A/N: I own it not.

Chapter 5: Of Stones and Wraiths

As Morgomir sped westward to waylay King Arveleg, the Witch-King sent an urgent message to Carn Dum. The message was to the men that the Witch-King had personally selected out of the ranks of the Black Numenoreans known as Sorcerers, but right now their powers were weak and useless. This was no matter though as once Morgomir retrieved the Palantir; the seeing stone would make the Sorcerers a power to be reckoned with.

Morgomir was under extreme pressure because of the fact that King Arveleg was drawing nigh to a Dunedain fort, and if the King got within range of reinforcements, it would be extremely hard to retrieve the palantir. Luckily Morgomir had thought this out and had sent the fastest of the wolf riders to stall the fleeing King and to hold him long enough for Morgomir to reach the skirmish with the main army.

Morgomir smiled wickedly as he heard the sounds of battle not far ahead on the road. The King had been stalled. As he drew near, Morgomir could see that his small advance force was losing to the better equipped and trained Royal Guard. ‘No matter,’ though Morgomir, ‘these fools shall die.’ He then charged into the enemy with his force and quickly the tide turned and soon it was only the King that was left, but he had one last gambit.

King Arveleg held aloft the Palantir and cried, “You have come for the seeing stone, but you shall have neither me nor it!” with that he hurled the palantir into the ground at his feet and it exploded with a brilliant blue flash and both he and the palantir were destroyed; however, the palantir had only been shattered and all one had to do to heal it was gather all of the shards.

MorgomirÂ’s face turned even whiter than it already was when the King killed himself, but it soon passed and he was ordering a camp to be set up and the wolf riders he ordered to begin searching the area immediately. It was not hard to find where the shards had landed for the palantir had broken into large pieces and they had left scorched places on the earth as well as small craters. In fact one piece was laying right where the palantir had explode, this Morgomir quickly collected and took it back to the rapidly materializing camp where he put it under a heavy guard.

Soon several search parties came back bearing shards of the palantir. Morgomir joined these to the original shard and it seemed as though there would be seven shards. He had collected four already, but when some of the parties came back wounded he knew that the remaining shards must have been collected by the accursed Dunedain. Morgomir knew his duty even though the Witch-King had given no orders; he must retrieve the remaining shards from the fort.

Morgomir knew nothing about the layout of the land or about the size of the fort so he sent out several scouting parties. The news he received was good for it wasnÂ’t a fortified stronghold, but a large camp enclosed by a wooden palisade wall. An evil light shown in MorgomirÂ’s eye, he would burn the camp down and then take the shards from the ashes.

Morgomir allowed his troops to rest, they would attack at night. However, some of the troops he set to building large balls of dry, flammable material for the assault upon the weak camp. Others he had changing most of the regular arrows into fire arrows and he had a small team of trolls gathering huge clay jugs of oil to throw against the walls and into the camp.

That night Morgomir readied his army to move. He had the Black Numenorean rangers moving stealthily in front of the army taking care of any Dunedain outside of the walls. Soon the army reached the fort and the trolls hurled all of the clay jugs against the walls and into the camp and all of the jugs were followed by a lit fire arrow so that once the broke an unquenchable fire burst into existence and soon most of the southeast wall was alight and falling in and the rest of the walls were catching fire. As soon as that wall caved in Morgomir gave the order for the giant balls to be released and as soon as the balls reached the fire they too caught fire and began causing havoc as they rolled through the fort catching everything on fire.

As expected the assault took the fort completely unawares and soon all of the Dunedain were dead, dying, or fleeing and none of them had given half a though about the palantir shards. Morgomir quickly descended into the camp as the fires were dying and as he went, his soldiers finished off any remaining soldiers. In that fashion, Morgomir came to the somehow untouched main hall of the camp where the shards were assuredly being kept. He strode into the hall and immediately he caught sight of that which he was looking for, the palantir shards, they had been placed near the head of the hall on a table and as soon as he reached it, he took the shards and left. When the army reached the camp it stopped only long enough to pack up and soon they were riding back to Amon Sul and the Witch-King.

Morgomir and his army arrived back at the ruins of Amon Sul the next morning. As his army was unpacking to camp inside the ruins of the fortress, Morgomir rode to the ruins of the great tower of Amon Sul and entered it. Inside the Witch-King was meeting with Rogash, Hwaldar, and the chief sorcerer, Orrin.

