. The third begged in broken Easterling until his voice cracked into wet sobs.
I worked through the night watched by the rebellious thralls supplemented by the guards and the other thralls that wondered out due to morbid curiosity.
By the time the sky turned the bruised purple of false dawn, the three were still breathing barely, skinned from shoulders to knees, raw meat shining wet in the torchlight, morgul flies already swarming the edges.
Their screams had faded to bubbling gasps the pits below were utterly still, a decent few thousands thralls and more than a hundred guards and few dozen orcs had seen what happened to men who stopped working.
I wiped the dagger on the nearest one's rags and sheathed it, my hands were red to the elbows with most of my face and even neck had splashes of red.
My gambeson was utterly splattered black and will probably need washed for a day straight.
Curious. I felt no nausea. only clarity while the air somehow tasted cleaner. The me from the old world would have buckled and never done something like this. I look at my blood soaked hands discretely.
Curious indeed.
Few minutes later Captain arrived he walked the ledge alone, cloak billowing in the morning wind, stopped ten paces from the bodies and studied them for a long minute the flayed muscle, the dripping blood, the flies. The smell was thick: copper, voided bowels, fear-sweat and vomit from the other thralls and even one young guard.
He turned to me. "Situation contained?"
"Yes, Captain." He glanced down at the silent pits, there was no movement and no sound but the wind and the occasional drip from the bodies.
"Brutal," he said quietly. "But highly effective, it was just about time for them to get a reminder of their place." Then he spoke again, lower." Keep working efficiently. Drenar's place… that's for the future. When you've earned it beyond doubt, there are others with purer blood and equally impressive feats and skills along with more experience. You will have to work hard for it."
I nodded once. "Understood, Captain."He studied me another heartbeat the same cold weighing gaze.
Then he turned and walked away without another word, the word is that the bodies stayed up all day only to dissapear before the next days sun rises with a trail of blood that led it to some of the orc camps.
---
I returned to the barracks late, no sleep throughout the day hardly moved me. Afterall I am in middle earth as one of this worlds descendants of super soldiers that being numenoreans even with diluted blood I get most of the perks.
I enter the dining hall and notice that it was mostly cleared a few stragglers finishing their stew, torches burning low. I skipped it and went to my bunk that was in the far corner, shadowed by the stone wall.
I stripped the bloodied gambeson and threw it to the pile that will be picked up for a wash the hauberk I draped over the foot of the bed. My hands were still faintly pink from scrubbing them, the smell of copper clung to my skin no matter how hard I scoured.
I sat on the edge of the bunk in just the linen undershirt and breeches, back against the cold wall, spear propped within reach. The fortress settled into its night rhythm: snores rising in waves, distant clank of changing guards, the occasional muffled cry from the pens far below the usual ambiance.
I let the sounds wash over me, mind replaying the day,
Then footsteps, soft, deliberate approached from the corridor.
Lirien, she moved like she belonged in the shadows: apron gone, dark hair loose now, falling past her shoulders in a single braid she carried nothing this time no bread, no wine.
She stopped at the foot of my bunk, three paces away, hands clasped in front of her. I looked up and met her eyes.
She swallowed once, then spoke, voice low enough that only I could hear. "I heard what happened in the yard." Her gaze flicked to my hands, still faintly stained.
She took one step closer. "I told you I would listen, I have more a lieutenant in the east tower Caldan has been taking bribes from an orc trader for extra iron rations. Small amounts enough to notice if the tallies are checked tomorrow. Time and place: east tower storeroom, third watch tomorrow night you can inform the captain and he will pass along the information to the other captain in the east tower."
I nodded and she shifted her weight. "I want to swear loyalty, properly."
Oh?
I studied her, the torchlight caught the faint flush on her cheeks, the quick rise and fall of her chest. She was nervous but not afraid.
I leaned forward slightly, voice flat. "Prove it." Her eyes widened for half a heartbeat she stepped between my knees and dropped slowly and silentlyto the floor — knees on the cold stone, hands resting lightly on my thighs. She looked up at me, waiting.
Not what I had in mind, but it would be disservice to her bravery to just stop.
I reached down and took her braid in my fist not hard enough to hurt, but firm enough to control. Tilted her head back so she had to meet my gaze.
She exhaled shakily, her hands moved to the laces of my breeches.
(Fuck you no BJ scene for you I cant write this shit and I tried but whenever I did it was cringe and shit maybe down the line I'll come back to this and make one and post it or make it E X C L U S I V E on a certain site who knows, not me certainly.)
