Harry Potter and the One Ring of Power

Harry Potter and the One Ring of Power, Chapter 24

Run Rabbits Run

After a breather, the four friends went on their way. Single file, they threaded their way through the bushes, always heading downward. By unspoken mutual consent, they didn't speak; they needed to save their breath, and the knowledge that they were now in the Enemy's own heartland tended to dry up conversation. They strained their ears, but all they heard was the endless sigh of the wind. Hermione fancied that it sounded like the lost souls of the millions Sauron had killed. Above them, the sky lightened, until it was as bright as it had been when they had first looked upon this hateful land.

They were several miles from Cirith Ungol when they heard a cry from overhead. Instinctively, they froze, knowing that movement would betray them to any eyes above them. The cry was like a howl of anguish and loss, echoing out over the desolation; to Hermione, it sounded like a wail of grief.

When it had stopped, the four friends did not move on for a few minutes. "I wonder what that was all about?" muttered Ron. "That had to be a Nazgul, unless something else that flies is working for Sauron. I wonder if something went wrong for Sauron?"

"I can sense Sauron, and I do think something went badly for him." Harry looked grim. "More than that, I couldn't say---I don't dare concentrate on Sauron's mind for very long, or he'll become aware of me. Whenever I perceive him, I feel like a mouse at a cat show---or a cat at a dog show." Hermione had to agree with him about that. Sauron's sheer power had been overwhelming, when she had perceived it through the Ring.

"Well," sighed Draco, "at least when Sauron's concentrating on his wars, he'll probably not be worrying too much about his home front." He looked around at Mordor, and Hermione did the same. She wasn't pleased at what she saw. The land grew more and more desolate and barren the farther they went from the mountain ranges that bordered the dark lands. The soil was a mixture of gravel, sand and volcanic ash, mostly a very dark gray. In the distance, Mount Doom sent forth a plume of smoke to join the thick dark clouds that cut off most of the Sun's light.

Harry looked out over Mordor, sighing. "Well, it won't get any shorter for us staring at it, people," he muttered, his eyes fixed on Mount Doom. "How far do you think it is to that bloody mountain, anyway?"

"That I can't say, Harry." Draco narrowed his eyes, trying to estimate the distance. "I've got nothing to help me figure out how high Mount Doom is, and without knowing its height, I can't estimate the distance at all." He shouldered his pack. "In any case, you're right. It won't get any shorter. Let's march, people. Floreat Hogwarts!"

There seemed to be nothing else to say, and no more excuse to linger where they were; the place certainly wasn't pleasant enough to attract anybody to it on its merits. With a sigh, Hermione stepped out, on the next leg of their weary journey. The sulfury tang in the air made her thirsty, but she knew she could go a while yet without water, and since they didn't know where they could find fresh water in Mordor, she knew that saving it for as long as they could was essential.

Single-file, they wound their way through the thorn-thickets, always going downward to the plains. The thorns were as tough and nasty as Earthly barbed wire, Hermione thought; more than once, they had to stop and retrace their steps to get around a particularly thick tangle. They used their Japanese short swords to hack their way sometimes, and occasionally they could burn or blast a path with a spell, but the thorn-bushes were difficult to burn and resistant to most of the spells they knew.

As they traveled, they found that Mordor was not as dead as they had believed. They passed streams of dark, oily water, and clouds of biting insects rose to torment them, swarming around them in clouds until Draco, in desperation, cast a spell to drive them off.

"Did you notice that the bigger ones were marked with the Red Eye?" Hermione asked; her voice came out croaky and hoarse, and she paused for a grudging sip of water. "Even the insects here serve Sauron." Ron gave her a strange look.

"You know, Hermione, I don't think anybody else in our situation would even think to look at those insects that closely." He grinned a slightly haunted grin. "It's good to see that some things never will change." With that, he turned and moved away, and Hermione followed.

After many hours, they found a road running north along the mountains. Harry signaled for a halt, and they gathered behind a large rock, out of sight, to consider options.

"I think we'll have to use this road. I don't fancy trying to make a beeline across those plains," said Harry, waving his hand toward Gorgoroth far below them. "We'll need every bit of speed we can work up. Draco here's the only one of us with experience in mountain country, and those bloody thornbushes are slowing us down dreadfully."

