Time for Action
Durthang burned quietly.
Not with open flame.
Not yet.
But beneath the fortress, hidden in forgotten maintenance shafts and abandoned furnace tunnels, death had already been planted by Deorla’s own hands.
The battle outside still raged.
The thunder of shields and iron drifted through the stone like distant storms. Every so often the entire fortress trembled from the impact of siege engines or the heavy march of Uruks rushing from gate to gate. Dust filtered from the ceiling in thin streams while alarm bells screamed somewhere above.
And through it all, Deorla moved unseen.
She stalked the lower halls of Durthang with a lantern shuttered low, memorizing every corridor, every choke point, every weak support beam. The old fortress had changed since the days of Sauron, but not enough. The foundations remained the same. Orcs rebuilt quickly, but rarely cleverly.
Ugrukhôr had reinforced the walls.
He had strengthened the gates.
He had forged deadlier weapons.
But he had not understood the deeper truth of Mordor:
Every fortress in the Black Land eventually became its own tomb.
Above the Walls
Outside, Shereg’s false siege had transformed into slaughter.
The moment Ugrukhôr entered the battlefield, the balance shifted violently.
Outside, Shereg’s false siege had transformed into slaughter.
The moment Ugrukhôr entered the battlefield, the balance shifted violently.
Shereg watched from horseback as the Captain of the Pit carved through his front lines with terrifying precision. Ugrukhôr did not fight like an enraged berserker. He fought like an executioner.
Every strike deliberate.
Every kill efficient.
His curved butcher blade hooked shields aside while the pale dagger slipped through armor gaps with surgical cruelty. Dunlendings fell in heaps around him. Easterling spear walls collapsed under the charge of his armored Uruks.
And worst of all—
Ugrukhôr’s war machines had emerged.
Not great siege towers or monstrous engines.
Smaller. Faster. Deadlier.
Iron carts mounted with rotating blade mechanisms rolled downhill into Shereg’s infantry, tearing men apart before exploding in sprays of burning oil. Heavy crossbows fixed onto armored frames launched thick black bolts that punched clean through shield lines.
Old weapons.
Prepared before Deorla’s arrival in Udûn.
Weapons built for conquest.
Shereg barely managed to reorganize his forces before another assault crashed into them.
He spat blood into the ash and growled:
“Good… come further.”
Because despite the losses, despite the chaos, this was exactly what Deorla wanted.
Every moment Ugrukhôr remained outside Durthang was another moment Deorla owned the fortress from within.
The Throne Room
Deep within the upper levels, Deorla finally reached Ugrukhôr’s personal chamber.
The doors were enormous slabs of black iron engraved with crude depictions of conquest—orc armies trampling Gondorian soldiers beneath spiked boots.
Inside, the chamber was colder than expected.
No lavish treasures.
No decadence.
Only war.
Maps covered the walls. Weapon racks lined the pillars. Crates of supplies stood ready for rapid deployment. The room belonged to a commander obsessed with readiness.
Then Deorla noticed something strange.
One map had markings different from the others.
Not Anglach.
Not Durthang.
Lhingris.
Dozens of symbols circled the region in red ink.
The Pale Herald.
And beside them, another marking written in rough Black Speech:
“The Web Opens.”
Deorla narrowed her eyes.
So Ugrukhôr feared it too.
Interesting.
The Trap for the Captain of the Pit
Deorla never left Ugrukhôr’s throne room.
Once she discovered the maps, the markings over Lhingris, and the crude warnings scrawled beside the Pale Herald’s territory, she understood immediately what this chamber truly was.
Not a place of vanity.
A nerve center.
A war room.
Every campaign in Udûn began here. Every patrol route, every forge shipment, every troop movement passed through this chamber first. Ugrukhôr trusted these walls more than he trusted his own captains.
Which meant this was where he would return.
Not the forge.
Not the barracks.
Not the gates.
Here.
The room itself was built like a bunker carved into the mountain heart of Durthang. Thick black pillars supported the ceiling. Iron braziers burned with low red flame along the walls, filling the chamber with a dim, blood-colored glow. Maps, reports, and weapon racks surrounded a massive iron table scarred by knife marks and old burns.
Deorla stood silently in the center of it all.
Then she began dismantling the room piece by piece.
She removed the iron bolts from beneath the western support pillar and replaced them loosely enough that the structure would hold for a few more hours—perhaps less if shaken violently. She poured furnace oil beneath the stone tiles around the central table, allowing it to seep into hidden cracks where it could not easily be seen.
Then she climbed into the ceiling beams.
Durthang’s throne room had once been constructed to intimidate visitors with enormous hanging furnace lanterns suspended by heavy chains overhead. Ugrukhôr had kept them despite their age.
A mistake.
Deorla weakened the chains with slow, deliberate cuts.
Not enough to snap immediately.
Only enough that a violent tremor—or explosion—would bring the entire burning structure crashing downward.
But Deorla did not intend to rely on chance.
From a leather pouch at her belt, she withdrew several small packets of compact blasting powder—carefully wrapped in oilcloth and mixed with fine iron filings stolen from Anglach’s forge stores. Crude by Gondorian standards perhaps, but in the enclosed weight of Durthang’s throne room, they would be more than enough.
One by one, she pressed the charges directly into the weakened anchor points of the chains and support braces overhead, smearing them into cracks and fastening them beneath iron joints where they could not easily be seen from below.
The moment the charges ignited, the already-damaged chains would snap apart in succession. The heavy lantern cages, burning braziers, and massive iron beams suspended above the throne would collapse inward all at once, dragging sections of stone ceiling down with them.
A controlled burial.
Violent enough to crush everyone beneath it.
And because Deorla had already sabotaged the great entrance mechanisms, the throne room doors would seal shut under the impact, trapping Ugrukhôr and his captains inside with the collapsing wreckage.
No glorious duel.
No heroic final stand.
Only iron, stone, and darkness falling from above.
Exactly the kind of death Deorla believed a warlord deserved.