---
The weeks after the flaying passed in a steady, grinding rhythm that felt almost mechanical and that was exactly how I wanted it.
Productivity kept climbing, the 8-hour shifts had become the new normal; no one even remembered the old twelve-hour grinds anymore.
I started layering in more small, almost invisible changes and expanding the ones already there like the staggered water breaks by pit sector so no single area emptied at once (reduced bottlenecks by an estimated 4–5 percent); better spacing of rest carts along the ramps (fewer collisions, fewer dropped loads); even a quiet word to the orc overseers about targeting the slowest workers with short, sharp lashes instead of long, exhausting ones (pain focused, not prolonged quicker recovery, less downtime).
Every tweak was minor and every tweak added up.
The tally-keepers began seeking me out not openly they weren't fools but they would linger near the gate after shift change, slate in hand, muttering about "unusual numbers" and glancing my way.
Thieves came next.
Lirien's whispers turned into a steady drip of gold, Lieutenant Caldan in the east tower caught red-handed in the storeroom during third watch, hands full of pilfered iron rations. I had positioned two of my men in the shadows; they dragged him out before he could swallow the bribe pouch.
Caldans captain oversaw the flogging himself twenty lashes, back opened to the bone, Caldan lived. Barely, demoted to gate sentry on the night shift. His replacement was quieter and more careful visibly more afraid.
Another week, another whisper from Lirien: a cadet skimming grain sacks from the mess-hall stores, selling them to traders for black-market pipe-weed. I waited until the handover, then led a quiet search of his bunk, sacks hidden under the straw.
The cadet begged. Thalor ordered him stripped and lashed in the yard fifteen strokes.
Punishments became routine, I carried most of them out myself not because I enjoyed it, but because consistency built fear. A thrall caught hoarding food: ten lashes across the back. A guard caught sleeping on watch: five. A cadet caught stealing from his own squad for prolonged periods of time: thirty, hooks included.
Each time the yard watched, each time the lesson sank deeper the numbers kept rising and Thalor and other captains noticed.
He started summoning me more often not formally, just a quiet gesture after muster or a nod toward his office door. The talks were short and blunt. "Output up again," he said one evening, slate open on his desk. "Your cohort's numbers are pulling ahead of even the rest." I stood at attention.
"Small changes, Captain."
He grunted. "Small changes that somehow affect and get utalised by the whole city few weeks later. Keep them coming." He knows that my efforts also make him look good to his superiors.
Then one day Karnad moved.
He'd been stewing since the scuffle in the hall silent and sullen, nursing his pride like a wound. I'd seen him watching me from across the yard, eyes dark with hate.
He waited until the productivity gains were impossible to ignore, then tried to strike, rumors started small: "The Iron Shadow's soft on thralls."
"He's sabotaging others quotas so he looks good later."
"He's stealing credit from real men."
They spread through the barracks like damp rot, I heard them at meals, in the armoury, on the ledges. Never loud enough to trace, but loud enough to erode.
I didn't react overtly, instead I went to Lirien.
Late one night, after the torches were low, she slipped into the shadowed corner near the cistern where we sometimes met. She was breathing fast excited, nervous. "He's planning something bigger," she whispered. "Karnad. He's telling anyone who'll listen you're falsifying tallies somehow. Says he has proof."
I almost snorted at that, the tallies are with the captains and others at all times when not they are with others who keep them safe.
She swallowed. "He doesn't, but he's desperate. He'll make it up if he has to."
I nodded once. "Plant some evidence tonight. Two skins of wine from the stores mark them with his initials if you can. Hide them under his bunk and make sure word reaches Captain Dûrnak that Karnad's been seen with his favourite thrall girl the dark-haired one from Harad. The one Dûrnak keeps chained in his quarters like a dog."
Lirien's eyes widened. "That's… dangerous."
"I did not ask for your assessment, I told you to do it." I turned to her as I palmed the dagger.
She studied me for a long moment, cheeks slightly flushing. Then nodded. "For you… I'll do it," she vanished into the dark.
Two days later the trap snapped shut. Captain Dûrnak stormed into the yard at midday muster.
Dûrnak face was black with rage, behind him, two guards dragged Karnad wrists bound, face pale. A third guard carried two wine skins, stoppers pulled, dark liquid still dripping.
Dûrnak threw the almost empty skins at Karnad's feet. "Stolen from the stores, hidden in your bunk. And my girl, my sweet desert rose says you've been sneaking into my quarters at night while I am on my nightly patrol and touching what's mine and threatening her into silence."