"If you say so, Harry," said Ron. "You know that I'll follow you anywhere you choose to lead. We can make better time on this road. On the other hand, there's a risk of running into enemies there, and we don't dare let word get out that we're here."

"This Thing---" Harry patted his chest, where the Ring rode on its chain---"is getting heavier and heavier, and it's beginning to really get to me. Did you know that from one point of view, Mordor's not such a bad place?" At his friends' horrified looks, he went on: "Look, even back on our world, a lot of people like deserts. They do. It's also warmer here than it was outside, which is a nice change." Harry rubbed his chin; Hermione could hear his new-grown whiskers scraping under his dirty hand. "The longer I keep this Thing, the more chance of it taking me over. We've got to get to Mount Doom fast, and climbing straight down will take longer, I think."

"So be it," said Draco, giving Harry a very worried look. "Do you want us to take your pack?" They had given Harry back his pack when they had left the fortress, and, like their own, it bulged with the hard ration-biscuits they had liberated from the storage rooms.

Harry shook his head. "No. The weight I feel from the Ring isn't like a real weight---is it, Hermione?" He looked at her, and Hermione knew that when she had taken the Ring, even for the few hours that she had held it, she had forged a bond with Harry that nobody else could ever understand. She ran her hand through her hair, feeling how filthy she was.

"Harry's right, Draco. The Ring's weight isn't really weight, but you do feel it. At the same time, Harry, if you do need to lighten yourself, you can always ask us to take your stuff." Hermione looked at her friends, and noticed how badly their clothes had suffered in the thorn-bushes. "One thing we can do to lighten ourselves, I think, would be to use some of these rolls of duct tape to patch our clothes." Suiting action to words, she put down her pack and rooted in it, coming up with a thick roll of gray duct tape. "We can put patches on both the inside and outside of a torn place, so as to keep the tears from getting worse, at least. They'll hold for a while." And we won't need them for much longer than that, was the thought that hung unspoken, but understood by all four friends.

"Not a bad idea, Hermione," said Harry. "If you'd prefer, you can go off behind that rock over there, and patch your clothes without worrying about us looking at you." Hermione hadn't thought about it much, but she appreciated the thought. She had gotten used to living in the very close company of her friends, and they had few secrets from each other any more. Harry's thoughtfulness and courtesy showed that even here, even with the Ring getting its hooks into him, the old Harry Potter was still a long way from dead. She handed the boys one of the two rolls she had left, and took the other for herself.

"What happened to the rest of the tape, Hermione?" asked Ron curiously.

"When we were in Lorien, the elves found them, and were very impressed at how useful it is. I gave them most of what I had, since they had done such a wonderful job healing me up." With that, Hermione went behind the rock to work on fixing her clothes up.

She was soon glad of the idea; her trousers were torn and ripped from the thorns, and she could also see damage that had been done by the spider they had fought high in the pass of Torech Ungol. Carefully, she applied duct tape to the outside of each tear, then turned her trousers inside-out to do the same from the inside. It would be harsher against her skin than the cloth had been, but she knew that she had to make these clothes last until Mount Doom, at least, and how she did it mattered little. It wasn't as though she was planning to go to a Yule Ball at Hogwarts, after all.

A pebble falling alerted her as she was getting back into her trousers, and she looked up, wary as a wild creature when the hunt is up. A little ways away, she saw a small, familiar, hateful shape slinking behind a rock. Buckling her belt with one hand, Hermione drew her wand with the other. She then crouched down, holding very still and making no noise.

After a while, a familiar head poked cautiously around the rock, and Hermione narrowed her eyes, hate roaring through her mind, hot as fire. It was Gollum. She did not move, or even breathe, as Gollum slowly left his place of concealment. Her eyes widened in surprise as she saw that Gollum was wearing a coat of what looked very like orcish armor, mail made of interlocking rings. Inside, she smiled, remembering Gimli's contemptuous dismissal of orcish mail as trash---"where we dwarves rivet or solder every single ring shut, so that they don't pop open, most orcish so-called 'armorers' just butt the ends of each ring together! The stuff works, after a fashion, but no dwarf---or even elf, or man---would be caught wearing such rubbish unless there was no other choice!"

