A Fool's Errand

Prologue

"For all that race were bred by Melkor of the subterranean heats and slime. Their hearts were of granite and their bodies deformed; foul their faces which smiled not, but their laugh that of the clash of metal, and to nothing were they more fain than to aid in the basest of the purposes of Melkor."

— Excerpt from The Fall of Gondolin

Mordor.

A barren, smoking wasteland riddled with yawning pits and rivers of fire, its sky blotted out by a perpetual haze of sulfuric black smoke. Nothing with any good in its heart could survive in that land for more than a few hours, it was said. The sharp, unsightly structures were built only for the vilest of creatures, the main and only inhabitants: the Orcs, a foul race whose only joy came from causing destruction and death.

Rashune liked it just fine—other than the occasional volcanic eruption or Spider outbreak, there was nothing wrong with the place. She had her forge to keep her occupied, and despite hating the job, she was undoubtedly the best blacksmith in Mordor. She was never without a pile of orders to work on; supplying an entire army with blades and armor was no easy feat.

She worked especially late that night; since the war effort was reaching an intense climax, the soldiers of Mordor demanded more weapons to be produced as quickly as possible—and Rashune had, to her own demerit, spent the afternoon tinkering around with a few inventions of her own. She had never been late or behind on her quota before, and she didn't plan to start being so now.

She thought that, with it being so late at night, she would be the only one even awake in her district; the only sounds interrupting the ever-present rumblings of Mount Doom were the constant, arrhythmic clanging of her hammer on cherry-red steel and the tuneless ditty she was humming alongside it.

"Clash, crash! Crush, smash!
Hammer and tongs! Knocker and gongs!
Pound, pound, far underground!
Ho, ho! my lad!"

"Keep goin' like that and none of us will get any sleep around here," said a raspy voice behind her. "Your singing is worse than Nazgûl screams."

Rashune halted in the middle of a hammer swing, shocked to hear the voice of this particular person. Not even wanting to acknowledge him, she went back to pounding on the hot steel with an even greater vigor.

"What, you forget who I am?" the intruder continued, a sarcastic edge in his voice. Rashune's ears twitched irritably as his heavy footsteps drew closer, and the Orc came around the anvil to face her; the glow of her forge illuminating the smug grin on his green face. "I ain't no stranger, I hope."

Rashune narrowed her large brown eyes at him and, through gritted teeth, hissed, "Get out."

The Orc's smile fell, replaced by a pouting scowl. He looked unconcerned and mocking, but Rashune knew him well enough to see the uneasiness behind it. "Really, I didn't think you'd be this upset to see me—I haven't seen you in almost a year," he quibbled. "Thought you'd be over what happened... I am still your brother, ain't I?"

"Actually, Gôrtharb, it's been eight months and thirteen days since I threw you outta my house," Rashune sneered, ignoring his plea for their siblinghood. "I thought you'd have the sense to stay gone—what in Angband made you think I'd be fine with you just waltzing back in here?"

Gôrtharb sucked on his lips around the tusks jutting from them, his hands roving idly over her desk and fiddling with the odds-and-ends strewn across it. "Well, maybe I just wanted to visit my twin sister since I've been so—"

"Don't give me that," Rashune snapped. "And don't touch those if you don't want us blown to bits!"

Startled both by her tone and her warning, Gôrtharb jerked his hands away from the spiked iron balls he was rolling around—bombs of Rashune's invention. He looked at her almost sheepishly as he muttered, "There's a job that needs doing and I need your help."

This outrageous request so shocked Rashune that she slammed down her work to stare at him. "You're a fool, Gôrtharb—I ain't giving you a single brass nail after what you did to me. As far as I'm concerned, I've helped you plenty by not telling them whose fault it really was at Osgiliath."

She stepped around her anvil and loped menacingly towards him in a manner that shook the fur cape from her shoulders, leaving her sleeves bare and exposing her arms. Where her left arm should have been was a crude metal prosthetic covered in jagged shards of metal, the flesh around it mottled and scarred; the left side of her face was damaged in the same manner, her skin rippled from old burns that never truly healed.

"It's your fault I got kicked outta the army and made to live like this," she snarled, jabbing her hammer accusingly at him. "I ain't some tool you can pick up and throw away when it suits you, sure as Sauron's Eye."

Gôrtharb looked suddenly frightened by her outburst, stumbling back as Rashune advanced upon him. "I—I never meant for it to happen like it did, I swear! I came to you because this's your chance to get it all back!"

Rashune stopped in her tracks, shock crossing her face before she could rework it into a scowl. "Say that again," she said.

Gôrtharb let out a sigh of relief, straightening up slightly. "See, this job's the biggest you or I have ever seen in our lives," he began. "The Mouth himself chose me to carry it out. The catch is, it ain't an easy job by no means, so he said I should bring a partner just as good as me at sneakin' around. I told him about you."

Rashune raised an eyebrow, only half believing him. "Why me, and not any other spy?" she asked.

"Because you're the best scout in Mordor," Gôrtharb replied, with surprising earnestness; he hated admitting that anyone was better than him at anything, especially his twin sister. "I told 'im about yer, well, condition—" he motioned to her metal arm, but quickly cleared his throat when she bared her teeth in a scowl— "and he said he couldn't care less what was the matter with you as long as the job got done. He also gave me his word that we'd both be rewarded very, very well if we did it—means you get your old job back and I get filthy rich! So, is that a good enough reason for me to disturb yer peace?"

Rashune thought about his offer; he had not yet told her what this job was, which meant it was even more risky than Gôrtharb was letting on—especially if the Mouth of Sauron himself had assigned it to him. Still... ever since Osgiliath, she had been regarded as the lowest of the low because of her mutilations and her failure.

Once upon a time, she had been the most renowned spy in Mordor. She wanted that title back more than anything in the world, and deep in her heart, she knew that she would do anything to regain her honor—even go to the Abyss and back.

"I'll do the job," she said.

Gôrtharb's face split into a triumphant grin and he clapped her on the shoulder—retracting his hand when she shoved him off—and said, "Knew you had my back!"

"No, just mine," Rashune corrected him, pushing him aside to get to a dusty closet behind him, which contained her old armor. I'm not making that mistake again.

"Same difference," Gôrtharb shrugged. "Get ready—we leave tomorrow for Rivendell."

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