“Master,” Morgomir started as he handed the palantir fragments to the Witch-King, “I have retrieved the Palantir and the accursed King is dead. Unfortunately he killed himself and broke the palantir in the process.”

The Witch-King took the fragments and placed them together in his hands. “That will be no problem,” he calmly said as the fragments reformed. The others at the table suddenly felt a new power surge into the Witch-King as the fragments reformed.

“Now,” he began, “we can incorporate the souls of their dead kings into our armies. Orrin, take the palantir and use it to increase the power of your sorcerers, you will find that both your and their powers will have tripled.”

“Yes master,” said Orrin as he bowed low after taking the palantir, and with that he swept out the door of the tower.

“Hwaldar, you will take your Hillmen and take the Barrow-Downs, Morgomir and Rogash will follow closely behind with the sorcerers to help you maintain hold of them,” commanded the Witch-King.

“Yes master. Hail the Iron Crown!” all three of the lieutenants cried as they saluted their King. They then took to their armies to prepare them for the journey ahead.

There was a dense fog on the downs and the hill tops looked as islands amidst an ocean of white while the young captain Caftan stood atop the Barrow of the high-kings. Another day amid the ‘haunted’ hills would bring boredom. Unfortunately the air was pierced by a wild war cry and followed by many others and soon an army was surging through the Barrows. The young captain could only grab his horn and sound a retreat to their main camp before he had to flee because of the encroaching army.

Caftan had already formulated a strategy to retake the Barrows, but with the small battalion he had at the main camp, it was nearly impossible. He would have to allow the blasphemous Hillmen to hold the Barrows for awhile, but this wait time was not to be long for the Dunedain army stationed at the barrows could muster quickly and soon Caftan had assembled his small army and had explained his battle plan to his lieutenants.

The army was soon on the move, but only the wild and wary animals would mark their passage as their woodcraft was such that they made no sound and were extremely hard to see. Soon they were in formation at various points around the outer edges of the Barrow-Downs.

A high, clear trumpet sounded and the Dunedain army was upon the Hillmen, fortunately for them they were to remain at a state of readiness until Rogash and Morgomir arrived. The battle soon joined and both sides were fighting their hardest. Hwaldar and Caftan were locked in battle with neither of them gaining the upper hand, but with both sustaining wounds.

As the Dunedain began to overpower the Hillmen, the loud braying of orc and troll horns was heard. Even at the sound of the orc horns the hardiest of the Dunedain quailed and Hwaldar gained the upper hand on Caftan, but the Hill Chief didnÂ’t kill the young captain, he would allow Morgomir to deal with him. With that in mind, he bound Caftan up and put him under guard.

The battle was quickly over with none of the Dunedain except Caftan surviving, and soon a camp was set up on the downs with a Sorcerer and his Acolytes stationed on each Barrow so that they could corrupt the Barrows and raise the spirits inside as Wraiths to do the Witch-KingÂ’s bidding.

Morgomir, Rogash, and Hwaldar met atop the central Barrow and began discussing their next move. However, they had no need to discuss this for Rogash quickly brought up that the Witch-King had ordered them to hold the Barrows until the corruption was complete. Hwaldar then ordered Caftan to be brought up to the hill. Soon he was tossed down in front of the lieutenants, but he stood up and held his head proudly.

“What is this?” asked Morgomir.

Hwaldar pointed to the man, “This is the young Dunedain captain with whom I fought, I deemed him too valiant a man to die. If you take my meaning.”

“Oh!” exclaimed Morgomir with an evil sneer spreading across his pale face, “Yes, I think you are right good Hwaldar.” Morgomir swiftly drew a long dagger and stabbed Caftan near the heart. “Now,” continued Morgomir, “You will become a wraith and serve the Iron Crown!”

CaftanÂ’s eyes suddenly became wide as he began turning white, the Morgul blade had done its work swiftly and soon the once proud captain was a wraith and one of the Witch-KingÂ’s deadliest servants.

“I will serve the iron Crown,” the wraith whispered in his scratchy voice.

“I name you Karsh! Serve the Iron Crown well!” cried Morgomir.

(A/N: Reviews are good for Muses.)