Her joints began complaining about her posture, so she shifted her weight. Although she did so very quietly, Gollum must have heard something, since he scuttled back to his hiding place. Once he was gone, Hermione went back and found her friends. She thought that the duct-tape patches they had improvised to hold their clothes together looked horrid, but, as she reminded herself, this was a long way from anywhere that good clothes would matter.

The others lit up at the sight of her. Draco got up, and struck a pose. "This is the latest little thing from our 'Mordor' collection," he intoned, in the exact tones of a high-fashion clothing designer. Hermione had been agog to find out that Dior and Versace and Coco Chanel had had sidelines designing the new fashions for the magical world, but it did make sense---and between vast infusions of money and the threat of what the wizards would do if they were betrayed, the designers had had good reason to keep their silence about what they knew.

One look at her expression stifled any urge her companions had had to take the joke further. "Is something wrong, Hermione?" asked Ron tensely. All of them had their wands out, and were watching around themselves warily.

In a few short sentences, Hermione brought them up to speed. "Gollum's on our trail. I saw him behind us when I was working on my clothes. It looks like he's picked himself up a mail-shirt somewhere or other."

"Probably at Cirith Ungol. I saw quite a few orcish mail-shirts there, in all sorts of sizes, when I was snooping through things there." Draco looked very grim. "He could have picked up all sorts of gear there. Even though it was apparently only orcs there, the weapons and armor were all in good shape."

"Well, it makes sense, doesn't it?" asked Ron. "Look---except for Hermione, we're all Quidditch fanatics. Even if other things got neglected---like, say, Potions, to pick an example completely at random---" he looked so innocent that Hermione was torn between wanting to smack him one and wanting to giggle---"we'd keep our brooms, Quaffles, Bludgers, and Golden Snitches in tip-top order, wouldn't we?" Hermione thought about it, and had to admit that Ron was making excellent sense. He continued: "To orcs, from what I've heard, fighting is what life's all about---they've obviously never been exposed to the higher things in life, namely, Quidditch." While his friends snickered, he got to his point: "So, they would keep their arms and armor in good shape, even though their usual habits make pigs in sties look neat and tidy. Also, a battle's the last place I'd want to find out that my armor's in bad shape."

"Ron, are you sick?" asked Hermione solicitously. "That's the longest sensible speech I've ever heard out of you!" At the look Ron gave her, she had to smother a laugh. "Well---it is!"

"Thanks tons, Hermione," said Ron; after a second or two, he quirked a grin. "I love you too." Hermione felt herself blushing, and was glad of the grime on her skin and her dark tan; she hoped it was enough to keep her friends from seeing it.

"Well, if Gollum's on our trail, we'd best get moving and keep on moving. I want to put some miles between us and that little wretch, and if we can lose him, that'll be a bonus, if anything," said Harry, sighing as he stood up and put his pack back on. "Let's get moving, people. Miles to go before we sleep---as you said before, Draco."

"At least a little culture and refinement's rubbing off on you, Harry," answered Draco, as he shouldered his own pack and prepared to resume their march. "Who knows? Under my influence, you might even learn to not eat peas with your knife, and in---oh, ten years or so---I might have you fit to introduce into decent society."

Harry gave Draco a Look, and Hermione smiled to herself, as they set back out. Unlike at Hogwarts, this was more like banter between two old friends whose friendship, tested and true, was strong enough to stand up under any amount of wordplay and verbal one-up-manship. While Draco was still a snarky, sarcastic person, these days he didn't seem to want to wound with words, the way he had back at Hogwarts, before his parents' death---and before the Ring had come into all their lives, throwing them together in this terrible task.

For hours, the four friends followed the road cautiously. When they came to a curve, they took cover while one of them peered around the cliffs to see if there was anybody else there, and they looked behind them frequently. For all that they could see, they were the only sapient beings in Mordor. The only sound was the crunch of their boot-soles on the rough road surface, and the endless sighing of the sulfury-smelling wind. Above them, the lowering sky oppressed Hermione, and she sometimes fancied that it was a solid ceiling, one that would come down and crush them.

After hours of marching, they came to yet another curve in the road. Harry, Ron and Draco huddled against the cliffside while Ron peered slowly and cautiously around the curve. Ron hissed "Come here!" and gestured for his friends to come up closer. When they did, he pointed off across the tumbled hills. Sighting along his pointing finger, Hermione could make out an orc-hold; there were some crudely-built houses and what looked like the entrance to a cave. A few thin plumes of smoke showed that it was occupied.