I rise an eyebrow, either Lirien is friends with 'the desert rose' or the thrall made something up to save herself from Dûrnak wrath even if everything is a lie.
Karnad tried to speak. "Captain, I-"
Dûrnak backhanded him, blood sprayed from his lip.
Thalor arrived moments later and watched in silence as his fellow captain Dûrnak ordered Karnad stripped to the waist and chained to the post.
The flogging was vicious, almost thirty lashes, hooks tearing deep, Karnad screamed until his voice cracked. Back flayed open, ribs showing through shredded meat and blood pooling beneath him in thick, dark puddles.
He collapsed when they cut him down, by some Morgoth miracle he was still breathing ragged, wet.
Thalor stepped forward. "If you survive you will be on latrine duty, one year. No promotion, ever and one more punishment that exceeds the need of 5 lashes and you will be given to the Ologs so they can use your bones as toothpicks."
Karnad was dragged away, whimpering.
The yard watched him go, that evening Thalor summoned me to his office.
He sat behind the desk, fingers steepled."Karnad's gone," he said. "His mouth was dangerous, you dealt with it. Dont even try to deny it, I knew he was the one behind the rumours and wanted to see how you react."
I stood at attention. "I heard rumors and acted on them."
He studied me. "You tend to hear a lot."
"Yes, Captain."
A long silence."Keep working efficiently."
I nodded once. "Understood." He waved me out and I left the office, the promise hanging in the air like smoke.
---
Three months passed like a slow blade through flesh steady, inexorable and cutting deeper with every day.
My cohort had become the yardstick the others were measured against. Pens output stayed high: forty carts more per day on average now, sometimes fifty when the weather held and the orcs kept their whips sharp.
Gate duty, the secondary task I'd quietly taken on ran smoother too: fewer missed watches, fewer drunk sentries, fewer blind spots along the Ephel Dúath approaches.
The tally-keepers no longer whispered; they reported openly the numbers were impossible to ignore word spreading even throughout the rest of Durthang.
Thalor noticed, Varnad noticed. Even the older sergeants and captains the ones who'd sneered at "the runt" when I first suggested the rotations started watching their words around me.
I still trained relentlessly.
Dawn every morning, before the horn, I was in the yard with a wooden sword or spear. No audience at first, iust me against the posts, against the dummies, against my own reflection in the polished shield.
I layered modern principles over the old Númenórean forms: boxing footwork for quick pivots, jiu-jitsu leverage for throws, fencing angles for precise thrusts this body adapted fast muscle memory married to cold calculation.
By the end of the first month I could outpace any cadet in the yard.
By the second, I could drop most sergeants in a fair fight.
They didn't like it, the first challenge came from a grizzled guard named Gorath forty winters, basic militia training, lazy on patrols, fat around the middle from stolen rations. He called me out in the yard after muster one morning, loud enough for half the cohort to hear.
"You think you're better than us, runt? Prove it. Honour duel, no blades. Fists and feet."
I looked at him, said nothing and just nodded once.
I dont know how old exactly I am but I should be approaching fifteen or already fifteen and I am already taller than most non númenórean men at around 6ft 1 with high density of muscles and not fat like him.
The yard cleared a circle while men formed the ring. Thalor and Varnad watched from the edge silent, arms folded.
Gorath came in swinging like some addict trying to get all your money in a side alley. It was heavy, it was slow and it was telegraphed plainly.
He was mostly using haymakers, relying on size alone.
I slipped the first punch, stepped inside his reach, drove a short uppercut into his diaphragm. He doubled over, gasping.
I hooked his ankle with my foot, shoved his shoulder and he hit the ground hard, dust exploding around him, he tried to rise I just stepped on his wrist, pinned it, dropped my knee across his throat, not crushing, just holding.
He tapped out, wheezing. No one laughed or cheered.
The next challenge came two weeks later.
Then another.
Then three in one month.
All older guards or lazy militia types, men who'd coasted on seniority, who hated seeing a boy outwork them and order them around. I beat them all, a quick elbow to the temple here. A leg sweep into a choke, or a feint high, strike low.
Leverage over strength every time, they ended up on the ground, bruised, bleeding from split lips or broken noses, pride more shattered than bones.
Word spread that. "Zagardûr The Iron Shadow doesn't lose."
"Don't challenge him unless you want to eat dirt."
By the end of the third month, no one challenged me anymore, they just watched and most importantly they obeyed. Thalor summoned me to his office at dusk on the last day of the third month, the brazier was high, casting long shadows across the stone.
He sat behind the desk as usual, tally-slates open, a small iron badge resting on the wood between us the eye sigil of a junior sergeant.
