”I want you to tell me about Fangnir”, Delioron began.
”I don’t need to tell you anything. You must tell me why you, supposedly a servant of the Realm, are dealing with…”
”You come from Tham Pethyl”, Delioron said.
”What about you? What have you become? One of Sauron’s minions?”
”What is Captain Bangion’s business with Fangnir? And Radon?”
”We are talking about secrets, you bastard”, Mudon said. ”You do not seem to grasp the gravity of the situation any more than your mistress from Minas Tirith did!”
Delioron stared at him. ”Have you talked to her?”
”We have talked to her.”
Three men in an abandoned warehouse stood amid rotting timbers and sagging beams. The place was half‑claimed by the silent streets and the foggy city beyond, its broken windows looking out toward the looming dockside warehouses of Pelargir’s harbor, where the mist drifted like ghosts between the hulks of moored ships. Suddenly it had become night. The timber walls felt clammy with the mist.
Mudon’s face was chalky white, almost translucent. He was already in pain. Worse would follow.
”What is Fangnir to you?” Delioron began.
”I do not know what you are talking about…”
”I will kill you”, Delioron said.
He stood over Mudon, casting a long shadow across the sitting man’s cowering form. Demrîng sat on a crate in a corner of the warehouse, eyeing them like a patient shadow studying the movements of men who had already revealed too much.
Delioron waited.
”You will not kill me, friend. We are on the same side! Do not try to fool me! And do not forget that my people know where I am right now…”
”And that I am here too”, Delioron said. His cold grey eyes never shifted from Mudon’s face. ”So what am I supposed to think about that?”
”Kill me and they will know who did it.”
”But you killed Radon. Or were you aiming at me and missed? Our heads were close together when you loosed that bolt.”
Mudon’s silence meant agreement.
”Why is this Corsair venture so important to Captain Bangion?” Delioron asked.
Demrîng grunted.
”I do not know what you are talking about”, Mudon said.
In that moment Delioron struck his dagger deep into the flesh of his quad. Blood spurted from the wound. Mudon screamed.
”You brute…”
”I will cut off one of your fingers next”, Delioron said. ”Do you think I’m just bluffing, you bastard? Do you think this is just a game? You wanted to kill me. You have been hunting me for weeks. You have been harassing Radawen. Did you think I would tolerate that?”
”You traitor!” Mudon mumbled in pain. He was nauseous. He vomited silently on his cloak.
Delioron waited.
”The whole warehouse reeks of blood and vomit now”, Demrîng said.
”Fangnir”, Mudon said. ”He serves us. Radon served us. Do you understand now?”
”There is something else to it”, Delioron said. ”There has to be. If there was nothing more to it, then all these moves would never have been made.”
”You bastard! You meddle in the affairs of the Realm, and in matters under the authority of Gondor…”
”What about him?” Delioron pointed at Demrîng with the blade of his dagger. ”Do they know about him?”
”Now we…”
”Alright!”
Silence. Three men were breathing. One of the men moaned quietly. The night was silent, black fog obscured everything.
Delioron waited for a while, staring at the pain-twisted face without truly seeing it. For the first time he saw an opportunity, a hope he had almost abandoned.
It might work, he thought.