"What do you think we should do?" asked Ron. "We can't just go ambling along the road---that nest of orcs is sited so that they have a good view of the road. I'd bet that they're there so that they can keep an eye on what goes up and down this road."

"As usual, Weasel, you have a keen grasp of the obvious," muttered Draco, looking around them nervously. "However, the countryside here isn't completely impassible---see?" He pointed off toward the side of the road that faced away from the cliffs, overlooking the plain of Gorgoroth below them. "I think, if we're careful and watch where we put our feet, we can scramble down there and go around."

Hermione looked at it suspiciously. Next to the road, it looked difficult going---the hillside was steep, and clumps of thornbushes, patches of loose gravel, and other difficult spots were easy to see. Still and all, there wasn't any choice, and they were taking a chance just staying on the road. On the road, they were terribly easy to spot, and some orcs did have very keen vision.

"So decided, so done," said Harry decisively. Suiting actions to words, he scrambled down the hillside, sliding and slipping sometimes, and keeping himself on his feet with judicious use of the staff Faramir had given him in Ithilien. With a mental shrug, Hermione followed him, and Ron and Draco came climbing down after.

The going was, as Hermione had feared, difficult. The footing was treacherous, and the hillside was steep enough to make going very slow. Once they were down about twenty feet or so, they began moving horizontally, picking their way very carefully, sometimes having to almost jump from one foothold to the next. Again and again, one of them came close to losing balance and tumbling down the hillside. At one point, Ron did go falling down, but a bush stopped his fall in time. He scrambled slowly back up to where his friends were waiting, swearing under his breath and favoring one leg.

In that fashion, they managed to go about two miles or so, by Hermione's estimate. The time they used could have taken them six miles on the road, but as long as they were in danger of being spotted, the road was useless to them. The day was shading on into the deep night of Mordor when, at Draco's signal, they began climbing up again, their boots scrambling for purchase in the friable ground as they moved upwards. At Draco's direction, they tied themselves together with rope.

When they reached a level with the road, Draco went on up first, peering around cautiously. Only at his signal did the others come up, one at a time. Hermione's muscles, strained from the hours of climbing, ached with relief when she stood at last on the flat surface of the road. She did a couple of knee-bends, to try to get the kinks out of her legs. Beside her, Harry sprawled, gasping and panting like a gaffed fish, and Ron squatted, staring into space.

Draco, on the other hand, looked offensively unruffled. Apparently he was telling the truth about his climbing experiences, thought Hermione, looking at him resentfully. Draco looked at them, with unaccustomed compassion on his face. "Look, I know how you lot feel, but we've got to keep moving! Every minute's precious!"

"We know, Draco. We know." With that, Harry heaved himself to his feet, and Ron and Hermione followed suit. Wearily, moving slowly at first, they set back off down the road.

Only their long habit of caution saved them at the next curve; when Hermione, who was in the lead, took her turn to peer around the edge of the hill to see the next stretch of road before they entrusted themselves to it. To her horror, she saw two orcs coming along the road toward them.

"Orcs!" she muttered, ducking back before they could see her. At Harry's questioning look, she elaborated: "Two of them---one bigger than the other. They're coming this way, on the road!"

"Take cover!" snapped Harry. Pulling out the Invisibility Cloak, he donned it. "I'll take care of them!" At Draco's questioning look, he deigned to continue: "If possible, I'll let them go on past. If they begin to look like they're on to us, I'll hit them with a Petrification Charm or something like that. I may not know the Unforgivable Curses, but I do know a good deal of magic that can be used in this sort of situation." He patted Draco's shoulder. "We've been leaning on you a lot, old friend, and I appreciate everything you've done, but it's time I took more of a hand in things."

Draco and Ron slid back down below the level of the road on the hillside, Draco still looking slightly gobsmacked at being called "old friend" by Harry Potter. Hermione, on the other hand, slipped uphill, hiding behind a thornbush and trusting to her elven-cloak to conceal her.

Closer and closer the orcs came, and Hermione could hear them speaking to each other. To her relief, they were not speaking the incomprehensible tongues she vaguely remembered them using in Moria---they were apparently of different breeds and tribes, and she knew that orcs varied widely in their speech.