"You've earned this," he said without preamble. "Your cohort outperforms every other I gave you the chance to start proving yourself in real leadership roles at the gate and you came through. Gate duty is tighter and the men follow you even the ones twice your age. The duels proved it."
I stood at attention. "Junior sergeant, might not be a lieutenant but I have a feeling you will get it sooner rather than later." he continued. "Fifty soldiers now under you now, not cadets or those of lower power but real soldiers. Pens detail and gate watches, older ones included. If they balk, show them to the yard."
He stood, picked up the badge stepped around the desk.
The ceremony was simple no speeches, no horns, no crowd just Thalor and me in the small office, the brazier crackling.
He pinned the iron eye to the left breast of my cloak the fabric thick, the pin cold against my skin. The weight was small the meaning was not. "Wear it well," he said. "Lose it, and you lose more than metal."
I saluted. "Yes, Captain."He waved me out, I stepped into the yard. The entire complement was there not summoned, but gathered anyway.
Rumour had spread fast, fifty men now under my direct command. Older sergeants, grizzled guards, and promising strong cadets who were transfered to the soldiery proper.
They stood in loose ranks, eyes on the new badge, Sergeant Varnad pushed through the front row, he stopped in front of me. Looked down then clapped one massive hand on my shoulder.
The impact was like a dwarven warhammer.
Pain flared across muscle and bone, I had to force myself not to wince or flinch.
Varnad held the grip a second longer hard enough to bruise, hard enough to test. Then he released. "Good work, Iron Shadow," he growled. "Don't fuck it up." He turned and walked away.
---
Varnad's hand left my shoulder with a final, bruising squeeze that sent pain lancing down my arm.
I stood there the new iron eye-sigil badge heavy on my cloak, while the men around me slowly dispersed.
From the edge of the crowd, near the armory wall, Lirien watched.
She stood half in shadow, arms folded under her apron, dark braid resting against her shoulder. Her hazel eyes caught the last torchlight bright, gleaming, a mix of pride and something sharper, more calculating. She held my gaze for three long heartbeats before turning away and disappearing into the corridor that led back to the kitchens.
I felt the weight of that look settle somewhere low in my gut, no affection but ownership. She had helped carve this rung and she knew it and she wanted to be part of whatever came next.
The move happened that same evening, two cadets younger than me, wide-eyed and silent carried my few belongings from the common barracks to one of the small private rooms built into the gate tower wall.
The rooms were reserved for officers and those who had the captains' ear: real bed with a wool mattress instead of straw, stone desk, heavy oak door with an iron bar, a narrow window slit overlooking the Udûn approach.
No luxury, Durthang didn't do luxury but it was privacy, real privacy with an actual door that locked from the inside.
They set my gear down without a word and left and I closed the door, dropped the bar. Stood in the sudden quiet.
The room smelled of old stone and faint smoke from the brazier in the corner, the bed was narrow but thick while the desk held a single candle stub and a clay inkpot.
I ran my fingers over the wood, feeling the grain.
This was mine now. earned through blood, numbers, and broken challengers.
The celebration in the yard was short a few mugs of watered wine passed among the sergeants, rough laughter, back-slaps that bruised almost as hard as Varnad's. I drank one mug, smiled once a small real one then excused myself before the second round started.
I returned to the new room and an hour later the door bar scraped softly.
I opened it and Lirien slipped inside like smoke, she wore a clean linen shift instead of her apron, hair loose now, falling dark and heavy past her shoulders.
I closed the door behind her, dropped the bar and looked at her.
She looked around the room once, bed, desk, window then back at me. Her eyes lingered on the iron badge pinned to my cloak, still draped over the chair."Sergeant," she said quietly, the word was soft, but it carried weight.
I stepped closer, took her chin in my hand firmly, tilted her face up. "You helped."
She exhaled shakily. "I did." I kissed her then hard, claiming. No tenderness but just utter hunger. She opened for me immediately, tongue meeting mine, hands sliding up under my tunic to press against my chest.
She tasted of wine and smoke and something sweeter underneath.
I broke the kiss and pushed her back toward the bed she went willingly, sitting on the edge, looking up at me with those sharp, hungry eyes. "Strip,"
(Aha, fuck you again you perverts I might have started a harem NSFW story but I dont know how to write NSFW)
---
A few months in Mordor and already junior sergeant.
A private room with a useful girl in more ways than one who would kill for me to rise after me.
The ladder wasn't just taller anymore it was mine to climb.
I was only getting started.