[piosenniel]

Kransha’s post

Bror sat, as he always did, leaning in cold and solemn silence against the rough-rocked wall of his cell, the back of his thick skull pounding, a resonating beat thumping like a drum in the back of his head as he sat, his eyes firmly shut with heavy eyelids sealed as if they were sewn together. There was very little light to let in, but the checkered shadows around him let in slim plumes of light whenever they were absent, though Bror had discovered that this was mostly a silhouette drama fabricated by his own mind, which was gnawed at daily by the insect of tedium. Even though that invisible spider was not as lethal as the monstrous being who skulked through the jagged rocks of the pass of Cirith Ungol, its omnipresence in Bror was just as painful.

‘Baruk Khazâd. Khazâd aimênu.’ He chanted slowly in his head, hearing the melodious thunder of the dwarven battle-cry pounding incessantly in his ears, the blast of it increasing as the dragging moments passed, roared by a hundred of his folk at least, a chorus that lingered in the blank corridors just before his eyes, beneath his nose, under his beard, and out of his reach. He breathed deep, the beard hair around his mouth blowing about as a sail would in a calm sea breeze. His eyes beginning to open, his ears quivered sensitively, listening to the murderous, raucous cries that rained down on him from the levels of the tower above.

There were sounds, not that there ever weren’t, but these sounds held a strange feeling in them that wafted like smoke through the rusted bars of Brór’s cell. He lips parted as he began mouthing the words inaudibly to himself, thinking even in his tongue, although he feared he would never need the language again. He knew that no one else in Cirith Ungol knew the words he spoke of save the other few dwarves, and he had long considered attempting to teach it to the other prisoners, just so he would not be alone in the knowledge, but it was a miserably foolish thought and his secretive nature would not allow him even to speak it aloud, coupled with threats from the orcs, who didn’t appreciate their prisoners saying things that they couldn’t understand. One dwarf had made that mistake and paid a most terrible price, but sights such as that no longer haunted Bror.

He managed to shift from his position, inching his way forward through the dank cell that contained him. His eyes widened weakly, his furrowed brow easing up as he looked through the bars and peered out, circumspect, observing his surroundings which he was so familiar with. Sounds of vicious mayhem had been rattling and clanging above him for a long time now, but those sounds had drifted away, out of his hearing, and he suspected that whatever struggle had occurred, it was now over. Suddenly, his keen eyes flitted to a figure scurrying down the damp hallway, busying himself with the unlocking of cells. At first, Bror could not fathom what was going on, as he ceased thinking in Khuzdul and reverted involuntarily back to the tongue so oft used in Cirith Ungol, being the only one that all races within new and were fluent in.

Was it possible? Were the prisoners being freed? Was this some sort of mass feeding session for the spider in the pass? He considered as quickly as he could, his dulled mind sharpening upon the whetstone of spontaneity in the span of an instant. He stepped back from the icy bars, half in shock and half in a pooling mixture of horror and glee, as the man, a black-haired being, lean and with the same look as many human prisoners, but with an odd glint in his eye, unlocked his cell door and hurried off as the barred object that had held Bror in this forsaken place for 19 years swung open, limp and useless, as if it were nothing. Staggering with a weight that had never been before, and another weight removed, Bror walked out, through the threshold, and into the hall.