The smaller orc led the way, hunched over and snuffling like a dog on a scent. He was wearing brown clothes, and carried a bow that Hermione immediately lusted to possess. It was a recurve model, and looked like it was just about the right size for her. Behind the scent-tracking orc came another, this one equipped and dressed like Shagrat's company back at the tower of Cirith Ungol.

"Garn!" the smaller orc said. "That gobbler's slipped us again! If he hadn't had that mail-shirt on, I'd have nailed him---I got him, neat as neat, in the small of the back, but he ran right on!"

"Good thing for you, too!" sneered the big orc. "Word from Upstairs is that he's wanted---alive. Bring him in dead, and it's your skin! Those Shriekers want to talk to him. Better him than us, I say!"

"You're right. The Shriekers give me the creeps. I've heard that the enemy's knocked off Number One, but Khamul's easily bad enough to be going on with. However, Lugburz likes them, so we poor orcs have to put up with them---hold up!" The small orc bent over, sniffing, for all the world like a bloodhound. "I'm picking something up---it isn't an orc, or that gobbler---"

At that second, Harry's voice rang out, cold with command: "Petrificus Totalus!" Both orcs froze in place as Ron, Draco and Hermione came out of hiding, and Harry took off the Invisibility Cloak. Hermione immediately confiscated the smaller orc's bow. Looking the bow over, she smiled.

"Harad-made, or I miss my guess," she muttered. At Ron's questioning look, she went on: "When we were watching the battle, back in Ithilien, I noticed that the Southrons used recurve bows, a lot like this one. The men of Gondor, and the elves, used straight bows, more like English longbows. This looks to have been an archer's bow---it's short." She pulled it experimentally, and smiled even more broadly. "It feels like it was made for me!"

"Obviously, our orcish friends knew your tastes." Ron relieved the paralyzed orc of his quiver of arrows, and Hermione strapped it on. "I'm rather surprised you didn't pick up a bow and arrows back at the battlefield, but we were all busy then, weren't we?"

"Yeah, we were." Hermione shuddered at the memory of the screams of the wounded of both sides. "Also, we weren't on that close terms with the Rangers, and I didn't know how they'd feel about me looting the battlefield. I don't remember them taking much, if anything." She took out the arrows, one after another, and examined them critically. They met her criteria---all of them were straight and in good condition, with black feathers, wickedly barbed heads and excellent balance.

"Now, what do we do with these orcs?" asked Harry. "Draco, can you put one or both of them under the Imperius Curse? We could certainly use a native guide here, and I'd prefer one more reliable than Gollum turned out to be."

"I know what you're saying. I can't believe I was so damned trusting to let him go flapping around without putting him under Imperius." Draco's narrow, clever face twisted in self-disgust. "How could I---I, Draco Malfoy, the star of Slytherin, be so confoundedly thick? Crabbe and Goyle would have known better!" A shadow passed over his face. "Right now, I wouldn't mind having them here." He gave his friends a haunted grin. "Look---I know how you feel about them. I know their faults, no one better. Still and all, they're loyal, to me if to nobody else. After Gollum, you really learn to appreciate loyalty."

"Tell me about it, Draco," muttered Ron, fingering the lump on the back of his head where Gollum's rock had struck him. "We all underestimated Gollum---and he's still out there, remember?"

"I can put one of these orcs under Imperius, but holding them both at once will be difficult. I'm getting more and more knackered. I'd rather Obliviate our big friend here, and keep the smaller one. If I lose control of him, he'll be easier to deal with, I think." At Harry's nod, Draco raised his wand. "Obliviate!" The larger orc's face went blank, reminding Hermione of Gilderoy Lockhart after the affair of the Chamber of Secrets.

As the big orc shambled off, his face a mask of stupidity, Draco turned to the smaller tracking orc and raised his wand again. "Imperio!" When the spell was in place, Draco asked: "What's your name, and what do you do?"

The orc muttered: "My name is Burzghash---Dark Fire in your language. I'm a tracker."

"How well do you know Mordor?" asked Harry. Burzghash gave him a contemptuous look.

"I've lived here for centuries, human. I know Mordor very well." Harry grinned. No, he showed his teeth, Hermione decided, arranging the quiver so that it rode more easily---what Harry had on his face could not be called a smile.

"Excellent. You're our new guide." With that, Harry gestured, and the orc led them off down the road.